N a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 1 2

STEVE HIRSCH

Way Beyond Anger

Pursued by at every turn by

some rage with a raincheck

that I stowed away

now back with a vengeance

and a penchant for

screwing myself

way beyond anger

into undealable disbelief —

no dealing with the

knockout punch of irony

or is this all just

elaborate preparation for death?

Katie Couric thinks so —

From Benghazi to Baghdad to Kandahar I am way beyond anger

From Fukushima to Chernobyl to the Gulf of Mexico I am way beyond anger

As a father, an earner, a taxpayer, I am

As a ‘lonely man in the middle of something that he doesn’t really understand’

As a rider, a commuter, a cubicle rat fighting for company kibble

I am way way beyond anger

What we defend

ultimately kills us;

the portfolio of successful jobs

the dusty black portfolio in the garage,

the online portfolio,

the multimedia DVD portfolio,

the portfolio of horribly bad decisions

perfectly timed to be even more horrifically ironic

to screw myself as completely and deeply as I can,

to wound myself

way beyond an iron-on

way past a life-o-plasty

that masks some youthful folly

or carefree moments of oblivion

but to be spared one last misstep

to stem this tide of sadness,

blinder this aching hunger

that reaches way beyond the boundaries of the fort.

Indian Point, built on a fault, is 30 miles from here

I guess we’d head north if anything happened

but from there, who knows?

Wherever it is, I will be way beyond anger

no more would dancing bears make me smile

I walk past the Army Recruiting Center, neon ol’ glory

50 Ft. Nasdaq HDTV wraparound video wall,

past the Good Morning America studio Euro-tourist 8AM Beatlemania screams

and I am way, way beyond anger; coffee spills over in the bag,

soaks my ham and egg on an onion roll.

Arthritis, stenosis, domino row of root canals

carpal tunnel, Lincoln Tunnel, throw in the towel

dodge sinus drain Port Authority hobble stank crowd

I am way beyond anger crossing Times Square

eye-migraine blindered against Madam Toussaud and B.B. King

no one carrying a Times anymore

no one cares much about ink on paper

iPod wired sardines play Gen Z punk to Superfly in caffeinated VR 3D hypnosis

the voices of history exponentially multiply

until everyone has a voice in the social record

but no one can hear and understand, no one can read more than 145 characters at a time — twits tweet crossing streets oblivious to traffic

I am way beyond anger at inane urban bloggers

that turn the mundane view out their apartment windows

into purple cellophane universes; lots of crisp sexy noise, no candy.

I listen to the dead whisper toothy puzzles into a fish eye lens

their prismatic voices cry an inverse rainbow of beats and frequencies

being pulled smaller and smaller into a great mass of warning

fine hairs stand on end and burn for less than a nanosecond I’m told

as you are turned inside out like a tissue blown

now I know, they’re my family, those voices,

silenced in the Holocaust, with ringside seats for the rematch.

Both sides gear up for terrible loss.

They are my family, those voices,

killed at Nagasaki, burned by knowledge, hubris, and device

passed-over survivors in their own way

Put that on your iPad and tap it

kick that down the torrent and make it viral

an alien server ODBC bridge uncloaks on the event horizon

our infant signal detected

the earth shudders and makes waves.

Robots at the reactor report the radiation is way too high

for walking-dead scientists to bear

2200 degree steam jets out from cracked concrete

The city’s moist heat smells of distant tornados —

Forsythia in bloom on Bear Mt. — my knee hurts, eyes burn with pollen

Harley sounds freaking great though, heirloom tomato sprout bed in mold

9/11 responders grilled as suspected terrorists

before getting their benefits

Every bus ride is a potential explosion

commuters moan by the side of the road while Rabbis gather flecks of skin to bury.

Every bridge and tunnel, targeted cloverleaf, outcrop of shallow-rooted locusts

all vulnerable to earthquake, hurricane, 747, scud, laser battleaxe, economic hack

Woman drives her van off the pier by Gully’s

kills 3 of her kids, the oldest, 10, survives.

and Little Leibby Kletzky; Levi hid the boys severed feet in his freezer

his little lost feet that fell into a monster’s trap of madness and panic dismemberment.

[MAYHEM! A LIFETIME OF WARS!

(a chorus of off-key horns —

1120 Ave. of the Americas sways back and forth as the blanket of mantle is

fluffed in Virginia, trees flatten in Craigville, floods move neighborhoods,

roads abruptly end at walls of rubble or lead into new lakes)]

I am a freak poet who cares and hates what the world has done

and hasn’t done to date — I hate the freaking world, the fears it manufactures for compulsory sale — the lack of a real choice in leader

I vote to wipe the slate; scrape the torrent with a new tracker

attract a swarm of responsible hackers and lizard-genius trans-human moshiach mensch

to warn aside another genocidal attack, lift arms and voices at once

too tense to bridge the rift in situational earthcraft, we escape slowly;

the latency of change-managed revolution.

I look at old photos from before the war, dwell on my great-uncle,

imagine the conversations we might have had

Their voices won’t leave me alone

but I am too far gone; way way beyond.