Six Sonnets: The Monster Molecule Inside
by John Kendall Hawkins
.
I.
They don't want you in their community
of liars, set-up spinsters, Salem elders --
murderers who make up stories, welders
who spark brains behind eyes. Impunity
for each abracadaver boy and girl,
smitten by the black monster molecule,
who grow up, but grow down. The Golden Rule
up at Sothebys with Girl with a Pearl.
They won't let me leave their lot. I will die
among these feral strangers in a strange land,
gum trees coast to coast, in between all sand.
I will be killed, eaten alive like pie.
Wicker Man never did crack the argot.
Laughter, licking flames. It may rain. Or not.
.
II.
In Australia, you'll hear them cry, "We don't care
if it's a mafiocracy" that kills for sport,
with Guy Ritchie two-bit players everywhere,
and the occasional Heath Ledger Joker sort.
When you don't care, any crime's do-able.
When you don't care, then there is no recovery,
no need for shrinks; Reason finds you un-wooable.
You'll overuse "devastating," "gorgeous," "lovely."
As I write this, introjected voices warn me
that I've gone too far in my thinking, that I stray
from sheepledom, that shepherd-enforcers will be
'getting after' me with crooks to take me away.
Orthodoxies are important isms to maintain.
Drop that bar of soap, you'll be in a world of pain.
.
III.
Since the last proud Anzac died, smile on face,
a void has opened up, a question mark lit,
and footy and cricket can't take the place
of heroes willing to die for the sh*t
that history brings -- the contradictions
implied and explicit. Crazed moral codes
that turn your humanity to fictions
and have you obeying the croaks of toads.
I should have known I shouldn't have come here
when I tore my new Levis in a trench
at Gallipoli, on the barbed wire there;
it should have seemed an omen. Now this stench.
I just can't get over fighting for freedom
far away, and come home pressed by Me-dom.
.
IV.
The Anzacs may be gone, but not the long weekend
they left behind to celebrate their sacrifices;
and sometimes there's a double-tap -- Easter prices
remind us of Jesus and His crucified love. Bend
with the remover to remove? No, not these guys.
Mel Gibson ran his ass off in the film restart
of freedom, long before he bared ass in Braveheart,
but still, old Mad Max showed up to no one's surprise.
It's hard these days to keep our hands over our hearts
of allegiance. Postmod killed God, and now nothing
has filled the void, not even poetry -- nothing!
can staunch the flow. Cain's hyenas laugh. Satan farts.
Of course, if God's dead, so's Cain and Satan, too. It's men
turned to monsters now, James Cagney gods with CRISPR zen.
.
V.
Hackers bought my mind on the darknet where they go
to hang out with the girls being tortured to death
and eat grapes while watching The Caligula Show,
sado-machismo ads, NatGeo's In Search of Seth.
I spend a lot of time on the run in the maze
that minotaurs build as they go through my head cheese --
switchbacks, illusions, double-binds, and logic haze --
to implant the black monster molecule disease.
I have to admit that it sucks to be on the lam
inside yourself, night and day, chased by poltergeists
talking sh*t at the bar they call The Bearded Clam --
contrition, absolution, all the twats they iced.
We're Beyond Good and Evil, and that's for sure.
Hacking brains will one day be passe' and a snore.
.
VI.
Imagine every thought you have being challenged
by second grade dropout thugs with faux language skills --
sexless manimals excited by CRISPR clones
taking the heat off procreation's scary moans --
every thought sent through a mind field of drill sarge trills,
constant threats to your family, psychos unbalanced.
Hmm, I wonder if that's how they got Aaron Swartz
or Bob Marley or Abbie Hoffman for The Man?
That's conspiracy theory, of course, and funny,
but there's all kinds of things you can buy with money
(did you see that rhyme?), including a murder plan.
Here in Oz murder's free, say omerta reports.
Imagine the whole world turned into Abu Ghraib
Alpha-Omega doggies snapping at the slave.
