Tame hurricanes, blue lightning,                      94

         “No boiling waters”,

         Stasis poetry,

             Oh, Summer night!  Night without war,             92

             Night without the supremacy of white

             Snow, don’t you know we all love peace?

           (Unless we’re doing the left or right hand twist,   93

           dancing to the unvarying beat of stuck feet bah boom.)

               On the ocean, the waves should purify           91

               With wasteravenous fauna,

               In diamonds and froth

             How will you complete the soaring flight of thought  92

             Your bird sense, like songs on high, over skyscape

                                                    skyscrapers,

             Resting on concrete cracks where beautiful seeds hide

             In dormancy, unable to reach fertile ground

             The sky is icy and crystalline and open.           92

             I never fly.  I’m grounded.

             It was war you wanted then

             And you shall be blown to bits, astounded,

             As I push bombtrigger buttons in the glen.

         Machines rust                                         93

         Entropy, entropy

         Time is electrons

         If geometry is corralled.

         My horse loves me

         All the time.

         My tiller tills

         Petroleumleased land.

               Houseflies humming in incandescence             91

               While the war raged on television,

               Hovering over the maggotridden beerbellies

               Of the boys we sent to prime (rib) time.

           I go to war                                         93

           For my mother’s pasty

           Fingers, her orchard,

           And glory

               I was awake as never before, black rain on oily breeze

               A sneeze at the pepper on the potato soup

               My Vichyssoise with floating chives distract me from

               The smoke outside.

ALABAMA                                                         (94)

       SITS BESIDE

       ANOTHER STATE OF MIND

       ANOTHER STATE

       OF UNION BUSTERS

               In Iraq                                         91

               The brick and concrete are shattered

               “Brilliant” bombs are flying in; chickens

               Rebels, eagles and fraternizers

               Crawl amongst the wreckage

             He has no bouquets, in pretty positions           92

             To sweeten the smell of putrefying thoughts

             Poverty has taken his indignation,

             He savages himself into submission

             Keeps fertilizing his dreams with manure

             To, maybe, grow a flower

             To place on her grave.

             Inside the camera,                                92

             We watch the shutter,

             Safe for emotion,

             Film touched by light,

             Briefly,

             But destroyed if drenched

             By the subject’s tears

     ALLEGHENY                                                 (91)

       GONE

       WOODLANDS

               Your tree has more circles,                     91

               Knots from broken branches, leaves that left,

               So I use my chainsaw, cut you down to my level,

               Sculpt a galloping stallion for friends to fawn over

               And leave a giant clearing, too empty for does in

                                                              Winter.

               By Twit Nevershare                              91

               I am modeling myself in porcelain

               Halfbaked highlights, rerounded

               And rerouted in the runny clay,

               The glint of light does not enter me

               As I shape the outside of my poetry

               The condo cries with lonely abandon             91

               When they move on once more,

               Is soothed by the caress

               Of the paintbrush and spackle

               Another color, yellow this time,

               To cover the waterstains and wrinkles

             Scumbled sky                                      92

             Steals the color

             From the room I love,

             Pasting rainbow reflections

             Upon the soaped stains,

             Browned against the yellow

             I wanted, now darker

             Graffiti in a wash

             Of orange and purple sunset,

             Dimming the yellowbrown

             Creation I paid for

           Lobster inspiration                                 93

           Antennae and eyes

           In a high pressure, blood,

           Redsurfaced world,

           Without other lives

           To live vicariously

           Or other

           Wise

               Chemical waste                                  91

               And the acidsoaked paper in permeable sheets

               Frozen fantasy that time deletes

               As fads fashion a new death, a new age

               The ink runs like water away from the page

             Cher(ig)noble care                                92

             In waves

             Radiates from you

       RED PAGODA

       NO TERMITES TREMBLE

       AT RED DYE NUMBER TWO

             Why waste a woman’s life                          92

             With postage sent for vanity

             Training her thoughts toward Gothic strife

             When she could blow revolution’s fife

             Instead of “mine”, instead of flirting with insanity?

         Initiates                                             94

         Are always slaves

         To some purpose.

         Witchcraft weakens,

         Calling for power

         That was already bestowed

         Jung in slant rhymes                                94

         An archetypal “din”

         Not to get lost in

       THE ALUMINUM TRANSITION OF THE

AMERICAN VOICE                                                  (94)

       IS SO CLOSE TO THE CHANTS

       OF OARSMEN ON SLAVE SHIPS

       BUT WE ARE ….. WE ARE

       SAVING OURSELVES FOR POSTERITY

         A Kid’s Day in Wonderland                             94

         My mother hates my arsenal

         She hides my Ouzi

         Reads from books that lie

         Outside, real flesh (smiling

         Out of gaping wounds) warriors

         Fight for freedom, teeth clenched

           Cave dwellers                                       93

           Used friction

           To spark stripes;

           Hissing snakes sizzled

           For their satings.

           Now, book worms

           Use fiction

           To stimulate limbs,

           Simulating flame

           With crinkles

           Not crackles

             Under mossy rocks                                 92

             Under (water) pressure

             In the muck miasma

             Under the big toe of poverty

             The sponge

             Dreams starfish darknesses

             And separation

             Neglect?                                          92

             One less cigarette?

             No designer sneakers?

             Handmedown clothing?

             Leftovers often?

             No vacation in France?

             Caffree coffee?

             How dare you claim

             Neglect?

         You drive your car                                    94

         Naked

         But not without

         A seat belt

           Usedtobe hillside                                 93

           Houses

           An ecological niche

         Death spares nothing                                  94

         Entropy always

         Worms live within us

         Hope hangs in there

         Like red meat

       OOPS!

       BUSTLE FENCE FALLS

       BOUNDARY BROKEN

       BUT THE LAND INSIDE IT

       IS STILL OURS

       FOR NOW

ANTAEUS, ECCO                                                   (94)

       FOR NOW

ANTERIOR BITEWING                                               (94)

ANTHOLOGY                                                       (94)

       OF NAMES  BIG NAMES

       BATTLES ARE FOUGHT BY

       THE FOOT SOLDIERS

         His proud march in the gay parade                     94

         Could have been pride for having, maybe,

         Helped to save all humanity

       WORN PATH

APPALACHIA                                                      (94)

       WILD TRAIL

       WITH TOILETS

             We went up with fat orange backpacks             92

             Puffing morning mist into thin scrubbrush

             Offered quail Familia crumbs

             As the treeline faded downward

         Do all old                                            94

         Foot soldiers

         Glamourize

         Duh

         Feet?

         Bahboom!                                             94

         Why so few shootings heard about?

         Because grief and fear of grief can turn to rebellion,

         Retrograde projectiles aimed backwards up the trajectory?

AQUARIUS                                                        (94)

       DAWNED TO DIM

       INTO DROWSINESS

ARARAT                                                          (94)

       A RAT TAT TAT

       THE MOUNTAIN MISSILE

ARC                                                             (94)

       DID NOT MISS

   ARCHAE.                                                     (92)

           Posthumous accolades                                93

           Are better than being forgotten,

           Rotten, swamp succor

           In the everglades of the immediate

             How to think in modernity                         92

             Make existence a greedy glut

             Of lowdollar barrels, rolling

             Out to sea.  We don’t all get

             Bombed but all need energy

       TO FORGET

ART’S END                                                       (94)

           The                                                 93

           Iris is black

           When tossed

                                                                 away.

             Chewing on your words                             92

             I see an old “B” movie

             Not pain

             But selfflatuation

             Of a twisted sort

             Drooling your blood

             Like a glasssplintering

             Baby

ASHLAND                                                         (94)

       FIRED FROM

       ASH OCCUPATION

               In tandem, maybe in toto                        91

               We all bicycled through depravity

               And veiled virginity within lines

               Of reasonable length (for no food)

               And fought back at their hunger

               By seeing the paint chips on withered walls

               By hearing the hum of antique motors

               By naming the smells as filth,

               Not rot, and noting the weather for

               Our crisp, clean, debutante diaries

           Beneathness                                         93

           You want

           A city frozen

           Under ice

           So that you won’t

           Need to put up

           With pity

           For the chilly mollusks

           Creeping into your heart

               Objective obliteration                          91

               Doesn’t cut me

             Skewed chronology and permanent brainwaves      92

             You don’t need

             Sly metaphors of satire

             For satire,

             To call the U.S. of A.

             A parasite monster

             Feeding upon starvation and suffering

BARNWOOD                                                        (94)

       AGED WOOD

       BOUGHT

         Shellshocked or posttraumaticstressdisordered   94

         Someone was saved that day

             Pictures without silver                           92

             For sombrero tourists

             In china town moods

             When being freaky

             Isn’t enough of a freak

             To be, (freak being

             Only a suffix for “Jesus”

             Or a prefix of “for crack”)

             Need less words than dis

             Ambiguity

       ALL MOVIE STARS ARE RELATED

       SO I BOUGHT A BANANARAMA BANDANA

       TO REMEMBER MYSELF BY

         My eyes droop at sound distortion                     94

         Muffled by a vacuum tightness

         In a safe car

         On a dark road

         Lit by strobe lights.

         My father never sleeps

               It has been a long time going                   91

               But after postmodern man

               The word will try for wisdom

               Again, not just “Bauhaus” concrete

               But organic concrete

               And shape won’t matter so much

               As long as there are some shoes,

               Then, to fit those funny, flat feet.

               His Lap Dog                                     91

               Too rich to drive

               Myself away,

               I stay, sitting

               Sad, a tad tipsy,

               Isolated like

               The litter’s runt

         Easter Mourning                                       94

         Children

         Running naked

         Egg shells breaking

             That’s the way                                    92

             Baking

             Delicate delights

             No noise in the kitchen

             Ingredients and temperature

             Just right, perfect texture

             On the cooling tray

             And someone with a sledge hammer

             Comes in to smash

             The table and counter

             The cookies and sink

             I know no philosophy                              92

             That can not be abused

             But who ever said

             We shouldn’t have girls

             As children because

             They might get raped?

             I’ve got a chair and a stray dog                  92

             That comes by for food.  I’ve got trees diing,

             Invaded by insects.  They belong to the city,

             Both larvae and leaves, and the air

             Comes in stinky from Pasadena;

             It rains white ash flakes,

             Late at night when no one is supposed to notice

             When the smell is only registered upon aloevera dreams.

             All towns are prostitutes                         92

             Compromising virtue

             For the false comfort

             And pleasure

             Of being held,

             And serving (in)dignitaries

       THE

BLIND BEGGAR                                                  (93)

       SAYS

       “IT ALL LOOKS THE SAME TO ME”

               Sometimes truth leaks out                       91

               Of Winter’s broken pipes

               Unintended

               The house cries

               Through tissuepaper walls

               And tells the waterstain

               Story of aging glory,

               Painted over, repaired,

               Listing a bit, but still standing

               Ditty to DogCatchers                           91

               My cat needs a licence

               To drive your prey wild

           Purposelessness                                     93

           Proceeds productivity

           For fools frozen

           From fear

         There is a difference between chewing up children     94

         And not stopping the cannibals

         So, America is timid, a bystander wussie,

         In horror, numbed to complacency by compromise

       LIKE A

       EUNUCH

BLUE UNICORN                                                    (94)

       WITH BLUE BALLS

       SUGARED AND BUTTERED

         The swan flew faster than ever                        94

         For fearfrozen fish,

         Dived and then

         BAM!!!!

         Headfirst it glided through clear ice,

         Outside the Pyrex factory;

         A feather landed in the snow

           “Ethnic purification”  ’nuff said                 93

             You give yourself too much credit                 92

             To think the bank

             Will keep your records and give you a history

             After all your debts are paid.

       IN A WAR ZONE

BOSTON BLUR                                                     (94)

       THE

BOSTON PHOENIX                                                  (94)

       SPRINGS FROM

BOSTON                                                          (94)

BOTTOMFISH                                                      (94)

         You keep falling deeper                               94

         Into suicidal bliss,

         Imagining how pretty

         All the red will be

         Against this season’s fashions

               Sleep tight                                     91

               Blanket’s big enough

               To ward off

               Fitful images

   BRANFORD                                                    (92)

       FIBROUS AUTOMOTIVE UNIT,

       A HEALTHIER HOTROD,

       WITH A REGULAR MUFFLER

             Famous people                                     92

             Pop into my

             Poetry

             So some fool reader

             Might hope to find

             Their secrets

             Madonnapenned

             Or Prince Charles

             Endowed

       NOW THE WEST WIND

BRANCH REDD                                                     (94)

       IS ENDOWED

         Someone died                                          94

         Are you going to get laid

         Down with them?

