The Redbook (part 2)
From Plastic Tub
Collection of poetry by Steven Adkins (2002-2003)
Part Two
So! there ya have a motorcycle
A collection, printed and
changed
The second half promises
twice the thrills!
Do you hear it? The
rumbling?
The city quakes in fear from a
million chattering knees
at least
What next on the home front?
Tie a line to the polestar?
And is that just a pocket watch?
Destroy! What happened?
Where to, the gibbering genius?
This cat was going on about 11-9 as in
the obverse of 9-11
Some sorta Masonic feast day
Kristallnacht, etc.
A whole boring parade of nonsense
Undercutting the sad fact of the real
conspiracy going on!
Let me tell you alll about it….
still fortified
after all these YEARS
it is all about the pen
AND the sword
(and the shovel)
What I learned from TV news
Ken Kesey died today
he was outspoken against authority
and once organized and LSD-fueled
bus trip
he died after an operation to remove
40% of his liver
His book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Was turned into a movie
Fox News Syracuse
your anchor can’t even say his name
right
this lil’ niggle of a blurb
then we hear of an implosion
Goddam. Just the meanest of
redactions from the AP article
Itself not entirely too shabby
But enough! The man is
dead and I’m dissecting
obituaries
What to say? My poetic awakening
Intertwined with FURTHUR
The blips of Cassidy
Holy GOOF!
entranced mysticism from
seratonin magazines
Kesey wad never a personal polestar
but the pine cone
and the greenery
rang deeply
These paranoid perambulations
TODAY I sit on the same couch
I sat on yesterday
all day
munching chimps
smoking pot
television now and then
studying ritual
studying Mithras
(No Mithraists! No Mithraists!)
The slow sinking feeling
of inevitable defeat
A fat ship losing chug and steam
wif a woopf
That is me on the couch
Surprised when, despite
the sinking
the current still runs:
there are terrific jolts now
and again
electric jabs
arching back
a wicked taunt
a sudden remembrance
something important forgotten
a puzzle piece falls into place
But even these, after one too
many, become something
of a slow, static hum
A log, fallen in grass
A muddy path has been made
by tiny feet
this is the parade field of dead babies
an Elysian nook
They play right near the river of Lethe
and no one fears for them
they, ceaseless on the march
marking the mudpath in a furrow
and moving as one
These babies in spacesuits
intergalactic innocents
they are the souls of sacrifice
Thrown into the Grand Canyon
Hung from lampposts in D.C.
THEN away with the Shit Rockets!
the escape pods
mushroom clouds clap in unison as the
last fiery trail exits into the starry night
a frail hug
a naked hope
Then silence….
Elio
Eely eely eely
(eel-like)
Sounds like black snakes
tumbling thru the ink clouds
of octopi
that is a vision of the net
falling from dark tenement roofs
lines twisting into comic-book angles
teetering skyline
furtive in the penumbra
clutching something
close to the chest
the crowd incessant
pressing and buzzing
oh eely oh
that dead-end street
you’ve already turned into
FORM defining content
blue blazes the utensils of the cult
a cool hollow under an old, spreading tree
This rocker
After the punk tunes
s’posed to be alternaKool
This drizzling shitsong
Builds like “The Greatest Love”
DOWN
like Mexico is down
(i.e. south)
As in Gone South
They call me the Duck
My migrations are notorious
My migrations are me
Revved up poop
On two continents
It’s all the same
Pale and disheveled
from too lil’ sleep
A fat fortress of
lies on top of the Hill
lingering,
some fall over
<sometimes,
I still bleed>
A vision,
of crutches
<she wants him to die>
and all he has to do
is die
There then:
Milk
At 7:45 A.M.
a leaf blower
the air is cool and damp
but goddam it
that leaf blower
means there at least a few
competing brands on the market
supporting mass sales
of small combustible engines
we use to blow leaves!
all that petrol, the smoke,
the industry behind the thing
it only occurred to me
because the noise followed me
for blocks, pestering an otherwise
blissful morn
that dipshit
I'd a liked to explained to this asshole
that a broom is a more efficient tool
when yer dealing with such trifles
It’s not as if
Pedestrians are navigating enormous wet piles
of dead leaves
stinkpot!
Wheelchairs aren’t being diverted into the
street!
Those leaves are being blown not only
away but back onto yer “work”
Dumb gamboling shit spirit!
