The Age of Alienation [& other poems by the 'Book Burning, Gun Slinging Society']

i.
  on the eve of the beginning
we swam in the vast nothingness of an eternal now
spellbound in the sea of retrograde amnesia

born into a plague
& primed by spacetime abstractions
ripped out of childlike purity
& morphed into a disfigured automaton species

stalking the asphalt planes of the panopticon
with heads hung by the burden of dim lit distractions
tailored for the livestock subscribed
to the web shaped shackles

at the foot of life's lonely mountain
the summit appears to rise & disappear
  unscalable the snowcaps melts into the heavens

ii.
  mapping the blank trackless pages
on my own odyssey   
- a journey of expanding cartography
in the desolate wilderness of poetry & 21st century philosophy
- beyond the walls & platonic disfigured forms 
my scourge is housebound
periodic slants in discourtesy by my menage
  "im yirtzeh hashem".
                              a classic case of family tree suffering -
                                              struck by a bout of root rot.
 
deep sigh in
  mantra
          slow sigh out
  mechanical cogs act as dials
on the dashboard of perception
yet the observer lies unbound
in the realm of the transcendental

iii.
  starring out the window
watching birds flutter in a mating dance
  my gaze
        collapses
drifting out of the frame & into an internal debate
to which i'm a spectator?
are we three, i wonder...
both participant(s) & mediator in the puzzling di(tri)alogue
centered on 'for' & 'against' a trip to the barber for a haircut
while the voices ramble on inside my fragmented mind
i let my attention step outside
taking flight with the dirty dancing budgies
running my hand though my hair
                    turning cold
what if i start balding?

on a seesaw swaying from
'greatest hit haircuts' highlight reels
to visions of the shiniest chrome dome in the city
lost...
  blooming sunny weather
lost...

iv.
both long-hand & short-hand
revolve in an infinite circuit

high-brow & low-brow
hands all pointed at the gyrating face

who is the author of my dreams
& he who visits me when i am engulfed
by the busy swarm of creativity

mystical genie who appears from his cave
shaping syllables & words
out of the buzzing humdrum
clear as black ink on a white page...
it streams out of my hand
at a rate which i cling to
as i am whisked through
that flower garden of poetry

v.
    Q. answer Fermi's paradox ::
                                             
~ we are the aliens