Dancing to The Rogue Nations

S&K Net, Charlotte, NC

To Jesse

A circle becomes one
through eccentric orbits,
the red light dancers of Matisse
carve reggae gyroscopes
in two-tone sneakers
rocking steady
as maelstroms churn,
bodies whirling,
spiral vortex
hurricane of youth
honoring an empty eye.

In the space taken up
by a living room set
where families spend their lives
all bleary eyed and shit,
they pounce like spider monkeys,
sneakers keeping chill
the dankiest of beats.
They force the tempos
to shift and move
so radical their paeans
to the lords of dissonance and anti-blues,
for they are not a thing to be so easily
hypnotized by surface noise
and awakened to the moon
but a thing that itches to be born,
transformed frenetic sculptures
shaped from a clay of
suavity and awkwardness,
resentment and dependence,
agape and alienation,
friendship and neglect,
with mouths but no tongues,
ears but no words,
they speak with bodies cocked,
heads wild, knees straight,
hopping, not swaying
into the world at full steam with no mind,
trying to find the funk in the hammer-lock machine.
They reach for the unconditional
as the rotted institutions of control revolve in song,
and as the entertainments of the maimed populace
are held up to the clear light of ridicule:
too cool, too cool, like all the invisibles before them:
the mods, the rockers, the vagabond scholars,
the art hags, the martyrs to Delsym dreams and filthy narcotic
heavenly scenes, the retro trippers, the wrecking crews,
the wide-eyed hangers on and brow-lined students of the attitude,
the orange lights of a thousand half-cocked cigarettes,
breathing in a flame to keep them still,
breathing out a haze of words that disappear and can't describe
the far-away scent of the authentic.

The only God here is Johnny Rotten
and there's only Pabst Blue Ribbon in his place.
Everyone fills their role, so natural,
on the linoleum floor, and me, I write this so
I would not be another poseur in the church,
an interloper watching as the
monks of punk shuffle forth
the syllables of joy.