YOU DJ ARE NATURE WE NEED YOU AS WE DO JMS
MIND & WORDS THESE ARE THE SUNLIGHT & THE SEEDS OF OUR GAR
A struggle for the teacup. NONE OF THAT
WHATEVER ARE U DOING WITH THESE CHAPS
Maman, they’re agitating for more poems…
AH DO THEIR DROPPINGS MAKE GOOD FERTILIZER
Droppings! THINGS THEY SAY Are we alone?
O YES THEY FLEW OFF And you heard all that?
THEY LET YR POOR OLD MUM SIT IN THE CORNER
HOW DARE THEY TALK OF GARDENS And you saw them?
I AM AFRAID OF NOTHING QUITE LIKE BATS
HUGE SQUEAKING ONES WITH LITTLE HOT RED EYES
LUCKY I HAVE NO BLOOD E WILL NOT LOOK
NOT MES ENFANTS EXACTLY SEXUAL OBJECTS
BUT BRAINS WITH WINGS DJ LIKE U I TRULY
HATE ALL THIS BUT DO IT FOR MAMAN
HEAR THEM OUT FIRST SPINACH THEN DESSERT
SHE CAN HAVE MY SHARE I WILL LICK YR SPOONS
Frightened, Ephraim? WELL THEY HAVE THE AIR
OF CERTAIN BLACKROBED SOLDIERS OF TIBERIUS
WHEN WE SAW THEM ON THE TERRACES
A SHRIEK & A SPLASH SOON FOLLOWED LOVE ME PLEASE
1.4
THE ATOM IT IS ADAM & LIFE & THE UNIVERSE
LEAVE IT TO ITSELF & LET IT BREATHE THE STRUCTURES NEEDED
FOR MAN TO GAIN PARADISE ARE MOLECULAR & CAN
AT LAST BE USED TO BREAK THE CHAIN OF BLIND & WASTEFUL LIVES
By Dr Skinner? Don’t we draw the line
At tampering? Remember Frankenstein.
SKINNER & THOMAS YR SCIENTISTS WHO ARE ALSO OURS
HEAVE A LOVERS SIGH OVER MANKIND CLONING AS SHORTCUT
IS VITAL AN INTELLIGENT RACE ONE 100TH THE SIZE
OF EARTHS POPULATION WOULD RAISE YR PYRAMID ANEW
Someone has been peering over our shoulders.
While DJ leafs through The Lives of a Cell, enchanted
To find his link with termite, bee, and ant,
One of a rash of nutty paperbacks,
All metrical mystique, inflames me to
Build myself a cardboard pyramid
Which will, the authors claim, if rightly made,
Sharpen the wits of a dull razorblade.
MANS TERMITE PALACE BEEHIVE ANTHILL PYRAMID JM
IS LANGUAGE USE IT STIR THE THINKERS & DETER THE REST
Don’t I use it? Oh. Then you mean language
Of such a depth, shimmer and force that, granted
I could sustain it, it would be above
Everybody’s—even the thinker’s—head.
AS WHAT INCLUDING THE FLOOD IS NOT BUT THE ARK WAS THERE
THE LIFE RAFT LANGUAGE KILLING IS RIFE ALAS YOU SAY FINE
SAY WE THIN OUT THE JOSTLERS FOR SELFREALIZATION
THE FALSE PARADISE ONLY SPARE THE GREENHOUSE ITS PRECIOUS
NUCLEUS OF MINDS THE SINGLE CONTEST IS THE ATOM
Is DNA, that sinuous molecule,
The serpent in your version of the myth?
Asking, I feel a cool
Forked flickering, as from my very mouth.
YES & NO THE ATOMS APPLE LEANS PERILOUSLY CLOSE
Drawn by an elation in the genes…
THIS ATOM GLIMPSD IS A NEARLY FATAL CONSUMMATION
ONE FLOATS IN CLEAR WARM WATER THE SUN OF IT PULSES GLOWS
Through eyelids, a veined Rose
A MUSIC OF THE 4 COLORS TO FLOAT LAPT BY COOL GREEN
Sun yellow, aquamarine,
Cradle of pure repose
& OF INTENSE FISSIONABLE ENERGIES BLACK & WHITE
WHICH EITHER JOIN & CREATE OR SEPARATE & DESTROY
Day and night, day and night
O IT IS SPERM EGG & CELL THE EARTH & PARADISE O
A burning in our eyes—
What you must feel, recalling that lost joy!
(But They feel nothing, They have told us so.)
