The Greenbook (part 3)
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| - | [[Category:Works Extant]]Collection of poetry by [[Steven Adkins]] (2003-2004). | + | [[Category:Extant Works ]]Collection of poetry by [[Steven Adkins]] (2003-2004). |
| '''[[The Greenbook|Part 1]] | [[The Greenbook (part 2)|Part 2]] | Part 3 | [[The Greenbook (part 4)|Part 4]]''' | '''[[The Greenbook|Part 1]] | [[The Greenbook (part 2)|Part 2]] | Part 3 | [[The Greenbook (part 4)|Part 4]]''' | ||
Revision as of 13:33, 20 Feb 2005
Collection of poetry by Steven Adkins (2003-2004).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
1992 – 6 months in DC
Back in Tampa until 1994
There I lived in 1,
(5 mos in Mexico) 2, 3
homes. Then New Mex.
‘til 98 3 homes
1998-2001 NY Three
homes
2001-Present Toulouse, France
2 homes
The interior of my heart
is like the jagged tail
of my wanderings
the scrimping orgy of my
emotions a perverse riot
--we agitate for everyday erotics--
an eructus
a shambling claim
a gravestone upturned to reveal a moldering
h ---
There, in the light of regret
the wicked hope of an angel in a miner’s shack
it is these moments of brilliance that make
it all worthwhile
Umbilical redundance
a wicked electronic plea
And I have used that word before
as i abandon my wife into the triangle
of forgetting
that stone triangle/CAD grey
on iridescent blue
located just of CUBA
signifying nothing
(and why did you spend
so much time on that word)
that library
that shoe factory
that small-town mineral museum
that forgotten mall
a high school on the edge of
the farmlands
unexpected villages still
cropping up under the dappled elms
She sleeps
But doesn’t forget
I cannot, am not, allowed to forget
I have raped a woman
and abandoned many
I have moved in on a brother
and bragged to another
I have served humiliation
and hurt,
and the places I have gone
the stimulation too much
too much gain
it’s all blended out
An amber haze in a can
--(·)--
One guilt blends into another
Hiroshima – active – becomes Franco – passive
Was this in the village
surrounded on all sides by curtains
a theater in the darkness
in the round
a place where failure is circumscribed
let’s do it
let’s scrunch up and flatten....
We buried the head in the dirt
on the path towards Babylon
the great whore; we don’t despise her
but we fear her power
in fact, we seek to get closer….
Ranging outward
a constellation of 7 stars
is a scimitar
cutting away the dead wood
our word for the expendable
no cost in this destruction
we use blood to feed thicker crops
the grain in our bread
each a seed
for a many-faced head
at the center of flowers
a face, a sleeping face
ringed by petals
they have no use for us
but we desperately need them
scrying glasses
magic mirrors
perturbing interpretations
zion hoagies for malnourished zealots
food for thought
for speculation
and conspiracy
a sleeping face in every bedroom
seeing thru closed lids
automatic reporting
and as wee emerge from the tunnel into the sun
and descend once more
we cross the lines of transit
inside the head of a worm
this sick group of fanatics
half-asleep and rocking
looking backward at mirrors to see ahead
Armageddonist erotics
the dull science of death
The Computer Woman visits The Great Ponds
she casts her line and pulls up a tiny,
smiling corpse
A Nation of assassins, it seems, has
chosen to defile this spot
A Dumping Ground for miniature murders
· · · ·
The waiting games are weighty ways….
(wisteria winding)
tap tap tap
reach for the revolver and decry
culture
spit upon the idols
piss in the wastebin
(there’s a war on soldier:
boredom vs. time;
at times like these one is
almost tempted to pray
for death)
The logarithm raindance is
the concentric circling of an immune shark
and if there aren’t as many bees as there
once were that’s not my fault
I blame the aristocracy
and their perversion of honey
transmitted--wireless--into homes across
Amerika
Kulchur rise up and bite the lion
sucking cock in dirty toilettes is a road
to satori:
hepatitis is cool
Cool (too much so) for skool
smoking in the boy’s room
shooting smack at Johnny’s
his leather jacket damp with sweat
the small, plastic trashcan filled with vomit
been sittin’ there for two weeks
now that’s a good time
(we don’t fall for no boozhwah junk)
· · · ·
An electric whale
sounds from the depths
puffs its cheeks and send harpoons
in all directions
sailors pierced against the blue cardboard
dome
which is the sky
The sky is a porcupine in reverse
and an alligator is looking for a toothpick
and the turtle-people guard the egg
as always
It’s a democracy of the quick
It’s a gentle giant
[I am Alex’s Imperfect Stenographer]
Pebbles Steven Toulouse
Mother Party Piglet
Alex in a phase of
mental diarrhea
deep deep & deeper
into
yr
lovely
sugar pond
(he digests)
Steak and ale
(a resto-rant worth
visiting)
in winter [in winter
no no no no
ok
You met man]
What?
