MATTHEW HENRIKSEN

Alien Bug Prints Its Way to Freedom

Alien Bug Prints Its Way to Freedom

(Sermon the First)

Alien bug prints its way to freedom!
Shouts the preacher at the people driving past the bookshop.
With a coffee mug in his hand, the preacher shouts the New Democracy!
No one listens.  A boy on a bike chews his lip but doesn't stare.
The boy not staring is a Puritan! I am screaming for a new democracy!
The preacher reaches after a dandelion seed.
How many of you have been baptized with your faces in the pavement!
How many of you need to change your underwear!
How many of you have ever answered an obscene gesture with an undulation of Nabokov's prose!
It is our turn to speak into the air-conditioned sky!
Our turn to get sick on radishes!
Our turn to sniff the burned out glue factory!
To sift the grains of a crushed whiskey bottle through our fingers!
To stare into the milk of a breast-shaped mountain!
To lift our chins and complain! To turn tail and run!
Naked into the pine needles!
Forever fled! The night skins the fields!
The birds have slept their sins away, sisters!
Morning has woken with a shotgun in its teeth!
Who has died! What field has broken! Whose teeth have been knifed!
No one! No one! No one!
Forever fled! The alien bug is building implants in its heart!
The alien bug is addressing envelopes in the cigarette factory!
Forever fled! The cigar stores have opened the doors of their hearts to freedom!
All the children are addressing the naked soldiers in the forests!
Forever fled! Every dream has turned into a glass of milk!
A glass of milk! It is our turn to spill milk on the carpet!
To pay the damages with cut up pieces on newspaper!
Here you go, my savage landlady!
I have read your coffee grinds and exclamation points!
Alien bug prints its way to freedom!
Thus shouts the preacher! The preacher shouts! Forever fled!


(Sermon the Second)

Repetition is not the answer!
Repetition is not the answer! The shotgun is not about repetition!
Look at Milwaukee! Look at Amsterdam!
No, don't look at Amsterdam! Because repetition is not the answer!
Repetition is not the answer! The petition is giving the alien cancer!
That is not the answer! That is not the answer!
Look at the stock market crash! Repetition is not the mathematical answer!
Look at the English poet Thomas Gray! Is that the answer!
Look at the English poet Thomas Gray! Is that the answer!
Just every time you want to know if you have the answer! Repeat the answer!
Look at Billings, Montana! Is that the answer!
Look at Billings, Montana! Is that the answer!
What about the naked soldiers in the pine forest!
What about the naked soldiers in the pine forest!
What about changing your underwear!
What about changing your underwear!
What about the saucer on the living room end table!
What about the saucer on the living room end table!
How many times can the gophers get out of this mess!
How many times can the gophers get out of this mess!
How many times can the gophers get out of this mess!
Don't ever answer yourself in a public restroom!
Don't ever answer yourself in a public restroom!
What about the rutabagas and the mustard seeds!
Is that the answer! What about the rutabagas and the mustard seeds!
How many times can the gophers get me out of this mess!
What about the rutabagas and the mustard seeds!
What about the naked soldiers waltzing into the pine needles!
What about the rutabagas and tractors!
What about the English poet Thomas Gray!
What about the English poet Thomas Gray!
A day in the country might do us some good! Look at the tonsils of that tree!
Look at the tonsils of that tree! Look at the tonsils of that tree!
A day in the country might do us some good! What about the English poet Thomas Gray!
What about the drowsy cow bells! How about we let someone else ring them!
What about the drowsy cow bells! How about we let someone else ring them!
How about the nose on that hippopotamus!
How about the nose on that hippopotamus!
How about a burning hillside!
How about a burning hillside!
How about the nose's burning side!
How about the nose's burning side!


