POEMS

Slow motion high jump

POEMS 1973-1985  |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

HELLO UP THERE

there was an old man down in the field
with a shovel
digging large letters out of the foot-deep snow

when he was finished
his hundred-meter-long message read:
HELLO UP THERE

the neighbors laughed
and a passing airplane pilot
thought it was funny too

am I the only one around here
who knows it’s no joke?

THE DEAD-EYE CHILDREN AGAIN

three young people walked by in front of my house
late teens – a boy, two girls
strangers
I said hello
they stared back at me

ah shit, the dead-eyed children again

I said hello a little louder
they stared back at me again
more unfriendly this time

the day always turns a little sour
a little sad
when I meet people who don’t like
to say hello

he had a death’s head emblem
on the back of his jacket

in my daydream I leapt out at them
flapping my arms
“so it’s not fashionable to say hello
anymore – huh?”
I tickled the boy under his arms
“not fashionable – huh?”
tickle – tickle
he swung his fist at me
I ducked – “ho ho ho!”
in my daydream

I went back inside the house
carrying their gift to me:
a wedge between my eyes

GUEST BOOK

before going to bed on the first night
I made the mistake of reading thru
the guest book

when I crawl into a public bed
I often wonder myself to sleep
with the ghosts of those before me

now I knew their names

“move over, Charlie.”
“Louise?”
“hmm?”

sometimes it gets pretty intimate

but I suppose this happens to everyone

yet again until recently
I assumed that everyone as a child
jumped from their roof
using an umbrella as a parachute
I started checked around and found
that I am maybe the only fool
who managed to float to the ground
like a feather

A BUNCH OF BOYS

a bunch of boys up on the road
were throwing stones at our roof
one stone hit the wall
I ran outside screaming:
“just wait until you grow up
and get married
and settle down
and have finally adjusted
to your wife’s silences
my grandchildren
will be just about the right age
by then
to make your lives miserable”

I’m starting to sound
like my own grandfather

THE PLEASURES OF DOWNHILL GARDENING

it was a simple Sunday afternoon
a perfect day for killing peace
when the assassin drove by our house
in a Japanese car
raising dust at a thousand heartbeats a minute
a foot away from our country road door
nearly not missing my toes
but running over my shadow

he’d been seen around lately
wearing a pencil-thin mustache
and a German shepherd dog
selling small packets of dirty mayonnaise
to the children down at the playground

so when he drove by again
I ran out of the house
waving the crippled shadow of my arms
shouting, “we’ve got a small child etc.”

he stopped and said
“I’ve got seven kids myself
and I’ve never killed one yet.”

I heard later that when he arrived back home
and was walking up his suburban driveway
his garage door opened before him
and he was attacked and run over
by seven small children
driving a steam roller
pulled by thousands
of German shepherd dogs

PAVLOV’S DOG LOOP

I know a man with a mind like Pavlov’s dog
his brain must look like a microscopic warehouse
ring a bell
push any word button
and the response is instantaneous

I say “yesterday I was thinking of buttermilk”
and he says, “buttermilk blah blah blah blah . . . ”
“yes but instead I ate a plate of beans”
“beans blah blah blah blah . . . ”
“Yes and I drank a can of beer”
“beer blah blah blah blah”
I play with him like a puppet on a string
“bullshit!”
‘bullshit blah blah blah blah . . . ”
(burp!)
“burp blah blah blah blah”
“blah?”
“blah blah blah blah blah . . . ”

QUANAH: FIRST YEAR STORIES

1. Midnight

Quanah was born at exactly midnight
no one could figure out
if this was the 24th hour of the old day
or the 1st hour of the new
later this led to a heated argument among friends
to which day does midnight belong?
to the one left behind?
or the one coming up?
Quanah lay on the couch, looking up at the light
reaching out for it
he didn’t give a diaperfull of shit
about the discussion

2. “Watch out for the Reptiles”

Quanah woke up in the night
with what sounded like a zoo
in his throat
we phoned the doctor and told him
we heard frogs
mountain lions, pigeons, and pigs
the doctor said it wasn’t serious
until we had identified
at least 6 more different animals
“watch out for the reptiles,” he said

it was Quanah’s first illness
in his career as a human being

3. We Knew It Would Happen Sooner or Later

Quanah fell out of bed last night
fortunately his bed wasn’t on the balcony
of the of 34th floor apartment
(but then again he may have learned to fly)
it was a mere 4-foot drop

so only about 1pp points were knocked off his IQ
now instead of graduating from M.I.T.
in astrophysics at the age of 11
he’ll probably graduate from high school
as a basketball star at the age of 18
instead of growing up to master the 12-octave
polydigital semi-telepathic oscillatron
he’ll probably grow up to play bass drum
in the marching band

4. Birthday

Quanah’s first birthday present
was the sun
setting thru the branches
of a few pine trees
he tried to blow it out

THE BIRD AND THE BERRY TREE

I watched birds strip the red berries
from the tree that grows outside my window
the ground was frozen solid
maybe the worms were frozen too
and there wasn’t much else for the birds to eat

I watched a bird attack the branch
that hangs down in front of my window
he ate every berry but one
then turned his head
and looked at me
thru the window
then looked back at the last berry
and flew away

it stayed there for over a week
– the only berry on the tree
then the ground thawed
and the creek started running again
and one morning the berry was gone

EASTER NUMBER 30

it’s easter
I’m 33 years old
they’re celebrating the crucifixion
of the christ
who was born
for my sins
on my first christmas
which I don’t remember
because I was zero years old

I can relax
I can look forward to another 3 years
of anonymous crucifixions
they’ve still got the 3 christs lined up
the ones who were born
on the christmas days
when I was one, two, and three years old

SWINE LEGENDS

1.
we peeked thru the wires of the fence
into the animal kingdom
“what is it?” she asked
“it’s a pig,” I said
“oh – I thought it was a dog”
it was a pigdog

2.
there was nothing serious about this baby pig
he had found his place in the straw
and was looking out upon the passing world
grunting and grinning
he knew exactly what he was doing

3.
once when I was small I got very dirty
they told us to get in the bath
and stay there
I washed and washed
and when I came out
I was a clean as a pig’s whistle

4.
violin strings used to be made out of cat gut
I tried to imagine the intestines of a cat
stretched out across the violin
with the rest of the animal attached
and hanging over the side
as the fiddler scraped across the strings
with his horsehair bow
the rest of the horse
was attached too

once upon a time
footballs were called pigskins
perhaps because that’s what they were made of
every time I kicked a football
I wondered what they had done
with the rest of the pig
it felt strange to be kicking
part of a dead animal around

5.
they had this code language
that rolled around my childhood years
called pig latin
– igpay atinlay
I never could pick it up
it was quite simpleminded
but I thought you had to stick in a pig
every once in a while
something like:
“let’s go play baseball”
which was supposed to go:
“etslay ogay laypay aseballbay”
when I tried to say it came out
“let’s go pigplay baseball pig.”

6.
in school some of the girls
had their short hair tied up in back
two little bunches of hair
trapped in rubber bands
they called them pigtails
once I sat behind a girl in class
and stared at her pigtails
she didn’t turn around all day
and I just sat there
staring at the back of her head
thinking about the situation
and saying over to over to myself
“so that’s a pigtail”

7.
they had a lot of chores for me to do
that hot summer day
– clean up the garage
– give the dog a bath
– dig up some weeds in the backyard
– repaint the fence down by the drive
I wanted to go swimming
“I’m going swimming” I said
“in a pig’s ear you will” they said
which caused a minor sensation
in my imagination

8.
my kid likes for me to carry him
piggyback
but he seems to heavier day by day
there’s going to come a day
when I won’t be able to carry him
more than 10 feet
before collapsing
I’ll lay there on the ground
with my face in the dirt
trying to catch my breath
and start to worry about
who’s going to bring home the bacon

9.
I knew a guy who had a hard time
going to sleep
he tried counting sheep
jumping over fences
in his imagination
but that didn’t work
then he tried counting pigs
but that was worse
they kept trying to go under the fence
and getting stuck

10.
“hickory dickory dock
2 pigs ran up the clock
the clock struck 1
and got him right in the eye”

11.
this little pig went to market
this little pig stayed home
this little pig ate roast beef
this little pig had none
what a load of crap
whoever heard of a pig eating roast beef?

12.
of course I heard the story
of the 3 little pigs
who hasn’t?
and who hasn’t heard the story
of the 3 bears?
my problem was
I kept getting then mixed up
it wasn’t so bad
when the wolf blew down the straw house
and chased the first bear across the field
by some stretch of the imagination
that was almost possible
but the story got out of control
when goldilocks woke up
in the big pig’s bed
and saw him standing there
how would you feel
if you woke up
and saw a pig standing over you?

13.
I had a friend who got tired
of saying bullshit
so he started saying pigshit
instead
which got people thinking
about what ‘shit’ really means
they had used it so often
they had forgotten
everyone was living in ignorance
until the pig came along

14.
we were served stuffed pig for dinner
it sat there on the plate for awhile
looking dead
and harmless
then it jumped up
and started dancing on the table
it was hamming it up

LAUSANNE 1981

there was a sign –
a metal plaque
set into the cobblestones of the sidewalk
it said: ne cracher pas sur la trottoir
which in English means
do not spit on the sidewalk
in front of it was a shop
selling men’s clothes
I stood looking at the dummies
in 3-piece grey suits
and thinking about that sign

so I spit on the window instead

IMPORTANT PHONECALLS

after I fell thru the roof of my house
I phoned up an old girlfriend
she asked me
how I was feeling
I told her some tourists had been walking by
when I fell
they had laughed
“I only went in up to the waist” I said
“so the damage was only half complete
I could have lost my face too”
my old friend said to call her back
when I had something important to say

the blackbirds covered their eyes
when I stepped outside
for a breath of fresh air
then the sun went down
and the swallows began to fly like bullets
out of the bushes
at the bottom of the garden

by the time I got around to phoning her back
I had seen a partial eclipse of the moon
and Muhammad Ali had won back
the heavyweight crown
for the 3rd time
on TV
I picked up the phone
and dialed the number
of another old girlfriend

COTTONFIELDS OF CHRISTMAS

they played Joy to the World
on the airplane speakers
first a touch of organ
then the grand piano
and then they told us to stop smoking
and messing around
with the laws of gravity
we climbed up thru the clouds
and made the full moon rise
over the cottonfields of christmas

THE STAND-UP COMIC ON A ONE-NIGHT STAND

everybody was talking about astrology
like it was going out of style
(I hoped it would)
she asked me my sign
and I said “I’m an aquarium
with curtains rising
and my moon in trouble”
it was good for a laugh

then I told her I was a lesbian
that I had a very strong
sexual attraction
to women
that was good for another laugh

then I told her the only joke I know
(the banana joke)
“hey mister, you got a banana in your ear!”
several heads in the room turned to listen
“I can’t hear ya, I got a banana in my ear!”
no one laughed

I considered putting a lampshade on my head
but a guy standing on the coffee table
who was 10 degrees more looped
than anyone else
beat me to it
he got the biggest laugh of the night

LEADBELLY WAS THE GRANDFATHER OF ROCK ‘N ROLL

Leadbelly made it on a 12-dollar Stella guitar
with bedsprings for strings
but I don’t have that kind of talent
or those 9-pound nail-drivin’ hands either
Leadbelly made it after spending half of his life
in prison
and I don’t have that kind of patience
he got famous after he was dead
which is kind of like getting left behind
holding the banana peel
after everyone else has had a chance
to bust his ass on it

