and I was like
a vision in a dream,
polemic, Dante melded
circumscribing prescripted
dis-aster
lucky as shit
a pint
and sized
to wit
writing my stunted little lines
an der Theke a throw-
back but lacking in rebel
qualities for the literal
carving, a Nativity scene
in plaster, asbestos
cough, silicon and valleys
of the cats and reeds
the instrumentation a soundtrack
to a silent film, rushed &
rushing and past, having
graduated, bergauf, o'er
the waves lapping on foreign
shores and, burning, illuminating
a foreign sun and libraries
where you can't even read the
books, Jesuit, the dagger and
to wit, the comedienne's library,
a Siberian husky, flocked to
by confused faithful lest we
confuse clarity with with with
glass, and polemic, and vision,
medically, slow-handed
and unsure as the day is
uneventful, sacred, our sun
wished upon, in the manner of
the ancient Greeks, and Helios,
the hoary god of automobiles,
is enraged, going so far as to
threaten embargo,
of the world unite,
binded, and vine-lands, masonic
and a trek through Delaware,
having heard it described once,
misleadingly, as America's Switzer-
land, we are all
highway, up and down,
more than its compound building
materials, you go on, a comedian
telling jokes to himself, this
voyage, ambition that you can't
can you dear Iago, proven
has science itself, beaten
, still standing, the Minnesota
Vikings, perpetually side-burned in
this, this vision, cauldron tending,
if not armor-clad, downfield,
a tough call, still standing
and modern accoutrements,
geiger counters among others,
awaiting their urgency in
some mimicry reflex, line
the shelves, scrape the skies,
supporting walls of sound
and noise, indiscernible secrets:
foreign transmissions- at
least from this altitude,
awaiting a response:
you made your bed,
you can unmake it.
It's all right,
and the stars and minor
inconveniences -
Schicksal,
Schatzi - move
gently along -
prices of admission unrelated
to maximum capacity
per the city fire department
to say the least, Jesuit,
missionary firemen,
Pyrrhic pyres,
and all that jazz,
Jesus wants you to
jazz, yeah
stamp your ticket,
move gently along, Man
bars, fluid
I think I know this one
flowing across Europe and such
to some sea, highly irrelevant
and honest and mild in
temperament, he sat and
imagined conversations outside
like the river, irreverent
but good-hearted, functionally,
flowing, Atmen, Mystic,
keeping you informed
flowing.
Bring on the music
unlinked, tonal, shrieking
all our history,
a cry for bystanders to
remain
passive,
private and that's class,
keep on rolling Atlas and
the 18-Wheeler and the
winningest soundtrack,
click,
prophets prophetic - this
a type of type-casting
well suited to history -
it's just dust,
standing by,
release slowly your burden
and shuffle off to Buffalo
with the drums,
taught skin, fletchers,
don't ever forget
we're building an army
and here, insignia,
hisses, feral - now wild -
an embrace of what was
and what will be, science
and history tells those who've
already decided
in their fevered dreams
and they call out our delusions,
don't they? Listening
behind closed doors -
not,
mind you,
to us,
your paranoid value,
building interest,
arches and across
this desert landscape
not playing our game
and streaks in the sky
of the untargeted,
building collapse, and
the material components,
chemically unchanged,
but oh the noise! and
the symbolic tension, doubled
a point and counter
chained to the wheel
but at least at a constant
level as our elders
so to speak, with their
so selective memories
and generational conspiracies,
skips on the record, reluctantly
giving voice to the lie
as we you and I atrophy
sterile
as
apocryphal words,
cadenced,
keep
us
(reluctantly)
going
or coming
thus: perspective.
Having left behind
lists
and monuments and
favorite songs
out-of-context
we move, drift into the
next room
to feel out the crowd,
having left.
Landed
and horizoned, journeyed
academics, or soldiers,
these times blend
together, and contrast
and they move
as well
if not better,
gently along,
fiercely defending their
respective domains,
kings of their wilds, and
queens, Greek Gods
dominating their respective
domains, or the respective
diminutives, and
fabled, unrestrained by
theological bounds, master
plans, foresight in the
crippling sense,
everything in the crippling sense -
sunlight,
the people, supporting walls
and existing just for this
location, moments, and if
you believe that, have I
- got an expedition
for you, skipping ahead,
forget you
and your traditional greetings, may
they be relegated to history's
dustbin: anthropology, and I
shall make my career
on their resurrection,
ain't that a racket, Jesuit?
If you'll pardon the intrusion
into a diminutive not my own
but sometimes the needle gets
stuck, a metaphor for appreciating
moments like these,
when you come home early,
my overreliance on failure
as a means to learn and
resulting aversion to success
because knowledge and science
and pop
clink of glasses
awkward ten seconds
rinse and repeat
and this in all earnestness,
to better years,
underappreciated Babylonian God-kings,
the political-philosophical justification
for tomb-robbing, which all present
agreed is best handled on a
case-by-case basis, but in an
ideal world, in an
ideal world,
but I am just fixating on the
architecture and
the painted marble and
oh those crazy Bolsheviks
and their antics, be sure to tune
in, next year, this
is decided, three, two
candles and well it's not
quite a book, but just assume
the last few chapters - the future
and rule-setting, liberty and
Shore Patrol done rounded me up,
and these days I have been
feelin disenfranchised,
because I have too much respect
for the process, ideal world,
as I like it, and
our summers
were seasons and not symbolic
and there will be more, such
reasoning, justifying, well,
what have you got? Try
harder: What do you want?
So, a dialogue, we have progressed,
a revolution, or rotation,
things to be cherished, apparently,
and fires to be lighted to justify
their existence, and the dullness -
I do not remember being
born without memories,
as they did not remember being
born into God-hood, so here we are,
drinking with dinner
and Thank god for that with, Schatzi,
cause our destiny ain't in no science
book,
downbeat, such a dated score,
goddamned El Dorado, but still,
we trek, against all odds, sister
to a hope, tragic yet
yet yet
move gently westward,
you don't need to know more,
temperatures,
rationales,
but it sure helps, realistically,
not the world we're exploring though,
one
last chance to make a break for
the coast
and the fireworks
and feeling, raise
your (third) glass, not without
some condescension,
to wit,
pride for all the unread shelved
books in this library,
it's the easy way
to learn,
hab ich kein Bock.