zumpoems

They’ve Stripped the Forest for Babble

They’ve Stripped the Forest for Babble

Reams and reams
             The black-ink symbols innundate
             Flooding consciousness with printed words
                                          that possess
             Definitions but know no meaning
Tectonics, 
      Aardvarks, 
            political history of Byzantine hydraulics.
                        Dewey decimal has run rampant
                        Chasing, haunting, even lurking
                                  in the restroom
                        Parasitically clinging to the walls
 Stark and blatant waste or frivolous gaud
                        Venus dies --
                                   --                                          
                                   --    nonsensical nausea                       
                        The ice-age is returning
 

— Zumwalt (1974)