ekpo

(to the young ed sanders)

spiral replicating sphinx head
your self-enclosed space-helmet
and umbilical also encloses
the insect foetus telephone
whose mandrake body-root
is buried in television soil
the air in which it sits upright
praying or dreaming
different words to the same
blank gap

benjamin franklin
once rose
from the sphinx's head
to fly his kite
a kite which became
a black skinned sky baby
space baby
riding the neck of an eagle
which melted into a bust
of an eagle elephant monster
philosopher

why do they farm
the future and the past
is it gods rotating
among the image gases

but the sphinx's detached
and replicating spiral head
sees all
and space sees all and corrects
and critiques all
such that it needs or not needs
the needing time or feeding time
of the knowledge
that this sphinx's head
is not a pipe
it is a pipe

because it was dreamed that way
by the smoke that day