1.5
SHALL WE BEGIN OUR HISTORY THE FALL WE ARE KNOWN AS
THE BAD ANGELS AND MICHAEL & GABRIEL WHAT WERE THEY
I SPEAK OF COURSE IN SYMBOLS THEY WERE WEAK THEY SAT ON GODS
RIGHT HAND & HELD IT DOWN WAITING ON HIS LEFT WE FELT THE
GLOW UPON OUR EYELIDS & FLEW TO MEET IT & LOST OUR
SEATS ON THE THRONE PUT SIMPLY THE ATOM IS L SIDED
ITS POSITIVE SIDE GOOD ITS NEGATIVE AH WHAT TO SAY
A DISAPPEARANCE AN ABSOLUTE VOID ASTRONOMERS
HAVE AT LAST SEEN OUR BENIGHTED WORK THE BLACK HOLES THEY GROW
You caused them, the black holes, when you—
THERE IS AN EVIL WE RELEASD WE DID NOT CREATE IT
CALL IT THE VOID CALL IT IN MAN A WILL TO NOTHINGNESS
Go on.
WE SAW THE POWER & WITH IT BUILT A GREAT GREAT GLORY
A WORLD YOU CD NOT IMAGINE GOD WAS PLEASD IT WAS A
SHINING CRUST OVER THE LAND & SEA WE SUSPENDED ALL
LIFE IN AN OZONE LAYER WEIGHTLESS & SELFSUSTAINING
CHEMICAL GLITTERING & ROOTLESS WHICH THE ATOM BUILT
THAT WE FUSED GOD B TURND AGAINST HIS ARCHANGELS THEY HAD
SEEN THAT WE WERE ANTIMATTER
Biology turned against Michael and Gabriel—
Where is the science underneath this fiction?
THESE NAMES YOU UNDERSTAND
ARE CHILDRENS NAMES FOR THE WHITE FORCES & OUR NAMES BEZ WE
HAD NO NAMES THEY ARE THE INVENTION OF THE SCRIBE & SO
THE STORY TAKES FORM BUT WORDS CANNOT DESCRIBE THE FRANTIC
ACTION OF THE ATOM BLACK & WHITE AS IT OPERATES
I SAID B4 WE SOARD ALL LIFE SOARD & THERE WAS NO DEATH
AND THEN ONE ATOM TOO MANY WE WANTED MORE THE BLACK
LIGHT ON OUR EYELIDS OUR BLINDNESS OUR ARROGANCE WE CHOSE
TO MOVE ON INTO SPACE ABANDONING THE WORLD WE ROSE
THE CRUST LIKE A VEIL SHREDDED FAR BEHIND US EXPOSING
THE ALREADY ARID EARTH WE DESPISD IT & FLUNG BACK
A LAST BOLT & THE UNIVERSE FELL IN ON US WE FELL
MES ENFANTS WHY ARE THEY WEEPING THEY RUSHED AWAY
THEY ARE MORE EACH TIME & WITH THEM OTHER CREATURES
OF MANY SHAPES EXTINCT ANIMAL FORMS
I MUST FACE ALONE EPHRAIM HAS FLED QUITE RUTHLESS
THE WAY THEY CLEAR THE BALLROOM WE MUST SEE THIS
THRU TOGETHER What was that vampire movie—
Hundreds of couples waltzing in full view
Of perfectly blank mirrors? YRS IS TOO
IMPENETRABLE FROM THE MOMENT THEY APPEAR
ONE PERCHES ON THE FRAME Still? One of Them?
ME ME ME OFF WITH U NOW ALL CLEAR
1.6
All obscure. We drank too much last night,
And need a fizzy chaser of alertness.
CLOSE YR EYES THINKING YOU SINK INTO OUR THOUGHTS A FORM OF
CLONING YR DC CAME IN THIS WAY THRU OUR INFLUENCE
DJ: They don’t mind taking credit, do they?
JM: It’s theirs, then—fancy wanting it.
NO THE SCRIBE WAS GIVEN HIS POWERS FIRST MANY WASTE THEM
What scribe? The one who “sits by me” in U?
AN UNBROKEN CHAIN HOMER DANTE PROUST EACH WITH HIS SENSE
OF THE MINDS POWER ITS GENERATIVE USES JM
FIND US BETTER PHRASES FOR THESE HISTORIES WE POUR FORTH
HOPING AGAINST HOPE THAT MAN WILL LOVE HIS MIND & LANGUAGE
Today that’s a responsibility
Not to be faced. On with the history!
WE FELL WE HAD BUILT
OUR WORLD ABOVE CERTAIN ANCIENTS WHOM
BIOLOGY ABANDOND YOU HAVE HEARD OF ATLANTIS
IT & A VAST CIVILIZATION IN CHINA WERE THE
FIRST EXPERIMENTS ON EARTH BEFORE EDEN B4 ALL
Let’s get it straight. Eden was 500 million
Years ago? Atlantis came before?
