Dummies We Are

                        -for Thomas Lux                    

and other such lessons taught
in the classroom, your Don not telling you why
Hart Crane died, but why
you must drown with him, language tied around
your ankles and wrists, for a moment
or for eternity, take your pick. Pick
the lock, you can't,
but you can carry a doorknob
into the next life.
Afterall,  you are a dummy (his fond address)
among graduating dummies, some who
never lose the title
because of Descartes‘ malin génie,
evil spirit immune from doubt
who would make him give assent
to the mathematical propositions,
(let's imagine, say, who is likely to die first)
which are in fact false
as the last words you wrote
to end a bad poem about water.
Because tsunami is not a wave
but an act of the God of middle earth,
a hot-headed being in charge of moles, worms and
root knots and ancient dust carried centuries on the back
of a hunchback wind. Or somebody's God
behaving badly, cleaning
the clocks, cleaning out the philosophical
garage, wiping the earth's floor
with a few hundred thousand souls, just so
the dummies can learn something
and the dumb can learn even more.
Yet, we are told
we are not stupid, just not ready,
brain in a vat, rat
behind the walls gnawing for his life
and you, you, standing in a torrential storm
somewhere you don't recognize,
at the side of a dark road, pen
in one hand, thumb on the other, waiting
for the intelligent answer.