You said
that is not right
these people wanna know
what we’re writing I think
it’s awful
let me tell ya
you don’t know
it’s awful
it starts like this
(laughter)
he’s my Beautiful sec.
she’s got luvly glasses
but actually
mmmm
actually
it starts like this
lemme tellya
learn shorthand
you told me on your diploma
how it starts
is that
I met Steve
watching Naked Gun
21 the final score in a cosmic
game of chance
the end result a slightly tweaked
chaos
History is a quagmire
and the stepping stones are hidden
A fleeting barricade
imperfection, a defect
in a vessel of pure crystal
interrupts the ring
the tick of a hardened fingernail
against glass
The dialogue of unrewarded fingers
rapping out rose sonatas
across the air
(grim and diabolical note-takers
scribble furiously
transcribing one out of every ten notes--
like trying to capture dust motes
in a butterfly net)
Purest in non-existence
Tainted when sounded
It is a song and a code
the sound represents the notation
which represents the billowing cloud
of motes—pushing—a pulsing testicle
ready to seed the earth, the ear
· · · ·
We are hang-dogs
haunches twitching
legs kicking
snarling
bound
tied-up and limited
hedged in the gallows yard
apples fall from the trees one-by-one
in steady rhythm they sound out the drum roll
this is our sentence
Ho ho! My son is 10 today, in months
just 30 days longer than his sojourn in the womb
and father is like some caged, defeated animal
the boy is in full Oedipal mode
his little lips already fixed in serious grimace
full of determination to do whatever it is
he finds so important
I haven’t yet figured out what that is
usually it involves putting something in
the mouth
or fooling around with something dangerous
last night he woke up screaming
and it was mother who went to his solace
coy papa has to work today
must ride the metro with the vomiting multitude
Esquirol, St. Cyprien, Patte d’Oie, Arènes
Fontaine Lestang, Mermoz, Bagatelle, Mirail
Reynerie, Bellefontaine, Basso Campo
must walk in the office park where
all the green is in weeds, and all the flowers are wild
and the odd collection of smashed-to-bits
film reels still litters the ground
after months and months
they will still be there when the boy
is doddering
these plastic potsherds
testament to a future archeology
and now Leland’s old man, too, is dead
Live long and prosper
and die happy
these are the things I ask for
from my special genie
· · · ·
the grains of sand which are the stars
you might say I am making a comparison
but I am not
I am exploiting a comparison already made
I am not so interested in why we do
this, or the mechanisms
I am more interested in
what might be called the implication
metaphysical being only partly correct
some kind of poetical revelation about the
structure of everything
realized from within inside of a pen
inside this secret reactive world
I expand and fill the spaces between
stars with a head made of latex and putty
This insipid life
seen from within an inferior cocoon
wasted years tumble backward into regret
self-loathing
the world is a mockery
....it doesn’t mock me
yet I feel mocked
everyone is a success
**except me**
I have no special ability or knowledge,
talent or skill
I don’t even take excessive amounts of drugs well
there is a sad plan afoot within me
my wife feels like she’s lost part of her life
we sit without talking
feeling futile
vaguely ashamed
at a loss
I feel like a loser
at 33 I have nothing which I can
honestly say I have worked for
it’s not the material things
it’s the will and ability to get them
I sit around and stew in dank juices
slippery in the drain
to be poked at with a coat hanger
unblock the blockage
make of myself a pleasurable fall guy
here is a thinker
a dictator
a pope
here is a magus who has been given
enough rope
a rough nape
a knee, gruff
these parts of the body sing
a weird harmony
of baritone and tenor
scrawling nothing
but painting in wet wide sheets
(the color is green)
the transom is bare
· · · ·
We have many more miles to travel
before the conclusions are well-spent
“these lines keep me from madness”
sometimes when the money is low,
the alcohol too
there is always the wedding bottle of wine
and….
