poem || Jeff Harrison

The Poisons of Felicia Hemans
 
CASABIANCA

the fatal dose of arsenic
is 200 milligrams. It was
Albertus Magnus, waistcoat
unbuttoned, mouth gorged
with bread, who isolated
this element (1250).

yet another show
to strike earthly love,
it's found in fish &
crustaceans, in ores,
coal, & soil. it is toxic
by copying creature light

*

TALES, AND HISTORIC SCENES

Strychnine: the deathly qualities
of Nux vomica, a berry, was known
to the Arabs as early as the 5th century.

Strychnos nux vomica
undid Alexander the Great,
among others. like any labyrinth,
Strychnine, no cup of rain,
mangles its corners, & like a labyrinth's
beast, mangles its comers

*

THE VESPERS OF PALERMO

I.

Hemlock
doesn't affect
larks & quails


II.

Socrates,
will pity
ever summit triumph?

*

THE GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD

Cyanide is found in laurel leaves.

Livia Drusilla soaked
the figs of Augustus
(hitherto dusty, &
ordinary, hitherto)
in this poison.

Augustus,
is it true the spaces
disbursed between breaths
weigh memory as worthy this
unworthy this retention
for relocation's keeping?

*

A MONARCH'S DEATH-BED

Aconite, hailing from saliva hailing
from Cerberus, is hailed as Queen
of Poisons. also hailed as wolfsbane,
leopardsbane, devil's helmet, &
blue rocket. walking along that portico
to the double doors of wolfsbane, you
may see the green column
is "parch", the red column
is "flay", the blue column
is "deafness", the yellow column
is "convulse", the white column
is "the 1000th-most head of Cerberus"