About…

The poem is about the story and true genesis of coca Cocaine the second part of this poem is rather imaginatively called Blow part 2 .

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Book 301 is intended to be a collection of poems by Mike Burr for 2010 with no thematic precept.

Blow

"sweet wind" she exalts
her purple wings give thanks
as bows the foxglove to the lords of may
the tenant home of bee and wasp
forlorn frail free from gauze
her seed and petal fly away
the traps the world binds to a stalk
were binding not for flowers beautiful as she
blow free across the lawns of earth
and fly into the curling air
and join their blow sailed clouds
far above the pitching mast of pine and spineyed ash
roll!
roll on sails to the unshadowed Maine
where dark beard Spaniards long drowned roam its coral floor
and pirates run the surf
blow o'er their three planked hulks
and onto mountains cascade green
run the high peaks down the spinal trail
and when in bucaramangas verdant park
turn west
turn west toward the forest breaks
there i tell you change your shape
and in the backwoods tall and green grow you
your poisons once the heart of men were stopped
are turned to alkaloid
and so she flew as witches fly
by the dark of night among the tendrils and the vines
aware the swidden with flames and knives that cut
for girls bleed easily
and there she reigned mysterious
her shape the heart and white
three ovaries that bore three sons
endurance
vision
and the third destruction
each son ran forth
wild among the berried jungle floor
many were the beasts that thanked her
where she strewed her loins
and in the Inca dye she left her trace

Sources…

Idea for the poem after randomly reordering some text from "The Chambered Nautilus" poem by

Oliver Wendell Holmes

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