IDEAS

I’ve expected very little from life
since the day I found out that Santa Claus
was just a nice idea
or maybe it was later
when JFK was gunned down
for getting ideas

the best Idea Man I ever met
was J.S. Bach

to give you some idea
of how strong his personality was
whenever he walked into a room
everybody’s cigarette went out

AND THE WAITER SPEAKS ONLY CHINESE

you go into a Chinese restaurant
and order a number 37
with a side of 15
your friend orders a number 46
and the waiter brings you 2 plates
of whatever’s left over in the kitchen

DANNY AND THE JUNIORS

Danny and the Juniors in 1958
said that rock ‘n roll will never die
25 years later I find it difficult to believe
their promise
but then again
even a few unlucky animals get stuffed
and sent to museums

there was another line in that song:
it’ll go down in history, just you watch my friend
probably some sociology student in the 21st
will do his doctoral thesis on Danny and the Juniors

I mean some cats are still blowing’ Dixie
but I don’t see any teenage girls
breaking down the gates to get in

A STRANGE MAN

it was a strange night
he would do nothing
so I sat and watched him smoke
and read a book
his expression changed
every other page or so

he didn’t get up and phone home
that night
he didn’t talk about all the things
he didn’t learn in school
he didn’t even complain

ROCKS AND STONES

rocks and stones
stones and rocks
I sit on a rock
with my feet on the GROUND
fuckshit

my wife keeps telling me
I have my head too much in the AIR
she keeps telling me
I should come down the EARTH
once in a while

I’m giving it a try

she bakes bread
from wheat that grew
in the EARTH
shitfuck

MYTH AMERICA

then there were those majorettes
in high school
prancing around
twirling their batons
wearing white satin mini skirts
that cut into their crotches
they walked around school
on the day of a football game
wearing heavy wool coats
(it wasn’t that cold)
they just didn’t want to show off
all that fresh meat
so close up
there had to be some limit to indecent exposure
everyone agreed on that
except all the guys
we sat in English class with hard-ons
thinking about what was under those coats
so close by
the limits were on the football field
the girls were out there
with their coats off
flashing their thighs
and everyman in town under 65
stood on the sidelines
with a pair of binoculars glues to his eyes

I AND THOU AND YOU AND ME

Billy Graham is coming to town next month
so is the American Demolition Derby
a little salvation
a little sacrifice
we’re in good shape on the spiritual side
for the fall season

my wife thinks Billy Graham
is the guy who used to run
the Fillmore Auditorium
maybe she’s right

I’m always getting Billy Graham mixed up
with Bill Haley
since I have never seen the two of them
in the same demolition derby
at the same time
I am inclined to believe
they are one and the same person

I’d rather go and see Martin Buber
but a soft-nose rabbi
will never sell out
the local football stadium

THE WHOLE EARTH POETRY PRIZE

a poet stood in the center of the bridge
spinning a world of culture
on an upraised middle finger

beneath
the years flowed by like water

then the poet burned the bridge
and drowned
refusing to swim to shore

we went down to the river
and tossed in a few flowers
a few children cheered
one or two dogs barked
and a whole lot of ladies rolled by
in wheelchairs
with umbrellas
tossing bones
of previous poets
to the dogs

the dogs stopped barking

INCOMPLETE PORTRAITS OF FORGOTTEN MEN

. . . he had a mustache and 2 eyes
he sat on a park bench unobserved
observing everything
he wore a hearing aid
but when he died they discovered
there hadn’t been a battery in it
for years . . .

. . . all he left behind was a faded photograph
taken when he was a boy:
the boy is squinting into the sun
the shadow of the photographer’s head
was visible at the bottom
the photograph was found
in an otherwise empty suitcase
on the balcony of the hotel room
from which he had jumped . . .

. . . stiff silver steel rim glasses
and flat lenses that flashed sunlight
when he turned his head
a black wool stocking cap
rolled up above his ears
he was good with a chainsaw
and missing the first finger of his left hand
he’d chopped it off with an ax
when a rattlesnake bit him . . .

. . . he played saxophone is a 1930’s dance band
white tux and red handkerchief in his breast pocket
slicked back black hair, smooth with the ladies
between sets he stood at the bar
with the sax cord around the collar of his tux
joking with the customers
later he lived on welfare and cornflakes . . .

. . . he was an old crippled black guy
a night janitor
in one of those industrial park buildings
(offices upstairs, warehouse in the basement)
after he’d finish waxing and polishing the office floors
he’d go down to the basement
and watch a wall
of 35 different TV sets
broadcasting the same baseball game
in living color . . .

. . . “there was this guy used to come in here
every afternoon about this time
sit at the bar, have a few beers
he claimed he’d high jumped in the Berlin Olympics
or something like that
he said he’d come in third place
or something like that
he was a tall with a pot belly”
said a short man with a potbelly
wearing a white short-sleeve knit shirt
with a green alligator on the pocket
but no one was listening to him
he usually came in here about the same time
every afternoon
sat alone
talking to himself . . .

. . . he drifted in from out of state
driving a broken-down Ford pick-up truck
the letters on the door spelled
FAST DELIVERY
WE DELIVER ANYWHERE – ANYTIME
but the sign had been washed by the rain
you had to get close to read it . . .

THEY SAY TIME HEALS ALL WOUNDS

I was raised by an uncle who once upon a time
was offered a chance to play 1st base
with the New York Giants

but his wife said it was either her
or baseball
so they moved to the west coast
where he got a job in the shipyards
as a welder

he was usually in a mean mood
treated me badly
slapped me around at least once a week
just to keep in practice

he could find an excuse for punishing me
almost anywhere

once I forgot to water the rabbits
he knocked me around and around
until my head felt like a punching bag
there was a moment in there
when it didn’t have anything to do
with the rabbits

I hated him
I promised myself that when I grew up
I’d kill him
with one of his baseball bats

I just got a letter
that says he’s in the hospital
it’s pretty serious
he’s an old man now
he might not make it
suddenly
I don’t want him to die

EUROPE ON ONE HEARTBREAK A DAY

in Germany
in a public washroom
along the autobahn
I saw a man in thermal underwear
washing his face

in Hungary
across an open-air dance floor
I saw a woman
carrying a package of meat

the streets of Switzerland
were so clean
that I was embarrassed
soon I found out why
the dogs had been trained
to eat their own shit

a post office in Belgium:
everyone was licking stamps

friends came back from a vacation in Spain
they brought me a little wooden flute
it cracked when I pressed down on the fingerholes
it wasn’t meant to be played

the 12-year old boy
who served us dinner
in the Italian outdoor restaurant
looked as old as his father
neither had ever been a child

this rough, tough American stud
pulled into the Greek youth hostel
on the heaviest motorcycle in the world
and we spent the night listening to him
scream for his mama in his sleep

on a train thru Yugoslavia
I sat across from a young married couple
they wanted to share the bottle of wine
that had been their wedding present
he searched everywhere in their suitcase
but couldn’t find the corkscrew

the Dutch soccer team
lost the 1974 World Cup final
by 1 point
on a color TV set
in a crowded French cafe

THE END

I put my hands in my pockets and slowly walked away

what happened before that
is not worth talking about

FAME

these people drop by and ask me if I want to be famous
I say I want to be honest
if I should say no
I would be a liar
I explain that it takes a lot of work to be famous
it just doesn’t happen to you

these people don’t understand
I explain it again and again
it takes a lot of work to be honest

THE FIRST TO KNOW

Anton Webern, the obscure but great
composer of serial music
lived in the American Military Occupied Zone
of Austria
after the war

one night when the blackout
and curfew rules
were being strictly enforced
he stepped out onto his porch
and absent-mindedly
lit a cigarette

he was shot dead by an army private

Webern was one of the first to know
that smoking can be dangerous to your health

AMERICAN OPTICAL

taking a closer look at my glasses
I find
along the inside of the right temple piece
this cryptic message:

American Optical 1-10 12K G.F. 6½

yes, this is obviously a cryptic message
but since I have been wearing these glasses
for 10 years
I know what it means

A CHANGE OF SEASONS

winter creeps in like a pointy-toed hedgehog
summer sneaks out like a flat-footed caterpillar
and people just stand around
like pot-bellied stoves

DRUGSTORE BEST SELLER

it was one of those white cover
deceptively virginal
paperbacks
about the ills of our society
the kind of cheap, sensational writing
that sells millions of copies

who reads this kind of crap?
cracked-up widows
down and out gamblers
unemployed peanut vendors
over-the-hill shortstops
sag-breasted former Miss Americas
and other assorted low riders
it was the kind of book that makes me feel good

TERRITORIAL IMPERATIVE

we have it on solid, honest, hard-earned $1.25
copyright paperback AUTHORITY
that the song of a bird
is a territorial marker
a sort of melodic city limit sign
as it were

but don’t believe it
those birds sing for the hell of it
just like the rest of us

THE MISSING WEREWOLF

sometimes I miss the werewolves
who used to peek in my window

and the vampires who used to tip-toe
across my roof late at night

and the King of Chaos himself
who used to slide down my chimney
leap into the room
speaking like he had a mouth
full of wet cement

once I went into grandma’s walk-in closet
and came face to face
with a GIANT TURD
4 feet tall
grinning at me
grandma had told me not to go in there
now I knew why

but the ghosts, vampires, and werewolves
have heard the whistle of their masters
and have cleared out
I miss them

I’ll trade you one werewolf
for a whole shelf of philosophy books

Summer, 1975

WEREWOLVES IN THE WIND

tonight the revolution’s in town
there’s a time bomb on my wrist
and my tongue’s in a bottle of rum
there is no reason for getting drunk
there never has been

the church bells ring at 6 o’clock
I look at my wrist watch
and can’t figure out if time
is passing fast
or slow

I look down at my arm
and stare at the patch of skin
I had once considered
a choice spot
for an eagle tattoo
the fly which has been buzzing around the room
lands on that patch of skin

who in his right mind
would choose to live in as unfurnished apartment
and entertain dungeonous ideas?

there is a piece of paper at my elbow
on it is written:
there are werewolves in the wind
who could have written that?
who would choose to be so complicated?

