UNDERGROUND VOICES MAGAZINE/S.A. GRIFFIN


	UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY - 02/2004

S.A. GRIFFIN

James Dickey Was Never A Pickled Half-Sheep Preserved In A Jar

nor was I ever a lazy river
a blind dog
rape or rage
but have felt the narcotic bite
burned in the long crooked shadows
and walked the fickle water
of

I was never a war :
here
there or
anywhere

never walked on four legs
but have crawled
and stood bent to change
in unwrinkled time

I was never a flower naked beneath the sun
or a universe expanding :
never was woman
but have tasted womb
and been liberated
petal by petal
at birth
before the truth
yet
I/we

have been all things
short and tall
sooner or later

I have been saved
been savior
and mad prophet in the blind dumb forest of pop
shouting that Christ the bomb
has yet to come

all things in my left mind
rightfully so

and everything really does depend upon that
eager red wheelbarrow
emperors of ice cream
a lonely road in a yellow wood
and castles in the air
reality sandwiches
dressed with millennial mustard
bop hallelujahs
and jazz moonbeams
that shatter the dark
consonants upon vowels
in particle colliders
with a wink
and a nod towards
that half full horizon

2 lovers held in a nuclear freeze
as the world
rushes by
wrapped in verse

There Is

and still the sun screams down
upon this fleetingly sane and wicked monument to mortality
the machine guns of eternity grind out the days
the nights
fate hammers
down its final verdict
upon humanity somewhere as something breathes itself into extinction
the humanity we often never had
and many never will
but still believe in
that there is still
time enough for whatever it is
you have yet to accomplish on your
list of things left to do
that more than likely
will never get done
and only remember
that you are not alone
never were
never will be
no matter who or what you think you are
that within the darkest chambers of the heart
there is the possibility of light
that within the biggest tightest asshole
that leaves the biggest foulest footprint upon the blue blue morning of the
globe
there exists something so small and physically imperceptible inside that
asshole
with the ability to send that rage tumbling
back into the earth
something renewable
something still with the ability to
unravel government plots
stifle corporate will
unexplain the gods
and cause joy inside this tortured
world of war all the time
there is a flower that can't be stopped
there is laughter that must be heard
there is someone's love song with your eyes inside of it looking out
there is another moment left before the last
before the next
there is still time for love if you so desire
even if you don't
there is
regardless of what you think or feel or don't
there is

S.A. Griffin is the author of Unborn Again (Phony Lid), A One Legged Man Standing Casually On Hollywood Blvd. Smoking A Cigarette (1989, Shelf Life Press), Heaven Is One Long Naked Dance (1993, Rose of Sharon Press), Twisted Cadillac: A Spoken Word Odyssey (with The Carma Bums, 1996, Sacred Beverage Press) and Co-Editor of The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (1999, Thunder’s Mouth Press).