To strap on that stupid machine
before 8 in the morning makes you
either an idiot, a slave or a
brownnose, and fuck off ta ya
if that’s the call
just keep yer goddam leaf blowers
(subdivided, mesmerized)
“I am immune.”
Alfred Starr Hamilton—
some variant thereof repeated
throughout Hamilton’s
appearances in print 1975-1977
“War is a tyrant.” 1. tears
Don’t I know it! 2. fears
Paranoid hands wring: 3. bells
4. necks
can’t grabbit
that thin sleeve
of a brown-shirt
spread flat
diffuse light shining
from behind
some edge fading
green in day with grey sidewalk
that flat sleeve backlit
a day reverie so thin
sofine for
hungry this image
that escapes me like the night ride in New Jersey
escapes me
and I will write a poem on
her naked body
in December Tampa won’t
be so cold the trembling
will be
from
desire
Maudlin,
it is morn
(the song is maudlin;
the morn is grey)
and I am blue
We share razor blades
to make little nicks
remind each other
how much we are still owned
by one another
even though there can be a laugh or two
now
it doesn’t mean the tomatoes have been
taken to market
it don’t mean the planets have hopped
out of orbit
no, nothing is completed
and nothing out of the ordinary has happened
so why does it feel like it is all over
and why am I writing about it?
Why can’t I capture that transparent rosepetal?
Climbing on the corner of the wind
out of the bellows of my eye?
pumping forth flowers in halo
like rats will flee a sinking ship?
The flowers are marching across the waves
They march on planks and driftwood
They are looking for new horizons
Everything is a green you can see into for miles
Ships on the sea’s bottom in silent, resentful
congress
Nazi Love Poem
WHAT playlist?
Why must I take
these dictations
the slow rotations
vibrations
and
masturbations
(par for the course)
Heidi!
Lederhosen in thin blue
air lie thin lips under
cold blue eyes of nazi
interrogator Heinrich Klim
that bastard!
he has come to give me guilt
the end of a needle or a root canal
charred nubs of feet under the
scintillating acid bath
Well, maybe not….
even Heinrich had outgrown such
fascinations
So Klim, with Heidi
escaping together upon a cruel
motorcycle
Into the nebulous forests
Where are they going?
And why?
I don’t know the dictation’s stopped
<wink>
The “treatment”
a way to make violent criminals
sick upon impulse
a quivering machine
regular
ticking
a solid imposter
within the family
chases away the sun
Daily
Whether patient needs it or not
How then to know
(then he spins around
then he spins around again)
On Nov. 20th
the evolution of the spaceman
sometimes it’s just a conglomeration of junk
space junk
filler
filling space
this junk
How do they see thru the stockings?
I woulda been a good ad-man,
psychological warfare expert,
teacher
charismatic priest
but not a thief or a busker
or any other man w/o a net
I thrive yeah like a chaotic whirlwind
in structure
A core of discipline allows me ta act
w/ complete irresponsibility
In the rainy southern city
the air is a-glow and
age is creeping upon this mother
of mine
I leaving country of birth in
re-creation of parental wanderings
There then, Chicago is tumbling over
Tampa and I think too bad
I have a lil’ pride in home
looking forward to family, friends
a cuban sandwich
and some seafood
I drive by the bay and
the sense that my childhood years
are tucked away in familiar places
Armenia Avenue
Harbor Club
Public Library
Ybor – well not that
See:
Ole Tom Wolfe you can never go
home indeed
But you can try
Abandon the idea of ever having a
complete capsule
No poem, painting, film or
novel
It’s a place defined by change
Which makes for tricky bizness
for shit like this
I will capture and release
Spin
Hand up caught in light:
water flashes in broken corolla
dove’s neck bent gentle wrapped
in delicate curve of paint-fixed
wings….
Daily weather
(sky report)
yellow trouble
brave sun rises yet again
to ward off the cold
it takes a few months but it
finally
all
happens
Can ya spare some change for an old
Buccaneer?
-- I need some more content than that
I would love to be exhausted with you
I had a dream last night
I was playing a trombone
This morning, walking to work
in crisp solitude
A man playing a trombone at 10 to noon
The irreconcilable limit
<of the sky>
something about her….
