another bar, another
carousel of faces soon
to become fodder for
unconscious theatre

another set of drinks
which don’t amount to
a single cell of entertainment

another distraction
a thousandth glance
at your phone another(s)
phone goes off
pretend to be
another person
but you don’t like many
other people
you like yourself
don’t you?
where did you go?

another dance to avoid
another song to sing into your drink
another’s eyes within orbit
another chance at looking

into a void, arms down and
fingers rifling
thru pocket frenzied and
pulsing

another cigarette
to light
another cigarette
to light
another cigarette

another night
wasted drunk another drink
and washed-out psyche
slips home

and sad
and brutal
to write
another poem about yourself
but you aren’t that interesting when


you’re just bitter, baby


you know even though you made it with her,
she don’t wanna be more than friends.

I

        Enough. I am done.
I have no dogs in heaven. Nor one of the Prince’s cockatoos
to leverage favor from. I am the ****** on a cactus.
        I have no more
languages to speak truth, but draw blood.  
        I am a coward,
My tongue not so sharp as a sword.
Remain still. Courage not so stiff as it once was.

II

Everybody inside. On their heels. There is panic
Breaking on the back of soundless numerals. Is it safe
To beg for mercy in the streets?

III

O mercy. The ever-redemptive lack.
And what words at my mercy not co-opted
by avarice, or Sig and his ivy-eyed nephew.
        Ah Um.
Too easy to franchise martyrdom these days, minute 2 minute
        Things swing as usual ah um
Sssome people get rebellion-medallions; most pawn them
in tomorrow’s liquor stores.
                                                         And swing.
O merci, Satyrs of a newly profitable goat-song!
        Who can resist them teasing out the milk?

It almost seems fresh, piped thru
        loudspeakers in Bentham’s skull
Howling ah, Um, Imagine:
Most deformed Society members .  .  .
Strapped to their rocketships, mingling w/ stars
         in corporate menagerie,
Senators and a gaggle of catamites.  .  .  
         On call
Young-things, playthings, old news; money is eternal.
Their’s is a sickness that makes mine worse.

IV

That said. I ain’t got a clue; or a word
to say. Without a code to program the spleen
        in my bomb of a heart.
All communication is shrapnel-blasted-out-shrapnel.

        Grinning over a screen.
No, Worry, slow down. Spleen, relax.
I’m just a man with a telephone wire
Not the sax-playing Mr. Apollinax
Sure can’t talk politic but ah um I can start a fire.

V

My robe swinging open,
        I hang over the balconies of twilight’s regret,
                exposed, and unhappy.
I wish nothing more , that the boon of despair
Drop it, an atom bomb and burst the windows.  .  .  .
Everybody inside, solitary: radiated by me.
Maybe we’d all smile at each other
         when we finally come out from our houses.

A green light shone and like ectoplasm lay over Yesterday’s

intuition of the future. Tomorrow suspended in the wriggling
fate of jelly before colloidal dawn. it transformed

when Tomorrow leaked out and became an animal
of almost ravenous occasion. hungry for blood

certainty. A tooth fanged for the squalor of success
without colon for the enemy of despair. I was there

when Jesus Christ transmuted miracle
into a happening. when Freud proclaimed:

Dreams are the crumpled chickenscratchnotes
in the fist of all beginnings. when Charlie Parker

played Stravinsky to Stravinsky
at Birdland. when Borges transcribed

those notes. and heard Cervantes laugh.
When Woolf confounded Odysseus, and

found Homer, oldcouragebearded, grinning
on the other side of three millennia. Was I there
before the green light. yes,

we were all there.

–What do I have to lose if America falls?
my body? my neck? my personality?
     .   .   .

I have not done my research, no
yet I am fat with knowledge,
yet I am drunk on symbols & poetries of excess—
yes, I am an american, what does that mean?
I couldn’t begin to tell you, yet I am
america imagined
in some pawnshop philadelphia
next to the gas station next to the liberty bell
i’ve driven by many times before i’ve seen
the ghost of Ben Franklin, **** out soliciting oral, & heard
          ******* whispers of, “O, poor Richard…”
I love like movie cowboys & policemen I love
a yankee vampire w/ confederate fangs
a working class hero story told in reverse
I’m beautiful w/o being pretty
I’ve got that trillion dollar smile
my economy IS my business
my mind is outer space pleasure cruise
my politics are bombs & ***
my cultural heritage is hollywood & skyscrapers
ford commercials & Burroughs in a nike ad
my religion is myself, no
that is no wholly american,
no, no holy american, just me
but I am america’s spleen
am its mouth, speak its rhetoric & give its head
am its fingers rubbing on redbutton starspangled fleshspasm
am its brain on drugs
am its soul
         on eastern flights

but I don’t take myself so seriously.

Rustled from sleep
by the bird’s whistling;
slow and quick, sharp songs
two of them framed
through a trapezoid
of morning sunlight
in the sugar maple
outside my window

                so I went back to sleep.

Moved from gray
artifice of work
and workplace concerns,
given dignity
to my passions
before I turned
as gray as the job
is blue as the rest of them

                and on Tuesday I said
       I’d cover your shift.

Called to love,
like a diplomat—
from my country
of isolation;
given the royal
runaround, and sent
back with eternal kisses
on my neck

                and that is
        about the time
when I stopped receiving calls.

You are separated from Du Fu’s sentimental visits;
His gadding between the mountain’s icy tower-climbs
And the blushing gardens of the temple precinct;
His delighted musings adorn the stone courtyards,—
wind-chimes and long-flourishing chrysanthemums.

You are separated by few, gaseous planets,
Held there by motorized, frozen rings.

Oh and the midnight boy teeters
with his yellow crown like a cymbal!
‘round the ennyhoos at the market
hoo-rah or boo-hoo-hooing. . . .
                                                     oh boy

beetlebrowing the barelyskirted girls
and gritting teeth, an imaginary rose-stem. . . .

Him, them, no tricks left: a partition ahead
Roped by an archaic madness under gas-lit halo

A ferocity bent like a triangle. Or a tuba.
And looking through to Xanadu

What does he spy? He is the moon’s lonely
lamp above a deserted parking lot

Deserted. . .
Save for the old green wagon
2 bodies inside, radio on.

