The Bluebook (part 2)
From Plastic Tub
Collection of poetry by Steven Adkins (2002-2003). It is also known as Half-Told Tales.
Section 3: The Complexities
Complex, this
a maze we wander without string
strange games of memory playing [played by?]
monochrome silhouettes (the games play the children)
two chessmen chessmasters
who haven’t really eaten in months
roosters fornicate in the yard
a strange tapping comes thru the walls
overhead, the sonic tail of a jet
In distant fields they sing of something we have
almost forgotten
It makes the recognition that much more
startling and delightful
I hope we aren’t disturbing the neighbours
but I really don’t care
a storeroom full of broken bottles,
grime-caked saucepans, mousetraps
brittle cuspidors, old paintings by
children, mismatched socks, thimbles,
a hatrack….
We lock it up and let it burn up with
the rest of the house we have left behind
My ebullience has trapped me
I have said too much
gone too far
not played it quite cool enough
disconcerted
Carrying water pails
around the ring-road
like a monkey on methedrine
splashing water on wooden feet
I attempt to reconstruct the
past I have razed
and raise only spectres
and there are other people
who eat dirt in this world
feel the cycle
run the gauntlet and throw down gauntlets
jump aboard scared trains
and mark the run away
run away
run away
We are unruly and rude
but we are not unkind
AND then there are
those times where
I must ask myself:
Who am I?
And sometimes the question
is sparked by the feeling
of having just (come) coming just around
from the dreams of a monkey
and that
from the thought
that words are
insects pinned under glass
somewhere in between having
realized I have prefaced
for the end
that by talking it out
I have trapped the insect
thoughts and gassed them
but a dead bug is not a
living bug
and I find myself examining
not life but its’ shell:
an exo-skeleton of SURFACE
of course I moved about in a
state of exaltation
when I met her
but instead of feeling the feeling
I blurted out crude
and premature confessions
lightning bug
dead in a jar
not glowing
WE eat bones
life rears a head
and jalopies full of envy
burden us with stagnant wonder
lean on me
when you’re not strong
when a crutch made of rubber
gives way
glad not to
but wishing I was
Fingers bleed in harmony
a waterspout
and I don’t write
what can I see?
stopping just this side of insight
marking the hours
making time
making blood rise
no reasons
Connect these simping malgrots
to IDEAS
jump around
without connection
then pretend
it was all otherwise
flame-dragon of purple flower
long stalks
hunting down prey and jumping
gums to death with teeth
(that are guns with gums)
It has always happened
this way
(sounds good, anyway)
exclusive dope haunts villagers of stone
bears are falling from the sky
like rain in summer
they sizzle on the pavement
eggs fry in the dimples of fedoras
patterns of sweat under the
armpits
a wine stain around the belly
looks like a stab-wound
a reservoir of pain to trot out
upon unlikely occasions
sitting by the river at night
one forgets these things
throws them like otters
throw oysters after cracking
them open upon their bellies,
pull out the pearl of the world
and sink it to the sand below
the sea where the tide ebbs
and flows twice every 24
hours
(Nazi Madonna killing her
infants --
have mercy on us X
as you walk the waves
your glowing head the lighthouse ?
that protects ships
X and sleeping children
remember us with a smile
spread your gown
? drop roses upon us
and walk away satisfied
¯
?
It comes and goes
this heavy breathing
this uncertainty
tongues tied with string
jumping ship in Tahiti
dropping onto the waves
a heavy splash into
the waves and a long
swim to shore
the moon a glowing fingernail
spots in the sky called stars
burn themselves out
with abandon
gas streaks across the
universe and alights
on the nibs of frantic pens
You lie there in the heat,
breasts supple and pert
a lovely sight in the
dim glow of my chamber
you have hung a towel
in the skylight
to block out the sun
the fan oscillates
like it was meant to
everywhere around us
people are dying for
a little bit of this –
a pot to piss in
a plot of land in
which to bury seeds
woman or man by one’s side
-- as you prefer --
and some wine on the shelf
indolent and satisfied
cheeky insolence without violence
no exploding heads
couldn’t ask for much more
subject # 1
white cone of light
no
I’m not explaining
it
Vraiment Super Cool
a familiar feeling of exhaustion
white walls which do not
close in
but neither do they grow
(like these teeth) we’ve heard so much about lately
and I imagine the future
built upon the foundation of the past
and Flat boulder climb into the sky
upon the sides of crested peaks
eyelids crackling open upon gluey hinges
recognizing the same roof
being happy that there is someone
beside them to regard
an approach of cavalry thunders
on the horizon
kind of like clouds in fat motion
a gap is closed
the note of a trumpet
in the haze over a
dull roar you can feel as
much as hear
quaking then, trembling ministers
upon the floorboards,
soft orisons in the night
Mongol Hordes have swept across the plain
they bring death, mayhem and fear
It seems to happen every other year
Troubled and unclear
how in fact do you live?