there is the gratuitous wastrel
spending words like wooden nickels
throwing around racial epithets like I
was….
what?
coming around the lake, my analysis
is thin
or at least
it won’t be carried out in public
I won’t serve my guilt up like a
bleeding heart on a platter
----
occasional music
There is a fire upon the apexes
dead birds
or forgotten muscles
but not summits
dangling violently
by the heels
a balcony with some sort of hanging
plant with purple flowers
ejected out of some other time you’d
rather forget
We shall fill this book quickly
slowly
If at all
just
add
one
more
word like that
to cheat
throw threats overboard into seas of protection
complete the puzzle
get a reward
connect the dots
get a picture
I will abuse them until they surrender
or I am fired in the process
(and having declared his love for fascism,
he was roundly rebuked)
(it wasn’t all simply fashion)
‘coz every time I see him there has
been violence!
darkened gutter prophet in the
glim warm light of the candle
we smoked crack in the bedroom
the floor was wooden
but unfinished and splintered
the walls were bare
and except for a bed was pretty much empty
a TV sounded
there was a mother somewhere
anyway, I dunno why we were brought
into it, but like most of the time
it was grim
I’ve been ripped off, punched in the head
cops’ve trailed me
knives have been pulled
was caught cold in a motel parking lot
all for that elusive omnipresent rock
and I don’t know why
or what I did it for
the beautiful ugly night walks
in summer were easy
in winter, hard
bottle hard like the prostitute who refused me
a pipe
or the many others who shorted me
but when it was good, it was good
the nostalgia
my two years in Albuquerque
working at the heart institute
Paul, Kathy, Chris, Sylvia
drinking in bars, getting meals,
then back to Kathy’s impeccable
pas to smoke weed
and party
We got into crack later
K and I particularly,
and we would flash money and
get it
if only Paul had stayed and
I had stayed
Paul was fresh out of college, Sylvia
was in the middle of a terrible time with
her husband
there was drama in the unlikely yet
obvious coupling
but I was out of that even before
NM, and that was 6 years ago
After the 2nd attack
elections were suspended
and martial law was declared
buying things became mandatory
saving money was suspect
cash was rare
any political organization
that did not give blind allegiance to the state
or, in reality, to the party
became re-classified as “terrorist”
this is the history of the future:
now
this is America the beautiful, the
free, home of the brave
home of the happy meal
pre-packaged
air conditioned
convenient
subdivided = architecture as ideology
live here, shop there, work someplace else
no buses, not trains
only automobiles allowed
little castle in a yard
in a subdivision of a subdivision
a 3-mile island
10 minutes by car to the nearest
grocery
a supermarket, natch
nestled in a bristling multicolored
quilt of individual parking lots
for more supermarkets
car dealerships
strip malls
video rentals
fast food places – here, there everywhere alike
pet stores
consume
shut up and buy
it’s your patriotic duty to buy
as much as possible; 24-7
freedom’s waiting for you
divide and conquer
destroy the local economy with a Wal-Mart
pay off the zoning board with the promise of
jobs
turn the self-employed
into the employed
and send the profit out of state
homogenize
consolidate
hegemonize
destroy
watch the indifference
set in the hopelessness
the degradation
the free market
that is free in the
sense that the first one is free
the classic line of the strong-arm pusher
the hard sell
demoralize the people
watch it all go to hell
and blame it on the queers
start a war when things get sluggish
there will always be a terrorist under foot
might as well be fightin’ rocks
we can export what no one wants
and shake our heads in wonder
when it’s sent back on the tip of a boot
in the ass
It has taken a long time
but we will arrive in Athens
couplets with absurd rimes
shouted near to the point of collapse
an ancient library
that distinctive step
there is no work here
only collection
collecting lines like titles of books
experiences
people
all disposable
so as to recount a self-aggrandizing anecdote:
did I ever tell you about the time I raped a girl?