It is 5am. Undressed but for boxers

                I join in the unvoiced burden
Of suburban detectives and cul-de-sac mystics,
And whomever else screams into a cloak
Their spells to cure insomnia.

I dream of the city-dwelling
fellow all-nite travelers,
envying their resilient hours’ darkly id,
their alley ways foot traffic car horns…
I can’t explain this impulse.

I know I know ‘The cure is sleep.’
But I think, ‘something more.’

   .  .  .

Hours expand.

My neighbor’s new rooster —-
He does not yield.

And the cockcrow puffs the blinds,
And the cockcrow wigs the veil!

Hours expand
Out of their wrinkle-&-bind;
But I’ve yet to penetrate the cloak,
Or tap into its magnetic-field.

        like
        so many,
just so happened
so clumsily
        to touch,
tugging at its tassels
but failing
        to clutch

Before the cockcrow puffs the blinds,
And the blackbird wigs the veil!

Only my eyes
under an apex moon
can hypothesize
in a bulb’s-flash (!)
such extravagant design…

After the boulders roll & crash
The avalanche of balderdash,
                      etc. etc. etc.

Out of the rubble
the wrinkle and bind:
A head atop some shoulders
with eyes like fingers —-
                undercover,
         cigarette-stained,

Following his leads, out along the frays
of a magician’s cape, or a death shroud?
Silver-stitched
            geodesics,
                        some twine-gold ciphers,
         some…

And the cockcrow puffs the blinds
And the cockcrow wigs the veil!

And as quickly as does the violet
in the clouds above the hothouses,
it dissipates… hidden like an axiom…
The hood is lifted —- once again revealing
       The Dawn Sun.

It is in these moments ensuing
That I feel most strongly
Something has been taken from me.

.  .  .


Postscript

Where are the rats of which I was one?
What are they chewing on, now that day breaks?
All those secrets left out in the dark?

As Rockwell shades and the old Japanese masters
Etch the seconds, second by second,
               in the clock on my kitchen wall,

There is a Roman calvary thru the door:
        Centurions poking at the snack drawers
With their iron swords a-clank. Guests are still asleep.
O and it’s centuries until dawn!

The grief robin bubbles
     from *****, the sun’s blazed emblem—
           Morning comes in fits.

Scandent, white-blooming vines
     tickle gray’d limestone ribcage—
            This old house I’m bird upon.

People go in and out
      and the door is always shut.
            Who then, am I singing for?

My song is venom
     to visitors: Thee beware,
             I am a visitor here!

John was a sailor,
an now he rides the subway
-Aren't we all alone,
              an far from Home?

Constellations of Time
    suffocated, deadspace in my neural lapses—

                                               —still, I caught the fly
                                                             ­ with my hand.

Constellations of Time—
         and I am cowboy in the outer expanses of sanity

faithful cowpoke and Lenape murderer,
native lover, too,
dun American guru
       like john wayne defunct.
but when we speak like droogs,
       this be:
       America: A Detective Story

and I’m the dogged dreams of america:
Humphrey Bogart with his dame Liberty

No, I am Robert Mitchum, too.
Remember Philip Marlowe?


I once was america’s psychosis, and still am.
[I am
the soul who walked above
the soul who walked below;

Constellations of Time—
        like gooey cosmic spider webs;
[and I ******* hate spiders]
Fear of Death
…is being stuck, and
fear of that horrible cosmic spider coming home for dinner!

For,
I am
Monsieur Bonaparte’s Hollywood counterpart
who puts the war before the art,
but not the horse before the cart

DEATH

is where my story starts;
railroads,
like the spine of a country and constellations of time
–im on a plain–
ghosts in dust bowl clusters
reflect like
dust particles, like western stars, scattered—
and im on shifting razor planes and who do the math?

We opened our sores as long forgotten eyes

on the humps of our backs,high on the backs of memory’s rise,
[as targets at firing range; a scaly solution]

Soldiered as mountains, yonder
thru mountain pass, and again;

Obliterated bodies, and seaswallowed destinies
come to an end,
die along sunken dry keel of bloodcanyons echo, AHH!
                        [as other such scattered stories go]
,skeleton carriages strewn carelessly—from years above
        appear as bonepimples and dot history’s ridged, mule-like spine;

Messengers thru ancient highway passages: no water to be found,

but, like he told me,
‘WATER
is simply a state of mind’

What We're Told:
     There's 3 blind mice
                        but they're all helping each other to find their way
                                                                ­                   around the place.
What We Pray:
     There's 3 blind mice
                             and maybe there's a distant fourth that can see for
                                                                ­                           them, somewhere.
What it is:
      There's 3 blind mice
                             and one is pretending he has vision.

What’s the connection?—
        a secret kept best between plug and socket.
               Prophet man gone the old electric way,
[and durn’ an election year, no less]. Epigrammatic burps, and
  occasional flatulence, of intellection,      
I can’t help
        but admire my own kindofbouquet, it ain’t easy—
                 when Christ was crucified like gas…

…There’s a million and more clichés I could toss around as mud and dirt;
       Alas!,
                         I’d rather speak in terms of glass, [plateglass, stainedglass etc.,
               germs and love, and guns and lovely lovely ca-sh,

today’s math; burnt and sad, self—Walking [my] small town streets, sure to stray faraway of dense windows,
        and passerby's in ugly masks, with karaoke mouthpieces,
                       Ballads of boredom on precipitate tongues, Shoo!—away
and blow apart minstrel clouds.

        No taxis, [ever]
        just men and women in ordinary cars, pedestrians,
                   in obvious shoes,sporting unconscious denim,northeastern scowls
—fashionable scowls,
         nuanced grays that distract from the spots of ill sun [hostage winter sun;]
                 scowls like Northeastern sky herself.

“I’ve surely lost my perspective”
                 [An empty phrase, really. A neat vaguery, I submit.]
        I had a perspective, I still got it;
        Though not much use it does me being how singular it is,
                                       Optics and all, no shades of reflection,
Dense windows of thought, so dense,
       —it’s now a microscope! Hell, all i can make out is a loose collection of colors,

A broken box of loose wires
          and some kinda bang-up dodgy liberty, those frayed connections, too.
                Nothing as tidy as plug and socket,
        however,enough
                to keep the lights on.