(Sermon the Third)

A sparrow injures its wings against the air, hits concrete by the mailbox.
This is how birds die, the preacher thinks.  This is how birds die!
A girl with a balloon rubs her nose as she walks past.
In Kansas someone is aching! Maybe for this bird!
Or maybe the bird died of an aching in Kansas!
Maybe the wind blows in Kansas for the heartbeats of Eskimo children!
Maybe your mother was an Eskimo once! And you never knew!
And now this sparrow is dead to prove it!
What greater truth than a sparrow's stilled wings!
If a naked Eskimo child dies in the wilderness, the snow melts around her!
Even as her heartbeat is still! But then the ice freezes back around her!
What greater truth than the frozen water around the Eskimo heart!
What if the smokestacks in this city are the breaths of dead Eskimos!
What greater truth than for you to turn your back!
What greater truth than for you to turn your back!
Mad city! Mad city! You choke on the Eskimo's bad breath and laugh!
This is not a dream of your will! This is the city of Eskimo breath!
And now this sparrow is dead to prove it!
What greater truth than for you to turn your back!
A sparrow injures its wings against the air! Hits concrete by the mailbox!
What greater truth than the nothing between air and concrete!
What greater truth than the concrete air!
Maybe you are moving through the concrete air!
Maybe you are injuring yourself against the concrete air!
Maybe you are the dream-baby of the concrete air!
What greater truth than to be the dream-baby of the concrete air!
Mad city! Mad city! We walk against the concrete air!
Mad city! Mad city! We walk against the air that dreamed us!
We, dream-babies, ether of another breath, stroke against the closed throat that spoke us!
Once, before conception, we were images, wanted!
Now, mad city! Mad city! Mad city!
This is how birds die! Vanity of dreams! Vanity of dreams!
I have known speakers of storms, born of their mothers' breasts!
So say they, this is not dream, but storm, and we the sufferer's dream breath spoken!
Who are we to dream! When the city has spoken! Vanity of dreams!
Who are we to speak from the mother's breast! From the harbor's womb!
We are the dream! The Eskimo's bad breath! The city's myth!
Stop your mouths with concrete! And be blessed!
This sparrow, alone, has spoken!


(Sermon the Fourth)

This is where the myth of sex begins! shouts the preacher, pointing to his coffee mug.
This is where the myth of sex begins! Pouring coffee in a trash can!
This is where the myth of sex begins! Pouring coffee on his heart!
This is where the myth of sex begins! Taking the sparrow in his hands!
A woman with a basket of flowers passes, singing to herself.
This is where the myth of sex begins! Putting the bird in the coffee mug!
Putting the coffee mug on the ledge of the bookshop window!
The myth of sex is the gateway to the New Democracy!
Women, I ask you to undo your blouses!
Men, I ask you to put a finger to your lips!
Children, slip in at night and watch your parents snake under the bed sheets!
A shotgun to the celibate! A shotgun to the celibate!
When you hear the heartbeat of a dead sparrow, you know where the myth of sex begins!
Dead sparrow! Vagina of the New Democracy!
Dead sparrow! Penis of the New Democracy!
Dead sparrow! Dead sparrow! You are the Paradox of the New Democracy!
What greater truth than to sex ourselves to darkness!
Great sorrow of tomorrow! We have your sparrow!
Who hears this sparrow's heartbeat will be born into the New Democracy!
What couple will blossom the first child of the New Democracy!
What does a river in France have to do with this!
Pigeons, go away! This is the fistful of the New Democracy!
Dead sparrow in my coffee mug! Fistful of the New Democracy!
Who wants to build the next rocket! The myth of sex begins!
Who will go the way of the monkey! The myth of sex begins!
Who trusts foreigners! The myth of sex begins!
Who will kiss the milky mountain! The myth of sex begins!
Dead sparrow! Who will swallow the dead sparrow! The myth of sex begins!
Or shall we shout it! Throwing coffee mugs to the sky!
Or shall we shout it! Throwing coffee mugs to the sky!
In the sparrow's heartbeat you can hear tomorrow's dawn creeping in!
The myth of sex begins at dawn! The New Democracy!
You have one thousand sparrows in your heart! Waiting to begin!
Children, slip in at night and watch your parents snake under the bed sheets!
This all began a thousand years before anything!
The thousand sparrows in your heart! Older than anything!
This is where the myth of sex begins! The myth of sex begins!


