every man for himself--am i a man or a self?
wearing long suspenders and
smoking my tonsils raw
a handful of questionable virtue
and inexpensive self confidence

i am no longer your folk hero,
but rather a jolly youth that hates degenerates
i'll fall out of my chair to keep
my ear to the ground
i must listen for change

yes, and between the mattress, shrieking
and the myterious column of faces
appears the fog in twilight, swallowing
***** tonk doors and vagabonds whole

i am a strange left handed moon man,
i'm high
i have that paralyzing lonesome feeling
i have nothing new to add, that feeling
i am an ambassador without *****,
almost pornographic

if i wake up,
i will kiss the lips of a thousand
raindrops

if i wake up,
i will feed ten thousand
starving children

if i wake up,
i will crush a thousand
dreams

if i wake up,
i will ring ten thousand
liberty bells

if i wake up,
i will light a thousand
green lightbulbs

if i wake up,
i will drink ten thousand
mingling rivers

i have a headache. i have sore arms.
from drinking at 3 in the afternoon.
from holding you up on a pedastal for hours.
i dreamt about a salty girl
riding in a parade & confetti
made of dollars.
the golden rainbow is no bigger than my fist
and is blinding the dangling lovers.
next march the taste of flowers will
return to **** the garbage men,
they will be struck down by
flying swords of grass.
you will see the way the calvalry
becomes twisted up in drugs,
like a tornado singing a misty song.
it will let the dancer drift into orbit,
and i will watch as a pirate dies
of laryngitis.

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."