Gentlemen of Courage and Ladies of Excellence,
Toast to stolen prayers with rarer player’s hands;
Soft in defiant laughter,
when drinking their wine from the bowels of brines

Sing along the Ballads of Heritage with Melodies of Exception;
Boast, not a breathe,
though sullen heirs ghost to fairer wearer’s air(s) of land—
A settlement of Rapture and Resurrection, arid, amid dirt and sand

and King and thy Kingdom sprout flowering tomb, and rosebud temple reach to the sky during the showers of spring
Devours the crescent Moon

in big pink petals of bloom;

A garden so fertile
it could look pretty in wartime—
with Gardeners of Courage and Laborers of Excellence;
(Lapse, not into digressions of Being and Essence
but hands in the soil and planting the actions of kingdom come,
       patient building of Spring Reign sure
as the flame, the architect of rising Sun is
(Daughters and Sons of kingdom came,
      the soldier in a land been conquered and named; abandoned
for the greenness of hope.
)May it never come, Be All The Same; (


be gentle, though whispering wind)

Seeds of Nextyear and the spores of Awhile,
carried by the Wasps and the Clouds
To the Gentlemen of Excellence and Ladies of Courage,
illuminated, eyes from the flora of stars faraway forest floor of foreign

      fears,
      as the hungry Owls of Time prepare a final feast—
      Consume the years between Here and Now;
      Watching from blank perch, among
      the Trees of Afterall; a place beyond expectance.
      Sing the branches of experience, to wake
      in Siren’s cipher; inelegant forms
      of waking,

ugly sleep on rocks of seabed; once was aboard a marooned skyline—

Those Who Are Will Be
again, again a serf in a wave of Time’s refraction. Neverending neverbeginning;

                          Those Gentlemen of Courage and Ladies of Excellence,
on the Day That Is, arrays of seers sayers doers displayers
optimists and pessimists, toast to them
        and their rarer player’s hands,
Boast they, not a breathe, though sullen heirs ghost
to fairer wearer’s air and land;
Laugh and howl and dine, they drink their wine
from disemboweled gourds
        of their own divine—
Warped, in jowls of hungry fix,
no feast they fear, for they prey to the Owls of Time.

orange cones
                                               &
       y e l l o w
                                 t
                a  p e—Nothing
                                               to see
                                                          w
    ­                                  here?                          ­                        hear”

       see is
                         what                 i think i
                                                               ­                 thinkyoushould;
       say do             what i
                                              f r e e l y    
                           em

                                                      ­            bedded in I—
      My
                                 herostory; (limits
      endowed the scope—action
                                                       controlled by
                                              knowledge]
     ­   true,
                                   even heroes
        can become jaded to their promises,                   tis noble duty
to their state                             to spoil

inside their o w n Suit of Just
                                                            ­ice)(the state is not me,you,us,them, we’re all a l i e n;]
                                                             ­               cast
                                                                ­                to the fringes
                                                        o­f dissidence,

my sweet
d i s
                  a r r a y; can there be a center to this shrouded mass?

behind face of the clock
                                                           ­     work(the cow
        ard’s mask.


(Mystic Machine, please
                                                          ­                  cloak us
                                          in hour
                                                         uncouth explanation of the our!
un
                         burden our backs
                                                           ­           of those crosse


       d t’s & dotted i’s,
                                                                ­         so we may

                          be  f r e e                          to carry our religion

      sans
                                 the

immobile prescriptions
        of our structures—
                                innumerable volumes of procedural scripture & scroll,
                Mandate and Prophecy.(

                                                   ­               …but OUR brain weighs a ton;
                                     (yes
  but w h o
                                              stored it in the w r o n g vat?
“In fact, we object to the framing of that concept—I


                                         control my mind, to the full
est
                         extent nature a l l o w s

Just
                                     ask the cat
                                                        who assumes itself
       Master of Domain—I lay claim
                                                                ­           as gatekeeper of
            the input, to engineer the flow of my information
                                                     ­   consciously, constantly,
                                                     ­   without a shadow
of intellectual guilt
—This is my herostory; if you
                                               aren’t with me,
                               you are againstme”


Every
                        body got a story
         with a hero, even ideas. but there’s alotta b o d i e s;
This world
                        must be seething with villains too,
the worst clothcut of villain, the most sinuous form of e v i l. that of
            Average Evil—              the
                                       unremarkable,
                                                   ­                                                      tacit kind;
but i               over
                                       stand—it’s philosophically strain

                                             ing                                                              ­
                                                                ­                                 to
        precisely and definitely
                         define players vs. pieces

Wheres the end? slow down
                                                            ­  we don’t even know
where to start?
                                               blistering mound of
                 opinion turn man of reason sheepish to
analyzing, let alone

         cutting the circulation
                                                                ­     to the veins of ideological fires,
                          sure to wait
                                 until the b o d y is scorched
          we may examine
in order and consolidated, complete,
                                            and stored in an urn.

a slave to Time,                         unfit for given task—
                                                    to proof eternal equations,
Mechanical narratives reach unintelligibility
                                               ­           when incorporating those remote
        rules of the game: counterintuitive
                                                ­                                      to our abilities—
                     mysterious areas
                                                          r­ife for exploiting,
                                                                ­with juicy soundbites
rather than laying out full-courses;
How can
                              one                            ­T h i n k and C r e a t e
    when surrounded by
                                                           f o o d...mm
              but can find no nourishment?                                       (then
                                          
                ­                                                 it'd be
                                                              ­                    time to survive, a narrow state of being:
                                                s u r v i v a l—it's either
                         sanity or intellectual
    consistency
                                    ­                                            
                    ­                                                "ya can't c h o o s e both)

On the play for some action
                  but whose knowledge am i acting on?

even as i type this,
                           searching for the path
                                                            ­              to distant answers     but

              whose questions am i posing?

