if ted berrigan's
sonnet xv
   isn't a testimony to me
venturing to say:
keep the paragraph
custard away from us...
if ted berrigan isn't
an optometrist...
     then i'm vague,
blind... my eyes aren't
playing hands
  in a pub throwing darts...
because i have to say:
fiction is wholly linear........................................................
..­.................................................................­..........................
......................................­.......................................................
now i really appreciate what you're
doing... as every smart-*** does
laughing: thanks for the *****!
but... no.
          i've been prescribed
a celibacy where i yank and call
for Beelzebub!
    veal in a veil of sodden trademarks....
and once it was all about
making poetry jazz, but they
made it too obvious by reciting
their poems to jazz... only one
improv gets away... and lives
in this town...
and ol' teddy was in on it...
but i'd like to return to the tornado,
the crazy-eyes of reading poetry,
up
down
up
down
right
left
backwards
forwards
it's total freedom man...
a bee flies past
my neighbour's dog
walk in the garden looking
for the bark and the night...
i'm getting ******
and i'm thinking about
getting ****** with
the Jim Morrison tourists
who come to his grave
at père lachaise - funnily enough
i was there, once...
and once will do it for me:
i need the vampirism of
distortion, tackling imagination
with memory...
but seriously, why are all the competent
men of our age, lodging
thought into the brain?
that the brain somehow emulates
thinking...
there's also another gym opening,
turning brain (fat) into bicep (muscle)
by doing crosswords religiously
and all other mensa crap-a-*******-too
on the didgeridoo... qua quan quank...
for some reason i hear a didgeridoo
i only hear q... and testicles in a
wrench...
             but it really is optometry with
ted berrigan... in his sonnet vx...
up
down
up
down
              i.e. in joe brainard's college its white arrow
does not point to william carlos william.
   he is not in it, the hungry head doctor.
   what is in it is sixteen ripped pictures
of marilyn monroe, her white teeth white-
washed...
  so it has to either be optometry or gymnastics...
because i swear i just did a cartwheel there...
up
down
up
down
             and it's done with such force...
like a pigeon talking cuckoo...
    and then the hope that the dust does settle
down, and our modern narcissist
  steers away from looking into the darwinistic
mirror and incorporates other animalistic
traits into defining his sole possession...
     i'd like to see man imitating man,
rather than create this chasm of:
    like jacob unto god, so god unto jacob,
but given we're dealing with realism:
like man unto ant, so ant unto man...
           and you really can't say you'll turn
myopic reading poetry...
   painting, in words, not mere graffiti...
if like me: you get tired of colour
  and feel no need to experiment with
colour emphasis high on l.s.d.
   well: you're coming to the party of miserable
sods, with Dante at the fore.
      and if i really did mind the Geneva convention
on punctuation, i wouldn't full stop
and refresh with an
and...                               conjunctions don't
belong at the fore, nor at the back...
    but here's to heresy in the secular realm!
but seriously: why say thought resides in the brain?
and that we need more brain-power?
      brain-strain, ice-cream stashed as quickly
as a turkey might say girball in between that
cocky-glug-glug while being forcefed / stuffed...
  and would you believe it: it still won't
sit on a dusty mantle-piece... but glittering like
oil and gold... on something as intrinsic
         as an impermanent table of pilgrims.
male turkeys yes: where once there was a larynx
there now hangs a angry-red *******.
but you really can't say that poetry
can strain your eyes, you can't say
the writing is claustrophobic,
   that it really does strain the eyes in
paragraph litany...
       then it's at least that...
written like advert 1 and advert 2 by the side
of the road, two miles apart, on
giant billboards... albeit without
the fancy writing or the fancy colour...
but it's there alright.

Once wars were fought with sticks and stones
to flog the flesh and batter bones
and conquer lands, defending thrones -
though gods provoke, not one atones.

The multitude (by hordes beset
with battle-ax or bayonet)
braved blades, dyed red and dripping wet -
the stains were wiped with no regret.

When raining blood, the teardrops spill,
enough to drown the daffodil
that withers in the mourning chill -
who was it said 'thou shalt not ****'?

