How many times, oh, soul, can you sustain
Defeat before you are consume?
And why do you contend that you can best
The God of Confusion, who mocks you,
Just before He rears His forked tongue?
BURN OUT
6 a.m.
And the alarm screams for attention.
I press the snooze
And settle back for
Five more minutes of peace.
The phone rings
And I give in—
Struggling to a shower,
Dreading this day
More than the last.
8 a.m.
I arrive at my desk,
Toss the dust cover off the IBM
And settle in to replicate
Yesterday’s production.
Noon.
Chatter over coffee,
While we munch chips and tuna sandwiches.
The words float about me,
Refusing to settle in.
5 p.m.
And I placed the cover back on the IBM,
Dump my coffee cup
And navigate the freeway
To my bi-level duplex.
9 p.m.
I thumb through the ads,
“Help Wanted Secretary,”
The same scenario every night,
As I drop the paper to the floor,
And words twist me back to reality:
“Unemployment Continues to Rise.”
I shut out the light
And shuffle to bed.
EQUILIBRIUM
The balance beam beckons,
Challenging the five-feet, two
To competition.
The body mounts
Without hesitation,
Moving through the routine
Memorized and enacted
Five thousands times before.
The crowd sits transfixed
By the possible outcome
Of the one performing soul.
One miscalculation,
One slip,
The difference between defeat and glory,
The difference between Tomorrow’s Secretary
And an Olympic Star.
LAMENTATIONS
Eating snow,
While tear gas stings my eyes,
I struggle against the January wind
Toward sanity.
A notebook and a camera
Crash against the ice,
Camouflage suits
Defend against the throng.
Tractors line the square,
Sowing seeds of revolt.
I struggle to my feet
And the bond
Which has supported my frame
Through basketball and rock ‘n’ roll,
Snaps beneath the strain.
Once more I taste the bitter snow,
I swallow the gas
And my eyes grope for a familiar hand.
Behold a crèche,
The Holy Family encased within
Its wooden walls,
Cries to the crowd
From the courthouse lawn.
Their voices die on the air,
Silenced by the death of the farm.
DENOUEMENT
The winds blasts through the slats
Of the homestead.
The grey boards splintered
And withered with time,
Bleached by the prairie sun,
Now inert to the revolutions of the planet,
Deserted, embittered,
Still she sustains her sense of humor
Until the final timber disintegrates.
Flat land stretches out its hands,
Groveling for rain,
No longer motivated by purpose,
By nature or by man.
Beyond the horizon,
The earth lies agape,
A rectangular fission,
A receptacle of yesterday’s visions.
The wind sifts the dust
Into the chasm,
And in unison the people
Shift away from the crate
And return to the dining hall
For the funeral dinner.
TROPHIES
Eighteen trophies line the wall
On a wooden shelf
In the archives
Of Herdsman Hall.
Someone lugged them down the steps
Ten years ago or so,
And left them to glitter in the dust,
Making space for basketball trophies
In the glass case in the student center.
For eighteen years the students toiled
In soils and corps and weeds,
They garnered anatomical data,
Spoke of breeding trends and feeds.
And armed with the knowledge
Of scientific precision,
They stood unequalled in agricultural competition.
But the FTE shank,
As foreclosures spread like a massive tumor,
Devouring the prey,
And victims migrated into town,
Where doctors could cut the growth away,
And the PCA and the FmHA
Held out their shaky hands
Gnarled by years of servitude,
No longer able to perform the surgeon’s mighty task.
Then the victories dimmed,
And an Edict went forth throughout the Staff:
“Expand Cosmetology,
With Auto Mechanics you can’t go wrong.
And take those dingy trophies to the basement,
Where the relics all belong.”
COIT
One source dispenses words,
Phonemes strung together,
Symbols of thought
That capture elements of man’s nature on paper.
One source links all poets,
Designates them as cells of the same body.
And when one cell breathes no more,
The others scream in pain,
Knowing full-well
Their words can never save them.
But the other cells absorb the loss,
And in communion read the words
That brought life to his soul,
Ingesting the Spirit of his Creativity,
While the hollowness lingers on.
1-13-86
On the death of John Coit,
Columnist, Wordsmith
RESURRECTION
Tonight I ate a dessert
Stacked with bananas and wafers,
With yellow pudding floating between the layers,
I drank a Classic Coke
And sank back against my pillows
To watch Carson on the screen.
I flipped the remote in boredom,
Borne of the security of luxury.
A voice on the late news
And I pause between the pages of Rolling Stone,
Stunned by death turned to life,
Much as Mary must have gasped
As Lazarus opened wide his tomb.
For twenty years your name was always
Just a thought away,
But I could not call your body to mine
Across infinity to Viet Nam.
Of your death the world was certain,
But a thought assailed me now and then.
I cursed God for the not-knowing
As babies turned to men.
The TV burns far into the night,
Like a beacon into my soul.
The rain splatters the window
And lightning flashes an angry bolt,
But I’m safe within my haven,
Here with my army of books and stereos.
