109: Phoenix Hatchling(s)

one poem, two versions

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Phoenix Hatchling

AGE 21 - Rural New York

With lights off… and all swervy sentiment,
I pen and pine — bed-bound, restrained and shown:
a bottle of Cuervo, through slats of light;
green absinthe spiders parachuting; grates;
twelve rusty armies, mired by plastic gates;
the Fisher-Price vagina of your grandmother
shrugging out another insolent child;
the disappointing turn of phrase she utters;
fish-tailed sperm; a rat-tailed freak with four
apocalyptic ailments (ess tee dees:
the icy genuflection, sapping shriek,
the prolapsed pelvic bone, the shattered jaw);
nineteen Thom Yorke clones, wielding rubber bands.
Enlightenment is stunted, kid-ache brands
a flaming headache… yet, the fountain spurts!

There’s nothing here to see so long as you
keep clinching my good sense, like senses do.
You whittle down the nerve beneath my skin…
then hollow out my head-hole. Then. Crawl. In.

A place where never doesn’t mean a lot;
where girls are joined and never need be won;
where boys are firmly held instead of shoved;
clandestineness anathemic, unloved;
where numbers are imaginary forces,
square-rooted as junipers and ashes;
Miss Conception never paints her lashes;
satisfaction’s more than sated greed,
a bowl of grated nutmeg, skin and blood —
as Chef, strung out on calumny and coke,
his culinary tact deposed by hope,
with shredded knuckles raw before the rapture
warms a stew made from the scalding mud;
where trees don’t cry out: ‘Arbiter of truth,
please kill the Jew that hides behind my trunk!’
and God in Concert tickets only sell
for smaller venues, and not very well;
where iron crosses mark the jaundiced youth;
where rhymes don’t starve themselves just for attention,
Kafka’s motley crew eschews pretension,
Dante’s damned coast out of perdition…
and it’s only seven bucks a ride.

It’s just the place I dream of, when I don’t,
and where I want to be when (never wont
to think of any universe as cold,
as young men universally grow old
allegiant to the stagnant, rotting smells
of forlorn hope, worn out or never born)
my phoenix hatchling’s heart is fresh, but torn…
so keen to think it shan’t need thought in five,
but verberate: intrusively, alive.

Yet mirth and life don’t intersect! Contrived
are elegies effusively high-fived
in eulogistic, euphemistic verse.
When each of us is humbled by our need,
such cacophonic orchestras shall play
as have been heard by only Cain, indeed!

Then poetry prostrate itself to tact,
as daffy ducks press in the painful tack —
the docile daft departing (brisk as tea)
for walks in parks, toned down to Middle C.
Cross all the clockwork Earth, at last shall bleat
the patter pattern — footsteps in the street!
And words arise to overthrow their smiths,
as emptyhearted drums discard the beat.
.

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Phoenix Hatchling vs. Cthulhu

AGE 31 - Rural New York

With the lights out, in the afterglow
I pen and pine — while bed-bound, chained and shown:
a bottle of Jose and cracks of light;
green absinthe spiders dropping from the vents;
twelve armies standing — waiting for commanding
generals, with spurious intents.
Then Fisher-Price vaginas open wide,
to shrug with childish doldrums every time
a soul becomes recycled once again.

When Fish-Tail Sperm begets a rat-tailed freak,
the four afflictions of Apocalypse
ride long into the night upon their steeds:
there’s Icy Genuflection, Slovenly Shriek,
Sir Prolapsed Pelvic Bone, and Shattered Jaw;
D’Artagnan pulls the flank, with great relief.

I can’t keep my location, because you
keep meddling with good sense — as senses do.
You hollow out the enclave of my mind
and enter, to vacation from yourself.

Now look: where never doesn’t mean quite often;
girls are joined and never need be won;
boys held instead of shoved; Clandestiny
(clandestineness) the only true pariah,
yet loved too — for being anathemic;
numbers all imaginary, even
square roots of the junipers and ashes;
Conceit suckles Sated Greed all night,
then mounts a dragon… and flies off to scout
for nobler yet grounds for Satisfaction;

bowls of grated nutmeg, skin and blood
adorn the kitchen where the chef almighty
works, strung out on Aspirin cut with coke
(his shredded digits adjunct to fine knuckles,
modus in abeyance to his hope)
at making warm soup from the scalding mud;

trees never cry out: ‘Arbiter of truth,
please kill the Jew that hides behind my trunk.’ ;
when God starts rocking, tickets only sell
for smaller venues (and not very well) ;
crosses of iron decorate the wearer
for his jaundice, as his limbs decay;
rhymes never starve themselves, just for attention;
even Kafka’s coterie can shed
its apprehensive carapace, while damned
souls ride on express trains from perdition.
Newsmen tell it boldly, in the headlines:
‘A Renaissance of Angst, With No Pretension!’

Here’s the place I dream of, when I don’t:
a destination, downfall and a slope.
As (wont to think the universe is cold)
young minds fixate upon the very old:
on stagnant water, rusty keepsakes, shrapnel
littering the vale of hope, reborn…
this phoenix hatchling’s heart is fresh, but worn!

He wants to trade the worm that makes it shiver
for some temporary joie de vivre,
then breathe easy… gladdened by this hope,
and doubly glad to know he has survived!
Still elegies dispensed by all the sophists
(in their most triumphant of all moments)
bid us all be humbled by our need,
in voices charismatic yet contrived.

This phoenix has heard orchestras rehearse
which played as Jesus hung and Cthulhu nested
’neath Golgothan headstones, far far down
below the nadir of his kind’s deceit.

“Won't poetry prostrate itself to craft?
Won't daffy fascists crucify the daft?
Won’t walks in parks be taken, brisk as tea?
Shan't Baltic Sea be tuned to Middle C?
Shall not the Earthen core project repeat
illusions of its traffic — in the street,
in holographic bliss — while Armageddon
drums compress the blister of the beat?”

Perhaps.
.

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