Summer, 1975

LOOK AT THE WEREWOLF

humans equal werewolves in masks
the mask is paper thin
a strong wind can lift up the edge
flash!
an instant vision
of chin with thick greasy hair
the corner of a beastly mouth snarl
then the mask settles back in place
i put the book of photographs back on the shelf
and think about men wearing hard hats
atop of atomic bomb brains

Summer, 1975

THE BIG HYDROGEN DUDE RANCH IN THE SKY

the only thing wrong with the bomb
is that they won’t drop it

meanwhile back at the ranch
the cowboys are restless
the boss wants them that way
he wants them uneasy
frustrated
hopeless
punching each other out
for relief

the boss holds that big whip in the sky
keeping them in their saddles
rounding up the cattle
day after day
after day
they ride the range
after day
and repair the fences
after day

a ton of bricks
hanging over your head
is a lot more effective
if it never falls

COWBOY

he rides into town on his horse
the row of houses on main street
looks like a set in a western movie
the buildings seen from the side
are only a few inches thick
held up by props

he ties his horse to the rail
in front of the saloon
heads for the swinging doors
and walks into a bar
in West Hollywood, 1973

COLLEGE

ah, the college of my choice
programmed me so well
it’s taken me years
to get over the blooze

I’m still taking exams
everytime someone asks me a question

MIRROR

I am a mirror

that used to bother me a lot
especially when I first found out

you get back what you put in

after 20 years
the mirror has become tarnished
it doesn’t reflect the dirt anymore
strong light still gets thru

BACKGAMMON

we sat up til dawn playing backgammon
the set had been purchased in the Copenhagen airport
and was designed especially for travelers
it was about as big as a paperback book
with pieces the size of fingernails
we needed tweezers to move them around

THE NEWS

the ground froze up solid about a week ago
I would have needed a flame thrower
to bury my pet hedgehog if he had died
(and if I’d had one)
so I was hoping he wouldn’t

a macrobiotic mountain man set up a tent
halfway up the hillside behind our house
and moved in
we hear him every morning eating breakfast
usually he chews on an old pinetree stump
but occasionally he takes down a live oak
for a change of diet

the atmosphere is so simple
so plain and ordinary
I have to invent the news

MOVIE

the old lady stands in front of her shack
on the opposite hill
looking at me thru binoculars

I wave
but she doesn’t wave back

she has been living alone so long
that the world has become a movie

I can’t blame her for not responding
I never wave at a movie screen either

NEW YEAR’S EVE, 1975

it’s been
1,038, 771, 100 minutes
(give or take a few)
since Christ’s big bang

FASHION SHOW

in times past
women’s fashions changed by the decade
no one thought less than 10 years in advance

by popular demand fashions began to change by the year
and soon by the season
women speculated in advance
about next season’s styles
and a few daring ones
attempted to be ahead of their times

this set off a new reaction
and fashion designers began changing their styles
by the month
announcements would read:
THIS MONTH: SHORT SKIRTS, LONG HAIR, LOW SHOES

then would come the announcement for the following month:
LONG SKIRTS. LONG HAIR, NO SHOES

and so on by the month until women
became so restless for new clothes
the competition became more intense
and style changes began to happen by the week

then by the day

still this wasn’t enough
designers, shop keepers, and advertisers
got it down to the hour:
SHORT SKIRTS
SHORT HAIR
LONG SHOES
LONG SKIRTS
LOW SHOES
LOW SKIRTS
HAIR
SHORT SHOES
then down to the minute:
LONG SHORT SKIRTS
SHOES
HIGH HAIR
LOW LOW
HIGH SKIRTS
NO HAIR
NO SKIRTS
then down to the second:
LOW
LONG
HAIR SHOES
SHOE SKIRTS
SKIRT SHOES
SHOE HAIR
HAIR SKIRTS

it’s difficult to walk the streets these days
all these women changing clothes
as fast as they can
they keep bumping into you and each other
it’s a fast-action strip show in rush hour

a few women have given up
they stand on street corners, naked
ignored
forgotten
can you imagine how it feels to have become old fashioned?

JANE FONDOO

Jane Fonda came on my TV
and told me to be spontaneous
“be spontaneous” she said
she said I could do whatever I feel like
whenever I feel like doing it

the next time I see Jane Fonda
I think I’ll punch her in the face
but it won’t be spontaneous
I’ve been thinking about that punch
for a long time

POSTCARD

I got a postcard from TUCSON ARIZONA
the picture on the front was of a lightning storm
over Kitt’s Observatory

I had an eccentric uncle
who lived his last years in Tucson
he was an inventor
when I was 5 or 6 years old
he started sending me
freaky scientific magazines
with significant passages underlined

I remember one picture in one magazine
a man sitting in a Studebaker
as thousands of volts of electricity
were discharged onto the roof of his car
from a big ball overhead
the man was smiling
to show he wasn’t afraid

INSTANT CHRISTIANITY

I used to think that jesus was born on Christmas
and died on Easter Day
the stories in the bible were read to me
and made me wonder
how one man could do so much
in four or five months

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR

our neighbors are still alive
they seem to be obsessed by
keeping us aware
of that fact

a big storm passed over last night
thunder and lightning
maybe their house would get hit?
no luck

the other day they had a fierce knockdown
and drag-out brawl
the husband punched the wife in the guts
the wife picked up an ax handle
and chased the husband into the house
their seven children stayed outside
screaming
and throwing rocks at the windows
when the fight was over
we heard someone over there
hammering nails into wood
a coffin perhaps?

yesterday the oldest kid
the one who tore down our mailbox
the one who dug up our garden
and threw the plants all over the road
the one who snuck into our house
and carved up our walls with a pocketknife
was swinging on a rope
and collided head-on with a tree
prefrontal lobotomy?
no way

but I should stop thinking about our neighbors
I just don’t love ’em that much

THE NEIGHBOR’S CLOTHESLINE

these people who live across the way
are celebrations of laziness
after 4 years they decided one day
to put up a clothesline

they washed a whole lot of dirty clothes
(some of them for the 1st time in 4 years)
and hung them out to dry

3 months later
THE CLOTHES WERE STILL THERE

meantime it had rained about 150 times
and near the end of the 3rd month
God decided to snow

when we were into our 3rd day
of the magic white powder
I looked out my window and saw those clothes
they had been washed by God 150 times
dried by God 150 times
and powdered by God
I could only sit there thinking:
WHAT MORE DO THEY WANT?

maybe they were waiting for God to come along
and take the washing off the line
bring it in
iron it
fold it and stack it in the cupboard

the snow piled up on the clothesline
between the pairs of stiff underwear
the next day our neighbors went out
and bought a dump truck

AN ANGRY REPLY TO A LETTER I NEVER RECEIVED
FROM GREGORY BATESON

the mailbox was empty
there was nothing there
I hadn’t been expecting anyone to write
but the mailman could have left
a little junk mail
or something

the breadbox was empty too
not a slice
not a crust
not a crumb
nothing at all

I glanced thru the newspaper
but there was nothing there
worth reading

I punched on the TV
and all the channels were blank
not even a test pattern
nothing

then the phone rang
I jerked up the receiver
and shouted hello
it was an old friend on the line
he asked me what I was angry about
“it’s nothing” I said

I can see now
how easy it is
to get steamed up
over nothing

DYLAN’S BOOTLEG

I listened to the Dylan bootleg album

after the record shut off
I carried on
making up words for his songs

” . . . with her neck in a noose
her knees in a knot
her tongue in a trap
and her thighs in your thoughts . . . ”

good stuff

Dylan should get hold of me
if he gets short of lyrics on his next album

PENIS AND THE BEACH BALLS

a double bill at the Forum tonight
first
Russian River Richard and the Metaphysical Epistemologists
(a rock ‘n roll revival band)
show up
and play a lot of golden oldies
they sing like neanderthals on vacation

then
a punk band comes on
with safety pins in their noses
“HEY I’M PENIS!’ says one into the microphone
“AND WE ARE THE BEACHBALLS!” says the rest of the group
in unison
Penis turns out to be an 8-year old girl
with orange hair
and the Beach Balls look like left-overs
from a drunken Chinese dinner

Penis sings 3 songs
I Don’t Care
I Can Do What I Wanna Do
and Fuck You
she sings the words like she means them
which is more than anyone could say
about Russian River Richard

this is a big year for the group
all the girls want to look like Penis
all the boys imitate the Beach Balls
boy and girls walk around their rooms
slouched-out
with safety pins in their noses
and orange hair
nobody is dancing

I remember Janis Joplin
Tina Turner
The Ronettes
on stage
but none of the guys here
are thinking about fucking penis

well, she’s only 8
that could be the difference

REUNION OF THE CLASS OF 1958

I was 6000 miles away
when the invitation to the 20th reunion
of my high school graduation class
came in the mail
I don’t know how they got my address
I thought I was well-hidden

the letter said it was going to be a picnic

I thought of all those kids
to whom I had nothing to say then
we were 20 years older
and we would have even less
to talk about now

in the envelope was a questionnaire
first a series of multiple choice questions
such as: FOOD (check one) I WILL BRING
MEATS OR POULTRY □
POTATO SALAD □
CAKES AND/OR PIES □
BEVERAGES □

I checked them all
I was back in English IV 20 years ago
taking a test
I was having fun

then came a series of “fill in the blanks”
that was a good game too
I wrote in anything that came to mind
I was having fun
until I came to this:
HOW MANY CHILDREN WILL YOU BRING? □
HOW MANY GRANDCHILDREN? □

grandchildren ?
I suppose it’s possible
some of the girls got married just out of school
already knocked up
if they’d raised their kids to act the same way
there probably would be a few grandchildren
staggering around the picnic
pissing in the potato salad

I threw the whole thing in the wastebasket
I had already decided I wouldn’t go
now I knew
I would even watch it if it was on TV

SIGNS OF LIFE IN THE WILDERNESS

he rides up the trail on a mule
which is pulling a housetrailer
a sign by the side of the road tells him:

YOU ARE NOW ENTERING
THE PARADISE VALLEY
WILDERNESS AREA

there’s also a sign on the side of his trailer:

HORSE TRAILER RENTALS
(MULES CAN PULL ‘EM TOO)

he dots the I of WILDERNESS
with a bullet from his Colt 45
and rides on down the trail
into Paradise Valley

THE BALLAD OF JUNKYARD JOE

Junkyard Joe slouched over
the handlebars
of his 2nd-hand
stripped-down
Harley XLCH
a White Owl cigar dangled from his jaw

“dirty deals and greasy wheels”
he hummed around the edge of his White Owl
and straightening up
he slammed down
on the starter
of his bike
and kicking his hog to life
and letting it idle in the polluted sunshine
he watched Bad Breath Bob
roll out from under a totaled
’55 Chevy
convertible

“what’s shakin’?” said Bad Breath Bob
flipping a crescent wrench
“gotta get outta dis junkyard, Triple B”
said J.J.
“cruise down t’inner city
t’ see a doc abouta
PER-SCRIP-SHUN!”

but as J.J. rode the backstreets
his bike leaning on the corners
his long hair blowing back in the wind
he fell back into his old dream:
wife, kids, home in the suburbs
white christmas
4th of july picnic
Joe Junior’s little league
Little Sally’s birthday party
Johnny Carson on the tube
a round of golf on Sunday morning

he slid his Harley to a stop
in front of the 3rd Street Bar & Grill
where a half dozen other Reptile Brains
were hangin’ out
and wiped the smile offa his face
“shit, fuck, man, I mean, shit . . . ”
J.J. was the self-proclaimed leader of the Reptile Brains
he had an image to keep polished
his slouch had to be MAINTAINED
QUANTUM MECHANICS

in the window of Joe’s Quantum Garage
is a sign:
HELP WANTED
ONLY QUANTUM MECHANICS NEED APPLY

inside the garage
a Chevy Impala is up on the racks
Jimmy Heisenberg is giving it a lube job

at a workbench
Frankie Schrodinger is taking a transmission apart

the gear box of a Ford Fairlane
is giving Bobby Plank a lot of trouble

if Joe could hire a few more guys
they’d get these jobs done a lot faster
get home to their wives
and frozen pizza dinners
and maybe get in a little bowling
or shoot a little pool with the boys
later on tonight

but as it stands
they’re gonna be doin’ overtime
for the 3rd night in a row
these cars keep comin’ in off the streets
and their owners want ’em repaired RIGHT NOW!

for example:
this lilac Lincoln Continental
that’s being towed in
with 2 front flat tires
it’s driver still behind the wheel

Frank and Jimmy and Booby
take one look at it
and throw up their hands

to see grown men vomiting their hands
is more than the driver can take

he starts his lilac Lincoln
breaks away from the tow truck
ripping off his front bumper
backs into the street
and speeds away into the night
his 2 front tires flapping
from side to side

no one knows what’s going to happen next

WHAT DID WE HAVE IN COMMON?

what did we have in common?
– a deep love for symphonic music
– a carefully cultivated taste for 12-year old French wines
– an unending fascination for the writings of Anais Nin
– a superstitious but sentimental obsession
for flying kites
and making wishes on a rainbow
– an uninhibited appreciation of Salvador Dali’s paintings
– an overflowing compassion for stray dogs and cats
– a careless tendency to speak only the truth
and a pathological need to be liked by everyone we met
apart from that we were total strangers

THE FACTS OF LIFE VS THE ACCIDENTS OF YOUTH

Part 1: in which the autoharp is invented

perhaps you’re wondering about my childhood
but then again there’s an even greater chance that you’re not
maybe you’d like some facts for a change?