Under pools in the garden
looking up at the light on the ripples
a giant mouth of sorts
ululating at the approach of death
So what would one do at such a moment?
¯
Draining rivers into giant saucepans
something to keep the bedbugs away
¯
Saying “ahhh-ahhh-ahhh” alla time and
incognito jumping
spaceships bound for the colonies
Foreign particles
emitting shrieks….
….still familiar like atoms
smashing round the echo chamber
“something in there about ping-pong balls
a word or two from our sponsors,
and we’ve got our show”
I tell myself something
in the middle of the night
But I forget what it is
(Quand nous sommes ensemble il y a un
soleil dans le ciel qui crie)
And there is a sun in the sky….
Sometimes it is a big fat bird
And sometimes that’s just the way
it is
One day yer “looking over bridges
and measuring rope”
the other yer careening down the highway
on wings that are translucent,
daring joyous and FUN
FUN. Find Unity Now? Forget unnecessary needs?
All in all
Not a bad word to extol
A universe lies
waiting
a sun rises like
a dead man and cries
What’s the difference or the matter
friends ring the river on a park of music
hedged in for the moment by gates whose
apertures are men and women who take things
seriously
A defeated Universe
Who is your elf?
and should you be telling it those things?
This is not a quotidian account book
But I must record my jealousy and insecurity
[but even then,]
even now….
“Regarde la lune!” she suddenly exclaimed
and yeah, nearly full it hung low in
the sky, plump and delicious
a luminescent fruit….the sky an infinite
bed of violet calm
and in that light one side of her face glowed blue
a part of nose; the crest of a cheek
an eye
I’m almost sure her mouth was smiling
after she came she just kind of gave up
and let me fuck her until I did too.
and even though I asked “tu vas
venir encore?” before I let the door flood
open I still felt selfish. I was fucking
for me at that point.
This morning
all said and done
she was smiling and we embraced and kissed
and my spirit was not as heavy as before
these morning snoggings are just the trick
I walk around with a near perpetual
erection
I suppose in order to salvage my
tired outpouring I should throw in
a car chase, a battle, and exploding
starship……..
something is lacking I just
can’t say what
Feeling ugly
nap-needed
the final telescoping
brain transmission
collapses into itself
and pants softly before
dropping off
into silence
Standing around in a flat barren plain
the sky, earth, minimal vegetation,
various hues of sickly yellow
all is silent
for now
I should say
something is up
yes
I stammered something about
having such strong feelings I was
afraid
(I guard my heart)
and she said
“nous sommes en la même bateau”
and I had to give a little laugh
these expressions….I was of course,
overjoyed and frightened, for her too
today my face lights up at her entrance
we kiss just a little kiss and she
plants one on my cheek, cool and moist
“tu vas passer chez moi ce soir,
j’espere ?” and risking, again
“je ne sais pas si je peux
être sans toi pour deux
nuits....” and making a noise of contentment and arousal
she said “moi non plus”
And the chest heaves with the joy of it all!
Such simple things can cause me to
stand bemused at the precipice
of rapture
I know she could stamp me out
crackling underfoot like a dried-up
maple-leaf
I don’t want to think about it
but when I sit sour for one night
alone I wonder at my own frailty
There are christians in the road
they hatch plans in the land of
unrepentant non-believers
I like them despite it all....
my disregard for the Protestant
redactions of Roman redactions
of original mystery syncretism
with Judaism in crisis
A religion formed out of Apocalyptic
Expectations It’s
No wonder TIME magazine speaks of
“generation apocalypse”
BORN AGAIN christians
with access to a nuclear arsenal
expecting the end any moment
AND you wonder why we vigilantly
strive to maintain separation of
church and state?
John Ashcroft, George Bush
all them other fuckers be gone
can’t be bothered to listen
though we all must, should
and will pay for ignoring
you
Joining the ranks
of obsessed
disembowellings
A roof above an abattoir
It has memories and they are
not good!