         Tachyphrasia                                          94

         Was was better

         Than that slow

         Tick talk that

         Spread like oleo

         From Lyme

         To infect the forest

         With dryrot

         Philosophizing,

         Rooted only to a treeflea

         Or deermite’s sense of purpose

       BUBONIC

       BECAUSE OF A

BREAKTHROUGH, THE AARDVARK THAT WAS HERE                      (93)

       SAYS NOTHING

             Why do the least you can do?                      92

             Saying that that is the most

             I can do, may be

             The least I can do for you

           Past the travelogue                                 93

           Rome’s ruins

           Take more space

           In the guidebook

           Than on land

BREITENBUSH                                                   (93)

       LIT ELECTRIC IS A

BRIDGE                                                          (94)

       TO A

BRILLIANT STAR                                                  (94)

         What can one say?                                     94

             Would not an Einstein                             92

             If descended from beer steins,

             Loving beer, but full of fat fear

             Increase the sales line

             By adding some fine wines?

BRUNSWICK                                                       (94)

       BECOMES ASH

       WHEN THE LOVEWAX

       WANES

             Stones sit                                        92

             Giving the brook

             A choice

           DNA tells                                           93

           Of shape, not soul

           Becoming “I”

         Separatist!                                           94

         Does it soothe your guilt

         To stay away

         When confronted

         By a cloudy day?

             Sleep poet sleep                                  92

             Your dreams are more true

             Your apathy

             Tells more about

             Your nature,

             The searching for sounds

             Degrades your sense,

             Your blanket more comforter

             Than an untangled phrase

     CACHE                                                     (91)

       CASHED GREEN

               Cash crop                                       91

               Confused

               Corn

               A

               Cop(e)

               Ia

         Almost out of the maze                                94

         Modern man

         Turns around to embrace

         The haphazard hedgerows

             How far underground?                              92

             Under the underground?

             Even the underground

             Is dug today.  Dig it?

     CALIFORNIA STATE                                         (91)

       WITH

               A film on your eyes                            91

               Like cataracts

       INFRINGING UPON

CALLI’S                                                      (93)

CALYX                                                          (94)

       RIGHTS

               She won’t let me come                          91

               Horniness is to handguns                       91

               As

               Shopping is to babies

               no….

               Horniness is to handguns

               As

               Sun is to pudding

               no….

               Horniness is to handguns

               As

               Poetry is to propaganda

               (the big lie kind, not like good bullshit,

               not tainted by only truth and omission)

               Cribbage                                       91

               We peg for points

               Look for pairs and threesomes

               Doubleskunk when we can

               Play listless

               Play

           Birds                                              93

           How pretty they are

           Before the pellets hit them

             Barrenness was planted                           92

             In that Winter field

             By only one frost

             And a proclivity for gold

             Rather than the green

             Shoots of family farming

             With heaters and husbandry

       LIKE

CANDLESTONES                                                   (94)

       (OR GALLSTONES),

       SELFISH LITTLE SURPRISES

       THOSE

CANOE                                                        (93)

       BETWEEN YACHTS CALCULATIONS

             Calculus doesn’t count                           92

             What’s important

             By the coloring of curves

         The lovers unleash                                   94

         The dogs;

         A voyeur spies the movement and motion

         Of starvation, finally being fed,

         And thinks it is sexy

       SOMEONE’S

     CAPITAL                                                  (91)

       IS TAKEN BY

CAPPER’S                                                       (94)

       MAD MONEY HATTERS

       WITH TOO MANY HATS AND NO WORK GLOVES

       TO PULL OUT THE ROUGHAGE

   CARN                                                       (92)

       EVIL NINE

CARNEGIE MELLON                                                (94)

       STILL YOU TURN ME IN

           Dropping bombs                                     93

           Into

           Crosshaired poetry

         I sit with Superman, Margaret Sanger,                94

         Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa,

         Ghandi, and any other great name

         I can think of, pretending

         To hold their hands, in my attempt

         To hold your attention.

               Mention                                        91

               Sex and death:

               Advertiser’s

               Poetry of imprisonment

               And plain appreciation

               Of life unspent

               Becomes premium

               Insurance bait

             Fancy cat claws                                  92

             The Blue Jay

             Feathers in its

             Frisky little

             Mouth

         The boy is eating breakfast                          94

         In a place to be called

         “The house of cracked eggs”

         Nobody is home                                       94

         When

         Nobody is foreign

         Chicken Little                                       94

         Pops out

         When the sky falls

             Less is more                                     92

             In a celluloid world

             Without twinkling stars

           Sign on door                                     93

           “Gone here”

             Your “rage” will                                 92

             Upset the rhythm

             Of the message

             Of the massage

             Of the masturbation

             Colonialism                                    92

             Gifts of ideas

             For smog

           Wanton fate?                                       93

           Before the fortune cookie?

           Chinese won ton?

           How to                                             93

           Crowd

           A childhood

       HATS OFF

       MOLOTOV

       COCKTAIL SERVED NEAT

             Paranoia                                         92

             Is the modern

             Classic

       ART, NOW

CLEANING BUSINESS                                              (94)

CLEVELAND                                                      (94)

       WALLET WATCH

CLOCKWATCH                                                     (94)

       YUPPEES

       YUP, YUP, UP

             Is Minsk the only specific                       92

             With accordion flowers,

             Expanding stars,

             Hillhaloed sky

             And a thousand million smiles

             To share?

       THE

CLOUD RIDGE                                                    (94)

       MATERIALIZES

       SOME KILL

       SOME KILL BUT WE ALL DIE.

       THAT’S THE SPOOKY CONNECTION

             Every hunter becomes a prey                      92

             On the celestial marriage day

             Every dream is real enough

             When spooky ether gets coarse and rough

       ROUGHHOUSE

CLUBHOUSE                                                      (94)

       SECRETS

             The magic hidden inside us is not a trick        92

               When…….,                                   91

               Don’t……,

               ‘Cause…..,

               And cuz I say so.

       A GRID OF DESCARTES

       A GRID TO MAKE ART

       A GRID TO PLANT THE SEEDS

       A GRID IRON TO UNWRINKLE CLOTHES

       A GRID TO MEASURE THE SHAPE OF HIS FACE

       A GRID IN THE ROUGH

       A GRID OF INTENSITY COLDER THAN NITROGEN

     COLDDRILL                                               (91)

       SOLDIER DRILLED

               Biology Boot Camp                              91

               Minds gorged

               Collaboration companions

               Shower and soap

               The drivel of doctors

               Who try to confuse

               With philosophy I never

               Wanted and jumbled lectures

               Or prescribed scripts

               That allow me to let them

               Draw the course

               Of suicide (not mine) dreams

               So we can say

               College was tough

               One guy died

               But we made it out

               Almost unscathed

COLLAGES AND BRICOLAGES                                        (94)

       OF EXISTENTIAL

       SERVITUDE

         Don’t believe a word I say?                          94

               She left her corks                             91

               On the counter

               Like a bandage kept

               From a warrior’s first wound

         From a seething pool                                 94

         Of industrial pollutants

         Grow pretty, little flower mutants

         Les Grands Mots a la Cote des Mots                   94

         Go ahead!

         Tell me you know

         More about war

         Because you went to a school

         That taught you French

       WHEN THE BUS TOUR ENDED IN A FLAT

COMMONWEAL                                                     (94)

       A COMMON SQUEAL

COMMUNICATIONS                                                 (94)

COMMUNITIES                                                    (94)

       WAIVERING

             Indifference was my way, too,                    92

             With isolation from a halfemployed nation,

             But it did not do a bit of good

             The children did just what they thought they should.

             Held back, socialized to attack, reentry

             Blamed them, burning like inflamed, though tamed,

             Tiles falling from the shuttle.  My child

             Now weaves ugly baskets in a world of smart silicone

             Dreams and seems to blame me

             For closing the door, wasting my taste and time

             And might, refusing to fight

             For peace with my piece of mind

             Instead of leaving it to them and theirs.  “Who cares?”

             Fell upon them like a fractured missile.

       WAIVING

THE COMMUNITY ENDEAVOR                                         (94)

         Thesis                                               94

         Antithesis

         Synthesis

         Thesis

         “There is no wealth here!”                           94

         (Starchfat straining)

         Tinkle of spent beer

         Against asphalt and scuffed shoes

       DEFINED BY

CONDITIONED RESPONSE                                         (93)

               Jackrabbit had to,                             91

               Had little choice

               Are you too mad

               To use your voice

               To tell me truly

               Why you’re so unruly

               Using your mind you

               Put blame behind you

               Conjuring genes

               And coffin screens?

     CONDITIONS                                               (91)

       RIPE

       FOR

CONFLUENCE                                                     (94)

             The loser lets his dreams control                92

             There are no winners

             We all are old

             Once we become sinners

CONJUNCTIONS                                                   (94)

       OF FLESH AND METAL

         Multibigots                                         94

         Bag the big bucks

         The little bigots

         With only one cause

         Are too damn real to be political

         They really try to express how they feel

         And everyone knows that’s dangerous and stupid

         Honest bigotry is stupid

         Like poverty is a mental illness

         So the multibigots who only pick on the

         Silent minorities, the multibigots

         Bag the big bucks and sail away in their

         Big yachts for bigots

             How did you know the whole?                      92

             Add one ripple more

             And your lake wasn’t whole

             Neither was the day nor the day before

             Take one ripple away

             Was the lake any less?

             Was it an incomplete day?

             Did you know or was it just a wild guess,

             In the near noon light

             That the lake was not a hole

             For God’s universe of night?

             Did you really know the whole?

             Did you?  I bid you to tell me

             That that wasn’t the poem you were trying to sell me.

             not only                                         92

             unclear

             thoughts trees

             with no connecting

             roots but

             also rhythm

             made leafy

             by line breaks

             and shortstanza

             branches

           Justice                                            93

           Is

           Just

           Ice

           In this desert

           Melting for money

             On Washington Square                             92

             Bug carpet leaves

             Sail on the wind

             Multiple visions

             Of a greybrown

             Day, insect eyes

             That don’t see

             “The Bottom Line”

           Lah di dah                                         93

           So, you get to fly sometimes.

           So?

             And you blame your wife                          92

             For dustpan inspiration

             In a nation of roses

             And false posers

             And lonely, wrecked lives?

             Trinkets of erotica, shattered romance           92

             In twisted love dance crystal

             Of diminishing frequency

             Refracted into an infinity

             Of excuses

       THE

COUNCIL FOR INDIAN EDUCATION?                                  (94)

       WHY NOT GOOD EDUCATION?

       CHILDREN NEED TO SURVIVE WITH HOPE, MAN!

         Raven keeps its bill clean                           94

               Dr. Pain’s a pane of squeaky glass             91

               Poor or guilty

               Sure trashes

               The sixlane

         Hatred as the only sin                               94

         In all its manifestations

               Entropy and the hermit’s ears                  91

               My fear has been that no fir

               Would grow, and Summer heat

               Would beat me down under fallow ground

             Carbohydrate cravings                            92

             Abridge an asphalt escape

             You are distracted by pizza smells

             On our drive to a glistening garden

           Salt lick suckers                                  93

           Froglike toads

           Weather or not

           We wear our thick skin

         Maybe too much time                                  94

         Is spent on sports strategy

         Teaching children when

         To foul or break rules to win

           Clown delight                                      93

         Alright, alright!                                    94

         Let’s save some trees

         I’m going to say                                     94

         Some really nice

         Sensitive things

         And then say,

         “Hey! Trust me.”

           Looking deeper into dawn                           93

           I see that “God’s Peace”

           Includes mollusks crushed

           By those same seagulls

           And crabs clawing at

           Each other

         A sewerside chat?                                   94

         Your fertilizer falls                                94

         Unto other people’s lawns

         “The language of objects”                            94

         Is just another excuse

         For deniable ambiguity

         (the kind that doesn’t plan in all the

            possible meanings before printing it )

         We all know that green is jealous

         Or is it new life?

         Or is it the complement of red?

         Or is it “not the favorite color of car”?

         Or is it pukey?

         Or some liver bile?

         Or brackish water?

         Or a stuck stone?

         Or menthol?

         Or cool?

         Or Oxygen breeding?

         Or go ahead go?

         Or Light/primary, pigment/secondary?

         Or ghastly on the Caucasian skin?