I recently celebrated by 35th birthday
that’s a fact
there were candles on the cake that helped me celebrate
my 35th birthday
I noticed the box from which they came
contained 36 candles
the question is: what will I do when I’m 37?
the answer is simple:
buy 2 boxes of candles

would you like some more facts?
I was the oldest of several cousins
once a year we sat around patiently
after a thanksgiving supper
while one of our uncles showed his home movies
on a sheet tacked to the wall
the part we liked the best
was when he showed the movies backwards
that’s a fact

I saw my first and only 3-D movie in 1953
we, the people in the theater, sat there
with those idiot paper glasses on
and watched people on the screen
throw knives and swords
and barrels of water at us
the best part of that movie
was when one of the actors spit
the glob of goo came out of the screen
right at us
everybody ducked
Hollywood was finally telling its audience
how it felt about them

another uncle, Uncle Chuck
who had once been an all-American guard
used to bring me footballs for Christmas
footballs and football uniforms
the uniforms weighed more than I
and when he tossed me a football
it knocked me over
I was only 4, 5, 6, and 7 but even then, I knew
I’d never be all-American

America dropped the bomb when I was 4
I don’t remember that
I had to take their word for it
evidence, however, has filtered down over the years

I never knew my paternal grandfather
I didn’t even know my father very well
I was told that my grandfather’s brother
invented the autoharp
it was hard to believe
at school we were forced to play those instruments
everyone in music class
had an autoharp
each one out of tune
with all those untuned autoharps
in all those school across America
we should have been rich
I found it hard to believe also
because I was being told a lot of lies
about other things too

lies were all over the place
just lying around
but only the adults got to tell them
they told us kids:
“always tell the truth
and you won’t get into trouble”
which was the biggest lie of all

my other grandfather gave me a dictionary
and a pair of fingernail scissors when I was 10
35 years later I still cut my fingernails
and toenails with those clippers
tho they haven’t been sharpened once in all that time
but you didn’t come in here
to hear about my fingernails and toenails
the part you want to hear about is the dictionary:
the dictionary ceased to be a useful reference book
long ago
now it’s nothing more
than an interesting historical document

the only thing I learned in school that did me any good
was a song that circulated at recess
behind the baseball backstop
I can remember only the last line:
if you ever get hit with a bucket of shit
be sure to close your eyes
everything else they taught us was in the bucket

I got my first pair of glasses in the 3rd grade
since the classes were seated alphabetically
that put me in the back row
so
with my 20/800 natural eyesight
I’d already had 2
full years of useless education by then
the blackboard was so far away
it could have been in outer space
but there was the good side of it:
2 + 2 could equal anything I wanted

every kid had a dog
mine was named Tippy
except he wasn’t mine
he belonged to himself
I brought him into the house one day
and held him up in front of the mirror
he didn’t pay any attention to his reflection
a wise dog
I couldn’t teach him any tricks either
my respect for him increased after each try

when I turned on the radio one day
and picked up a black station from Oakland
and heard Hank Ballard & the Midnighters
sing Annie Had a Baby
I knew the end of my childhood
was close at hand

when I was 12 I heard a story about a man
who committed suicide
gas
asphyxiation
he ate a can of beans
locked himself in a closet
and farted himself to death
but by then I had given up trying
to separate the truth from the lies
it didn’t make any difference anymore

Part 2: in which German shepherd dogs lick little kids faces

in the 1st grade kids from the 8th grade
waited for me outside after school, grabbed me
held me down on the pavement
and encouraged their German shepherd dog to lick my face
they were had a good time
even the dog

in the 2nd grade they took my picture and I had to make
a frame for it to give my parents
they handed me a small paper plate
the kind you get at picnics full of potato salad
I had to glue my picture in there
where the potato salad was supposed to go

in the 3rd grade I picked up a lead pipe at recess
and bashed in another guy’s skull with it
that was the 1st time I’d fought back
it was generally agreed that I had gone too far

I skipped the 4th grade, they tell me I didn’t miss much

in the 5th grade I signed up for school band
I wanted to play trumpet but the teacher took one look
and stuck a trombone in my hands
“you look like a trombone” he said
the truth was he couldn’t get anyone else to play it
it was too heavy to carry around
and it didn’t have any of the hot-shit melodies
so I carried around my trombone
which was bigger than me
and which looked like me
and started getting good at the things
the other kids didn’t want to do

in the 6th grade at one lunch hour when it was raining
we were tossing a football around the class room
where others were still eating lunch
I flipped a pass which fell short
and landed in a girl’s potatoes and gravy
we were punished of course
but I’ll never forget the game
it was the closest I ever came to making the team

in the 7th grade the kids started
getting to my lunch sack
with my name printed on it
and adding a cross to the initial of my 1st name
2 years later
it would have been taken as a compliment

in the 8th grade some kids from my class
waited for the 1st graders
outside after school
and held them down while a German shepherd dog
licked their faces
but I was into more important things by then
like telling the teacher in class he was full of shit

after we left the 8th grade
they decided to start a junior high school
so we were 9th graders instead of freshmen
2 years in a row
we were the kings of crap mountain
we weren’t prepared for that 1st year in high school

in high school we were introduced to
smoking in the student parking lot
school dances
football games
basketball games
and big tits
they all went together somehow
but I was a poor student
and looked at them as separate things
I’d brought along my rhythm ‘n blues 45’s
from jr. high
but nobody there was interested in these tunes
Elvis Presley was just being invented

in my junior year we discovered
that the class behind us was twice our size
– war babies they called them
(some were OK considering their fathers
had been in a panic to leave them behind)
so we looked at the big tits instead of the books
there was no way we could fail
they just didn’t have enough space

in my senior year we had a special class
we each took turns privately with the teacher
who usually taught drivers education
we went out alone with him in the school Pontiac
which he parked on a lonely country road
he took a small sack of marijuana from the glove compartment
and held in front of my face
“one puff of this” he said
“and you will be hopelessly addicted for life”

I graduated from high school with a D average
in a class of 128 students
I came in 122
the teachers didn’t think much of me
by that I mean
they didn’t even know I was there
I would probably get a job at the sawmill
or the packing plant
and stay there forever
I surprised no one but myself
my leaving town
and never going back

TEN YEARS LATER

10 years later I met a guy about my age
who wished there was some way to go back in time
to high school
knowing what he knew now
and do it again

“man, I’d take along some Beatles
and Stones and Doors and blow
their minds”

“man, I’d go back with long hair
and really freak ’em out”

“man, I’d fuck all the chicks
who were just begging for it then
but which us guys were too stupid
or scared to do anything about”

but he was forgetting something:
the endless hours
in those classes
when NOTHING was happening
except maybe a fly
buzzing around the room
and we just sat
and watched the hand
of the clock
click slowly
around and around
and around
waiting hours
for the click of each minute

I can’t think of a more perfect torture
than to be sent back
knowing what I know now
to that cesspool of boredom
and besides I’m sure
the girls fucked much better
in our imaginations
than they would have
in the backseat
of some used ’51 Ford

ANOTHER USELESS ARGUMENT

mother: you should be grateful
after everything i did for you
child: then you didn’t do it for me
you did it for yourself

I wish they were on television
so I could shut them off

it’s a useless argument

vegetarians remind us: Buddha died
after eating a meal of pork
I reply: christ dies after eating a meal
of bread and water

another useless argument

on the 1st page of the book is the word
“OM!”
then a short explanation saying
that OM is the beginning
the middle
and the end
of everything in the universe
I flip thru the remaining 467 pages of the book
and ask the author
who is not in the room
why he bothered to write all the rest
of this crap

another useless argument

I lift my hand from the table
on which my fingers have been tapping
and try the bent edges of a faded photograph
it’s a picture of a guy in a swimsuit
sitting next to a pool
blowing into a trombone
I don’t know where this picture came from
I don’t even know anything about this guy
in fact, he doesn’t interest me at all
but I continue to study the picture
it’s better than another useless argument

2 DOWN IN THE BOTTOM OF THE 9TH
WITH THE STRIKEOUT KING AT THE PLATE

to start with the club was lousy
the audience was lousy
and the meal afterwards was lousy too

then the organizer told me
he’d forgotten to book a hotel
so I had to sleep in his living room
on a couch that was about 6 inches too short
so far it was a normal evening
it was 3 a.m.
I had to catch a train at 7

things started getting rough about 3:30
when the hamster across the room
decided he needed some exercise
he had one of those wheels he could get inside of
and run and run forever
but with the hamster clicking away
I fell to sleep anyway

that is until about 4
when the cat attacked my barefeet
hanging over the end of the couch

I put the cat in the kitchen
limped back to the couch
curled up
and was just getting into my first good dream
when small hard candies in cellophane wrappers
started landing on my face and body

I leaned up and looked over the couch
it was the guy’s little kid
about 5 years of spoiled rotten
with a shit-eating grin on his face
he kept tossing

I picked up an orange from the coffee table
and threw it with my left hand
I threw it as hard as I could
it hit the kid square between the eyes
– strike one!
there was no way I was going to lose this ballgame

THINGSGIVING

she was a fan of mine
she had a poster of me on the wall
she had all my albums
– one with an autograph

I don’t know how that got there
I’m always giving things away
without knowing it

PEOPLE ACT IN STRANGE AND CONTRADICTORY WAYS

they burn Vonnegut’s books
in South Dakota
the janitor takes them off the library shelves
and dumps them in the incinerator
the kids stand around
watching the flames

then they go down to the drugstore
and buy copies of Slaughterhouse 5
just to see what the smoke was all about

PEOPLE ACT IN STRANGE AND CONTRADICTORY WAYS

you’re in the hospital
you’ve just had your appendix out
it’s after midnight
you’re having your 1st good sleep
in weeks
when the nurse shakes you by the shoulder
“wake up!”
“huh?”
“come on, wake up!”
“huh? what is it?”
“time to take your sleeping pill”

