BACK TO STEPPENWOLF
where have they all gone?
those magical theatres
maybe
they were thought so alien
had to be
smuggled off the planet
and so
nowhere
for that wolf to go
have to keep it
under wraps
test-tube bottled
like a inner worm
caged,
your inner tiger tiger
and there’s Mozart
beauty in his oratorios
but also secret code
and hard rock tar burning
up the highway
head out
of the window
should it not
get decapitated, your head
in that onrush of air
no greater
psychic blast
SHINE
“Speaking to me.
They wash and
tub and scrub.
Agenbite of inwit.”
James Joyce, “Ulysses”
are you
warm
warm
inside
full
of insight?
agenbite
got
your tongue?
cat-like your preen
sunlight making
your fur
(if you
had fur) warm
as toast
questions to ask
before quietus
perhaps it fades
perhaps it
annihilates in
a gathering of stars
on the pavement
in your own
backyard
too little light
but now
all the suns
thought it was a summit
but it was
the sum
of all spectacle
STILL SPEAKS
dead inside
but a voice still speaks
leaks out stuff
dribbles
of delight
you might
laugh at, work with,
see
how hard it is
for things
to crystallize
one perfect line per
every
waste
basket life
FABULOUS
if you
are so fabulous
as wonderful
as you say
where
is the wonder?
where are
the fables?
where is the story
that is going to
change my landscape
shift my reality
grip me
grab me
for the rest
of my life?
I catch you sleeping
that very sight
transformative
beneath small, square-
shaped purple blanket
looking
Roman imperial, totally
submerged
and here I am outside
looking in
who knows what
impassable fence my
face pressed up against
who knows
what ultimate, legendary barrier
and on
that shrouded face
what dreams come
strong enough
to leave
some imprint, make
ground-breaking impression?
and so it is
between us
so much spoken
yet everything hidden
deep
beneath the choppy surface
of that text
true leviathans
denizens of the fabulous
most certain to appear
AND THE BASICS
and the basis
for my argument
why I am
taking pains
to argue thus
is the car
in my garage
the flowers
in my front garden
all the family
pictures that adorn my walls
the keys in my pocket
and everything
they open
beyond which
nothing really
of substance at all
GENERAL DIRECTION
my nose, proverbially,
close to the ground
keeping me grounded
blown by
the wind
chasing the Sun
I wandered around the farm
remembering my Hobbes’
theme of the brutish and short
life without sovereign authority
implicit social contract
recalling my Plato notion
of the ethical and philosophical
supremacy of
his ruling class
somehow I
slunk back into my idealism
thought
should stick
with democracy on
(on this hallowed day
of election)
choose
Dionysus above Apollo this
and every day
not to speak of those first
communities of the faith
before
religion got Roman
this issue
of the State
will twist you every
which way
from
state of being, to
highest states imaginable
to Empires of suffering
that we all know too well
from YouTube and TikTok
and old apartheid memories
so much in
this mindset still
needs exorcism I guess
but the green of the farm
so gleeful, intense
after this sudden splurge
of rainfall
everything gaining height
growing (forgive my
ethnocentrism) out
of its socks
gaining height, accumulating mass
giving my theme here
weight
sudden addition of
gravity
as is the general direction
(for this stage
at least
whilst
time decrees it last)
KINDNESS
I found some robot’s
alomg the roadside
hanging around
the corner
doing thd things
that robots do
and so I spruced them up
forged them into an army
let them
loose on the world
since the world
loves war
figured that this
was the kindest thing
I could possibly do
and perhaps,
in the process,
make an honest buck.
HIGH JUMPER
Alan
D
never heard you debate
before
never heard you
live before (well
almost)
stuck in your
chair
but
can jump through
the air
plucking out
conclusion
after conclusion
you should have
become a jumper
could have
become a real athlete
an utter
track star
why limit yourself to the law
to the blase life
of a Harvard professor?
when see you debate
I imagine a whole different
destiny
one where you don”t look
anything so ridiculous,
that totally bad.
COBBLERS
I cobbled together
a Mary Shelley
using some
leftovers
from the
fridge
filled her lungs
with a breath
of Romantic poetry
stuffed her brain
until it was set
to burst
with every available
microchip
and soaked her soul in
a loop-feed running of
Kubrick’s
enigmatic
masterliece
that if
this
the genre
she was put on this Earth
to bring to birth
she migjt
glean
enpugh of a gist
for a
pure reboot
remind us
where it
all went wrong
where it
all
returned
to the slime
sank into
slick
death hubris
poems 2 die for