Mad archangel 2020 scam, dead weatherman noos report blam
                                               be live-r to the umbrella storms;
“Stiffen up, you needa chief more
                                                            ­      kid, you’re riffin’ with a
legend— as it is,
         it’s a sewage drain,a bed
                                                             Pan the pipes of dawn’s
crack;at end of the tusk,
                                     the silverback-gorilla camo on the lawn
          kept the rusted metal on a locket-chain
                                                    ­     hanging off his pocket;pocket-watch
                hang from his eye-socket;
.seed sewn,              from the cornrows
                                                                  in his carriage-patch,      3-wheeled rig and [a battery-pack
                                      lithium frame,        told him, ‘slow down black’
         —ain’t no money in that”
                                     magazine gass’ed up -let me hand em the curls;
code to the Source,name
              the names, bigstick for walking a sideways polemic
                                                         ­                   fortyoz forecast for
                  hisshadow stringed-up a harpwing tune
                                               the maddog politick;
Show ‘em on the map
                                                               ­            -where it rain tonight?-
                   (not that alley X the liquor store—sea the eagle
         swim gelatinmass of marvelous cherrylime-green sky;
posse told him to pass
                                               his flying colors, vomitspittle—
                                               Magnesium flare—was all his
                                                             ­     day in the dunya,(we all got’em)
                                                         ­         bent youngblood ear like a
                                                                ­                                     bloodhound:
                                                                ­  What’s the static charge?
Smash!pumpkin brain s-p-l-a-t,  rush to eat the seeds?
   all the sparrows scatter cuz the lights
is red,white&Bluuuue on L juice
          —Ah! Hell’s loose, call me a river and
                                                                ­                                       press
                                                                ­                              snooze.

this always happens:
sitting at tombstone
desk—blood clots from hours in this twobuck
torture-chair;
4AM? can barely read
my own thoughts,
neatly arranged,
painstakingly painted a
cross ether
glare of the computer screen.
Seven stanzas devolved
from the act
ual epiphany
of the p o e m;
chest tight,stomach churning acid from
cheap *** cheap cigarettes and cheap
grass rolled up in
99 cent Dutchmaster cigars—
Forgot to eat, forgot to hydrate, forgot to remember
the truth i was trying to forget
—forgot the point i was struggling to articulate;
Did i have a point?
I’m beginning to note tiny
Beings of Light
out’ve the corner of buzzing eyes,
all too familiar friends
friends of fiends, vampire junkies,
raving mad x-politicians,
and nocturnal suicide poets—
who after failing to get laid
in college bars
and drinking too much, too many boring conversations
with dull goons;
Get home, pour another glass,
cigarette      to dry lip     in perpetuum; beatiful Miles,
Porgy and Bess, sit down to
computer and write p o e t r y
not prose,
not prose—Man’s revelation of
histories to come, histories manifest.
not prose which brings Man’s higher-self
        into the great
        Universe-at-Large
but p o e t r y, pretentious,
narcissistic, self-important,
which alienates man from his tools of realities;
enemy of machine—but Man is machine;
no poetry is Man!
no poetry is animal,
primal, instinctive;

Well, **** me, half
way thru another cigar,
“maybe i’m not learned enough
to write a story, a **** good one at that…a novel
i’d say
-good luck you simple sloth…How
could you? just a regular self-loathing chimp
who writes — p o e t r y.”
really pondering
hard; thinking: i can’t be [that] dumb,
i'll admit what i don’t know,
(but Hell, least i’m smarter than the next guy, the
       next guy, the next guy…til the next guy makes
me a **** fool; time to relocate and read some books.)

return my eyes to the computer screen,
re read what,
an hour ago,
i was, prematurely awarding myself the pulitzer prize for
as i see it now: pure
*******.
Devil’s attorney
slinking on slouched and grim drunken shoulder,
“hmm…and you say this is your forte?…
I wouldn’t kid yourself…kid.”



Warnings
in grave visions
of a desperate worm of a man
hunched at resin-stained desktop, scribbling away
His fancifull abstractions, broken man— Mad
and scared; shriveled,
scarred by regret—
Thought he was a talker;
witty, true like Bukowski,
        or Heron;
Fresh,
inventive as cummings
        or essential as Pound.
Simple
and brilliantly smooth
        as W.C.A  or W.C.W.
elegant, smart
and far-reaching as Eliot,
        or the Old Romantics;
could have sworn his musings
Rapturous! no Thoreau, he,
        nor as damaged as Poe be
under the Impression
He could stitch his Soul
into the seams of American Divine, direct such
spirits into p o e t r y as ***** ol Ginsberg did
so bravely, beautifully
as
Wherefore art
thou loving father? in Heavens is Walt
Whitman—
He
sure was;
He
was sure,
******* sure he
possessed a nugget of gold, mined
          from inside each of these masterful
Mountains. panned entire sunsoaked cordillera;
yet
each night
would ‘finish’ a
p o e m,
clock out, tho
always would feel, incomplete,
nevermind how many p o e m s he wrote
hundreds, maybe thousands of
bottomless wells
        of words;
Great Idea! Necessary Idea,
take action, he, in prose,
a form of action the action of wit,
to give human
body to formless, ex-humed soul—
Give soul to formless body of philosophy by god!

alas,
the schmuck
never
witty never
potent enough to pen a real
mother-****** of a story,
certainly
never could imbue a plot
with significance, endow with subtext
or builda character out of his p o e t r y,
        Then give it the legs to run for two-
         hundred pages—
He had the ****, just
not the ***** of it-all…
toiled, silly
in his nebulous, castrated,
dimlit room—swelling
whiskey or gin
cigarette glued to his dry lips, attempting
to romance the grey gods so
that thay mey spit mustard-seed
onto humbled holy head—
pray that it may grow, Flower
to full Bloom
even without
ever learning
his Biology.
…never
realizing what he had there—right
in front of him. Poor *******.
-Dumb. he was.
Cursed to be a P O E T.
and doomed to fail as one.