his brooding anger
his hatred
passive aggressive
“then I suggest you get started,
coz I’m just gonna get nastier and nastier”
The Digue days of Summer
walking along
a wide concrete sidewalk by the river
hemmed in on the write by a towering wall
We were looking for no grail
no source
but a bar
and we found it
walking home we tried to set a tree on fire
What is it that we are working toward
what destiny are we creating
(for there is not predetermined future but
that which grows inevitable by the
footsteps we have taken)
The sky is grey
the cars are smart
the fruit is crazy
and the Kingdom of Morocco is on my left
These heinous rivers we have
sent tumbling over into time
rolling along grooves
cut into the dry earth by an
enormous taloned hand
the hand
invisible
used to scoop me up and
deposit me in a bar –
5 o’clock or so
somehow I managed to stay put
until I stumbled home somewhere
after midnight
maybe I’d sashayed down to the
corner for a slice or two of pie
the guy was from Nicaragua or
maybe it was El Salvador but
his pizza was the best in town
two slices then I was back to
the beer and whiskey or if I’d
started on it, back to the gin
I never got in a fight, never
got laid, never played pool
I just bantered with the crew
of regulars and got slippery
drunk on pints of Budweiser
it was a miserable time yet I managed
to find some truly fine moments
in that place
moments which have mostly all
slipped away or coalesced in a blur
-- like neon lights on puddles
an oily smear
(in a pig’s eye)
I can’t say that I learned anything
but I used to go back in and have
a coke after I went upstate for
a month
They said come and see us anytime and
they were probably uneasy but nevertheless
seemed glad
I just sipped soda and was calmer
less mad, magnanimous
and alone
An ancient pig in heat
slumbers fitfully in the muck
dreaming – near delirium – of erotic
interpenetrations
tubes and fleshy cubes
On the horizon of the ear, a
a bell tolls
it is a funerary note
a nocturnal interment
A monk, a lay sister and a hippy
on a bicycle
are looking for the nunnery
A scruffy young man is sitting
--half-hidden by the lamppost--
by the bus stop in front of
the retirement home
They ask him if the sisters are
nearby and he indicates
yes, in bad French and with a
bony finger, they are “just there”
across the street
The monk thanks him, and they leave
and the young man turns back to
his furtive task and grins
He collects his soil from the brick
planter and heads home to
to take care of his stolen plants
Alex
Lost in an ant colony
we skirmish and
wait for the giant
to step on our neighbors
King of the Ants
You are the king
the almighty
the powerful
the leader that we all honor
I bow down to the
King of the Ants
----
two deuces
smart on the ripside
which is to say
to input
nonsense for the wire
we are bargaining for cheap chits
tickets with numbers….
letters….
desperate chance….
hope….
----
sitting in a grey conference
room with a wall of windows
onto an atrium full of rocks and bamboo
the Zen antidote to the sharp angles
the white lab coat
this is IT
information storage and retrieval
speed, precision, efficiency
perhaps the rock garden isn’t such
an opposite after all
in any event
their coffee machine mixed a bland brew
and the students have not arrived
I will give them 5 minutes
and then je me case
et pourquoi pas?
my telephone is fucked up and when
I call I’m shunted straight into
the voice mail
the répondeur France Telecom
maybe my phone can’t hang up…
I know the feeling
always ready to receive receive,
it receives nothing
and where do we go after death
and why are we killing time by
filling lines?
I should have never abandoned
this thin ink….
this gloating monster I, only slightly
a-glow, am washed out by
tired an sneaking hurried moments
discrete
in all the wrong places at
all the wrong times –
which are in fact the only right
places and times
because the tables I prepare are never
used
I pace instead
prepare without preparing
for the nothing that always comes
Slowly, ever so slowly
the task is being completed
the time is drawing nigh
incomplete megaphone leaves sturdy
hands a-crumble
leads sturdy men
astray
the albino female, there,
in the back of the car
see the rhythmic gesture
see the tappa tee tap tap
of her long fingers upon
the glass
could be mistaken for a cleansing rain
that hard rain gonna fall
we’ve heard so much about
the tail end is being secured
no more whipping in the wind
drums born upon the wind the django
telegraph
and tappa tee tap
the refrain is picked up and carried along
by a man who changes it
into a special way to aimlessly kick
a can down a sewer grate
and that is how it’s begun
this revolution of ant people
getting’ ready to hunker down
under the flood
wait there generations
before re-emerging from their slumber:
put the cataclysm engine into motion
yet again
4 down, 1 to go
How much tired semaphore
will we watch for tonight
from atop a distant tower
constructed of beams and
held together with lashings
tightly-wound sculptures in
rope
The wood is not a part of the design
but necessary to give the fluid
material its form
can we then ignore it
and say it is irrelevant
when without it
our sculpture would rest an idea?
