OVIDARY
It doesn’t add up
never adds up
no simple algebraic sequence
formula to string us along
was playing an ancient game
with sacred pieces
imagining them
split into armies
of wasps
versus bees
be our be
all and end all
(not to be
questioned)
in the shadow
of Spartacus
provide us
with a metamorphosis
which poet Ovid himself
would have been
singularly proud of
Aphrodite rebranded
as Venus
born of divine
emasculation, mother
of Aeneas, mother of Julius who would be Caesar,
shepherding with
the self-sacrifice of assassination
the people and
Senate of Rome from
Republic to
Empire along that
bloody primrose path
this garden full of, swirling
with bees
pollen-loaded, hive-
bound
serving no Emperor yet
slaves to
their Queen
and Venus, as always, surfing
on her conch shell almost
at the shore
we who
could stage this, enact this,
film it, freeze frame it,
or let
it run
for all eternity
are sharp to see
where myth and
propaganda
lie together, do
the dirty
know too well how
this goes
how it is now
to be manufactured, destined
to be framed
the sacred
politics of this scene
and in this moment
of creative metamorphosis
scientific
transformation
we the exiled catch underpinning
the bees buzzing
a shift, a change
an opening
a could-not-be-more-stupidly-
simple experiment
a reckoning, a state of
stunned realization
that nothing
is real unless
it decides
to be
so
such
a shapeshift in
core idea
every atom we thought we
were
constructed as the
building blocks of
everything
that landscape moving, that
landscape changing
dissolving
mutating into
something fluid, bottomless
outside, inside
us
that sees things, decides
things
for itself
fluid, bottomless,
provisional, hypothetical,
infinitely divisible
a thing of fancy and
(for better or
for worse) thing of
creative fancy upon clear mathematical
whim
way it is
crazy as it
sounds
way it has always been
playing us
for fools, leading
by the nose
.
even here in this garden, on
this farm,
especially here
in this
garden
heart
of all its energies
all its
geometries
proving
it is the angle with
which you align
from which you write
which
changes everything
even
in exile,
discarded
master of
its alchemies
seeds everywhere waiting
wondering
thinking
the seeds of
the new
in all its
configurations
an alchemy before (and yet
hidden from) your very eyes
the shifting power
we now see
come
to fruition
duly realized
as it
conquers, consolidates,
plays the masquerade
of true
love
extending its arm
in every direction
following
the law of its logic
here to
multiply, fortify divide,
define
the image of all
that is eternal
in civilization
Qpfrom birth to death
for the rest of time
poems 2 die for 