"dionysiac" poems - Hello Poetry

♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♫♪♪♪♫ I: Lyric Line of Flight Cavern Club / black leather / German rockers / proto-youth culture groped its way from Liverpool / TV slowly sped up / modernity invented / flown in planes / swallowed in pills / I watch the second Kennedy funeral on the screen in shades of gray rain / warming to mid-60’s hues / into the stratosphere / a lysergic surge / retinal after-images / intensities of nostalgic color / that British courtesy in understatement / Paul’s voice a bassline / George a guru of six-armed confusion / tasteful: now a meaningless word / it was Apollonian-Dionysiac / my childhood’s soundtrack II: Poem They grooved—as our world became another up from caverns to psychedelic flight. They look so young in melancholic light harmonizing black and white to color. So distant—yet within our life’s short span they grow apart as the hair grows longer (The West’s resolve to expire grew stronger.) Quadruplex visage: young god sold to man. I crack up beholding the mid-Sixties lost in late-night YouTubes, I start to break. time past: removed from the complexities Recalling every song, the beat, the shake… They sang the primrose path to confusion nostalgia replacing resolution.

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Apr 6, 2016

Apr 6, 2016 at 7:57 AM UTC

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Beatles Breakdowns

♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♫♪♪♪♫ I: Lyric Line of Flight Cavern Club / black leather / German rockers / proto-youth culture groped its way from Liverpool / TV slowly sped up / modernity invented / flown in planes / swallowed in pills / I watch the second Kennedy funeral on the screen in shades of gray rain / warming to mid-60’s hues / into the stratosphere / a lysergic surge / retinal after-images / intensities of nostalgic color / that British courtesy in understatement / Paul’s voice a bassline / George a guru of six-armed confusion / tasteful: now a meaningless word / it was Apollonian-Dionysiac / my childhood’s soundtrack II: Poem They grooved—as our world became another up from caverns to psychedelic flight. They look so young in melancholic light harmonizing black and white to color. So distant—yet within our life’s short span they grow apart as the hair grows longer (The West’s resolve to expire grew stronger.) Quadruplex visage: young god sold to man. I crack up beholding the mid-Sixties lost in late-night YouTubes, I start to break. time past: removed from the complexities Recalling every song, the beat, the shake… They sang the primrose path to confusion nostalgia replacing resolution.

18

GULA Castor and Pollux joined forever at the hip. I could split myself into two halves just so they could each get a taste. I will etch into both their ribs and lungs so when they exhale, it’s my name that warms their breath. ACEDIA I have done nothing but consult oracles to find a solution and like Oedipus I will sit here on my throne to repeat fathers' sins. Dear God, am I the miasma that reeks here? Would I change, if so? LUXURIA Eros and Psyche have yet to match us, dear boys. In confessional, I speak of the flesh- bruised like rotting fruit, marks of desperate youth. Heads bowed in prayer, this is Dionysiac ritual madness. AVARITIA Will Hades greet me? If I spit coins from my mouth, will the ferryman take pity on me? He must know my odyssey. This is déjà vu, a fable passed down by generations. A hymn, Homeric and worn. IRA Adonis river runs red like veins filled with blood. The anemones for my two brothers, a crown for each of them to decorate their heads before guts are spilled. I know this will end in war, no glory for me. INVIDIA Heroes never die, they say. So was Heracles jealous of Linus? To know forever, to escape the throes of death sounds like Hell to me. What lives on except curses and their tragedy? I am no hero. SUPERBIA I will take my fire, let it blaze until I die. Prometheus would have been proud of me. Maybe from this, I will kindle something from the heat: Write poems in ash, for the ones I have scalded, or the ones I love. (Maybe those two things are not unlike after all. Maybe so, maybe not.)

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Mar 26, 2018

Mar 26, 2018 at 1:35 PM UTC

rintobean

gemini vice

GULA Castor and Pollux joined forever at the hip. I could split myself into two halves just so they could each get a taste. I will etch into both their ribs and lungs so when they exhale, it’s my name that warms their breath. ACEDIA I have done nothing but consult oracles to find a solution and like Oedipus I will sit here on my throne to repeat fathers' sins. Dear God, am I the miasma that reeks here? Would I change, if so? LUXURIA Eros and Psyche have yet to match us, dear boys. In confessional, I speak of the flesh- bruised like rotting fruit, marks of desperate youth. Heads bowed in prayer, this is Dionysiac ritual madness. AVARITIA Will Hades greet me? If I spit coins from my mouth, will the ferryman take pity on me? He must know my odyssey. This is déjà vu, a fable passed down by generations. A hymn, Homeric and worn. IRA Adonis river runs red like veins filled with blood. The anemones for my two brothers, a crown for each of them to decorate their heads before guts are spilled. I know this will end in war, no glory for me. INVIDIA Heroes never die, they say. So was Heracles jealous of Linus? To know forever, to escape the throes of death sounds like Hell to me. What lives on except curses and their tragedy? I am no hero. SUPERBIA I will take my fire, let it blaze until I die. Prometheus would have been proud of me. Maybe from this, I will kindle something from the heat: Write poems in ash, for the ones I have scalded, or the ones I love. (Maybe those two things are not unlike after all. Maybe so, maybe not.)

73

Dull Dionysiac, ex-Nihilist, musing on my poorly-played roles now past, my acts sincere and earnest—but half-assed, I raved, an irrelevant dramatist. Misguided former friends and I the cast; We took our bow, Life stirred, woke up and hissed. Such hallucinogenic scenes: not missed; our play a farce, the curtain came down fast. Recalling useless states I once achieved, hampered by those intensities once known, remembering what was beheld, believed, the trip came to an end; I woke alone. Frenzy is unsustainable. One learns to be wary of realms where vision burns.

0

Apr 24, 2017

Apr 24, 2017 at 12:00 PM UTC

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Confessions of a Failed Anarchist

Dull Dionysiac, ex-Nihilist, musing on my poorly-played roles now past, my acts sincere and earnest—but half-assed, I raved, an irrelevant dramatist. Misguided former friends and I the cast; We took our bow, Life stirred, woke up and hissed. Such hallucinogenic scenes: not missed; our play a farce, the curtain came down fast. Recalling useless states I once achieved, hampered by those intensities once known, remembering what was beheld, believed, the trip came to an end; I woke alone. Frenzy is unsustainable. One learns to be wary of realms where vision burns.

14