Southhampton turned Suffer into Suffolk

how that man Nat took a legacy.
Named Turner due to ownership, that man
Nat and his antebellum south
before New Orleans came to be [and then
was taken] took all he could with his hands
alone. That man Nat and his battlefield,

love hasn’t come to this year, because
Bahamut proclaimed it. King of the good
dragons have you kept that man Nat safe? Silver-
white Bahamut that man Nat saw you—
an old hermit with his seven canaries,
and set them all ablaze—

a dragon for every mineral, a freedom
for every affair, for every city, for everywhere.

I know where I’m going Nat named Turner due to ownership
said and went
despite death’s singing and arms.
I know where I’m going New Orleans said as she washed
out by sea and grew older and leaner.

Everything important happened before.
177 years ago when a solar eclipse so convincing
in August, and Nat reassured, could exhale smoke.
Yet, without warning or levee to keep, the flood ran
through, and quartered. That man Nat in Jerusalem [of then]
split and turned Courtland [of now]—but no dragons
mind this yard.

Southhampton turned Suffer into Suffolk while that man Nat had
a love affair with everywhere. Isn’t this a type of innocence?
What do you care of freedom Bahamut you old
hermit and your seven canaries unyellowed.

No one ever told Nat about New Orleans, [some-sort-of free
since that man was a boy nowhere near]
the story that care forgot where
hot chili peppers hung
dry schizophrenic.

Copyright © 2009 y madrone All rights reserved
from The National Poetry Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission