LEARY:

I listen to Leary

In a pre-recorded vocal sample.

Looping as he casts his loopy

Theory. That we’d follow his

Example.

And I know he did his best.

But I remember I was never much

Impressed. I knew this back in

Middle School. And I will not

Be made a little fool.

How he’d crusade against

The tyranny of all authority.

Soon he had to answer even

To his own majority.

Soon he like a cancer

Spread the tall tales of

His own superiority.

Soon even the Cosmic Dancer

Grew tired of his seniority.

Alan Watts had warned him

Art Linkletter scorned him

Ginsberg wrote about him

With a Howl.

Father Time endowed him

With a scowl.

Crime denied him

A return across each

Bridge he’d burn.

The gods seemed to abandon him.

As he rode upon a phantom whim.

Philip K. Dick condemned him

As do I and for the same damn

Tragedy. Icarus took to the sky

But never had a strategy.

And of course those loopy words

Work well but only in the same

Closed loop: that there is only

Solidarity within the troupe.

He subtly suggests that on the contrary

He offers Hope. Of truly Universal Unity

Without a comfort that could help us

Cope. He says therefore to screw the

Pope and clergy. And engage in

Orgiastic dramaturgy.

And he urges me

To purge me of the curse

That is the olden way.

And I am left much worse off

Than before for listening to

What he absolutely had to say.

For if he will condemn each path

That leads me back to This Reality,

Then could he not throw out and out

Of wrath all Solidarity in Actuality?

For what is Shakespeare without

Rhyme or reason? What is friendship

If it’s treason? Who’d defend a killer

Who here lies and there hides his

Will under a pious disguise?

Why must I level with the

Murderers when I could revel

In Peacemakers? All for fear

That when you return to the

Herd you won’t have any

Takers.

Why must I forsake the Quakers?

And the Mormons?

And Zen monks?

What can I discover

That I won’t simply

Recover now in

Chunks?

You threw the babe of Human

Friendship out with the bath

Water of conceit. And in your

False camaraderie oddly you

Fell into your own deceit.

And what you brought to me

Was so apparent that your

Sign of birth was knowingly

Transparent.

All the parents you despised

For fear of parenthood. And all

The men you analyzed who wanted

Only to be Understood.

And in disguise of a much

Greater Good than any old

Inherited conception.

You gave way for the great mystery

Of Evil then to parrot your own self

Deception.

And when you said in that loop

Think for yourself. I think then:

For My Self. Is that all that I

Have to live for?

When she asked me what the Self

Was. Prior to her death from

Drugs.

I found a reason to forgive her.

But what is forgiveness,

Pity, mercy when the word of

Evil is abolished? When the

People cannot trust a common

Knowledge?

When the colleges are rape

Machines and dogs will run

Amok. I say: fuck you, Leary.

Fuck your theory of never

Giving a fuck.

Here’s the fuck I give to you:

For there’s no truck in living through

This Life with open mind and no

Convictions except those bred by

Addictions.

Part of me is lived in an eternal fiction

And the other in maternal fact and time.

Under your paternal jurisdiction,

I forego this paradigm.

Modernity supplied it

And humanity denied it.

And it was not vanity that

Spoke with such authority you

Fear.

MacIntyre liberated us with pain.

And a desire not in vain.

When Ram Dass had a heart attack

He tossed your fire out into

The rain.

[You offered Solidarity

Only within a narrow group.

And those who sought it anywhere

Besides you called a troupe.

For you defied the Other

Like a child defies its

Mother. And without an

Adult’s rhyme or reason.

And I could have told your story

Of a war-torn scorn in prose.

But as it goes: I know

That it would have been

Treason.]

Dm.A.A.