only one story—no
only this means survival—no
(Ken called and said, “the bad part about survival is that it has to come to an end”)
my health chest blossoms
with Dr. Manifold’s
chemical wisdom
every one a voice and many, many
bold moves for
childish minds
the radical spirits have
their own ways and
I have mine
ink is my own home
ink is my own soul
ink in the eggs and
ink in the morning
butter and the wet
paper from the rainy street
an hour under that tree
and you will read the palms of Eternity
searchers out of the
hat out of statement
and the stele pierc’d through with younger intentions
at the stage the light
of immanence a sudden
fortune that resolves
like smoke on rivers of simile
angustus arboris vitae
the sudden shock
of all hidden implications
pulled open in one
two-dimensional map
and no one can read it,
let alone fold it
Duchamp, where is thy compass?
Borges, thy harpoon?
after trust goes the ink runs dry
and Sophia says
there goes the watchman
and the sacerdos there
goes Yankee Doodle and the new follower
of Aleister Crowley
the center does not hold
unless you have faith in its folds
mythopoesis—who you looking at?
you’re an American you dope you make up your own myths with them up
after the last turkey’s been bagged at the hunt—
no one can put a finger on
your belief system,
the struggle with the
bends in the Tree of Life
and what are Wyndham Lewis
and Joseph Campbell doing
here, out of the graveyard and kicking rocks
in search of Joyce, in all this fog? who reads
this cloying bullshit anymore?
an you grow like a rhizome,
the gnomic dictates of your
philosophy die stillborn
at the last truckstop before Boron, CA
