AFTER THE MIGRAINE

and the shimmering blindness,

the carnival whirl-a-gig

spins you in centripetal

flush -- the alligator man

escapes under his tent

in a house-of-mirrors flash,

it's all snow cones and

cotton candy, corndogs

and pigshit, blue ribbon

mincemeat and sour cream pies,

fusty peanuts, lipstick and

ring toss, anything is possible,

the mutant, the grotesque, the superhuman,

you'll write that novel on

the human condition, a tragic

folly, rush out to your old

high school flame and smooch

under the bleachers, you'll

read poetry for god's sake,

cummings and ginsberg and

ferlinghetti, you'll take up

ballroom dancing, do the fox trot,

construct a new grammar

from stone, hike the Andes

to reach the ancient city,

drink the blood sacrifice,

touch the face of god and spit

into the sad Pacific rain,

smoke cigarettes with Kafka

in the cobbled streets of Prague,

drink Pernod, absinthe and mescal,

and bigod that's just this morning,

before you retreat to your

monastery and chant the vespers

in the stone garden and watch

the dissolution of the world's

insistence, all the

distractions, the senses now

muffled and time unraveled

in the eternal zen moment.

It is the agony of God

any way you look at it,

penance for beauty,

and thought, and just being

itself, redemption

for ever waking in

the first place