I hate the sound of the Sunrise
when i’ve been up, writing all night; it’s
an alarm like bones in a blender
thru an endless
waking dreamscape;
Sitting, thinking loosely,
wildly, loose-
change two-cent thoughts—
This
this is when regulatory bodies
are disabled, de
funded; radioactive runoff (operational hazards)
contaminates
pure streams;
...random billboard pop
t-r-a-s-h drift in
and out of mind(probably from
        the endless drone of those same 3 chords in
any store or restaurant you enter. How about some Classical?
        Math: the food ain’t rot ‘em enough, let’s assault
   their other senses of taste. Quick. while
        we’ve got them swine trapped!)
politcal memes, halftruths and
newsday buzzwords flash, bright and
silly then recede into obscurity;
only to discover, the next morning,
their greasy finger-prints
given gimcrack shine to deeppurple dawn
Gibberish. trife piffle. bunkum and balderdash,
gobbledygook, mumbojumbo jackshit slangspit
hogwash, ** lotta raspyutintutyncomman nonsensses hoosis mut nowago sayawahhesay too dum for dada…
My
yawns
are now childish giggling;
My concentrated writings. none of it makes any sense to me.
Searching for a distraction
To regain my focus, composure…
biting
nails, tapping Art Blakey grooves on tired desk,
inspecting burning cigarette, forensically.
Oh—
look around for my cat, come here, co
me here kitty. (ah yea, comforted
by familiar purring, a hum from under the bed;

-Close my eyes,
to centralize
to meditate
to ***** out
inanimate,moving parts
to put finger
to pulse of programmed nub;
to create value
for a dying currency of language;
to whisper sweet nothings
in the ears of tender muses
and meaty hookers.
-At this juncture:
reconciled
where the finish line is
strung,
how it appears to me…only snag:
by the time i get here—none
of these
nothing have no meaning
writing,this,that? what? be
low my paygrade *******;
Let stew; sleepy,
delirious, suicidal, anxious, sorta
*****, deadly confident;
Let stew...
…then it hit me like a Point of Intoxication!
brilliantly constructed
Words,
words hanging,
hanging
like a,
Renaissance-style portrait
above a fireplace in an enlightened *****-den,
    -for a moment, seen clearly thru parting
    of deadeye yellowsmoke sea.
Maladroit,
hallucinatory, went to type,
thought better,
no doubt would ****** such
sudden genius,
fumbled for recorder, gotcha
click:
closed my eyes oncemore
to review this epiphany, to record it.
relayed, recited
like a prayer;
perfectly—this must be what the body
of Christ feels like…
when done, i, exhausted,
smiled like a son a *****
how fine
that P O E M is gonna look,
when written
down all nice and neatly.
it was close(but i knew i'd pull
something revelatory out’ve
my ***.)
satisfied,
if my pants weren’t dry
i'd swear i came.

...the following afternoon,
Upon waking, coffee, cigarette, news
in the background,
grab the recorder to listen to this opus;
well,



**** ME!
if
i didn’t make sure there was any space left
on the ****** thing!
bye bye my petty kubla khan
Smart Boy.

ah well...
it’s just
P O E T R Y ya know.

-in adoration of Bill Evans

Welcome, night;fall from finger
stride the keys— handsome young ghost
on my computer screen, as You
are known to me;

Deliver air of great gusto! to sleepwalking ‘verses’
—from quaint Grace of piano seat;
Tenderhearted
Virtuosity,smoothly reverberates
newance
,relieve pretensions:
a coiled palm under ev’ry word
i write.
Compelling ‘nuff a reverie to fool me.

Timeless, God
**** good
because it’s so sincerely
Human—
the kinda Human that transcends pasty body
still
you gotta feel it rumblin’ right in yr gut,
flow thru arm,leg,arm,leg,
up the stem of yr whistling brain
Down to the bone-gristle and greasssomesoulgears
makes you wanna learn to play
piano.
But i can’t play piano,
like him,so
i write
like me.

But i haven’t found my
self compelling enough
to fool anybody
into daydreams yet.

disassembled                dry-milk filaments
        casket-torso;pallbearer-legs           buried
                      the lead                        
                                    ­   tombstone read: “for what it’s worth,
               well, It ain’t”
Get me out!on thenextflight       haven’t cut since cru-el April"
             her,my,this obsession with disaster           death by Mediocrity
      she tickles my deficiencies.i whisper.witness me Divine
                            Metastasizer
the police-scanner onna nozzle         so-so dance with the gentlemen;
        to the heart of                write a novel and **** yrself
...And so began the long con(sort-o-con       a schitzo origin story
                 two invert a paradigm)         ;dis assembled matter
told’em yu why worry?      -it ain’t like the films kid-
         we got Worlds to destroy via our Creation)
…move the mark, no           Who moves the soul of those machines?
        somebody [important] dead      inna car accident and
3 colors of genuwine           stratum of white jissom retchblossoms
Smelled like a bank&mug issa
       itch of **** platter-ed                  man who shoulda upped-in-smoke at 22.
                               lotus lips          chests of oceans
Wouldn’t mourn immortality yet;
          -Can wee stay here all/night?-         a platitude is a platitude is a platypus—             :POEM:UNDER:CON
                        in                     STRUCTION:       tuition is too high!
Death by mediocrity, i whisper         she licks a falsehood;
         stick it two me!           $2.37 and a pack of menthols
Stick it in me!         and twist      darling,When’s the last luna saddle
            you horsed           a bull fever-red let it fly—           disassembled constituents quiver                      grave sentiment o’er teacups of
          perishable insight                         ,dissolved dry-milk filaments
      if fear was
                the Sweat,on my back         mountains of meat o’er hills&
under choppy grecian sea          she undoes what she did
        *ties a ribbon to an elected carcass
Autopsy report:                            that junk was better in my head
         death by mediocrity   i whisper        it ain’t like the films kid,
               and it ain’t like the news said            she mechanical jaw
inspire technicalities            maintain the train rolling or you might
                see me on the outside; emerald oracle on a sideroad
selling oranges to                 the future       ain’t grease my w-h-e-e-l
        you—and; her she watches from out-of-frame
        falling, you, i she is falling in closed
system  restrain this membrane            give (me) a hand in burning
         up this joint         (we) kicked in the door to a peep show
picture death, no                  horror of inanimate ****** press’d up-against                   staint glass                the whole **** operation
a **** ruse           I’ve never been about            wake me up for
        disassembled                a Judgement Day               the next hunt the
interval be                       Please cut to the          C H A S E
                 between Want and Wanted                     the joy/cut-me in;   is a poem      to a cross-             like me,I think,therefore
                -eyed saint     my brain jargons,               but these words are deadbeat,papa where’s the cigarettes?     sure pal, Yr a leader!
                for a funeral procession         him,           androgynous boygirl
     tested the waters,drowned               disassembled for a fountain          
                 trade me that injustice for
or a Ouroburro           a Snake            a new dictionary (all in fine print)
     with the courtesy to eat itself whole;                        Cash in
while              you can. Get some sleep.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

(Authors of (obligatory)
Redemption: what is true genius if it ain’t dead yet?
Let you, who **** it, not be present for its resurrection.)

