Firebeast.

Firebeast

   After DJ Opperman
   Buffalo's blank on metaphysics:
   he'll seek sweetgrass
   and drift,
   will fondle the calf,
   thrust his horns in the foe,
   will nuzzle the cow,
   and take shelter when hail hits,
   but won't ponder tomorrow--buffalo's
   blank on metaphysics.

   Man alone strikes at full-tilt
   past, present and future,
   the chinks
   through to reason's caves:
   fashions fire, knives, gods,
   ponders death's endless show,
   offers prayers and must,
   as conjuring-act on a wall
   of his cave, paint the buffalo:

   The buffalo of metaphysics:
   follows the firebeast
   in himself
   by hook or crook to the end
   of his drives and dreams;
   and his brain-storms spark data
   for pyramids, the Last Supper,
   wheels, chrome, projectiles,
   the atomic industry, et cetera.

   And before his demonic stare
   see the solitary
   appalled;
   but he'll not resist
   total destruction's dead silence--the
   Parthenon and Hiroshima
   already lie shattered to bits
   in the malign loveliness of violence.
   Buffalo's blank on metaphysics.