The Religious Issue
Vol. 5 Issue 1

Visions and Vibrations
by Bruce Kramer

I have seen mystic visions and cosmic vibrations
. .  where the insane scribble agitprop nuggets of abstract lunacy on the back of grocery receipts
only to have them dance through subway tunnels on the wind
…where the poets beat the Poets and run through the ivory hallways of the Academy with their work written backwards on the soles of their naked feet.
…where, in Hamiltonian realities, the visionary bum drinks the nectarous piss of urban generosity
with broken shards of champagne glasses stuck between his fingers
and his PhD to keep him warm.
…where John Coltrane lies gunned down in the street
begging for help behind the cloven-footed marches of school children.
…where instead of kneeling before God men kneel on the dirty urine covered floors of bathroom
stalls giving head to the garbage man with the lone sick flower growing through his skull.
…where children swing on Whitman's beard
and bleed dust from pricking themselves on its thorns and the shards of broken rainbows lie rusty and neglected in coffee cans near burnt out cars in abandoned lots
…where cum stained underwear dries hanging on halos and quills are dipped in the blood of teachers
and bureaucrats drink from the flower pots of prosperity.
...Where the harbingers of dumpster prophesy dance with sunflowers.
…Where junkies shoot up on sunshine while we ignored the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox to pitch in to buy Robert Johnson's soul back from the devil.
… where a lone boy burns with numb feet through streets
whispering the news that lies on the street dusted with snow and the ash of crematoriums.
                  Ginsberg is dead.
                  Ginsberg is dead.

                  Ginsberg is dead and
Lennon is dead and
Churchill is dead and
Art is dead
Baraka is dead and
                 Jesus is dead and
Poetry is dead
Ellington and
the Luddites and
Whitman and
Religion is dead and
Hope
Simeone
Weatherbee
Dylan
Kramer
Rimbaud
Faulkner
Dali
Sunshine, nature the heart and, Reason
                                         is dead and
           you
                   is dead.

. . . where Pablo Neruda lies lost and silent despite finally having our attention
and where Minos casts us up into our designated floors of the corporate malebolge
beyond the sign:
                                "God Bless America
                                 Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."