FAUST UNDER WATER

J. T. BLEU

SAPPHO

Vergebens, dass ihe ringsum wissenshaftlich schweift, einjeder lernt nur,

was er lernen kann.

(It is in vain that you range around from science to science: each man learns only what he can learn.)

----Faust

Someone told you that they could:

                guarantee eternity

                but your rights are never implicit in denial;

                forever is not to be

                for every tomorrow

                you lose today

                for every sin

                you must pay

                to have it wrapped and delivered

                around the world;

                all is truth until it

                chokes the illusion

                who will pick it up then?

Go home

And like the French

After the revolution

when the legislature

offers you

a Faustian compact

You may marvel

At the neat and fine print

                sold for a penny

                all your rights and assimilation

                 

This is how a liberal culture

French kisses

And this is how the obstacles of quotas

                and bile

                become public

                but we remain private creatures

                underwater swimming

                to Bohemia (where the fictional shore affords us sanctuary)

                but not to Poland

                where we were put to the question

                is there any doubt?

                we would thrive?

                submerged like a dolphin?

What fish or amphibian can breathe such medieval air

And bacteria

                of the ghetto and survive?

But we are unimpeded mammals

Who farm the good Earth

Only to reap a harvest

Of blood when all we want to do is perform

Faust underwater.

CHASM -- WALLS by J. T. BLEU

 

CHASM-WALLS 

by J. T. BLEU

The wall became visible on a Monday,

No, it was a Thursday, definitely by Friday.

Was the chasm always there?

Yes, but now it is massive.

Between sobs and victimization

The claws came out.

The hive was weaponized—

Each to their tribe,

Each to their weapon of choice,

Each breast sheathed

To prevent bleeding

And mother’s milk. 

A LOST CHORD

THE DEPLORABLE RAG

Irresponsible foetus, why laugh?

T. S. Elliot got you by the balls?

Anti-semantics, aside,

This is happening in mood-shade:

Our hidden virginal

Flapping like a priapic

Dodo bird.

  

That’s why I went to Mauritius

In mourning rays,

Because of this and idolatry:

Painting, sculpting, and drawing actual

Figures to death —

I, of course, lost religion then —

And my virginity.

Who wouldn’t?

Moonbeams can’t hold pencils

Or bend sinister things;

This is why that scrap of winter

And negative light in every

Human heart must be allowed to sing.

Socrates doing wrong by everyone;

But who will ever comprehend or apprehend

These credible lines or read Plato

In our brief wink at eternity?

J.T. BLEU / TOKYO / 1^ST DRAFT / SEPTEMBER 25, 2018

The Falls of "76 by J. T. Bleu

I bring doubt and questions to the sight,

                From the oceans and the lakes;

I bear the pain of knowing the cause of

                Why such falls are not fakes.

From invisible wings I shake off the dew

                That woke my mind to sweet buds of

Thought– each brooding spark from my pilot

Who sits in the thunder and lightning

Struggling in howling fits of recognition

                As the jagged crag of a mountain appears

At the edge of the falls before dark.

Whenever I dream of waterfalls

                Under mountains, trees, or in shopping malls,

My spirit revives in the pale-blue white mist as

Smiles from the depths of a purple sea;

This land is yours and mine and the nurslings too;

                And the eagle aloft may sit by us still

As an earthquake rocks the burning sunrise

                With a crimson wall of wave after wave

Of new blood: churning, burning for freedom and

                The Love that remains when all is said and done

While my inspiration dissolves into rain.