Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Light
pure & perverse light
turned against the grain light
Acid light that marks you
with its coming light
                                
claw of the Beast     /
track of the Cat      /        LIGHT

           Marx's answer: capitalism can
not function if rate of profit is
proportional to surplus value
we must substitute an average rate
of profit in each economy

           average    -----    compromise

Acid gives the lie to Marx
Acid gives the lie to Amerika
Acid gives the lie to everything
which is why we put it down
or perhaps, Jack, it was only
light only light the light

Acid gives the lie to all but Light
            can we live
                              only for the light?
living for the singing light
is like
a locust song
it sings itself away
words  /  song
Grail song
"The Grail they said
Is achieved by steady compromise. An unending"

           compromise   the   light
Say, rather, light becomes
more vast than compromise, than paradox, than
            life
Say
               light becomes
pure Joy
pure Pain
Terror & Ecstacy without merging
without blend
without compromise
now imagine an
orgasm merging into energy
pulsing on the razor's edge 
           not illumination
not that
yes we can fill many pages
speaking of what it is not not
that not
this   poem, certainly

1969: Allen Ginsberg: "We
have all had our acid visions of 
            eternity"

& of the Fool the Joker the Merry
Prankster too

yet with all respect I defy you
to tear this up
without trying it first yourself
Who
Else
Is
There

?

& yes they will tell you
you cannot discover more than you
bring to it
                     & for once they do
not   lie
yet how many of us even know
what we bring when we
                                          COME

how beautiful
how terrifying it is
even for the first time
even then
                      even
then even now
&now is always for the first   time

thus the constant question:   is
it better
to be an epileptic
conqueror or an epileptic poet
or a cabbage

a game you say it is
only a game
I say it is only a game
but with a different
meaning than you  ?

some die screaming
some howling w/laughter
some just wither away
in the arms of that Bitch-Death

           STATE

so yes, perverse or paradox
turned against the light
or into It
                no difference

blind Homer writes the Odyssey
a one-eyed poet writes about the Light
fool-killer gets them both
people
            life
                  love
let it happen now

                                 welcome
Brotherhood  of   Light