October 2009
VOL XVII, Issue 10, Number 197
Editor: Klaus J. Gerken
Production Editor: Heather Ferguson
European Editor: Mois Benarroch
Contributing Editors: Michael Collings; Jack R. Wesdorp; Oswald Le Winter
Previous Associate Editors: Igal Koshevoy; Evan Light; Pedro Sena
ISSN 1480-6401
This poem is called Head Shed.
Two parts of it have appeared on line.
The first part I called Head Shed, the first 18 lines appeared in Big Bridge.
http://www.bigbridge.org/deathmrothenberg.htm.
The last part Epigenesis on Temple Mount is at Dpress
http://www.dpress.net/newstable/rothenberg_epigenesis_on_temple.html
(from a chapbook of this they did).
The entire, edited, consolidated, expanded, and "complete" poem
has never been published on line.
Michael Rothenberg
Michael Rothenberg
HEAD SHED
I
Legacy for sale at End Times
Resurrection bodies on loan
Tribulation, divination, dispensation
Split the moon
Form is all the rage
It’s too fucking late for redemption
Blue jays murder finches like madmen in Iraq
There are no straight lines found anywhere in nature
Heat waves flood and submerge the Nation
The whole green planet drips, drips, drips
A musical dichotomy of poles going extinct
Worms turn in the squash garden
II
Chimney blows blue smoke
Fat creek booms
Wholly terrified sleep
Conflict diamonds
Smuggled through the night
I awake to the big picture history mantra!
James Brown lies in state
At The Apollo Theater
Peace demands a public hanging
BOOM!
Here comes the garbage truck
Media trash bagged for universal incineration
Sunrise Sanitation Co bills every second Monday
Of every Second Coming
"This year at war continues. . ."
God kills!
Rhododendron leaves curl in the freeze
Ice crunchy mud
Hell frozen over
Chile rellenos keep me warm
III
I cut out a picture of a full moon
Paste it beside a Möbius Strip
Capture language
I bury my head in my hands
A white book sails through the sky
Pages rustle like a deck of cards
I read from the future
Creek melodies
I grow bald before I turn gray
It’s the year of the pig
IV
Mailquake
Stressbox
Palindrome
Shun, shun, shun
Miss Manners
co-opts
for Calvinism.
polite Liberalism about
WAR
Fro-Zen
See silent protest
See boycott
*
Monk returns from ashes sets the record straight
Bells ring in Katmandu!
*
Iraqi babies dead
Bombed Lebanese babies dead
Turn to "Turning Wheel"
For instructions on how to act and feel
*
I found a baby crying in the street
Occasionally they wander out alone, these kids
Whatever. . .
Saturday in August
Slaughter continues
Gnaw, gnaw, yes
Three coffees and a dry bowl of cereal
V
Some nights I can’t sleep
Or scream
Splash of red leaves
Clutters the driveway
There’s rain everywhere
But the creek is dry
Jazz tells me what to think
Hardball plays hardball
VI
Birth pains of Venus
Uranium Desert Anarchy
Bowls Seals Trumpets
Oh, Mad monk of Ephemeral Embalmment!
Rapture Index: Moderate to Heavy prophetic activity
Gorgonzola & walnut ravioli from Michael McClure
"Invasion of The Thunderbolt Pagoda" from Ira Cohen
Sundance with Jampa Dorje
(The) energy goes to Heaven
VII
Guerneville to Goat Rock
Too cold to get out
I want to go home and sleep but can’t
The election is won, George
And I’m beside myself with hope
Desperation is a cornucopia of conquest
Invasion, occupation of Thanksgiving
Remorse is a rodeo in West Texas
"Painting in the dark..."
White chickens beside a pearly gate
The election is won
VIII
To document my own death & art
Brad and Angelina, Cezanne
Afraid of every minute
Britney Spears may have a baby in Namibia
"You have a cold, that’s all. You’re not dying!"
I am dying, any second now. . .
A banyan tree falls through the roof
Volcano explodes in Indonesia
Shoe bomber kills ten in Baghdad mosque
Writing with devotion
To transform existence
The woman’s head rolls
Out of the cab of her husband’s truck
Paul McCartney’s birthday falls
on Sunday, "Yesterday"
A previously unknown letter
written by Mary Shelley is discovered
at an antiques fair in Tuscany, Italy.