“Oh God,
I’m wasted now”
after an afternoon
of beer and wine
sausages and hope
pains in the chest
lewd conversation
conviviality
and lost hashish
found
we are pleased
and stoned
dr’nk more wine
march the streets
and await
The happiness
she will get laid
(a pal)
and you will get
a happy robot to throw down
before the feet of a fresh miracle
not so endearing perhaps
but she will come like a rocket
and I am happy / goats prance
on the stags of mountains
they are perching antlers
and clouds sing
upon the gobies of raindrops
each with a small
head
and an entire universe
inside
basking
balking
balkan
unopened
and therefore
pure
SHE
is a basking antelope
is a reed in snow
is a need that has no bounds
is a refrigerator in the dump,
if only because its “thereness” so
real makes it better than olivoid
rainbows dripping gold
I write this for you
I have nothing to give but time
adorations an announcements of a
country
Yes, wreckage burns and drops like
flaming plastic
My form is a model of a body held
together with velcro
some kind of modern cast
for bringing broken bones together
and
the
power of
heart
like a
puzzle
changes for
nothing
Le Fut
Marches on
in hands molded by clay
with an electric tenor
the crenulated movement
of an african tongue
a sterility that enters the teutonic
argument
footprint
She moulds clay into heads
drafts exquisite lips upon
bleached foliage
Jumping, as if inside a giant bean
Le Fut
marches on
and with it
(the history of a million fragments of
an empire)
(an empire desiccated / fragmented into
dissected
a million pieces)
The jump up glockenspiel
has no part other than its
inexplicable appearance
the palm tree, though adequate
lacks the precision of the pine
the colonial malfeasance
the golden ducks on golden fronds
(Peter Fonda filming a flower
on acid
for an hour)
Jumping, as you may have heard
as if inside a giant bean
Jettisoning, as it were,
the golden anomaly
¯
she feels like a plastic surgeon:
pino guarda la apartamente
“pobres clientos”
“contento; pobres enemigos en
mis manos”
for all that
a sigh....
Le Fut
Marches on
its television emission
competes with the staggered
barking of dogs
everything crackles in a brief pinecone of surge
like a mouth squirting water
a hose grows bigger
it wanders in limped pools
on wobbly legs
speaking towards the hoofs
of palm trees
again, under the virgin’s wool
stars etoiling upon the Danube
a cult spread wider than legs in
spring
receiving universal god-seed
on the wind from a trumpet[’s][bell]
clay, adam
amanidab
a man, a daub
oh, man of clay!
taking dictations from the sperm mind
wiggling testicular castanets
and making rhumba like the
thunder-god of the tribe across
the mountain
meanwhile,
Le Fut
Marches on
gonna plant a fooot right in it
an ass
a mouth
a pile of shit
The Foot
Marches
Marches
Marches
/also dies/
AS IN this
momentum thru fault fissures
spitting of boredom
steam
“¡Oh mi amor, que lindo!”
Jumping up and down
in wider arcs than I ever
imagined possible
leaping tall buildings in a single bound
faster than a feeding mullet
grand ospreys with Marines in
their beaks
cutting down Italian tourists
like a swift machete thru
sugarcane
Visions of Cuba dance on the tips
of cigars
visions of sex in the heat
sweat like a film of embryonic
fluid glistens in the rectangles
of light cast upon the bed by
the holes in the blinds
(but what kind of blinding?)
Do I see more clearly than ever
When I do not see at all?
Yes, how beautiful
like insects backs glistening
razor-wire blue under the Klieg lights
of the prison yard
A prison we welcome
almost grateful
At 9 o’clock j’attende
for an 8 o’clock rendezvous
well could be like me and make
a 2 o’ clock phonecall at 5
paidback, I suppose
as in full….
I chartered hookers, ran up
incredible phonebills to mollify
a sullen loneliness born of insoluble
loneliness ? sugar ?
No tears would evaporate it
I almost think I may have
been very, very bad
to many women in these
selfish perambulations
LANTZ *
STU * Where are you now?
CORNWELL *
HESLIN *
(AND also to many fine men,
who deserved better
than this)
________ ________ ________ ______
AND always running
sometimes feel like I got the whole world
staring down my pee-hole
pestered
I say “no” and always it’s taken for a “maybe”….
Running into the mammalian hullabaloo
serpents raised like daggers above
sleeping kings
the black lips of arsenic
spluttering out final, indignant words
These are the reveries we wait for?
How disappointing!
N.D. de la Daurade
of the fish caught in sunlight
covering a grey essence
rewarding the plague memory
The music ululates
and oscillates wildly
it spins æthereal contortions
breathy in pipes
Notes hang then tilt and careen
over one another like multicolored
glass plates in a tube
An authority occasionally gives
a barrel-chested heave
as the terrified children
tumble
I see urban streets menaced by
a black creeping doom
it forms itself in gutters and around
tires, signposts, bits of broken glass,
cigarette packages, detritus of macadam
My chest heaves under sonic pressure
and when the final notes give way
to silence the air allows it to
hang there,
but only for a moment
To make love in cuspidors dreaming….
To burn a hole in the sky
with the invented
magnifying glass of prisons
squandered ceaselessly
♥
Jumping fences, chasing cars, barking
at passersby as if in the middle of
rapacious dreams
Magnificent sigils alight on the forehead
as if branded there by hot
irons
The cakewalk of the sky drops hot rose
petals upon the heads of crucified strangers
Arabs, sipping tea, bringing in Algerian
politics;
There was a war with France once
Jacking the lobe. One phrase keeps circling
about in my head, like a piece of polished
stone in the worried hands of fishermen
“Evitez la tache” Avoid the stain!
