TABLE OF CONTENTS
CRISIS STILL
FROZEN ANSWERS, FLUID QUESTIONS __________________186
CRISIS STILL _____________________________________ 187
WHAT? __________________________________________188
PARKING TICKET INSURANCE__________________________189
CRISIS STILL (A MESSAGE TO MICHAEL)_______________ 198
PU CAB HUT HUG ___________________________________ 207
DREAM SONG _______________________________________208
KILLERS COME QUIETLY _____________________________209
INNARDS___________________________________________ 211
BOOMTOWN BOOMERANG _____________________________212
DOWN HERE THE END’S ALWAYS NEAR__________________213
IF YOU CHOOSE ____________________________________ 216
Frozen Answers, Fluid Questions
What a strange way
To find truth:
To freeze
What we cannot dispute
In terms
Of what we’ve already proven,
False as it may be
Because we may have started
At the wrong place all together
And, even if we really don’t,
We act like we believe
What we’re proving
So that some semblance
Of structure
Is maintained, frozen
Until a whole new system
Can be arranged,
So that we can jump
Into another answer pact
That remakes truth again.
Crisis Still
In my solitude
There is a beautiful anger,
A calling into the priesthood
Of the hard human heart.
I hear the prayers,
The mumbled mania of realization
The meaning of that being,
Making real in the mind
The electric heartbeat on the radio,
The sentimental sounds of human indignation,
The reaction to sizzling circuitry,
The mind of the matter
That was once flesh
But is now seen as something else,
Machinery maybe.
These prayers I hear. They
Are not to me, not from me,
I wouldn’t want them to be
But wish that maybe a word,
Not a hello, good bye or howdy do word
But a word like artistic expression,
A making real of the things felt inside,
The untouchable pace of a single word,
The matter of the heart, which is cut and replaced
But still means something more than
Boom bah boom, more than blubbering cholesterol counts
And strokes of the oar of silly metaphor,
Would send heaven down to touch us, touch me
With easy company.
What?
You feeling white tonight?
Or just a little bit uptight?
Well, it’s all right.
It’s mostly fictional fright,
Just life choking life;
And you’re a mutant primate,
A tourist on a trip,
A rusty keepsake.
It seems so senseless if all this is chance,
just happenstance
But seeming is a textile womb when
the soul has such divergent passions.
Childhood’s gone but fetus me is still
attached umbilically.
Coming down from insanity,
Coming into me,
I ebb and flow.
Where can I go?
Sibling systems fight battles of atoms, ions,
and light.
Trying to understand it all makes me feel so…small.
Captured by the prophets’ dreams,
We sit on top of the world,
Dancing funny dances,
Having strange romances.
Coming into me again,
I have the same problems as other men;
Have so little power to make a change
And know not what to rearrange.
I’m so profoundly confused.
Playfully, the irony
Deludes objective humanity.
The truth remains hidden.
Coming down from insanity, into the world of men
and me,
Coming down from bliss….
Into this?
Parking Ticket Insurance
The fantasy broker is coming
To melt our icy delight,
To turn our wings to
Sculptures in wax, lain aside
And to replace the sport of things
With impossible imaginings.
It is beyond us how much
Has become rearranged.
Pieces are lost, some are distorted.
The stars are not hazy, yet so very far away.
Filet mignon and coke and smoke could never give enough
To the immortal. Rows upon rows of roses, secret rows of
scarlet fire,
Testify that one’s self is the mystery– If there’s fun in
heaven, enjoy, enjoy!
Enjoy the petal, enjoy the thorn, enjoy, enjoy. Perfumed
perspiration thrills me
And pounding emotion, almost forgotten, so renews me that
I’m intimidated by the prospect of a different darker truth.
Struggling not to grasp some sorry delusion, I’m consoled by
the belief
That instincts unused are soon forgotten, that hormonal
disruption will fade
And, conversely, wonder if affectation may not be the human
wonderment.
I’m so confused by minimal realizations. Does metal bend
when freedom calls?