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

i had a nightmare:

i opened the door of my ranch-house in the boonies of
southern pa.
out-into the grasses of the old Congo;
There stood the Lion.
20 feet away
i, frozen in the magnitude of his vision;
spirit, dominated by his
completely;
Not even a growl.
i remained
paralyzed—he licked the backs of his paws
and combed a wiry mane...
…a halfa-second was a year if it was a halfa-second now...
but
somewhere in there
i regained my legs and without knowing
pivoted,
grabbed the doorknob. Twist. Open. Step inside.
turn to close the...doorway is gone, the house has vanished
And
HE WAS RIGHT ON TOP OF ME

i was nothing but-a body of plastic fear
molten,
melted and cast into mannequin limbs and head.
i could feel the Lion’s entire, real
spirit crushing spirt
on my hollow caste self.

his breathe stunk of blood that
forced my replicaego into infant curl…
…Finally, the beast roared a canyon
i shivered!
a shiver that shook inside my head
thru the spine to shake
my bones inside the bed.

Thru the constricting red curtain of bloodclot eye
spy the tiny eclipse
of the Black Crow inna massive sheet of african sun;
i must be dead already.
The Lion feels the Crow perched onna cape fig nearby
and his muscles tighten accordingly, his beastly hunger
displaced by boiled-blood anger.

Eye-to-Eye
with the beast
where Fear has reached saturation-point;
it is Nothing if it is Everything…
…the Crow lets out a hiss
like spikes of radio-static, interrupted by series
of whooping-caws…
…stomach vibrated by the Lion’s low,
almost internal growl. For the
first time, his tranquilizing orbs
divert from mine
to capture the Black Crow perched on the dying cape fig.
uncertainty taps my shoulder…then…i feel my body;
the weight releases
and as i motion to rise from the grass and dirt, the Congo dissolves and i’m
sitting up on my mattress with broken springs in the humid
summer slumber of southern pa.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

-What security?
programmed,
under deep-cover;
jungian re-uploads. Them. Resurrected witha blackmarket
medicine a Witch Doctor devolution;
Replicate, regenerate, forever
<01100101 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110100 01100001 01101001 01101100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100111 01110010 01101111 01110111 00100000 01100001 00100000 01101000 01100101 01100001 01100100>
Bottom feeding grave robbers and tomb vandals are all they are!-

-Better check what ya put down here…liable to shape a ghoul,
and you know this haunt is made-up of enough spooks-

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Professors of chaos preach:
O wanderers!
write me the manifesto
walking atop a line of hot coals
-I smell me some burning soles-

(They intend to:
Pour, pure from cold-clear spring-spout
      into muddy-brown-clay, dissolved,
rushing against dried-up bones of gully-walls…
…the Crow just sits above
         and laughs there

Don’t ya see it?)

History
is not about the past,
but
about what the present
can mold the past
into
for the future.
-the marble’s trajectory sure to
flip onnit’s axis d’pending on which record you dig-

(One mistake
can a coward make
or
one accident happen
up-on that a martyr stake’d.
etched in the rut of each separate fate;)


The lion
must roar for his P R I D E
        (or?)
lion wears his hide
as a mascot
Black Crow eats crow egg blues
        black crow spotted me yellow in the bushes
pants down, gun-in-hand
-send your prayers-

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Here,
I stood in magnetic fields of vision;
You there, in-a candlestick pose
dripping paraffin-wax skin into scabs of asylum floor;
long-since abandoned—over
200yrs of ghosts in the
walls,
walls of busted drywall, exposed-wiring, exposed-brick layered in damp fungus and leeched by dark mucousy mold.

You there, in the yellow beams of Del Valley afternoon soaking thru the red rusted bars on the big window-frames—underneath which, the piles of shattered-glass are splashed by errant rays, transmuted into dilapidated pyramids of peasant white-opal.

Here,
I was, standing in the doorway
of this cove, dank and green, littered with ripped up pictures
and stained patient records, bits of the ceiling and a few leftover lobotomy-drills; the
madhouse corridors leading to this oasis are lousy
with odor of a bugbrain infestation…I stepp’d inside.

You there, in your most perfect rendering…pale
figure a diamond eclipse in the eye of the Ol' Clock;
a clumsy smile, wounded but quixotic lens
confused by your own fiendish eyebrows;

-You lure me in with promise
of the power
of being A Savior—O
I can’t cure your disease, instead I shall
share [it]
in this suspended-animation
with you.
Your collapsed polarity buried you in canyons of
bloodfire and crescent body been revealed in the
moonlight, this time
it was I
who excavated starving bones from the sands of
misplaced desire, this time.
…but this breeze will only take us so-far, this breeze
we soar—the Sun slowly dissolves into the acrylic mix
of blues and yellows and oranges
and just above the horizon, smeared across the sky,
a fusion of pink-magenta;
this breeze,
this breeze can fool you;
this breeze, we soar
on the mother vein of
magenta skies.
-in the now
and then,
in the now again-
again
this breeze we’re naked in
the now pretend this ephemeral breeze
we soar, the immortal winds of Elysium;
ribbons of dopamine lash the brain
unify the senses
a flowing vein thru unending membrane, vibrating
membrane
…O the heavens we find in spells of eternal grayness!

She — she sees the stars
in eyes — in eyes that
shield the sun and yearns;
She burns to complete their constellations.

She — she learned the world
through the vacant gaze
of those — of those who’s
love is born out’f manipulations.

She’s ill — ill from the
colors, noise, the emp-
-ty reflections in
the mirror of social masturbations.

She feels — feels the shift,
tectonic plates — the
weight of souls — souls which
drift to shape the soil;
The weight of them bends the Earth’s vibrations.
She shares her fate, with
those souls — souls which shape
the face of Earth —the
fate of which to walk
the plank of their own civilization.

She sees — sees the mess;
How Mother bares the
brunt with body stripp’d,
bruised chest and ruptured
hips from the disease
which wears the crown of her own creation.
She smells — smells the depths
she’s in — it stinks like
old neurosis’ sweat
and spirit mold — taste
cosmic rust on tin
tongue; She’s cold inside her contemplations.

She has visions — vis-
-ages of prophet
flames, let them scorch the
deserted planes of her meditations.
She hears — hears the crash
the Thunder sounds, the
Boom! The children glow in radiation.