THE SENSORY DEPRIVATION TANK

the U.S. Navy has come up with
THE SENSORY DEPRIVATION TANK
(evil poetic images rise in my brain)
they talk about green beret commandos
back from the far east
with their private collections of earlobes
dumped into its isolated waters
and being turned into screaming
hysterical
teenage housewives
in a matter of 21½ seconds flat

the scientists who run this project
have high IQs
and high ambitions
they speak of man’s evolution
as easily as you or I
cut the grass with a lawn mower
they speak of transcending the human body
as easily as you or me
sweep up the dirt with a vacuum cleaner
only the best minds will survive
they say
(they’re talking about themselves)

now by no means do I feel
(or at least most of the time I don’t)
that Arnold Schwarzenegger is the perfect model
for the house that awaits man
on his next swing across the jungle
on a vine
or, as they say in the Old West University,
the last step
on the human evolutionary
spiral staircase
but there are those still among us
who need a little extra armpit sweat
where would the Chicago Bears be without it?
Sam Peckinpah?
King Kong?

so how about it, boys?
fill up the pool
give it another name
and I might even give it a try myself
if you’ll let me bring along
my rubber gorilla

DESCARTES WAS A CLEAN MAN

perhaps it starts like this:
you sense that there exists
in the world around you
great confusion
you seek to understand the confusion
you read books
you think a lot
you read more books
and sooner or later you bump into Descartes
he confirms the power of thought
but you discover that
ideas such as his
have created the confusion

stated explicitly:
the means by which
you seek to understand
are revealed as faults
in the system of understanding

or as Descartes’ acquaintances
used to whisper behind his back
“every time he takes a shower
he complains about getting wet”

USEFUL PIECE

you’re a useful piece of information
you’re a peaceful use of information
come on, baby, hold my hand
you’re a useful piece of information
come on, baby, hold me tight
you’re a peaceful use of information
you . . . you . . . you . . . useful
piece of information
don’t tell me about it
you’re a useful piece of information
I don’t want to know about you
cause you’re a useful piece
of information
ah, forget about the information
you’re a useful piece of ass

CHILDHOOD MEMORIES

brain research hasn’t come up
with anything solid
it could be electricity
it could be liquid
one authority sticks out his neck and says
memories could be stored
in tiny gas bubbles
that sounds as good as anything else
I’ve read in these books lately

I can imagine all my childhood memories
each inside a tiny gas bubble
packed into the cells of my brain
like transparent 8 balls
in the pockets
of an organic pool table

but recently I’ve been having a hard time
with memories
my kid says, “tell me about when you were small”
and I can’t remember anything but a few
empty side pockets

instead I fart (poot!)
and another childhood memories escapes
and rises past my nose (sniff!)
I’m losing my mind

THE SLEEPING BAG FART

there’s a certain kind of fart
which I call the sleeping bag fart
it used to smell delicious

it got its name from those summer camp
2-week affairs in the woods
when we were fed platefuls of beans
everyday
which bubbled down
thru the inner tubes
in a matter of hours

a plateful of beans was perfectly timed
for lights out down in your sleeping bag
R-I-I-I-I-P-P-P-P!
(a sleeping bag fart)

some critics say there is a kind of writing
which they call muscular prose
there must be obese prose too
but probably only a thin man
would make that observation
in fact there must be
90-pound weakling prose
long, tall Texan prose
short fat Fanny prose
as well as diarhetic
and constipated prose

but the sleeping bag fart is pure poetry

WHAT GOES IN HAS GOTTA COME OUT . . . SOMETIME

why is it in the movies
you almost never see the characters
shitting, pissing, or farting?
and even then it’s not the hero
and never a woman
(one scene in Fellini
one in Wim Wenders
and, yes I know, Blazing Saddles
– but Mel Brookes
is no ordinary man)

here’s a typical scene:
the man gets up, he’s late for the office
he shaves, has a quick cup of coffee
and he’s into his car and off to work
what’s wrong?
he forgot to piss
I mean, everybody takes a piss in the morning
it’s the 1st thing you do

I think John Travolta
dancing around in Saturday Night Fever
letting off a few well-timed ass-rippers
would have added spice to that film
or Marlon Brando in The Godfather
in a high-level conference with the dons
lifting up his leg to cut the cheese
would have been appropriate
(everything else in there was pretty realistic)

my little boy answers my question:
“they got more interesting things to show”
like what?
car crashes
rapes
shootouts
I agree, those are pretty exciting things

they say we spend a 3rd of our life
sleeping
I get the impression
that I spend 10 percent of the rest
pissing, shitting, and farting
it may not always be exciting
but I’m usually having a good time
in fact some of my favorite ideas
occur to me when I’m standing here
taking a leak

DROPPING NAMES

I’ve got all these misprounced names
which I’ve given to movie stars
I don’t know why I do it
the names just slip out:

Henry Fondoo
Orson Wellsfargo
Gregory Woodpecker
Steve McQueenofengland
Cary Granite
Dustbin Hoffmanhole
Audrey Heartburn
Marilyn Skidrow
William Holdup
Raquel Belch
Jean-Paul Melbongo
Ursula Undress
Barbra Stretchpants
and
Fade Runaway

maybe it’s because some of the originals
are too perfect
or maybe I’m out to get revenge
for the name I got stuck with
who knows?
who’s to blame?
Warren Beastie
and Charlotte Rampage
– that’s who

W.C. FIELDS’ SECRET

I try to imitate W.C. Fields’ voice
and my friends laugh
even tho it comes out
sounding like Henry Kissinger

“you are a funny man” they say

but we all know it came out wrong

the secret of W.C. Fields’ voice
was the cigar
in the other corner
of his mouth

LETTER

I was glad when she wrote

it reminded me that I’d been thinking
about her
a lot
lately

WEATHERMEN IN THEIR WEATHERSTATIONS

few people realize
in this great age of technology
that weathermen in their weatherstations
do not predict the weather
anymore

they control it

they work for the ruling powers
whose main job is to keep the people
under control

I don’t know how they do it
(I’m talking about
the weathermen in their weatherstations
and not the ruling powers)
but they’re getting pretty good
at controlling the weather

and controlling our emotions along with it

word comes down
from the ruling powers
“excessive rain
to cause severe states
of depression
a little sunshine
to give a little hope
then hit ’em with
buckets of rain
to really shatter their spirits”

unfortunately for them
(I’m talking about the ruling powers
and not the weathermen in their weatherstations)
I love the rain
but I’m sure they’ll find some way
to get me

I hear they’ve got these machines
that broadcast special radio waves
that make people paranoid

DREAMS

when I go to bed
and lay down to sleep
the dreams from the night before
are waiting for me
they’re hiding in the sheets
they’re all over the pillow

but when I wake in the morning
those old dreams are gone
wiped out
erased
they’ve been replaced by new ones:
a tree in a courtyard
a spiderweb
a curved stone wall
a field of tall grass

I get up and go about my day
gradually forgetting about these new dreams

but when I go back to sleep at night
the tree and the spiderweb
the stone wall and the grass
are waiting for me
hiding in the sheets
all over the pillow

it’s a different bed
it keeps changing night after night

DALLAS GETS INTO MY DREAMS

I dreamed I fucked Sue Ellen
J.R. was in the other room
helpless
completely defeated

I know the American imagination
has given the world
much greater fictional characters:
Moby Dick
The Great Gatsby
Philip Marlowe
Holden Caufield
Randle McMurphy
Bob Slocum
Billy Pilgrim
and Montana Wildhack

but Montana Wildhack on the cover
of a Kilgore Trout novel
is nothing compared to Sue Ellen in bed

PORTABLE QUARTZ ALARM CLOCKS

on the way to the station
in Geneva
I bought an expensive
portable
quartz alarm clock
it stopped running
soon after I got on the train
I changed its batteries
tapped it against the heel of my boot
but there was nothing I could do
to get it going again

farther down the line
in Neuchatel
I went straight out
and bought another
portable quartz alarm clock
this time a cheap one
I took it back to the hotel
and looked at it
for a couple of hours
it worked fine

but at precisely 4:17 that night
it stopped running
I found this out when I woke up
too late for breakfast
no longer being served
after 10 a.m.

I threw it in the garbage
and decided to take the train
back to Geneva
and get the expensive one replaced

as I was walking thru the station
its alarm went off inside my suitcase

THIS IS NO ORDINARY HOT AIR BALLOON

they’ve commercialized alienation
they’re selling us alienation
they’re making a profit from alienation
ALIEN underarm deodorants
ALIEN floor wax
ALIEN detergents
ALIEN Japanese motor bikes
ALIEN dog foods
you can brush your teeth with ALIEN toothpaste
you can send ALIEN greeting cards if you care enough
you can shave with ALIEN electric razors
you can take fast-acting ALIEN
for instant relief
you can lose weight the ALIEN way
you can fly ALIEN airlines
and watch an ALIEN movie in mid-flight

but I wouldn’t walk a mile for an ALIEN
I wouldn’t even walk outside
I’ll just sit here in front of my ALIEN TV
with a can of ALIEN beer in my hand
and watch some guy on the screen
try to sell me
and ALIEN insurance policy

when the flying saucers land
there shouldn’t be any problem
they’ll feel right at home
at they drive down Sunset Blvd.
in their ALIEN rent-a-cars

MARY SAID SHE HAD TO DO SOME PUSH-UPS ON THE FLOOR WITH THE BOY SHE BROUGHT HOME FROM SCHOOL

one – two – one – two
“ouch!”
one – two – one – two
“wait, hold it, that hurts!”
one – two
“that better?”
“yeah”
one – two
“yeah”
one – two – three – four
“hope my dad doesn’t catch us”
one-two-three-four-five-six
“hope I don’t get pregnant”
onetwo onetwo
“shit, I think I hear my mom’s car!”
four three two ONE!
“Mary . . . is that you?”

IN FLAGRANTE DELICTO

the cops caught up with me in the park
I was sitting on a bench in front of the fountain
I’d been walking around the city all day
daydreaming

I had already scored the winning touchdown
for the Miami Dolphins
in the Superbowl
I had already disrobed and successfully seduced
the girl behind the counter at Hamburger Heaven
2 young divorcees window shopping in the mall
and 3 secretaries in mini-skirts
leisurely returning from their lunch break
I had already been chosen by extra-terrestrials
as the only human being they wished to meet
(the rendez-vous had taken place
on a deserted mountain top
late at night
with great spiritual rewards
for all who showed up)
I had already out-danced John Travolta
in a disco contest
(while browsing thru a record boutique)
and I was in the Monaco Grand Prix
driving my Ferrari Formula One
across the finish line in first place
when the police chief’s voice came blasting
thru the bullhorn:
“we have the park surrounded
you are under arrest
put your hands on your head
and surrender peacefully”

he was right
I looked around and saw a SWAT team in every tree
the National Guard was laying a strip of land mines
between me and the sand box
a division of U.S. Marines had set up a ring
of machine guns and tanks
on the perimeter of the park
choppers were hovering overhead
and the U.S. Airforce was standing by
to do a little low-level napalm bombing
if things got out of control
somehow the U.S. Navy had managed to get
into the fountain
undetected
and had set up a surface-to-air nuclear warhead

of course I hadn’t noticed that last one
that must have happened about the time
my 1st Piano Concerto
was being performed by the N.Y. Philharmonic
Herbert van Karajan, guest conductor
Glenn Gould, soloist
I was in the front row of Carnegie Hall
helping van Karajan keep time
by waving my arms around in the air

there wasn’t much I could do
they had caught me in the act

I put my hands on my head
and guarded closely by a special squad
of F.B.I. agents I was hustled
into an unmarked armored car
and driven down streets lined with angry citizens
shouting insults
and throwing rocks and bottles
to the city prison
where I was locked in maximum security

but the judge in court dismissed the charges
“there’s not a law in the books” he said
“to punish this despicable
anti-social
and (I might add)
obscene sort of behavior”

walking out of court i fell into a daydream
i imagined in was living in a world
where daydreaming was a crime
men with black sacks over their heads
were strapping me down
they were getting ready
to fry me
in that old electric rocking chair