I follow ashes that eventually disappear
Death comes too close
I write myself to sleep
IX
I walk the dog down the country road
He pants, old, tumorous, tugs the leash
Ripe blackberries in a thorny tangle
‘round the mail box. Lilies scorched
Almost lunchtime, getting hungrier
The dog thinks all Art is futile
X
Spontaneous Expurgation
Doodles & sketches
All in Time will Heal
Vanishing Windows
Cloudy Eyes
Slide on Copper Wire
Between Wisdom and Obedience
Defiance Wakes a New Order
Smokestacks & Refineries
Raw Tongue on Broken Teeth
Splashing Firestorm
XI
"Deep in the shady sadness of a Vale"
"Break the cross, spill the wine"
Ice on the car and sky electric
XII
I don’t want to see the end of the world
But somebody has written a soundtrack
XIII
EPIGENISIS ON TEMPLE MOUNT
Titulus:
Bobblehead Bisrima "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry" Oracle of Mt. Hula Hula
Buried in white shrouds for stoning Second Coming of Stayaway Saint
Brocken spectre Walpurgisnacht
Golden-armed Soldiers of Moral Liberation Bonfire of Darwinian acolytes Jihadist
cremated for delatio domini Magic birth quantum entanglement
Repent!
Matthew 25:13
Luke 21:36
Peter 3:9
Timothy 6:14
Titus 2:13
Repent!
Inflationary speculative wailing Celestial fire Blood sacrifice in dream time Zodiac
Kabobs of Humanist Silverfish Nuclear Calendars of Talmudic Salvation Midnight
cyclone of dragon horn and ash Heavenly mountaintops tremble Under Esdras Paul and
Saint Perpetua shawled in smoke and semen Mohammed and Sibylline hooves Songs of
sodomizing rams and glory!
"Agere dare ferre or tollere in crucem"
Gloom of oil engorged shit clouds of fear Skoll devours the sun His brother Hati eats the
moon Unholy retribution Legislated ecstasy Pandemic influenza
Dysautonomic
Night shakes Subterfuge of franchised
Glossolalia
Monopoly Bondage Justice and Horror Strikes Invasions Vagrancy and Plague
Insurgencies of the veil
Shugyo
Hathor
Krishna
Vishnu
Maitreya
Buddha
Slayer
Cannibal Corpse
Sepultura
"Agere dare ferre or tollere in crucem"
Flagellations of False Prophets Fixed Dice of Zoroaster Hoodlum Texas Presidents
Imams of Atlantis and New Zion Clairvoyant Kings of East and West 10:50 am
September 16 Poppies smuggled in bowels of toy whales Biblical prophylactics Elysian
Fields Injected in rotted veins of terminal Idealists Wind up crackhead dolls Disney
Bunker Buster puppets Video Sanhedrin Mules of Apostasy Mark of the Beast
Supernatural moral quacks Dogmas and Decrees Hysteria Celebratory disunity Universal
planetary gangrene God Democracy Theocracy Reed Fields Prick Screw bolt Witches
Brew
Arbor infelix
Circumambulation
L Arbre du Ténéré
Churches robberies slander prophetic impersonations Mediocrity Temples of Persia
Israel and Gog Tonatiuh the Rising Eagle Council of Steroid Magicians
Gotterdammerung
Pole shift
Earth change
Cosmic convergence
Hajj. . .
"Take ye heed watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is."
July24-November 26, 2006
Head Shed (c) 2009 Michael Rothenberg.
All poems copyrighted by their respective authors. Any reproduction of
these poems, without the express written permission of the authors, is
prohibited.
YGDRASIL: A Journal of the Poetic Arts - Copyright (c) 1993 - 2009 by
Klaus J. Gerken.
The official version of this magazine is available on Ygdrasil's
World-Wide Web site http://www.synapse.net/~kgerken. No other
version shall be deemed "authorized" unless downloaded from there.
Distribution is allowed and encouraged as long as the issue is unchanged.
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* Klaus J. Gerken, Chief Editor
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