FRED CARVER

3 days after Fred Carver
Was shot dead
In a craps game
We all gathered
At Sparkman’s Funeral Home
For the visitation
I was standing
Behind Fred’s ex-wife Thelma
When she reached into her purse
And dropped something
In the casket
I leaned over her shoulder
And watched a black spider
Crawl up Fred’s face
And disappear in his hair
-Dennis Gulling

The Yellow River

Disoriented by Vietnamese beer,
I enter the hot zone
Approximately four inches
South of my intended
Insertion point,
And am repelled
By an aggressive
Guerilla resistance.

War is hell.

-Thomas L. Vaultonburg

Outlaw Poetry

To be an outlaw
You have to be honest.
Because hypocrisy
Is what ***** the most.

Breakfast
The morning spins lazily
out of the Universe’s black eye
like a surveillance camera
******* my paranoia.
I eat a small breakfast
of toads and do my coughing
exercises.
In the cellar the flesh
incinerator purrs for dinner
and is only satisfied with
one species of rare mammal.
My exotic summer guests,
strewn on the floor
like pickup sticks,
are becoming a burden,
so I toss one in the furnace
and hazily return to bed.

The Dullard

A well intentioned
Comrade dropped
Off a basket of learning
Tools for my niece and nephew.

Among the colorful array
Of big red dogs
And purple dinosaurs
I find a book titled
"God Thought of It First."

I paused to consider
Pernicious Anemia,
Gary, Indiana, Republicans,
The Ford Pinto...

I sure never would
Have thought of it.

The End Times

Repent, the zealot dinner guest, invited
For purposes of theological correctness, chides.
Repent, and sin no more, he advises, for the end is near.

But isn't that like asking a carnivore to turn vegan
Moments before the serving of  a pampered calf's liver
I ask

he takes special care in the fall of a sparrow
The zealot replies, eyeing me as I set
My peas to one side with my fork.

Yes, but it was just that one, I retort.

His first.

Faking Bad

In anticipation of my
Evaluation to be declared
Non Compos Mentos
I slept under a bridge
For three days
"Getting into character,"

But on the morning of
My intake interview
My hair fell perfectly,
I mean I looked like
A ******* rock star.
College girls on the bus
Were giving me their
Numbers and my skin,
Which I'd purposely sunburnt
And caked in the finest filth,
Glowed like an Australian
Chippendale dancer named Weegie
And even the female Assisstant D.A.
Who had busted me for vagrancy
Waved her ******* from
The third story building
Of the Courthouse.

No matter how much I
Tried to speak gibberish
Poetry and philosophical
Tracts spewed from my mouth.

Shuffling past the park
I beat eight
Grand Masters
At chess on move 1

Inadvertently I solved
The Phi Epsilom Theorem
By kicking stones
Into an algorythym.

When I arrived they didn't
Make me wait at all.

My caseworker giggled like
A schoolgirl while I told her
Each day was like an endless shift
In a Chinese fish- gutting
Sweatshop and every one of my fellow
Employees was motivationalist
Richard Simmons.
She ungirdled her enormous
**** and as they spilled
Like fishguts onto the desk
She began to howl
"**** me, **** me, oh ****
Me right here in
Front of the open window
On State Street as everyone
Watches me ******* the strongest,
Healthiest, smartest, most popular,
Well-adjusted man in the world.

The rest of the examination was
Also a success.
But as I left the Mental HealthCenter
feeling marvelous
I accidentally bumped
An old woman with the door:
"Watch out you manic-depressive
Schizoid with Socially Avoidant
Features klutz."
-Thomas L. Vaultonburg