Is life a meager maladjustment for this cement speckled
wilderness?
If humanity made us what we are, why does man disgust
inherently?
Searing and biting, life’s mostly balls and chains by whose
desire but our own?
We mirror the image in each other’s eyes, are the best and
worst we know how to be,
Seek the most direct path between here and heaven: veiled in
purity.
We’re an alphabetical entourage of yet infant numbers,
symbols of greatness.
With no relation to anything at all, we must sit to the side,
Watch the planets move in a dance of vaster glory. We dig a
fiery grave.
Enough of subterranean spaces. Not captured by a blockage
in my brain,
Intuition knows that all is not lost. We can make the world
safe and strong,
Can find harmony in our own little song and continue to
survive unimportance.
On layered blocks upon
Layered blocks, we sit
In representative peace,
A piece; a piece, a peace.
Perfumed perspiration thrills me
But when I watch the planets move
In a dance of vaster glory,
The room gets small and space suddenly changes.
In the silver glow of the desolate city,
Alone in the gloomy, speckled darkness,
Keeping watch over another man’s land,
I recall the last, long year.
Sold my furniture to get a car,
To get a job, to pay for the car
That got towed away
Because it was parked
On another man’s land.
When I lost the car,
Which was where I stayed,
A guy gave me a deal
(The guy that had the car towed)
Which had me fixing up, taking care of
His country house for a place to stay.
The work broke my spirit and made me so tired
That I fell asleep with a cigarette lit
And the house burned down
So I bought a house
To pay for the house
That I burned down.
In thirty years…
I just don’t know what.
And the notary republic,
And the notary public says
“Such commitment you have, young man,
There must be a paper to fill out here.
We fought for them, we deserve them,
Papers to fill out for every occasion, more
Jobs that way but even I have succumbed to my addictions.
I’ve hoarded them for years.
There has to be a paper to fill out somewhere.
So you want to get something started?
Didn’t daddy tell you it was too late?”
What are you trying to say?
Somehow, my feet stuck
In the rabbit joy plot of a farm,
And you wish you could come play in the mud?
I stay stuck. With no where to go but up,
The make up gets polished and new in the morning.
The chard is vaporized, fashion is a change of state.
I’ve been taught
To put up a bold front saying “Of course
I can do it.” and to work out the problems later.
I sit here knowing I am worth nothing.
I’m where no inspiration
Can reach me,
No pain,
No pleasurable thing,
Not little or large,
Human or foreign,
Alien or ethereal.
Nature is shackled and cultured.
Insanity is too much work.
Beauty is…Huh?…Where is beauty?
In the poet’s eyes?
I am alive with tiredness,
Would jostle the germination
If I meddled, like Pifi,
With the plants, so the little stray,
Pifi, and I walk the lawn together
Waiting for the first signs of desired growth,
Waiting for summer’s verdict,
Waiting for a reward to be harvested
And somewhere there’s this guy going out with
A pretty girl and he’s just smiling.
Just one small expression,
Just any old expression
For me to show myself,
Just one memory captured,
One moment, one lifetime,
Is it for this or humanity I slave,
Waiting for the crops to grow?
The seeds are in,
The rabbit joy and nitrogen set down,
Defoliant on surrounding honeysuckle,
Honeysuckle squeezing the plot.
It smells and spells death
And the weeds are not pulled.
I bolster my sequestered resolve.
Is it possible to “invoke” God?
Isn’t He everywhere, always?
Heat without sunlight, the gas burns low.
Eating lamb is macho.
I’ve run out of poetry.
The brown innards of the rabbit that
I cook for dogs too lazy to eat them raw,
The pissed on innards of a house
I was supposed to protect and nothing else,
No furniture anymore, no warm grandma smells,
Surround me
Because I don’t believe in Schismism.
(later)
The fog is a mountain
I’m tunneling through.
A tow truck watches the streets,
Prowling the night like some strange
Tomcat.
A rock show of lights from a passing
Ambulance That could be me.
