Sabotage
Captain Nemo the SciFi Stirnerite
lurks beneath our waves of text like
a semantic barracuda. If God
won’t be dead till we kill grammar
as Nietzsche said then Chomsky must be
at least the Pope (Papa not dada)–
scarcely the “brainless luddism” to which
we all aspire. Scorpions ate our
subtext–you can see light thru the
wormholes in our subversive submarine–
das Boot ist der Book & we’re not
coming up for air while we can still swim
amidst alternative readings like guerillas
lost in the maquis of misinterpretation.
Old Mole Undermines the Lawn of Rhetoric
adjusts his Vincent Price style granny shades
grins at Water Rat his Leonardo
or roommate as we used to say in the
1950s: The problem with L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E
dear Ratty he confides myopically is
(and Old Mole is master of “is”)
when you’ve red one you’ve red ’em all.
Muskrat we call them in America
swooning at their naked tails their
overdose of phermones. Sweet skunk.
When Atlantis rises in 2012 you’ll
see the labyrinth of our affections
writ large upon earth like pages
tatoo’d on the backs of gazelles.
Alphabet Soup
Tolstoy worried does the world need
my so-called masterpieces or would
borshch be more appropriate? Rumi
called his own poetry tripe: unpleasant to prepare
but a nice stew for honored guests.
The message as in fairy tales a
dollop of sour cream or dash of
brandy in the gravy: not really
nutritious per se but savoring of
subtextural subversion. The conquest of bread
means dunking it–soaking up
emanations with it–sodden with
revolutionary futurity but still
most definitely, dear Alice, “Jam Today.”
Luddite Steganography
De Nerval demanded we seize back the
secret of the hieroglyphs from those
sinister Illuminati who subvert
every text with their fetishism for
alienated significances–& therefore
ended up hung with the girdle of Cleopatra
by Freemasonic thugs from a gaslamp.
During the Paris Commune hot air balloons
escaped the Siege over Prussian lines
with messages for the outside world
& carrier pigeons ported coded notes
back to the City in the first-ever use
of micro-daguerrotype. The initial step
would be total destruction of the Internet.
Anarchy Comix
Popeye was a Populist–a one-man
maritime IWW–the Billy Budd of
proletarian subconsciousness–POW
& screw the ideology. I yam
what I yam & thass all I yam
or as Nietzsche said Become more
like yourself–eat cher spinach.
Drink your Tiger Tea like Krazy Kat
a potent strain of nip that turns
timid Kat into Kop bashing hero
or heroine depending on your p.o.v.
Shirk work with Major Hoople
& escape the trivial quotidianity of Kapital with Little Nemo.
The Mexican Ambassador Drunk in Dublin
Give me rain & I’ll churn out visionary
politics that would pass for radical
in 1911 as Don Juan told Casteneda
rain that opens (veil upon veil) into the Nagual
a Mexico of colonial baroccocco & Magonismo
chocolate & mushrooms a la Leonora Carrington
or B. Travern or Antonin Artaud
an Ireland where Beuys Scouts
camp at Tuatha De Danaan mounds
in soft weather–pre-Celtic Atlantis
damp in the way pearls are damp
Jim Larkin the Limerick Soviet Douanier Rousseau jungle scenes: anarcho-supernaturalism
an anti-ideology for rainy minds.
Phalanstery (for Chapman, Kansas)
L. Frank Baum was a Swedenborgian
what’s the matter with Kansas
why can’t we have a Swedenborgian Militia
something to fend off FEMA & the
National Guard next time a tornado
flattens grain elevators like Tarot trump cards
in what we like to call Prairie Restoration with a vengeance. This could be our
next bohemia–a landscape too
boring for redevelopment–antithesis
of all highway tourist hells or
utopian traces of commodity. OZ
is Blake for infants. Perhaps
disaster will be our new revolution.
— Peter Lamborn Wilson
July-August ’08