And is the idea enough?
Even if we could remove the wood
and let the sculpture remain,
the realization once needed it
and its removal does not
negate that is once was there
because what would be left
retains its memory
in order to maintain its integrity
LATER THAT DAY….
A third Templar is given the gun;
trying to see the other side of the green river
he is half-blind and half-cocked
A Mexican standoff in the making
three duelists
in a soon-defunct love triangle
The nadir was at 7
it breezed our hair –
we ended up with flat-top buzz-cuts
The preternatural frog guards the entrance
his eyes are alert
a voice, her long legs
some kind of wonderful enigma
bursts like a flower over the city
it is the crypt-tic
the spasm of impending death
some call it a mushroom
some call it the yellow umbrella
an upset stomach
an aching sphincter
an abrupt flummox
and intriguing riddle
confusion lies in pills
awash in a chaos of papers
scattered figures of my life
sliding inexorably into loss
there’s no more in here
yet somehow a bit more is squeezed out
a fat girl in tennis shoes
stands by the door
worrying her cheek with her tongue
(perhaps it is afraid it will be eaten –
has a mouth ever devoured itself?)
two oval-faced thin girls
stand by the other door
they wear vaguely hostile, idiot expressions
“It’s hot” one says,
a propos of nothing
a short burst of half-finished phrases – chatter
then a sullen silence
you will never see your ______.
[edited, for the sake of prophecy]
to trump prophecy
a desperate policy
In the light of the green faerie
(and the blinking of the screen)
she lay there, tossing in the thick heat of the night
her negligee flinched up about the curves of her
nearly-perfect ass
poised as if ready if not for sleeping
and I finished off my drink and
turned off the computer and turned towards
the bed
loins as thick as the air
mischievous grin on my face
leaned down and eased myself
behind her
I cupped my mouth over her “chatte”
and gave a breathy little kiss
she squirmed, near to being pissed
but she realized before the expression
and twisted, a weird groaning giggle
on her lips as she fell almost immediately
back to sleep
· · · ·
Beautiful fields
beautiful fields of stone flowers
stretching out over the grassy hills
large swaths bounded by pines
· · · ·
My sojourn in the Wilderness
is a bucket of thieves
Portuguese man o’ war
Is it a ship?
a type of jelly fish?
Or an angry young man pacing like a clown?
Is there too much control
trying to write the history of the world
Congratulations to the cheese
The ivory mountain is falling into the
sea
Nothing is melting but they eyes in the hills
100 years of dysentery
his forgotten apocalypse
a complex
Cars drill by in the thick air
noisy and annoying because this
was a village before it was
a widened road between soulless “developments”
The city reconstitutes itself
a reassemblage of parts
-- torkeling
is a meaningless collection of phonemes
which to me suggests the ingestion
of drugs thru the nose
and which for you means nothing
(no more, nada, rien
Malgré le fait qu’il faut
defois,
le faire
No one seems particularly happy
because they are not ebullient
which doesn’t mean they are not
happy maybe they are just honest
This mysterious dysentery
they call nurses “bone-reapers”
and everyone drinks Pastis in this bar
there is not creation
despite the spilling of ink
it’s not a readjustment to writing itself
but writing with the pen
the heavyweights muscle in
shoulders square like Stalinist murals
facing off with the bosses
their greed makes radicals of men and women
who merely desire the pursuit of happiness
and she was rail thin
almost grotesquely so
ice-blue eyes
a matter-of-fact approach to social interaction
that was as unyielding, potentially, as an icepick
and I thought
she is the kind of decent person
who could throw people into ovens
if asked
and convinced
that it was a solution
there is no white-rose in the lapel of
her business suit
just a pair of pliers and a compact
there will be not extraction of teeth hear
by shabby looking people
money and intelligence and coldness
but that’s not entirely fair
for even the torturer has her feelings
The uranium eyesore
the aching pinky
arthritis has kept me cold
its’ fingers, not the mouth
which records this monkey chatter
perhaps not the shortest route between
2 lines
perhaps not the most honest
but....
but what?
uptight control of baser emotions?
erase “niggers” and “rape” and
“dirty whore”?
