Notes towards a new anti-war 'epic' ...

[Phil Talbot]

Well read in the set texts of Redbrick (universe) Wisdom ...
Thus we spoke in echoes of the m’spelled back cover
O’the Penguin Classics ‘A NietZshche Reader (... n’s “approach and ideas are as relevant today as they ever were’ ...)

[Phil Talbot]

Well read in the ‘set txts’o’RedbriXwisdom’ ...
Thus we spoke in echoes o’ Raskal I love ‘
(much was lost in tranZlation/tranZliteration).

[Phil Talbot]

Later ...
Your tired head on my faithless arm ...
We watched the foreign language film ...
But ... the (nuclear?) sub(marine?)titles ...
We’re burred/blared/Blair’d ...
By charged air and rain ...
Leaving U(.)S(.) ...
With more (wholly wooden actors’) pictures ...
... to/2 think in ...

[Phil Talbot]

VisualiZers ...
Creatures of a new/old(e) STone/1 age,
We conjured up ‘visions’, or let them come ...
Grunted communication ...
“Pictures, I have some!”
Wild and Worldly Whirling ‘wing’d Will’n Words!
Tame static {lo’er KaZez} images)

...

As long as eyes/i’s/ IZ ... can see,
...
And a tongue (sort o’)speaks,
We’ll sit beside ponds,
&/or in rooms with leaks ...

...

(So said the ‘visually literate’ 0xy(spotty.creamed, admass  o’erwhelmed)p.t. ... a creature of a ‘new St1 age’ ...)

[Phil Talbot]

You is I, and I is you,
We is one, and we is two.

The sentimental greetings cards were not for us.
We would never have presented worlds
Of blue’d violets and reddened roses.
And ‘LOVE’?! A mass-debased/masturbated word ...
And yet we ‘demanded’ it ...

[Phil Talbot]

You loved with all your heart
And all your soul. Cliched fool,
I lectured: insincere’s deadening effect on thought-feeling.
Resentful? Pained?  Cowed?
You said: ‘no more’!

[Phil Talbot]

Well/badly read. In books /0’b.grade red brick wisdom,
(Thus spake RaskolniKov, in translation/tranZlieteratiion...)
He killed an  ‘Arab’ ...

[Phil Talbot]

The kissing kouples kitshness brought us kloser. ...

[Phil Talbot]

... or so ... 4/for(e) a ... (space)time ... we thought-feell’d/felt ... 4 a wile ...

[Phil Talbot]

VisualiZErs, creatures of a New Stone Age(s),
We conjured up/down images, and/or let. them come.
Grunted communication. “Pictures, I have some!”
Wild and whirling words. Tame, static image(s).

[Phil Talbot]

As long as eyes can see, and (a) tongue(s) speak(s),
We’ll sit beside ponds/seas, and/or in rooms with leaks.

[Phil Talbot]

C.0’kelly: “I just feel i’m Owed an EXplanation!”

[Phil Talbot]

Searching for ‘reasons’,
I chance upon: The Bomb.
It makes Love unlikely
- don’t you see?!

On the platform, noose-necked,
We’re bound to the moment,
The everlasting, never beginning instant.
We do not have ‘time’.

Never mind Zeno’s Arrow,
Can\could I cross the room by tomorrow?
(And when logic and reality collide,
The results are quite deadening!)

[Phil Talbot]

Like shapes in dreams I/We/You drifted through the years,
Random, plan-less: our fore-thought in chains.

[Phil Talbot]

Ten/10 paces a-part,
Can/could I breach The Gap?
There’s always a doubt.
I may/might not make it up to you.

10/ten paces.
Perhaps twenty/20 feet.
Too distant.
A second, or more, even if I rush(ed).

Too long. (“So Long?!”)
We might be dust in an instant,
Gathered (al)together
In two/2/too separate(d) piles.