volcano the rat popped out of the sewer and ran down the road gnawing on a crooked table leg. the pin up girls have been crying in the chapel over strange men with belly problems. it is very early and the sky is still a black mongrel rolled in waves of silence. i was king midas for forty minutes in a dream last night, i held a crazy unspeakable microphone and i slapped myself in the face. buy me a soapbox just like jesus had, hang posters of houdini and exist in silence. i have the mad pulse of a child, a rosy cheeked poet am i. last night i secretly tried to chop down the church steeple, "down with enthusiasm."

unsuccessful potatoes & you found a tree in the ocean
i spent the afternoon digging, digging
my fingernails into my own fear of commitment
the fear of my own reputation

now the cat's in heat & richard nixon (the dog)
is teasing her with his trump card
she takes it
& squeezes it
very gently
then rips it open madly & snarls
& it oozes and drips out of her mouth
we all pick up a thousand pieces of a minute

i cremated my sister this morning & new spirits
arrived at my doorstep before noon
they sang to me of instinct,
whinnying about the antique zenith
up in cheyenne

"gimmie some secrets" she said
so i carved them
into my arm
into a minotaur's chest
into a giant looking glass
into a wooden boat
& i set sail for the sundial,
"there is no truth"
my eyes are wax & the ocean
means nasty filth

but everything is useless now
frogs carry high powered harmonicas
& walk into the spells of Poe
& into the hexagrams of Hamlet

i do not want to carry a pitchfork across
some godforsaken desert
i do not want to feel my own evaporation
while the real artists brood in the meantime
i want to waste away on a slushy evening
i will live in my armpit
& hate you
& never wear deodorant

"your mind is small--it is limited--why must you understand?"

You want to beat us
over our heads with your crosses
You want us living in garbage
You want us to give ourselves to gods
named consumerism
named money
and fame
and celebrity.

You want us to ignore
history and
buy
buy
buy
into your
debt ceiling, your tired excuses,
we are to sing your siren's song
and tie our own nooses.

today is ****** monday
there's one knocking on
my front door
he is scribbled and bleeding
from his forearms,
he carries a pigeon on a leash
and gets high on hotrod drivers' eyes.
i'll give him two pints of hillbilly sugar
and a book of voodoo pictures,
but he insists upon my daughter
and at least 3 lines of coke.
instead i hand him a corn on the cob
and the number of the girl scout troop up the road,
he asks me for one more moose head and although
i'm almost out, the sun is still yellow
so i pour him a double brandy
because
today is ****** monday
there's one
driving naked down
a one way street