         “The language of objects”

         Is just another excuse

         For deniable ambiguity

         Like so many poems

         That poets think mean a certain

         Thing.  They strain against frustration

         Veins against fore(head) skin

         When their poems, like strippers

         And movie stars, are loved

         For “all the wrong reasons”

         On the lip of your KT boundary                      94

         I count 26 million years

         With my fingers

         Whoreship                                            94

         Boatloads

         Miracle bodies

         Display children

             CNN’s Ted Turner                                 92

             Thinks bison grazing

             To be more profitable

             Than billboard beef

         “Nothing thoughtless”                                94

         We are the beached flurry

         There still are pockets                              94

         For the jingling change

         Of your dreams and desires

               Don’t get on the page                        91

               Being truthful

             With metaphor                                    92

             Completely truthful

             Not sparingly singular

             About any truth being

             All truth but concerned

             That all bread enriches, (does it?)

             That all spades dig fertile dirt

             That all pages breathe

             With life, is not so simple

             A do to do, with metaphor

           A poet who pulls words                             93

           From her alphabet soup

           To make noodle art,

           To make it a job

           Crashes to spill

           More than crackers

             And we are happy                                 92

             With shitencrusted babies

             Sweatwet spades

             Spermdodging eggs

             Swollen malnutrition bellies

             And gravesites that make

             Life meaningful

             Falling down                                     92

             Undergrown garden

             Did you think

             About it?

             Contemplate?

             Plan?

             Peck away

             At the termites

             In the tree?

           First Eight PenPricked                            93

           PenPicked Words From a Dictionary

           Enlist

           Bemuse implode

           Claim beautician

           At fault communism

DEATHREALM                                                   (93)

       DECISIONS

DELAWARE VALLEY                                              (93)

       OR

       DEATH VALLEY

           Machine poetry,                                    93

           I presume

           Armature of sky

           Governor of stones

           Carburetor of clouds

           Transmission of worn

           And broken words

           From

           A sixstroke engine

           Cyl

           in

           ders

           Misfiring from bad gas

           Every asshole                                      93

           Has an edge

             Angels dance                                     92

             In the poison penprick

             Love cuts,

             The tears of ignorance,

             Dried

             In the gossamer

             (again, gossamer? Again, again?)

             Wings, tears falling withered

             Into endless questions

             Water wells                                      92

             Dream folds

             Light washes

             This squashes

             Offense, pretense,

             Any sense  the poem

             Dies in the colors

             Of sunset and song

             Wells up to take its place

             Another wife                                     92

             Wishing for

             Separation

             A state,

             A lone star,

             A bank failure,

             After threatened divorce

             Acid paper                                       92

             Infects the rain

               Monologue                                      91

               Of foreign intrigue

               From a flower vision

               Familial ties

               Your crest on your chest

               Baretta behind you

               Smoking in the brains

               Of your alien words’

               Bullet marks

         You heal                                             94

         Or

         You die

               The elite,                                     91

               Bored

         Trying to PUMP!… this poem up,                     94

         Another oily feather falls

       GOOD FEATHERBOA

       BIRDS

DIE YOUNG.                                                     (94)

       ONLY THE LONELY

       DIE FAST

       FLY PAST

             You                                              92

             Twist the words

             Like mountains,

             To fit a faceless

             Sky

             (But, why?)

             If towns are born hookers                        92

             Then boats are born fleas

             On the sea and men born

             Sperm in doublehelix fury

         Electronstyle soul                                  94

         Heisenberg’s uncertainty principal

         Hamiltonians for sanity

               Walk on a paisley pattern                      91

               Run to exercise the dragon

               Invent flame alchemy

               So the smoke falls like snow

               Under dragonbreath rain

               Invent a city maze to amaze

               Yourself, wish spatial variety

               Travel the tenuous borders

               Kissing children, crying rainbow

               Colors, filled with all

               Like an unpoppable balloon

               Casting no shadow on the earth

               (‘cus you prefer alien shadows and tell SAGAFTRA so)

           Eckenkar conformity                                93

           Floating out from all around me

               Remind me of the razor                         91

               For your simple delight.

               The candles can now do nothing for you,

               Sharing hollow night.

               I know when the blood comes out.

               Stare into my eyes.

               The horror hacks knees, lacks impact on me.

               Your cold cruel cuts get old and tired;

               The rusty razor holds no surprise,

               But the soft, reoccurring warmth of the candle’s glow,

               That, is the one great surprise I know.

             It’s nice                                        92

             To remember

             The street singers

             Who sunk

             Into the quicksand

             Of society,

             Past the subway gates

             And into the underground

           Cowboying for rich folks                           93

           Bought nitro to blow

           Them away with words

           Poetry published                                   93

           By

           Misopoetists

             Blessing                                         92

             Poverty politely

             But boiling because

             People

             Believe

             People

           Movies inspire                                     93

           Celluloid delusion

         One wino or maybe two                                94

         Turned Richard into a bigot, it’s true

         Seeing a stagger in every impoverished shuffle

         Seeing lice in every stubbled face

         Set, safely on a dustfree middleclass shelf,

         He finds unruffled plumage for himself

         And justification for his view of the race.

             By The Rotten Eggs Man                           92

             Cave dweller

             Surrounded by perfect moisture

             And no new caverns

             To perfect the river’s burrowing inward

             To form tributaries

         Progress sucks, basically                            94

         Stasis sucks, basically

         And now the happy medium is the “radical center”

         So, basically, enjoy what you can.

         Poxy “Proxies”                                       94

         Give up your virgin

         Land

         Or we will pull out our

         Germs

         Factories don’t neglect                              94

         Children with guns

           Time distortion                                    93

           For poetry’s line

           Animation taints me, tints me, tries my patience       93

       EVIDENCE ADRENALINE

EM SHOCK                                                       (94)

EN PASSANT                                                   (93)

             What you smell is sweat                          92

             Sweet sweat

             Slaves and workers

             Sweat the same

             But which one is sweeter?

           I’ve never seen an eagle                           93

           Try to fly only upward

   EXIT ZERO                                                  (92)

             Smoky death                                      92

             Ghost mingles

             Incense

             In sense

             Incensed

             In sent

             Incentive

             Pay                                              92

             For your life

             Or life

             Without pay

             Cancer isn’t                                     92

             Only in chemical plants

             Migraines make more militants

             Quit complaining, you still are alive

             You still can do something

               Sometimes worth the money                      91

               You paid

       WITH NO FACIAL

EXPRESSIONS                                                    (94)

       BUT STILL GROWING HAIR LIKE AN

EXQUISITE CORPSE                                               (94)

         The freeway is a toll road                           94

         Trees grow from seeds

         People kill each other; all

         Family homicides are devastating

         But still, the eagle is no swan

           Farmer’s                                           93

           Family found

           Foreclosed

               Battle writer’s block                          91

               With barren fields?

             Family farm is now fallow                        92

             And I hold on to it,

             Trembling, a truant slicker,

             Yellow, arriving late.

             Drenched in debt, we hold on

             To be registered as an historical

             Landmark

           Everything old is new before                       93

           Everything trash becomes of war

           Everything good is worthy of questioning

           None of these words are worth digestioning

         It is enough to be alive….                         94

         But then……

     FEATHER                                                  (91)

       LIKE THE WOMAN WHO NEEDS TO LEARN TO FIGHT BACK

       WITHOUT DISMEMBERMENT,

       WITHOUT MAKING CASTRATION LEGAL, WILL BE FOLLOWED AND LED

       IF WE ARE EVER TO BE REALLY

       STANDING ON OUR OWN FEMININE FEET,

       NO LONGER JUST TRAILING BEHIND, A FEATHER

       IN THAT EXPENSIVE HAT,

       A DISPLAY OF

FEELINGS                                                       (94)

       VOTERSHIP, LAWS AND LAWYERS, THE LOYAL SISTERHOOD,

       OLD MEN AND YOUNG MEN MANIPULATED

           Being only figuration                              93

           Was a figment

           Of you margarination

           A frig meant to console homogenization

         Prop                                                94

         A

         Gand(er)Ganda

         In

         Columns

         (stacked)

         I set the rules                                      94

         You cheated because

         The main rule (of mine)

         Is that the rules don’t matter

         When it’s love or war

         The rules don’t matter

         Any more than they do in poetry

       NO

FIREBRAND                                                      (94)

       ON HER RUMP

       COULD BE MORE DEGRADING

       THE

FIRST TIME                                                     (94)

       IS ONLY THE CHARM

       BUT IT TAKES REAL COMMITMENT TO BE BISEXUAL

       LESBIAN TRAITOR, TRAITOR LESBIAN, BANISHED BY BOTH SIDES

       WHEN I SAY I’M A GAY MAN IN A FEMALE BODY

       WHO CAN’T HELP LOVING THE SAMENESS BETWEEN ME AND WOMEN

       ALLOWED PERVERSITY HAS ITS LIMITS IN THE GAY WORLD

       WHY CAN’T I JUST BE JUST PLAIN BIME?

             Baby’s a UPS package at the door?                92

         Hoplophobia                                          94

         Streetsweeper words

         Chickenpecked imagery

         Alphabetical hallucinations

         Multisyllabic semiautomatic

         2 down one to go

         Pressed religion brown dandelions in yellow books

         The militia of the new monarchy  wait a second

         Amend or become outlaw

         Register or read

         What can still be painted

         Tax words tax bullets

         Driveby media law

FIVE FINGERS                                                   (94)

         WRAPPED AROUND

         A DISCOUNT

         ACCOUNT

             Not the way the cookie crumbles do I go.         92

       MAYBE, IF IT ISN’T WORK TO KEEP LOVE ALIVE,

       I WANT TO BE THERE WHEN I RETIRE

             Nose                                             92

             Carrot

             Questbuster

             “Ain’t afraid of no” quest

             Dreams and schemes

             And losses

             CLOWNS Welcome!!!                                92

             Dream

             Horror, here!

             Nightmare gifts

             Poets unite                                      92

             Your tongues

             on THIS!

       BECAUSE MOST CHILDREN ARE NOT SAFE NOT SAFE NOT SAFE

       WE KEEP OUR TWO IN PRISON

         Well, there goes the farm.                           (94)

         Well, there goes the nation.

         Well, there it goes.

       BECAUSE ON THE SINGULAR PATH OF PROGRESS

       BABY’S A NEW

       GENETIC PROTOTYPE

         Your big fucking words                               94

         That enfold mistaken meaning

         The detritus of premature ejaculation

         Free salt for your wounds                            94

         Free focus for us females

         Forget it for guys

             Wish we never smoked or smoldered                92

             Or ran toward rebellion and the test

             Of the scientific method

             As personal hypotheses

         Rhyming Hyphens                                      94

         I celebrate a free lunch,

         Okra grown in suntoil

         And gumbo soil, veggies

         With wellwater

             Where silence is the object                      92

             Secret spirits reign

         The WellTailored Pseudo of Cashmere Blame           94

         Kvatch!

         Blame your lover if he knew

         Blame analogies for things kept secret

         Blame authority

         Blame lies

         Blame me, for all the good it does.

         There’s as much blame as there is

         Virus

         Life without life

         Death

         From pseudolife

         Pseudolove

         Pseudoblame

         Pseudosuits of armor

         With cashmere cloaks and ribbed edges

               The wounded membrane of the sky                91

               Cockroaches digging in

               Biosphere studies

               World turns

               Something burns

       EVERY LINE MAKES A CIRCLE

       OUTSIDE OF GEOMETRY,

       SO THE STRAIGHT

       AND NARROW,

       THE RIGHT PATH

       IS A PRETTY LIE,

       A SELFFULFILLING GHOUL,

       TRUTH CONCURRED

               Home soon                                      91

               You harness your hatred

               In bald critiques

             The wash woman                                   92

             Folding, unfolding

             Laundered bills

           Moment sharp                                       93

           Keenly perceived with

           Nothing realized

          FlatEarth society

           Sees one sailboat

            In a regatta

             Drop off the edge,

              Ignores

               The fleet

                That is swallowed

                 By clouds

             Head in hands                                    92

             Whose head?

             Whose hands?

             Doesn’t matter

             Does it?

             People are the candy                             92

             Sold in city buildings

           In those words                                     93

           I hear that droning voice

           That “This is poetry” voice

           That “this has religious sanctity”

           Voice

           Hypnotizing

           Without

           Hip

           Mo

           tizing

           Shot                                             93

           Swarming Scold

   GALLEY SAIL                                                (92)

       CONCOURSE EXPERIMENTS

       A MONSTROUS MUFFIN

       WITH TOO MUCH YEAST

             Walk the stream bed                              92

             On bouncing Spring legs

             The floodexposed roots

             Metaphor malfixation

             Polygamists of that type

             Don’t waste the fertile topsoil

             Have a plethora of unbarren

             Land for the planting of seeds

         Physics has nothing to do                            94

         With me jumping out of my skin

         Nor why

         Physics is concerned with physics

         Black passion                                        94

         Jungle fever?

