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UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY
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MICHAEL SHORB
Tipping Point Days A planetary MS slows things down gums things up it starts out grey and indecisive reeling slowly in fog then it occurs to you: what if the president is crazy? what if the market tanks? what if a war breaks down? 9/11 a false flag torture a modality perversion the norm pollution's invisible advance a roiling juggernaut discarded plastic islands adrift in the sea a thousand lost pequods searching for their whale while the vast ice fields calve and shudder. These are the tipping point days. Nothing makes sense. Starvation and pollution and decay are the three reigning kings and there is no saviour, no manger, no light storming from friendly, wandering stars. Hearing Lennon's 'Imagine' on the Wrigley Beach North Of Mazatlan Mexico and I were changing places. In the timeless south I forgot Draft cards and social security numbers, In San Jose Del Pacifico on the mountainous Spine of Sierra Madre below Oaxaca I gorged on dark mushrooms packed In jars of honey relishing their cobalt blue Dots of pure psilocybin as I watched Sudden deep green valleys undulate Below drooling Olmec clouds heard The brujos whirling in oxygen- Driven rapids of my blood Drumming a green cascade Event horizon with no memory or name. Three days ago I rode the comic Pig and chicken laden local bus from Puerto Angel up to Pochutla's market square, Leaving behind only a rented cot Straw room beachfront hotel on a Blue inlet bay, only pesos spent on Carta Blanca and ceviche, fresh red snapper Lanced from early morning waters, Lobsters wrapped in giant leaves, juevos Con salsa, small bunches of thumb-shaped Red bananas and the shrill, brain-icing pot Grown in the back hills by the younger fishermen. Then coastward hitched a ride on a PRI Road repair truck loaded with expressionless Workers and drums of bubbling asphalt. Walked miles alone on alien road to Escondido Beach, stopping once to Splash naked in a small sparkling stream Beneath a bridge. A long ride from two goldmine Dreamers from Idaho with antlers tied To the front of their old panel truck Took me through Acapulco, along wetland shallows Thick with flocks of reddish flamingos Rising like mist, through Guadalajara and Up jungled coast land plain to Mazatlan, where vultures Sat on the curving light poles, to the squatter's beach Just south of the curving bluff and coconut Grove on the ocean side of the old Wrigley Mansion. A palace built by the oral fixation Of millions seemed, after a few cigar-sized Joints rolled in strips of newspaper and an eye- Splitting sunset, to be the last refuge in a world Consumed by progress and war. First morning A group of us, two women from Toronto, A marine hitching north with his wife, Two former tank drivers from Danang heading Home to somewhere east of Fairbanks All naked, stoned in the water, slapping laughter And traces of color from the surging froth. Walking up the beach to gather coconuts To mix tequila in I heard your song, Lennon, piped from a radio porch of utter clarity. As though I had never heard a song before I stood there, following the dreaming flow. If we could only stop here, stone in water Laughing, everything stretching green Me not returning broke to the states, You not stretched out in awkward blood outside Your New York street hotel, no devil of envy Shrieking, drugging gone bad in parody Half Capone half pathogenic Peter Pan, The measures lacking love, bad signs, Lines drawn across the heart. Michael Shorb has lived in California most of his life. His work reflects an abiding interest in myth, history, and the lyrical form, as well as a satirical focus on present day trends and events. His poems have appeared in over 150 magazines and anthologies, including The Nation, The Sun, Michigan Quarterly Review, Kansas Quarterly, Rain City Review, Shakespeare Newsletter, Commonweal, Religious Humanism, Shoofly, Beatitude, European Judaism, THE DOLPHIN'S ARC (anthology), BELL RINGING IN AN EMPTY SKY (anthology), TO BE A MAN (anthology) and NAMES IN A JAR: 100 AMERICAN POETS (anthology). |
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© 2008 Underground Voices |
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