Hey You, Big Ape

Hey you, big ape
with a big bouncy sunshine,
broad shoulders and a big
bald head,
Your bloated belly bursting
in bulimic bliss,
bless your boorish ways
and your patriotic blackouts,
brainless pleasures is all you need,
Stand up, big ape, and flex your
biceps for the big America,
bigger and better than ever,
Blow up your face across the
black and white television
screen, blasting off into
the outer space
of baboons and pepsi commercials,
Stand up like a blissful balloon
in the world of anorexia
nervosa, lupus erythematosus,
and some such other mucosa,
Bring out the blasted mongoose
out of the intranasal epithelium
of basal cell ganglia,
Break this universe of amoeba
consciousness and degenerate
professionalism and
Cover it all with a giant mucous
membrane of Moby Dick,
We are all dermatology experts
when it comes to examining
the nature of our leather,
Go on a food binge like
an overfed antelope and
phagocytotic mitochondrion,
floating, bloating in the
upper limits of Higher Stratosphere,
Incubating the ozone layers
of our multi-bodied ecosystem,
Sniffing glue and reading pornographic
literature or National Geographic—
It’s all the same thing among us
amphibians,
Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit,
like desperate toads, frogs and
crocodiles,
We eat the eggs of our young,
searching forever for that slimy
dollar,
There is no frugality in air pollution,
And there is no escape from the
chicken coop,
Rejoice, big bad baboon,
For your time has come to rise
bigger and bigger,
To fly those friendly skies
of bizarre Spanish airlines,
And there is no time to hide
the eggs and the French toast,
Building growing faster than people,
And nature short-changed us with
defective genes,
So stand up you, elephants of tomorrow,
For there is no more time for waiting,
We are the future generation,
There is no use fighting progress,
so catch the wave, catch the wave,
Rhythmically floating in the ocean
of ennui,
Underwear and all,
pointing fingers at the Tree of Madness,
madness, madness, madness like
A thousand crystals spread out over a
woman’s breast
In a wondrous miracle of science,
Change your hair follicles and recombine
your DNA and RNA molecules
With an electricity of spontaneous
combustion of the Ford Motor Company,
Climb up the stairs of quintessential
buffoonery, bleeding death through
The intensity of your corners,
Rainbow kaleidoscopes of madness
sending shivers through your hollow
spines,
Reducing everything to its absurd
components,
Saying nothing and signifying nothing.


   March 4, 1987  
--Alexander Shaumyan