Ever-widening blood pooling on the
floor from the guts
A stinky, rancid mélange of gastric juice
and shit
Evidence of a crime committed, a bloody blade
a circumspect admission
We jump up upon bandwagons which
careen
They are set in motion of ON inclines
of various degrees
the drivers have steering wheels
with too much play
And then, sparkling in the Wilderness
the small mirror of a hiker stranded
upon an inlet in the snow melt swollen
Yukon, brave horizon upon
umpteenth footpath
Johnny-come-lately
frog schooner jumping
Gimme wunna them euros
He is all-too-intelligent
and likes to show it
valedictorian at 16 and an
abandoned career in
architecture
The texture of arches
The textiles of archers:
green leggings,
longbows
feathers in elfcaps
jangling, muscled toes
adorned with rings and digging
gypsy holes in forgotten beaches
Waves crashing in crescendo-succession,
useless and degenerate waves allowing
for no mistakes as the impotent
shade of would-be Hemingway
snorkels off to oblivion in a happy drowning
in a bottle of Port
I liked him in his my own way
Shot in the gut by a
flying blade from a zip gun
Insanity can be profitable
Magic markers on walls of
incredible wonderwork
sham poetry │ Bedeviled Irishmen
│ frowning
Her body is very supple, her hair
wiry and crisp
We were too tired to make love
properly and I couldn’t seem to get it
stiff enough
Where had all the blood gone too?
Telegram from the cemetery,
burning ossuaries of midnight
candles humping on the backstretch
we could go on for hours
my powers
my desire is to write for
24 hours solid
fill up a bluebook in the space of
43 seconds
Job steadily upon the gimping pastures
Make little sense or no goddam sense
at all
(Alexander Hamilton you precious fuck;
I never understood anything)
Yeah. Gone tomorrow. Here
today
Grinding horseflesh upon the girders
of the temple
he stopped to address
the adulators dressed in
[and she crimson, the
is there] serpentine masses
a conundrum upon lips
bulbous
Curiously, desire strikes spark and
plays the harp of mind
in ridiculous theatre. She
jumps upon him like a cat
Sadly, no one is there to witness
They will never believe him and he
has forgotten his camera
Is it sane to ask if horse-
flower falling equals jasmine
tortoi ascending?
Is it off-colour to ask the
lesbian minister if please
may I slip a finger or two
into your cunt?
Probably
There is music in the plague church
It comes from California and laughs out-
loud in French
What could be finer but
a cup of pussy juice to
help take it all
in?
Nothing it would seem
We trade a small
finger in the asshole for
a beautiful lendemain orgasm
For what will we trade my clumsy
movements, flaccid cock, and
dominantly flipping her
onto her stomach?
Cut! Cut!
A. Automatic fingerlift of worn-out discourse
Merguez frying on the pan
entombed on digital videotape
I write some dumb shit for the sake of posterity
Ham around baking for the benefit of posterity
There is no reason or purpose for this
subtle movements of fingers
indicate the best position for lighting
ACTION VIDEO
somehow it registered
before I even moved to Rue Jean Suau
and now --
B. Why is it necessary to cut the chicken?
the obsession of a free-range animal
All the world’s a cut
he exclaimed
and
filled with arsenic
dripping fat upon the brainpan
He keels and dips ominously
Wheeling around the drunken ocean of sky like an albatross
He hosts priestly conclaves and fills temple w/ cake
He jumps up running at the first rays of sun at dawn
He, too, is poultry
a poltroon
a wicked spitfire belching wounds upon the night….
C. And even this way, it is BAD
I invite you to destroy me daily
but you never do
you arrive
a mademoiselle “qui me demande”
such a thrill to see you standing there
in your black sweater,
a thin bundle of curves
illuminated by rays of desire
which shoot forth
When we sit by the river, later from my
your special archetype soap-sud eyes
emerges from the waves
like the Kraken
and the puma eats the priest
and we kiss until we
are horizontal
you drunker than I realized
and we are voluminously happy
Cohabitation is presented and accepted
and reasons for staying in Toulouse
are made apparent
“T’es une exhibitioniste” I venture
“Oui, un poco” and we laugh
Stood up before a judge in court
I am asked to plead
Okay! it is so: you are an ominous
fiction which bedevils the guilty
and terrifies the innocent
I’m taking my toys
and going home
Yeah, so we commence with the cattle prods
and the swinging lightbulbs
the blunt socks to kidney and parade of
intimate brutality
you let me live so that I might
be there to practice upon
unkempt surgeons
drunken dentists
miscreant justice –
will crack down on the excesses
get tough on those who don’t play fair
Was it Capt. Willard who said,
“Charging someone with murder here is like
handing out speeding tickets at the Indianapolis 500”
Whoever it was, he was right
Put the mallet of justice in the hand
of a monkey and in a million years
he may bang out the Bill of Rights
in Braille
In the meantime
all we got is broken skulls, brains,
jaws, and lives
Not much consolation, is it?
