Ode to Karl Marx
Old father of the horrible bride whose
wedding cake has finally collapsed, you
spoke the truth that doesn’t set us free -
it’s like a lever made of words no one’s
learnt to operate. So the machine it once
connected to just accelerates & each new
rap dance video’s a perfect image of this,
bodies going faster and faster, still dancing
on the spot. At the moment tho’ this set up
works for me, being paid to sit and write &
smoke, thumbing through Adorno like New Idea
on a cold working day in Ballarat, where
adult unemployment is 22% & all your grand
schemata of intricate cause and effect
work out like this: take a muscle car &
wire its accelerator to the floor, take out
the brakes, the gears the steering wheel
& let it rip. The dumbest tattooed hoon
— mortal diamond hanging round the Mall —
knows what happens next. It’s fun unless
you’re strapped inside the car. I’m not,
but the dummies they use for testing are.
Anti-Romantic
You meet your daemon &
respond with contempt
for all depth & poetry
driven by love and breath
self-conscious bitterness
is best, besides lust or a
detached disgust — as
long as there’s nothing
hysterical about it Art
& life both require this
but your attitude like
inspiration disappears,
leaves you ugly & stranded,
the moment you admire it
Satellite of Love
like unwound toys or the mind of a stone
verbs elude me. I’m willing to change tho’
— if you do too — into a spree or a better
more feeling computer. oh tent of dreams!
where is your tailored lightsail guiding us?
through what used to be the empyrean, but now
is just where satellites go, to stamp like
a giant foot, infotainment & game shows
into the brains beneath? death by stellar
allure or a lack of oxygen might follow,
unless this prayer can save me, the way
damaged glamour seeks out its opposite number
& we move together, draped in the planet’s
tingling aurora, thanks to our huge,
electric shoes.
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