I’M GLAD IT WASN’T MICKEY MOUSE

we couldn’t think of the actor’s name
the one who’d played in Pat Garret and Billy the Kid
who’d played in Long Day’s Journey into Night
who’d played in Once Upon a Time in the West

we walked around for hours but the name wouldn’t come
I stopped to tie my shoelaces
while she stared at a garbage can
then she said it, quietly, as if no one cared
“Jason Robards”

after that Jason Robards was everywhere
Jason Robards on the radio
Jason Robards on the phone
Jason Robards out jogging
Jason Robards walking his dog

the postman was Jason Robards
the gas station attendant was Jason Robards
the man living upstairs was Jason Robards

we had Jason Robards ham and eggs for breakfast
we had Jason Robards spaghetti for dinner
we had Jason Robards coming out our ears
and then the inevitable happened:
I, myself, became Jason Robards

later I went back alone
to find that garbage can
hoping to discover the piece of trash
that had started it all

but the garbage can was empty
Jason Robards, the garbage collector
had been around since then

NO, BUT I READ THE BOOK

I answered the phone
in my best Humphrey Bogart
Lee Marvin
Robert Mitchum voice
“make it quick, I got a gun pointed at my head”
“hi, honey . . . how you been?”
it was a woman I didn’t know
giving me her best Mae West
Marlene Dietrich
Dolly Parton voice
she had the wrong number
but we kept up the conversation
each waiting for the other to give in

finally we decided to meet that night
have a couple of drinks
talk about old times
we agreed on a sleazy bar
just off skid row

she was already there when I arrived
a thin, delicate girl
who looked like she’d just stepped out
of The Shining
as Shelly Duvall
I was wearing my plastic anorak
and white sneakers
“hi” I said, sounding like Richard Dreyfus
in Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind
“is it really you?” she asked sounding
like Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz
“that’s right . . . you must be . . . ”
“gee!”
I was Woody Allen
in Play it Again Sam
she was Mia Farrow
in Rosemary’s Baby

we each had a coke
talked about the weather
and decided to get married

“do you take this woman to be your wife?”
said the preacher
who was Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones
“I wouldn’t be here wasting everybody’s time if I didn’t”
replied Marlon Brando’s Godfather
“skip the formalities, mister, can’t you see
he’s got a gun pointed at his head?”
said Anne Bancroft’s Mrs. Robinson

HE FLOATS LIKE A FLY IN BUTTERMILK
AND SINGS LIKE A DROWNING STOOL PIGEON

I can hear it already:
“he writes like Brautigan
and he reads like Bukowski”
and it’s not intended to be a compliment

before I got into this
I had other things on my mind, like:
I hope it doesn’t rain
and
yes, those pot seeds turned out to be beans
and
don’t forget, garbage day tomorrow
and
that’s right, my kid’s been after me all week
to raise the seat on his bike
and
why not? a cup of coffee would be nice
and
look at the clock, I’ve gotta get into town
and get those books back to the library
and
I wonder, will I get back in time
for the half finals of the U.S. Open on TV?

but now that you mention it
I just may go down to the tracks this afternoon
lose a few bucks on the horses
pick up a couple of 6-packs
and one lonely hooker
on the way back
and
next week
maybe do a little trout fishing in Japan
after all

THE U.S. OPEN

Borg and McEnroe were going at it on my TV
when there was a knock on my door
it was the finals of the U.S. Open
Borg was playing like the cool cat he was
but it looked like the Mac was going to win
the knocking came again
“come in” I shouted
McEnroe was whining at the line judges
frowning at his racket between serves
and looking like he’d rather use it on Borg’s head
instead of that small tennis ball
the knocking continued
I got up
my eyes still glued to the screen
I reached without looking
and opened the door
“come in” I said
my back still turned
as I walked back to the TV
McEnroe bounced the ball a couple of times
and served an ace into Borg’s outside corner
I was hoping McEnroe would lose
but it didn’t look like I was going to get my wish
“he serves well
– for a kid”
the voice was familiar
I turned around
Jimmy Conners was standing there
a scotch on the rocks in his hand
“make yourself at home”
I said
“thanks, I already have”
said Jimmy
“who’s ahead?”

TUNNEL VISION

I’m the doubtful owner if a new pair
of gold frames for my old lenses

I’ve only looked at trees and birds thru them so far
so I don’t know how people are going to turn out

I suppose they’ll look about the same
as they did thru the old pair
that is to say –
a little worried

ANIMALS

1.
human beings are not my favorite animals
dolphins are more graceful
lemurs more pure
horses have more beauty
wolves have more dignity

elephants, tho enormous,
aren’t interested in pushing anyone around
badgers, tho small,
don’t take shit from anyone

rattlesnakes, tho dangerous,
are always reasonable
pigs have a better sense of humor
even a good dog or cat has more sense

but once in a while I meet a human being
who does not make me ashamed of my species
once in a while I meet one
who had grace, purity, beauty, and dignity
and it’s usually a child

2.
humans built this ladder
and then declared
the top rung
was their private property

all the other animals sat around
looking at the ladder
that led down into a hole in the ground
wondering why
anyone would want to climb down there

THOSE WEAR CLOTHES

cats don’t wear hats
flies don’t wear ties
pigs don’t wear wigs
doves don’t wear gloves

ants don’t wear pants
goats don’t wear coats
men don’t go naked
those wear clothes

STEAM BATH

I’d never been to a steam bath before
but I’ll try anything once
as long as it doesn’t include
standing in front of a moving car
or mainlining a gallon of red wine
to see if I can get drunk
without getting the stomach involved

the room was tiled and smelled of chlorine
the girl behind the counter
had on a white uniform
the kind nurses wear
I paid my buck fifty, got my locker key
and strolled down the hall
thru the swinging doors
into a room full of steam

I undressed, put my stuff in the locker
hung the key around my neck
and wandered around, wondering
what I was supposed to do

naked men were strolling around
with towels around their necks
one with glasses
kept wiping the moisture away
with the corner of his towel
at the end of the room
sat a fat man
in a plastic sun deck chair
reading a newspaper
looking like a degenerate Buddha
“first time?”
I nodded
“trying to figure out what to do?”
I nodded again
he pointed to a wooden bench
“sit down and sweat it out –
or if it gets to be too much
you can take a cold shower
they’re by the door where you came in”
I said “thanks” and walked back down the hall
“hey” said the fat man
“you forgot to pick up a towel”

he was right
I was already sweating so much
that even without a shower
I was too wet to put on my clothes
I walked back thru the swinging door
and up to the counter
“can I have a towel, please?”
she looked up from her crossword puzzle
her eyes traveling from my face
to my dangling genitalia
she put her hand over her mouth
and with her eyes wide open
backed out of the room

how about that?
I’d forgotten I was a man
and that she was a woman
I wished that would happen more often

SEVEN FAILED ROMANCES

1.

I had my tongue in my cheek
and the lights turned down low
she had nothing but time
and a bad reputation
after that we just sort of
drifted apart

2.

she sat up in bed knitting
I lay on the couch in the next room
listening to the Ronettes on the radio
she kept calling for me to come to bed
but I knew she was knitting baby clothes
so I went to sleep where I was

3.

I was just off the plane from San Francisco
arriving at the house
where some friends were staying

she was coming out the door
as I was going in

she was on her way to catch a plane
to New York City

4.

she was 18 and looked 27
I was 42 and felt like 33
if I’d been 3 years younger
and she’d been 3 years older
we would have been perfect for each other

5.

I was tired of being alone
and happy to be alive
I was ready to fall in love with anyone

she was at the end
of a string of broken hearts
and looking for solitude

6.

everything was going fine
until the next morning
when she ate a huge breakfast
then put her fingers down her throat
and puked it up
saying she had to watch her weight

7.

we had an electric attraction
every time we touched
there was a spark
we got a shock
we tried to imagine a future
of gum boots
and rubber gloves
it was too much
for either one of us

TIME LIMITS

people are always putting time limits
on themselves and others
“you have exactly one minute
to make up your mind”
“if you’re not out of town by sunset
you’re going to be in big trouble”
“I’ll give you 48 hours
to think it over”
“we have one week to come up with a solution
or we’ll all be out of a job”

it’s always round numbers
a day, a week, a minute, an hour
sometimes it’s a second
“if you’re not out of this room
in ten seconds flat
I’ll throw you out the window”
you never hear:
“I’ll give you 47 hours and 52 minutes
to get out of town”
it’s always 48
or 24
or 12
it’s never ten minutes before or after
sunset
it’s always sunset

I sometimes think
that if I had to make up my mind
a minute would not be enough
maybe it would take a minute and a half
other times it wouldn’t take any time at all
I would already know the answer
I would have been thinking about it
for the past 3 years

THAT MAGIC TRICK SET

walking down a street when I was a kid
I used to play a game with myself
if I don’t make it to the next lamp post
before that car I hear coming gets there
then . . .
the punishments were always unusual and unjust
they’ll drop the atomic bomb
or I’ll never grow any taller
I’ll be a midget all my life
or worse I won’t get that magic trick set
for my birthday

sometimes I won, sometimes I lost
it was hard losing

now I just walk down the street
it’s all different
I hear the cars pass
without looking up
and I don’t even see the lamp posts

WHITE NOISE

we need noise
we’d go crazy without it
it’s always there
a refrigerator humming
an airplane passing
a dog’s bark
the sound of the radio next door
even those embarrassing so-called silences
at the dinner table with invited guests
when no one knows what to say
you can always hear someone
swallow their food

you get the kids out of the house
the phone rings
when the conversation in the bar dies down
someone cranks up the pinball
when the singer’s finished his song
you can’t help clapping your hands
even when a TV station goes off the air
it leaves behind all that beautiful
white
noise

imagine silence
no noise – nothing at all
it would be a total
screaming
silence

ANOTHER AGE ANOTHER CENTURY

I was born in 1941
everything that happened before that
seems remote
even the 30’s belong to another age
another century
the depression years, the names
of Al Capone and John Dillinger
seem far removed in time
they don’t have anything to do with me

my son was born in 1976
the 60’s will seem the same to him
Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix
will be quaint names from a distant past
even the disco music
we’re listening to on the radio right now
will seem to him someday
as the music of Glenn Miller
and Benny Goodman seem to me
remote
of another age
belonging to another century

RINGS OF FIRE AND AN ASSHOLE FULL OF ICE

I read in a book that when you take a shot of whiskey
in cold weather
it’s only your imagination that warms you up
(quote) alcohol takes blood away from the surface of the skin
if anything it causes a fall in body temperature (unquote)

I quoted this passage to a guy
who was raised in a strict puritan family
he told me this:
“I don’t know
every time I drink a drop of the Devil’s Temptation
I see rings of fire rise up around me
lord, it’s enough to keep me warm all winter”

now when I take a shot of whiskey
I don’t see rings of fire
but by the end of the bottle
I can sit out in the snow, naked
eating vanilla ice cream cones
and ask the lord when he’s gonna send
a little cool weather my way
for a change

