Ship of State

by Jim McCurry

in barbecue smoke
making chin music--

madras warrior,
what do you think?

do you find yourself
elsewhere?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Last night in my astro recliner,
a lawyer highliting certain ossia
pons asinorum
portions of writ
to enlarge for a client
I saw the pieces were
altogether organic, ineluctable,
allegro interrelated, it made
no sense to choose. The selections
were arbitrary.

Awake, my shins
itched like fire. "Flip the
lap robe, imagine
one side is cotton."

I highlited "diabetes," "wool,"
"psychosomatic," clicked into
a sitting position, rose and strode
to the vial of starry BALM.

The shins are coolly relenting now,
but the ribs are stirring, murmuring REVOLT.

I hand my client several versions,
one contract highlited completely,
altogether senseless: altiplano, bionic
blockbuster, anode mud,
blind alley--another
printout tiny, illegible--
"See?"

He laughs, and in the gloss,
the glassy partition,
the crucible
offering
night like isinglas I see
my unborn twin, snake lock tresses,
holding her compact, applying
Cubicle Colour lip gloss--

to whose--to her--
my lips?--the booster
soundless, advancing the plan
to warp speed, open
dimension--

Who can predict,
think fast enough to
highlite "vatic,"
"reproduction,"
"twentyfour seven,"
"code blue"?

- - - - - - - - - - - -

alive, distanced
by jive,

surely, anywhere
in the world--

Do you cling to amnesia,
minor dissonance?

turning your salsa
to asp bite?

the EXIT sign
buzzing?

jim mc curry, b. 10-3-43 in hawthorne (los angeles) california,
has taught at carl sandburg college since 1980, in poetry & philosophy;
since recently going online, his links include Big City Lit, Cyber Oasis,
Drought, and Snow Monkey—ten poems in all, four of which now
appear at the websites of the first two zines just named.
His philosophical interests center on nonduality: especially maha ati,
dzogchen, or madhyamika. (David Loy's recent study, NONDUALITY,
is a convenient handle.) For example, "the man" includes Huang-po,
Yun-men, Dogen. The trouble with What Is Enlightenment is the
dubious assumption that we can think our way to enlightenment,
or that there is truly conscious evolution, 'progress,' rather than
recovery of primordial innocence/happiness. In this respect,
contrary to some of his best friends, actually, Jim is somewhat
skeptical of Andrew Cohen's work, and Ken Wilbur's—not to say
the work of Eckhart Tolle, let's say. The literary interests include
V. Woolf, B. Cendrars, Lydia Davis, Knut Hamsun, Carlos Drummond
de Andrade, Casares and Borges, Marquez, Neruda, William Carlos
Williams, Jack Collom. I think that's enough indication. O yes, Pessoa.
Jim has a granfalloon of masks, some of whom are becoming
heteronyms, mebbe: Baron Axel Angst, Ramadooly Foofoo, H. Pumphrey
Smogrove, and the most fully realized of all, Dogwag Bummerstead, PhD,
aka Old Dog.

email: jmccurry@csc.cc.il.us