The Gods of Boston by Matt Moseman
Matt Moseman October 5, 2009 at 6:11PM I: Windell Phillips
1811-1884
“Prophet of Liberty
Champion of the Slave”
Well he is no Spartacus
with his proud brown waistcoat,
his grey preacherly WASPish flowing back going bald hair.
A wooden podium with a flapping book and a fist
on top of that and I once heard the slam
and the sound is still here
He reveals a key
with a lackluster thumb and two
finger pope sign, he
wears an itchy tweed vest
and an ascot and, and,
And he has too many buttoned buttons;
his abdomen looks like a furnace hatch
or a riveted bulkhead on a battleship.
“Whether in chains or in laurels
Liberty knows nothing but victories.”
II: Thomas Cass
“Col. Ninth Mass.
Infantry U.S.V.
Fell at Malvern
Hill Virginia
July First 1862”
a waistcoat, a very military jacket
and a fisherman’s hat,
or maybe a mountaineer’s.
a real ragged beef jerky eating
tropical caterpillar of a rusty mustache.
knee high riding boots with simple spurs
strapped on tightly well fitted.
His eyes are in a black shadow seen
only in empty antique Japanese samurai faceplates
and his arms are crossed about his chest
like a proud dog soldier or an extinct Indian chief.
He carries neither rifle nor saber,
smugly his sleeves and his rawhide riding gloves
obscure the inevitable posthumous decorations
he never would have worn and never got the chance;
unadorned is he save the single tassle,
made of frayed rope worn into sinews
and intricately carnal Gordian tangles.
III: Kosciuszko
“General Tadeusz Kosciuszko
Champion of liberty and the rights
of man, erected by the Polish people
of New England to commemorate
the 150th anniversary of his arrival
in America to enlist in the cause
of liberty.”
Stands amidst autumn leaf-pile
cyclone disturbed restless
holds his tricorn behind his back,
is strikingly Slavic, ponytailed, tailored
battle dress, a long blade in his scabbard
sticking out behind like the tail of a rodent
in his furrowed coattails
rough cut compassionate sharp-nosed face
circa 35-43 years of age depending
on whether his hair had shewn
slivers and strands of gray
he holds a satchel
that says West Point on it
in his right hand elbow bent
about 95˚
the other elbow bent
behind his back with his hat about 155˚
but then again
I’ve no protractor.
IV: Sumner
No descriptors required at this point
apparently not even around back
like the last one which I had thought
then a tad racist
But I digress from this powerful
man with a gripping stare’s wavy hair,
he must’ve had laser vision in his
double breasted business-man’s jacket,
his cloak crumpled behind him,
shed as if he need not fear even this
cruel New England cold—he bears
a scroll, looking a bit
much like a half-used roll of
cheap paper towels clenched
across his breast by his
left hand, he looks,
nay, scans his head left,
right hand poised, yet retracted
behind his side,
fingers
neither uniformly bent nor extended
pants appropriately hemmed to drape
a tad on intense leather shoes
laces are hidden or not present.
Big big puffy buttons he has.
V: William T.G. Morton
“In gratitude
for the relief
of human suffering
by the inhaling of ether.
A citizen of Boston
Has erected this monument
A.D. MDCCCLXVII”
this guy gets a fountain and
everything save dignity;
bare feet he bends low dressed
oddly in a toga
as if he rubbed shoulders with Galen.
A big bushy beard like
father time, God, Santa Claus,
Marx, or Robert Browning.
Or maybe Socrates, only,
far too good looking.
and Socrates would never
want the lions, would
never abide wishpennies.
seriously they slapped
a frieze of jesus dying
from the passion on this
stone watery phallus.
“The Gift of Thomas Lee”
VI
By the way
I skipped over George Washington
on his horse with his sword drawn;
I was mistakenly riled for a
more local saint—
that sexy Paul Revere.
VII
No apologies either for
keeping that short,
we’ve had enough panegyric of that sort,
and, to state the obvious of course,
everybody knows what George Washington
looked like
from that dreary portraiture from
the ubiquitous greenback dollar bill
so if you need more imagery get a job. I won’t.
VIII: Edgar Allen Poe
They have turned the acclaimed horror writer’s
home, which had served as a museum,
into a franchise of the fast food chain
Boloco Burritos.
Is that not the most horrifying story of all?
To make up for it they had
his face painted on along with his
fancy name onto the metal casing
of the traffic computer across the street.
I shit you not.
Edgar Allen Poe watches over this
Boylston Street intersection,
soaking in accident victims blood and trauma with a special glee
and an understandably allowed posthumous schadenfreude.
[Or at least that’s how I’d like
to speculate he’d have obliged to imagine it.]
Up the street a junk shop
sells soap bars in his likeness.
Six dollars and fifty cents plus tax. No Checks. Visa or MasterCard. No Amex.
Reader Comments (6)
Amusing sketches of the "Gods", picking out points of irony, not quite depunking though it might be debunking civic dignitaries who erected the statues who were themselves very unlike the "Gods". I, a Brit, was amused to walk about Boston on 4th July to notice how the people around me were forgetting that their Founding Fathers were British doing a very British thing. Even King Alfred knew he couldn't suppress the independent thinking of Londoners. History is largely a calculated distortion of what happened to manpulate the present, and monuments are a key tool. I think your poem reflects this well.
Suggest nixing VI and VII --- amusing and well written though they are, I think they pull the reader too far out of the poem at a bad time.
Also suggest nixing
-Is that not the most horrifying story of all?
-I shit you not
-[Or at least that’s how I’d like
to speculate he’d have obliged to imagine it.]
. . . for reasons probably obvious.
But those minor quibbles aside, this is a hugely welcome return to top form Matt. Well played.
B.
~
I like it, I might take the word 'laser' out when talking about the guy's vision, and it's kind of odd that you just threw Poe in there, but hey
poe's former house is a burrito place literally right next to my dorm.
it's terrible. no, i mean the burritos.
dear Mr Moseman
it will be interesting to see how the perfume
from the Burrito kitchen will dwell in your being
( that is if you stay in that same dorm room for the next 8 years for perhaps a PHD )
maybe a stroll over to the Isabella Gardner Museum will offer some fresh air.