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I
There is a tiredness that fills this majestic room
A vapid void vacuous exhaustion heavily saturated with rat-infested dread
It seeps in through the porous star-spangled surface of the water-proof/air-tight plastic
Of our collective unconscious fire-walled/anti-virus protected lives
Like a beacon shining out with freedom to the sea
Give us your tired and your poor huddled masses
We shall build our own myths, find our own manifest destiny
And look to the sky and see the house that pussy built
And watch the parade of freaks on Santa Monica boulevard
Protected by the Constitution in and out of the bedroom
Till the stars on Hollywood boulevard lose their shine
And the cherry trees of Washington’s myth wilt for lack of a gardener.
II
What gravity has befallen me that the rubber soles of my feet and hands
Automaton like, press with Cubist expressionistic certainty
On an earthly crucible where only the dead get a second chance
With organ donation to pathetically ill underprivileged Guatemalan infants
Or to the Science of diabetes and Alzheimer’s research
And pushing down on the common drudge a frightening Ragnarok
And a witch’s coven of unremorseful deconstruction
Of all the dead white males of our tired antiquity writ in print
Someone sang Dixie, unfurled Saint Andrew’s Cross
And the majestic room full of upstart carpetbaggers outnumbering Men, objected
To being reminded that they did not fight on either side of the Underground Railroad.
III
We the Living –
Who choose not to rot in the majestic rooms like spoiled rich adult children
Who at the Fountainhead of our strength stand atop the skyscrapers
Of human individual innovative impossible imagination
Having slave harnessed and exploited the glorious grand collective
Of autistic mobocratic neo-socialist lumpen-proletariat labor pool of Yetisyn
Sing a tired Anthem to the future and the promise of the O.C. Bible
And its worm-infested infinite atmospheres on infinite earths
To boldly go where no man has gone before, to conquer fear
With a litany as passionate as the Leaves of Grass, in the name of Men
Who conquer all things, who leave no stone unturned
Who leap tall buildings at a single bound, faster than a speeding locomotive
Strange visitors to other planets, mild-mannered freedom-fighters on a never ending quest
For life, liberty, justice, and these truths that we hold to be self evident
While watching dispassionately detachedly dismissingly our own Atlas Shrugged.
IV
We sink in the quagmire of apocalyptic media and preternatural new-age fads
Like sister ships to the Amistad, and Elis Island-bound fourth class passengers
And Pearl Harbor lined up like ducks cannon fodder for the Japs
And fall to the new Amsterdam soil like so many dust particles on September 11
And clutching, I at straws of my own visions and revelations, effect a precarious balance
A Fiddler on the Roof in the world of Neuromancer and Eyes Wide Shut
And the earth spins, and the heart in a vice caught, thumps an irregular rhythm
A hodge-podge melting-pot tone to the music of an out of breath Yankee Doodle Dandy flute
Mahogany furniture of the majestic room with dark bloodstains—
Beneath the drooping with whiskey eyelids of battle-painted Baseball players
In frenzied genocided Indian Ghost Dance I pray to the Raven and the Wolf
For guidance and for the Passion and cross myself thrice
In the name of the Father, the Son, the Great Ghost, and the Virgin Mary Mother of God
And her Guadalupe and Czestochowa Black Madonna icons,
So help me Pope John Paul II and all you dead conquistadors too. Amen.
the house that pussy built ?
the rubber soles of my feet and hands?
expressionistic certainty?
I can’t, for the life of me, even begin to understand this!
Undoubtedly due to my limited mental capacities…, cheers.
D.
Some references and allusions are more obvious than others Delilah, and the ones you ask about are a bit more hidden.
“the house that pussy built” is a reference to the Larry Flynt Building in Beverly Hills and thus to the relationship between pornography, exhibitionism and capitalism
“Cubist expressionistic certainty” is reference to the origin of the Expressionist moment in art with Picasso, and thus that one way to look at it is that the multi-faceted view point of the Cubists is somehow related to ‘certainty’ and confidence in modernism – we see every point of view (as in Cubism) yet we are confident only our point of view is the right one. This too has a bit to do with exhibitionism for its own sake.
“the rubber soles of my feet and hands” is related to the above in that we have been reduced to a machine like existence where “rubber soles” of the shoes we wear, are similar to the rubber covering of the mouse pad that we press our hands on, so as to “Automaton like” be squashed – “what gravity has befallen me.” This is more a capitalist critique since it is followed by “On an earthly crucible where only the dead get a second chance,” they get a second chance because their organs are still useful even if they are no longer good workers by having had the temerity to have died.
Dear Konrad,
I really appreciate the time and effort you put into answering my questions. Reading them back today, they can be interpreted in a not-so-sympathetic manner.
It shows real personality to enlighten me the way you did. Thank you, and I haste to add that you made your point(s) in a fabulous way!
D.
Dear Delilah,
Thanks for asking. One of the threads that I wished to convey is that everyone is very confident about being right, the Japanese pilots at Pearl Harbor and the Spanish Conquistadors and everyone in between. Larry Flynt is actually the best example of it since he was right and wrong at the same time while being wrong and right as well and then he had the Supreme Court agree with him just in case we weren’t sure of what he was wrong or right about. I think the American Indians who who were “genocided” might have say on the matter of who is right and who is wrong but since they are dead we can’t ask them. History is full of such situations, I hesitate to call them tragedies or ironies because that would assume that I too am either right or wrong. You can see why I wrote a poem instead.