Then, on the bus
a wretched rain, cold umbrellas
twirling in magical unison
(a vision of Cherbourg)
Then, later, sick
having not eaten for three days,
I crab and pick
at irritated grey flesh
mortified,
and scratched
raw
So what
does
it all
add
up to?
Wake up slowly
in kicking fits
body humming with ripples
went to the machine and clicked it one
pulled up the player and picked 6 sad songs
then I wept because I miss you
I don’t want to live my life without you
but will
nonetheless
live it that way
I just haven’t accepted the facts
(just the facts, ma’am)
and those are painful things facts
(facts don’t kill people, people kill people)
like knives are painful to bare
skin
the bare skin
I want to cut with razors
on my face
hands
forearms
A shallow gridwork of scablines
like a Qabbalic talisman
earth magic
man of clay
crumbling into mud
and this murky puddle
is me alone,
crumbling into the abandonment of desire
I AM not a strong man
(nor bearded lady)
I snort dope and cry sometimes
You wake up with a bang
soft bangs
show the pad
get
dizzy
puke in the bucket
lie down
make a target of the sun
w/ a muck-covered snout
pointed upwards
and in slow revue the troops pass by
the General
shouts from the crowd intrude upon
his thoughts
there is pleasure in seeing this fleet of
tanks
this phalanx of missiles
and infantrymen
the ole 1-2
from afar
then it’s the Kamouflaged Kops Kome ta getcha
doorstep surprise in paranoid wonderland
USA 2001
God bless it!
In God we trust!
Allah Akhbar!
<send in the clowns>
arias drop in slow winged Nikes
they mean nothing but sound so good
as the troops pass by in slow revue
CAN’T get enough of that
got too many
can’t find a job in the
land of plenty
So what’s a boy s’posed to dooo?
Ya gotta step to the Alcatraz
jimmy dolan is a spaz
my country 'tis of thee
let freedom ring
Nite afore last I stood in the doorway
the light of morning made the sky a dull grey
the clouds twirled around my toes
you jumped down and away
in a yellow suit and with a smile
I could not follow
get off the set
the scene is over
your co-star has moved on
the new role that dangled
was taken
like the fish takes the worm
(and the spider takes the fish)
the spring that sprung
this year
did nothing for me
all I did this summer
was tangle with the Monkey
and this fall let him hang there
(my back still bearing claw marks)
like the body is the cheap apparel of chance
wounds can be Bedouin or Irishmen
but the production is over
and along with it the free lunch
better, then, to be from Canada
or stop griping
that being impossible
I will submit my résumé
to the ample rumpus league:
a society for big butts and
general merriments
(the bearded butler will not approve—
have you read about that thing
called love?
he has, and it has him concerned)
Suddenly Rectum
a new show about
a freewheeling young rectum
working to make it in the
publishing biz
starring your ass as the rectum
we’ll be coming to get it
the next knock on your
door will be us
60 years ago today
america awoke to unprovoked attack
(no immediate provocation, that is)
and then, war, years of war
and cold war with warm spots
and two hot stretches that
cost us 100,000 boys and men
(and girls and women, too)
not to mention the horror of N. Vietnam’s
millions
but things aren’t dropped cold
like bombs
are hot
potatoes
but not food
nope
Cold War
hot bombs
hot flames
hot blood
what stupid parts of us want
to play that grey shroud like
it was bingo in a church basement?
when a man’s innards are
steaming in the snow
what about them
they are hot going cold
eggs are not one of the inventions
of war
they are a peculiar inversion of history
known to us as the 23rd Static Parallel
of 4:20 AM [year classified]
And in the time frames
we work in
60 years is nothing
so many punchlines
broken lines
fishing lines
broken noses
so jokey
and obscure
rare wind captured in a jar
and then released
art-house innuendos
among sophisticated sophomores
they dangle from trees by their
necks still spinning
that is what happens from touching
the “gold”
share in my grief
and risk suicide!
and yep, this was meant to be a chuckler
but it’s just plain stupid
“when you come to
face this thing you
fear, let the
creator guide you….”
