I. No Wonder, Floyd!
Wasn’t nothin’ ya coulda done about it, Floyd,
but these weeks have taken their certain toll.
Who coulda figured there was gonna be a clash
of wills over somethin’ like buryin’ the dead?
The most we anticipated were kinks
to be ironed out. We were, after all, a band.
Yes, that’s right, Floyd –a band of steel, a steely band.
Coulda withstood a heavier backlash
than we did, and dammit if ya don’t know it, Floyd!
If that moron hadn’t gone playin’ with the dead –
messin’ around with stones and magic inks…
And the police didn’t buy his story at all.
Ha! How much credence did they pay him? None at all!
Only as much as might leave him half dead.
Come on…you’re party to the same truth I am, Floyd.
Through the veneer of his lie they could spy the kinks,
though he made as if nothing had happened,
as if he’d squirmed that way just cuz he was ticklish.
Well, you got your own take on it. We’re bound to clash,
despite seein’ eye to eye elsewise, Floyd.
I guess I never figured we’d have to disband
this soon. His shenanigans have taken their toll.
Deep purple, velvet, crimson or pink inks
woulda done. Why he painted Sunday with as dead
a pitch as this obsidian black…But he’s dead.
So much for blind faith in our merry band.
Cuz we’ve toppled like a row of dominoes, Floyd.
Done in without even having heard a bell toll,
an alarm go off or a cymbal clash.
Haven’t they ironed us out like so many kinks
in the fabric ruined by his damned magic inks?
And now, instead of a bash, it’s backlash.
Had we better planned, we wouldn’t have to disband
just like lulling wavelets in a drifting atoll
in the Keys or the Med. But now he’s dead.
I’m annoyed ya ain’t sayin’ more for yourself, Floyd.
There was a clash of wills, we got our asses banned.
We’re kinks in the traffic – an unpaid toll.
No wonder they wanted him dead. No wonder, Floyd.
II. Beyond the Animals
(Or, 146 A.D. – In the Year of Our Darwin)
Half a dozen bullets (as in a revolver)
hath this (my poem), and it’s fully loaded.
Six and a half stanzas of mental graffiti.
There are those who lament that gray doesn’t run blonde,
that men don’t devolve into animals,
that reaping doesn’t predate sowing in harvest.
Indeed. But such woes are not among the hardest
that we must bear by way of entreaty.
For who is unmindful of that slick palaver
fed into the jaws of media cannibals
who don’t yet know that news is outmoded?
They are fond of it all. Believe me, they are fond,
and it’s on their account that we’d like to abscond
from credulities, misprints and scandals
to some other place where we could start all over.
The trouble is, they want to come too. “Marvelous!”
they exclaim. “We don’t need to be goaded
and will come with no complaints. The Now is seedy
but sterile. And don’t worry, we won’t be greedy.
We’ll settle for what’s promised in the bond,”
which they demand that we sign as lawyers hover.
Before you know it, we are the ones to tarnish
their good will. They strike us from the annals,
and our sullen expressions are duly noted.
This situation must not go unexploded
if we’re not to have our ambitions pawned
and recommisioned by each upstart Oliver
newly arisen from the ranks of the needy,
thinking to impress with how he handles
the weight of opinion and how he can harness
public discourse to the Now’s bewitching harvest.
But more than this is purest graffiti;
I mean, speculation is a gun that’s loaded –
though that’s how we’ve gotten beyond the animals.
History is neither brunette nor blonde.
Its truths are like blanks in a spinning revolver.
Make sure your gun is loaded prior to harvest.
The celestial revolver will spin blonde,
interpreted by animals as graffiti.
III. In Tumult and Extremity
In the dream, I first find myself upon a road.
On my right is a broken-down barrow,
presumably to be used to remove the waste
of which it’s part. Further, I’m to do it myself.
Thousands of fragments of a shattered rock.
The barrow itself’s in shambles – too much to heft.
Not knowing where to begin, I look to my left
and find a contrasting vision of wealth,
as elusive of description as the marrow
of one’s forgotten, Edenic abode
where the seeds of one’s desires are encased.
Which will it be – the waste or the marrowy block?
Suddenly, I am mindful of a ticking clock
and wonder if there is Time to borrow.
It’s impossible to say whether Time has slowed
or if I’m at the hands of a merciless elf,
working me as a warp against Time’s weft –
some thread to be tied off, or a string to be laced.
Upon my tongue there is an alternating taste
of grit from the rubble and, from the crock
of dreams across from that waste at its antipode,
a sugary sweetness suggestive of ill-health.
Now the road gives out and becomes a cleft,
furrowing into the distance like an arrow.
The clock that I can’t read continues to harrow.
My indecision deepens with my haste,
and I can’t determine how to assume that load
on the one side or find a door at which to knock
at the other. I’m utterly bereft
and consider, “All existence is waste and pelf.”
Suddenly I unwind through a node of my self.
I wake amid new heaps of gleaming waste.
Somebody’s laid me down in a red wheelbarrow.
I think, “My dust is a part of this whirling rock,
comprising but a fraction of its heft.
This thing’s got a seat and an engine! Where’s the road?
I’ve been granted this barrow to remove such waste
as lines my self, but it’s too much to heft.
There are others on this rock. I must find the road!”
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