AUTOGRAPHED GRAFFITI
(copied from the walls of imaginary men’s toilets
all over the imaginary world)

it’s wake up in the morning
with mung (!) on your tongue
zof (!) in your eyes
and flatch (!) in your dung

the old toilet papers
are slices of truth
you brush your teeth
and lose another tooth
(Burma Shave)

I am a bear
I live in bear land
bear skin I wear
what a bear I am
(anon.)

whoever wrote the above
is full of shit
he’s also such an anus
that all the laxatives in the world
won’t help him unload
(Winnie-the-Pooh)

well, let me tell you folks
that shit blew my head off
man, I was flying
(Timothy Leary, Ph.D.)

if you don’t like solitaire
why don’t you try passing the time
by playing a little 4-hand canasta?
(the Manchurian Candidate)

(hastily scrawled in ball point
beneath a pair of dirty underwear
nailed to the wall)
here hangs Paganini’s bikini
she was a great lady
and she sure as hell could play the fiddle
(Yehudi Menuhin)

after the third beep
the perfect obscene phone call
will become a thing of the past
((signed) the Third Beep

several secretaries
in a subway chewing gum
advertising athlete’s feet
and dreams for deaf and dumb
oh lord, why hast speech forsaken me?
(Matthew 6, Verse 35)

in this life I am a freak
in the one before I guess I was a Greek
the time before that I must’ve had a beak
next time around I think I’ll learn to speak
but right now, friends, I’ve gotta take a leak
– The Bar-Bell Buddha
alias the Mystical Weight Lifter

for those who are interested
in low-cost harmonica lessons
please sign below –
Scarlet O’Hara
Buffalo Bill
Che Guevara
Cecil B. de Mille

Don Quixote
Short Fat Fanny
Casanova
Little Orphan Annie

Zarathustra
Ali McGraw
Romeo and Juliet
and Sam Peckinpaw

Joan Baez
Sigmund Freud
Aunt Jemima
Harold Lloyd

Vincent Price
the Virgin Mary
Mahalia Jackson
Dirty Harry

Jerry Lee Lewis
and Christine Keeler
Dolly Parton
and the Pittsburgh Steelers

a rabbit in the fields
seen thru the squares of a wire fence
jumps from frame to frame
– Waylon Jennings

a fly walks on my window
behind the window
telephone wires?
– Willie Nelson

these Nelson and Jennings characters
don’t know nothin’ about haiku
here’s one to show y’all
how it’s done:

let me give you a hand
let me give you a mojo hand
let me give you a mojo handshake
– Toshiro Mifune

my record collection is full of dead people
– Philip Marlowe

I guess I got the wrong door
but now that I’m here
I’m gonna make the best
of a good situation
and show you boys
exactly how I want that grape peeled
– Alice in Wonderland

listen Alice
I don’t mind you quoting me
but I think you should know
I’ve been in her long before you
and I’ve just been too busy
to do any serious letter writing
– Mae West

I’ve been standing in here all day
staring at the wall
trying to think
of something
to write on it
but all I can think of
is that roses are red
and violets are blue thing
I learned in school
I can’t remember how the rest of it goes
please help me
– Richard M. Nixon

Dear Dick
I think it goes like this:
roses are red
violets are blue
let’s ride into town
on a fat kangaroo
– Frank Sinatra
p.s. but I’m not sure
could someone check it out?

well, I checked it out
and you got it wrong
here’s the original version:
the moving finger writes
and having writ – moves on
roses are red
and violets are blue
– Omar Khayyam Jr.

Japanese and Chinese poets
used to write their poems
then cast them into rivers
and watch them float away
when you’re finished reading this wall
please flush it down the toilet
(the management)

IF I’D BEEN AROUND

if I’d been around when Einstein was struggling
with the final equations of his Unified Field Theory
I would have made a few rapid calculations
and had it wrapped up in a couple of hours
and we could have gone out for a drink

if I’d been around when Leonardo da Vinci
was painting the Mona Lisa
he would have handed me the brush and said
“here – you do the smile”

if I’d been around when Christ was crucified
I would have talked P.Pilate out of the whole thing
which would have saved the Roman Empire
the cost of a bag of nails
and the rest of the world a lot of needless pain

if I’d been around when the Wright Brothers
were leaning to fly
I would have showed them how to skip
the greasy kid’s stuff
and have a man on the moon
by the end of the week

if I’d been around when the Sheik of Arabia
was having trouble with his harem
I would have taken 2 dozen
of his best girls aside
for an evening of pleasure and instruction
and left them walking bow-legged
for the rest of their lives

if I’d been around for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin
Jesse Owens would have been standing
on the 2nd step of the podium
watching me also bring home world’s records
in the high jump, the mile, and the marathon
all of which would have remained unbroken
well into the 22nd century

if I’d been around when everybody thought the world was flat
I would have beaten Columbus by a thousand years
and been elected the first president
I would have been affectionately known as
the father of our country
and today my picture would be on the dollar bill

you may think I’m a little outspoken
when I say all this
but I say it in all humility
modesty has always been
one of my most outstanding qualities

OKLAHOMA SIX-PACK
(or an Honest Film Critic is Hard to Find)

my last year in high school
6 of us guys went out one night
and got drunk
it was something to do
we got in Pete’s car
3 in front, 3 in back
and drove around town drinking beer
there were 2 cases in the trunk
we kept getting out to piss
and get new supplies
then someone said we should go to Santa Rosa
so we did
it was something to do
we drove around Santa Rosa for a while
drinking beer, getting drunk
then someone said we should go to a movie
so Pete pulled over at the first show we came to
and we staggered in
each with a couple of cans of beer under his jacket
the movie theater was crowded
but we stumbled around in the dark
and managed to find 6 seats in a row
the movie was somewhere in the middle
it took about 10 minutes
before one of us discovered the name of the movie
“hey! it’s Oklahoma!”
we were all seeing double
sitting in a row, still hitting the beer
it was about the worst choice we could have made
a musical
none of us ever went to see musicals
even when we were sober
we sat there in a row, seeing double
trying to figure out how we got there
up on the screen there was a dancing scene
a bunch of innocent-looking girls
in white lace petticoats
were trying to act virginal
and sexy at the same time
then came a song
fake sad voices poured out of the screen
“poor Jud is dead”
and Charlie, who was 2 seats down,
puked all over the row in front of us
that was when we decided
we’d seen enough of Oklahoma
we were moving too fast at the time
for me to ask Charlie
if it was the beer or the movie
that had made him sick
and later I forgot about it
but now I’m sure it was the movie

RHYTHM ‘N BLUES FOOTBALL

in the 8th grade I wanted to play football
I got on the team as the 4th string quarterback
the coach invented that position for me
the main job of the 4th string quarterback
was to keep the bench warm
and stay out of everybody’s way

the last game of a losing season
we were playing a team from the orphan’s home
they had a black guy in their back field
he was strong and fast and good
we were losing 75-0
with one minute to play
the coach put me into the game
at defensive left guard
I took off my glasses and trotted in
thinking this was how my Uncle Chuck
must have felt as an all-American lineman

on the next play the orphan home team
ran a play over left guard
the lineman on the other side pulled out
leaving a hole
I stood up, blinking
trying to figure out
what was going on
without my glasses
I could see about a foot in front of me
and that’s when a black ball of fire
hit me face on
ran right over me
knocked me flat
he didn’t stick around
to see my lights go out

I woke up on the sidelines
final score 82-0
that was the last time
I had a job as a 4th-string quarterback
and it was the first time
I’d seen a black guy
– up close that is
you might say it was my first taste
of racial conflict
later that night
James Brown on my radio
sounded different

I turned on the radio
and heard this black ball of fire
coming at me
I knew if I was going to win any games
I would have to change sides
I turned up the volume
and lay back on my bed
as James Brown
the nation’s number 1 Rhythm ‘n Blues Fullback
plowed thru my room
and scored another touchdown

THE SIXTIES

I don’t like to think about the 60s
those years were too important then
they were too complex
and now it’s too late
no one will ever figure out
what went down
the 60s was an unzipped pair of pants

the 70s was a slap in the face
a slap in the face is easy to understand

I prefer the 80s
there’s nothing to understand

SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK
CROSSING OVER INTO KINGS CANYON NATIONAL

backpacking in the High Sierras
John and I were 6 days out
Sequoia National Park
crossing over into Kings Canyon National
we hadn’t seen another human
or man-made thing all that time
that’s what we wanted
pine trees
waterfalls
granite rocks
streams from snow meltdowns
that’s what we’d come for

we came to a wide wooden bridge
someone had built across the Kern River
we were standing in the middle
looking upstream
at the fast-moving water
over jagged rocks
6 days out
70 miles from the nearest human
when we were attacked from behind
by 3 jet fighter planes
coming in low
using that bridge for target practice
they bombed the shit out of that bridge
with rolls of toilet paper

BACK ROOM STRATEGY

speaking of toilet paper
I had a temporary job one summer
at the army depot in Oakland
packing CONEX boxes
(metal containers
6 feet high, wide, and deep)
with whatever was on the list I had been given

one week I packed nothing but toilet paper
tons and tons of it

it was all being shipped to Japan and Korea
none of it to Vietnam
where there was a war going on

from this I learned an important lesson:
you’ve got to finish a war
before you’re allowed to wipe your ass

THE FACELESS CHEERING SECTION

“give me an I!”
“I!”
“give me a D!”
“D!”
“give me an E!”
“E!”
“give me an N!”
“N!”
“give me a T!”
“T!”
“give me another I!”
“I!”
“give me another T!”
“T!”
“give me a Y!”
“Y!”
“what’s that spell?”
“I don’t know”

TALK ABOUT COINCIDENCE

after dinner I tilted back
my chair and we exchanged stories
I was talking about the winter
but I was thinking about the spring

the conversation shifted
to ordinary misfortune
I was talking about the forest
but I was thinking about the trees

someone turned the record over
a joint was passed around
I was talking about smoke
but I was thinking about fire

the conversation died down
someone got up to leave
I was talking about me
but I was thinking about you

CHINESE CULTURE EXHIBITION

I saw an exhibition of Chinese culture

they had a bunch of mechanical birds
that bounced around
when you wound them up

they had miniature playing cards
you had to look at
thru a microscope

they had a few rows of plates
cups
and saucers

it ended with a demonstration
of a guy who crushed
a light bulb
into tiny bits
with his bare hands

I always thought western culture
was in trouble
but we’ve still saved a few things
for the mind
(I think)

THE MEETING OF GREAT MINDS AND BODIES

thousands of years ago
2 people were walking an open road
approaching each other from miles away
neither had seen another human being for days
(for there weren’t many people in those times)

as these 2 people approached each other
they had the same thoughts we have today
when we pass one another in crowds?
will he rob me?
kill me?
man or woman?
can i fuck it?

as the 2 people drew nearer
more definitions were created
“hey, he’s got one of those
fancy new shirts!”
“jesus, she’s got a nice ass”
“wow, he’s got a crippled leg”
“man, what’s that perfume she’s wearing?”

it was definite now
one was a man
the other was a woman
they got closer until finally
they stood face to face

and in the moment that followed
the events of the next one hundred thousand years
for the entire human race
were determined

AND THE END IS NOT IN SIGHT

you tell your story
but it doesn’t come out right
so you tell it again

but you’re not satisfied
with the way you told it
so you tell it again

but you forgot to include
some of the most interesting parts
so you tell it again

and when you’re finished
you realize
that all the fun you had
trying to tell your story
should be included too
so you start over
and tell your story again

The pleasures of rolling downhill inside the gates of the garden of eden

POEMS 1986-2001  |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

CREDO

I believe in the power of words
(I’d be wasting my time here if I didn’t)

I believe in the force of language
(I’d be a fool to stick around if I didn’t)

I believe in the Lone Ranger
(he had such a faithful Indian companion)

I believe in the holiness of the human spirit
and forget about the limits we burden ourselves with

I believe in the mythological Jesus Christ
(I must or I wouldn’t be taking his name in vain)

I believe in the werewolf
He has lived inside of me for as long as I can remember
We’re old friends.
I believe in the magic of music
I believe in the music of words

APPROACHING WISDOM

approaching 60
feel myself slowing down
muscles
blood
brain
tongue and bowels

they’ve still got this idea
that the Old Man is wise
that his words are pearls
of perfection

there he sits – on his throne
choosing his words carefully
spinning webs of wisdom

DON’T YOU BELIEVE IT

the geezer is just slowing down
pillaging an empty memory box
or just maybe
trying to think of something to say

[ February, 2001 ]

ASHTRAY GARDEN

She stopped smoking one day.