We have forgotten
(the lesion and I)
the COMIC
(meant to say cosmic)
scope of this series of exercises
the fakt that a line connects
me to a dot in the sky
the dot is my head
pouring forth armies the Spanish Armada
a pale comparison
to the armies and the level playing
field I want to chew out of the
earth I want to dislocate I and
strong-arm fate
give it up, sistah,
I’m henceforth
making demands
but of course
this is all patter
empty
a villain stands up
a bald, stiff Swede
among a dagger of thieves
( a dagger being a secret coven of
well-meaning rascals;
revolutionary,
nonetheless)
make a deal w/ the devil
shake his hand
<and say yer only kidding>
we’ve erected a maypole….
like tetherballs
are the reproductions
countless and entrenched
-- Osama’s bin noggin
I saw a Mormon family
in San Miguel de Allende
(where a dog bit me)
(where hungover, we ran with the bulls)
“I wanna beat the head!”
The piñata taken down
among vegan pacifists
Mormon avoiders of the New World Order
avoiding I say
perhaps confronting –
there was the matter of the
failed Baptism
Was it our fault? Impure quests?
Distractions, at least….
that television background
such cold evangelism
my faith a disgruntled bit of powder
and again with this devilish Swede
torn apart by his own dogs at last
on the eve of war
a stumbling
over snow
-- victory (?)
purity….
is it still on her finger?
what is this, a witch-hunt?
and her tools
hang from her belt
(all the little chicks with the
itty-bitty dicks sing
Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks)
(television daisy-cutter death-
sutra 2000; Paris exposition)
and waggling, my clementine
falls thru and song
still broken
and what?
a finger, pointing
is it still an opportunity
to extract from this is something
stubborn
were these intercepted shards
able to tangle to take to stay withit
long enough
to get back
hot sand
intercept
the ocean
keeps throwing us back
a certain abhorrence of nature on this
first snow-struck even and I have a
burnt forefinger
her mom is in town
they will drink liquor and smoke tobacco
like Virginians
I had tickets to the Messiah
comps
I gave them to a pair of young’uns
(Mike and some junkie chick –
I thought they could use the
distraction) –
but now at 8 o’clock
Messiah time it’s me and Seinfeld
That’s the fourth set of comps the Maestro
has given me
Of the Four Seasons, Kristen & I
last thru Spring
We cut out of the Copland, et al, altogether
& at the last show I sat up front, barely
a-stagger –
all junked
and puked
after, of course
the need to get the
attendant
to say, Ma’am
yer husband
is ill?
And then from IC I puke red volumes
Tonight then it’s Handel’s Messiah
In the restored State Theater
7th wonder of the Empire State
Excelsior!
(Oh well, gonna go join the Taliban
just like any other kid)
<the super-soft scars>
Oh the cheap tricks
the tips apprehend the rest of the body
James Earl Jones a select digital
influence
changeling,
changeling,
uh ah.
Same grey soup
Suit of four trumps and no give way
the salt of the flower pouring
from the liberated bloodclot of the
eye (in the sky)
So I edit that out upon the machine
Scale back to reality –
-- missing the Messiah! --
and then
(plink –
pipes
clink
time staggers)
Kristen calls
we are off to a movie
(& the Messiah’s worth missing
for a movie with you)
all this
all of this
infused with you
never the flowing hair
or beautiful curvature
always the staunched wound
and triflexate skeletons
space age epoxy to replace the bones
and goofy baroque excrescence
to hide the flow of blood
Chief crick-in-neck
wake up slowly
smoke bowl see me grow
my stomach has hunger and
my pocket has five dollars
how will I make France happen?
I could have 20 grand in the
bank but instead have a
pittance leaking out in 30, 50
100-dollar increments
marijuana cigarette
plastic baggie with folded envelope
What Afghani peril?
I’m already contemplating a dabble
and here me one day into sobriety
(again)
a sore test of will this China White
Figgers the Chinese slavemaster
Would be White, no?
The Monkey
I am more preoccupied by Love
or the lack thereof
it is all about the lack
the explicit hieroglyph of all my problems
it comes down to this
doggerel staunch the flow of
bleeding alphabet
leaking but still distinct
25-dollar increments
stomach cramps and the shits
raw, aching need
petulant desire
deep want
diligent manipulation
use it to make it happen
There’s a good reason, see,
that this ain’t a fragrant recap
of Jane Sez
my ticket is bought
Nothing is anything else
there is no more this is that
it’s all just a thumb in the eye
So many connections
I realize
About to be so casually severed
My interest in this place
gone
All my friends
Many
I realize
Never to be seen again
Moon over lake
edges shelves of ice
quiet heavy oxygen
clear and pure
the light turns the dew into drops of milk
your savage milk
this slowly spinning chuckler
slowly vibrating
my skin is electric
the problem is ya feel too alive
every cell waking back up
shuddering
the first instinct is to shut it all up
it’s just so unpleasant!
