GRAVITATIONALLY CONCENTRATED

GRAVITATIONALLY CONCENTRATED

 

Gravitationally concentrated blackhole egos

sucking the light out of children’s faces

to fuel the nightmares of their own

who have turned their wombs into cul-de-sacs

of idiologically mutated facts.

Gobs and wads of men and women

born into networks of power and wealth

harden like gum under a school desk for the ungrateful

being taught to do unto others

whatever the fuck you want.

They have green blood and spider-eyes

and whenever you step on one of them

their soul departs like a swarm of flies

that polluted their flesh with eggs and worms.

Intoxicated by the toxins of their talking points

their power is jealous of other poisons

getting a grip on things like a small country

and pumping the life out of it like oil

until it’s as cold and quiescent

as a war memorial in a web

draped with the glory of the dismembered dead.

They hold up the wings of butterflies

in their congresses and parliaments of ghouls

like people oriented policies they mean to kill

and claim it’s the will

of the frenzied mobs they call constitutents.

The flies know best what the spider wants

like a major pharmaceutical company

like a global arms manufacturer

like a health insurance company

that practises disease control

by guillotining the sick

and raising its rates like a fever

like a bank with infectious pleonaxia

like a general whose heart

keeps breaking the peace like a wild horse

it’s trying to ride like a beast of burden

whipped into governmental shape.

Or a politician who puts sunglasses

on corpses and rape

and calls for a vote against

upsetting the deathcarts in the flesh markets

of the crammed bazaar in the heart of prosperity.

And it’s a holy war on both sides

of the usual vices

against improvised explosive devices

tearing the arms and legs off children

like insects in the name of God

down on their knees

drinking blood and flesh

or the gingered waters

of the fountain of Salsabil

in an abbatoir of humans

doing God’s work

like the monkish fleas of the Black Plague.

And the molested children beg for mercy

from a praying mantis

and bread from the tapeworms

that have left them nothing to eat.

And order and peace from the spiders

who are tearing the web

under their own gluttonous weight

like crowns and thrones

that have grown too fat

for their heads to carry

and fall with the rest of us

still clinging to perilous life signs

like an extinct species of hope

tangled like kites and parachutes

in their own lifelines

like the million weak threads

of one strong rope. 

And there are voices

that have forgotten the words

for murder rape and theft

and others like the Inuit have for snow

twenty-six words for innocence

laid to rest like a dove

and one for whitewashing the crow

that covers its bloody hand like the glove

of a forensically-minded man

who doesn’t want to contaminate the evidence

of an ongoing investigation

by adding the dna of a human to the mix.

A conspiracy of forked tongues

perjures itself like advisory thorns

at the trial of the rose

and the jury comes back

like a snakepit in the spring

with a verdict of guilty

as an ugly judge shouts out

let the jailbird swing

from a silken noose

for being an accomplice to beauty.

And everyone who sat on the face

of time-honoured convention

feels they’ve done their duty

and talks their way like a happy ending

into an afterlife of wholesale interviews.

The critic assassinates the artist.

The patient kills his doctor.

Mob-mind rules in the head of state.

The worst place to be in a war is a crib.

The experts turn amateurly popular.

Porn queens run

for the offices of their johns.

The paparazzi take celebrity shots

of award-winning serial killers

on red carpets of blood

and trade them like baseball cards to the kids.

The students are armed.

The teachers are armed.

The nuns are strapped

with nine millimeter Barettas

one in the breach

and fourteen in the hold

to ensure thou shalt not kill.

The prison stands

like the last cornerstone of free will.

The priests claim it’s God’s doing not theirs

that they’re child molesters.

Suffer the little children to come unto me.

Technology squares the third eye of viral reality

into a flat screen tv

and the mind is wired to a web

like the nervous system of a bee

that’s part robot

plugged into the grid

that’s shutting the whole hive down

like a brown-out of the sweeter things in life.

Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini.

The worst rise from the grave

like some latter day Lazarus

sanitized by their utter corruption

and the scale of their atrocities

and the interminable documentaries

that go on like pi

and the effect they had on history.

They are shriven by the gigantism

of genocides that can’t be forgiven

and people’s fascination with snakes.

The people forgive power bigger mistakes

than they let the weak get away with.

Mediocrity has killed more people

than genius ever will.

The flute-players are conducted by cobras

like singers by recording companies

and the music is commercially toxic.

The birds nest in dead trees

hoping the lightning of their last song

makes a hit in the hearts

of their targeted demographic.

Sincerity in art

has been plundered

like a pagan temple

for the body parts

and stage props

of carefully auditioned feeling.

The deeper the theme

the higher the ceiling

until even from the bottom

of a well in daylight

you can see the stars

comparing scars

on constellated talk shows

to prove even their upbeat downfalls

are a myth more engaging than yours.

The rap prince is dressed like a drum major

with silver skulls

at both ends of his baton

and his charade of whores goes on and on and on

like prostitution and mad poetry

and three chesty muses on a lavish float

that swims by like a swan

with a bad voice in a beautiful throat.

The flip side of disappointed veneration

is an aesthetic of desecration

that throws bad meat

down the well of Helicon

and markets bottled water

like nine flavours of inspiration

that feels like a fever coming on.

The snapping turtle ravages the swan

like a white peony

and there are feathers of moonlight everywhere

that make the moon feel phoney

when she thinks of becoming a star

and shines down on the way things are.

False gods air their dirty laundry like revelation

and Lucifer adjusts his teleprompter

like a mirror in a microscope

to address the United Nations like an antidote.

Cling to your despair all ye who exit here.

Arbeit macht frei.

Work makes free.

The slaves have mastered liberty

and hope’s a refugee

with a war crime for history.

Dante’s lost in the dark wood again

and hell’s the only way

he’s ever going to find his way out.

You shall commit murder.

You shall practise theft.

You shall covet your neighbour’s wife

and dishonour your mother and father.

You shall forget everything holy

and disgrace the days you gather

to worship what you cannot be.

You shall bear false witness

like a coverup against the innocent.

Thou shalt make graven images

in the likeness

of the obscenities of money

that flaunt their gods

like craven televangelists on cable tv.

Let the poor turn to God for judgment

in a small claims court.

Let the rich when they need forgiveness

turn to me like the tax exemption

of a weathervane church

whose spirit knows its own

by the way the wind is blowing.

Let the poor search.

Let the rich find.

Give what is yours

and it shall be taken from you.

Keep what is not

like a rainbow meant for someone else

and more will be added to the pot

like a rabbit to a penthouse snakekpit

like a politician to the homebrew

of a self-fermenting senate

like the people who are

of

the world

but not

in

it

to eras and eras and eras of shit.

 

PATRICK WHITE