Howl 1986

A new generation has been spread
across the world.
A new set of children has
entered the universities.
A new group of babies has been discovered
in the garbage.
Who passed through doors with
No Messiahs, no instructors, no guides.
Who dove distorted into Picasso's dimensions.
Who tried to hallucinate Blake-light
tragedy, but found only tragedy.
Who looked to the hippies, but
liked the beatniks better.
Who found stimulation in ancient haikus.
Who came out of the suburbs
craving new dimensions, through architecture,
through sculpture.
Who came out of the cities designing
logos, holding back more.
Who came out of the towns painting
surrealism and breaking hearts.
Who wrote poetry death, and dreamed death
and thought about death on the bus.
Who took to the rooftops and
dangled their feet over eternity.
Who breathed schizophrenic air and
became schizophrenic.
Who had idols who preached
destruction and hatred and pain.
Who went for quaalude walks in the rain.
Who colored Easter eggs all
psychedelic and drank the cheapest beer.
Who stared at canvas and received ancient
energy.
Who heard their mothers speak in
tongues as they sought penis satisfaction.
Who believed in God, but knew He
wasn't like they teach.
Who came down from their soapboxes.
Who forgot about politics, then
tried to kill the governor.
Who made friends with flower children,
because they had nowhere else to turn.
Who shot morphine up their asses
and did the Twist.
Who could find no superhuman heroes,
knowing too well no one is real.
Who drew Time theories on scraps of
paper that grew yellow with age.
Who went on the road, but found it.
Who threw electric guitars against
walls in utter frustration.
Who attached the world in bars and
fell roughly onto concrete jail floors.
Who lost their pen pals to overseas violence
and through negligence.
Who lost all their friends; the world moves.
Who writhed in the dirt, exposing their skin.
Who watched nuclear holocaust in the
night sky - four mushrooms altogether.
Who disguised their social protests
with bitter dance-floor violence.
Who probed their souls, attempting
to locate their St. Mawr ancestors.
Who went to India went to Nepal went
to China never left America.
Who didn't like most American
playwrights, but could read Keats or Shelley
all night and did.
Who danced for the dances - becoming
vehicles for an intangible but choosing
not to create.
Who became sexual for the act - becoming
vehicles for an intangible but choosing
not to reproduce.
Who went to the cities fled to the
cities fled the cities went back
to the cities.
Who found the galleries half-empty
and closed.
Whose friends didn't want to take
them to the galleries.
Who hated the galleries.
Who left the galleries to seek
pleasure and pain - left them
wandering, left them wondering
where to go.
Who felt their mortality.
Who felt their heartbeats
slip away.
Who wanted Time to move in oblong
patterns, but watched it sail away.
Who watched art on the page.
Who found moments that would
stand still and shook in ecstasy - a victory
a reason to live.
Who couldn't believe in more.
Who went back to the galleries,
searching once again for
translucent time.
Who wondered about Michelangelo's
angel in awe.
Who despaired for the loss of Van Gogh's
ear.
Who knew Van Gogh is dead and
will not rise again.
Who wept for Jesus on the cross
but knew He cannot rise again.
Who put God in Man, and
realized he never lived.
Who prayed to Him at night in bed.
Who searched for the Light.
Who spent Christmas as a sacrifice,
vomiting pathetically into the dark
and cried.
Who heard the tongues
ancient language.
Who never left America.
Who never left the galleries.
Who knew the galleries contain
the secret the secret of God of life
of love of sex of suicide of barren
futility of life of death of Time of
language of art of tears of music of life.
Who knew, but will never understand
the galleries.
Who dangled their feet over the
edge of the rooftops of the galleries.
Who fell.