pour on the honey
spread on the butter
please pass the grits
and the ammo
mom
a goodnight kiss
a pat on the head
our tuck-in ritual
I’ll never forget the way
she looked back before she
shut the door
framed in the hall’s light
shouldering her Winchester
sleep was never so sound
what was that madness
in my youth that compelled me
when I was lost and wretched
with lust and virginity
an intoxicating buzz of possibility
about me
what was it though
the morose questioning
maudlin preoccupation
exploding images the
canister flipping thru space
in those young days
earliest memories
it may seem incredible but at
5 yrs old I flew an airplane
I was a frail, fragile youth
a compulsive thief
a vandal
painfully shy
and that expression has
a meaning
if you know the slow, tortured excesses
then you will know the meaning of it
the way of it
shit
motherfucker
why do you think I act so crazy?
hiding heatstroke from parents
because I thought I would get in trouble for it
thought maybe I got pushed off the slide
I never told them after all these years
I don’t know if I should
Then at some age I heard this
ghostly sounds LP
Always impressionable
it did a lot to make
me terrified
I would lay in bed trembling
covered to the chin
would quake every night and
lay awake for what seemed like hours
and run into my sister’s room
every night
this behavior stopped
now that I consider it
when my family returned
home from abroad
so there I was at 12 in 7th grade
Tampa
the dreamer who slept in his sister’s bed
grown up on Air Force Bases
and in the Italian countryside
thrust into suburban setting
maladjusted
average student
mediocre college
9 years worth of education in Tampa
6 months in D.C. at American University
another 2 years in Tampa for Film school
then it all becomes rather diffuse
New Mexico, new York
soon I will be in France
and there the razors will fly….
you know the ones?
They fly from my fingertips as I wave them
about in the air
I prepare by sitting heavily upon them
they are leaden and dull by the time I’m done
To complete the feat, I read from the
Bible at random junctions and attempt
to relate what I read to current events
I have found a great many prophecies that
way, minor ones
personal prophesies
clay mouths dribble: one honey
one milk
one lead
they coagulate in a pointless puddle
pale and pathetic
a roundabout soup for lightning: a
steel rod 27’ high is implanted therein
the hope is that by this assemblage
a pome or two may be produced
they are tired of tearing at their skin
the raw scratch-wounds present a delicious
quandary
attempt to reign it in with a straight razor
a delicate charm must be projected
calm,
a blip in the panic of it all
dangerous in heat the exploding tycoon
so be careful
this lightning is a dangerous tool
many a burnt nub of finger will attest to
that
and you ask how it all comes back around
to what does my journey attest?
why am I here
planting lightning rods in puddles
producing poetry
getting scorched
recording results taking strange dictations
too much H.P. Lovecraft in my acid daze
too much too much
a dramatic soul in flames with desire
a panic about me
the smell of sweat and chemicals
fornications of hand and mind the vague leer
of unfulfilled sex
a stifled phantom putting in his time
a trainer of monkeys and writer of manuals
goofball villain of frustrated hatred for the
simping minions
the slow disgust which makes me feel like being ill?
I can’t say why I’m here or what I’m doing
these poems are all there is
my work
attestations of failure and some small
successes
definitely some excesses
but the unceasing movement I have
undertaken for years
leading somewhere
what is there of this life?
friendships severed
loss and birth
change
….you can never go home….
some legacy then!
a child
a building
a newsmaker
John Walker Lindh
a farm
this is my contribution
my shallow grain
at least I sustain myself
read someone who said they wrote poetry
so they’d have something good to read
Ha!
Can’t quite agree all the time but in my
moments of glory I break it out with
the best of them
Last night I had a vision of my own greatness
No. Not a vision. A feeling.
Laying down a line with smooth
confidence
A perfectly formed word the sign of
absolute surety
The concrete manifestation
A master of his craft
Almost
Then this diffuse shit
What to make of it
How to staunch the flow
Have recourse to flaming Piñatas and diadems
of steel falling in slow showers upon the earth
The man in the Turban from the middle east
Nostradamus or some such
Close it all up by saying my heart has
been invaded by cataclysm?
