Let It Begin Again

A bong of bells.
Let it begin again.

Let a grizzled drunk jerk
and his fat blasted wife
taunt sidewalk café patrons
with a ragged dance that sneers
Fuck you! We’re creeps
but at least we boogie!
Let them stop soon,
exhausted and unrevolutionary.

Let a glowing woman pass
in the phenomenal grace of her
unselfconscious loveliness.
Let her not be razzed by lusts
from chumps who’d love to plug her.

Let a red-suspendered businessman,
his face a map of fights for money,
meet cherubic humptydumpty altruists
in a cheap Chinese joint for lunch.
Let them hatch collaborative strategies
for phantasmagorical philanthropies.

Let a huge tanker crash into the base of a bridge,
blackening the bay with raw oil
that kills the fish and dirties the birds
and gluts the beach with thick sheets
of gobby tar that smears the sand like phlegm.
Let this stoke the fury of surfers
who in state-issued spacesuits clean the beach.

Let a vivid crisis visit
the vapid happiness
of Born Again! Christian bankers
foreclosing on a home.
Let their horror be soothed
in the hollow of Buddha.

Let the man who frees himself
from the fear of his own mind
inherit the kingdom of philosophy.
Let the sun wink down on him like an eye
as he gazes at a tree in the park.

Let that same man in the prime of his life
realize that breathing is laughter
and everything ends up a tie.
Let him know he is a being among beings
until one day he dies.

Let this be not an end nor beginning of anything.
A bong of bells.

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