[With a nod and many thanks to Colson Whitehead, Leo Connellan and some others subrosa-ly mentioned]
This is not a cactus land,
a dead land, but
a dread land, a land of crusted
vision and lonely love, vacant
going forward
to wherever that could be
…or so it seems, maybe,
always maybe, the risk is worth
the value, isn’t it? Isn’t it?
Be smart, more smart than the rest,
very smart, depart, leaving the rest,
leaving the best for the most, the mess.
What’s best is to keep busy, to keep
as much friending as possible, to keep,
yes, to keep so that collecting is
owning and that’s this, this land of
promised promises…yes, and that,
yes, with so fun! so pretty fun!
Get! Spend! Consume! Have!
These are the meaning, oh my!
right from the start, even before the
beginning, but if we only had an image,
what would we look like? The meaning
must have substance, some thing,
something, yes, the need to have
to have the thing to believe in,
that’s it. Isn’t it? How much much, how much
believing can you heap on having?
Part One
They left from the East, from clogs
and slogs of salient dreams, schemes
and sounds of creation in a new
world, dream images posted by cash
hounds but no, not like that, not
exactly, so it was like, it was like a motion,
you know, like moving, that was it, like a big
thing only not a thing,
I mean, you know, like that.
This is much later, after things got
to be so fun, even going forward, even
that was fun, nothing grubby and loose
and real, you know, I mean it was
really something,
When they looked they actually
thought that they could see just
imagine that they could think that
way, looking beyond even the next
trial and try-works as they might have
said, yes, they looked for that next
hill, the one with the fringe on top.
Boppledock told this tale much better back
then when they ignored experience and
thinking, looking inward away from the only story that
mattered and there was Bop staring them down and
grabbing them by the collar he hollered more than they
would care and moved along to nowhere they were
going and he growled and strafed their mortarboards.
He had more love in his pinky toe than all the churches
around Orchard Beach and so-called poetry. Ya see,
dantchaknow
Would he take us by the hand and show us the way
crossing America this way? I don’t think so, not now,
not him, not Bop, cause he knew Bop couldn’t lead
now, not now, with so little love, so little caring around.
We miss Bop but we don’t even know it,
it’s no matter as we say whatever and
he’d hate that in any way,
Anyway, that’s over, and this is
only part one, pursuing, maybe
becoming for once, just this once
maybe, so we’ll keep trying, I guess.
Part Two
They said, when cracking parched earth, rocky soil
and Indian heads, they said, freedom’s just another
word for license, and some still feel that way, so
long as it’s other folks doing the freedom and worse
it becomes a curse when it’s thrown around so.
He said you could be amusing yourselves to death,
indeed, just narcissusing, your selfies and friending,
trending and unfriending, sexting and texting,
twitching and bitching… is all naval gazing,
all selfie amazing beyond your depth—but awesome,
in sum, you say, like pretty fun or
ugly fun and maybe even wholesome? And there
it is, like interesting, like nice, like, I mean,
be real, really like dread (see above) mixed with
awe, a flawless national anathema anthem for a new nation,
yes, this, awesomeness mess.
Yes, you guess, so what is it, vision or revision? Which
turn to take, to tour again, along the now trammeled trails, or
break out to dare a spare hope in the one not taken? Let’s
see, a sea change, perhaps, but no, too long, too glacial, so
to speak, ha! that’s a not so good one that no one cares
to share but still can’t duck and cover from the creepy,
crawling, mauling salty spraying high rise.
OK, enough of this stuff, this crabby nega-natality, baggage
unclaimed remaindered under the skin of septas and octos
not so smart old farts with old eyes unseeing horizons, back
then, as kids, myops wishing for another Bop who never was
with them, not Bop…and so we end this part for you,
but not for us.
Part Three
And so, turn or return? re-
Turn to what and where, the exit’s closed…
YIKES! Closed! so we have to deal, make another
real, to turn, really? we might get an erection or
election, yes, really, no time to be needy, but real?
do we know, have we ever had it? we know we
thought we did, as kids, then, but now we ask,
can we miss The Con this time, stay on-a-line this
time can we walk past the emperor of ice cream, and
not seem but be, can we see past hoping and wanting
and grasp living and loving, that’s the matter, can
we not be Gogo and Didi, and step past the tree?
Where to start, then, send out a shout as they tried,
no, not them, not G and D, the others, the ones from
the street, pushing you to the curb, up in your face,
they tried, but you worked The Con and gave them
bling to cleanse them of the hope they were shouting
about, about that, let’s move on, going forward, to what ,
to where? you ask, but is to ask to deny, and then why
bother? well, because dread gets to be souring, and
bilious—or something like that?—so let’s start and forget
about one and two, that’s what you did, have done, always
do, but it feels good, so why not? Oh my, all these
questions! Let’s see, maybe we can reach into pop,
get this gig going with a little snark, a nipsy shark.
So let’s do happy, happy joy, joy, oh boy, boy toys and
ms’s, wagons ho!, oy, oy, the real McCoy boy is what
you want, it is is it? wait, what? happiness, you guess
and distress, what a mess, they hippity-hopped to their revolt
over there, and was it very fun? you ask. I don’t think
so, no, no bling for them, they know if you want to mend
and when, then, seem gets to be an actual be and fun
is a pun for unthinking trickster-hipsters, yes then, a sun
will shine on some smiling faces, but then, that’s a long way
off.
So that’s it, that’s the cause and symptom you’ll know,
maybe a glow, a little, maybe, not like before, but more
like a little while ago, you wouldn’t know,
you weren’t there, so you won’t know but will feel it.
and that’s better and makes all the difference.
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