Thursday, May 23, 2013

song of the 17 year locust, brood fourteen, 1991-2008



hatching from my egg to crawl beneath the mold and soil
to sip and suck the roots of forests under silent ozark hills

twenty two thousand miles above, satellites beam video
of cold-eyed bombs in black and white zooming down chimneys

tympani and trumpets pound and blare around the clock
province nineteen gets retaken while the oil fields burn

and down in arkansas strategies are laid for the man from hope
to succeed the lipless guy from skull and bones and texas

but i hear nothing more than the whisper
of decomposing leaves and the snorting of a boar

beside a california freeway the boys in blue beat rodney to the ground
but i see nothing in my darkened world below the sprouting oaks

the soviet union splinters, the warsaw pact dissolves
miles davis hits his last blue note

and i go on eating for another sixteen years
emerge and split my skin one last time

with my million brothers my million sisters and now we sing
to a world with tiny telephones and speakers stuffed into its ears

where webs spun from ones and zeros glue eyeballs to screens
blood and words and oil still soak the real estate, this warming spring

the bombs are smarter, am i? i wonder.
but for this summer i'll sing within this chorus,
try to find that certain other one before i die

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