From the first days of a decade,
when the birth control pill
split the sperm from the egg,
freeing us to copulate condomless,
& in that moment engineered
the evolution of our species,
from the pain-killer,
to the pick-me-upper,
to the tranquilizer;
to the capsule Owsley concocted,
unlocking the doors to Psyche’s rooms,
her tombs, her catacombs,
as, in fetal form, we curled
up in her warm womb;
to the decade’s final days,
that moment space imploded,
when the first homo sapiens
hatched from a lunar capsule,
that second we first grokked
a lunar gaze at our globe,
motionless in darkness,
one side nebulous, one unseen;
(I watched with my family
on our stereo console tv,
transported to hyper-reality,
inhabiting video images of astronauts,
as if we, too, felt the solid moon-matter
beneath our slippered feet),
one more punctuated equilibrium leap,
like the first fish that stepped
from primal slime,
& glommed onto terra firma;
to now,
age of living better
through designer chemicals:
from the attention pill,
to the erection pill,
to the happiness pill,
to the hangover pill;
age of the Octamom,
age of the fertility pill,
chemically inseminating
misfertile housewives
to whom birth control means
abundantly birthing;
age of the abortion pill,
circling the ring
from pre- to post-coital;
now,
when we look at the moon,
we can see it looking back,
we can see ourselves
looking back at it:
one aspirin-sized dot
of white lunar light
illuminating another,
bigger, multicolored one.
Now, the moon is a pill,
the earth is a pill,
birth is a pill,
death is a pill.
Life
is a pill.
when the birth control pill
split the sperm from the egg,
freeing us to copulate condomless,
& in that moment engineered
the evolution of our species,
from the pain-killer,
to the pick-me-upper,
to the tranquilizer;
to the capsule Owsley concocted,
unlocking the doors to Psyche’s rooms,
her tombs, her catacombs,
as, in fetal form, we curled
up in her warm womb;
to the decade’s final days,
that moment space imploded,
when the first homo sapiens
hatched from a lunar capsule,
that second we first grokked
a lunar gaze at our globe,
motionless in darkness,
one side nebulous, one unseen;
(I watched with my family
on our stereo console tv,
transported to hyper-reality,
inhabiting video images of astronauts,
as if we, too, felt the solid moon-matter
beneath our slippered feet),
one more punctuated equilibrium leap,
like the first fish that stepped
from primal slime,
& glommed onto terra firma;
to now,
age of living better
through designer chemicals:
from the attention pill,
to the erection pill,
to the happiness pill,
to the hangover pill;
age of the Octamom,
age of the fertility pill,
chemically inseminating
misfertile housewives
to whom birth control means
abundantly birthing;
age of the abortion pill,
circling the ring
from pre- to post-coital;
now,
when we look at the moon,
we can see it looking back,
we can see ourselves
looking back at it:
one aspirin-sized dot
of white lunar light
illuminating another,
bigger, multicolored one.
Now, the moon is a pill,
the earth is a pill,
birth is a pill,
death is a pill.
Life
is a pill.