I often forget how to write.
            Not because I am happy,
                        and, as they say, happiness writes white.
            Nor for any lack of sadness,
                        for, as I see, sadness is a bottomless ink well.
            But for any wild and outrageous feeling,
                        any like spirit who possesses my hand to start --
                                    with awesome, judging faces sliding on the ceiling,
                                                icons of the mother and god-child
                                                       ­     dripping down eternal blue and martyr red,
                                                            ­            like arms hanging, waking, pinning!
                                                        ­                            "Woman, behold your son!"
                                                           ­                                   Behold me, my THC and psilo-sin life,
                                                           ­                                   an endlessly whirling maelstrom of emotion!
                                                        ­    flanked by monstrous, winged choirs of Motown
                                                          ­              slinging fiery spears, gold rays penetrating!
                                                    ­                                "Oh, oh, God!" The Ecstasy of St. Philip!
                                                         ­                                     Visions of horse-hung hosts and celestial orbs,
                                                           ­                                   Heaven's dynamo, an **** of screws and cogs!
                        -- are hid.


I too watched the best minds of my generation,
            anesthetized by sanity in a bottle
                        (id est: pills, pills, pills, pills, pills);
            mesmerized by patterns of flashing lights
                        of digital desperation crying, "affirm me, friend me!" -;
            drowned in an endless sea under a twilight of information
                        or else cats, cats, cats, cats, cats;
            and ever afeard of mortal judgment.
                       “Big boys don’t cry” (so poets do in breathy meter).

A generation asleep
           - and though in hopeful dream -
                      We are placid.
                      We work obedient.
                      We speak soft.
                                 Because the whole world is medicated now.
                                 Because the whole world is fixed.

And I wonder if there is a Spirit.
           I think, if there is,
                      We have drugged her.
                      We have ravished her.
                      We have wasted her.
                                 And the whole world is silent now.
                                 And the whole world is fixed.