CONCERT
Like gods armed with drums and synthesizers,
They take the stage in sequined clothes,
Upon an altar of amplifiers to dispense the Word
To the tribe that worships at their feet.
And spreads manna to the hungry throng.
The tumultuous noise rises to the heavens
As incense before the Muse.
And I rise to my feet,
Wrenched by masses of flesh
Who storm the altar
In a futile attempt to touch the hem of a god,
As the music is twisted around my soul.
REGENERATION
Man programs the machine,
Seeking a help mate
To lead him through the technological puzzle.
With microprocessors and software
They cycle is complete.
Then man programs the machines
To spot its weaknesses
And correct any deficiencies which might exist,
And to develop its intelligence
So that it can serve its Master
In obeisance.
Intelligence rules intelligence
Until ultimately
The child is programmed to become a man.
SPECIAL EFFECTS
Out of the void of darkness
A voice assimilates itself into the elements.
Fresnels and scoops
Simultaneously illuminate the set,
Booms and lavaliers
Positioned to capture the soul of man,
Cameras stationed to record the screenplay
Written in eternity.
And with one switch of the digital video unit
Eden is born.
CONSORT OF A GOD
Sanctified upon the altar,
Purified by five years of instruction,
Today I am complete.
I am degreed
And fit to be
The Consort of a God.
He who rules above us,
He whose face no man has seen,
He who guides and leads us
Through the Wisdom of the Screen.
When the day’s labor is completed
And the Moment of Pleasure arrives,
The screen shudders
And with an Anthem
Introduces
The World of the Gods.
Mighty mountains and great oceans,
Music to which we may dance
In praise to a God,
Who provides the circuitry and technology
To behold His world
Suspended in Time.
Today I will be taken
To the Inner Studio,
Where no mortal is allowed to trespass.
But I will go beyond the door
And join the staff of KWTC,
A sound technician,
Initiated into the Corporation,
The Consort of a God.
TRIPOLI
IMissiles explode
In the solitude of night,
Ripping wood and brick
From house and military complex,
Igniting the atmosphere.
Ten minutes
Of concentrated volleys.
Then silence
And weeping
As a casualty of war
Dies in his mother’s arms.
IISanctuary of the Beast,
Federation of Terrorists,
Exploited and indoctrinated,
The blunt of ambition.
Cast forth iniquity
That rages within your walls.
IIIAdversaries
Bearing different versions
Of events
That twist as they converge
In the spiral of time,
Adversaries,
Throwing stones
Of napalm and hydrogen,
Fusing the elements of life.
EXTINCTION
Upon the Challenger explosion
Like Jupiter in flight
The albatross ascends to Paradise,
She stretches forth her wings
With the confidence born of generations
And floats upon the breeze.
Music wafts through the night,
Like a siren alerting her prey,
Extending fragments of glory,
Only to snatch the moment away.
Then Zeus releases his lightening rod,
The flames rip through the sky,
And the albatross screams in pain,
And shudders as her engines die.
The music plunges from the sky.
MURAL
Savage tracking buffalo,
Spear in hand,
Inching through the prairie grass
To a panel where wagons wind
Against a backdrop of the Rockies.
Swords crossed
Over borders
Where troops guard
The bastions of liberty,
Drums beat
Across the centuries.
Troops leap from planes,
The balloons upon their backs
Sucked into the wind.
Across the panel
Two smokestacks vomit ink
Into stagnant skies,
As a shuttle await sits launch.
Stars upon the screen
Implode
Into a mushroom cloud.
ERUPTION
To Bill Schustik,
The American Troubadour
The baritone breaks the silence of the square,
As his voice violates a Town Ordinance.
The huddled masses stop grinding corn
And thrashing wheat
To hear the melody
Which lifts above the whir of the potter’s wheel
And the bellowing of the cattle
In their pens beyond the city walls.
The music rises like incense pure and sweet.
Troubadour,
Traveling the Prairies,
Following the asphalt paths
Laid out in a Prehistoric Time,
Following the demands
Of a genetic drive
Bequeathed by your grandfather.
Go troubadour
And tell them how it was.
He plucks the strings of the instrument,
And harmonizes an ancient chord,
His song sifts down upon the workers,
Who with heads lowered
Hang on his every sound,
Not daring to raise an eye
To view his ragged levis,
His tangled beard and crown.
Yet they wonder at the phrases
From his apostolic lips,
Holy words, once muttered by the Ancients.
Troubadour,
Traveling the mountains,
Following the silver rails,
Precious to a Golden Age,
Following the whisperings
Of your soul.
Don’t forget a single line or verse,
Go troubadour
And tell them how it was.
The gleam of swords in the sunlight,
As troops march into the square
Reflects in the eyes of the children
Who dare to raise them just once
To view the troubadour.
The soldiers break his guitar upon the rocks
And bind his hands beneath his back.
They shove him down the hill
Toward the waiting prison cart,
While his words float on
Above the city,
And gather force upon the wind.
“Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing…”
Go troubadour.
Tell them how it was.
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