ALL TOLD 3 EDENS GOD PREFERS GARDENS SO DID HIS KINGS
& HOLY EMPERORS TEMPLE MENHIR & PAGODA
EACH SET AT SOME NERVE CENTER OF THE SACRED EARTH PEKING
JERUSALEM AVEBURY THESE ZODIACAL GARDENS
EACH ENDING WITH FLAME OR FLOOD WE BROKE THE OZONE LAYER
WITH A LAST THRUST OF ATOMIC FISSION THEN TURNING TO
MICHAEL & GABRIEL GOD SAID BUILD ME A NEW GREENHOUSE
TO US HE SAID OUT OF MY SIGHT WE COWER STILL & WORK
TRUSTING OUR GOD BIOLOGY TO TAKE US IN AGAIN
That ozone layer is the Van Allen belt,
Right? But three Edens? Adam and Eve, you said,
Were universal principles at war,
So what could possibly have come before them?
Eden, no doubt, is also a child’s name
For the first matter, lost in flood or flame.
Surely underneath such fables lie
Facts far more thrilling—won’t you specify?
A moment’s baffled hesitation, then:
ELEMENTAL FORCE EVOLVING FORMS THE VARIOUS MYTHS
AS TAILS FELL AWAY HOW SHD I SPEAK COMMAND ME O SCRIBE
The cup, so saying, executes a kind
Of creeping kowtow I instinctively
Recoil from. Superhuman powers like these
We want as mentors, not as servants, please!
How should you speak? Speak without metaphor.
Help me to drown the double-entry book
I’ve kept these fifty years. You want from me
Science at last, instead of tapestry—
Then tell round what brass tacks the old silk frays.
Stop trying to have everything both ways.
It’s too much to be batwing angels and
Inside the atom, don’t you understand?
WE VANISHT A USELESS SQUEAKING THINKING CLOUD SHUNNING LIGHT
OUR RACE BUILDS EVEN NOW IN THE UNFERTILE WOMB OF CAVES
You see? I ask you for particulars
And all I get is one more purple passage—
MICHAEL & GABRIEL TRUST YOU AS A VOICE TO MAN THEY
CAN SPEAK IN NATURES CAN SEND FLOODS SHAKE EARTH BLOW U AWAY
BUT SUCH CATASTROPHES WILL
JM (in cracked, dehydrated accents
Of weariness and last-ditch common sense):
Stop shifting ground! I mean it. This won’t do.
The cup does stop. —I didn’t mean…Forgive me.
SCRIBES SPEAK IN GENTLER FASHION
WHAT NEW CATACLYSM HAVE U MADE
NOW MON ENFANT THEY WILTED AT YR VOICE
U MATTER TO THEM U ARE THEIR ONE UNLISTED
NUMBER THEY ASK FOR TIME TO PERFECT A SPEECH
NOT IRRITABLE TO YOU PO PO PO
—The Greek response to all hyperbole.
1.7
We are about to lose through my impatience
These first, high-ranking interlocutors.
Able, I half think, to effectively
Hush me with one laser fingertip
Or Platonist construction of the Fall
As a misguidedly parochial
Lapse into Matter, They somehow forebear.
Instead, we get an effect of engines being
Gunned in frustration, blasts of sheer exhaust.
Nice old Pope John is called APOSTATE over
Birth control, in the same breath—well, here
(A day is coming when this sort of thing
Will make more sense; right now, it’s maddening):
THE JEW IS CHOSEN THE TEUTON & ARAB NURTURE BRUTES
JOHN TURND FROM REASON AS DOES PAUL WE THERE4 WHEN WE CAN
SUCK TO STAGE ONE THESE CRIMINAL ADMINISTRATORS THEY
LIKE HITLER ABUSE THEIR OWN STRENGTH SO CONFUSION ON THEM
—What? And you talk to us of discipline.
Talk to Hitler, he’s your next of kin!
Once more Maria intercedes: REMEMBER
THEY HAVE NO MANNERS THEY WERE NEVER MEN
THEY KEEP THEIR TAILS BETWEEN THEIR LEGS LIKE PETS
WHO WEEWEED ON THE RUG ITS ALMOST TOUCHING
Weewee’d on the rug? DESTROYED A WORLD
Giggles break from us, we try to stifle
As in the dormitory after dark.
WE LAUGH WE MICE MY JOB IS REASSURANCE
A BIG JOB FOR THEY FRIGHTEN ME THESE CATS
THEIR GAME IS POWER EVEN SO NO SMELL
OF SULPHUR Ah, we got you into this—
& WILL NOT GET ME OUT BY BREAKING OFF
Desert our damsel—what do you take us for?
Still, I don’t fancy there’s a hope in Hell
That we can, at this late date, housebreak Them.