Plague and war my childhood companions
the underlying object of death
fondled as though it were a piece of
whale bone inscribed with scrimshaw?
So lovingly aware of the negation of it all….
death is always near
long shadows are thin snakes
the sun setting over the Gulf
storks’ legs among reeds
a fox in fire
stolen from the moon
(yes, the moon)
slipping thru fluorescent grass
a rat in mouth
the soft cartoon squeaking out
the speeches of Winston Churchill
the worms stand at attention
they are so surprised they act as if commanded
only realizing too late
what they are doing
mutely they continue standing
for lack of anything better to do
they’ll drift off when they get bored
but the point has already been made
squeak like a rat and the worms will listen
make sure to be eaten by a fox in fire
terrorize Mike
looking for this very pen
how long before it is dry?
this current storm
elastic whirligigs of light
floating in the sky
our bodies are curved
and our hands held high
gonna pull the trigga
on a hard-hittin nigga
gonna make ya go figga
with a lil’ gold digga
can’t rap we hand-held-high’ers
we just moon along and shuffle
sit at keyboards and wax indignant
fall to our knees as the elastic
light roars say words of praise
and delight smoke a butt or
two then go back to bed
Remembrance of an old grey head
A living shuffler embracing magnets
and milk bottles
raven—corvus—circles black against
nebulous sky
is it day or is it night?
the student orchestra
their rehearsal space on the night
of a show, empty but pensive
impossibly high bridges
they sway in the wind
carrying clones they are albatrosses
Oh for a date with destiny
the path that must be hewn
& cannot be followed
Oval in the sky the bottle of dawn
poured over the inky canvas of night
Dreams therein, of bitter beers and
discombobulate fornications
The only time I step on the world
as it was, Mississippi, 1972
Father a stern black buzzcut
Young officer tilting beercans
A Mother, a muddle of memories, and me and
Sister
And strange dislocation and uncomfortabilities
arise
I am not feeling it not feeling the
seeing the red-cell amoeba purple blastocysts
and mitochondria
Slavish recourse without rhythm
Luckily slant the alliterate trapeze
Torn tongues talk treason, tonsures
tune in
turn on
blow up
Pure like nothing is pure
Silvery globs (mercurial)
liquid mirror
These slingshots shooting dungballs wreak
vernacular havoc upon slave-torn recompense
Mastications
strange chewed fragments
torn and spat
so vain
forever commenting upon the process
Then where,
the Product?
Holee. Less back up a second!
You meet me halfway on this page
Or, 100% to the left of
my authority
my pen scribbles invitations
I bought a new blazer with my father
in high school
A real class coat for a schmoe like me
It is too small now
I am not resorting to
cheap whimsy
When I say it
is time to run
for the hills
Flames desperate flames
claim airborne heresy
clogging on smoke for heresy
some kinda cosmic manta ray
planets in foam
spinning upon metal
chlammydia
streaks in faulty abortions
A vision of hell
strong tea
dark leaves float on the surface
concrete imprint of twigs:
sex dwarf
citizen soldier
Methought “Dwarf Citizen” a moniker of
pride for oppressed dwarves
A statement of rights
A manifesto scrawled jingowise by a
stubby forefinger
(Hey, 9-fingered friend,
good luck!)
He’ll need it
Orpheus descending
Carrot dangled
she called my cock
a baby’s arm
<ahem>
No more with the quimbling
A change of energy has pervaded the
machinery of my living room
Oh, then that’s it
you were too busy to cry!
On yer downtime
tripping stoned intensity
looking thru old photographs
listening to Pavement
You left with tears and so did I
tearing as I tear now
AND NOW I KNOW
(you cry too)
that strange, implacable
comic hitler
yore
is killing me
it’s not my fault again
(like it was so many times)
before
when squawk was squat
when I delighted dark uncle with mad prophecy
and the comic vision of rectal fervor
working themes
working differences
the slow remembrance
the painful withdrawal
it is like a stuttered jumpcut
(see Easy Rider)
Is that a footnote?
A cowboy?
No….
