7 bonnets

Here is the best ballad I ever wrote. It is nearly thirty years old and has gone through many, many revisions. It is not to be taken as anti-Mormon nor anti-polygamy [not in the least, no ma'am--I'm all for that]. It is entirely against the abuses of patriarchy. I should note here that most Mormon polygamists in old Utah territory were very respectful of their wives, packed them off to college, and were early champions of suffrage. This ballad is not about them.

Who, then? Those to whom a woman is property and nothing more. As for the woman in particular who is the subject of this poem, she still lives but the evil party that abused her still lives, too. I'd rather spare her the embarrassment:


Seven Bonnets

A farming man came questing
Looking to the great west desert
Underneath the snaking mountains;
Drove a buggy through the dugways,
Hung his hat upon a nail.
He sowed a field in an acre growing
And a path ran through it under the sun.

And his name was Hezekiah
And he lived by narrow scripture
That he saw as through a pinhole
With a glance askance and sneering
All upon the head of a nail.
He sowed a wide field swiftly growing
Where a path ran through it under the sun.

Hezekiah bought a virgin
Who was taught to be compliant
Sang the hymns he thought worth singing,
Spread her legs for him most willing,
Hung her bonnet on the nail.
Another life was swiftly growing
And a path ran through it under the sun.

Hezekiah ran his household,
Hopeful, careful, patriarchal,
Potent, yes and full of purpose,
Building seven stalls completely,
Seven bonnets on the nail.
Seven fields were green and growing
And a moonlit path snaked through each one.

In the good wives fruitful gardens
Serpents wriggled, caught and strangled
While the serpent who advised them
Sucked the breast milk from them, smiling,
Bonnets hanging on the nail.
Six green fields were fat with bounty
Serpentine the path through every one.

But the childless bride went restless
With a nature unbeholden,
Walked alone in the higher meadows
Where the dreamer she had followed
Leaped in solitude and song.
Open pastures sang out to her,
Slender paths were etched through every one.

Clouds like clippers on the ocean
Moved beyond her ever farther
Past the good wives fat as cattle,
Past the jail of her estrangement,
That dilemma driving the nail.
She tossed her bonnet in the pastures
Where the freer ladies liked to roam.

She forsook her snake of ransom
Not forgetting who had bitten
Deep as in that ancient apple
One had ransomed in the dim past--
Yanked her bonnet from the nail.
The seventh field went quickly fallow
And the prophet’s path was overgrown.

Keen eyes aiming, Hezekiah
Saw but red in this rebellion,
Dragged her to the starry pasture
Milking in the greenish downy,
There he stabbed her with the nail.
And dug a grave in a quiet pasture
Under the very path she liked to roam.

Hezekiah keeping secrets,
Six times dusk he went to plowing
Resting on the empty seventh,
Hungry for a bride's soft calling,
Ghostly, angry on the nail.
Where six burnt fields in winter tangled,
Silent paths were dug through every one.

Where a ghost of chance might aid them
Phantoms hurried in the pastures,
Where the other brides could see them,
Clear as any bride’s rebellion
As the curse that drives the nail.
Crooked fingers winter sallow
Shaped a dire harvest under the moon.

Hezekiah, ever scheming,
Buried truth in scattered rumor;
Girded he his heavenly loins,
Wives before him, sullen, nodding,
Bonnets dangling on the nail.
Though a stranger might not know it
None was a barren field that knew no plow.

Then Hezekiah heard a rumor
Of a virgin raised up pious
Who would yield to Hezekiah
And he brought her meadow flowers
That were symbols of the nail.
And so the tale ends happily
And meadows danced above forgotten bones.

The point of this blog...

Posting my poetry here is the only way I have to showcase my work in front of millions of online viewers and get paid for it [I hope]. Yes, it is vanity. Yes, I would love nothing less than adoration. This is my life's work. It's all I have. I'm no different than a front-man in a desperate rock band. The little magazines are disappearing and, as readers vanish, poets compete like micro-organisms in a rapidly evaporating drop of water. I want my art to be seen and loved, and will make it to the absolute best of my training and native ability. If I cannot make poetry that entertains, engages, evokes and convokes all at once then I have failed as a poet. My hope is that no matter what else, a visitor will go away from this site having read an unforgettable poem. The beauty of my blog is that effectively it is a free magazine of poetry, and it is my poetry and I call all the shots. I am beholden to nobody. I am paid only by the curious. This is the future, friends.