Doing Lines in the Sand
by John Kendall Hawkins
.
I.
White ants
can eat at the fabric
of a civilization:
woody woodpecker
heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.
.
We had termites
almost brought our roof down
in Australia.
Was it the bad man
up the road, just back from Ghan?
The one the ABC wouldn't report on:
the one who tried new DARPA trix for free?
I militantly refused
to stop my online learning
of Big History, jazz combines,
roof breathing down my neck
a foot from my face, saying
heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.
.
II.
Cappadocia:
home of fairy chimbleys,
where people lived once
in underground labyrinths
to escape tyranny,
like ants rolling up pebbles
to keep out wanton boy-gods
with magnifying glasses
filled with sinister sun,
now features
beds and breakfast.
Service sectored.
Featured on Instagram.
.
We froze our asses off
for cheap as chips digs,
Turkish lira bonfires.
Sexual friction was not up
to the task of warming the cockles
of our naive archeology.
Spelunking, my ar*e.
.
I dreamed of Icarus
running from a wet minotaur
through the muddy maze, like
a Hamas ant skeddadling from IDF semites.
.
As part of any future two-state solution
metro stations will need to be opened
under Gaza's ruins, for tourists
to see for themselves and sigh and say,
Remember heyday East Berlin?
Heinrich-Heine-Straße U-Bahn,
the Christian-Jew's lyricism
graffittied to the wall
beneath the Wall?
.
III.
3000 years
is a long time
since the Mosaic decalogue,
the Thou Shalt Nots.
What did Moses's wife get up to
when he was groping in the wilderness?
Was she supposed to just wait?
(It's a question that bothered Odysseus
and probably the other men
who'd left their wives behind
to chase Helen's alleged charisma,
only to be turned into swine by sirens;
only to see Paris burning.)
.
Michelangelo saw Moses naked
and molded him with horns --
albeit vestigial-leaning --
reminded me of Hellboy.
Gotta get off the gold standard,
Moses said, like some precocious Nixon.
But then there was a boom
and the sand went up
in a mushroom cloud
and just froze there, now glass;
and the sculpted candied horror
dug into and carved out and envisioned
by white ants from the sub-continent,
and turned into an air-conditioned mall:
beautiful food at the top of the hub,
featuring tapas and dervishes who spun
and served, instead of the floor whirling;
one more place to haj.
Next up the Taj.
.
3000 years
and Abraham is still
raising an outraged fist
toward God's smug face,
the waiter said,
his voice whirring like a child's top,
the still point of the turning world.
.
IV.
Sirhan Sirhan
didn't do it, says RFK, Jr.
He was unusually innocent.
Whatever.
It's a redundant name and retarded:
we need less of it.
Who does Jr. think did it? The CIA?
He probably thinks they did his uncle too.
Sand Manchurian Candidate?
.
Meryl Streep:
if she was your pushy mother
wouldn't you want to be a mofo, too?
Hollywood, right?
Remember her in Silkwood
the meltdown of the heart
the spectre in the rearview mirror?
Woody Woodpecker
heh-heh-heh-heh-heh,
then Sophie's Choice and Ironwood;
all that pathos
and there we were again
misery lending a hand
not an ex machine god to be seen anywhere
when you needed one most,
having the last laugh
on the gas somewhere out there
in the dark;
neery a spark
in all that dark.
