a 21st century moths' life

Incubating in daycare centers
and cookie-cutter playgrounds,
crawling armlet by armlet
across bustling hallways
and hard desks:
cramped notes, slide projectors,
and sprawling libraries
filling our consciousnesses
with the diseased debris
of the last tumultuous century
(bloody barbed wire, penis envy,
and Marxist fire,)

Maddened past madness
we finally break the lunatic cocoon
and fly dusty and free
to frequent seminars and night-clubs
(sweet espressos and stinging absinthes)
to chase money or feminine honey
to sin artfully or write haiku poetry,
to hide in cubicles from bats in ties,
to be pushed around our hours
by the arm of a clock,
to beat our wings against the window panes
of didactic mass culture,
to become as familiar with the moon
as with the sun,
to circle the light of genetic reproduction
frantically using our antennae
to find those special arms and wings
to hold us on lonely nights
to foster our helixes,
to carry our looks, dreams, and memes
to the next generation...
consciously or unconsciously
hoping for enough feed and sun
to hatch healthy minions
to win the genetic competition

And art? friendship? philosophy?
These are but corollaries:
brainy refined trees
anchored and sustained
by hoary moth roots,
our civilized off-shoots
taking a hundred leafy shapes
(or red spots or grey lines)
according to the dictates
of death and survival
of primal script and law

And yet there is some freedom
between the rattle
and the final bed-ridden battle,
between the restrictions
of the egg and the coffin,
some glory in our hour
in the glow of the street-light...
the thrill of the good fight,
gentle hope in the night eyes
of a loved one,
a game of cards
with a faithful companion,
or the hard-won pull
of artistic redemption