(Sermon the Fifth)

Anal sex! Anal sex! Does anyone listen!
Anal sex! Anal sex! A Toledo radio station!
The marijuana has all been confiscated! And it's because of anal sex!
The ban on chemical weapons has been erased because of anal sex!
Prohibition has ended! Anal sex!
The monopoly board is a secret message about anal sex!
Calligraphy! Anal sex!
Rocket ships! Anal sex!
Underwear! Anal sex!
A police car drives past.  The preacher shouts: Anal sex!
The police officer is a Puritan! Anal sex!
The world balls through space toward some dark asshole!
I cry for anyone who has or has not had anal sex!
This is not a test! Or a cry for help!
This is not a cry for or against anal sex!
This is a cry for those who have or have not suffered anal sex!
A Toledo radio station! Has it suffered or not suffered anal sex!
A midget in Milan! Has he suffered anal sex!
The river in France! Has it suffered or not suffered anal sex!
Kansas! Omaha! Boise! New York! Iowa City! Have they suffered anal sex!
Has an Eskimo's breath not suffered anal sex!
What Puritan has suffered anal sex!
The coffee mug on the ledge of the bookshop has not suffered anal sex!
Has the sparrow offered the coffee mug anal sex!
How about the misters who say anal sex does not belong!
Have they suffered or not suffered anal sex!
Has America forgotten anal sex!
Have all the possibilities withered on the raft down the dark river!
I am singing, anal sex!
I have never, and plan never to have, had anal sex!  Yet I remember anal sex!
I remember the summer like a lover! When some young couple in a novel had anal sex!
Beside the bank of a river! Under a willow tree! Anal sex!
In the darkness, they sang, each to the other! Anal sex!
And the river sang! And this too was the dead sparrow's heartbeat! The New Democracy! Anal sex!


(Sermon the Sixth)

Karl Marx was a genius! And I am not interested in anything he had to say!
And I shall prove it by my lust!
The preacher pours whiskey in the coffee mug and drinks from it! Coffee mug!
I am tasting the sparrow's myth! A lesson in lust!
A man wearing headphones bounds past.  This is the season of lust!
I would cradle the thousand sparrows in my eyes!
I would build the thousand bridges with my tongue!
I would take off my shoes if the receptionist asked!
I would cross a river of asphalt, holding the toaster over my head!
I would go blind and drunk into just about any alley!
I would toss your broken bones into a brick wall! For this is the season of lust!
I would hold my ear against the tree until I collapse! Only to stand and listen again!
I would try every kind of butter! Eating through the boxes! Smiling!
I am talking about surrender! Do you see the dark outline on the hills!
Do you think someone is getting away with murder! Is there treason!
Of course! Because this is the season of lust!
The sparrow's myth has a name! The season of lust!
Look into a hubcap and see the season of lust!
Eat a marshmallow! Season of lust!
Listen: season of lust!
The trees have a breath I remember as the Eskimo spirits speak!
That is merely the reply of the season of lust!
The birds have slept their sins away! And that is the surest sign of the season of lust!
O forgotten moon! When you rise again, what will you tell us of the season of lust!
A river in France may or may not have some effluence of the season of lust!
What about the gleaners picking rags from the cotton fields! Season of lust!
The sun crushing your shirtsleeves! Merely the retort of the season of lust!
I am going on until the season of lust ends!
I am the river of lust! Fuck France!
I am the marshmallow in France's pants! The melted season of lust!
I am the wheat fields of Kansas! Season of lust!
I am a soapbox in Omaha! Season of lust!
A man at a jukebox in Coeur d'Alene cracks jokes about the reason of rust!
The man at the jukebox has been blistered by the season of lust!
A man rubbing his eyes open in Phoenix, wondering where his dog went, has been blistered by the
season of lust!
My mother has been blistered by the season of lust!
I would show you my blisters, but the police are afraid of the season of lust!
The Puritans had an erection and named it the season of lust!
The river, you know, is the season of lust!


