Samuel Gates
2-D Platform
Super Mario has a mania. He keeps running
Beyond the stretch of Forrest Gump's America.
Into a mall. Out of the 80s. Toggle, toggle,
Toggle & into a digital side-scrolling work of art.
A boy's fingers mashes button A
Then mashes 'start,' allowing the boy
Like Lazarus, like Christ to live
In level 1 after the boy hath died.
Super Mario has a mania.
He first appeared in Donkey Kong.
Shigeru Miyamoto & Takashi Tezuka
Are his God. He jumps like Jordan
With the springboard freshness
Of another Universe
That has not yet begun.
Mario's head, Mario's throat
Punch through gold
Cinderblocks then crunch,
Eats his lunch of wrapped
Bitcoin before Bitcoin was
Born. How does he do that?
Ask Princess Peach
As she floats off
In Bowser's Doomship
Towards the world
In which I type and you toggle
Now with a 3-D remote.
Just wow!, caught in the warp
of tunnels which mash together
All worlds.
