A.K.A. “I Thank the Puritans for the Fabulous Evolution of Cereal“
by Ben Koch
photo © Ben Koch
There was this rumor in high school
you could eat 20 bowls of Total and trip,
totally flip thanks to some trace
hallucinogen lacing the flakes.
Ty’s wearing a t-shirt with “cereal killer”
penned across the chest in sharpie,
though only coincidentally related to our scheme
today, the teenage scruff-beard of an aspiring grunge lord
shadows his face and accents his toothy
maniacal smile: “time for breakfast!”
For two boys on the cusp of rebellion,
the crusts of garage-band hood and anarchy,
this was too much to resist.
Would Hendrix, or Morrison, or Kurt Cobain
for that matter,
turn down such a deliciously silly high?
Hunched over bowl after bowl
think of the moral fiber
it took our puritanical grandfather
to scythe through virgin
prairies making way for wheat,
or whatever hearty grain,
his drive, his discipline, his sweat stained
the very parchments
that define this possibility, and it all came
to this—the apex
of industrial capitalism
causing visions like
a mutated mold.
Think of that old sanctimonious cod with us now!
After all, we don’t call it the Protestant-slack-ethic:
we’re his demonic dream-echo,
we’re the lusty hard-on under his staunch black preacher
garb, the voices between the scriptures ricocheting
in the hollow of the chapel!
I wonder would we sink or float
Ty and I, second-cousin beatnik
transcendentalists, believing gods leaves pockets
of precious heart-sight, total wild meaningful trips
for those who know the secret places to harvest.
