Monday, March 15, 2010

BITTER AND RESTLESS AND ANGRY

BITTER AND RESTLESS AND ANGRY

 

Bitter and restless and angry

I can’t find a way out of the way I got in

I push the moon like a fish hook

all the way through my left eye

to the other side

where only the dark part shows

and the moon wipes off her white facepaint

in a black mirror that isn’t trying to be her.

I don’t feel like a man who’s going anywhere

I feel like some kind of a creature

crawling out of my dark lagoon

in a double feature

from the matinee of my childhood

at the local theater on a Saturday afternoon.

I don’t want to live anything over again.

And there’s not a whole lot to look forward to

except maybe a ghost dance or two

with Sitting Bull in old age

if either of us makes it that far.

The demonic version

of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin

is how many bubbles can you break on the thorn of a rose

and as the answer always is

get a life and cancel the count.

Love pulls back the crescents of the moon

and baits a beartrap with the heart of a fish

but a wolf howling at the moon

with his nose in the air

steps into it by mistake

and ends up chewing his leg off to get away.

And why when you get to the bottom of things

whether it’s the science or art of knowing

you sink through like a stone

is there always in the very nature of things

the despondent god of a dying religion

trying to cheer you up?

But I’m too out of it

to know whether the world’s gone insane or not.

The sinners can’t cope when the saints get caught.

And things are definitely not what they used to be

or even seemed

now that beauty’s a morphing cultural meme

and the torch that the Statue of Liberty used to hold up

is melting like ice-cream in its own fire

and there’s a hundred and eleven dimensions

to the ways you can lose yourself in the multiverse.

Black-hole constellations eye the dice

and don’t know which way to fall.

Heaven’s hooked on drugs

and Hell’s a cartel.

Preacher: leave them kids alone.

The night might be an elixir of stars

that never grow old

but more and more

the darkness that overwhelms everybody

from the inside out

like the godsend of a broken promise

is beginning to taste like black cool-aid.

And the serial killers

study comparative atrocities

in the finishing schools of their seedy educations

and millions are wiped out every year

like a smudge of life on a tv screen

and everyone is so shocked

by the horror

they go out and buy

a bigger, clearer monitor.

And there are so many things

so many tongueless, eyeless screaming things

done in the name of a human

you couldn’t even ask the devil

to forgive you for

the pornography of gore

makes unranked amateurs of the Aztecs

when it gets right down to hearts and skulls

in the race to blood the altars of our highest ideals.

And I’m so sick of listening

to these paragons of oxygen on the news

who cut their hearts out like oyster-kings

everytime they open their mouths

to talk to the sea

and another halfbaked pearl of wisdom drops out

like the jewel of a fool

or the adolescent crescent of the moon from moonschool

where they teach the iron rule

do unto others before they do unto you.

Love is food.

Knowledge is food.

Sex is food.

The universe is food.

God is food.

Ignorance is food. Junkfood.

But everywhere in the world

people are starving.

In all ten directions everywhere at once

the whole universe is its own illusory cure

for all its illusory diseases

and even a single blade of grass

is enough of a herb

to sweat out any fever of stars

that binds us to our delirium

like dark blood to the blindside of the Mysterium

and yet everywhere people are afflicted

people are wounded

people are dying in the name

of a few cruel ideas

trying to give birth to a new world

that thinks it would be better off without them.

Baby-talk in the savage maws of Baal and Moloch

who will not be appeased 

by the sacrifices our children made

to save the depraved from the grave

they dug for themselves.

Bring on the Romans.

Bring on the Carthaginians.

Bring on the Christians

like nabobs of salt

who shouldered the nations

like heavy crosses

it was their station

of suffering in life to bear.

And the wombs they ruined

are more immaculate now

than ever

their prosperity

has taken a few pounds off the equator

and everyone’s doing their best back home

to put a little nest egg away like an alligator

biding its time

until things look up

like another unwary unicorn

down by the river

dipping its horn

in virgin water

that flows like slurry

from a nuclear reactor.