I ride.
I ride running
From the channel changing, that certain airwave flavor,
From the endless work, from the big down beat.
Surrounded by fog,
I’m not alone somehow.
The fog excites me.
Can’t find the city lights
Through the blackness.
Late night police escort
A house on a truck.
Still no city lights
Anywhere to be seen.
Maybe there’s a blackout.
No! There they are, just a little late.
Can radar see me now?
I slow down to sixty five.
(later still)
Falling off the fast lane,
I was forced to slow down and take my time.
I was told to look normal and fit into the line,
The waiting line, the waiting line, the waiting line,
So I did for a while, for a while longer
And then they said,
“Hey, you weren’t supposed to wait.
We just wanted to see you do what you were told.
And you did, my dear boy, and we now are men,
And now we are men.
I walk back and forth, pacing miles across the house,
Like I’m walking across the continent
Or around the world a couple of times, all kinds of
Things can happen and the only new thing
Is greatness remade. We don’t have endless myriads anymore!
There’s no time to wallow in emotion, so I get the condensed
Edition of the world by walking the carpet,
Walking on a foundation of lies.
What wake will follow me when I can’t move particles,
What planets will be swept away under pressure from my
procrastination?
Help me, Mother Earth.
I call on your powers to secure the goodness
But only hear these incandescent platitudes.
Man will do anything for manifestation,
And metal bends with interaction.
In a house full of gambling things,
We’re the Spartans of the modern world
And the Athenians too and we don’t
Even have to be what we look like.
We find ourselves in a watery world,
We learn to swim and realize we’re alive,
So what if it’s an uphill struggle downhill.
I promise
That I will never
Give you a poem
About how much your love means to me.
I won’t even touch the subject anymore
If you’ll do one little thing.
Cut and squeeze some blood
And with this kerchief
Tie our wounds and be my childhood dream
Of tying an Indian to me.
They were wrong when they frowned at you,
Indicating their displeasure
At your cholesterol count.
Your bakery good body
Helped me see beauty like none other
And then I could see no other.
Let
Me be
A man.
I mean,
I’m a sensitive man.
I’m a sensual man.
I’m a caring man
But
Let me be
A man.
I mean,
Let me be my fantasy.
I mean,
Will you finally hate me?
I mean,
If
I try
To make you yours
Will you really hate me?
I know the beautiful curves
Of the bosom,
The shape of the feminine
Mystique.
Isn’t that justification?
What do you want from me?
“You” you say, “Just you”
What treachery to mean so much
With so few little words.
So, now you sit with me.
We swill our imbibement
And say silly things about
What it is to feel alive.
Crisis Still (A Message to Michael)
.
I haven’t felt a good thing in too long a time
Been hiding from most of my life. Baby me just couldn’t develop
A suitable taste for disgust. I opened my eyes to a spank on the butt,
Have been fighting pain with diminishing wonder ever since then.
The terrible smells: the Brussels sprouts, the creamed onions and peppers,
The sex, the lakes I watched turning to sludge, the New Jersey air
At night when no one was supposed to notice, all these things and more
Forced me to search for filters, sensitive me, like tobacco and brain death,
Perfumed love on those teenage afternoons, and evenings of mathematics.
I lost a hundred lovers, maybe more, loved and lost
A wife, had more jobs and chances than one man deserves, but,
Morbid menace to my sanity, I knew they all were the dirty way down.
I tore my flesh, broke my heart, suffered to pay for my delight
At the prospect of heaven, somewhere out there, waiting for me.
So, what prelude is this? Yes, we both sought the most direct path
Between here and heaven, wished to learn as much as we could on the way.
We are apart at our own discretion, so volatile were our lives together,
But was it really wrong to live so free in the presence of evil?
I feel the cancer eating away, smell something like dead dog
Wafting in on the summer air, look out my window to watch
My pets lying in the shell dust road, waiting as they wait
For the occasional car, with nothing to do but become a shaded memory.
