The Mask Of Evil Poem by Liberatore Suffoletta

Evil…look how evil
comes
to America wearing
a mask.

They are gone, the magical forests
Their tiny buds of phosphorous
They are gone, the Indians with torn flesh
on the island of light the swan lift’s its beak.
It was the time of the Inquisition in Spain, England
The lances in the eyes and the heads on the pikes
The time of the laminated cat and rusted bridges
And the deathly silence of the rack and of corks
They were preparing for the slaughter of buffalo
Pierced by the light from their magic sticks
The endless joy of the western waveless migration
That demented evil mask was dancing military duets
Half of the world became cross struck
The other half by the moon of Islam
Both of them dormant in the sunlight
Of Tibet.

Evil…look how evil
comes
to America wearing
a mask.

Canyons of salt imprison an empty horizon
Where voices of those who die for the future
Are heard finishing off the last bottle of wine
It finished, a slender stem of an aria arises
Throu` the shadows of their last profiles
Lifting pieces of iris to an invisible sky
A strange place for this ballet en mask
The cemetery niches that turn eyes green
Between the obelisk and wall street
There is a taut thread the pierces
The heart of all the poor children
Unaware of their frenzy, towards
A song from herds of naked horses
That the wheel has forgotten its maker
A flame is burning all of the blueprints
And the windows will have to flee
In a tumult chasing the dark sky
Back to Tibet.

Evil…look how evil
comes
to America wearing
a mask.


I was on the terrace dancing with the moon
Swarms of thighs riddled some of the windows
A chinaman wept on the roof discovering
His naked wife’s body in morpheus’ arms
While a bank director examined his futures
and measured the cruel silence of money
Tacit sky gazelles drank from my eyes
and Viking sails on long oar ships
Struck the neon glass of Broadway
As a dropp of blood looked for light
In a star’s yolk, to appear a seed
A cast of characters disguised as magi’s
Were driven by shepherds who dance
Trembling in fear wearing the mask
I’m sure there are no dancers
Among the dead.
The dead are busy devouring themselves
It’s the other’s who dance with the mask
Others, drunk on silver, cold men and women
Who sleep with hard thighs where hot flames intersect
Who seek earthworms in the landscape of fire escapes
Who drink all the tears at the bank of the Hudson
Or eat tiny dreams of dawn at Manhattan corners
The millionaires brush their blue and white teeth
With the red barren dancers of their cathedrals
Wearing always this mask,
this mask of an ancient plague
Three centuries of builders have hidden
Rattlesnakes on the top floors that hiss
And shall shake till all the courtyards
Of the Stock Exchange shall become
A pyramid of gloss, protected by rifles
And all so quickly, so quickly
Ay, Wall Street global conquistador!
Like China taking
Over Tibet.

Evil…look how evil
comes
to America wearing
a mask.