Jeffrey Alfier: Two Poems
In the Arch of Titus | The U-2 Lands at Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia

In the Arch of Titus

From his vaulted apex he looks below
on bas reliefs of plunder that will not
relinquish a vision of desert suns
as they slide beneath a yellow-brown sky
of dust storms. There, vision melds with the hide
of jackals beyond roads the X Legion
built in a land that can still hate a ghost
back into its tomb. Fleeing toward heaven,

this man-made eagle can rise no higher
than a siege tower, his stone wings watching
those twenty centuries of supplicants
of a lone god, dragging immaculate
agony across his Sacra Via,
thinking Roman honor was more than brute
purchase by gilded skulls. But if man named
no streets sacred, there might never be wars.

The U-2 Lands at Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia

From a mission made of faint
shadows of sound, into dawn
it descended out of an
orbit of frozen starlight
that bore its span of dark and
silken wings, to stream earthward
in some energy of grace,
and glide to a desert floor
more Time's flesh than sand, closing
weary multi-sensored eyes...
           Argus taking sleep at last.

Poet's Biography:

Jeffrey Alfier lives in Tucson, Arizona, holds an MA in Humanities, and formerly served as an adjunct faculty member with City Colleges of Chicago's European Division. Publication credits include Uno - A Poetry Anthology (Xlibris, 2002), Because I Fly (McGraw-Hill, 2001), A Time of Trial (Hidden Brook Press, 2002), and the journals Columbia Review, CrossConnect, Euphony, Melic Review, Paumanok Review, Pif Magazine, Poetry Greece, Poetry Midwest, Stolen Island Review, Trinity College Journal, and Web Del Sol. Alfier, a major in the Air Force, believes that poetry is not simply an outlet of self-expression, but the ultimate way to convey a poetic vision which gives dignity to a wide expanse of life's experiences.