Wednesday, September 30, 2015

PURE DRIVEL

Behold! the poetry
there on your breath

as you conjure—making spongesoft
words

kiss more
words
kiss

more words—
with no
effort, and very

little concentration
on the warm

splatter
that's accumulating—an expressionistic picture

which best
approximates—blindness.

SEPTEMBER 30

Hallelujah—
little

second-
to-
last-

impetuous
chiffon morning glory—just as lonely

clinging
to your freedom—not yet
near-

ly
as desperate.


Tuesday, September 29, 2015

TRICKLE DOWN THEORY

Eventually! 
Even 

the 
most 

unhinged
and unbound— 

of all
home-

less men 
far and 
wide's filthy

hand-
me-
down pant-

legs—are 
destined

to fit 
him 

like this—
super-skinny.

Monday, September 28, 2015

TRAP DOORS

However eager 
in the mornings—
the genial self-

appointed Judge
and Jury 
were—so often,

by mid-
afternoon,
disappointed—and longing 

more than anything!
to hang 
the whole thing altogether 

that—eventually 
the menial 
Executioner,

moved 
by a curious
compassionate sensation—and exercising, 

without
much hesitation—
let alone

conviction
or deliberation 
or show of emotion— 

the position
of his 
meager office,

proceeded
to pitch
his only 

switch—and 
do them 
both a hefty favor.

Saturday, September 26, 2015

THE PROBLEM IS NOT—

How to stay small
and still

keep growing;
After all—

history
has never recorded

a
ruthless and bloodthirsty—flower.

Friday, September 25, 2015

SIMMER DOWN

Once—I was
a mighty glacier!

so huge
as to border
on vague.

I ate rocks—
and spit back great
lake basins;

and, though slow—I worked
with such deliberate
superfluous fury

that, eventually—
the sheer vehemence
of my ardent
passion seemed to leave me

no choice!
but to relax
and gradually—take

the shape
of my
container.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

CLEVER PACKAGING

On the sopping muddy road
home post-war,
met a man—

rag-bandaged,
bloody,
yet cartoony—

chipped, 
and dried-

out like 
a tough bit 
of old liver sausage would be—

and with damp gauzy medieval 
claptraps of shoes 
on each foot

that happened to hamper even
the decisiveness 
of his limp;

and as we passed 
he said 
to me—

but only
with his one 
protruding eyeball,

and with 
the little filthy 
harmonica at his lips—

Son,
it ain't enough 
to have good ideas—or consistently.

You have
to learn how 
to have quick ones—and shit 'em out constantly;

not to mention the gumption,
the start-up cash,
and all that machinery.

And one more thing!
he whistled: 
a gimmick—

somethin' silvery 
slick—to distract 'em
from the stink

of the attack 
that you're leveling—such as 
a charmin'—

disarmin'—
colloquial way of speakin'.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

MODERN DANCE FOR HEIDI KLUME

Instructions—

In a limited
time-
frame—

one by 
one—

each of

a
maxi-
mum of

six-
teen 
performers—shall run

up 
this 
ramp 
and start

pushing his
or her 

envelope—

out of 
this
giant

box 
that we've
stuck at the top;

with just
enough

force—
that it 
flies out

and 
glides 
swiftly

and smoothly—
until
ultimate-

ly 
swooping

down—
to land
squarely 

under that bus.

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

SOMEHOW

Round it comes!—
as it must come
every morning;

and in rounds too—swelling
around and around
and so-on-

compounding—thick as midnight, 
but somehow never obscuring 
the fleet light of its message.

And within those 
rounds—and flooding 
inward through each of those chosen 

plum dark stained windows, warm 
and warbling as it ever shall be—
comes the very same catechism.

This is the liturgy
of a few 
chirping birds—

when you too—choose to make your racket,
can you also?
manage

to 
make it so—
agreeable?

