— footnote on Wiener Oktoberrevolution, October 6th 1848
composed Oktoberfest, October 6, 2012
What glass eyes gazed
out your moribund skin
that manic taxidermist
Thaller stretched over
wooden frame?
How they must have
looked down on
collective white guilt.
You beat the Turk
yet no intellect, no stratagem
of chess or faro or war,
no social skill, not your child’s pleas—
no not even the brotherhood’s
application of square and
dividers—could spare your
stuffed degradation, Soliman.
Blessed were the fires
of revolution, the bombs
meant for the riotous
students and workers,
the late consecrating
cremation that set your
skin at last alight and free.
Vincent Joseph Noto studied under Philip Levine and C. G. Hanzlicek at CSU Fresno. Noto has managed bookstores and taught in public high schools. Publication links available at: https://sites.google.com/site/vincentjosephnoto/