Ishtar's Descent Into Society Hill Poem by Diana Thoresen

Durable as a hickory nut
For the eastern grey squirrel
Life is a playground of trickster shades

A vial of belladonna June nights forces
The orrery of sun breaths to smash
Every lapis lazuli door-post of non-being

One precious gold bracelet is given to
The pretty holiday lights that adorn
Rittenhouse Square linden trees

There is the diplomacy of fountains
And delicate urns that appease the dead
Who don't make glass anymore

Do the dead drink the beauty of things
In reflecting pools? Do the living walk with ritzy halos?
Oh, but they must! The opera season kicks off

With folded arms. The crown of infrared thought
Is removed; one slightly bows to the anthem
Dreaming of winged bulls still

I don't like this century even a little
Ereshkigal rejoices at pastel dresses
Her joy is vulgar like peonies and divorce

Must the birthstone-studded girdle go too?
Pain is a forest of porphyry columns
I still recall the artful spell of a boy's pale blue eyes

Autumn sun dappled old stone walls
Have disturbed my slumber in morion light
Thanks to Benjamin West I am daintily posing with

Cymbals and thank you notes on a cloudlet of paper
I imagine that dear old shrine still trembles
With sleepy church spires and red brick labyrinths

There's always a life giving twilight over the river