Autonomy in Catatonia

A DELETED TEXT IN 3 MOVEMENTS:

I.
surfeited
fractured syllabub i babble
cyber-clot the glutted universal drain
awakening ruined dreamscapes
drenched in pre-verbal rain i run
to archive linguists
archaeology inundates desire
no caps
no guns
cowboys indianed
in the wounded dawn matinee
the double-featured matriarch
the humble daily heresy
unmanifest density

II.
fêted/fetid
dog-star of your corpse breath
hound tooth on hag flank
reveling ruined symmetries
mythologize nothing less than true
all parties ended
distilled the useless pistil
of prayer

III.
unsought arcana
sister-shroud immaculate
rough bolt-bearer of Lydian cloth
shoplifted theft of history
who wove you
into our self-deception
warped mother
of the weft

[just joking tee hee hee – I wanted to try my hand at writing some truly SUCKY modernistic free verse. The kind that we sometimes notice in the margins of famous reviews and that almost (almost) make us hate poetry. It took me 25 minutes. Thank the Lord, real poetry eventually came to my rescue and restored the wonder of the word again. No thanks to Modernism…]

The Selection of Sex and Descent in Relation to Man

Apr16

fallenmias

…in every visible character man differs less from the higher apes,
than these do from the lower members of the same order of Primates.

Charles Darwin, 1871

The Other claims descent from apes
then acts like a violent monkey.
It pillages, it loots and rapes
performing as Satan’s flunkey.

Its actions bear the mark of Cain;
brandishing cameras, smashing things.
We feel its proto-human pain
yet dread the urban woe it brings.

It tries to justify, with words
its primal carnage, childish rage.
With anthropoid designs deferred
it struts the Darwinian stage.

The higher primate government
rewards them well in ripe bananas
for wrecking their environment
(jungle as well as savannas).

Their mate selection (naturally):
a semi-simian solution:
intercoursing sexually,
to hasten their evolution.

The wombs enlarge—they drop their young
then text their friends while getting high.
They swing from treetops, fling their dung—
while down below the humans sigh.

Painting: Fallen Mias, 2000. Walton Ford (b. 1960)
Watercolor, gouache, ink and pencil on paper, 60 ½” x 119 ¾ ”
New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT

Santería

Apr15

Ogun owed Oxun for the fee he paid
to divorce Yemayá in the watery deep.
Babalu Aye‘s messenger delayed
(no rum in the bargain; price too steep)
until San Martín, divine caballero
deceived the third wife of el Indio Guerrero.

(Obatala‘s beats got lost in transit
the rhythm robbed by macumba-bandit.)

Eleguá cleared paths for He Who Opens Pores.
Black roosters smoked puros at midnight. Outdoors,
Santa Muerte was asked to turn down the noise
so Nana Buluku could get some sleep.

As she gathered Ashé, reduced to a heap
of Yoruba fool’s gold anointed with blood
Oduduwa pretended he understood;
but his mother-in-law knew he never would
until Olódùmarè returned from the feast
having sacrificed roosters while facing east.

The santero drew me a pictogram
to protect me from forces my poem conjured
but the blood of a sacrificed perfect lamb
affords more protection, I knew. He wondered.

dessin vaudou 1

Arcana VII

Apr14

I drove a chariot for Egypt’s dead gods,
obeyed decrees of an angry Pharaoh.
Vision widens where hope seems to narrow
as coral crusts the rims and axle-rods.
Submerged upon the sands my army’s host;
Erythrean currents their secrets keep.
The waters gave way, drowned me in the deep
while God led you forth toward your promised coast.
There was no choice for me, the charioteer.
A tyrant sent me forth to hunt you down;
pursuing you, I thought your end was near.
In the descent, I lost my star and crown.
My lord was false, while yours continues strong . . .
I rise from depths to further you along.