The Plantagenet on the table of the laws | with all his moxie and his flaws | dynamite of generations gone | bearded face that children smile upon | armed bodyguards around you every evening | the loaves and patterns weave and bring | combustion artificially to flame | the stars all terrified as if all stars the same | attract dark murder- ous obsession | when that is just potential that might lessen | as the fusion fuel starts to slip | the arbitrary speculative bubble of the hour drip | its ooze in gushes | igniting water in plasmic steam that rushes | all burns clean | mums mean | business | less | these days | than they used to, eh? | a man so angry did not | receive a return call when he got | the hospital on the line | they’d spelled his name wrong and by the time | they went to call him he had shot | the hospital all up in a white hot | rage | page | out of Charles Whitman’s book | that man who in the 1960’s took | to a tower in Texas and inaugurated | this flood of public violence which even now has not abated | though if you look in closer you might see | it really began with Kennedy | assassinated on display | while waving there in Dallas that fall day | the bitter Oswald in the sixth floor window | prepared to show | us all | his gall | from the school book depository | farcical end to an uplifting story | the way a sudden absence shines too bright | ignit- ing feelings, eradicating night | how all forget the edges where unclear | but real ambiguities work, at play there near | the skin, the surface mediating between will | and fate, between our freedom and the ways we still | submit unwittingly to processes we think we choose | a strong illusion, difficult to lose | becoming dependent on the world we build | that builds us too by means of highly skilled | and profitable super- and sub-structures spread | throughout our sight, words, long- ings, dead | or living, all must feel its grip | the pressure of the world makes all seams rip | bursts any preconception not arranged | in or- dered pre-set patterns that can’t be changed | the way misspellings tip your hand | for some, reveal you haven’t planned | for serious mess adequately | are not well-schooled in this propriety | while at the other end is emphasized | a freedom from authority that’s prized | above all else, a greatest virtue | and what is a confused outcast to do | the kind who in his love note to Madonna cannot | even spell her name correctly though he’s not | thought | of aught | else for weeks | compulsively he seeks | her out believes he marries her | from that point on continually harries her | until he finally is shot | while break- ing into her California home. She’s not | there when this happens but has by then already been | quite traumatized by notes he has sent in | said notes containing many crude mistakes | Madonna spelled Madnna, and the like, this takes | us right into his warped worldly conception | where all conventions fall to self-deception | delusion drawing patterns from thin air | perceiving things that simply are not there | could never be | based only loosely on reality | where come these violent bursts | these frothing lips, these thirsts | but somehow from within us where | dirt meets the bottom of the basement stair | the trapped dog digs up seeking how | to circumvent the circum- stance of now | though how’s a dog to know the house is girded round | some feet beneath the basement ground | with an impenetrable though thin | veneer of nanotubes that will let nothing in.

Originally published in White Wall Review 40 (2016)