my personal Africa

Come you staid, ravaged and/or privilleged souls:
dawn your gallery masks,
sample vintage wine and cheese
paired with these pain-blackened haikuettes...
these primitively ornate spear-bearers
salvaged
from the rubble of my personal Africa

Mother anarchy
gave men bright fire and they cowered;
Aeneid embraced it

catastrophic reached
so medicine is now free...
serve the shell-shocked tea

Alluring can be
the melodic howl of a
symphony of fools

These sonic heroes:
they Romanize greek needles,
drowned in grand options

If a napkin births a verse
drowned out by dull bar-room din:
was it still "composed?"

all humans they are
equally inscrutable
in dog's sight

The good doctor jumps
the junkie junket following
worthy Frankenstein

Refusing the memes of defeat
like his bloodied relative Aeneid before him,
the creative creature
makes honest petitions seeking aid,
but is turned away by the respectable tradespeople,
by the wolf-faced psychiatrists,
and by the local monks;
Having pierced him in the side
they all hold up their symbols of hypocrossy
bidding him Thersipus speed
to strange lands they dream to be death.
But the Rome-bearing creature
has drawn breath
on many distant sands before...
and, insured, prepares for struggle
on psych-ward shores
desperate but not yet defeated...
allowing Orpheusian joy to alloy
the dark mind-set
natural to such unknown circumstances

a strange angel came
bearing Freud's rock to bestow
a blow white summer

blue San Francisco
is a hot bus ride away;
blood drips on spun glass

a lazy sway pen
scratches verse on matter gray:
chalk Mona Lisas