Whiteworld/Oedipus - Patricia Barber

I arrive in the jungle

in my new khaki clothes

make a splash in a pontoon plane

bought and paid for by those

who demand a tally

of the dark horse, the bad seed

poking and prodding progenitors

of respiratory disease are we

Whiteworld

I have institutions in the West

to make institutions in the East

I historically revise

with Deconstructionist ease

to name is to own

to market is to steal

I’m a gangster in a Hummer

& this culture will yield to me

Whiteworld

my policy is straight

my publisher primed

the natives will not

resist this time

cause I’ve got celebrity

I translate, I teach

I give my heart, my soul,

my brains, my body, and my

batteries

Whiteworld

bridge (Sophocles)

I came on my journey

to a juncture of three roads

two men in a chariot

made it impossible to go

I struck the driver

for pushing me aside

the old man struck me back

so that I

had to kill them all

Whiteworld

I can change water into wine

solve the riddle for the Sphinx

I like the perfectly primitive

cause they desperately need

my sovereignty

over Third World Thebes

I’m a First World Oedipus

and Mother Earth is

down on her knees

Whiteworld