(Sermon the Seventh)

Who of you has heard the music of the spheres with woe!
Who has answered the music of the spheres with an undulation of Nabokov's prose!
A girl with no shoes walks past looking at the sidewalk.
The music of the spheres is in the walls of your homes!
The music of the spheres is in the streets of the city! Mad city!
The music of the spheres is in an Omaha taxi cab!
The music of the spheres is in the well!
The music of the spheres is not a symphony!
The orchestra falls in the well!
Instruments scream! How can people learn to play unless dying!
This is the story of a boy who was raped!
The boy was wrapped to a chair in duct tape and raped!
An older man convinced a younger man to kidnap a boy and bring him to his home!
They wrapped the boy to a chair in duct tape! And they raped the boy!
They threw their instruments into the well of the boy's asshole!
The music of the spheres sings in the boy's asshole!
The cosmos sang into the boy's asshole!
This is the story of a boy who was raped!
The boy suffocated in the duct tape! He died!
The music of the spheres died in the boy's asshole! But it survives!
The music of the spheres survives in the laughter of men!
The music of the spheres survives in the tears of women!
The music of the spheres survives in the questions of children!
Babies crying in the dark! Music of the spheres!
Barbarous music of the spheres! The music of the spheres survives in Greek architecture!
The music of the spheres survives in Roman hot dogs!
The music of the spheres survives in every symphony!
But the music of the spheres is not a symphony!
The orchestra is falling into the boy's asshole!
Who has answered the music of the spheres with an undulation of Nabokov's prose!
This is the story off an orchestra in a well!
The story of a sparrow who fell into a coffee mug and drowned in whiskey!
The story of a boy who heard the music of the spheres! And he was afraid!
The world balls through space toward some dark asshole!
Forever fled! Look at Billings, Montana!
The music of the spheres survives in Billings, Montana!
Look at the walls of your homes!
Billings, Montana survives in the walls of your homes!
Look at the pine needles! The music of the spheres survives!
The music of the spheres survives on a Toledo radio station!
Alien bug prints its way to freedom!
This is the story of a boy who cried in duct tape! Music of the spheres!
Forever fled! Music of the spheres! Mad city! Mad city! Mad city!
Streets! What are you doing here! Billings, Montana!
A sparrow is dead in a coffee mug of whiskey!
Who will listen to the New Democracy!
Who will answer with an undulation of Nabokov's prose!
Forever fled! I am listening to a Toledo radio station!
Listening to the cigar stores! Smoke curling like toes!
Listening to the mother's milk!
Listening for the answer that will not come!                                                                 
But the music of the spheres will not let go!
Undulation of a boy's toes! Will not let me go!
Who are you who go! What about the New Democracy!
This is the story of a boy who was raped!
Naked soldiers trot into the vein of the pine needle!
A river in France means nothing! Omaha is empty! A thousand sparrows in your hearts!
Let go!


(Coda)

I speak alone! You! I do not know!
You! A man with a cut over his eye walks past.
How can I murmur! How can I lie!
Some afternoons the air grows so thick I can no longer breathe!
I am tired! I'd like to lie down!
Will someone speak! Offer a patch of street!
How foolish I have been! But look at the street!
It is nearly empty now! Only a sparrow is dead!
How thick the air has been! But now I can lie down!
Alien bug prints its way to freedom!
The New Democracy can do what it wants!
And no one has heard! And who cares!
I see last people, lingering, walking!
I have seen you and now I can lie down!
If I have gone from the obscure to the obvious, forgive me!
But the sun is setting! It is purple and brown!
The moon has made no promises! But when it sits again the cock crows in Omaha!
Outside Omaha, where a cab driver drunk on whiskey sleeps!
Omaha! Old Omaha! Omaha! Omaha! Omaha!
The streets are empty! It is time to lie down!
I sang for the New Democracy! Now I shall whisper to myself!
There is a quiet in the heart! A quiet in the heart I sing!
A quiet in the heart that says Be quiet! Lie down!
Let someone else sing! Now that you hear nothing!
When you hear nothing, let someone else sing!
It is, forgive me, a nice sound!

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