Opium Cactus: imperceptible lint of the masses

Here's a poem written at an early stage of my life when I couldn't afford capital letters.

imperceptible lint of the masses

the committee is about the

service groups of marmosets who

contribute to the reaches of their class

in repairing the

john henes park production

with its grubby sweat and

$5000 the environment

improvement of the few and

the correct structure of the masses

underneath

the pens that confined the eighties have

a US department of important production

inspectors of the growth of artifacts

who are being outlined now

in a caste where the

councils grow workers in jars

when the committee struggles have

intended to purchase south korea

and put up a chain link africa

the extension cages for the

construction of a bear around the world will

be separated for

aide cleaning

OK then. This is another juxtaposition or mash-up poem. The source materials included some socialist thing, and a local newspaper article about the proposed construction of a new bear cage at John Henes Park in Menominee, Michigan. (I don't really keep up on local news stories, but I'm fairly sure they never managed to purchase South Korea, but they may have managed to put up a small chain link Africa for the bear before it was eventually given to a local private zoo.)

For me a large part of the interest of the poem is in phrases like 'service groups of marmosets', 'growth of artifacts' and 'where the councils grow workers in jars'. It shows a strange world in which the normal distinctions between inanimate and animate, and animal and human, do not quite apply.


The ending of the poem I see as quite ominous--- 'the extension cages... will be separated for aide cleaning'. What is this separation thing? Does it hurt the cages? Will they cry? And what about this aide that needs to be cleaned? Is he an aide to the committee or to the bear? And why doesn't he just clean himself?

The poem 'imperceptible lint of the masses' is found in my book Where the Opium Cactus Grows. Buy a copy! Buy two or three or more, they make great gifts, especially for insane people.