Or, is it that by their absence
we assume suppression, and invent
the existence of things which are
not there?
let’s renege on this agreement
it’s a stale, useless bet and we
abscond, belly full
w/o paying the cheque
It draws closer, agonizingly slow
fake Latin be damned
“agonistes”: slim meniscus about the drowning depths
greasy like the glaring eye of a bird
(And are they even aware of how shitty they can be?)
Flying high!
an enormous shoe invades my living room
growing daily
it’s beginning to block out the sun
A monkey god
both playful and sinister
a spiteful and vengeful creature
even ignoring it can get you involved
the tar baby phenomenon
drowning in underwater yells
with fist once-thrust mired in the goo
(trailing white ectoplasm
like dough being pulled apart)
An attitude of defiance on a hot day
things are blowing up all over the place
make something small bigger
or make something big many small things
it’s all the same
we lose perspective of the grains
but see the worlds in-between
what comes between letters
but the hidden letters of the alphabet;
the language of the animal gods
whose hideous speech goes unheard of by men
· · · ·
Meat fries in the pan, sizzles pops
Morrison croons with four pack of reds-a-day
Voice
Humid air is silent
telephone is silent
a barely audible murmur from the TV
voices from outer space
therein lies the ejaculate rub
no fun to be had
no more nose for trouble
zany misadventures
no more collage
½-realized pemoes
zest for living drained in
lack
not slack
but lack
un manque de soul
toujours miniscule
under the half-forgotten death dreams
of sky, irreverent
whispers
which no longer count for anything
yeah, me too Jim, down so goddam long
a dog’s dick looks like a satellite….
cool longing for the redemptive coda
coz it’s all gone
long gone….
The Greenbook has been a collection of
frogs
in bur--- they hum and whistle and
fall down, the slow acceleration of heat
in the pot, over the flame
regret, regret, regret
gets us a mediocre life
charge on!
make your mistakes
and hurt people
or be a bridge to nowhere –
that falls
(false, all false, all false)
I.
Two young girls were being
menaced by the kind of
dimwitted hulking thing you see in bad movies
extremely powerful, but slow-moving
I came to their aid, yelling help as a man
in a red Jeep rode by and scared but willingly carried us away
We were on some kind of sandy peninsula
with bamboo architecture and palm fronds
When the man in the red Jeep stopped to
drop us off, there was a note waiting for me
I had evidently interfered in the wrong scenario
scrawled in crayon, the note read, simply: “We
are going to kill you. – The Blue Brotherhood”
II.
I found myself riding a bus, no a train
to the end of the line
rusted iron bridges, murky water, kibble
of industry
I found myself with Arnold Schwarzenegger: my father
I joke with him and corrected his English
He sped away on a motorcycle and left me
with my mother, a starlet of some renown
She embraced me, lustily, her breasts full
and round with bright red nipples
They were cartoons
Our embrace was loving, sexual, we
were sliding down a thorny cliff into the sea
III.
I found myself in a vast empty place
standing on a tower made of wood
from the four directions of the globe
they came marching, without end
as far as the eye could see, marching
Corpses in Nazi uniforms in various states of decay
they cam in straight lines, voracious
stumbling into the tower, falling into disarray
they clawed at one another and their mouths gnashed in hunger
I kind of body-surfed away
they did not seem interested in the living
they just clawed themselves into writhing piles
at the base of the tower, some kind of
beacon in a dead planet
IV.