         Pet a dark animal

         To find out where it eats?

             Gigilo gentleman                                 92

             Gets his hands

             On a monkey’s mind

             Pops it open and probes

             With fleasearching fingers

             For hemorrhoids and any changes

             He can find with which to toy.

             Neither monkey nor minister

             Should ever forget that some

             Folks think of monkey brain

             As a consummate delicacy.

             They wait drooling with their

             Machetes.

       PHONE LINES

       EVERYWHERE

       PHONERS

       PHONEES

           I saw we’re more like waves                        93

           That pull away the beach

           And keep coming back for more

           I say we’re more like wind

           Which winds its way

           Anywhere it wishes

           I say we’re more flexible

           And, even though the dreams

           I had didn’t turn out the way

           I’d imagined, my father was right,

           “You can be whatever you want to be

           It’s all a matter of what you’re willing

           To give up”

         Curved walls                                         94

         In wasted space

             Letting oranges sit crinkling                    92

             For history’s dry potpourri

         I’ve got to say something about asking for what you want   94

         in a way that people can understand

         Fuck any considerations of anything poetic,          94

         Throw in Tina and What’s Love Got to Do With It?

             Over ambiguity?                                  92

             I’ll never get over ambiguity

             Or underpants

         Starving circle                                      94

         Shares me

         With its disconnected innards

               Must photos of sunsets and relatives           91

               And pictures painted with colored

               Words and the names of certain

               Fauna or flora enter every poem?

               Have we so tightly defined what is

               And is not the beauty of existence?

               Is it Tiger Lily time

               Or the grey goose down?

             Piss poetry                                      92

             Effluence

             Yellow journalism

         Life is a thousand minuscule mindaltering           94

         Amazements every fucking day!

             Would a gopher,                                  92

             If a gopher could

             Hide its home

             In a gopherwood?

         Oh, get off your dead ass, formaldehyde breath!          94

               Is the shuffle a dance                         91

               Or thorazine induced?

               If I thought I would

               Get old, you know,

               I’d …….

               I don’t know what I’d do.

               The communion of soldiers                      91

               The sameness across sides

               The respect

               The blood and flesh flashes

               Contrived configurations

               Of hatred during war

             Transposed/TRANSLATED into little wars in Latin      92

           Slap the shit out of that boy.                     93

           Tie him up if you have to.

           Take away that damnable glue

           He sniffs then talk talk talk

           Talk talk talk talk talk the other

           Glue, talk love until he listens

           Or loses his faith in release

         The soft edge of acid                                94

         The warm glow of delusion

               Funny how the smog makes                       91

               Such beautiful sunsets

               More like a roar against silence               91

               And a whisper replied, “I don’t love you”

GREENSBORO                                                     (94)

       RAISES TAXES ON CONCEPTS

         He tries to widen her certainties                    94

         ……. We comply

         Our deaths are less than cums

         Or cures for sale  this salty sulking

         The soul (misunderstanding all of that)

         Frantic pleasures to wither

         Without the withering

         For nothing that lives

     GRIT                                                     (91)

       YOUR TEETH TAX

       PAY FOR PHONE TAPS

               Sometimes underwater,                          91

               Plato’s cave echoes

               With loose theorems

               And skipped steps

               Escaping from the cave

               Even night is light

               Opening into air

               As you adjust your vision

               Getting out of there

             Minutes shuffling                                92

             Or days falling from calendars

             Are a movie’s way of saying

             That that fallen time

             Didn’t matter: didn’t matter?

             Didn’t matter.  How now

             Brown cow?

           The homeless women I have met

           Would discuss philosophy

           Would improvise poetry

           That floated upon cold air

           Like the warm mist of life

           Cake and crass burblings

           Of ignorance were never

           A shelter to hide themselves in

           They lived the true warrior life

           In the renaissance or renaysaying

           And human carelessness

             You embrace your nightmares                      92

             Write and talk about them

             To hide deeper fears

             About worlds you didn’t save

         Mail art                                             94

         To strangers!!!!!!!!!

             In the middle of a word                          92

             In the muddle of a word

             In the meddle of absurd

                    modal

                 constructs

       THE

HANGMAN                                                        (94)

       CAME TO DO HIS BEST

             Money is only an idea                            92

           Pearlhandled revolver turns                       93

         Gloss(t)                                           94

         Nost

         Lost

             The old guys knew you had                        92

             To work until the work was done

             And only some looked

             Beyond the horizon

         No one told them                                     94

         That July Seventh

         Would not be a Tuesday

         No!

         No one told them

         That the fairy

         Had a tail

         No!

         No one told them

         That no one told them

   HARDWARE TECHNOPHILIA                                      (92)

       TURNED TO TECHNOPHOBIA

       FOR TECHNOCRACY,

       GAVE

HARPSTRINGS                                                   (94)

           News reporting creeps into minstrel’s song          93

             Artichoke                                        92

             I never saw a rainstorm of children

             Or an art

             Choke

             At the throttle of fad

               Etc.                                           91

               Of words for the sound

               Of a floating whip, etc.

               Before the stinging

         Poetry pictures                                      94

         Because they censor t.v.

               Queen bee                                      91

               Lies about the honey

               Spiraling anchor cord                          91

               No anchor shape nor weight

               At one end, no attachment

               To the other, floating yellow

               Nylon in a greygreen sea

             Weighing wood lifted                             92

             By the total of inefficient

             Actions sounds like what

             Congress does  if you

             Lift a log twice, it equals

             Two logs and the woodpile

             That was burned last year

             Is still counted, too!

   HELTER SKELTER HETERODOX IMPASSIONED SCREAM ALLIANCE SCREAMSHEETS

   HELTER SKELTER                                             (92)

       BILL ME LATER

             Helter Skelter                                   92

             ‘Cus

             Kindness and charity

             Have been redefined

             By the I.R.S. and violence.

             We struggle with softness

             We wish to feel again,

             Fight against guilt,

             Handguns at our sides

               You’re not half done yet, hamburger,           91

               Don’t make me eat you raw

             The last thing a restaurant ever was             92

             Was a food factory

             The last thing marriage was

             Was silence.

             Holistic health                                92

             Holding on

             With no insurance

       IN

HIGH PLAINS                                                    (94)

       THE AIR’S THIN AND CRACKING.

             Voyager, not into space                          92

             But a merrygoround ride

             Leading nowhere

         The Pioneer hope of spreading wide                   94

             The city at night                                92

             Hides the hazy pace

             Of a prisoner released

             War analogies                                    92

             Wasted in times of war

             About daffodils growing

             Where napalm burned

       GANGBANGERS GOING WILD,

       WITHOUT SUFFIXES

HOPEWELL                                                       (94)

       PROMISES THAT THE CHILDREN WILL SOON PLAY

HOPSCOTCH                                                      (94)

               Dreams                                         91

               Dust to dust

               Days

               Paying for Rebocks                             91

               Rather than a good school

               Book

         I grow green, deprived of midnight                   94

         Milky skin with rainbow wings.

         The trucks scream cranberry, bounce

         Pebbles backwards.  Neon blurs my sodium

         Yellow lenses.  The wind pushes us

         Like a drunkard.  Leaves, paper, plastic slaps

         Against our faces.  A twenty dollar bill

         Gets stuck to your shoes.

         Money was never the problem.

               Living like there is no outer space            91

               Hovering around a landfill flowerpot

               Hummingbird gone

             Houston has a law which says                     92

             You can’t ask how much heroine costs

               The bough of boyhood                           91

               Bent under the high top

               The guilty discipline

               Of the puppy that went wild

               For its entire life thereafter

             Murder                                           92

             Planned

             Karma

             Cracked

             Up                                               92

             The light

             Public

             Streets

             Of my history

               Tripping under welltraveled                   91

               Bridge, the car lights confuse

               The eye, the shadowy sleeping bags

               Grunt under my feet

               Metal click of a gun

               Warm breath mist “What do you want?”

               “I was getting in touch with nature

               And fell over you.”  “Not under this

               Bridge, you’re not.  We’re full.”

             The old home place                               92

             Is a real disgrace

             Moonbeams or no

IMPLOSION IMPETUS                                              (94)

         Glorify weakness to feel fresh?                      94

               Pins don’t capture it                        91

               Chaos is not a butterfly

             Yeah,                                            92

             I can’t tell

             You what these

             Lines are really about

             Talking

             Like an insurance adjuster

             Asking questions

             After an incident

           The equator                                        93

           Ate her

         Canned ants                                          94

         Dipped in chocolate

         Canned aunts

         Served with sour cream

         Fanned “Can’t”s

         Brighten flames of alien

         Edibles

         Tighten my gullet

         Around a chirping

         Swallow

         Systems succumb

         To the hauntings

         Of hunger

         You go round                                         94

         In triangles,

         Bearcub,

         Slapped back and forth

         Between food for thought

         And thievery

             Life’s not your boulder                          92

             If you’ve no shoe with which to stub

             Your toe against a rock that doesn’t hurt

           We would create “beauty”                           93

           In a box

           A dark box

           A cold dark box

           A closed dark box

           If it were all we had,

           We would create beauty in a box

         All the goods are mean                               94

         Heplophobes                                          94

         Try to outlaw

         My feminine mystique

         Vienna eunuch                                        94

         Altered

         Intercession

         From some crunchy balls

         Clanging in perfect pitch

         Chewed, after frying

         In perfect rhythm

         With Gregorian chants

         And Gothic screams

       THE TRUCKERS

       GATHER IN PACKS

       THAT’S WHAT MAKES THEM

       FEAR

       LESS

             All that talk about the only pleasure            92

             Left right here

             Left right now analyzed

             Left right where it was

             Left, you’ll never get home

             Right

             Left, you’ll never get home

             If you’re left

             Right or leave me left

             Right now

             During the war

             I want Peace too

             But I have to go

             On my left right

             Please stay home where you’re left

             Right here, and wait for me

       ALL

ISSUES                                                         (94)

       TWISTED

ITALIAN                                                        (94)

       PRETZEL PONTIFICATIONS WITH ONE

ITALICA                                                        (94)

       AN

IT’S A MAD FLYBREEDER                                        (93)

             “perverse citrus”                                92

JACARANDA                                                    (93)

JACKSON’S ARM                                                  (94)

       MARMALADE TYPE

     JAM TODAY                                               (91)

       MELáNGE

               The photographer                               91

               Remains removed

               From the scene,

               Distant

               While her subjects

               Are dying for her

               Haughty aspirations

               Truth is obscured

               By the dry lens

               Without light haloes

               At the crash sight

               Shock the monkey                               91

             Train                                            92

             Foul wince

             Daunting stitches

             Follow exactly

               Coals live when we                             91

               Need them to stoke the fire

       THE PROBLEM WITH BIG PRESS

       OPERATIONS IS THAT THE WHOLE MACHINE

       QUIVERS IF ONE GROUP OF WRENCHES GETS MAD

       AT A COG,

       AT ONE PIECE OF OBSERVATION,

       ONE MONKEY’S WAVE

           Of the house I must say                            93

           I let the termites,

           Cockroaches, ants

           Mice, rats and robbers

           Carry it all away

         House symbols                                        94

         More cracks

         To lick with love’s

         Psychodrama

         Painted with spittle

         Sinking into the soft foundation

         Of mortality

         The center sagging

         In a wide gaping smile

             Electric alternating current                     92

             Like new blackouts of news

             In spurts of superfluous info

             We see by the light of unfound electrons

             Luminous after lactation,                        92

             We cycle recycled

             Knowledge

             On the ledge

             Of extinction

               World War Two hero                             91

               Drives his old green car

               When the children leave school

               Screams maniacal

               Hurls insults at them

               Through closed windows

KALLIOPE                                                       (94)

             I heard the steam music                          92

             From the bankrupt resort

             Haunting the lake with

             Whist and melody

             For one last time

             To turn us around

         Cinderella, shoes                                    94

         In hand, ready to trade

             She died on a couch you could see?               92

             Were you watching a movie?

             Or could you have helped her?

             As a perpetual foreigner,                        92

             The idiom of stifled freedom

             Escapes me.

