H e a r t S o n s & H e a r t D a u g h t e r s of A l l e n G i n s b e r g

N a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 1 4 : A r c h i v e s E d i t i o n

ELIOT KATZ

Is the Earth Spinning Faster These Days Or Is It Me?

With the ever-accelerating approach of global heat stroke, everyone knows deep in their

mind’s  mind

that the human species may not have as much time left on this beautiful blue planet as many

cross-generational family budgets have previously planned,

so it seems like we’re all moving faster—or is that only in my Lyme disease-infiltrated

nerve-fragile imagination?

The inspiring Arab Spring protests took off unexpectedly like a rocket whose fuse was

lit in the middle of night by an invisible self-immolating match.

From Tunisia and Egypt, the pro-democracy movement leaped across continents to Madison

    Wisconsin’s historically progressive hot bed,

where a young right-wing governor lay naked before Internet-fueled video cameras growing

organically in Koch Brothers-built purple-painted walls.

In Bahrain, the press is quiet because it was the world’s largest oil supplier that sent its

spiders across a national border to sting idealist youth with an Ethanol-assisted poison.

Was it the tsunami shocking six different Japanese nuclear power plants that set Earth’s

rotation spinning far faster than the Multiverse could safely accommodate?

With everything moving so quickly, the President could simply not find a free moment to tell

    Pakistani generals that stealth U.S. helicopters

were about to vacuum up the most notorious fugitive of our times from a dusty trail just

outside Islamabad airspace.

Even as the world spins out of control, I hope the latest Navy Seals adventure had Arrest & Trial

on its menu of possibilities,

and that it leads to more peace in long run rather than more refurbished washing-machine spin

cycles of violence.

I believe it will, now that believers can no longer believe there was a God providing a protective

    Star Trek cloak to OBL, though I know it would become even more peaceful

if Obama would grow the spine needed to end Bush’s wars and reverse Bush’s human rights-

shredding home and abroad kitchen policies.

For the past six months, I’ve been mostly kitchen homebound except for doctors’ appointments,

dealing with the 101 dangers caused by chronic Lyme disease,

when the bacteria has a chance to spread through body unannounced like a stealthy helicopter

because one has never seen a tick or bullseye rash.

The world’s sneakiest spirochetes have nibbled tasty chunks off my joints, my GI tract, and my

autonomic nervous system.

With the help of an army of mostly kind doctors and rows of Chinese herbs and American

supplements, I seem to slowly but gradually be regaining my daytime balance.

But everything after sunset these last few months has been rushing by so fast!

Now that my latest Lyme test has finally turned negative, I’m making a vow to get up soon, out

of this sick bed in new Hoboken apartment a block from Hoboken’s Historical Museum

and start swinging my arms wide to see how much of history I can grab onto before it all passes

by me to evaporate into thickening air.

[Originally published in NHS 2011, http://www.poetspath.com/napalm/nhs11/.]