The mss. following, For Want Of originated in my desire to make a simple statement about animals: our egotistical, destructive “categorical separation” of Life, our overtly cruel treatment of animals for often pointless or, at best, ambiguous studies.

Allowing myself poetic movement/breath (I need such an extended range) with a prosaic “subject” left me straddling two traditional forms (categorically). Even though the surface might appear “poetic” this is not a poem.

The intent is nothing other than a statement, a willing, a protestation, for the animals.

 

                           Man is an over-complicated organism.
                           If he is doomed to extinction he will die out
                           for want of simplicity . . .
                                                                                    Ez. Pound

 

For Want Of

Breath.

                        the in, out . . . linguistic structures

                                                       Our Lungs

                        or

                                       this line so hard
                                       found
                                       into

                                       breath

There can be no
utopia no
new age no
Dictum of Clarity

                                       until we forget the old
                                       Angel/Beast Dichotomy
                                       that

COMPLICATION

                        : complecti / to entwine about
                                                      to twist

                                    braid : spiral : knot

                          pattern, convoluted, turned in upon
                          itself to loss of distinction
                          of CLARITY

This we need :
                                       to be able to see structure,
                                       pattern, delineation

                                       a matter of design, a simple

                                        seeing

                                                           of form

complication

            :      wire cages, row after row (Psychology Lab, U.N.C., or Pharmacology
                                                                               Studies or Research Triangle Institute,
                                                                               or . . . ad infinitum)

                (skullskullskullskullskull)
                of animals

                                                           & all of One Breath, One Pattern

                 in a laboratory
                 that we
                 might live

                                      longer . . . (consider the dust that 10 years, 100 years
                                                               is, in infinity)

This, our complication, our cutting off from
the design, the clear

that distinct clarity of song, of one
          mockingbird; singular, lone,
          who sang all night
          & my soul

          OF ONE BREATH

          with that bird, that tiny heart, beak, strength
          of throat & pulse

          A Union

          not unlike the strange combination of sea-salt-water to gland’s secretion

          again :

                                      DESIGN, CLARITY, CORRESPONDENCES

          brought about
          between species
          (&, with this accomplished, from species to star . . .)