         I’m underpaid

         Under wear  poetry to capture

         Smells and dribbles

         So street clothes can stay clean

             Lobsters still claw                              92

             Bluff backwards

             Under rocks

             Before they are red,

             Embarrassed on ice,

             Under glass

         Farming words                                      94

         Can’t seem to break

         The weed cycle

             Keeping alligators                               92

             Out

             Of our living rooms

             We poison the pond

               Stripers are full of foul                      91

               Contagion

               No longer the rainbow fish of the harbours

           Cattle                                             93

           Compared

           To trees

               Unions                                         91

               Make work

               A dirty word

               Soul Sister Q.Z.                               91

               I don’t understand why the women who do so

               So hate me for nothing.  I was first in line

               For equality, still speak out against double standard

         Kid’s Playyard (Two Whys Together)

         Poems are buoys and anchors

         And boats and combustion sails

         And waves and fire extinguishers

         And that darn Coast Guard which

         Stops you, dead in the water

         Tunnel dug                                           94

         Into no light

         Ending

               Pretty landscape of bleached skulls            91

               To tell us

               You visited Hell

               And what rock did you push

               Or, rather, is the emotional retreat

               Into words and memory enough

               To pay for the paradox, for the clean

               Sand the land agent promised?

             You let your children take advantage             92

             Of vicarious greed

             And time not spent on them

             Under kerosene or campfire light

             Or the precious purity of poverty’s muse

             Mirrors and ripples                              92

             Waves and warm spots

             And no electricity hum

             No boombox distraction

             No news about the war

         Widows                                               94

         Wanting

         Windows on the world

         Worry about

         Wanton moments

         With wasted gigolos

         Wrinkles and riches

         With real words

         A rarity

             River runs                                       92

             Into hydroelectric puns

             Drowning versal valleys

LANDFILL                                                       (94)

             Landmines                                        92

             Turned us

             Back to the sea

             Injustice fills me with distain                  92

             Doesn’t discourage But aids resolve

             In these tired hands,

             Fortifies the soft bread of my life force;

             My hurting heart pounds with purpose,

             Sometimes pretends to.

               The more I studied humor,                      91

               The more comics made me cry

               And cringe and nothing

               Seemed funny anymore and that

               Was just the beginning

               Stuck, broken, on a halfsawed limb            91

THE LEADING EDGE                                               (94)

       OF REBELLION

       IS JELLO

         Well, well, well                                     94

         The water’s no good anymore

         Sewer, sewer, sewer

             Going to war                                     92

             They gloat about glory

             Because a bluff is better

             Than a cliff edge

             Lah lah lah                                      92

             Lah lah lah

             You do put down

             Your own thoughts

             Putdown pudding

             Lah lah lah

             Tapioca

             Philosophy

             With runny eyes

             Lah lah lah

             You swallow

             Anyway

             Some days deserve                                92

             A good spanking

LILLIPUT                                                       (94)

       ON HER PANTS IN THE DARK

           Phobia and neurons                                 93

               The cherry pickers                             91

               Are part of a plot

               Confusing flesh democracy and pitted imperialism

         Yeah, right, all the good ones are already dead          94

         Might as well give up then, huh?

             I can not tell                                   92

             A truth

             I hid my axe

         “Do the twist                                        94

         It goes like this”

               Homey hexagons                                 91

               Are not enough reward

               For the waxworm crowded Queen Bee

             I have a message                                 92

             And it is,

             “I have a message”

LITTLE RIVER                                                   (94)

       IN A BIG OCEAN

       INTO A BIG OCEAN DUMPING GROUND

       WET GARBAGE WORDS

             Mayflies do not despair                          92

             Over the comparison of moment

             To moment, make snowy

             Piles on asphalt anyway

LIVING POETS                                                   (94)

       ARE GIVEN LESSONS IN SWIMMING BUT NOT FLOATING

           Domesticated                                       93

           Cool and hasslefree

           UnAfricanized

           Honey bee

         Riot Runouts                                        94

         Los Angeles

         Heplophobes

         Went to stores

         To buy the familiar

LOCKHART                                                       (94)

       LOCKED HEARTS ARE OFTEN

       ALL THAT ARE LEFT

       WHEN FINALLY HEARD

         My boy isn’t born                                    94

         Death will not steal him today

               Your children are under                       91

               Employed

               Falling into the water

               Under London Bridge

               Living                                         91

               But not laughing

               I secede

               From my drawl

         Rewriting history                                    94

         Through today’s

         Wobbling mirror

         Is like

         Siting on a baby

         Because it

         Reminds you of what you looked like,

         Once upon a time

             Loom                                             92

             Over

             A carpet of lies

               Spin the top                                   91

               Of the world

               Right off

               For infantile

               Fun and profit

             Guilty pictures in the attic                     92

       CAN I MAKE WORDS

   LOUDER THAN BOMBS                                          (92)

               Yesterday                                      91

               Is a highway

               Strewn

               With exploded toll gates

       ELECTRON MACHINERY

             I will never fear Summer                         92

             Nor falling faint in humidity

             Your A/C love keeps me chilly

         Dear Editor,                                         94

         Let me make it clear

         The water in Houston is soapy

             Gobbeldygook sticks a knife                     92

             Into its own mumblypeg leg

             Night flight                                     92

             From some

             Live evil

               Didactic song                                  91

               Exposes our refusal

               To be taught

       ZINGING MARS

         I’d like to explore the future                       94

               Grossetto?                                     91

               I thought myself a bit of a genius

               Until I discovered how many words were

               Missing from my family’s abridged dictionary

           Yup, yup it up                                     93

       LET NOT

       THE VILLAIN

       EAT

THE MACGUFFIN                                                  (94)

       BEFORE IT BLOWS

       THE LEGS

       OFF THE TABLE

MAGIC MOUNTAIN                                                 (94)

       STRIP MINED

       says “goodbye, little robin wing”                      94

       says goodbye to the magic

       THE

MAGIC REALISM                                                  (94)

       OF UNDERTOWED PHILOSOPHY

       THE

     MAGNETIC NORTH                                           (91)

       THE FALSE NORTH A COMPASS POINTS TOWARD

               Rain is a symbol for what?                     91

               Sun is a symbol for what?

               In this poem, rain grows okra

               And the sun causes skin cancer

             Alright, now, who put the spinet in the garden?       92

         Grass connects the house                             94

         To the road.  St. Augustine,

         Browned by Manichaean mites

         Mother prayed would go away.

         It took Ambrose spectracide,

         Defender of the grass,

         To bring it back, green.

       HUNGRY FOR THE

       NEW

MANNA                                                          (94)

           An anonymous roll or muffin to tempt us            93

             Siesta dreams                                    92

             Shift into moribund

             Malevolence

         Vatican II                                           94

         Precession procession

         A wobble every 26,000 years

         Or so

       REAMS WRITTEN

       ELITISM REDISTRIBUTED

     MEMORABLE MOMENTS BY INVITATION ONLY                         (91)

               It was a legend of a myth                    91

               That secondary education

       PREPACKAGED

   MEMORY  LIFT THE COVER                                   (92)

             Pandora has brown eyes                           92

             This time

       BOOKS FROM

MERGING MEDIA                                                (93)

       WITH NO NEWS ANYMORE NO REAL INFORMATION

       BUYING STATISTICAL POLLS ABOUT THE COST OF LIVING

       AND INFLATION WITH NUMBERS THAT DON’T ACCOUNT

       FOR PRICEFIXING OF FOOD TO AVERAGE AGAINST

       SKYHIGH HOUSES AND IDIOT CARS  NO LONGER CARS

       BUT MOBILE UNITS THAT LOOK LIKE WINDTUNNELSQUASHED

       BOXES ADDING “FEATURES” SO AERODYNAMISM

       AND SEWING MACHINE ENGINE POWER AND PAPERTHIN STYROFOAM

       BETWEEN PEOPLE AND THE ROAD WON’T SEEM LIKE

       SPACE WASTED TO LOSS.  WE GOT FUCKED OUT OF OUR GOLD

       BUT DON’T YOU FORGET THAT THERE NEVER REALLY WAS ANY WAY

       TO GET OVER THE FACT THAT MONEY IS AND ALWAYS WAS

       JUST AN IDEA, JUST BAD POETRY

     METAMORPHOSIS                                            (91)

       IS CORPORATE ANATHEMA

       UNLESS COVERED IN THE QUARTERLY REPORT

       UNLESS PROJECTED UPON A PRIVATE SCREEN

         Pretend emotion                                      94

         With a pseudo name

         “And away go troubles down the drain”

             I hear the skin of the Governor of Texas wrinkling    92

               Practiced passion                              91

               Precisely on the point

               To praise the petty Prince in Paris

               While warriors waste words

               And are wounded way around the world

           Houses squat upon radon                            93

           Calling themselves Uranus

           Uranium

               Throwing a simple line                         91

               Baited for poetry fish

       THEY NOTICE BUT IGNORE THE EFFECT OF

MIDNIGHT ZOO ABERRATIONS                                       (94)

       CLAPPING

             He is the Rhino                                  92

             The Condor, the Heron

             The man without a mate

           Dad didn’t want to explain how hopeless things         93

           Seemed after all the terrible things he’d seen

           That’s why he was silent.

               But as long as men drink their lives away          91

               They’re not a threat to my picnicpink day

         Writing drought poems                                94

         While St. Louis sits

         Under ten feet of water

             I say that everything is a woman                 92

             Nothing is outside of femininity

             Or the feminine domain, nothing.

       MEN BALK

         Trying for earthquakeinspired                       94

         Resurrection, trying to pull out

         Of a deep pussy willow sleep

         Twisting definitions to tame the confabulation           94

               The Earth may stop turning for lack of         91

               Revolution

             Everything goes to the laundry today             92

             Dirty laundry, lies, illgotten gains,

             Dodgeball taxes, almost clean oratory

             The truth gets lost in the wash

             Is remembered like the other sock.

           Statistics confuse for a ruse                      93

           So that even “normal” is abused

           And when the perception you choose

           Includes even happy blues, misconstrues

           News about fire and bloodred hues for

           Anything but eyegrabbing schmooze, and

           Everyone is driving on booze, prepared for

           Baby hell the whole year of those terrible

           Twos, I tell you, I’m not amused.

           With that kind of truth you’re bound to lose

         Doodoo                                              94

         Dropped in the crack

         Between poetry and concrete

             Trying to avoid the mawkish,                     92

             You explain your sorrow as “of the human race”

           Chaos is not a butterfly                           93

           Justice is just ice in this hotbox

           Balance is a shifting didactic subservience

           Logic is a whip and a whipping boy

           Whipped and sugared

           Sometimes salt is the burden

           Food is a weapon

           Talk is the crowding of sounds into airwaves

           Power defines itself

           Why did these lines appear on the page?

       SITTING IN THE FREEZER

       CAN BITE AT THE TOES

         Tell the history                                     94

         Of our society

         In social security numbers,

         Credit card records,

         Passports and obituaries

             Consider the cat                                 92

             Run over

           Softly squeezing out colors                        93

           The gentle beast strangles

           For purpleblueyellowgreen

           Face effects

               My mother said some beautiful things           91

               One of them was that nothing is wasted,

               Not in a human life of learning and love

             I’m a tin snip                                   92

             Tearing malleability

             To shreds

       THE DEEPER YOU GET, THE DEEPER YOU GET

       BILLS TO PAY FOR YOUR INTEREST IN FURNITURE

       BEFORE

   MOVING OUT                                                 (92)

       FOR THE BEST SCHOOL

             The kind of things that so angered you           92

             When done to Karen Silkwood by men

             Have been done to men by men for a very

             Very long time.  Women, then, had the time

             To do something about it.  Or didn’t we?

       OILING THE

MOVING PARTS OF THE MUTANT DRONE                               (94)

       IN THE MAILBOX THAT THE GOVERNMENT OWNS

           In life we define life                             93

               Dreams decay faster than paper                   91

               If a dreamer throws them away

           When we both know he has power,                    93

           We no longer enjoy my groveling

               Woman, buy your seeds in a Burpee Catalogue        91

               For all your fertile attempts to cultivate

               That belching, incontinent man

               Don’t give birth mother                        91

               Don’t try to change things father

               Be coddled by propaganda while baby cries

             The woman next door got scared over the years        92

             She yelled that she would shoot me when I offered

             To fix her gate, hid her lover in a backyard trailer

             Let the dog doo build up inside the house so that

             When the church finally came to take her to a home

             It was six inches thick over the whole floor

             The burro she left lame was fed for a while but

             Soon disappeared.  The church sends men to mow her lawn

             The people on the other side said she was once a very

             Important person in town, loved by everyone.

