I
The poet’s amortized kaleidoscope is broke;
Sometimes it takes twelve measures to get
At the point of broke kaleidoscopes,
Mis-marketed calliopes and bankrupt carousels;
Who knows anything anymore?
These days, Xanthippe doesn’t take
The hard line on hemlock.
Maybe once upon a time, in the same
Vein that equates an asterisk to a splattered spider
On a page – when a page still had the force of anodized water –
Some accidental dropping in of theory
Where theology would better serve
You have to separate process from method;
A high dive
May play analogous springs for the swimmer
But the leap is spliced from the splash – however
The twists flips turns swerves hits and miseries
In between go – it is always either theories
Or art where practice does not
Abide.
II
The Mexican heather is in bloom. As is
The purple sage dragon, who can take
A bite out of reality faster than a plugged
Hookah, or a spirit house foreshadowing the
Split in the age of innocence. All of these
Period pieces: a foreshortened hindsight is
Glad I never met you. The dead,
If you are interested, know the Infinite
To be, as concepts go, impotent. What is
The blood of an immortal soul but mulch
And algorithm towards interruption?
What but a blouse casually placed
In harm’s way, out of sight, out of mind.
The poet’s head spins in the miasma.
Ramifications: ask the tripped trepid god-
Father how to proceed to the next Elysian plane;
Not to sound biased, but a forfeiture of evidence
Does not innocence create. You want to
Spit at the Infinite? Go ahead:
The infinit welcomes your disapproval.
III
And offers a cup of hemlock. Xanthippe knows.
Let no love come between a girl and her rye
Prone catcher: finally, we get to McVeigh,
To Kaczynski, to Hart Crane, those Terrible
Threes. Empire will decline
In direct proportion to our glad standing
Adoration of the second, the moment, the dash
At the finish line. Who understands
The propulsions of atonal engines? Who
Cares for the ambulation of glimpsed-but-
Never-seen purgatories? Everyone
Has a chance at redemption or the smell
Of avarice over an open flame: wood
Plus plastic plus wire, or Naugahyde
Liquid combined with silence of a secret
Love disables to deceive: period pieces
Ending in plea agreements. When not
Gas chambers and self-immolation, the shame
Of B-movies and guest shot appearances, we
Hold this evidence to be self-true,
IV
To be true, the poet forfeits innocence
In the guise of philosophy, heart with the mask
Of discovery, letters with a parcel
Of hope, and cantos the tabloid
Presence with a dash of creation’s
Mud, a pinch of complaint’s pliant whine
Against theory -
Aren’t we all? What’s hypothetical around
The placement of a bouter, a bag, a ring
Around the skirt of indifference to public
Crime or opinion – the poet’s own bombs
In weight and disposition, this poesy
Its wintry aloofness and running commentary
United,
It stands to reason when not to write
The squall of our times on a page three
Headliner. What amuses the carousel?
The poet’s kaleidoscope collapses in
The twelve measures it takes to become
Untitled.
© 2012 – Mark A. Douglas – All Rights Reserved
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