Rereading The Dead Lecturer

Overthrow. And make new.
An idea. And we felt it.
A meaning. And we caught it
as the dimensions spread, gathering
in pre-utopian basements figured shadows
scrawled with smoke and music.
Shed the dead hand,

let sound be sense. A world
echoing everywhere, Fanon, Freire, thin pamphlets lining
raincoat pockets, poetry on walls, damp purple mimeos cranking

—the feeling of an idea. An idea of feeling.

That love could be so resolute

And the past? Overthrow of systems, forms
could not overthrow the past
nor our
neglect of consequences.
Nor that cold will we misnamed.

There were consequences. A world
repeating everywhere: the obliterations.
What’s surreal, hyperreal, virtual,
what’s poetry what’s verse what’s new. What is

a political art. If we
(who?) ever were conned
into mere definitions.

If we
accept

(book of a soul contending)