         The limb’s secret passion for bats                   94

         Pipe bombs to blow away metaphor

         About memory

         And nose undercurrents

           entitled                                           93

           The Cat/Gas Engine/My Soul/ The Laser Printer/

           The Baby/ The Dog/ The Spider/ The Line/

           The Coke Machine/ The Riot/ The Garbage Disposal/ The Head/

           The Air Mailer/ The C.O.2 Tree/

           What it wanted

           Was to be fed.

         Mom said “Nothing is ever wasted”                    94

         Even Chekhov for beginners

         Like a whole bunch of things that sound really good       94

         It’s what follows that counts on a menu

         The price tag that exposes the lie

             Relish the death of those that annoy you?        92

             Must hard actions be matched by hard thoughts?

             Catsup, will ya?!!!

               Grit bass, a submarine capitalist              91

               Naturally drawn to the hook

               Let the world be the child                     91

               You can not bear

               Those bugs drive me toward                     91

               Frustrated insanity

               In Summer’s insistence

               Stuck here in Houston,

               Without a fresh Spring

               Hope is in the fact that we refuse             91

                                       to be defined for ever

             Stainless steel makes brillo a curse              92

         More militant flora                                  94

         Conspire against

         The farmer

         Who imprisons them

         In mounds and rows

           Denizens eat venison                               93

               No one wants to hear                           91

                        that someone was killed for them

               Paranoia for president!                        91

           Oooooops!  Wrong New Renaissance                   93

             Where the doe dies is today’s poetry             92

NEXT EXIT                                                    (93)

               To combat “no exit”                            91

           The magazine is dull and dead                      93

           But the idea of the magazine lives on

           The starved children of Somalia are all dead       93

           But the idea of starved childrenhood lingers on

         War ship                                             94

         Worship

         Wordjumble wasteland and not the good kind either

         The day it is yours                                  94

         Carp and catfish

         Lines dropped into mud

             Our dreams are twisted by the mass spectrometer      92

         Blame to Tame                                        94

         It’s your fault

         I’m not a revolutionary militant

         So, there!

         New Hampshire poets gloating about the good life

         That where I’m going for

         Solitude with a change of scenery

               Boy was convicted for atrophy, a trophy        91

               Earth in October dusk                          91

               Fights

               Does not call it

               A night

           Subway art  graffiti and graft                   93

               Funny pop machine                              91

               Popping hilarious caps

               Into my head

             She, in college, bucked a trend, volunteered to be     92

             A capitalist

             Okay, okay, you got away, dainty words           92

                                and faith intact

         Night drops the drapes                               94

         Lights out

         Engines humming in the sky

         The shriek of falling secanols

               Bad music to do the rebellion thing, today,    91

               When parents think all good music is okay

         There’s war                                          94

         After there’s

         War with rules

         Packed court                                         94

         Pact

         Packed a punch.

         I packed.

               Armstrong                                      91

               A single leave

               Footprint

               On moon dust

               Left (you’ll never get home on your right, with your

               rights)

         I go watchless                                       94

         The future is measured

         By no ticking clock

         The past sounds no longer of “ticktock”

         And today there is too much to do

         Herpes hickies                                       94

         Smiling glint

         Of corporate bureaucracy

         I usually get dinner and flowers before…

             Stock shock                                      92

             The blood stroke

             Spoke in a heartbeat

             The broker broke

             The bad news

             On a black day

             Putting her on her back

             Speechless

             Peachless

             Each less

             Ach! Less

             Chess moves

             To make tomorrow

       THEY ACT LIKE THEY’RE ON

       SOME TRACK, SOME REAL

PATH                                                           (94)

       THAT’S BEEN DEFINED BY THE

PAUPER’S                                                     (93)

       LIFE

         “PACKING FOR PEKING”

         The crude statue, white,

         Keeps falling in my head

         The white of the suitcase

         Is not pure white like that,

         Under the tanks’ lights

         My underwear are not white like that.

         How can I travel?

       THE SEEDS OF SOME POTENTIAL

PEACE                                                          (94)

PEACEMAKING                                                    (94)

       SOMEWHERE, SOME TIME

       BUT NOT NOW!

       SUBSTANCE

PEGASUS                                                        (94)

       SHIMMERING, STOMPS THE

       POLITICS OF POVERTY

       FLYING OUT OF THE TRANSFORMATION

       INTO NOTHING LIKE HAPPINESS

       NOTHING LIKE BLISS

           Why plant and plow                                 93

           For Hemlock now

           When poison is so

           Omnipresent?  Hoho.

               No!                                            91

               Time has its way

               Of making us forget

               Why we were together.

               Come on!  Tell the truth!

       COMBINING RACISM AND DIVERSITY

PENNINE                                                        (94)

       COMPLACENCY

             Slow Thinking                                    92

             Using Einstein equations

             To reach past the heavens?

         The same essential stillness                       94

         A brassiere cutting off circulation

       CAPTURING SOULS IN A

PEOPLENET                                                      (94)

             Da nang                                          92

             Da nang

             A burst and a bang

             Politics tosses

             A grenade of losses

             Now,

             How does your poetry

             Hang?

         Flack into Marcuse in a geodesic dome                94

         And not even the red, red of blood

         Red roses or a steak dinner, beforehand,

         Before hands and geodesic shrapnel hit.

       MOST OF THE WORLD EXPLOITS WOMEN’S

       WEAKNESSES.  HERE, WE EXPLOIT

       THAT WEAKNESS, TOO.

       ANY SISTER WHO DENIES IT, LIES

             Pompoms and poems                                92

             On pretty legs

             In pretty lines of

             Please, release me!

       I STARTED THIS, BUT WHAT ABOUT MY SISTERS BEING RAPED?

       WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER THINGS THAT MAKE THIS UNIMPORTANT?

               Redefining Slavery, Defining Comfortable        91

               At fundraisers

               Politicians straddle

               Fund razors

         Actions are something else                          94

         The arrow is so much that is not poem

         Paper on concrete instead of concrete on paper

         Designing instead of finding words

               Now your “beauty” is controlled                 91

               By the hairdresser’s words of praise?

           Sun,                                                93

           Roots growing into eclipsing

           Airsoup haze

           Today you are more fiery

           Than friend

           An arachnid mandible

           Chewing away at

           Our butterfly cocoon

             Oh, yeah  The mango lady be so happy            92

             Smiling for you with her sticky fingers

             She not fuckin’ for your inspiration

             And entertainment.  She just fuckin’ smiling.

             So you can write her teeth as “like piano keys”

             Stereos and steroids                              92

             We buy, buy, buy.

           This poem has the quality of Sears aluminum siding      93

           Of colorsafe detergent for dangerous Spandex

           Hiding the hormone depletion

           We are licking the oilspot on the cement driveway

           Of the service area, touching the skin

           Of an orange

           That only reflects green

           Vibrations of the ozone

           In an awful uncola

           Reebok Relationship

             That’s democracy now                              92

             Don’t shoot them,

             Silence them

             Make other people

             Deaf to their words

             If you don’t like

             Their poetry

             Make paper and postage

             Expensive

         PerNew                                               94

         SpecDif

             Few  rest                                       92

             Actual  pour

             Compassion  blood

             Then  quiet

             Silenced  words

               The sophisticated lie                           91

               Always was a modeled

               Version of the truth

         Skeleton of Poetry                                    94

         Sel e ton of poetry

         Screen                                                94

         Door

         To technocracy

         Never Say Never                                       94

         “Nothing is right”

         This Spring, but you don’t write (or do you?) that

         “Nothing is left”

           Poison pellet penned on                             93

           Poison producing paper

           Dioxin to describe

           Cancellation of chlordane

             If I wanted to cater                              92

             To the highest common

             Denominator of humanity

             What would that be?

               Hard to Make You Count                          91

               A list of lists

               Or a list of live things

               Is as hard to count

               As a list of dead mementos

               So I add a dropped angel wing,

               Ripped from her left side

               For your violent poetry

               Your “Mommy! Mommy!

               It’s a mummy!” lines

               Your obituary imagery

               Your seashore sloth

               Preferring poetry penned for lazy tongues

               Like aural sex without foreplay for play

               Depending, so much, upon who does the reading

               And for whom

         On chalky lines                                       94

         Of stadium imagery

         And contrived crowds

         He plays an away game

         Of the poetic mind

             Contradiction                                     92

             Too wide to admit

             Darkness

             He’s an economysized

             Asshole

           Life                                                93

           Is a missed

           Tree

         Apocalyptic Entrails                                  94

         Cryptic conclusions

         Trypticfolded illusions

         Chipped dick delusions

         Endtrail conclusions

             When advertisements                               92

             And Hallmark

             And the war effort

             Take the pretty and heroic poetry (for effect)

             Then poetry must be

             About something other than (just) flowers

             And sunsets

             If cut flowers and the sunset

             Of life, the inevitable death

             Are okay  (for adverts, Hallmark and propaganda)

             Then poetry must

             “Rage, rage against” it.(them)

         Ultraradical                                         94

         Big, bad bully,

         Littering

         Little paychecks

         Along the roadside,

         Free radioactive pennies

         For children to pick up

         Puce Debussy                                          94

         Cyberspace waves

         Pusillanimous tones

         The terror of error

         New symbols to transpose into

         Art/artisan/work translations

         And the mother (La Mère) of all C: drives,

         Pookie, pecks at her puce computer;

         Pucilagenous cellulose keeps time until five

         She keeps typing away, drifting in an electron ocean

         Into the symphony of a creamgrey day

           In a fog of radioactive VGA vapor                   93

           Astride the information highway

           She shrinks from the sun

           Never sees their son

           Weighs three quarters of a ton,

           But she’s in there, on the bus,

           Ms. missing, Ms. minimillionaire, Ms.

           Autoexec

         15 inch knife                                         94

         Or standard 6 inch blade?

         Always propaganda?

         No truth, no news to use,?

         Always the halfback theory?

         Always the O.J. monopoly (FLA, CALTEX)?

         Always some football legend

         Caught up in the black myth?

               Soldiers!                                       91

               You went through Soldier Hell

               Don’t tell the story

               THEY want you to tell

               The story you think we thing we want to hear

               Do you slaughter your brain                   91

               Like your cow?

               Is that simplicity?

               Is that my Elsie?

           The fan on the IBM XT                             93

           Winding down after the circuit’s cut

           That’s an eighties metaphor for death

           During a blackout

         Vulture                                             94

         Hidden

         In the raven’s shadow

         On the Gonads of Grief                              94

         We are worms in a can

           Lens Occlusion                                    93

           Hunter with scope

           Thinks he’s bigger

               They dump their waste on us                   91

               Saying, “you want the good life?”

               Hide maps of contaminated areas

               Like they hide their combination safes

               Inland revenue (for the children)

               Pay tax

               To play clean

               They dump their waste on us

               Saying, “The reason it smells funny, like that,

               Is because it’s art”

         Tomorrow, dreams begin                              94

         No

         Today, dreams begin

         No

         Yesterday, dreams began

         No

         Yesterday, dreams had been beginning

         No

         Daybeforeyesterday, dreams had begun

               Dr. Spock’s Little Monsters                   91

               Some, twisted, turn

               On the memorized road

               Of “for a nickle I will

               Blow up the toll gate.”

         When women go mad                                   94

         In Texas

         They stack the men

         Behind the dryer

             Dissappointed tears                           92

             Should have talked to the receptionist

             To make an appointment

               The angry poets                               91

               Who feel and know great injustice

               Only to be silenced

               Are they included in that

               “All who love?”

               Then, who is not a poet?

           Knee Legacy                                       93

           Spiked shoes on astroturf

               Zen                                           91

               Suicide?

             Rushing River                                   92

             It’s not fair to the delta

             To be so close to the ocean

             With you,

             Seedless, tired, running away.

RIVELIN GRAPHEME                                            (93)

       NO!  COMPUTER GRAPHICS DO NOT MAKE UP FOR THE SMILES LOST TO

RIVER CITY                                                  (93)

RIVER RAT                                                     (94)

         Perhaps, it’s a ball game                           94

         The sun is out

         He scratches balls, rolls bat in fingers

           SheetMetal Husband                               93

           Sheetmetal machine

           Sets the rhythm

           For our sex

               CIA, dropping                                 91

               Palm tree microphones

               On the Ho Chi Min Trail

         Every martyr is sacred                              94

         Every suicide is sacred

         Every life is sacred

         But some tongueless people

         Work on computers

   ROMANCING THE PAST                                        (92)

             Tarnished with newness                          92

             Mass graves to hide swollen                     92

             Reasons

             Sand turned to help blood seep

             Away

             We go on with a certain

             Justice

             But justice

             Is

             Just

             Ice

             In this desert

         Automotive Mother Goose                             94

         Fairy tales for women

         And a few sensitive men

         (The rest of the sensitive men

         Can run home to mama

         Like the crybabies they are)

             I’m almost used to not knowing where I’m going       92

             Since they bought that trailer and sawed off my tail

             I get the eerie feeling they’re going to make a show

             Of me. (At least give me a luxury ride to the glue

             factory)

             Seasons of Contempt                             92

             These new laws like

             “The Freedom of Access

             To Bathroom Entrances Act”

             These new laws are deadly

             Are killing my business

             Retort!

