The Esoterica

Am I the only one who sees a naked king?
Who faces execution for awakening?
Sing, sweet muse, Medusa, Bright Eyes and Serpent Locks!
Petrify the tongues in heads already filled with rocks.
Or calcify their pen-tips, their keyboards turn to stone
Silence the most pestilent creature ever known.

All citizens of nature know where their talents lie;
For this very reason no bear attempts to fly.
No dog in search of food by instinct ventures near
Any college campus where kids are drinking beer.
From elephants to mites in cheese, each understands,
And thus feels content not to nose in foreign lands.

All except for one, each animal knows its place,
All except for one, but the haughty rhyming race.
From bad to worse and worse their twisted verses fall
In some mighty contest to reach the worst of all,
With each and every scribble hastening the day
The Right Wing Wackos come and kill the NEA.

Four flippant fools shout, “AAAAAA,” and utter pointless noise,
Then stand around grinning like unpunished schoolboys. 
Some tasteless description which all the hacks repeat,
Dies yet another death in some coffee house conceit.
Opium-eating beatniks set us out to graze,
And torture poor sex and death twenty thousand ways:

Lo, the refrigerators! Throne
Of the dog tags
That whisper in our wombs,
While Macintoshes buzz
With the circuitry of our tombs,
And secretaries long for their
Dildoes made of bone.

Am I not fed up feeding on esoteric crap,
That makes me’d rather masturbate and have a nice nap?
Are you a bookful blockhead, ignorantly read
With loads of learned lumber clanking your head?
Are we English majors proudly branded thus with these,
Condemned to bussing tables at some Chuck E. Cheese?

No!

Then squeeze each word until it bleeds, heedless of the cost!
And make grandmothers weep for love and lust long lost!
Move middle-aged men to squeal like high school girls at
Back Street Boys concerts!  Show an unbelieving world that
Twenty-One Dead White Men and Emily Dickinson
Have not used up language for the Seen, Said, and Done.

With loving hands, shape, mould each formless clump or strip
Of verse, bake it in the oven of your heart, and rip
It out, then lay it before your readers and get
Them up, moved, and willing to do something, dammit!
That is what our craft is about.  Keep your sights there.
Anything else is just a useless waste of air.