“I See It Feelingly” © John Engstrom

 

From the Kitchen of Doctor Faustus

Philosophers slosht on reason distilled,
besotted with the logicks of their dreams—
suave ruthlessness applied to every task
with formulas at hand for all that seems.

Maniacal reason, madly sought,
to find the scope of microcephalies—
the gifts of pious, poor, and learnèd fools,
the heavy wealth of Mephistopheles.

In conical hats and hierophantic robes,
certain of sure certainties they prance:
they’re piped upon their march to plastic seas
as Holy Science calls them to their dance.

Night-rimmed goblets fill with wine-tinged clouds
as shadows flee from life and we with them:
as we poured into life evaporate,
our shadows sink our murky sediments:
our desiccated dregs, our fossil dusts
and facile rusts scrape bottom hard enough,
hit hard enough to make our howls’ blood cry and sing.

Philosophers slosht on reason distilled,
besotted with the logicks of their dreams—
suave ruthlessness applied to every task
with formulas at hand for all that seems.

Maniacal reason, madly sought,
to find the scope of microcephalies—
the gifts of pious, poor, and learnèd fools,
the heavy wealth of Mephistopheles.

In conical hats and hierophantic robes,
certain of sure certainties they prance:
they’re piped upon their march to plastic seas
as Holy Science calls them to their dance.

Night-rimmed goblets fill with wine-tinged clouds
as shadows flee from life and we with them:
as we poured into life evaporate,
our shadows sink our murky sediments:
our desiccated dregs, our fossil dusts
and facile rusts scrape bottom hard enough,
hit hard enough to make our howls’ blood cry and sing.

 

Edward Burke, under his anonym strannikov, has been laboring across short years at flash fiction, verse, and essays, all with varying content (so many themes, so little time) and degrees of success. He, too, has survived the most recent summer that Technogenic Climate Change has hurled (although two limbs from a neighbor’s drought-parched oak recently tried to impale the roof over his head). He remains a librarian seeking employment as a translator.

John Engstrom is a Boston-based artist-author-poet. A retired journalist-museum worker, he serves as Arts critic for the Fenway News. His collages and poems appear on Facebook and Divergents Magazine.