Wednesday, May 9, 2007

ATLANTIS FM



This poem was writ on the road late summer of 1991. It was published in Philadelphia while I was living in Jacksonville Beach, FL running a heavy-metal club called RPM's for my younger brother by Andrew Lovatt in an interesting one shot literary zeen called OZONE "a map of alternate realities" in 1992. ATLANTIS FM and possibly another more recent piece-- in the punk "raving-poet" genre, THE LAST MAN ON EARTH, will be action-read ULA style with improv backup from the Hydrogen Jukebox band during their first Carnivolution 2nd Friday performance art, music, sideshow event for 2007 at the ELLEN TIBERINO MEMORIAL MUSEUM, 3819 Hamilton Street, in West Philly this May11th. If your in this part of the East Coast Hood, by all means, check it out!
Thanks to Matt and Eric "jelly-boy the clown" Broomfield.
I will most certainly return comrade James Nolan's beautifully disturbing short story to its position at the head of the pack early next week so that any stragglers doan miss the opportunity of reading it.



ATLANTIS F.M.





Out along the blue-green



edge



oceans swell and billowed foam



the clear eye near can see



cliffs and high plateau where the fogs



dance, the rush of the waves rouse



oh, mesmerisms



whispers rise between the sandpiped trill



Atlantis, lost continent,



lost and drowned by pride



heaves back for an instant into view



spectral, steep



out along the green-blue



edge



who among us may reach down



deeply past the clocking mind



regain the pallisades of Atlantis in those depths



where dreams crash and mill



and ripple outward to touch a million



sleepers with longing wonder, then



release them so they float



to the surface of their routines.



Out along the green-blue



edge



that philosophers and prophets



have, hallmarked down the millenniums,



rumored, and charged their writ



with reference to that super race



who with similar intent and bent



of technocracies and science to those



entrenched and no less impertinent



at the present moment, though our own



differing from its tragic precedence



by virtue of its global extent;



did succeed in wresting the reigns of Nature



away from the sure and sufficient hands



of the elements.



Out along the blue-green



edge



you were once my scribe for a bit



during the summer of the great



Opposition, and I yours, but I imagined



more attentive, a lover,



and as such now where I stand alone



when the morning disengages from the seas's gorge



and its long night of forbidden pleasures,



nearly can hear the drowned accolade



sparked by the fleeting victory march



of war undertow the hollow roaring waves.



Then the glare crowned



and glacial fear brought on by inordinance.



Out along the green-blue



edge, were you again at my side



and ventured with me into the verge



of the drowning tide.







9/1991- 5/2007.















Looks like I am



the last man on Earth



as if an atom bomb dropped not here



but over New York



maybe I’m the only one left



until of course



photo by Geoff Hall, 2006.

wandering the vacant streets

and littered plazas for some can goods



I discover, as the apocalyptic



yarn went, the last woman



scantily clad in a cracked



phone booth that doesn’t work.





She’s screaming into the receiver



for her husband and kids



like there’s no tomorrow



which a matter of fact there



And then under a sky that is a sound effect



it dawns on me that what are the chances of this



phone booth being on the deserted city corner



in the first place, a coincidence? Was it supposed to be the last phone booth on Earth when before



the Apocalypse nobody and their mother



could ever find a pay phone as the authorities



had removed almost every last one by then



blaming juvenile delinquents and pushers



the public pay phone going the way of the family



amusement park or the neighborhood basketball



court and the 1 point O! blood alcohol



percentage.



















What else was there at one time



just didn’t add up unless



it all made sense that it was



the sequel of the Children of the Damned



in the Village of the Damned and damned



in this damn World I found myself



besotted, misbegotten and different from them”



the pre-pubescent blonde haired straightened



bleach conditioner and Prussian blue eyed



Kinder of legal tender rendered perfect if not



alien under the cell-phone pay to play higher



technocracy who were in the process of world



domination before the shit hit the fan



when the grid goes down



and out for the count



from zero for naught



the ghost of the atomic



energy commission would



have to know what it’s all about.



The indifferent towers and citadels of business



bilked to the gills and not a soul in site



there’s nothing and no need to on my mind



no reason to search the parameter for signs



I just drift off to another free lunch



while the supply lasts and the candles hold



back the tears of this perfect dark night



and I dream of things as they should



as I dream again of being the last in line.





3/2007.













3 comments:

FDW said...

FDW sez:

"cluster" #16 in THE LAST MAN ON EARTH is missing the last wd.

Shld read:

AS A MATTER OF FACT THERE IS.

So there!

jimmy grace said...

I like this.

Mac said...

The Last Man On Earth was great, apocalypse puts our current phone booth situation into perspective, doesn't it? I guess the issue is comfort. The technocracy is known and comfortable, we each have at least a small niche. When the streets are emptied you lose sense of yourself in relation to others.