Classic Poem

(Introduction to a Farewell to Religionswissenschaft)

You know, reading the Bhagavadgita at bedtime can have its drawbacks;
last night, for instance, falling asleep in that ebbing free fall in
wandering mazes of direct or indirect objects lost, I floated undulant
in a kind of zero gravity free-wheeling, wondering why I should wonder
about Gods so much, inasmuch as I seem such a radically secular, casual
character, ascetic of the concrete, kickrock, cardinal in the college of
middleclass suburban bureaucratic skepticism, monk among two-headed
ice-cream cones, partiflavored, anchorless anchorite whose one deep
eventful cave of commitment remains in libidinous perpetuity the
luminous numinous phenomenon of the human female bombshell bosom
(cartoon barbell boobs with pointblank pingpong nipples
a pink that peaks up pink by pink to dots of virgin burgundy);

it occurred, it occurred to such dimmish me that I had been becoming then
that Gods are on this mind of mine
because: they really exist ; and at just that second something bit me
on the back of the neck: spider, fly, flea, I'll never know
what (Beelzebub?), but that bugbite in the neck of the night woke up a me
trailing clouds of (italicized) a nebulonimbus theology; so

up; down the dark hall into a quick dilation of enamel-linoleum light
in the kitchen I flipflopped to, ate some cheese etc., had me swallows
of some homemade lemonade out of a refrigerated jar, and in the adjacent
dining room looked awhile, minus focus, at the lemuresque me
mothered by the off television screen, our larval lar,
her placid ecru surface bending and returning (cathode, anode,
one: same) my glasses treading their water of air (though
" water " seems too dark a word: say " sea " ) above my maroon and white
polkadot
summer pajamas awash in a cameo shrapnel of cracker crumbs; quiet

time, me wondering whether to wonder whether some fork-lifting
devil out of one of those endless hells of virtue degree
zero might not have been dispatched as the executing creature that
put the bite on me right on the very verge and brim
of epiphany;
quiet time, our two old cats asleep in the carport, one, the elder,
Pat, a savvy mama cat, the other, her daughter our daughter named Zubby,
much less smart, warped, retarded, or crazed maybe, we speculate, by
having birthed a litter of kittens while still herself hardly more than
a kitten — even so, a nice cat, she (neuter now), sweet-tempered through a
thousand blinking cat-hours of crosseyed bewilderment, fear, nonstop
terror of the bad neighborhood dogs and four-year-old boys
that pull your tail; one day last year I angrily clapped hands, whereupon
a redbird she had captured flew intact out of her mouth; and now, from
the vicinity of the twi-paned storm-door between the dining room
and carport, out of — where? some endopsychic echo-chamber of prehistory? — there
spoke a friendly but firm voice: " List here: dumb as she may be,
and there is no doubt in the world that she is just as dumb as they come,
that modest cat a dozen times a day every day blinks blinks
that mean infinitely more to each of the Gods
than all your midnight visions of divinity, all of your horse sacrifices,
basilicas, upanishads, psalms, masses, homiletic ditties, take your pick " ;

you know, that's some word, that word " polkadot. "

(Introduction to a Farewell to Religionswissenschaft)

You know, reading the Bhagavadgita at bedtime can have its drawbacks;
last night, for instance, falling asleep in that ebbing free fall in
wandering mazes of direct or indirect objects lost, I floated undulant
in a kind of zero gravity free-wheeling, wondering why I should wonder
about Gods so much, inasmuch as I seem such a radically secular, casual
character, ascetic of the concrete, kickrock, cardinal in the college of
middleclass suburban bureaucratic skepticism, monk among two-headed
ice-cream cones, partiflavored, anchorless anchorite whose one deep
eventful cave of commitment remains in libidinous perpetuity the
luminous numinous phenomenon of the human female bombshell bosom
(cartoon barbell boobs with pointblank pingpong nipples
a pink that peaks up pink by pink to dots of virgin burgundy);

it occurred, it occurred to such dimmish me that I had been becoming then
that Gods are on this mind of mine
because: they really exist ; and at just that second something bit me
on the back of the neck: spider, fly, flea, I'll never know
what (Beelzebub?), but that bugbite in the neck of the night woke up a me
trailing clouds of (italicized) a nebulonimbus theology; so

up; down the dark hall into a quick dilation of enamel-linoleum light
in the kitchen I flipflopped to, ate some cheese etc., had me swallows
of some homemade lemonade out of a refrigerated jar, and in the adjacent
dining room looked awhile, minus focus, at the lemuresque me
mothered by the off television screen, our larval lar,
her placid ecru surface bending and returning (cathode, anode,
one: same) my glasses treading their water of air (though
" water " seems too dark a word: say " sea " ) above my maroon and white
polkadot
summer pajamas awash in a cameo shrapnel of cracker crumbs; quiet

time, me wondering whether to wonder whether some fork-lifting
devil out of one of those endless hells of virtue degree
zero might not have been dispatched as the executing creature that
put the bite on me right on the very verge and brim
of epiphany;
quiet time, our two old cats asleep in the carport, one, the elder,
Pat, a savvy mama cat, the other, her daughter our daughter named Zubby,
much less smart, warped, retarded, or crazed maybe, we speculate, by
having birthed a litter of kittens while still herself hardly more than
a kitten — even so, a nice cat, she (neuter now), sweet-tempered through a
thousand blinking cat-hours of crosseyed bewilderment, fear, nonstop
terror of the bad neighborhood dogs and four-year-old boys
that pull your tail; one day last year I angrily clapped hands, whereupon
a redbird she had captured flew intact out of her mouth; and now, from
the vicinity of the twi-paned storm-door between the dining room
and carport, out of — where? some endopsychic echo-chamber of prehistory? — there
spoke a friendly but firm voice: " List here: dumb as she may be,
and there is no doubt in the world that she is just as dumb as they come,
that modest cat a dozen times a day every day blinks blinks
that mean infinitely more to each of the Gods
than all your midnight visions of divinity, all of your horse sacrifices,
basilicas, upanishads, psalms, masses, homiletic ditties, take your pick " ;

you know, that's some word, that word " polkadot. "