"Sea of Ants" - Poem by BW Derge from "Everywhere But Elsewhere" - written in 2011, Observations of Social Hierarchy System
Sea of Ants
Indeed the chilly-chum makeup of Mulberry
Is much sweeter
Than the Icelandic marshmallow-
Good day, forever!
Good day to you, you mindless figment
Of your ancestors’ slippery dreams!
Good day, nothingness!
So long, trophies of maritime cafés
Beneath this purple river- !
And so long to the shuffling
Balderdash Billy-socks of some gray city
Anthill; we’ve overthrown the queen!
Amongst robust rebellious drugged hipsters,
I taste the misplaced sweat of selfishness,
I am reminded of my own desires
And my eyes swirl to the back of my head-
Behold water-fish of my fire-land continents!
Behold fickle fellows holding my thoughts
Like pillows- Behold!
But don’t come near, my dear.
Don’t make a paper tilly tugboat and try
Pathetically to sail to me,
To burn and wreck and drown
In my firewater thought contraptions
Of midnight silly string…
The overcoats of Napoleon drape upon
Shoulders of men in open dark wood rooms,
Shuffling parchment,
With the necessary hand tucked in
The inner-sack of blue and crimson jackets,
Holding mundane mugs, grimacing
At the dreary task
Of taking over my fantasyland
And the drunk reigning wizard,
Who diminished the Monarchy in Mexico
And licked the cheek of a dying pope,
Who went dumb and died away.
War between meaning and reason
Dries the riverbed to an arroyo and snaps
Magic wands right in two-
Echoes of a drum remind soldiers of an altar
To golden nameless idols of yesteryear,
Hello beer. Hello snake.
Hello dancing trumpets on ecstasy.
Hello carelessness and belligerent creativity.
Hello to those clicking buttons of fate.
The quest of sex again commences
In the blood-canal creek-belly jug…
Eyes orbit around the brain’s perpetual
Emissions of lust and yearning for love
As stone-faced generals play chess
With an apathetic Jesus Christ
Who is whispering, “King Me.”
Blue broken bolter-knots of twine unhinge
Between my bones, my elbows bend,
Extending like wings,
The mind blooms feathers and chokes
A phoenix in its urn with the queen
In a cemetery- somewhere on a grassy hill,
The wizard is chuckling with a pipe
Between his lips like he knew it all along,
Like calculating an eclipse with a gamble
On ancient memory roulette,
Lord knows you can only pray
When the giants come, and squash the ants,
And take everything away-
by BW Derge
all rights reserved 2024 ©
Poem was originally written in 2011