The Miller’s Tale I have a tool with which to communicate never sounded across the city so good It operates on the same
You saying it backwards energy which heats up
Has a special charm meals in boxes
all its very own a magic catch-all hoodoo
And if I try, I can invent
worlds
Don’t know
What means the red knife
the rolled-up sleeve
I think it’s a country in Europe
No one is especially eager
to see me….
│Wyrdart….
│the plenary solution?
When you are away my eyes turn to butter
When you kiss my chest a small atmosphere is formed
….1.5 mm thick and composed of quivering wind milk
____│sub-lingual │ little pellets with obscure purpose blown
│radioactive definitely good iN talc
breaths
She is a brusque flame
our lovemaking turns the radio to static
an X in the sky
marks the spot
reflected in water
the moon in its crook
it is the puckered bunghole of the universe
a red X hanging softly over my shoulder
a flame bursts upwards from the building across the river
it is a bird in the lights
there are lights
on the bridge
lights in the
cupola
lights in the bricks
lights in the sky
→
and the swallows are thick
why do the swallows come alive at dusk?
because the bugs come alive at dusk
why do the bugs come alive at dusk?
│give me hysterical
│malaria
│w/ props to the paved milkman
A little bear
is a ventriloquist
his human puppet
lusts and rears a head
holds strange conversations
at the edge of light
on a darkened porch
at night….
the tea-round of funerals
or the funerary round of tea
what’s the difference?
there is a complete lock
on fraudulent combat
arms sales,
races
nuclear triggers
trigger-fingers
General Electric
smarmo flag waved upon deserted
hill-top bunkers
She is a Mexican Piñata
Spilling candy like guts
Spilling seed like fruit
Spilling juices like a water gourd
She accepts (the usual) gifts from
strangers
candy
in infant infantry intimate
intimidation of intifada
(Hello mudda, hello fadda)
we mock Christians w/ teeth
and jump upon the agile heels
of rabbits
(and to think we began with bears)
Rocks stagger out of the sea
incredible sharks purloin letters of
introduction
they will make lives easier
like when in dreams one glides
thru walls….
isn’t this obvious….?
rot gut staggers on temples of China
Kentucky Bourbon smootheling upon
the clay
raw earth toning cities for speed
It began as a night without much promise
but ended fine
we climbed scaffolding
I carried you standing
on the baggage rack of an ancient
and ridiculous lovely bicycle
singing songs in fake Italian
while the last patrons cheered from
the terrace on the right
and the aimless kids hooted from
their perpetual perches on the left
We curl up naked and steaming like a pair
of giddy but worn-out fetuses
New to the world each time
Sometimes in my eagerness
I almost spoil these moments
by attempting to bring about
an unnecessary second round
but my chagrin is the only castigation
a naked navigation
stewing in juices of delicious fornication
Our talk of marriage and babies
swift full lips upon the bed
the bed we seem to have made a home of
It is forbidden to leave the bed?
Square-armed robots standing watch
The last two examples of humanity
carefully and sternly protected
If these mechanical sentinels were human
we could almost say “lovingly”
Yet I feel sick and hot in the dawn
malarial, deranged
Waiting
Sometimes I still feel like I am the subject of
a guarded observation
a conversation which clips suddenly as
I enter the room
Leaving me perplexed and insecure
Thus, angry
And when she doesn’t call I wonder….
And why so eager to let me go….
To continue that conversation
I cannot be part of?
To stumble home
thru the Streets of Salamanca
To eat chocolate pudding like a sacrament
from between her thighs
her breasts
the cheeks of her ass
To fall down at her
feet and lick an ankle
after dancing in a
chupería like newly-formed twins minted
Salamanca you regenerative icon
I will shave under your beacon
and throw dust at giants
What else matters when
I am in her pubic nest?
Nothing, nada, rien
Graffiti
CHIRAC = DEATH OF NIGHT
GANGSTERS WANTED FOR ASIATIC
SECRET SERVICE
I watched a group of figures across
the lake
The sun a flat broad plain
metallic birds soaring across the ripples
like eyebrows drawn by children
with pens whose ink is likkid gold
I watched as their legs merged in the
shimmer
Some kind of spider-like apparition
moving in a funky slow dance
somehow sticky
Ululating these women were
last night
A white marriage
(for the papers)
But at this ghetto batiment
They dressed this bride as a queen
every time the groom’s mother led
her away by the hand I was
bemused and wondered what to expect next
Bellefontaine: “Only Arab and
African people here” said Sid
“They want integration but they
put us here. There is no
integration, this is a joke.”
He tells me this as he
leads a group of French
kids across the
leering courtyard. I am only
now becoming aware
that I am, we are
walking oblivious and cheerful among
a section of town alien to
us. But we are not alien to
it.
