November 2013

Loki and the Care Bears

1. the Planet

it was determined
that I had died for seven minutes
and twenty four seconds
(from a compromised rig;
  dissident splatter sweet register
  off the wall,
  workin’ day and night)
afterward,
remind me who we are
without the breathing acquisition of perforated
postcard memories titled “Conversations with Charon;”
      being a turtle
      on the Bifrost sea
      floating spatial drift
      succumbing to inevitability
  black hole lexicon
at the end of this spectrum
found under the guise
of a red dwarf
burning brilliant in the sky.

Scavenging an unfamiliar sphere
led by faceless carrion
twelve billion years old; (the white face
  of reconciliation
  is the same
  naked
  as
  naked
  anywhere)
clearing a path
through the mulch
of a smoldering scourge
feet sinking
inside the ashes of the cognitive theorist
on the banks of another Ganges
tar pit
orbited by two moons;
  one orange
  the other purple.

2. the War

it was determined
that every one hundred and twenty three years
the fighting would wage between good and evil
for exactly seventy seven years
then cease;

  Loki would return to the orange moon
  to occupy himself shifting between a fly
  in heat and an infertile mare
  while he prepared for Ragnarok
  by smiting a shield that bears
  a crest that reads, “the Eiron
  of Calamity cowers to none,”
  save the haunting hiss of the serpent
  overhead whose poison pains
  to the point of rehearsing “Political
  Science” by Randy Newman
  (let’s drop the big one, see what happens)
  fleeing to the garage
  for two liters of mountain spring water
  and a knapsack
  filled with dried mangos, apricots, cherries, and kiwis
  and mustard seeds
  and Elvish lembas
  and a scroll of spells
  on deception and trickery
  wrapped around a letter from mother
  that reads:

      Loki,
      we are all the student
      we are all the teacher
      the wise one recognizes this
      and is ready to take on either role
      love,
      Laufey

and
  the Care Bears would return to the purple moon
  lamenting the loss of the Kingdom
  of Caring and the Forest
  of Feeling while the fallen brethren
  of the original ten
  who once protected Care-
  A-Lot from Professor Coldheart
  and his backward idea to commission the Jumpsuit
  Boys to slay the Vivian
  Girls by slicing their necks
  on every third Sunday
  while the petticoat dykes
  fight against the queer
  exclusion from the cultural parade
  in Little Saigon;
  (because the caring meter
  has tipped dangerously close to thunder
            storm)
  while on the edge of things
  staring out across the broken bridge
  Wish Bear has gone mad
  stammering over and over again,
  “Ha,
  Rainbow, Rainbow, Rainbow!”
  and Share Bear
  thinks to himself
  while the dead are sent to burn at sea,
  [my heroes walk the streets
  wearing clothes just like me].

3. the End

(always seeping nearer
and nearer)

it was determined
that at the end of the forty eighth
cycle of the war
between Loki and the Care Bears
the fighting would be stopped once
it was agreed upon which was better between:

  Iron and Wine and Nick Drake
  Gza and U-God
  Basquiat and Warhol
  Rand and Proust
  Sartre and Kierkegaard
  Nietzsche and Paul
  and
  okra and fennel

so the bridge could be rebuilt.