Jaaz #7 for Tim Leary
ROBERT HUNTER
—but alas I was no swimmer
so I lost my Clementine . . .
Goethe
Galileo said “There’s a sucker born
every minute and two to lead him.”
Mark Twain claimed
“Give me a lever long enough,
a fulcrum & a place to stand,
and I’ll talk to the moon.”
But it took Timothy Leary
to demonstrate the insight
that joined these divergent strains
of thought, to wit:
Moderation
in some things,
excess in others!
crocheted sails & flat wind,
over the waves we wade while
Tim in a tunic reasons
with the breeze and wins.
“OK, your turn to blow,”
it says to him.
Since someone had to mislead us,
seeing the ice was thick
and the skates thin,
Tim was a better choice,
by the width of a bucket of blood,
than those who told us
barrels only come out
of the freedom of guns.
Leary led us to understand
freedom is in our socks
because they are closer
to our feet than our shoes.
Now and forever
immortality calls,
in the only way it calls,
if in fact it calls,
and it may behoove us
to believe it does,
since the fate of one
is the fate of all,
or were we wrong
about everything,
including the clear
evidence of the senses
standing on stalks
where the wind talks,
always in song,
sweet little sixteen
in fluorescent genes
bringing in the sheaves
through the cornucopia
of flagrant desire, chaste
mermaids in halter tops
tipping each wave,
singing for some,
Tim among them.
Those who choose
the perils of freedom
over the certainties of stone,
alone may hear them.
Melodic variation aside,
translation gainsaid,
ever and anon
it’s the same song:
Gate, gate,
in at the gate,
out of the same gate,
Buddy Sail On!