Ululating. Sweet breads after cous-
cous. A traditional cake.
Loud Algerian music makes my
head swim in this cramped and
stuffed chamber.
One woman had a tattoo
like this
‡
I wish I had committed
it to memory….
CUSTOMERS WANTED
for the Secret army….
Division 1, 3rd Battalion
fulla homos
despised but highly
effective secret legions
made frightful by resentment
Jockey-tip on undisturbed cornpone
the senator rises, expresses his derision
to express his derision
he smiles wide and cracks a joke no one
but senators could laugh at
Small of back
jumping branches with grudges
on back
sac à dos – that’s backpack to you,
son
young buck, pardner, greenhorn
enlivened steed
CUSTOMERS WANTED
for the secret bedstead
horny girls ride the knobs
as if the globes were sexual planets
revolving in dildo dreams….
orgasms, however, seem to come quickly
and especially strong
some actually prove fatal
Explosions, dreams of prison
cracked ribs and glass that cuts
Jump onto it and pull it
by the ears
ride it, cowboy
A squealing comes across the sky
that’s me
stealing lines
a pig who flies
socialism
fascism
wedding rings from
gumball machines
I look at her and smile
She looks at me and smiles
These are not smiles of joy
or of understanding
But of “now what?”
It’s been a long time
the telegraph wires workin’ overtime
Where is she in undershirts?
evasions of time & opportunity
reading long-legged in bed
jumping boy scouts in the wilderness
feeble dreams of sodomy
rubber duckies in drains
never a participant so callow
with so callow a sales pitch
but luckily things jump backward
to please
When everything is refused
Call numbers and useless
rehearsals
Spending dimes in nickleboats
When her blunted indifference
is a greater source of pain
than open ridicule
or pointed fingers of wounding
We jump planes and plummet
like the rest of them
And she won’t really care
Never, ever does
Never, ever will
bigger fish to fry than that
tiny worm under the ego microscope
What distant secret does she hear?
Barely scrutable on the horizon
twitching an eye and a lip of mockery
│Just burn tongues
│ brule the slinking labe
│ and down it in turrets
│ nevermind the ________.
They fabricate reality with skillful manipulation
of language
♪
└┐ R.I.P.
Afraid of the Sun…. J. Lennon
The sun will never disappear many
But the earth might not have years
My bloody finger
inserted in an asshole of delicious fragrance
I was the sailor on shore leave
She was the lascivious nun
We crossed paths like dynamite
wires crossed with inordinate lumber
files spin out of parking lots on Friday nights
No meat
She hanging crucified with globs of semen
running down….
(unfinished fragment)
My ability to sleep
in the cave of red insects
(the golden lotus bowl)
viscous teardrops of glimmering oil
dimb the river prison of filaments
and there is no electricity
but there is a radio with batteries
and there is tuberculosis
fragments
from a coffin
Smile!
It’s only forever
thought kills speed
we wrapp’d….
flutes….
she moves like a beast
speed kills ?
velocity ┤tiger wrapp’d in velvet
& tremens
the deerpark @ dawn
hunting flaps pulled down
like shades on towers
white reflective needles
piercing the grey fog
all of the world a permanent Seattle
hungry under dusky lungs
dirty and buncular
the sun struggles
the moon almost a myth
the mushrooms have arrived
the lichens carpet the plazas
spores are not your enemy
How I learned to Stop Hating Spores
Rudy St. Cloud, 2047
Tikal on Manhattan Island
Transmission #27:
We are beginning the final leg of our journey.
Crew happy.
Short and iN so, cryptic.
No conversation to tailor
“I’m exasperated”
Avoid the cyclone
Canaries land
and become islands
bees beseech
In tiny loincloths
make dotted lines in
beehive arcs
then commence to dansing
the night gives
way to dawn
and the smoke arrives
a docile humped grill
of tranquilly angry
trembling
a pulsing tremble
a clouded grimace
in which pleasure
is not entirely absent
Th’other day
an X marked the blue sky
above the fenêtre
where today a pallid at
times translucent grey
filled it
Laying on the couch
in mal humour
Lip a fetal curl petulant
Grazing slightly upon the wan
tempest of my troubles
Unable to look into the stratosphere
at the edge of night
A gouache member
wrapped around the legs of night
a purple-spotted serpent from
the primordial Ganges
translucent and shimmering around the edges
Finally under the Gung-Ho Korea of
a Jeep-infested satellite
rusty and plinkering thru the night
hurtling one might say
showering sparks upon the dog-leg
of an antenna
Corpse end of life hanging by a thread
near the head
strapped into the chair
sparkling henna-coloured
around the final hem haw
of spatial revolution
a cube corner upon an access
like some fabled temple
a solid cube of granite pulled
from the floor of the Marianas Trench
set spinning upon of its corners in the
heart of Atlantis
cubes in cubits
the origin of measure
beneeth the waves
somewhere off the coast of Cuba
If it only plays itself out
in images
Apparently widespread
& utterly indecipherable
a cockroach
lies on its back
a clasp thrust thru the carapace
of its belly
The electrified tomb
blocks Ri·ba·teen™ engines
long strips
of black reflective material
like sweaty licorice
Plunged into the dagger scabbard? empty dagger
in the sky.... of the sky?