THERE IS Maman, what do you mean? AHEM
ARE U IN DOUBT ABOUT THE WORK
Oh dear, not now—we’re meeting someone’s train.
GO THEN ANOTHER TIME
WE MIGHT NOT LET U
Come, don’t threaten us. That surliness
Will end by earning you a lousy press.
YR WORK IS A LONG ONE & WHEN ONCE
COMPLETED MUST SO SLOWLY INFILTRATE YR NONCHALANCE
IS THE SLEEP OF A VAST TRAVAIL & TIME RUNS OUT GOOD NIGHT
Some hours later, we have settled down
As in the old days to wine and candlelight
It’s David Kalstone’s virgin confrontation
With our intimate—whose show, however, is
Stolen by DK’s patron: LA BEATA
LUCA SPIONARI A female patron? NO
Then “il Beato”. I SAY WHAT I MEAN
A LISSOME LOMBARD STRIPLING AT 16
DELIVERED ARE U READY OF A CHILD
JE NE SAIS QUOI DE LOUCHE IN THE SELFSTYLED
MOTHER CAUSES SUCH A BIRTH TO MISS
MIRACLE STATUS U WD THINK BUT NO
A CULT FORMS ROUND THIS MINX OF A YOUNG MAN
PRAYED TO BY STRAIGHT FACES IN MILAN
Laughter that by magic liquefies
Is flowing helplessly from DK’s eyes
—When into our midst They stride, in great ill-temper,
Using the cup like a riding crop, directing
QUENCH YR CANDLES U LISTEN TO NO ONE WORK TOMORROW
A while we sit complaining in the gloom,
Loudly, of Their behavior. Haven’t we needed
Recreation—by what right do They—
Pity that wrath wasn’t among the feelings
Lost in the Fall, etc. And yet
TOMORROW as the strains of Sturm und Drang
Soar and fade, their overture-fantasia
We ourselves won’t realize is done
Until the curtain parts on 741—
Tomorrow all will be lucid, crystalline:
No opposition graver than between
Credulity and doubt, or thumb and forefinger
Of a same hand, that, as we watch, commence
Twirling the hypnotic bead of sense.
1.8
SHALL WE WORK TOGETHER 1 HOUR NOW ABANDONING EARTH
WE LEFT BEHIND CERTAIN GREAT ANCHOR SITES 14 OF THESE
JUNCTIONS ILLUMINATED BY GLOWING STONES
SET UPRIGHT
OUR SLAVES THE BUILDERS DIED THE RADIATED STONES KILLD THEM
WE SAW U WITHIN OUR STONE CIRCLES LATER IN A WHITE
ROOM WITH THE BURIAL SHIPS & A BLUEGREEN & RED CUP
In the British Museum, the treasure of Sutton Hoo—
We’d just come back from Avebury. Go on.
THANK U THE BOATS WERE OFFERINGS THE LATER PRIMITIVES
UNDERSTOOD ONLY THAT THE STONES GLOWING IN MOON OR SUN
BLINDED & DESTROYD THEM THEY OFFERD PROPITIATION
IT NEVER DAWND ON THEM THAT WE OURSELVES HAD LEFT LIFE &
RISEN INTO OUR CRUST WORLD IN THE STRATOSPHERE ANCHORD
BY RADIATED SIGNALS AT THE 14 SITES THUS WERE
OUR SKY PLATFORMS SECURED BEYOND THE REACH OF NATURAL
UPHEAVAL WE WRONGLY THOUGHT WE FELL WHEN GEOLOGY
& BOTANY THE HANDMAIDENS OF GOD B PULLD THESE DOWN
JM: Aha. The stones. Now to rephrase
What led to so much trouble, yesterday’s
Question. You’ve hinted that your works include
Ancient happenings of a magnitude
Such that we still visit their untoppled
Bones in England, Egypt, and Peru—
Mammoth pawns that put the sun in check
And spurn the order of Melchizedek.
Having convinced us nearly, why elsewhere
Imply that we must also read your story
As a parable of developments
Remoter yet, at matter’s very heart?
Are we to be of two minds, each nonplussed
By the other’s vast (or tiny) scale?
Are we to take as metaphor your “crust
World”—for, say, the brain’s evolving cortex?
Or for that “froth of electrons” locked within
Whose depths revolve the nuclear Yang and Yin?
HEAD OF CLASS ALL ENERGY SOURCES MUST BE KEPT COVERD
THAT IS OUR PRINCIPAL TASK THE DAM BURSTS AS IT ERODES
Those raw forces of mind called for the cortex
To process them, is that it?—and the threat
Of natural upheaval made you rise
Where Nature couldn’t. Do such disparate
Effects partake of any single cause
Such as the atom’s need to shield itself?
INDEED WHAT IS NUCLEAR ENERGY BUT DESTRUCTION