Countdown (2008)

I'm glad I ditched aping the beats long ago, but it was fun while it lasted.  Countdown, from 2008, and a laundry list of meaningless plagues: 

I.

I sit in my room

And begin to think those
Big Thoughts, but tinged

With the caution words

That guys my age

Will let these bounce around

In swirling heads until

It’s time to put on ties

And polished shoes,

Possibly even the nice dress

Blazer when promotion

Chance rolls her shoulders

And smiles on the bloody finger

Workers.

II.

The thought comes about
Because always behind me,
In my shadow when I

Face the winter sun,

Are the sounds of American Dream—

At once slobbering wolf snarl,

Comfort woman’s voice through cherry lips,

And the happy clicking of Human Machine.

Oh why, oh why

Has the sound of my future

Life taken on the shape

Of Kerberos in my constant path?
And who am I to think

That as some Heracles

I can take the Dream from Death?

III.

Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?

Has it come to the point
Where our Muses place
Hands over our mouths,

Take pens from our hands,
Sink drills into our brains?
Or maybe now that whispering

Ghost perched near our hearts

Has picked up the dress
Of a Pharmaceutical Age,

Sending our bards
Into violent pantomime

On the dirty streets
Near cardboard windows.

IV.

Forsaken has the Ghost his Brother,

Crossed deserts

With gleaming pearl citadel.

Crossed swords

In golden waving fields dyed red.

Crossed time

On feet lightly singing sweet blasphemies.

V.

Polished toes!

Polished toes!

The Father speaks,

The Mother knows!
A Dream they bore

And passed along,
Shaded eyes in shame,
Tongues cut off Truth,

Until the Son stares

Down red bed sheets

At brown
Polished toes!
Polished toes!
Eli!

VI. Eulogy

Dust on a silken lace tablecloth,

Undisturbed grey layer,

And a miracle unwed,

Unseen,

Unborn,

My sister’s heart that beat

So few, and never in the light

Of a summer’s glowing day.

Am I then to feel sad

For not knowing her true smile?

Or can I imagine her face

And her short-cut hair,

Let the never-seen embrace

Of a never-had sibling

Lay heavily upon my head?

An unjust mourning,

Creature for the sake
Of filling in an empty plot—

Brown straight hair

And Livia’s strong nose,

Marble dream bust

For the sake of competing

With Kerouac’s living dead saint.

VII.

I cannot force the tongue to wend a path of lies,
Or the fingers to commit to paper a folly,

To look you in the eyes and say quite clearly

That I have no fear—

With my history of small self-injury, pointlessly

Post-act labeled with meaning,

But lacking in any substantial weight

Save of scar tissue and regret,

Of sitting in a room alone
When the melancholy piano tones

Of a simple palate marches lethargically
Through my speakers,

That dirge-draped parlor waltz.

I sat down to reaffirm my belief
That in each human heart a flower
Waits to sprout up through

The throat and present the central
Beauty of mankind in front of each face.
But then I remembered my waking dream,
The fear that gripped me
As I saw the slow-churn multitude

And their death-sheet faces
White with the cheek bones

Of laughing skeletons.

American mystic—

Do not fear the prophetic vision.

American mystic—

The truth is not botanical.

American mystic—

Discard the false eyes.