clouds left sparse
by a levantine thrust
Plunged birds squawking
and discombobulated
ascend thru a cone
into space and explode
SUBLIME CHOCKLIT
POURED FROM goblets d’or
gold, that is
stolen teeth
severed fingers
she lay on the floor of the vault,
bleeding from the stub
they had seen the luscious cluster of diamonds
and couldn’t remove the ring
at least they left her the severed part
Moon Riiverrrrr
up, out and away
up, bustle and out
She’ll let you do things to her just long enough
to show you cannot excite her
She resents that missing finger
And you’ll be the one to pay for it
The sun strangles
itself
trying
An autohypnotic asphyxiation
A god in love w/ itself
Narcissus on iceskates
He didn’t drown he created a
frosty mirror
Tricked the sun into staying bunkered
beyond the snowbank
Falls down laughing across the
fens and the swamps and the moors
and the brackish water of time
Slowly congealing into green and tartared
ice
rank and file, foul and filigreed,
formidable fuck of atavist nightmare
jumping bong-bong over need to
speak
It comes out as half sob half
garbled scream
Some golden delicious choking
If the apple leads us to perdition
it may as well have a trademark
It makes cold
and me sweater has holes
I have trouble with Spanish r’s
And Frenchmen have trouble w/the English H
and some hispanophones throw in a guttural J
when they say it
but we still manage
to understand
perdition
“
She squints TWINS
and the roads are empty
and glistening....
it’s a trap
a piège
a cold glistening in the sun
ja festa ja manga -- form
snow blankets in languid -- repose
-- form
Squalid and squamulose
grey squalls sheet rain
upon clambake coast
Mainers, Massachusters
slow aristocracy
impertinent and graceful
....at times
When they’re not breakin’ bats over skulls
forgotten coast where rotting
masts wave green beards on
the ebb and flow of tides
Jump out with delicious repeat
repasts which allow for the
auto-cannibalization of the obstreperous
obstetrician
it jumps with gills on
slow audiochronomy
some errant message
from the future
banging about with sprouts on
dangerous tarheels
rudolph the red
always handy on the howitzer
and the pipe bomb
war cry
‘gainst
internationalisation
-- she searches CD’s
dogs smear porn upon dogs
always
always
always
Borning: The Art of Entering the World
by Carlos Garcia
Taste the chili!
Feel it burn
Go a lil’ crazy
Live and learn
The flaming shits’ll
get you down
But nothing like
a year-old clown
And death comes swift for the lucky
and there is no punishment
for luck
save taxes
Which brings us back to
our original certainty
(cer)
FREEDOM OF ‘76
yeah yeah
<quimble>
Dotted lines connect the moon
to a child’s brain
20 years into his future
in his memory it looms
large and magnificent
Some kind of immortal fruit
of the collective secular spirit
a whole flurry of multicolored
leaves being lit by a pipe
against a background of plaid
NOT quite human
3-fingered
exclamation points
grow out of their heads
Still jumping into frightful
gourds
gourds
used as a witch’s pot
and filled with a boiling
brew of seed
burbling
....and unsophisticated
It leaves the whale alone
the flaming robot
In fact he holds it
in his right hand
how kind
how doctors
How fabricated....
But now I only listen to myself
ha!
answer to my own name
There is no labour upon the toadstool
and all my clothes are green
and brown
The brazen identity of automatism
It is what it is
Thursday morning between
10 and 10:30
FAITH in medication
expressed in a crook’d smile
like an appalachian signpost
tilted at a crazy angle
it is made of wood & the
letters have been inscribed
w/ a burning tool
We feel bad about everything
especially in the bed
How many times did you look at it
before you realized it was wrong?
Perhaps you need a drunken slut
to keep you company
Says a small
discrete
voice
Calling from somewhere far beyond
the left ear
The abstraction of direction by
suggestion
on the page
We ain’t talkin’ Jimmy
or Betty
or Prince Valiant’s underling
Under things
there are other surfacy
slightly mildewed fibre-board
Do you walk in Peace?
Do you come across the horizon
in black silhouette against a
red setting sun?
Rome fell over in less than
a geological day
and yet we remain so arrogant
200 years is about how long
it takes for the dream to
become the nightmare
and 200 days may be 3 months
for all we know of time
and its relative properties
We’re already talking about November as if
it were a mouse’s spit away
Violence is endemic: civil unrest
crime
war
These onions bake together in the
same red fire
The tips of each tongue of flame spraying
droplets of blood
saliva
heliotropic splinters
ARRÊT!
