To future conquering civilizations
in galaxies far far away . . .
don't worry about polluting the air,
our smokestacks have shot *****-bombs
into the clouds for centuries,
mixing rain drops with the
black grime of industrialization,
transforming our children's tears
into cesspools of sulfuric acid and ddt.
We've also drained the bayous and swamps
and between you and me
don't even bother landing in Africa
there isn't suitable drinking water
for miles, you see.
You can thank years of colonization for that.
In fact, you may not want to land
on Mondays, Tuesdays, or Thursdays
in LA either-
on those days the air quality index
is 175 and far too unhealthy for any
biological organism to survive.
But at least you won't die of malnutrition
you've got decisions:
McDonald's or Burger King
choose
cholesterol and diabetes are your shock troops.
Send them in immediately,
there won't be much resistance
we've got these things call lazy boys
and daytime t.v which have
enslaved the population and decreased
the distance
between fully functioning
human beings and mindless apes.
Don't worry about bringing weapons
we've got those too
we've perfected the art of blowing each other away
there's not much for you to do.
we destroy cities with fire from the sky
and our mushroom clouds rise
at least ten miles high.
And god can't see, there's too much smoke
in his eyes
and our radiated children die
with radiated sighs.
While we are on the topic
don't worry about us spreading
propaganda
we've lost the ability to communicate.
We've learned
books turn a peculiar dark yellow
when lighted and burned.
And forget erasing history,
we've done that too.
Our subjugation of native peoples
is masked as 'patriotism'
under the red, white, and blue.

But don't get me wrong,
I tell you all
of this not to dissuade,
please come and attack,
please come and invade.
Here, I'll even turn
on the lights . . .

I've left the key under the doormat,
*come back home

as if* the neurons in my brain
joined rank and gave me
a synaptic '*******'

as if the god's turned their backs
while Zeus shot lightening
bolts through my computer screen

as if the Earth gravitated to her
new lover Mars while
the saddened Moon
watched from a starlit view

as if the page was the curved
ivory tusk of an untamed mastodon
charging from the left indent

as if the blinking cursor was a dagger
ramming itself into Caesar's back

as if the word processor itself
was a ticking time bomb
with enough explosive force
to rip through the loose-knit fabric
of literary space-time

and as if the words themselves were locked
away in some distant prison,
sitting in death row,
*waiting to be executed

It begins on the curb,
spoken through a language that
cannot be discerned,
not a compilation of adjectives or verbs,
but a discharge from the sensory nerves.
And it isn't defined, so do not be perturbed,
call it Tabula Rasa- it needs experience to emerge.

And then it busts through,
from the places unknown,
its abundant in Philly and areas closer to home,
taken and shaped and
inspired by the human genome
         -Creativity Arises.

I have this bar
where the tables
are stickier than a bog,
where the lights dim
like a yellow moon,
where the people talk
and cry
and laugh
and argue
and go home feeling
a little less alone.

As we lay there,
she looks at me
with eyes deeper
than canyons,
letting me
know the earliest bus comes
at 6:30.

I turn over
and sleep well.

If you sit alone in opaque rooms
and wait for a few good lines to inject themselves
into your brain as if they dripped from a syringe
then its time to try something else. Poetry is like
a gigantic exotic insect that shouldn't be squashed with the
***** undersides of rubber boots but captured
by meddlesome mesh nets and elbow grease,
put in display glass cases where the wild things
are and frequently washed clean of the stale,
insipid grime of life. And after enough love
it will entrap itself in the great transmutable cocoon of time
and break free. Poetry is in the bark of
old grandfather tree stumps out back behind
the barn, each circular line revealing
multitudes of cacophony and pain,
yet you wouldn't have known the taste
of the ligatures of wood without
first running your tongue along
the metallic axe that hued them. Poetry
hesitates for those who stare with naked eyes at the
cold quilt of patched grey clouds looking for symbols, choosing
to instead reveal itself to the telescopic lenses
of admirers of orbital spheres.
Whereas sometimes the cracking Sphinx confuses even the
pristine muses and the sound
of thunder at night makes the dog
cry so does the effervescent poetic
smiling of the moon inflict pain
onto the hearts of the lonely, yet they
still dare to look. Poetry isn't a noun
but a verb. It is the act of jumping
into leaves, of stepping off the precipice
of normalcy, of falling ever deeper
into the dark abyss below.