Hart Crane Homeward Bound XX

Hart me boy, buoyed up by the start

of the day, we made much headway

in the composition

in the rendition

of the poetics

incarcerated

in the policy

across the big pond

Took us to new depths of interpretation

through the channel of Fox News

with flak to right, flak not from the left

we cut to the chase, found and almost grounded

on the chitchat and hatred of opinion

to the EL DORADO

to AF GHAN IS TAN

now a trillion dollar

BATTERY

read lithium,

we are rich, they cry from the

ill-bred Colosseum

we struck Gold

and now the towel-head

is chic

as a Sheik

in 1973

ALL OURS
ALL OURS

goes the cry of the vultures

goes the cry of the anchors

Hart and I

sombre

view

the land-locked

land of Afghanistan

as the land of the Free, if they will

let go of US liberty,

why does freedom cost your

country?

Oh la di da, we can go a shoppin'

Oh la di da, we can go a shoppin'

Get ourselves a new air conditioner

Get ourselves a new set of Louis Vuitton

Get ourselves a stretch tv screen to the planet Mars"

wait, the weight of the poem, weighs upon us

the sense of duty prescribes a pill

someone took out an injunction like cod-liver oil

we must take it as men, and abandon vers libre

they want us to measure in avoirdupois

the breath, the gesture, the image, the trope,

the whole darned thing, sinking us in statistics

but we got so far, quite nicely, avoiding the fuss

of paying attention to the feet and the dope

that interferes with our blinking ballistics

we have little enthusiasm for structure & form

however, if the fellow-traveller, was onboard

from the start and alloyed with Hart - me unemployed

him being departed - me being faint hearted,

you will notice, a strategy, a ploy, where upon,

sounds slush about the hull, going wherever they will,

and the grand notions - their integrity, lost in the first

flush, like the virginity of a reading, a cherry reddened

by the blush of nature and nurture, but you already

knew this was in the contract, when you climbed on board

our junk, and sailed to and through what others see as nonsense

you however, and we respect you, RESPECT, give us AUTHORITY,

to spout out, on all and sundry, in the terrifying guise

of

po

et

try