"It is indeed better to live among hermits and goatherds than among our gilded, false, painted mob - even if they call themselves 'good society'"
                                                                         - Zarathustra

"After all, everyone dances to his own personal boomboom, and the writer is entitled to his boomboom:  the satisfaction of pathological curiosity; a private bell for inexplicable needs; a bath; pecuniary difficulties; a stomach with repercussions in life; the authority of the mystic wand formulated as the bouquet of a phantom orchestra..."
                                                                         - Tristan Tzara

Not in my right mind, that is to say, poetically,
I awoke today from a dream of thirty-three years.

I was hungry, but I was not fed; I loved
but I was not loved. I was prey to the rich,
scorned by the poor; what I built was destroyed,
what I tore down was resurrected.
I found my soul in the darkness
when my spirit fled. I repented
but was never forgiven. I prayed
but only an echo returned to me.
My heart stopped beating
but I did not die.

Windshield wipers sway and dance while pistons of war collide,
rattling like a one-armed bandit in this pressure chamber of a world.

The road to the mountain passes the cemetery.
You see, you see, you see, you see, goes the needle
at the end of the record.
I lie (I lie) sideways on the bed,
my hands and feet hang over the edge,
white chargers race across a blackboard,
German tanks and British warships
roll and weave across the screen.

There must be a misunderstanding. Notions
of propriety, decency, all that is upstanding and right,
generous, pleasant giddy-ups of good have invaded my little world.
I came here not well, parading a tired lion
in the street of the capital.

We have been playing a charade
of no consequence, Empires Are Falling:
the terrier chases
the fox in the hole,
the leopard leaps
from the tree.

I will change, I will change,
I will whip the new left with traditional chains.
What could be worse than not being listed
in the Canadian Book of New Penguin Verse?

I will rhyme, recall the solitude of wax heroes,
serve Pan and the insects, I will question
every natural event (beasts propagating
allegorizing my lusty adventures)

I brace myself for one more leap
then out I fly in the twisting air
somersaulting silent clouds,
screaming below Doo-Da! Doo-Da!

Thus spoke Tzarathustra.