It’s not quite the same for me, not while there’s still one righteous man
Or one who tries to be. I’m torn between answers.
Conquer fear with fear? I clasp my hands. What can I do?
What prelude is this? What offspring’s offered? Is destruction or relief
Foreshadowed? A planned worse, by comparison, or the best way things can
be?
With suicide smoldering undrenched within me, I still am ferocious and free.
Was I lucky to be a storybook child? Musty, humid, closed in
Living and burglar bars on every window make me wonder.
Is all human dignity finally lost? With California wine
To pass the time, I dream of green eyed, black haired lady lovers
Who, still undaunted by their own beauty, refuse to treat me like a cur.
I growl at the filet mignon and drink myself silly, no past silly.
I know the resignation that comes from chains too strong
But Macdonald doesn’t rule my world. Metal wobbles when freedom
Calls but it does not bend by my strength alone– there’s the
Crux. I’m still alone. Regretful hindsight is a deceptive delusion,
So I look ahead. What prelude is this? If there is still a chance
For change, if immutability has not clamped shut the iron vices
Of certainty, if we’re still human, we defy definition. No one knows
What makes us go. There still is mystery and in misunderstanding there’s
hope.
Struggling to not grasp this situation, I am intimidated
By the prospect of a different truth as my hormonal disruption fades.
I was a ravenous stranger, rolling strangers, made fast female friends
The objects of my desire, forced them to be alien and detached entities.
In an alphabetical entourage of infant members, I took my place
So that girls becoming women could falsely determine what evil lurks
In the mythical minds of the mythical men that we so desperately tried
To be. They wave their mythology at me now and try to drown me
In an ocean of false form and structure– And I’m the one they blame
When things like love turn dank and dark and dreams begin to fail them.
The shades are shut so it’s safe to smile. I smile at my discretions.
What, after all, is purity of the masses but a blindness of the few; a brain
Blockage, a brain blockade to keep the ocean safe? I believed
In man’s good nature. I still do. What about you?
Lindsey died because she knew the truth about you and I.
We killed her long before the needle kissed her;
She had no choice but to exist or not. Pulse first she ran
To death and, ravenous for delusion, we’re pacified by her hunger.
But we may indeed be the new dying breed. We see the signs of our faltering
Importance. The past is gone. The destroyer, the darkness, the iniquity
ensues.
We lived man’s history in scraps of books and pieces of poetry
And it’s a new world already. In this paranoia city you gotta
Get a gun or get dead. With blade in boot, I practice martial art.
Chances are that very soon the gears won’t turn, metal will corrode,
And knives, well honed, will stick into the burly beast that feeds on fear.
We carry tears of sulfuric acid beside the front seat of our Cadilacs,
Cry when someone tries to hurt us. Honor’s some sort of secret affair
To you, silly hero, so you sigh, “It was an affair to remember.”
But my intuition knows your deeper secrets. I listen to your changing
Rhythms. As you shut your mouth most of the time, you go quietly
Insane– “What was she lacking, so close to my side?” Computers
Keep us classified. So I flash a defiant gesture skyward and speak
In a subdued fashion. A free floating fish is swept ashore
And we, a part of that same burly beast, consume and reinvent her.
With our half closed eyes and apathy we remember– she was brave and free.
Her breathless test was our proof, her rotting bones our legacy.
So we scratch at the air and nothing else, smile half smiles,
Live on the edge of the grey matter, and become less benevolent
With age but believe otherwise. Our idols left us masterless and we
Consume their memories with fever fervor; Our taste-buds teach us disgust.
As rekindled love carries us along, we spread the nausea thinner,
Find solace in a terrible world of short circuit sickness and dreams.
A Harvard man flew a Phantom over a jungle playground, dropping bombs
On peasants for super sonic fun: He creates demons to amuse himself,
Collects trinkets to buy his way out of the monster’s path. Old women
Burned like embers in the night– so what if the world didn’t feel the fire.
It’s all just a meager maladjustment in this cement speckled wilderness.
