Prompt Images
Behold, the poem is born,
Piloted through labor
Of simple sweat and sin
Down the birth canal
Of sleepless nights,
The clashing of soaring swords,
Civilizations basted
in chemical baths,
Baked in nuclear brick ovens
Dug into desert sands
Where melted beads
Form fine optical fiber
Running the equator,
Girth of a golden age,
Fired pots,
Flesh of my flesh.
A futile famous poem,
A sheet drifting
On a warm updraft
A stringless kite,
A bodiless bird.
Then from quiet lips
Power wisdom and glory
Of unformed words
Falling on deaf ears,
A sudden sharp slap
Of the midwife’s hand
On the baby’s bare ass.
Then near the moistened breast
Of the mother of all wars
Morning comes running
In bare feet on hot coals.
In our waking hour we
Trim hair from our ears
And ooze with ease
Through semi-liquid dawn
Eyes glazed with pineapple and honey
Uncertain futures flying in the face
Of I don’t know and I don’t care.
Any move is better than none,
We are what we were,
Primates brawling over what
On the horizon at the dawn.
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