The mad machine's now mechanized,
torment and torture legalized,
blind barbarism globalized
and wrath of demons sanitized.

Each rival's right (whichever side)
committing holy homicide
in names of gods diversified -
like Cain and Abel fratricide.

Above, a Drone that terrifies -
a button's pushed, a missile flies
to rip apart, to vaporize
(defending life, they fantasize).

Dismembered victims everywhere,
most, non-combatants, unaware -
a lone survivor, solitaire,
unfolding hands, too late for prayer.

Beneath the dust, a baby lies
with mouth agape, with bleeding eyes,
arrayed in death that money buys -
though warriors watch, none empathize.


The media's impervious -
in truth they're ever devious
for fear that reason's dangerous,
find every question treasonous.

Through eyes lit up like rosy sores,
embedded scribes report on wars
with tales to line the cuspidors -
the Fourth Estate? A herd of ******.

To paint the slaughter civilized,
objective news is sodomized -
when foreign streets smoke, pulverized,
the body counts are minimized.


Big Berthas boomed in days of yore
but now the tanks spit spikes of Thor
and mortar shells like raindrops pour
upon the lands of Nevermore.

The grumble of a hand grenade
is drowned in claps of cannonade -
assorted charnel chunks lie flayed
in battlefields where kids once played.

Somewhere a ******'s bullet flies,
somewhere a voiceless victim dies,
somewhere a famished orphan cries
while weapons warble lullabies.

The bunker busters burst the sides
of dwellings where mankind resides
and innocence in darkness hides -
the die is cast, but who decides?

Use cluster bombs and barrels too,
(crude critters in the wartime zoo),
to shred more souls than hitherto -
choose death en masse, avoid the queue!

The leaders lead (twelve steps behind),
enmeshed in intrigues, well enshrined -
yes, powers, business (so entwined)
pull twisted threads, ensnare mankind.


The mercenaries hack and maim
(god's creatures crippled, morally lame),
do beastly things that none will name -
well-paid for such, they feel no shame.

The ****** bombs and phosphorus
and ghastly weapons gaseous
are scattered widely, bounteous -
behold the desert wilderness!

Yes, Agent Orange burns slow and calm,
may leave behind a blazing palm
(or better yet, a molten mom
inside a hut)  in Vietnam.

And phosphorous… its flame so white,
exploding, falling through the night,
commemorates the Sacred Rite -
and babes in arms, thus blessed, ignite.

Cast chlorine, sarin or VX…
a lethal dose (or side effects
like blistered lungs) will serve to vex -
but death in war? No one objects…


Constructing A-bombs's arduous -
uranium, depleted thus,
can trash a tank with little fuss,
cause natal cankers, cancerous.

But doomsday warheads (dropped or thrown),
ignited, leave the sun outshone -
beneath a mass of melted stone
lies powdered ash, once flesh and bone.

When atoms split in bombs debased,
vast cities smolder, laid to waste,
a million sinless souls erased -
perhaps, one day, all life effaced.


You close your eyes but can't ignore
that body parts and bags of gore
are bursting through golgotha's door,
and strewn beyond the ocean's roar
like rotting fish that wash ashore.

Why can't we stop and end all war…


POSTSCRIPT
Regard the dreary death Arcade
of Armaments (a fruitful trade)
and tally up the millions made
by ghouls that raise a colonnade
of miles of missiles, weapons-grade,
in Armageddon's crazed parade,
and hide behind a masquerade
of lollypops and lemonade
while planning new an escapade
for sending armies to invade
and loot far oil lands, unafraid
of misery and grief parlayed
until our final days cascade
into a hell no more delayed
by happenstance or luck outplayed
that leaves society decayed,
bombarded with a fusillade
of lies upheld and truth betrayed
by pundits in the shifting shade,
and crises of the world clichéd
as sung in solemn serenade
by journalistic hacks that preyed
on wide-eyed folk in sham charade
that lulls to sleep with eyelids weighed
by tiny tears that disobeyed
to stay behind the barricade
and bathe the modern-day crusade
of war in cheers and accolade.

The bottom line? Just profits paid
for deadly sins that god forbade…