wheel

when they carried me down to this country
as a child already the rites
were martial and harsh and the music was perverse

I sensed as only a child can sense that something
was rotten -- the lust for meat things
the thrill of acquisitiveness
the joy of beggaring your neighbor
orgasmic survival of the fittest

this terrifying fiendish swamp
whose creed was ultimate selfishness
whose blood was running money -- then
I discovered Ginsberg and it all made sense

how long ago? how long ago?
yet nothing has changed
the drear mental concrete walls
the big-mouth TV swallowing infants whole
the brick ugly factories of high schools

Kolymsky Heights of the mind
Siberia was hell and Stalin put me there
and a dynasty of Bushes.
some argue no equivalence of physical
and mental suffering

how quantify torture? I've been
in Abu Ghraib since 1962
they got my number coming over the border
when they carried me down, an innocent, a naif

the next year they shot Kennedy
then another and another
jellied napalm screaming naked Asian girls
how to quantify terror?

they locked me up because I knew too much
here and there in shackles and restraints
here and there in screaming ugliness
chemical dungeons and junked Coney Islands of the mind

today I was rereading Howl, and Rexroth,
the whole boatload of sensitive useless old Beats
and it all made sense again, a cogent analysis
but times have changed and nothing has changed

dharma bums and Kathy Change
have immolated themselves in West Philly
here in the lap of Judy Rodin but
form is no different from emptiness
which in turn is no different from form

the moneychangers have set up
in the temple again -- no surprise
one war winds down and another begins
Savio told us to throw ourselves on the wheel
but really! dude! how many times?

how many times can you jump in the river
break self on wheel of karma, dharma, what the hell
it stinks here, no joy in this cell, no solution here
let's all escape to the further shore and make love
for Babylon is fallen and America is damned