Benthams' Calculus Poem by Jonathan Huey

Benthams’ Calculus
By Jonathan Huey

I offer a defiant variation:

“Berlin has placed mankind
under the governance of two
equally insane masters,
the criminal larva, and crocodile ecstasy,”

I endeavor to enchant your mind
with a new systematic etiquette
beyond your ethography

what does the eunuch know of pleasure?
what does the masochist not know of pain?

The collective bestial awareness
a mentality cut-off from meaning

beyond cyanide reflection
beyond temporal bone

Spasmodic writhing
pestilential influence
from Chicago to East London,
and coffers of erectile teeth,
the bankers of fantasia-

the calculative eye
a poetic flinch,

pyramid froth
of trench warfare,

incandescent gases
of Valhalla

secret society
of the common leech,

needles in
vertical position,

these variations I offer,
as a salute to creativity
beyond a bipolar understanding
of human existence,

repeating decimals
are rhino droppings
in mathematical mind,

and I am a soybean,
beyond pleasure and pain.

©2000 Jonathan Huey

***