David Donlon - Two Poems

Elvis will never die.  His star will not go out.
We could go into the Dionysian aspect of his forced
Resurrection, or the Christian, the Tammuzian, the 		
	Osirian.
We can look at it from any fixed point, draw any 		
	conclusion.
But men are not good gods.

			     In every house
Across America Elvis is genius to someone.
We want greatness.  It was so giving of him
To desire to be great, was it not?
How much more to linger. 

"Elvis Saves Old Lady from Path of Bus"

He still walks among us.  He has
Been spotted at a gas station in Albuquerque.
He waves to the ladies, shyly.  He guides souls
To heaven.  Heaven + Elvis = Helvis!
He looked inside and found an abyss.
Put it off awhile; sing, swing the pelvis
For the swooning crowd.
For a while.

Elvis is in hell.

If you tell me he hung on a cross, I'll believe you
But he made no ascension;
Only the dark-star's
Endless, inward declension.

Clumsy, butt-ugly-beautiful,
Belly chinned and meek of eye
Smelling of fish and warm feathers
He glimmers back brief rainbows
In the lens of my camera,
Picturing the pelican, who
Startled by my attention, or
Unsettled by thoughts of
Better yet to do, swoops
Off the dock, and, low 
Along the water, is soon
Lost among brethren, slamming
Heavy, bone-jarring, headlong
Fish-death into the sea,
While the sun refracts
Off the calm water.