Trying to find out

who I am in the way it is

is like trying to drink fresh water

from your own reflection in a sewer.

The mirror is not pure.

The mirror is not impure.

Nature and nurture

in one sorry face

looking back at itself

and what’s to come

and the way things are

as if evolution had already gone

a species too far.

 

PATRICK WHITE

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


I WATCHED YOU WALKING DOWN THE STREET

I WATCHED YOU WALKING DOWN THE STREET

 

I watched you walking down the street

as if your feet were bells

with a smile like a two dollar bill

that said

sex sells.

You looked like the executive

of a bargain store for cheap funerals

and I was a shabby syllable of a man

who’d been through one too many cremations.

But you stopped to talk

like a biodegradable gravestone

about green revolutions anyways

and I listened like an old cemetery

trying to remember

if I was buried there or not.

You spoke like the wind in an urn

about all the wonderful places you knew

with an amazing panorama

of a waterfront view

where I could scatter my ashes.

And at first I honestly thought

you were trying to sell me

real estate on the moon,

living space for the dead

in a sealess seabed,

spiritual lebensraum

in a high gloss magazine

with airbrushed pictures

of all the places I’d never been.

I watched the way your lips

grooved to their own music

like a flowchart

going in and out of total eclipse

as if you were a patient coming to in recovery.

You convinced me you were a good investment

but just as I was about to put

what I’d been saving up

for a comfortable death

into your startup company

my whole life passed before me

like the flash in the night

of an alarmist firefly

with conspiracy theories

about how the Big Bang

was just another lighthouse crying wolf.

And then the sky caved in

like a stock portfolio

without a golden parachute.

But when you walked out

of your private bathroom

wearing nothing but your business suit like skin

and summoned me like a ghost

to a seance on the internet

to merge my interest in you

into a global corporation

I knew I was dead

and whatever I said

would fall so far short

of your expectations

I’d bounce like a bad cheque

in a kangaroo court

that laid bare

my marsupial intentions

for all to see

I was guilty as an empty wallet

of following you home like funny money

trying to make headlines on a counterfeit press.

How was I to know

you were as superstitious

as a paper-shredder

about making love to the dead

but when you asked me

to read the lifelines

on the palm of your hand

like a lot of deadlines you had to meet

wasn’t it sweet of me

to extend your fate

like an unlimited line of credit

you could draw on anytime

you were in a pinch?

And I remember that night

in your twelfth story penthouse

when you crashed like a market share

and fell on the floor in a riot of hair

that looked like a run on the banks

and talked about ending it all

like the flowerpot on your balcony rail

that hadn’t seen water in weeks.

But just as you were about to

make your leap of faith

like a company too big to tail

into the recycling dumpsters

in the alley below

your dusky swansong press review

your broker called like a driven man

with a brand new life insurance plan

riddled with perks and tweaks

like coins hidden in a birthday cake

as you said with tears in your eyes

cradling the phone

like a bird to your ear

that if I really loved you

as you said I did

I’d take the fall for your sake.

I felt like the short straw

in a last chance lottery of one

that just had his chips cashed in

by the bouncer at the emergency door

of a bankrupt casino.

And later the doctor told me

in intensive care

how lucky I was

you came every night

like blood to a haematoma

and said a little prayer at my bedside

that I’d wake up from my coma

like a change in my will

mumbled in my sleep

that left everything

I had in my pocket

like a momento mori to you.

And I’ll never forget that first night

of my afterlife without you

when we walked together in one solitude

and the moonlight fell

like lime on a pauper’s grave

and you asked if I had any regrets

and I could feel your fingers on my frets

like an archaeologist going through my bones

and all my words were summoned out of the past

like the ghosts of lost cellphones

to your last seance

when I said to you

as my voice began to soften

you were an insight with attitude.

After all

how often

does a poor boy like me

get to see

well-dressed money in the nude?

 

PATRICK WHITE