             Re

             Tort

             Retort, but all there is

             Is retarded reaction,

             Reticence to move the legal

             Mountain for this molecular

             Tart who screams out into

             Blank lust, “I would fuck

             The whole world for freedom!”

             This tart tastes the tramp

             Trickle on my tongue

             I can’t blow the jobs back

             In this foul, flatulent wind

             Of world order wishfulness

             I bow my head, beaten

             But will bounce back……

             Now, I’m on the attack!

             At this point,                                  92

             History has a right to say

             Of me and my sisters

             That everything bad

             Said about us was true

             That we have been stupid

             And whining, trite with

             Hackedknees

           Charity begins                                    93

           ….Who cares where?

             Snowblind,                                     92

             I need shadows

             To see

         Catching running vines                              94

         Of dewberries for breakfast

         Took until afternoon

               Empty frame                                   91

               Where our first dollar

               Should have been

         Prego, prego                                        94

         Too much salt in the waffles

         And I thought the best

         Ingredient, the bignamechef

         Ingredient, was supposed to be love

               Orchard Memories                              91

               Trees growing back

               But what does not?

               What is this sense of loss

               I feel?

               What have I forgotten, here?

             We were never not lost                          92

             On this backslide of a booming

             Generation,

             We were never not lost

               Can’t get ahead                               91

               Can’t get head

               Can’t get my head

               On crooked enough

               To make some real money

             Like they say,                                  92

             Bullshit walks,

             But they don’t mean

             The kind that just sits there,

             Steaming

               Sissypus                                     91

               Depending upon your friends

               To “hold me back!”

SANGRÉ SANGRÉ                                                 (94)

       SANGRIA WHEN I SEE YA

       IN LUCKENBACH WITH JERRY JEFF WALKER,

       BUT DON’T LOOK BACK YOU “DESPERADO, WAITING FOR A TRAIN”

             Lookingatapainting                          92

             Thatyoucan’tsee

             ButIdon’tgiveafuck

             BecauseIcanpoetry

           To dam or not to dam                              93

           That is the fishy question

       ALTOGETHER SCREAMING “IT’S FLOUNDER , IT’S STRIPER!”

SCARP                                                         (94)

             Barney’s, New York                            92

             That’s where daddy

             Got his suits.

             So, what?

             So, they were good suits

           Loaded pistol                                     93

           That’s all

           It just sits there

         Poet, But Not For Long                              94

         I came to the conclusion

         That anything human

         Is too tainted to touch

             Redundant ambiguity                             92

           Casual, anonymous suicide                         93

             Slap that bat’s ass                             92

             If it eats your wristwatch

             Leave it alone,

             If it only wants insects

               The sharks ate the mermaids                   91

               Now, you can fear the sharks

               There IS immediate danger                     91

               Retort, retort, retort

         Paint pretty pictures in my brain                   94

         And then snap small bones

         In the “snowy field of foxtracks”

         Dripping blood fluids, all about

               Corporate power                               91

               Is the perfect tyranny

               With no succession

               To kinder kin

               And no queen, there,

               To let love sink in

       BUT, BUT, AT LEAST……..

       THE BEAUTY OF SHAKESPEARE

       OVERCAME BODY SMELLS, STILL DOES.

       TODAY’S POETRY IS SO FRAGILE THAT

       IT CAN NOT STAND TO BE PISSED ON.

       TODAY’S DELICATE POETRY

       DOESN’T DARE EVEN TWEAK

       THE NOSES OF UNDERGROUND MONARCHY

       WE DON’T HAVE OR NEED JOBS

       TO SUPPORT OUR CHILDREN.

       THEY’RE FLOATING IN THE INTERNATIONAL

       WATERS OF THE WORLD BANK

       AND THE MONETARY FUND, RAISED BY EXPERTS,

       THE SAME BREED WHO SAY WE NEED,

       BUT WON’T FIND, ANOTHER SHAKESPEARE.

           Good poets need not say “fuck”                    93

           But what the fuck?

           I always had problems with authority

         We, welfare mothers                                 94

         Can not live on minimum wage

         Turn the page, turn the page

               You gave your life to                         91

               The dream you dreamt of me

               I did too

               So sorry

         Father’s Lesson                                     94

         All love is precious

             Sheltering the Anemone                          92

             Go on, eat me

             When there’s nothing left,

             You’ll move on

               In toilet tissue details                      91

               The big black boot

               Of injustice is spared

               A forest review

         Forever frozen in midsentence                      94

         Kickboxing karate angels

         I will tell you that I really …..

               Gotta care                                  91

               To crack

               That earth

               One more time

         Consider the options,                               94

         What you could be doing, right now:

             Love                                            92

             Does not always take on

             A particular tone,

             Gives in peculiar,

             Unexpected ways

   SOCIAL JUSTICE JOURNAL OF CRIME, CONFLICT, WORLD ORDER     (92)

             And prison was all about brain scrambling       92

             Before they gave up and called a trash strike

             And threw rotten eggs and sticks and bombs

       IN THE

SOCIETY                                                       (94)

             Battered                                        92

             War and pancakes

         Withered                                            94

         Before mankind was so terrible

         So hopeless and hollow

         You heard the tones of “in whose image”

             I don’t even see                                92

             Yesterday

             Though these tears

             Muscatine omniscient voice                      92

             And such limited knowledge of she, they, you, it

             Anyone, anything

         Poetry Calm                                         94

         Moonwillow words lain out over the shadowy swan,

         Perfect pitches of serenity

         To avoid  ANY

         Fuckin asshole coming in and upsetting the fuckin balance

         Allright?!

         …….Okay,

         Swan fluffs its wings into midnight silence

           Seeds sown in our slippers                        93

           We throw out old laundry

           Check the pockets of our jeans

           For loose grandmothers

           I’ll describe a scene                             93

           To trigger visions

           So that you’ll listen,

           Like the puppy licking my chocolate breasts,

           To the last line, which I will

           Throw in as a statement.

           Live free or die.

             Perfection                                      92

             Alberto the Cuban rebel/guitarist

             Taught me how to split a log for the fire

             (9 millimeter bullets are expensive and fun but

              also efficient)

         You read these lines, nothing.                      94

             When the horizon is bigger than the moon        92

             Can you see the crack

             In the atmosphere?

             Can you see

             The brown asshole of fluorocarbons?

       CAUGHT BETWEEN THEIR

   SPLIT PERSONALITY                                         (92)

             Schizophrenic Poets and Religious Lovers        92

             Hating progress

             Loving the fruits of it

             Sucking the juice out of their wordprocessors

         No man                                              94

         Has had his hands up my dress

         And down into the elastic of my pantyhose

         For years and years,

         Since one, (that one, that time),

         Who was folding my clean laundry for me

         Asked, stretching those plastic containers of legair,

         “Why do you wear these stupid things?”

         No good answer came and until one does,

         I won’t.

   SQUEAKY WHEELS                                            (92)

             Squeak, squeak                                  92

             Squeak,

             Squeak

STAND                                                         (94)

             Man,                                            92

             This ain’t right, man.

             I don’t want no fuckin’

             Hang gliders

             Scaring my fuckin’ birds

           Staple this to your brain:                        93

           You can call the cat with poetry

               When I see the pear,                          91

               Passed over the counter,

               I see…..

               Ah, shit, I can’t lie

               I see a pear passed over the counter

             Treasures?                                      92

             Don’t natural wonders display their own price tags?

             Once there was no imagery worth naming,         92

             We had to resort to video

           The game warden                                   93

           And poacher

           Entertain each other

             Chalk crumbles to bits                          92

             In the excited teacher’s hands

             We, the experienced, know the value of chalk

         Hey, don’t sing bird songs to a cat like me         94

         You                                                 94

         Really mean nothing to me

         I’d rather have a revolver

         Than your facedown, flat poetry

               Greenpeace Speedboat                          91

               Ocean waves become lines of poetry

               Splashing, jumping

               Toward the truth of the sea

       THEY HAVE US COMPETING

       IN DEAD FIELDS

       LIKE POETRY

       (THOUGH TEACHING AND LECTURING MAKE MONEY)

       THEY HAVE US COMPETING

       COMPETING AGAINST THE BODY

       THAT USED TO BE “OURSELVES”

       THEY HAVE US COMPETING

       NOT THE GOOD KIND, EITHER,

       FOR TOO FEW PRIZES

       FOR ALL SISTERS TO SHARE IN

       JUST ENOUGH TO KEEP US,

       SISTERS AND BROTHERS

       FROM COMPETING AGAINST THEM

       AND WHO IS “THEM”

       IF ANY ONE OF “US” KNEW THAT

       WE WOULD BE OUTCAST FROM “OURSELVES”

       AND WHAT IF ALL THIS IS PARANOIA?

       IF THERE IS NO “THEY”, NO CONTROLLING

       ENTITY THAT WE ARE NOT,

       THAT WOULD BE THE BEGINNING OF PARANOIA

             It is easier to pen silver lines                92

             When you’re born with a spoon in your mouth

               “Hello, my friend, so good to see you again    91

               I been down so long, all by myself

               I just couldn’t make it.  Keep on straight ahead”

         Radical Lonna                                       94

         19yearold poet

         Who says she is lonely

         Protests nothing

         “Kill My Landlord”                                  94

         `Cus Cambi says we got mushroom clowns

         Growing up our asses (or was it blowing up our asses?)

         And tyrant whales about to overthrow us

         And just enough air to breathe

         To pay off this month’s thrills

               Does socialism mean that all those young       91

               Spikes get an equal share of my pussy?

               To each according to need?

               From each according to ability?

               Would my pussy be under state control?

               “Oh, it’s like that everywhere,” I’m told.

             Peace                                           92

             Is the Pong

             Of the diplomatic

           We arrest you for having “no I.D.”                93

           That sounds like fascism to me.

         I defend the public                                 94

         With my degree, my wits

         And 27 years of T.V.

       ASPIRING TO

STUDENT LEADERSHIP                                            (94)

       IT IS ALL ABOUT POWER AND ACCESS

         Brimstone dream invasions                         94

         Is it the city or some asshole?

               Empathy                                       91

               Burnout and not a peep from the

               Pope

             Nothing happened                                92

             Didn’t cut my finger

             There’s no way around it,

             Three bottles

             left

               Tragicly pretty                                91

               Cyan starburst

               Burning out before

               It reaches 7 billion

               GET OFF IT!!

     TALKIN’ UNION                                           (91)

               We’re talking mob rule                        91

               Doubleentendre intended

               Better organized crime

               Than the other kind;

               Then, at least, you know

               What kind of asshole

               You have to be.

               When we begin to believe

               We’re talking survival

               It’s easier to get us

               To agree, “Fuck Freedom!”

             Steal this book of mine                         92

             So I can’t read

             “Steal this poem”

             The Mountains See It Before We Do               92

             But we keep the day

             And feed it celery.

         Donna, making crooked tracks,                       94

         Trudging through the deep snow

         And wilderness of her mind’s exile

         And the twisted path it takes,

         Steal heat from the heart.

         Then she wakes, startled,

         Dumping halfgallons of icecream

         In buckets, to the freezer floor

         Of the grocery store

         Semantic confusion.

         Having left it to cool off

         In the walkin refrigerator,

         It was not an exile but an exaisle

             Moliere’s Favorite Software                     92

             Moliere (short list)

         Insurance                                           94

         Seat belt laws that 52% of the people ignore

         Laws that fence in pools from the public

         Laws that make life both “safe” and stupid!

         For whose insurance?