Monday, September 21, 2015

BURGEONING ARTISTE

Christ!—if there hasn't
been a gorgeous

tree! living here for—
centuries!

or maybe
even longer?—right 

outside!—my reclaimed antique oak front
door!

And to think—I could never even
see!—for the silly little life

of me—before 
that it was all-the-

while supposed
to be! looked at much more pure

and naked and
specifically! as—Van Dyke Brown.

THE WAKING BRAIN

Dim candlelight flickers and spills 
onto roomfuls of shells,
chipped and moonpink,

which line repeating warped wood tables— 


as if for sale, but not—
in some 
dingy street- 
corner curiosity shop

whose grim brick 
walls seem to slither back 
and back
without stopping;

which first makes you sick, 
and then suddenly 
fiendish—to leap up and 
go running

back outside—and just 
start obsessively, 
ghoulishly digging
for old poets' bones.

Saturday, September 19, 2015

PHILOSOPHERS DON'T WORRY

Great poetry
doesn't have anything 
extraordinary to say;

it just has 
an extra-

ordinarily 
well-paced—
way of phrasing it. 

Friday, September 18, 2015

GALL

Unconsciously—as dark bile,
I continuously
work

at breaking
all the
hard things


down into pieces;
so—that way,

for instance,
I usually only
really have to worry

about—begging 
the fastidious

and
the tender-
ized

and the various-
ly very small
parts—of her pardon. 

Thursday, September 17, 2015

IMMUNITY

Presently—like swollen chunks 
of Indian 

Summer-black
cold patch—perspiring away
in last winter's

holes in the road, 
he noticed—

he was

never!
on any-
one else's home
turf anymore—be-

cause he 
could 

always just
bring these 
neat little pinch-

doses—of his 

own stuff 
along with—
wherever he'd go.

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

PHOBOS AND DEIMOS

But—Mr. Williams, 
what? if

the world!
is so much more—than things

after all; so much— 
more

might depend upon 
the way

all the dumb 
stuff
is arranged. 

The pecking order—of, say

first—stay 
alive,

next—get 
satisfied,

then after that—try as best you can 
to go back

to feeling 
real again—as if

flicking 
back and forth 
like some 

desperate-
ly thirsty 
and fire-eyed

cloth bit of 
moth on the 
planet Mars—just feels more 

like pure 
pattern-making, like pure rhythm 
than melody. Tell me;

does it ever 
occur? to old Patterson—that 
the content 

of suffering 
or reward 

doesn't matter 

nearly as much—as does
the constant

and incessant—
contrast between the goddamn two of them.

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

A RELIEF

Dark and stormy
four-

thirty 
in the morning—yellowwhite toilet 

bowl fizzing—with
hundreds 

no—
millions! of

little tiny babies' precious little
eyeballs 

budding
dividing

billowing 
colliding and—

just before blinking
out 

once, and for all
of time—winking-

up, kind of 
like they're saying—Hey.

You may!
Not always—

feel the exact same way
as today. 

And isn't that—
something!

you'd be? 
vaguely—

interested 
in.

Monday, September 14, 2015

EVERYTHING NICE

Of course—
sometimes it's less 
about sugar

and more
about spice;

like—actually most nights,
how it's not 
so much the same indolent 

snips—of good 
advice 
that stir me up

as—the faint 
bitterness 
of a few of the noises swirling

in their frail
little 
snail shell patterns, up

and down—
in delicate

tremors—
the very ripe 
timbre

of her 
beautiful windpipe.

Friday, September 11, 2015

KIDZ BOP 180

Okay, fine—here. 
It was 

guileful 
but gold-
bricking Mr.

International Art Thief—
who stole 

the cookie 
from the cookie jar, actually. 
He wasn't 
even serious- 

ly 
hungry 
at the time 
either. There—satisfied?

