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ODE #2 TO A BLOOD FILLED SYRINGE DISCARDED ON THE WILLIAMSBURG BRIDGE NEAR MANHATTAN



Kenneth DiMaggio



��What anonymous

vein

��rejected this false

��ecstasy

��dissolving it back



into a plastic

that has become a condom for a narcotic orgasm



��that will never impregnate

a poison and perhaps fatally so into a soul



that like a clean syringe is a vacuum



of the bland and sterile



��It is only

when you inhale evil



��that a passive instrument



becomes



an autonomous weapon



with unpredictable consequences



��Yet

why not a stylus



that without even writing

one word



still leaves behind

a poem untitled



��but whose theme

of self and perhaps communal

destruction

is never in doubt



��What is

missing



��but can be

easily painted in



��is a contemporary

parallel



to an ancient

Roman mosaic

of a young woman



in the pause

of a moment seized with inspiration



��that comes to a gentle rest in the tip

of her pen softly puncturing against her lip



��But for our civilization



the writer of our epitaph is a junkie



whose epiphany



gets gently wasted



into a vein



that will innocently bring

the fatal



to a clean and vital nature



��Most probable

HIV positive hypodermic



��or a classical image

of a dead culture



and one that in spite of its unsurpassable ability to articulate



was unable to mark its end with language




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