Dawn has almost covered this land of cultured greenery, but
An opiated enemy a tropical night died in a charging pile, a rehearsal
For instant replay. I was drinking screwdrivers then. Now I’m a martini
man.
What did you do tonight? Give away your love? The lusty advances of
Foul smelling souls, acting out obscenity over the subway noise, drove me
From civilized madness, from trying to capture company, from this land
of concrete and cultured green, to the silence of my country home,
To fake and flounder, fool around and flop about, steal away
With my sweeter memories and find some pretty words.
Lindsey died along the way. She forgot it’s all in how you play.
It was a wicked dose that killed her; the rat that got the rat that got
The rat. You play the odds. You win, you lose– So how could I care?
I really don’t know. In with a slap on the butt and out with a boot in the
arm?
I have no knack for apathy or closed eyed sneers. I know that regretful
hindsight
Is but a deceptive delusion to make the sunrise magnificent and red
But the Phantom man teaches silence now. A new game keeps him thrilled.
What, I wonder, could be more secret and sacred than murder for fun?
What did he hear above the engine’s hum? A dog howling from chains too
strong?
In this crazy world of master and slave I forget what art is, am crisp
And crusty in the mirror. But still I can’t get over the madness. I’m
frozen
Here, still in the mirror, with nothing but accounts to recall, in the dying
Embers of the night, I still don’t know what to do. Do you? We’re grown,
At least by all legal reckoning, but I can’t bring myself to do what I must.
What was it that transpired when we were young? What was going on?
Was Lindsey right to die so soon? Is the Phantom man,
In his high position of power, more correct because of being there?
Are we just dogs chained to the same sad foundation, allowed,
Sometimes, to lay in the middle of the road waiting for a car to crush us?
Was the spattering blood of televised martyrdom worth
A thirty second spot? Were the outlandish styles of our youth
So timely and persuasive that even we got lost in them?
The perforated edges of our saran wrapped lives give great meaning
To no one but me, and hope and intimations of true love so I
Can toy with what could be clarity if I wished for a further deception,
An easier way to justify my journey toward an ending.
What prelude is this? I’m still alive here but fear we’re dying
At different speeds, Michael; I can’t imagine a world without you.
Gotta
Gah tah back up
Pu cab hut hug
Gotta back up
Pu cab hut hug
Gotta back up
Farther, farther, farther, farther
Rruth raf, ruth raf, ruth raf, ruth raf
Pu cab hut tug
Gotta back up farther
Than the bomb
Mob uhth nath
Ruth raf pu cab hut tug
Gotta back up farther than the bomb
To remember that courage
Juh a rook tath rrrb mem ear oot
Mob uhth nath ruth raf pu cab hut tug
Gotta back up farther than the bomb
To remember that courage
Juh a rook tath rrrb mem ear oot
Mob uhth nath ruth raf pu cab hut tug
Gotta back up farther than the bomb
To remember that courage
Was always a blast of fear
Reef fa tsahlb huh sayw law zowuh
Juh a rook tath rrrb mem ear oot
Mob uhth nath ruth aaaahf pu cab hut tug
Gotta back up farther than the bomb
To remember that courage
Was always a blast of fear
To overcome.
Dream Song
My purpose still hidden,
I watch the coming apocalypse in awe.
Insanity tempts me but
Hallucinations rot with age.
A prisoner of my search,
I want a chance at Heaven
But grow weary waiting
For the pain to end.
My whorish heart knows
That forever is lost
But I can not believe the jargon
Of these times which denies me
My humanity.
Are we not all living
Artistry in wrinkles and scars?
The brain washed believers make me
Unsure. Foul smelling souls
Rape my innocence but a pixie queen,
Some madrigal mother, sings
A soothing song to me,
“Hold on sweet child,
The end is near.”
Killers Come Quietly
Strange noises surround me.
I pace back and forth,
Learn every shadow,
Duck behind the bed
To jot down a line;
Maybe just for you.
Rape the house, will you?
