man, pursue (the university sprawl)

never told his path was fate,
the wayward body, at great rate,
hurled himself into the blank,
dark and empty, a twirling sank,
his mind in puzzles, his face a grin
(thoroughly a sober win),
an impact pending the spirits great
who value, measure and contemplate
the fiber strained of this mere speck
who knew of life a tangled wreck,
a devotee of sacred numb
(somewhat long haul, mostly low hum)
tho’ conscious wisdom of his plight
never kept him ‘wake at night,
his dreams were plucked from the abyss
of strangeness bold and ludicrous,
he’d sigh and curse and humbly swallow
with furrowed brow what hex may follow,
to study at length the nighttime vision
was born from dread and self-derision,
a lash against his dubious frame,
his mettle a mar, his countenance blame,
he’d mutter analysis minus compunction
(an abject failure of form and function)
a feeble link of genetic shape
potential akin to a squashed grape
(he’d laugh at the reference to flattened fruit –
metaphorical specter of egregious truth)
upon his arrival, rupturing matter
yet hardly a dent with minimal splatter
omniscience profound and brilliant with glory
rendered decision upon this boy’s story:
“return ye to earth and blend with the scene,
swat Armageddon with a rolled magazine,
for your faith and your fever are pitting amosh,
downloading punk rock for daily barrage
of your tingles and tangles and strays of dysfunction
as a clown in the court of distractible function
shifting and shining as you swear repose,
for in this condition your oom-pah-pah grows,
mirth democratic as you yawn into space,
scream warm crescendos of blank pain erased,
harken this seasoned, empirical sage
and relinquish this battle you stoically wage
for your words may fight you and charge insurrection
as Vonnegut hurls you into ‘mazed circumspection
the surf will wash you and wear your crown
and blackbirds and wraiths will flutter abound
so whistle your tune, catalog all your pains
coffee up, little misfit, and amble the plains,
find poetry in madness wherever you tread,
now lock ‘em and load ‘em and GET OUT OF BED!”
so he did wake, adrift yet alert
(considering all, relatively unhurt)
and beckoned the planet for merciful toll
as he gathered his senses for combat patrol
fitting his –isms for his Where and Why
walking serpentine labyrinth,
Ol’ Buttermilk Sky.