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.

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.

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.

THE PROBLEM IS NOT—

How to stay small
and still

keep growing;
After all—

history
has never recorded

a
ruthless and bloodthirsty—flower.

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.

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'.

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.

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?

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

KIDZ BOP 180

Okay, fine—here. 
It was 

a 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?

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.

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.

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.

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 everywhere—that does it.

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.

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 think—if 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 fedora—about its all happening
remarkably fast.

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.