(arrest the rain)
limited repertoire of words
Faded on an image:
A steakhouse in the desert
She falls down in microscopic globs of amber
Malheureusement
Bad joyously
There will be no earth-shattering revelations
The Mariner and the Nun had none
a great big bag of delicious plums....
Exercise 27. Plosives and rhythm
He stopped by a lamp-post to read the address.
I can’t think today.
A postcard to England doesn’t cost much.
He stopped to write the street name.
I picked nearly eight pounds of fruit to make jam.
Take care not to eat too much at the party.
I helped two doctors to start their car after it had stopped dead.
He picked the best plums from the topmost branches.
We’d picked quite the best part for ourselves.
He met me at midday to take me out to lunch.
That tap dripped twice as fast as two days ago.
He cooked two eggs and put to more in an egg-cup to eat them.
FARMERS will like this rain
Nobody’ll like that
THERE’S the sea!
WE are to blame for that!
Double-massive on the humdrum hornacope
curling in wicker like the shoe of an elf
a caracole smile
a cuticle curve tonight
like looking down at an
illuminated glass of milk
at others
and a fuchsia feather guards the moneybox
Hallowed weaning
of sugarmilk tit
<cold and carbuncular>
the witch’s tit
laying the foundations
for a house made of candy
Hansel & Gretel are Lewis & Clark
and get shoved into an onion (HA!) oven!
In this version they are stuffed
and eaten still twitching
red balls of witch-stuffing
oozing out of crisp-pubed assholes
Hansel & Gretel are Jack & Jill
and what are they doing up there anyway
<behind the well>
on the hill
“cuz the rabbit done died”
He is lost in the headwaters
of malaise
his head disappears into the windows
of vans
the exquisite utility of
of melancholy
drops swords upon the tight
strings
<< akin to heels >>
which jump and barb
in the night ////
there is no excuse for starts
jumbling counters inscribed
with wheatstalks
she sits in bed silent
I have returned late and
am just about
to speak....
Don’t believe in capture
icebergs
don’t believe in frozen voice
early,
as in motivational
homily
junketing (toujours there in the lobe,
as in
smart siamese sampans upon)
golden exile
river of piss
(yer in)
galloping we say strong
forgetting
jumped out at
when she ain’t
doing bettah
(and yoo feel gill-t)
a pinch
felt
by a scream
Salamander smile
along the furtive kissline
of delicate love
(we had fêtes to go to and we dissed)
I have very
little sympathy
Yet genuinely expect it
a nougat symphony
which is a small hut
Trujillo jumping sideways
bothering me
his sexual exploits
bedding the women
of his colleagues
then joking about it
ahh, I have made love with all
the women of Santo Domingo
and the wife of General Sanchez
is the best
hyuk hyuk gen’ral Sanchez
<< il est la >>
agreeing
d’accord
Why ?
create
an
enemy
from a friend
She bring it up
some hidden rape fantasy
Some need to humiliate the man
beside her
look what this fellow has done
dangerous
cruel
barbarous
stupid yet
clever
and way too dominant
for your
pussy ass
You have nothing
lower than low
some null
and void cipher
cowardly
and contagious
and copycat
boring
and still not worth the punch
you--in fact--deserve
So....twelve
eyes opened
closed
jumped or a fudgepacked
rebound
a fish dinner
so
there
fat boy You have
die no talent
givit up and a 2-bit
cease hoodlum couldn’t
cease cease suss out for
false in a
minit
grassed me up
$uburbs of Babylon
A prince of thieves
a riding crop
an atom bomb
a crochet hook
These are the things
love is made of
chin up, he said
with a wink
and a nod
things will only get
worse....then it will
all be over
cheers I said
for the cheery advice
I’ve turned up my
collar, for a dollar
of vice
thé dans un café,
ou café dans l’été?
BURNING inside your
Prussian numbness
like the rind
of one of your
whatchamacall—
fruits of war
and the way silken webs
form themselves into ramps—
well-placed for a daredevil
motorcyclist’s death-defying
jump! 27 buses painted
burgundy and amber
Where is it all going?
Now that nervousness
has replaced surety
apathy, joy
listlessness, fevered activity
irritation, indulgence
jealousy, pride
Death dreams dangling herds of
vengeance
La revancha del pendejo
INTerlude:
Song of the Lonesome Cowboy (Viga Home)
Let me tell you a story
‘bout a girl named Laurie
She built a viga home up in the sky
Why’d you go an’ leave me
Was it ‘cuz you couldn’t please me?
Now I’m livin’ in the home you left behind
She was runnin’ with the cattle
When I saw her in the saddle
Carryin’ two vigas on her back
Whatchoo gonna do now,
Gonna stay here with the moo-cow?
Viga home, viga home, we go home