She wants to cry — to
cry revolution,
but can barely mu-
-ster up the bones to
demand for some ****-good explanations.

She who knows — knows her
needs but without will's
wit will feed in-to
those who live and breed their condemnation,
is not without creed,
and she knows — She un-
-derstands that to be
freed by the seed of
Nirvana is not —
not to be free of those obligations.

…ah um
quit the pandering and
spin a pipe’s worth of Mingus or
maybe Baker or Parker
(They know how to Say What You're Livin'
a guide to the soul of the sleep
or talkin' like a train on the brink of de-
railing for 30 miles
       but makes it safely to Wichita as planned.)
3:30AM it’s junkies for some kinda animal fix w/
old hip & old ****** tastebuds up
this late, or early I’m trying to re-
   -lapse here;
mechanism too open a-
live nerve
          for ravenous divinations &
spirited conquest(s)

I pray not to other gods but
move on the winds that blow dust in my eyes
let my language blur in-
between
the lines; surgically
to let me
bleed it out
        not betray my civility
not let my opinion
        betray my humility
not let my privileges
in certain contexts negate
my perspective
No I don’t pick between sides that’s where you
over
&
oversimplified
implied a divide
w/ language bastardized
& sanitized;

Ain’t a justice I could speak that would last a sentence
in any good book of his/or/hers who slime
when wet, gush & *****, cold statues
in busy-international-style-hotel-lobbies
silk’d swollen appendages & curly greasy-
    -haired oven spread
                               for POWER, power brunch boardroom glory
gory foreplay mocking dirtypoor magnolia seed, plucking peony petal
like a Shrink in shadow of a pedigree now
a judge, small & snide in righteous court-dress for play-
            time.

...Brothers & Sisters

(they) drink my fluid’s ******
-You, eat the will
of my friend the human pet
Slither your plasmic bones in fetal mix
unclaimed foundlings
        pink genitalias
go you writhe on-top uh i ou-
        -r taxdollars
fossilized uh programmed sickness squirm
in maggotmouthed machinations for
the egg of uh saint in lieu of true hue
Them Birds
          (onna island) of parasites;
crass utensil in aid your digestible
stasis-


You Sheep Boy
You? Sheep Boy
You, Sheep Boy?
You! Sheep Boy!
You Sheep! Boy felt the transformation
          when you were told. How’d it feel?
I lost my madness when I let myself die
inna only dream If I had a voice
half as clever as Joyce…
If I had a voice, it’d make-a disassociated rant
into a plea for sanity! it be a salt-stained sailor up
against his Nature to caress a braindead angry sea into
a wise & benevolent guide;

Not uh god I know
gave me a compelling answer not uh one
an I wish they had b’
         cause I don’t always feel so well
I could use another crutch…
Not uh one
head talking on my TV
can be-hold the spectrum to apply
just one, single colour, in your carnation’s eye
If it was so simple how come uh monkey can’t do it?
Ain’t uh monkey I know
         that-a keep its spine upright
that
ain’t gotta taste for its own kind
You’re right
but so is he right she right we will fight
left        right
up
down
uptown downtown outtatown
North South East West
babble on O babble on everywhere
ah um do please hit your marks
         & follow the rhythm
       of the next body over;
Pass around worn-out clichés uh penny given
you put 2 of them to-
gether
we call that uh valid opinion
where I’m from;
Not uh man I know mean what he say
and
sometimes not uh thought in
my brain make any of those
Words
not any of my
Words
mean anything not even the noise they produce
not like Mingus’ fingers talkin’ on that bass.

apathy, is me     with you,
                               i am
               the oceans,the rivers&lakes,the
        mountains&valleys,the atmosphere
the Earth,Jupiter,Venus,so on,
i am the Milky Way,Andromeda,all
                other galaxies known&unknown,all
                the stars&constellations,the asteroids,
                alien planets&blackholes all curled up in  
                 the fabric of the Universe
          but
nothing specific mind you
my dear
   ...with you

Love is philosophy
safe in its reach
apathy is me, with you
strung-out on the antidote
with you,
the sickness issa comforting creature;
       the aquamarine-moon cradles
       madness like a fetal daydream
—with you
      
love is scientific,
                boring in its dissection
       love is petty
                 in its honesty
apathy,is me.
             with you,i am un
                            being un
                           dulating b/t there
                         & there
           nowhere near here;

apathy, is m e
                 and y o u inna vacuum
        i am? with you—cut
                            me
                       T(in)WO;
apathy,is me, with me and you,
                i am
                body inna fever
                &
                (my) voice dis
                embodied
                inna tomb;
                send your fever meat thru a tube
                kiss&kiss my blistered
                     bliss
          we’re necro
                         philiacs
apathy, is me     with you

Drive ‘round town; Nostalgia
                                        color me voodoo.
The oranged-pink hue of the sunshine
                                        feeds me mellow.
Head on the road ’n’ off the rodeo,
        Blakey on the radio — “Please give me
                               a pretty overdose with othello dayglow”
Mansions mate with motorhomes. Methane skies gas burnt-out residents.
Tiredthoughts&drymouth; Think it’s a drought—
                                                             Could be a pestilence.
       “****, it’s too hot out
                                  for the middle-of-September!..Ach-urr!”
I cough&choked on a memory—Remember-
                                                ­            ing youth’s relentless attention
                                                       ­ to nothing in particular but
                                                             ­   its boundless pursuit of every-
                                                        th­ing in-between.

I used to look to the Blue and think I’d float away
                                  but
             that’s when I believed in miracles.
Nowadays, reality has no sympathy just a noose — tighter leash,
                       anchored soles to a meanconcretecaprice
                                                with
                                 no abstract release — (still)
I drive ‘round Podunk & keep away from po-lice.

I stop in the corner-market
    to cop some energy&fillup on gasoline;
    at the pumps
tilt my bushy-brunette crown back to admire
            the delicious slices of tangerine evening-sky
                  topped by thick whippingcream clouds...
...Remiss though;
     futile, in wild aims to pause Time
                   and repossess my myself: immobilized
          I was separated from body centuries ago
                                   & today (i) continue
                                    a microstep behind (my) experience...
...Wait inside my 99 Suzuki Esteem
        cigarette cherried, Brubeck on NPR;
Waiting for my man, he’s always late.
                   Waiting, so I can buy it.
                   then smoke it.
                   then hide myself;
          Stow-ed a-way
& it’s almost fall,
        I find peace in the fallen leaves,
           the stoic desperation in the liberation
              of those sweet Autumn trees.

