Cordelia:    Alack, 'tis he: why, he was met even now
    As mad as the vex'd sea; singing aloud;
    Crown'd with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds,
    With bur-docks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
    Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
    In our sustaining corn. A century send forth;
    Search every acre in the high-grown field,
    And bring him to our eye.  What can man's wisdom
    In the restoring his bereaved sense?
    He that helps him take all my outward worth.

Doctor:          There is means, madam:
    Our foster-nurse of nature is repose,
    The which he lacks; that to provoke in him,
    Are many simples operative, whose power
    Will close the eye of anguish.

Cordelia:        All blest secrets,
    All you unpublish'd virtues of the earth,
    Spring with my tears! be aidant and remediate
    In the good man's distress! Seek, seek for him;
    Lest his ungovern'd rage dissolve the life
    That wants the means to lead it.

  -- King Lear, Act IV, scene IV


Rings around the world
become ringing in your ears.
One look in the mirror shows you
the rings circling your eyes.
Bulls lock horns in your a-
posteriori assumptions recursively sneering
stumped cauterized frustrations,
sublimations, nation-states coursing
through your seething blue-sparked madness
circumscribed by opposable grasp
of what is really nothing.  Sharp
sting of the alkaline burr.  That
taste.  It is nothing.  All thumbs you
grasp the phone, grab those horns,
steering, gravitating with finite state
machinations down the halls
of circuits leering. But you don't
do it discreetly.  We cheer
you on.  Thumbs up. Calling for help.

This is not the sound of a phone ringing.

Fight fight fight, keep on keeping on.
You be one with you, let you be you,
time now for your studio audience,
their backs form your stage, your
vessel of rage.  You is jackboot and you
is simply not.  You is me, I'll be your mirror,
the construction of hatred in stark light,
of anger in sunshine charades.  Hand puppets
leave their permanent marks abstractly,
hands down a fourth grader's pants.
We call this branding.  We are we,
yes, patently trivial, solid, liquid,
and gaseous.  Which one?  Such a concept requires
loving a body, such a fastening needs
a hammer for hanging, walls for spackling,
and nails for smashing.  We have pillows,
fascinating conversation, pills,
and involuntary shelter safe from moonlight.
Feel free to stay here while you recover.

This is not the sound of the heavens singing.

Yes it is an abstraction clutching your throat. 
But it is about you at least.  Shaking free makes it
tighter, you see the purple of fading stars
suffocating neurons and they're exploding and that
ringing.  This is not sense, none of it.
Sense is not generative, that is to say,
it does not make itself, sense does not make
sense.  You will have to see it to,
ah, forget it. Sense has no reason.  It's the only way
to go.  You just have to.  Go.  Your goodness
and your generosity is the coin flip
of calamity.  So tell everyone you are happy.
You've played the shaved poodle before.

This is not the sound of a phone ringing.

Don't ask a poet who you are. The more evasive
the answer the more pervasive the blather.
Don't ask a poem what it is, your evaluation
is a reflection of what you are, or rather,
you will only see the rearrangement of all the versions
you have forged on the subject of who you want to be.

This is not the sound of the heavens singing.
This is not the sound of a phone ringing.

So tell me you love me.  I love you.  Hi there!
Projective voice like a hand on your thigh, or
is it like a fist wearing rings cast up your anus?
Now that we've established such an intimate connection,
please tell me, won't you dear, oh iron in fire,
why is love so like nature, such an obscenity,
such ephemeral cruelty, crossed circuitry
of freedom and captivity?  Brutality is hatred and love
circled by oscillations of attention.  Attenuated muck.
Hit me when you fuck me.  Love me and tell me
I'm dirt.  Strike me down and lift me up.  Punch me.
Break off my rib.  Dinner and a movie. Thanks God
for the lovely date, this dumpster and a snuff flick.

This is not the sound of the heavens singing.

The struggle for living, the endless orbit
with a finite distance, is an affront to itself,
like any orifice.  Orbicularis, temporalis,
I see you is ICU, iris, pupil, and canthus,
There's very little this eye likes to miss.

This is not the sound of a phone ringing.

Horrendous guilt.  Make the sign of the cross,
the mark of permanent exclusion
merely rotated and bloodied.
The battle zone landscape of your
spontaneity.  When face-down
in the mud we tend to lack
alacrity.

This is not the sound of the heavens singing.
This is not the sound of a phone ringing.

Burial mound and stinging salt in my eye
as ungoverned madness of a vexed swirling sea, as
the minutest annoyance like the bite of a flea,
as whole kingdoms collapsed in the gaze of a fly.

This is not the sound of a phone ringing.
This is not the sound of the heavens singing.

Telephone ringing, the party's over,
last line digested in flatulent sleeping,
water pipe leaking, scratchy song rehashed:

    ashes to ashes, fun to deadly,
    we know you're singing one fucked-up medley
 
I have to say goodbye now, I'm heeding the calling,
the message on your machine, red light flashing,
the one you might not hear but is always waiting.

You know the one.  It's the only

you have been disconnected

01B

 

© Patrick Herron
(from A Chide's Alphabet, issue 3.)