             My dogs turns                                   92

             Into

             A monkey

             Before me

             But it still can’t

             Climb up a tree

             Let’s talk unemployment                         92

             And the Monetary Fund,

             The 8 to 28 percent

             Psychological sacrifices

             To world “order”

             Chaos is not a butterfly

             Order is not butter

               Oblivious                                     91

               Complacent, comfortable

               In a cage,

               Squeezing in on you

             You bring down the hatchet                      92

             To chop the timeline,

             Cut me off from the past

         Creating the monsters of a bad trip,                94

         Goofing, they used to call it,

         Scaring up images of animals

         To inject into our dreams

         Scarey scarey animal kingdom

         Scary dark Africa

         You make me wonder

         If you aren’t a hunter

         Or a land developer

         Or a concrete contractor

         Or a politician

             Now, the creek                                  92

             Where I first

             Fucked him

             Is polluted

               Lucky Visions of a Lady                       91

               First edition

               Parole replacement

             Magical Music                                   92

             Melody

             Whispers

             Promises

         Sweet tree lines                                    94

         (Awash) In fall colors

         So to hear the sound of “timber”

             All those rich women                            92

             Carrying around celestial bodies

             (The sun, the moon, the stars)

             In their purses

             While, we, less fortunate ones

             Must cherish them

             With pursed lips

         Shaken,                                             94

         Not that the world

         Is changing,

         But that there’s nothing

         Familiar;

         The hype’s so good

             Shall I put a moral                             92

             Into a verse with rhyme?

             Or should I, rather, get a job

             And make some profit from my time?

             Coin in a fountain                              92

             Coin in a cornfield

             Coin in an empty street

             Oh, where have you been, little coin, little coin?

             Oh, where have you been, darling money?

             After Occupying Hollywood                       92

             Washerwomen

             Mothers

             Wives

             And whores

             Populated poetry

             Village maples                                  92

             Burn for tourists

             Tramp tree                                      92

             Out of mythology

             Pulls up its roots

             And leaves

               A Simple Statement                            91

               ANY person

               Who fights authority

               With fists against guns

               Anyone who needs to get in

               A few blows of her own

               When the police come

               When the guns are drawn

               When the handcuffs are tightened

               Any fool who wastes

               Revolutionary ardor on being

               Beaten, without even martyred

               Possibilities, without a video,

               Without waiting for a lawyer,

               Without finding out first

               What is really REALLY going on

               Is more a part of the system

               Is more fraternizer, more of a cog

               Is more of a traitor to any revolutionary

               Cause, than is the apathetic or the fearful

               And any fool who thinks murder helps

               ANYONE but the superstructure

               Which exists, right now,

               Is lying when she calls

               Herself informed or revolutionary

               Because death has always been society’s

               Most useful tool.

   TRONA RAG OF NO ALLEGIANCE, ASKING “ARE WE GOING TO A FUNERAL?”

                           THE IDIOT’S FRIGHTFUL LAUGHTER        (92)

             12Step Addiction Addiction                       92

             Poetry is not a drug

             If anything is not a

             Drug like the little pills

             In the brain of prayer

               It all depends upon                           91

               The rigidity of thought

       WHY SHOULD I BE FRETFUL ABOUT THE FOIBLES OF MEN?

       I WANT FEMALES THAT I CAN RESPECT AND LOVE,

       DON’T CARE UNLESS WOMEN MAKE THE SAME MISTAKES

       CLAWING FOR THE TOP

       FEELING UGLY

       SAYING STUPID THINGS ABOUT LOVE

             Sickness shows up                               92

             In those Dr. Kildare, Ben Casey poets’ lines

             Because they can’t face death and censor sex

             And lost their “Birds of North America Guidebook”

             And lent flower catalogues to a real gardener

             And gave Bullfinch’s Mythology to Grandma

             And all they have left for reference

             (Since they mostly avoid boisterous life)

             Is that yellowed Gray’s Anatomy from when

             They thought they might study “PreMed”,

             Until they realized that physician’s assistants

             Were going to be having all the fun and profit

             Was going to be reserved.

       LIKE THE

TURBULENCE                                                    (94)

       OF BUBBLING GREASE,

TURKEY                                                        (94)

       ON A THANKSGIVING

   TURNSTILE                                                 (92)

       TYRANTS SQUASH PUMPKINS, SAY

       “WE GAVE YOU ALL THAT

       LESSTAX STUFF

       NOW YOU OWE US MORE”

       WHILE POETS PEN POEMS THAT

       REACTIVATE

       ONLY CHILDHOOD CARTOON MEMORIES

       WHILE TWISTEDBUTTRUE TALES

       FADE

       FORGOTTEN UNTIL THE VERY LAST MINUTE

             I’m not allowed to be sick

             So I pop pills, wishing I could

             Fly

             Away

         Can’t                                               94

         “Revoke”

         Life fuckups

         On the laws

         That created them

             Unions and Subsidy                              92

             Prevalent now,

             Big brother vicepresses

             A 2 X 4 against it

             To make sure he confesses

             With an unfurrowed brow

               Cry For Me, Argent Tina                       91

               The seance sucked, tonight

               And I missed a mystical flight.

               Now all I can do is write

               About how my life is so trite

               A muckraking ox                              91

               In an Oz of ours

               Ran amuck, broke his chain

               And trampled the flowers

               (And took a big chunk

               Out

               Of the freedom of the press)

         Pulling violence out                                94

         With limbic insertions

         Implanting the peace

         Of a mere machine

         That only requires gas and oil

         New Car Lot Pictures, Posted: Ads Up                94

         Vehicle vestibule

         Granual ridicule

         In annual intervals

         Pecuniary tentacles

   VICTIMOLOGY                                               (92)

       OF THE

VIETNAM GENERATION                                            (94)

         Dishonorable discharge                              94

         Because my brother didn’t keep

         A good

         Black book of names and situations

         A list of embarrassments

         A list of bare ass minutes

         With the lieutenant who lied,

         Took the brunt of the frag,

         “For the guys”, and my brother’s

         Dishonorable discharge.

           Dad explained                                     93

           How hard it is

           To understand.

             Electromagnetic                                 92

             Speedoflight

             Shitburgers

               Squishy earth                                 91

               Eats my wheels

               In selfdefense

         Fastfood buffet reminds me                         94

         Of the day I was born and wasn’t

         Scooped like a Csection

         Into shallow plates

         At a good foodcost percentage,

         Delivered,

         All prepped,

         By the truckload

               R,_W,_&_B                                     91

               My words

               Are blue

               Varicose veins

               Of patriotic

               Coloration

               Caucasian

               With high high

               Blood pressure

             Core                                            92

             Meltdown

             Ore

             Feltdown

             Re

             Dealtdown

             Bummer!

             Then I had to put my face                       92

             Into the couch

             Dropping children like                          92

             Simile

             Like smiles

       IN THE NOXIOUS

WEST WIND                                                     (94)

         It’s synodic in the western bay                     94

         And the stars

         Are so close

         I can imagine the

         World is flat

             Mom’s getting older                             92

           Disgust                                           93

           Courses through me

           Building pressure

           And the only escape

           I have is the written turd

               We buried her dad                             91

               In chemical waste

         Foxy                                                94

         Caught in a trap

         She forgot

         All about the chickens

             Skeleton Bank                                   92

             RTC horrorshow

           A Fear of Displacement                            93

           I misplaced it

         Yeah, “A world                                      94

         Only we can build”

         Zygots multiply                                     94

         But unleashed

         Science searches

         For purity

         With its own definitions

         For now

         We all have mixed blood

               Imagine no possession                         91

               Elders

                As dying comes

               Unwilled Passions?                            91

               Hormones in harnesses

               Limbic lollypops

           What’s a MASTIFF?                                 93

           A mast if the wind is blowing?

           A mass tiff when we all are angry?

           A Dead mother?       (Sick Mom with arthritis?)

         The poem neighed in the saddle of lines             94

         Ellipsis was the horse’s name

         Cantering over a field

         Of barley in the wind….

         No,

         Maybe it was a field of rye

         I am an ant                                         94

         Crawling over the rotten stump

         Of history

         Looking for flesh to sting

         And for food

         Horror is conservative                              94

         Gothic churches

         Dripped blood for the party

         Line

               Citizens of the Arroyos                       91

               Compete for fame with yoyo’s

               yoyo ma never comes by to visit

               Toyota buys up prejudice

               With tight green moneybuds

       I DON’T WANT TO KNOW THAT YOU DON’T CARE

       ABOUT ME, ABOUT LIFE, ABOUT LOVE,

         The used car lot                                    94

         Is dirty.(  kept that way.)

         In

         The new car lot,

         People want to make love

               Snout snakes                                  91

               Sniff out

               A good deal

         The only things

         That are even a little different

         Are the poetry pieces

         Under these seasons of change

         Written

         In this old house

         And the barn

         That needs rebuilding

         And the windows

         That crack in the Winter

         We dive out of democracy                            94

         Into a pool of dictatorship

         By the majority

         Who say collectively,

         Unconscious, “Hold

         Your neighbor’s Hand

         And float because

         It’s a sin to swim”

             Lucky                                           92

             Anyway

             Lucky

             Any

             Way

         Lapin Love                                          94

         After rabbit stew

         The worms come out

         Attach to the stomach

         And wall like calamari

         In the dark acid ocean

         Of a full belly

         That ‘s where starvation

         Begins its paradox

         The more you eat

         The more hollow you become

         Bloated, tight, like a drum

         Ready to explode release

         What was I thinking

         When I moved to the country

         With you, hoping I’d be

         Kept comfortable

         In the  (sainted) sated (sainted)

         Warmth of your lapin love?

           Discolored Discovery Discourse                    93

           My gosh!

           There’s life outside of our fireplace!

               Finding it almost extinct                     91

               We get worried and begin mating procedures

               To save leprosy in our microscope zoo

             Rhomboid                                        92

             “Just like the one who ran

             What do you do when you’re” RHOMBOID

             “`Cus you know you’re” no man?

         Violence is easy                                    94

         So you use it

         Because you’re lazy

         Fuck me with

         Metal head steel tips

         Tear the throat of

         The entire fucking

         WORLD

         You call yourself

         “Amused”

           There once was a man who said nothing

           And he was not there

           As a shadow

           But painted dots

           Where his shadow should have been

             The monster den                                 92

             With monster men

             We keep putting them down

             They get up again

             Cynic                                           92

             Cyborgpicnic

             Boring pick

             Ring or pie

             Go cynic go

             Snicker to your candy

             Bar none you’re undone

             Belt one down

             And die in pieces

             Replaced easily

         I reject such lines                                 94

             Public servants are power mongers               92

             Mostly

             Prisoners

             Are freedom fighters mostly

             Firemen are smoke stoppers mostly

             Saints are mostly

             Famous?

           Make humans stupid and weak enough                93

           And they’ll not fight for love,

           Nor land, nor freedom, nor food,

           Nor comfort, nor ideals, nor self,

           Nor soul

             After Any Particular Thing                      92

             Future family tree

             Fucking without aim

             Or aiming

             Toward a future with

              Oh, my Gosh!  Imagine that!

              A future with things I never

             Thought about imagining!

             On other worlds, to boot!

         Constructivist constructivitis                      94

         Waking blood

         Bound clocks and crocks

         Pulleyups , bed clothes on sun

         Line, birds , mocking house cage

         River of blood

         In an old bed

         Remembering your midnight body

         Under glasses that

         Shade our talents

         Shed your didacticism

         If you have to hide it

               Hushed angles?                                91

               Heavy hieroglyphics?

               Haughty hammers?

               Hefty waist?

               Surly sundown?

               Hefty waste?

               Calm Autumn

               Without apples dropping

               On Chicken Little’s head?

         Propagate                                           94

         Late

         Realization

         Of helplessness

         When I remind

         Water pump pumpers

         That it was always

         Water you kept

         To prime the dry walls

         Creating a vacuum

         Water you kept inside

         That made water flow

         Dry tunnels?

         What’s next?

         Images “in your face”

         To be licked and sucked

         By a universal mouth?

         Prime the pump

               Why is children’s poetry                      91

               Often the type that rhymes

               And why are they grown up

               Into freeform perspective,

               Leaving simple meter and verse behind?

               I guess,

               Simplicity that’s not too trite

               Is tooo hard for us to come by,

               We busy adults

             Why do the wee old men hide?                    92

             Is it something inside

             They don’t want the children to see?

         what sword brandished against what human???         94

         Crusader Youth Corps?

             What’s a Warrior in Peacetime?                  92

             Simple

             Pascal

             Zeno, Neno, Neon

             All friends could be enemy

             All enemies could be friend

             Or they could be neon lit

           It’s a big world of art, now                      93

           Commemorate your ass off!

             Will                                            92

             Science

             Save us ?

             Will will?

             Chaos is not a butterfly

               Unconfirmed                                   91

               Theories

               Not fact

               Chaos is not a butterfly

               Butterflies live in slipstream reality

               Synonymous patterns in phase

               To prove our primitive notions are true

               And the modern ones too

               Fly chaos fly

               Beat the wings of order

               So everyone will know

               that

               Chaos is not a butterfly