notes for a poem about cursing

Sister Sue, tell me baby, what are we gonna do?
—Mink Deville

time has gone wrong here for no reason
it keeps swinging me back

..........................look it's like this
like you've had a sort of stroke
let me explain that there are flowers
where your hands should be

but what is this called he keeps asking
day and night with that look about him

you have a condition which means
you have to be careful what you think

[it would be more compelling to dance the meaning of this poem
but arranging that would be unrealistic—small local
performances could be devised but for a large-scale alert
of this sort something more is required]

he insisted there was a warning in the sky
but it was just electricity humming & sparking

...........oh we told him right there and then:

.............................you've had an episode
.............................you are reassembling things
.............................without a plan

time has done something
there has been a catastrophic error
this poem has performed an illegal operation
& will now shut down

...........................the head and limbs are in the wrong places
...........................—it doesn't matter but some people
...........................will call it a monster

it went on for years
think of him as a boy facing the corner
in a pointed hat
is he a dunce or a magician
either way he's thinking something up

....................the thing is someone starts it
by shouting & drumming
then you take over and don't know
how to stop

[your screensaver is a vision of your own death
the naked one reaching for you in the leaf mould]

..........................that's all it is

the beat goes on & the beat goes on

hold the flowers up to your face
work them until you see fingers
this might take years
dip the flowers in hot wax
think them into dripping clusters
of language and light

a sort of stroke—you need to think hard now
what was it that did the stroking?

this computer has not recovered
...........................from a fatal error
.
.
^{(Published in Intercapillary Space April 09)}