What is that slow drone
that insect buzzing above the chainsaw mesa
the stone masons creeping
the fish fly thru air
ugh
gravitate
and can’t quite hit it
can’t quite bend it strange
interAktions
a cuticle waltz
yes I know, kick it back
When do you, senile,
reproduce the same line unrealizing
uncomprehending
should I invest in that
web-based interface
Now is the time
you cannot haggle with hell
release that
orphic grip
she is ripe like poemgranates
-granados-
are ripe
ripped and dripping
a juicy tonic
a tonic of tunis
a tannic tomorry
tinted
theurgical
candled
DROP NOTE: ass assin neck-book from the frontlines of war
we seemed to have eliminated
the human face
(as he reclines back upon his opium
couch ;
we have afghanistan by herb
and by polvo
it streams across the borders like the
panicked destruction of mail
is real and the fascist
insertion of right-wing partyboy
cum Christian Monarch
heir apparent
dark pilot
so far from
that care and the LOVE
that drove me then
we are recovering
but how indeed,
if we are tried and true
News sources in deep eclipse
truncations of tongue
the voices are saying
something about salaver
spittel from mouth
froth in mad berry
contact beery
and there it
go again!
dag nabbit
this tongue on stilts….
a mental tongue
a duck’s bill
the beak of the brain
the swirling beauty always
beckoning back upon the queen
upon Anjou upon fistfulla
fruit and the gold,
always,
to the end
she was remarkable
if too
tolerant
What narrative is unfolding?
What capitalist zygote?
(meaning the infancy of
dreams of avarice)
For our protection
the citizens will be watered
3 times a week
It costs $1.50 per citizen per
treatment
Revenooin’ 2015
When they can find a need to
repackage resell air
It will happen
What will also happen:
Empire
The merchant aristocracy
Vassalitude of the masses
Give me cable or give me death!
Jello was right
That crazy saint
The paranoid Sylvester
I was drunk surly and hypocritical
When the promoters saw the crowd they
Jacked the price
The talk was good
except for the Mumia crap
and the Reagan-era diatribes
Praising Ice-T after several instances
of Kulture Kapitulation
Whack shit that Ice
Ghetto Capitalist
Konspicuous Konsumption
proof of playerhood
anathema of Jello
so except for that
he was all right
Who else stands firm among the stars?
What message or wicked apartment
is erected or conveyed?
These saints do not
leap they do not
distribute grain among the suffering
they are solitude
and sorghum
by noon all is quiet
after a heavy bombardment all morning
al-Qaeda
operatives
give
up
now
you are dying in droves
and no one will remember you
Tora Bora like some kind of WWII dream
wet dream for bored hawks
so give up now
or are there some things
even more important
than living?
I am not Catholic
I will not go to mass
I will sit around all morning
and make negative assertions
I don’t need this news
I need music
and thereby
a respite from the hail of fire
and the gleeful calls for blood
The graveyards we have filled
are not our own
A word of advice:
you wanna save somebody,
save yourself!
and with highs in the 30’s
we are expecting rain
News from the 27th Parallel:
there is a red hawk flying
the crested waves spit
and shine a bioluminescent blue
sails have been spotted on the horizon
crazy for calling
the renegade soundwave
oh-h sing
it is the wickedest song
I went to mass today
and took communion
mumbling my responses
a heathen
welcome to the commune
yes I took I the Eucharist
The image of Mary glowing gold
against a field of blue and
fluttering
I took the Eucharist
what I maroon
I loved it all and
am set for another 10 years
calling for the crazy
renegade soundwave
sing the wickedest song
Yeah I’m down with the Queen
and why not
this tired lil’ Protestant dynasty
has stick up butt
and lust for conversion
call in the wanton grace
the disassembled pattern
chaos has risen
driven sledwise on a mother’s
menstrual blood
surfing the red edge
we find it
our river
Mistah Kurtz, he dead
and coke-addled fuck-ups aren’t swiss
madmen in bojangles rowboat, either
I don’t care what they say about us anyway I don’t care about that
bang! bang!
knock on door
knock on wood
shoot six-guns
and ride off philander
we will serve you no more whiskey today, sir!
