JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

Hail to illiterates then and now

opaque to armies of symbols dashing

their dance over plains of white in

unintelligible gyrations of black—

ants and clowns struggling, straggling

over tramlines of feint or Irish

 

Hail to the savage, nose keen as a dog’s

to wind, weather, danger lurking, fish or root—

eyes to prowl secrets from rocks, follow tracks

senses tuned to cymbals of thunder, scent of hunt

sweetness of hive, languages of bees and ants

 

History a predator that preys as a spider,

web of civilization trembling sticky silk

millenniums of libraries waiting to be written,

blunt the eyes with wriggles and squiggles

commandments and prophecies, treaties, laws

and all the venom that oozes from their ink