I am weighing
the poem and

it’s too heavy
it contains a

great white
shark with a

shoe in its
stomach

don’t know
how it got

there and a
mysterious

envelope
in the mailbox

those stay I
think still when

one looks at the
poem in profile

it resembles a
fat man exiting

a fast food
restaurant

I tried a trash
compactor but

it’s still bulky
maybe the

pregnant woman
should go—it’s

heartbreaking what
happens to her

he’s a man
with his coffee

he’s a ghost
watching him-

self an actor in
a play a

****** mystery
also a slave

toiling in the
fields teaching

himself to read
a woman

murdered the
actor says

I have seen
the large beast

the slave escapes
journeys to the

shimmering sea
pursued by

bounty hunters
the ghost watches

himself wash out
his coffee cup

begins his
day as usual

embattled
masses

somnambulists
foaming at

the mouth
rabid

hallucinating
incurable

and a blurry
figure a

mad scientist
next to his

invention
stainless

steel
automated

animosity as
the thick black

smoke of war
begins to

obscure the
scene a few

yearn to
awaken some

dance the
sacred

kookamunga
some say

the save-me
prayer a scant

few ascend
translucent

eye-ball
shaped the

color of the
sky at sunrise

the newspaper
spread out

like a tablecloth
obituaries

on one side
comics on


the other
the dead

smiling the
comics tragic

black white
gray world

made of
fuzzy dots

an obsolete
medium ready

to line the
bottom of

the song
bird’s cage

a nightingale
whose love

call goes
unanswered

the poet on his
knees holding a

jack-o-lantern
above his head

as the Great
Leader steps

behind it with
its crooked smile

obscuring his
head the eclipsed

blood moon hangs
over the Fool in

green and red
dancer’s tights

holding his book
Chaos Theory—

The Order Within
Disorder and he

opens the gate
of the lion’s cage

and distant
twisting

black smoke
swirling

fires of war
as translucent

Celestial Beings
hold a banner

that reads
Beginnings Are

Endings
below them a

journalist prostrate
in the mud deathly

ill vomiting a
bile black as ink

night falling
clouds

dusky pink
murky gray

over the seaside
sailor’s head

this envelope
sealed

labeled vital
information

enclosed
lying on the

pavement in
front of her

house what is
it? her foot

moving it
aimlessly

like the sailor
on leave

then spinning
like the

drunken sailor
then a gust

of wind blows
it down the

street like the
drunken

sailor’s
white cap

forgotten the
next morning

like it never
existed

he steps out
into the tepid

ambivalent
evening air

the envelope
into the out-

going mail slot
collect the junk

mail ad papers
of an era

already gone
the sky dark

listless clouds
neighborhood

mute asleep
he pauses for

a numb minute
a dog’s long

whiney bark
in the house

he washes the
ink residue

from his
aging hands