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04/26/2006: "Theoryland: Canto - IV" by Bruce Price
Theoryland, an epic poem by artist/writer Bruce Price:
The
story so far: our hero--an ambitious professor--traded with dark
forces to gain the gift of Lit Theory. In Canto III he enjoyed his
success. But now...
IV: CRACK-UP
In my dreams I see their youthful eyes,
their guilty surprise....
"But what," one asks, "are lies?"
A loss of sense? A sense of loss?
Never mind! I am the boss.
Stroll and nod, nod and stroll,
look at me, I'm on a roll.
This career is hot,
like the dry wind....
as I promenade....
a very god.
CHORUS
In the modern geiss,
Theory is prosthetic device;
The amputeed are all agreed,
more Theory is all we need.
The wind so dry,
the air so empty.....
something ominous and slack...
perhaps a lack....
Were I not a diety
I might yield
to silly bourgeois sentimentality
and feel,
or even cry.
No, this is fun, so much fun!
And the work is just begun.
Now that I control the hegemonic,
I swear life's more sweet than gin and tonic.
Why then do I drink so much,
why do I feel so out of touch?
Nonsense! I'm post-logocentric man!
Don't try--even I can't understand.
Imagine wearing Hitler's hat,
dictating what's what
and that's that.
Nothing is privileged
but my last diktat!
In dreams I see their swimming eyes...
their why's, their sad surprise....Oh!
A world with no facts at all...
why does it feel so small?
On feelings an interdiction!
I make notes toward a supreme fiction...
Oh, there is no water but only rock,
schlock and no order and the randy toad,
me, for whom the co-eds sing...
Wait, don't forget one thing--I am a god!
I can show the circle is square,
decisively disprove the presence of air,
instantly create an ism, concoct
a second coming of dense grammatical jism...
Things sprawl apart. The center cannot hold.
Mere Theory is loosed upon the world.
In the pogocentric university,
we have met the ennui,
and us "R" it...oh shit...
A loss of sense? And too a sense of loss...
CHORUS
Berkeley, Harvard, Yale and Duke
make a nifty cultural nuke,
opening cans of tenuous terms,
endowing Chairs of Coifs and Perms.
Next night as I ponder pale and confused,
less and less and less amused,
I fear the fact of my vanishing act
and reel shouting at my Mac:
"I want out, the deal undone!
I want to feel like everyone
else." Cheerleaders pangendered but ballsy
smack me about until I have a palsy.
"No," I scream, "you are just a dream--
sophistical shanties on vacant premises
and empty plots, transparent Camelots. Not real in any degree. You
are Theory!"
Now they shrink back and sputter.
I lift the Mac, throw it from the window
to the gutter. The night burns
with the ashen colors
of well-smashed Grecian urns.
My heart, once interpretative ice,
becomes a puddle....My head
softens with sickening hums
to a muddle.....And I am mended
By medics wreathed in pills red and brown
Till human voices shake me, and I drown.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Canto V--DIRT (the conclusion) will be published in May.
To read Cantos 1-4, please visit Theoryland.blogspot.com or
Lit4u.com. (Bruce Price is a novelist, poet and digital artist.
Reviews welcome.)