And fill it with your ammonia
Smells. I’ve got a gun now,
A pump shotgun with no plug.
I pace back and forth
The whole length of the house,
Learn every shadow.
The pantry light flickers
Off and on in tactile warning
Better get down some last words.
All this empty space where once
There was a sort of wealth;
It was not mine but my lady’s.
She sleeps soundly, feeling safe.
Check for the car (her Daddy’s car)
Still sitting, brave, outside
Where the one that got stolen
Friday– right out of my hands!
Used to sit. More strange noises
And now all the dogs are barking.
(pause)
I think I’ve found
The safest place to write.
Silence outside, silence.
My pant legs squeak too loudly,
My heartbeat pops up
In various places on my anatomy
Gotta watch that window
Still too much silence.
You killed three of the dogs
Over the last long week.
(The three brave ones)
Hope the rest are all right out there.
Noise outside the front door,
The thin veneer between in and out.
Silence until the water drips tritely.
You have the keys,
On the same chain as the car keys,
But broke in anyway, you bloody vandals.
Misshapen landscape through shattered glass;
Wish I had some way to fix it.
Mosquitoes buzzing in and out,
Encephalitic something or others.
(I’m too frightened to be metaphoric)
Watch the window. Listen
For the tumbling at either door.
More sounds outside but
No dog sounds– something big
Moving out there.– How many are you?
And miles of boonie brush between
Here and the nearest phone.
A helicopter arms the airwaves.
Come on, spotlight, shine down here!
what is poetry,
the brown innards of the rabbits that
i cook for dogs too lazy to eat them raw,
the pissed upon innards of a house
i was supposed to protect and nothing else,
no furniture anymore, no warm grandma smells,
the years of loss?
Boomtown Boomerang
A bad taste in the proud mouth of progress,
This flatland flourishes with gumbo soil
Okra in summer and reports of oil. The spikes
From eye to eye, “You oil patch trash,
Or just white?” I’m just here for wild western
Times, I live on the edge of this nightmare,
And watch the progressive haunting of a town.
The cops are going crazy with border boredom.
The wages of economic war go down. The ten dollar
Hour is Mexican sausage time, Pico de Gaillo,
Giddy up, get out. There’s always the rodeo
And a gulf full of fish…and shrimp. The lines
Get shorter, the showroom’s filled,
The money is maybe.
Boom tacked, the wind made salesmen duck,
Swinging the other way. In the ruins
Of frantic growth we settle down or continue
On a transient travesty of trickle down theories.
“My daddy’s in Crisco. Let’s get slippery.”
The city lights twinkle brighter than humans.
Uncle Ben tries to rice us out. And the farm
And land are less like Faulkner in winter.
“Maybe we’ll see you in Denver.” But we know
Better. Like street cleaners after the carnival,
We watched the clowns take off their noses
And wave as they pulled away.
I spit out the brown haze of breathing
And return to the edge of the night life.
DOWN HERE, THE END’S ALWAYS NEAR
Cheek against the marble, my lungs wheeze for life.
The air’s almost gone. The long night watches,
Electric fingers probe the residue;
Vibrations to shake the world.
Turn it up, amplify the white noise,
Jam the grey beard. Life tries to escape me. Can’t you feel
The children crying?
Leave innocence alone!
Sub sonic super glue, a spiral staircase: My cheeks feel the
crack
Between cold white and black. The checkerboard marble remains
Alone where a fine house stood,
A fine house that fell when the earth shook, leaving me on
the border
Between earth, air and water. I feel the frozen rock,
Conjure images out of the past. The whole night long, I
pluck my cranium
But whorish time will rot me with age. Mama Sue Planet
smiled,
A trembling reflector, reflected IN THE RIFT OF DAY AND NIGHT
they tore the softer tissue
YOUR FERVOR DELIGHTS ME life tries(its best)to escape me.
AGAINST THE MARBLE , I BARELY SURVIVE THE MENTAL BARRAGE, i sit
shaking on the border FLASH A DEFIANT GESTURE SKYWARD
BUT SPEAK IN A SUBDUED FASHION.
