Reverential Apathy

They burrowed deep and deeper

Out of his jellied shell

With knives and forks and rules of court

They conducted him through hell

But something always blazed the path

Before him as he rode

His reverential apathy

Thought but never told

The king’s own stabled horses

Could not teach him how to eat

In the late Parisian style

Of mugs of loam from Crete

While patently unknowing

The blind man shows the way

Pointing out for all to see

That this is where we stay

A simpering sadists' reverie

Under the palace ward

Sent sycophants and toilet bowls

Out looking for the guard

Who lost his head and arms and legs

Masturbating on the tower

And spread it sticky jelly

On the mob’s congested chest

Now with this flood of agony

Came wisdom by degree

And a man could naked walk the earth

Without a Ph.D.

                                                        Oberlin 1968

I seriously doubt that anyone could have failed to note that existence is really an overly long kung-fu movie, i.e., atrocity followed by pain's bitter path to release in justice ("sweeter far than the dripping of honey"), as is witnessed here by the presence of the openings of some of our best known literary expressions of the kung-fu genre including the Iliad, the Mahabharata, Chu Hsi's Introduction to the Study of the Classic Book of Change  and Wulangreh.

mhnin aeide qea Phlhiadew AcilhoV

oulomenhn, h muri AcaioiV alge eqhke,

pollaV d ifqimouV yucaV Aidi proiayen

hrwwn, autouV de elwria teuce kunessin

oiwnoisi

 नारायणं नमस्कृत्य नरं चैव नरॊत्तमम
      थेवीं सरस्वतीं चैव ततॊ जयम उथीरयेत
 

TAN SINIPI DOEKANIPOEN
 

ai gar pwV auton me menoV kai qumoV anhh
wm apotamnomenon krea edmenai, oia eorgaV

Pamedaring wasitaning ati, cumantaka aniru pujangga, dahat muda ing batine, nanging kedah ginunggung, datan wruh yen akeh ngesemi, paksa ngrum-rum pustaka, pasa kang kalantur, tutur kang katular-tular, tinalanten rinunruh kalawan ririh mring padanging sasmita.