From his geodesic dome on the Monterey Peninsula Turquoise Seth speaks on the phone though time to the Desert Fathers The voice of one crying in the wilderness Seth speaks but is not heard Because he’s too hip too cool too Goth too sly He went to live in the mountains Turquoise Seth hears the voice of the Lord in the burning tenement A voice in the flame says “Take off your basketball sneakers and step closer you won’t stumble through the rubble your feet will keep cool” But Seth is too Lower East Side too renounced to bounce back too much locust and honey too much pillar of fire He went to live in the mountains The tenement burns but is not consumed The voice of the flames speaks to Seth “Lead your people out of the South Bronx take them over the Triborough Bridge to the land of Manhattan” But Seth is too rave too mud too jive too fly He went to live in the mountains Seth speaks on the phone through time and says “Concrete sand in the urban desert the A-train keeps me up all night the ghetto is the desert where we wander eating wild locusts and drinking Budweiser beer” In the morning the people gather free sample coupons from MacDonald’s Those that are not consumed by the end of the day are not saved But are thrown into the fire as an offering But Turquoise Seth eats no fast food Turquoise is too new front line too far downtown too much bad attitude too far from home He went to live in the mountains From his geodesic dome on the Monterey Peninsula Turquoise Seth speaks on the phone through time To the desert fathers Damn the nuclear reactor Let's turn it off
Edmond Chibeau is a performance writer. He believes we are Microchip Aboriginals, living in the Ur Civilization of the Digital Age. He blogs at “Blog Chibeau.” He has been published in The Nation, Multicultural Review, New England Theatre Journal, The World (published by St. Marks Poetry Project), and EAR Magazine, California Quarterly, and Santa Barbara News Press. His work has been performed at Lincoln Center’s Bruno Walter Hall, The Mudd Club, The Knitting Factory, NoSeNO, The Ear Inn. He has worked with John Cage, Alison Knowles, Kenneth Rexroth, Allen Ginsberg, & Charles Bernstein among others. He received his Master’s degree from the Annenberg School for Communication at Penn. and his Ph.D. from Northwestern University. He teaches scriptwriting at ECSU.
Originally published in the FALL 2018 edition of the Helix.