A café near the railroad track that
brought me to this place
I was a chickenhead working there, a
busboy
I was a Negro and a hunchback and
normally well-liked, but my moans
began to annoy the patrons, my memories
of the living dead, the horror of their
empty hunger
The barmaid tried to soothe
me with a sparkling water and an aspirin
an enormous block which broke into chunks
in my mouth
the horrible taste of aspirin on my teeth and
tongue
Opening the page of doodles
screaming for something to say
“Oh, he can express an idea well,
but he has no ideas to express”
He uses pseudolligraphy as an excuse –
I need silence, to create
when he only wants to create silence
Noise on four legs stalking….
Adonai, Megillah
jumping Lord on high
“….leaping and dancing before the Lord….”
We use the book as a weapon to smite
the smiter, reflect hate with a mirror
of onion-skin paper
(all that about peeling back several layers….)
It comes from your face, falling off
from radiation burns
strange tumors like silvered domes reflecting
a Moorish paradise which never existed
among the palm and date trees
burning away by the rivers
and the Earth to swallow it all up
with a regurgitation of plants and flying insects
The wicked openness of it all
the “vast plain” so-often repeated
Can this verdant collection of reborn
wood contain the multitude of liquid
poured over it
The black water
(We give ourselves too much credit)
Half-drunk in the afternoon over a d.r.b.’s
brew
Eye of newt and tooth of eel,
wing of frog, canned pig’s squeal
witch’s tit in brass brassiere
(and that’s not even what it’s called)
This time, the revolution wasn’t televised
because it wasn’t expected from the
quarters from whence it came
it snuck up behind the cameraman
Hallelujah! (apocalypse averted,
if only temporarily)
....the schematics for our time-machine –
were....off....
(and the tooth-fairy—real—is losing a bundle,
what with the crystal meth,
and the radiation)
Eyeball in an isotope—zinging about under
insect parameters: parabolas twisted by the
drunken bumblebee….
I am the worst of my kind
Drifting into levers
behind a moth-eaten curtain
A space filled with lumbering machines
dangerous to behold,
to eyes
to hold
to fingers
to be
to souls
The soul is a strange calculus of 2 eyes
and ten fingers
We enter stranger places now
dangerous lands
metal hands
sacred cows
Punctured
So many deflated wands
Wands breathing milky white blood
into indefinite horizons people
with mist and cacti
….infinity is a prison
Swaying under the satellites
the electric eye so storied
so fabled
photograph this text from above
read the semen-stain on your comforter
-- there is a premium on comfort
because there is so little to be found
there is so much to pay for
water,
air,
minerals,
plush, stuffed human companions
warmed with a plug in the sun
and vibrating from within
by earthquakes
and since I came outdoors
I have ceased to write
too much noise too much light too much….
too much
an animal rising
a vegetable kingdom
the degenerate human speech of
women dressed in yellow
it is not their fault
it is not our fault
the individual is exonerated
the society is exonerated
God, therefore, is condemned
We ceased to blame each other
and came to despise the source
and to fill up the holes of
hate with love for the effects
of a defective cause
a prime mover that never existed
save in the minds of the siphylid
and the greedy claws of the cynically
strong….
We retreat from these empires, we the people,
despise, hate….despise and hate as only the
righteous can do, with wives and husbands and
children….we don’t want to kill other wives and
husbands and children to please the impotent
compensations of the so-called “elected ones”
The hive is in slow revolt, revolted, agonized
bum-flustered, and
not
so
benign
(anymore)
Secret whispers in the caves at the edge of the
metropolis
Cities of Gold and Lead
Mushroom Planets
The eternal child is a lover of Peace and
Freedom,
Respect and Tolerance
Responsibility and reverence
12 laws, ten commandments
1,200 interpreters
All willing to mock each other in
their special claim to truth
Love thy Neighbor and do unto
him as you would have him do unto you
And die not for their point of view
but for their Freedom to express it
What ever happened to the apparently
“quaint” and “naïve” maxims?
Too many hard challenges,
easy to adhere when conformity rules
Less so when diversity emerges
unchallenged, my view will always hold
but the strength of my castle cannot
be determined without the vigorous challenge
of unforeseen ideas—
but these are not enemies
and the only siege is in our heads
the Kulturkampf is a small mouse we can
allay with a new arch, not golden, yet royal
(and all that is terrible and dull)
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
