by Don Langford

I.

Dearest love,

Here Man Ray photographs Matisse
            for an audience
and Brassai, the "eye of Paris,"
sets up his camera
for a nightlife scene at the base of Mt. Erebus -
misty clouds swirling
            around bowler hats
                        suspended in space

            hovering above base camp
invitations posted:      The Surrealist Ball
                                    This Saturday Night
                                    on the Ross Sea ice shelf . . .

White rabbits the size of caribou
turn to confetti,
all photographs are impounded,
marked NOT FOR EXPORT

" No one will believe the vivid dreams
            these folks are having down here"
- the only radio message sneaked out -

Emanations from the polar caps
planetary forces - we must be all right, my love.
This is what we must believe.

II.

Dearest Love-

Great Paleolithic band of wanderers here
                           this week
just passing through, like us,
visiting and talking around the fire -
rumors of warm underground lakes further on
              forests and brown bears
             beyond the distant ridge

This is no experiment, I heard someone say,
frozen beard breaking in his lap
Another, wrapped in blue goretex
cried salty tears, fogging up his helmet.
What tribe is this?
Where is home?  Wilderness?
There must be a return,
            we all sobbed -
            a ceremony of weeping,
                 cleansing and purifying us
                 for the real trial.

We'll be all right, said our letter carrier,
returning, again, my latest letter to you.


III.

Dearest love,

            Spectral hieroglyphics -
                   positively dazzling . . .

The sea of love
        is frozen again today;
There will be NO BATHING signs posted
                    at the top of ice sheets
                    1500 feet high,
roads dynamited up to the heights
      where we perch like space-age penguins
facing the sun
sitting like Buddhas
in a row
at peace for this eternal moment.
One of the penguins turned to me and said,
" This is the real world."
We all hallucinate together here.
            Good band of friends.
            This, they say, is how cultures start.

IV.

Leariest Dove,

A reindeer leapt,
        and took a bite out of the moon

Mad for love, leaving the world out of joint
                               -off kilter -
There are scouts
in geosynchronous orbit
          watching our every move from above
                    -a celestial panoptic eye
          scoping us out, checking us twice
          something something something
          whether weÕre naughty or nice . . .

There'll be no Santa in this winter dreamscape
            Kurtz he dead
            Curtsie and goo-night, Bill
            Goo-night Loo
            Goo-night             Goo-night.