cover art and poem from liner notes booklet for “Pax Americana” CD album
Pax Americana: The Stage Name
From out of Cold enduring War,
Prosperity of nerves waiting for more,
From out of time
The Dancer emerges
Reinvented with terror’s theoretical surges;
Self-determined,
Fresh for the plot,
Free of waltzes and diplomatic trot,
Free of discretion, propriety, and reason,
Free of the ennui in casual treason;
Entering darkness in a swirl of sun,
She slashes her rays across all as one;
Gone is mufti of Occidental drape,
Veils and exposure now show her shape;
Her skin, glistening, reflects holy land,
Oily and dry, powdered with sand;
Drawn into her pores are symbols of old,
Painted in henna, mystic and bold;
Her eyes pierce, black as the kohl
Lining the orbs of vision and goal;
Amber, musk, Damascus rose,
Her perfumes are will, warfare, and woes;
Blinding is gold of jewelry and intent,
Clashing coinage in deficit spent;
Bracelets evidence freedom as master;
Bondage to power makes dance all the faster;
Her headdress is manifest destiny crowned,
A hand of Fatima overgrown yet bound;
The caravans she ushers are lethal and long;
History’s cabaret determines her song;
Gone are strains of saccharine sound;
Tribal drums summon ideals to the ground;
Zilya strike like tongue of a viper;
Her hips match rhythm with fire from a sniper.
Soloist, Isolationist,
Yet vast in her span;
Alone she can do more than she can;
Pelvic encirclements of global affairs
Draw to her navel the greatest of shares:
The greatest of burdens,
The greatest of errors,
The greatest of might,
The greatest of terrors.
Yet in watching the Dancer breathe and perspire,
Command with her movements like mass jutting fire,
Who can deny an enchantment there,
A magnetism reaching everywhere,
A genuineness from initiative derived,
A soul of purpose in only costumes contrived.
Whether balletic refinement or primal thrust
There is something worth watching, something of must,
Some ember of truth that fuels full the fire,
Like heartbeat and drumbeat made to inspire.
Pax Americana,
By whatever name,
Can neither lose self nor have self to reclaim,
For it is inherency of nation that fascinates all
With their own needs and wants inflamed by pall.
Admiration or envy,
Like hatred and love,
Life and death,
Earth and above.
In-between, the inherency,
The intervals in dance,
The potentials in power,
The portals for chance.
There the fascination – the belly between hips –
The navel ever fixed despite rises and dips,
The Dancer apart, therein her glory,
Aside good and evil,
Neither Whig nor Tory.
Her beauty is true, timeless, and stunning,
Impervious to even her own fits of cunning;
Wherever she may dance, in spirit or presence,
Behold the rhythm of keen efflorescence.
– Mary Jo Magar –