Poems by Zac Odin
28th
2009
Madness Lies Tethered
Madness lies tethered
The heart of darkness, neon flashing
Every city in one end of the century locus
Alamogordo’s sun’s children in party frocks
In fanny packs and sweat pants
This is Amerika…this is the West
Enclave of the future and Sodom/Gomorrah
Where nothing is real
Ground zero insanity
Its too late now to cease whatever has begun
This shifting beast of radiance and night
This time-slipped Rome
Bread and circuses
In the mountains to the north Nellis breeds another future
Mechanical legionaries
Eagle clutches the fasces and the lightning
From New Mexico’s sliding sands blasted black glass
To a strange attractor given form by western dreams
And Oh so much light
Is this our future?
Bourne on wings of chaos
Infinity stripped razor-thin
Mark of progression into what?
A stranger future was never written,
Closer to the dreams of the sons & daughters of the atom
than anyone could have known
a stranger world was never imagined
forests of redwood etched into Ektachrome
family car in pastel tints drives the Mother Road
America was made for Amerika
Vast Mississippi, Grand Canyon, plains & seas
Steamy swamps and acorus
Mushrooms, pecan trees, cotton fields
Golden wheat, lobster men, flying saucers
As the electrons accelerate
No one understands what we have created
Because it has all ceased to make sense
In terrifying, ecstatic, visionary madness
We dance in the twilight
Or could it be dawn?
…BREAK…
is one of the following true or are both?
1. Fires fueled by water
Flights fueled by plants
Sounds, words, visions sent by light
We do the impossible
We are not real
We are gods overwhelmed by our creations
Dawn breaking upon us
And we look away from the sunrise
Staring at the night that has passed
A night wracked by fever torments
Horror dreams lingering on into the morning
Obsessing over them
The sun behind us so bright
So we gaze into the retreating twilight
Turn, dear obsolete ones, turn and face the day
This dawn is not clear, it is stranger than the night
But that has passed
When it is midday will you still be looking back
Searching in vain for trailing lace clouds, for the moon?
Crush the dark like old paper
Thrown away
Drifting across bomb sites, blown among cacti, tumbleweeds
The fever has broken
…I see a backstreet in an industrial park
sunbaked pavement
the buildings are growing old
all that is new is old
the future is OLD
aging into commonplace things
everything’s so strange, so still
even as the light storm blazes all around
is there no end to this monolithic juggernaut?
Is there a Platonic form for Las Vegas?
For the atom bomb?
For Wal-Mart?
Its all ours now
We inherit the earth alone
This dark revelation is almost too much to bear
More terrifying than an apocalypse
Better to await the end, in revelry or prayer
Than to see the future stretching infinitely.
Bid farewell to the last avatar, to Miroku, to the Second Coming
Its all over now
Alone
With ourselves for the first time ever
With nicotine stains and silicone breasts
With eyebanks and homeless shelters
With satellites and the universe
2. not sunrise but a false light in the night sky
illumination cast by that city on storm clouds
rays reflected back upon this dark continent
still we dream, writhe in nightmares
in fever-soaked bedding we twist
this is no dawn
we were never alone
dreams leading us astray down neon-blinding strips
while the aurora blazes above
and sparks scatter off lost souls in the desert
scorned, mocked, reviled
it is as it always was
only now we pay for our bread and circuses
there is no platonic form for Las Vegas or the atom bomb
or Wal-Mart or the shopping cart
these are our own, as gods we have wrought them
for this we must bow in shame
for this we will be judged
Prometheus stole for us fire and we snuffed it out
Played with the charcoal, scratching pictures on cave walls
Tracing flickering shadows
RETURN FROM DIVERGENCE
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang
Nor even a whimper
So quiet it slipped away before we noticed
Its over now either way
But we’re still here.
**
*
Parade
promethean virus victim (number absent__3):
every thing’s ok. its a parade!
see the trucks. the shiny cars. the ambulances. wave. see the wooden guns. the happy clowns. smile because you think you should. but time is running out. it doesn’t matter if you smile at the mayor because the light is bending in a new way off his car’s newly polished bumper. shattering rays of light. it didn’t matter that he proudly caressed the chrome to that shine except for the fact that the light would eventually bend off it to you, wherever you may be seated. transfixed. and now you can see something else , can’t you? the little girl with eyes full of tears as a painted face leers near…her parents smiling emptily. the float drivers, drunk and unshaven. the Shriners’ lust shot gazes watching the high school band march ahead to the incompetent strains of ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ in tight black polyester pants cuffs coming undone, trailing on the road. and homemade nightmare automatons that wheel back and forth between flatbed trucks to children, parents smiling vapid smiles, teeth white in the spring sunshine. see? and see the rapeseed turning yellow in the fields behind. the same light now reflecting off candy skittering over pavement. blue sky. clouds of crows. you know what i mean.
still the parade grinds on, hopelessly. the animated figures flap uselessly, paint peeling, scraping on tarmac. an unknown baseball team waves half-heartedly. and now the queen, also waving. someone cheers or whistles or something. some men stare, eyes on her breasts. the sleepers are watching the sleepers in the early summer sun and instead you see the horse chestnuts beginning to flower in ascending waves above the road. then wander lost through crowds, music in small bursts, children shouting, unknown people on newly green grass.
**
*
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