The Cynglish Beat: My Own Howl

Excerpted from upcoming The Cynglish Beat by Tim Reynolds from Cometcatcher Press.

MY OWN HOWL

My own raging,

screaming,

laughing,

giggling,

ranting,

why-can’t-they-fix-it,

why-did-I-do-it,

messed-up-world howl.

The messed up world, where the rich get filthier, the filthy get poorer

and the weight of it rests on the over-burdened shoulders of the middle man,

or the middle woman,

or the middle person,

or the meddling person who thinks the world needs to be gender-fricking-neutral.

Vive la difference! And when we’re done vive-ing, howl.

Howl that the sounds of great literary minds are lost in the cockamamie cacophony of

not-even-close-to-reality shows;

Lost to the tsunami of navel gazers who can’t help themselves so they turn to self-help gurus to turn themselves into unexperts doing the unexpected.

Howl one long howl at the headlines of today!

At the line of heads, today, bobbing in disagreeable agreement because the jobless rate hit ten percent,

The budget for new cops has

been cut,

Earthquakes kill thousands,

A bishop possesses porn,

And howl because three newborns and a woman were found dead in an apartment!

Howl, dammit, howl.

Howl that a generation

doesn’t know

Kerouac from karaoke,

Doesn’t know

Ginsberg from ginseng.

Howl, baby, howl that more countries don’t execute their drug dealers and crime lords,

Then howl, man, howl that those same executing countries

fuck it all up by treating women as anything less than the goddesses they are.

Howl that religion rules everything and fixes nothing.

Howl that so many voices speak for so many Gods

and yet they can’t hear

the voice of their own God

when a baby cries,

a child starves,

a victim begs

“please don’t”.

My Howl

I howl at beautiful faces fronting ugly souls,

at powerful faces

with no souls at all.

I howl that we have to pay for water and education and health care…

these three things disoriented are.

I howl that armies of drones create castles of gold

on a foundation of sin

and blood

and oil

and diamonds.

I howl that we still get shocked and dismayed day to day that a great mind

was a fag or a dyke or,

God forbid,

Simply not one of the narrowly-defined little party who runs this mess.

Lynch?

Ruin?

Censor?

Burn?

Destroy?

For thinking outside the box?

For forgetting about the damned box?

Fuck the box.

And The Book it rode in on.

I howl that we have to put up with shit we don’t care about.

Then I howl that ignorance breeds intolerance like the intolerant breed the ignorant…

and the cousins keep marrying cousins.

I howl that crimes against money are punished harder and faster

than crimes against children.

I howl at those who won’t howl and expect the world to fix itself.

I howl at those who do nothing but howl until deafness descends on ears and souls.

Deaf souls, dead souls, sold souls, rented souls, lease-for-life-with-an-option-to-buy souls.

And I howl that a Big Mac tastes so damned good but I can’t get one for breakfast.

~

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