Thursday, September 10, 2015

LEGEND OF THE SWORD OF APATHY

And so, ever 
forward!—or rather, charging defiant-
ly toward

whichever cardinal 
direction he deemed the most 
frontward at the moment

to the lily pink
insides of his 
irrespective guts    

(which he fed
intermittently, when he felt 
it made sense, by the way)—

with this!
the very same apocryphal 
instrument in question:

a tarnished—but
an impudent! little irreligious
ark of a spoon;

now bent from stiff use, and cupped 
just enough 
to shuffle—

such trifling amounts—of livid dust
and foul 
ancient dirt around 

as to give his surrounding walls
little cavities! and a very odd
resemblance to Swiss cheese.

And—all the while, it's been 
said, never intending
to use the resulting tunnels

to rifle
his crusty 
way out of the place someday;

rather, his gambit! 
seems to have been 
simply 

to grow old—
and do so gracefully,
while the whole dismal 

prison! he'd been 
living in 
since god-only-

knows-when—softly moaned
and shrugged 
and eventually just 

collapsed—
from in-
stability.

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

SYNOPSIS

Walking home—through an
ambivalent city,

all—glum glass and tall
dark loud iron;

you smoke.
And you feel—somehow 

proud to be small,
and not at all 

unlike 
God Almighty—when, 

as a lion in the 
darkness might, 

he first 
roared—and then 

brooded so hard 
upon the cloud

of condensation 
he'd created.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

SUMMER REDUX

What was it
like? to realize the un-
mistakable! 

tang of colossal—
and bulging 
and

sweaty fat
hot dogs—
your nose was smelling?

Was actually—not
that scent 
at all; 

but rather,
nearby—
the irresponsibly high  

piles—
of sweltering 
amber onions.

Friday, September 4, 2015

BOKANOVSKY'S PROCESS

Shouting at
my inner kid—quit 
pressing our luck!

Feels kind 
of like 

him whispering back—
stop! 
shitting our pants. 

GUN CONTROL

You misunder-
stand things, 
man. Heights? 

And
jumping 
from them?

totally—
don't 
kill people.

It's 
obvious-

ly—
all of 
that rampant

Acceleration- 
Due-to-
Gravity!—not to mention its 

infamous
history of 
bad blood—with those

dangerous. And 
stubborn.
And thick-as-

thieves patches—
of good-

for-nothing
Normal Force! they got all-

loafing around 
down there
at the bottom everywherethat does it.

Thursday, September 3, 2015

INFLAMED

Confoundingly—he felt so 
sluggish 
and brutal 

and ugly—

and all at
once all of the 
time now, that literally—

everything.
else.

that surrounded him—
was only, 

somehow,
increasing-
ly beautiful;

which managed, profoundly, 
to agitate
his bowels- 

full
of loneliness—just enough

to keep them 
moving.

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

RIPOSTE!

And Lo! And 
Behold!—With my great 

and prodigious-
ly 

translucent 
Sword of Apathy—

I shall take!
and

shall—at last!
hack 

the Great Path 
to Freedom—possibly

to some sort 
of smoldering

pieces—
but also, whatever.

SNAKE OIL

Nobody—ever told me 
it'd

be easy;
though I thinkif I remember 

correctly—he did somehow manage
to slur

a few words—fairly quickly
as he

shuffled past
the automatic doors—out from underneath neon

sunglasses, baggy beige 
trench, and 

huge fedoraabout its all happening
remarkably fast.

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

IT'S A MIRACLE!

Learn! 
to take immaculate 

care of yourself—
and let 

God!—
take really good 
care of

the rest.

INSTANT COFFEE

Con-
versely,
the worst part

about 
dying—all
alone in your

mattress, 
one time—at the 
start, or maybe it's 

the end-
ing? of one—
very single and very 

long night,
the blackness 
of which you can't ever

possibly 
endeavor
to comprehend—

is also
the best 
part—of waking

up every 
single, silly,
daffy, terrible morning—namely:

Nothing-
ness. Suddenly and
stubbornly—willing itself

to
become  
something—wonderful

all 
over 
again.