Modern Nebuchadnezzars

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MODERN NEBUCHADNEZZARS 


The mythless go mad, howling

for their own dog-eared place

in a story, pawing through the ruins


like the blind librarian after an earth-

quake. Ours is a whimpering,  

interior madness, what's wild in us


so shackled by sanity 

that we could never stoop 

to see ourselves reflected


in the well as we bend to drink,

could never stoop to believing 

the tall tale of a man so bent 


under the weight of his own rationale  

that he’s reduced to prowling  

the wastelands like a beast, 


sustained by whatever untamed

green he happens upon as it fights

its way through the thin 


chinks of asphalt already

snaking the newly-paved

interstate going nowhere.


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