A bumper sticker from B.F.E. New Mexico
Is the Spirit of America
It’s like having a tattered, worn
American flag on your car
why this is so I cannot say
why it evokes cactus in silhouette,
the desert rolling away
from the side of the highway,
sand blowing in slow delicate
curls across the rocks,
here and there a beercan;
why these things are evoked
is clear
the sticker is from B.F.E. New Mexico:
a tarantula on the highway
the sky an impenetrable blue
a blue you look deep into and see 1969
reflected back
a red dirt road through the BLM
lands
Cabezon standing dominant over
the skyline of resplendent
mesas and inscrutable formations
there are empty refrains of desire
to be sung
their emptiness not their flow but
their impregnable truth
I had a dream
some kind of carnival
lost objects and a shuffling about
the desert is dry
so is my throat
my bed lies empty
my heart unfortunately not so
O to be a rock!
some product of volcanic belch
stringent is not a word that applies to nature
is it?
Do any words apply to the isness of
the ology?
Lava tubes
Lumpen proles
Red Clay and Red Man
Brown Pride and La Raza
Land Rights and disintegrating wood stake
with hand-written death date
poverty, art, nukes, mineral wars
and rough history of conflict
Genocidal memory
in Kidnapped Bronze foot
A statue of Hitler put up in Brooklyn
We have not forgotten
And though I am no longer there
I am with you New Mexico
dog-ear of the union
forgotten fields of azure sky
so beautiful as to inspire
rambling pointless poets
claiming citizenship by tenuous thread
of four-year residence
But you and I know things aren’t so easy
my roots are mobile
I am the only kind of airborne
plant there is
strange species of pig
Do you remember when we walked
along the walls, skipping stones
on the moat?
Dou you remember that legendary
wish to not exist, jumping in the
shrinkball until the
infinite compression had been achieved?
jest keep squishing down smaller and smaller
End result’s always the same
Wind back up standing tall above
the suburbs with a new pair of
golfing gloves on.
swell, isn’t it?
She has a head like a revolutionary
war-era fortress (octagonal)
and her mouth is a giant cannon
the kind of American ingenuity
that made US the envy of the globe
sent away for all the finest craftsmen
some confused timeline
and terrible wasted
ink like a braindrain
to density
stupid
the arabic graffiti
in chalk in the wall in the stairwell
a report by a cab driver
three angry young jewish students
tell of some arabs destroying a campus menorah
JDL honchos arrested in plot to blow up
LA mosque
This place has been marked for death
Don’t import your fucking war!
Lay down arms and carry trumpets
to the gorges place them with
the unused hand grenades
keep that palestinian quarrel
in palestine
give them a state already
(but progress is stilted and
stuck about with knives)
That’s it that’s all there is
under the soft yellow glow of the nitelite
on a dark overcast winter morning
miles davis getting’ with it in the
living-room
the air is cool and smells of me
ahhh
now I see how it is
you are all wrapped up in knots
and need to kick this shit out
get over it
drown the monkey
there is something more powerful than
the green emerald ray that emanates
from that mini-simian forehead—
pixilated though it might be,
sluggish around corners ….
a fish on a line
you are hooked like
yer name is etched on a tombstone
“Dewey defeats Truman”
get it?
It’s not too late
Hanuman
that monkey flying over the sea
bouncing from the head of one sea serpent
to another
got one upon me
<yer not gonna be alone this christmas
said she>
somehow, cobblestones dapples in sunlight appear
What that has to do with Hanuman
is beyond me
But All is One, right?
So blow up poems stating the
obvious
jump on sea serpents piss in boots
wind it up slow or twist the
winder like you was a sadist
twistin’ a nipple
you are a monkey evolved from the sea
Amino soup with space particle surprise
Life, you se
Is all Me
We give our enemies weapons
to make things interesting
two vats of tar have been found
underneath the city
a gas-manufacturing plant
operated there in the 1800’s
our enemies eat at us from within
our enemies are the sentinels of time
we give them greed, avarice, stinger
missiles, vats of tar
watching the movement of the pen on paper
makes me nauseous
But then again, it’s only 7:50 AM
An expression I like but never use is
see you on the other side
I’m too superstitious
to taunt death
the expression is so noble
A fatalism
without resentment
or optimism
flying over France, 1942
see you on the other side
Maybe ya will maybe ya won’t
life that delicate wafer
gone in a jiff
leaves nothing but crumbs
a little nutrition is afforded the body
by one life’s sweet music
before it’s all glommed
into an anonymous turd
Keep it rockin’ clambakers
You’ll be wishin’ for
a speedier resolution
before it’s all over
(or maybe not I just play ominous
for prophetic gravity)
Anyway, is there another side?
Will we see there?
Will “we” be
at all?