Drive ‘round town; Nostalgia is a solitary perfume;
         let it take the wheel&lead the way —
I can see silhouettes
         through the fog of cigarettes, hologram faces.
Drive ‘round town over bridges I forgot to burn
            and
      instead, just let decay...

Drive ‘round town — let
        the music choose my destination, let
                                       the rhythm lead the way, let
               the groove shake the memories loose.
Sometimes I drive for hours, sometimes
                                                I let my mind wander for days.
Sometimes I roll the world on my tongue,
                                                sometimes­ I have nothing to say.


Drive ‘round town; Nostalgia
                                         color my contempt;
       Deadwood&drygrass&nomoneyforent.
                  Sanity is counted in dollars&cents
       & This place always stinks like ****.

I love the beauty of the lake
                                 but
                            I hate what it reflects.
Hushed earth-tones and
                pastel humanity,
Vanity injected with a tie-around-the-neck.

Drive ‘round town; Nostalgia
                                 keeps me from sober.
        The sun feeds my head
                                 and the roads are now my owner.
“**** it’s too cold out
                                 for the middle-of-October!”

Hushed earth-tones
                        and pastel humanity;
Blush'd guru trance O how petty I’ve be-come!
 ... isolation is intoxicating.
           “No more, no more…”
I’m already dumb,
           Shouldn’t I be happy?

Drive ‘round town; Nostalgia
                                        color me voodoo,
                the faded twilight feeds my melancholy;

In spring I plant my harvest in fall I reap the seeds.

Nothing much else to do.

But
Drive ‘round town & let the countryside woo me.
Lived here for 15 years,
           (turns out)
nobody ever knew me.

If
i may dwell in suspension
Sweet as plum;
Solitary
searching for
emptiness, whole of
nothingness…


Zoom in:

i match the gaze of
the Infinite
Peeping Tom;
like 1000 of those
dreams where i’m
naked in public
all at once
the Big Rush
pure
pink ****
flesh
stripp’d on the ledge
of the Lotus;
Faith’s suicide jump—
-Yea! Feel the breeze
swing swing
bodhi
body
my body swing
-everlasting-
but
i always blink.

& succumb
to dead momentum
(note:reFill w/ junk-
energy&bulhoon juice)


Cut to:

(******
******
sapio ****
sapien sapien
-libido is
god is Zeus
get loose,
l o o s e)

‘You know
the freaks come out
in their moon-masques after 2am lookin’ to
drill some sense
into
that Void.’

‘Da coup de grace
to yr grace of
One.
The baboon won!’

Ascension was a bust so
i cool with a jazzhead
Sit cross-legg’d & smoke
cigarettes ’til the knife of dawn—

‘Ache like mountains old
as Death.
lust
on yr breathe
that wild dogs
can detect
20 miles west.’

Close-Up:
{Cue the music}

-O! whiskey
tears & mary-
-juana sin thesis;
Realm, bee
yond the darken’d lip
the space ab-sorbed
by the mouth
of Supernova Human ways!

Action!

Now
b’fore it stains the carpet!

i’m with Sister Joyce
&
she gon’ show me
how to keep
my iii open
to oblivion.
Make me a Re-al boy
again-
Gon’ gimme back
that body
bodhi
that body, that shell
i housed
Alexandria
She gon’ gimme back
that cure
i can’t get enough of
Once
had a plug
straight to the mainline
-if you can believe it…
the connection right to-the
MAIN SOURCE
She told me she got it anni need it

Fade to:

(Fungi
feng
shui
shady
eyes feel
like the windows
on dead asylum walls.
‘Let it Burn!’
I told ‘em,
that temple is
mad
with ill karma’)

Fade Back:

Sister,
bless me
with the Pleasure
of
Yr forgiveness—
Prostrated
at the foot
of
your magic
bind—
Heal me;
that Holy
Fluid
washaway daily hypnosis’—
Yr purple presence
is ancient
mystic limbs
cradle my Babylon
why
***** angel Souls do the
pharaoh’s dance—
Bodies swing
in One,
bodhi body
swing in One; now
twirl yr guru poetry
cryptic
round my Obliteration!

& let’s drown ourselves
in gulps of ecstasy
swallowed in-to paradise
the warm, fuzzy
nothing.

Cut to:

(Consciousness,interrupts,
Suddenly!
Lurches out of unBeing like
a madman a killer
lumbered
   over
his victim
-fresh,crystalized
real
ity; clear thru dewdrops
atop blade of grass the sweat
on damp back chill in
soberbreeze)

the Now pierces
the swelled black belly of
temporary oblivion
lightwork the stars that freckle the face
of the sky
poke-d
pin(w)holes the size of the Universe
in the bubble of In
finity
-inward
outward-
i see myself thru it
looking up…
perched in rural
everywhere
Planet nowhere
dug in the
hole
of nothingness
solitary
searching
in suspension.


FADE OUT.

Cosmic tool
never stop looking
for newfangled science
procrastinate in a future scene

“Lets be honest…”

ill-mannered to speak
of perfection
in a body so busy
w/ hypocrisy

My pain ain’t yr pain
don’t think I understand you
don’t think I ain’t care
don’t think you overstand me
I ain’t believe in victims
of society on account-a
i ain’t no perpetrator

It’s not wise to wage war
on preferences
and
dogma look silly when
you’re 25 or older

Sad to hear pragmatist
is now
the face you wear
when you have no foundation
yr mouth could talk an endless mile
of rhetorical obfuscation

Gimme change for yr hope
…O child hope is but a dream
-Life’s sure a joke heh?
-O it’s just a scream!

We need divide
like the dope need a ******-vein
blood rush concrete monkey brain
Who can we blame?

Cure the myths
and **** the idols
Don’t commoditize the truth
or fetishize our differences
No-one owns the past
No-one owns the future
W/ all the guns in Chicago
we could be free (for) tomorrow
but with all the language
in our words
we could free our heads
and make enemies
into neighbors
like Grown-Ups do

Cosmic tool
never take nothing serious
play the fool
while the world is delirious
Get-a laugh
out-a the hootin’ and the holler-in’
Such divine comedy make a man spoiled.