The Cerebral Catalyst

Over my life, I've pushed loved ones away & hid in the shadows of my dreams. I think Creeley's lines
over and over again, as the typewriter's keys rattle
[nearly] 24 years in 400 words or less — bang,
BANG, the sound, THE SOUND(s)!

& from my stereo, Iggy Pop sings how he's got this "Lust for Life!"
Well, if Mister Pop had been a peon poet, living in South Georgia, & not a punk god in California,
& someone took away his beloved Junk would he have had such a lust?
? ? ? I-think not. I-think too much.
The narcissist inside of me would like to say,
"I was born to bend the S-curves of your Infinity, baby!"

But,
who in the Hell is "you" exactly,

& why not try bending Reality?
My statements are shit. I lie to myself.
We should all know, as adults, that
nothing in this world is truly "real" & Everything IS finite.
I am severely fatalistic.
The paranoia of instant-death

drives me to crank out words at a methhead's rate of production. Preparing for a drastic ego reduction, 99.99% of the world will not cry if I die tomorrow. Outside of those few childhood memories, when things were pure, the ones my mother clings to through maternal patterns of evolution; my face will fade in time, & quicker than I might wish.

Get — over — it!

Fourth grade smelled like Jake Mason and his Leukemia; an uneven mixture of iodine & vinegar. Over 6 months, my class watched Jake disappear. Following his death, the homeroom walls felt like sandpaper, I still don't know why. Two years later, I learned to dive, stopped studying, & got caught cheating off Anna Porter's French quiz.

When I was 11, I found beer; 12, pot; 14, acid; 15, cocaine & ecstasy; 17, heroin (Iggy, I had it then...); 18, crack; 19, a hospital in the Sonoran Desert. 21, I found unconditional love; 23, I broke every condition & left love. This summer I started having these dreams where I was in the middle of an apartment filled with everyone I'd ever hurt, & their eyes were ablaze as I gagged, pulling frogs the size of lapdogs from my throat because...

______________________________________
Zachary C. Bush, 24, writes and edits poetry. He is the author of five collections: Outside the Halfway House, We Swallow(ed) Spiders in our Sleep, NEXT EXIT: FOUR (w/ Brad Kohler), INTERVALS (w/ Bill Shute), and Before the Grand Ascension (forthcoming in 2008). He is currently working on a full-length collection of experimental/visual poems that should be completed spring of 2008. Contact ZCB at: readezra@yahoo.com.

posted 01.07.08.

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