The Vogue Revolutionary
Atop his pedestel he calls,
and from this pulpit, his truth
is dispensed like feed, an
offering for the chickens
and sheep.
Thumbing his woolen beard
He hands down personal verity;
So that we might, in turn, grow
our own face-pelts and thumb them
in thoughtful concordance.
His tongue is not only forked
but twice-split and it hisses
to the multitudes while the
third section reaches back
to tickle his own ear.
And so, The Vogue Revolutionary
Becomes a Crash of Keys, a
Crackle of Certain electrons.
He Hurtles through the ether;
Sounds a thousand seperate
Bullhorns, and adds his voice,
To the sea of slogan-sayers
And dimestore evanglists.
“It’s so simple.”
The Vogue Revolutionary proclaims:
“From each
according to his ability,
to support the troops,
who put country first,
to each
according to his hatred
for the Arab, Jew, Mason,
Negro, Banker, CEO
and wage-slaver!”
He believes he holds
The truth a hostage,
As a whore, exclusive
To his own Carnality.
And secure in his den
of
Words without verve,
Knowlege without context,
and
Society without Society;
The Vogue Revolutionary
Thumbs his beard,
Bites his thumb,
and flies a flag of patchwork.
While unbeknownst to us,
From from his vile: drops.
Flavor for our intoxicants.
The Cost of Living
Selected poems from a book of poetry in progress:
The Cost of Living: Meditations on a Year in New York City
Movement #5: Odessa
Candles flicker
And the red orbs flash
Upon my silhouette
Casting fire-light down
Along the muted stand.
Reds and browns and crystalline
Libations squat and
Stare
While lively guitar riffs punctuate
The smiling faces
Of those long dead
Who wait above me.
And I find that
I like this place.
Movement #8
(click dialtone click refusal)
I find that humans are not
Rational beings; we are saddles horses,
Beasts driven by instinct and fears,
On all sides menaced by the movements
Of ideas not our own.
We champion cultures
set upon us by
(un)happy chance,
And locate our beliefs
Of irrefutable truths
In the mad scrawling of
Men whose natural minds
Would be wholly shattered
By the notion of indoor plumbing.
We choose those who are
To lead our race into tomorrow
As one does a favored sports-club.
And likewise,
Onto these cultural athletes,
These bastions of spectrum and hue,
We pledge our undying fanaticism;
Their slogans and colors we hold
As proxy for our own identity,
Our souls like a sweatshirt emblazoned
With their political brand.
We hate ourselves, virulently,
With all the twisted vitriol
A being can possess; while
With our divine image, a
Holy avatar we construct
Of our own fearful symmetry.
We are creatures of extremes,
Slaves beholden to our temperaments,
To fits of passion and the laws
Randomly engraved within our cells and DNA.
Mankind is not truly wretched,
But he is a coward; he is
One who fears, above all,
The unspeakable horror which comes
From the unknotting of his own mind.
Man is an ass, who must be
Coaxed and prodded—driven
Into his own happiness
With a carrot of lies and subterfuge.
Sometimes, I think:
Though we, as a species,
May profess otherwise,
Our nature’s dearest wish,
Our most visceral desire,
Is to find ourselves a cave
Within which to cross our gangly legs
And stare at the elongated shadows
Projected upon the wall.
Movement #11
The late autumn air
Breaks like waves upon
My insulated chin
And I am
Warmed by the steady pulse
Of errant lamplight, beating
Through the managed foliage,
New York’s very own
Will-o-the-wisps
And the soft, bundled form
That clings ever so gingerly
To my side
Right now I see
The banks and eddies
of Central Park ripple out as
they pool beneath my collected
Atomic structure
A great sea of aging foliage
Its vast elongated greens transmuted
To brown and saffron
Pixilation
It is in these quiet moments
When only the amiable lapping of reality
Fills my senses, that I realize
Life is good.
The Still North
Here, the sun drops its saffron feathers,
Upon my dampened brow.
Here the wind winds its silken fingers,
On the grassy bald.
While the granite stands; erect, muted, and
Waits like gravestones,
For the Still North to remember my name.
Tell me friend;
When what I have is gone at last,
And I am as the dust which lies upon this naked summit,
Will this place recall our time?
Will The Still North call out for me,
And smile fondly,
As a loved one?