“RULE ME WELL”.
I FEEL THE FROZEN ROCK.
YOU MAY RULE THE WORLD, ELECTRICITY
BUT DO YOU KNOW WHY?
AGAIN AND AGAIN I ASKED
DO YOU KNOW WHY
DO YOU KNOW WHY?
YOU LIVE YOUR LIFE(TIME IN DAYS[OR]) IN MINUTES.
OR SECONDS . OR LESS.
I WHEEZE AND WATCH
THE SEASONS CHANGE THEIR COLORS.
WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED
HOPE WAS (SO STRONG)
TO PLAGUE YOU IN THE RIFT BETWEEN DAY AND NIGHT?
TELEPATHIC HALLUCINATIONS
THROUGH THE LONG NIGHT
BUZZING PAST SOUND (AND LIGHT?)
A WASTREL WARRIOR IS RIDING ETERNITY,
CONSUMING THE DARKNESS OF SPACE
HE CHARGES THE STARS TO PIONEER
A NEW AGE OF MAN AND THE UNIVERSE
(AS ONE)
DOWN NEAR SUMMER, THE AIR IS HOT
THE DISHES RATTLE IN THE SLIP STREAM
OF A LANDING JET. I SEE SIGNS
OF MY FALTERING IMPORTANCE,
CONJURE IMAGES OUT OF THE PAST.
A PIXIE QUEEN, SOME MADRIGAL MOTHER
SINGS A SOOTHING SONG TO ME,
“HOLD ON SWEET CHILD, THE END IS NEAR.”
HOW I WISH THIS WAS ALL A JOKE,
THAT WE’D CRUMBLE IN LAUGHTER
INTO OUR GRAVES [TO,WITH] HONOR,TO DUST,
COITUS WITH SHARP METAL? A PIERCING GLANCE?
IT’S STILL THE SAME WORLD,
MAN AGAINST MAN, FIGHTING FOR TRUTH.
DOWN HERE THE END IS ALWAYS NEAR.
depleted of imagery
i am a cockroach
i am a monster
i am a smoking machine
but am i my brother’s keeper?
(don’t have a brother anyway)
if i can be anything i want then what’s the point?
love is funny when sex is involved and childish when it isn’t?
oh! that bigger human love is fine if you don’t express
it in such a way as to make it less, if you don’t express it plainly
SO SOMETHING NEW IS DELICATE,
SOLID, UNIVERSAL.
IT IS MIND BOGGLING AND STILL QUITE
LUCID. SO SOME FOLKS SAY THAT
AMBIGUITY IS ART AND SOME FOLKS
SAY IT IS NOT BUT THAT (what?) IS THE POET’S PLIGHT.
THEY SAY POETRY IS DEAD
IF YOU AND I ARE EXISTENTIAL.
IF YOU CHOOSE
there are no conscriptions, no ways to be sane.
if you choose to do it right you wrong yourself
imprison a vital life force, tune it to servitude
so that you might be leader, you learn the law,
try to find justice, and all the while become tainted with compromise
(justice) becomes more rare than love
looked for and justice gets generalized and law
is a block of experience but not a building block.
if you chose to do it right and heal the humble
you spend years watching beauty turn to age,
watch bodies getting weaker, watch death and pain
and pain is symptomatic and bodies are generalized
and what can you do,(?) talk, ease the pain, cure
the infection by killing the antibody with the bug,
research the cause, cut out the bad, juggle medicine;
you get paid for unwanted knowledge of human indignity.
if you choose to do it right, and police the bad guys
you see people making out above the law, you see the scoffing,
you hear the complaints, the taunting kills you,
the bullets are insults and insults invite your death license to be extended
a little to include the bad mouthed mugger who will not sit down. and you
can stand if you want to get catlike when mousy men are clamoring chained
you joke
about how stupid they are to be in your clutches.
And if you choose to do it wrong you still have to do it right