--- J A N   C L A U S E N

Of what consequence, though our planet explode, if there is no 
character involved in the explosion?  In health we have not the least 
curiosity about such events.  We do not live for idle amusement.  I would 
not run round a corner to see the world blow up.
	-- H.D. Thoreau, "Life Without Principle"



Late sedition in a bunker,
retribution in a hearse.
Rising action for the better,
resolution for the worse.

Metafiction in the basement,
jurisprudence in the trees.
Cacophonies of saviors
vend Cartesian prophecies.

Light sedation in a kill box,
exposition on the cross
where the Forest of Indifference
confronts the Sea of Loss.

Nonstop necklacing and fragging,
scripture blaring from the hill.
Press releases in the rubble
humanize the overkill.

Vivisection in the deli,
stupefaction in the dirt.
Maxed out narrative conventions,
metaphor on red alert.

What ghastly limerick's supplanted 
haiku, ghazal, villanelle?
Mediocrity in heaven,
vivid excellence in hell.

Gorgon, Grendel, glad Godzilla,
minotaur and loup-garou
rewrite the script of mythic carnage
from the monster's point of view:

an epic of extinction,
a libretto of demise,
a tragedy of oceans,
catharsis in the skies;

a prosody of pleasure,
a rhetoric of rue,
an avalanche's clemency --
oblivion, to you.

Baroquely bloody, stomach-churning,
madly plotted -- what about?
Pathetic perils of that ingenue, our planet.
So sad to die and miss the dénouement.