The Sense of Wonder
Somewhere I do my job,
which is, amazingly, poetry,
but also sowing culture
across an empire.
Perhaps my true vehicle
is that in which I descend
to new Arts Centers,
where I read.
(The form of the craft changes
annually, like cars.)
Rotors tilt, we hover,
the noise is tremendous -
(and someday, when we achieve
the silence of antigrav,
that too will be a sign).
Our dust coats the Resident
who dutifully ignores it,
shaking my hand
before a local version
of *Johnson Embracing Ho*
(Lyndon as ever bearlike,
Disneyesque, ardent;
Ho somewhat wolfish - not
the usual fading wisp).
We stand, gazing at the sculpture;
then I shake hands
with many brown people
robed in a jumble
of their clothes and ours,
their medals and ours,
beneath our flag -
the white infinity-sign
on blue, the broad stripes
handsome in the wind
that lifts the wet heat.
Across the Center grounds
bamboo bends, and trees
sway over the streets
that climb, neon-lit,
past clinics and temples
toward hilltop malls.
That night, after the storm
and my adequate reading,
I roam, slightly drunk,
the Resident's park.
So gentle is the night,
so stable this province,
that I'm almost surprised
when the assassin springs.
Old man with big sword
is part of his problem -
another, his ornate
costume and scream;
worse are the skills
America teaches
even its poets -
I disable him with a kick.
"You tear the son from the father, make
the daughter rebellious,
bury truth beneath your mud" -
I'm not sure that's what he's yelling
but have heard the like before,
and have seen the sudden
age and horror
that eat his face
as, under a lamp,
the guards race up,
and I loosen my grip
on the shattered arm
and swing him to them
with an odd dance step.
John
A visionary cannot be
a fool. I was aware that everyone
stank. Had a confused notion
that even occasional bathing
would break the "precious unguents" cartel,
hurt the rich. Moreover, a visionary,
whether initiating or deconstructing
a dualism, must see things in terms of the body,
however constrained the sexuality
of his time. (And ours was constrained - you have
no idea. Metaphysical cruising.
"I'm waiting for someone." "Are you the one?")
Customers came. They felt (and smelled) better.
It was more therapy than ritual.
My patter was bullshit
but I looked into their eyes.
Any visionary worthy of the name
must, whatever he thinks he's doing,
reinvent art, and what turned me on was
a surprisingly sophisticated graphic
of my clients here and there in the land -
black dots among white dots, all
enlightened, gentled, vaguely renovated …
(all vision is that of an audience).
But I clung to the thought of That Special
Someone. To the myth of action,
the hero distinct from the artist.
When I saw that no one of the sort was coming,
that no enabled glance would meet mine,
I went nuts, pretended it had.
There were consequences.
If you're curious about Salomé,
von Stück's image - manic, liquid,
not entirely serious - comes closest to her,
and his view of my head on a platter
to me.
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