A week later, mysteriously
a flower garden appeared
in the ashtray of her car.

I wanted to see it for myself.

She drove me along the river road
past fishermen and boats drifting
on the slow-moving water.
Cautiously I pulled out the ashtray.
Inside were dozens of tiny red roses,
just blossomed, freshly watered.
Their scent filled the car.

“I don’t know where they come from,”
she said, “And I never know
what I’m going to get next.”

On the way home
I opened the ashtray again.
This time it was buttercups.

AMAZING MINDS

A man and a woman
watched people throwing trash in the woods

The man said, “If I ever figured out
why people do that
I’d probably go crazy.”

The woman grunted.

The man said, “If Harrison Ford came on TV
and said something like that in an interview
you’d clap your hands
and say, ‘What an amazing mind.'”

The woman said, “Harrison Ford
does have an amazing mind.
He knows what he’s talking about.
With you it’s just accidental.”

1984

Orwell gave the year a lot of advance publicity
(tho George was not entirely to blame –
he wanted to call the book 1946)

Richard Brautigan ceased to be a living writer in 1984.
Suddenly the number of his published works
were definite and my collection was sadly complete.
We don’t know if his death was accidental or intentional.
We do know that he wrote in a way that made absurd
a distinction between the two.

In 1984 I read books published in 1972,
1978, 1941, 1956, 1951, 1952, 1937, and 1946.
But none published in 1984.

APRIL FOOLS TO HALLOWEEN

1.
From April to October
I listened to the ballgames on the radio
American Forces Radio from Frankfurt.
Because I lived in Europe they were always
night games. Sometimes the ninth inning
didn’t roll round until 5 AM. I’d come
up from my studio and tune in for a few
innings or occasionally an entire game
settle back on the couch and let the voices
flow over and into my ears, the voices
of Ernie Harwell of the Detroit Tigers
and Jack Buck of the St. Louis Cards
and Vin Skully when the Dodgers
were playing the Giants. Their voices
floated in and out of focus
on the shifting airwaves, the signal
receding to a blur
and mixing in with Slavic voices
and Greek jumping bean accordions
and a snatch of a Verdi opera as
an Italian station jingled in
at two ten a.m. on the dot.
Then the signal would return
so strongly so clearly
I could hear the crack of a bat.
Once I heard a vendor in the background
calling out to sell his hotdogs
halfway around the world.
I didn’t care about the scores
about who won or lost
I just liked the sound of the game
and the way it took me back
and connected me with myself
when I was ten, eleven, twelve
lying in bed on a summer night
and listening to the Giants
go after the Dodgers
with Willie Mays out in centerfield
and Juan Marechal on the mound.
Tho one year by the end of the playoffs
and the start of the World Series
I was rooting for the Boston Red Sox.
Ken Coleman promised me the Sox
would pull it out. Ken was wrong.
But nothing was lost.
It was the ritual that attracted me.
The rules, the flow of voices
and that pocket of comfort I’d drop
down inside of like a foul ball
into a well-oiled first baseman’s glove.

[ the 1986 World Series ended on Monday, October 27,
when the New York Mets beat the Boston Red Sox 8 to 5 ]

2.
From April to October he watched his hair grow.
In April he got a crew cut. The comb lay flat
against his skull and snipping scissors
took off every sprout of hair above it.
Each hair was now of equal length
and the length was measured in millimeters.
He had a thin carpet covering his head.
He patted it with the palm of his hand
and the hedgehog carpet came to life.
By October each of those hairs growing
out to equal length were standing
six inches above his scalp.
He couldn’t get a single hair to lie down.
He thought of his friend in high school
who kept getting sent from classroom
to the wash room to wet down
his wild and unwilling hair
to make it toe the line
and make him look like all the
rest of us junior Bing Crosbys.
The teachers called it insubordination.
They almost threw him out of school.
I thought about my friend as I soaked my head
under the faucet and brushed the wet rug
back until I looked like a blues singer
from Chicago.

[ This is what happened in 1986 between April Fools and Halloween ]

BACKYARD COLLECTION OF PENDULUMS

How can you say this is normal?
A 2-car garage and a 6-air mattress swimming pool
a cell phone in every pocket
a TV screen sucking at your eyes
from every room?
You call that normal?

Why don’t you trade in your cars
and buy 200 motorcycles
and crash-park them in your garage?
Why don’t you stock your pool
with beavers, toss in a few trees
watch them build a dam
then sit on your back porch swing
and shoot them with slingshot golf balls?
That would be a lot closer to normal.

Or maybe toss out all your cell phones
and join a sect that wears electric pink
satin underwear and worships slow motion
candid camera tapes of pregnant mothers
trying to stop smoking

Or why don’t you just put a bullet
thru each of your TV screens
(it’s not true, they don’t implode
and imploding suck everything
into the vast void of the networks beyond
including your face
and the contents of your skull.
It’s just not true. Elvis did it all the time
and he never lost any weight).

If you did all that
and told me you lead a normal life
I’d have to agree,
but only if you came over to my place
and played with my collection of pendulums
in the backyard
and danced upon the live polar bear rug
in the bath room
(“Hard to get that critter to lay down,”
I’d tell you).
then stepped into my telephone booth
in the kitchen (squeezed between
the fridge and the stove)
dropped a quarter in the slot, dialed
a number at random and listened
to some idiot in Idaho scream your ears off
about how many yo-yos it takes to power
a parachute after you’ve jumped off a cliff.

THE BELGIANS

the Belgians are a peaceful people

what more can I say?

I can say:
they eat tons of waffles
with whipped cream daily
they eat megatons of frits
they drink a several lakes of beer
and smoke 22 million packs a day

I can say:
of course they’re peaceful
after consuming all that crap
it’s a miracle they’re not comatose

From the BOOK OF ROCK AND ROLL

And they came
the electric guitar wizards and magicians
they came with their tidal waves of lust
that almost uprooted the entire
western harmonic tradition
Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton
Johnny Winters, Neil Young.
Who would have thought
that B.B. King and Chuck Berry
could have started such an avalanche of musical lava.

And the Magicians and Wizards
brought with them their Dynamic Drummers
who brought their thundering drums
that almost uprooted the History of Music
those nameless, faceless SHADOWS
at the back of the stage
who powered the engines
that powered the huge
Trucks and Trailers
of ROCK and ROLL

And they brought with them their Singers
Singers whose words and voices
almost swamped the History of Poetry
Singer Shamans. Singer Snakes.
Singer Wolves, Singer Werewolves
Singer Weasels, Eagles, Beagles.
Singer Dolphins, Bats and Bears,
Fireflies, Butterflies
Dogs, Cats and Lemurs
the Singers came, they sung, they conquered.
Jim Morrison, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan,
Joe Cocker, Richie Havens, Tim Hardin
Joni Mitchell, Marvin Gaye,
Otis Redding, Neil Young
Grace Slick, Aretha Franklin

And they gathered into Powerful Tribal Groups
The Beach Boys, The Band, Creedence, Chambers
Brothers, Rolling Stones, Ronettes, Beatles,
Buffalo Springfield, The Grateful Dead,
Loving Spoonful, Sir Douglas Quintet,
Canned Heat, Love, The Fugs, The Doors

Who could have imagined
that Ray Charles and Mahalia Jackson
would give birth to such off-spring?

BREAKFAST IN CHINATOWN

Sneaking out of North Beach 3 a.m.
along Grant Ave. with my sack
of brand new City Lights paperbacks
(Kerouac (35¢),Kierkegaard, Albion Moonlight)
deep into Chinatown, headless chickens
hanging behind dark shop windows
down 5 steps into a side street cellar
it’s Hooey Looie Gooey’s 4 rows
of old, body-worn wooden booths.
I’m the only white face in the place
grab a bowl, head back to the kitchen
where the cook ladles my bowl
full of beef rice and gravy, a sprinkle
of chopped onions 25¢
full meal, all you can eat
squeeze into a booth surrounded by 3 a.m
chopstick Chinese coming from work,
going to work, breakfast and dinner
the same. Beef Rice! 25¢!

CHARLES BUKOWSKI : 1920-1994

Chinaski’s dead.
He talked about it
wrote about it
and now
he’s gone over
to see what it’s really like.

Over to where
critics are not allowed,
landlords never collect rent
and there’s always a parking place
for a beat-up Volks.

Over to where
horses have wings
and the players never miss a bet,
where the beer drinkers
wine drinkers
whiskey drinkers
never wake up with a hangover, over
to where the used-up whores are angels
and poems
are leaves from angel trees
and the leaves are so plentiful that nobody
bothers bending over to pick them up
except once a year when everybody
gets out their brooms
and sweeps them into a big pile
and sings while they burn
and the smoke pours up to heaven
as if from a big cigar.

[ March 10, 1994 ]

CATS

Lumberjack
Tom the Sneaker
Bird Abortion
Rat Puke
Chunga
Breakdance
Tip Tail
Burnt Rentals
Shortstop
Moon

It doesn’t matter what you call your cat
he’ll come whenever he feels like it

CORKY POEMS
for Ellen

I. DOG LOG

I took the dog out to the back garden
he pissed on the grass
he sniffed at a bush
he barked at a bird
no shit

II. DAWG LAWG

Corky leaps into the garden!
sprays the entire lawn
with voluminous amounts of urine!
devours a few birds
and a couple of cats!
howls at the moon
until he sees there is no moon visible
so he screams at the sun instead!
waves his tail at a couple of passing planes,
then races back inside
to cop a few more Zs.
Once again, no shit

CHINESE ROOM MATE

Her roommate was crying out in her sleep
in Chinese.
She said, “It’s OK. Don’t worry,” and she
rushed out of the darkened room into the hall.
I wondered how I could get to know this girl
now that she had a Chinese roommate
who went to bed so early
and had so much influence over her.

HOW TO WRITE A CHINESE POEM

go to china
take the plane
forget your name
come home flapping
your own wings

HOW TO WRITE A JAPANESE POEM

go to Japan
take the train
listen to the temple bells
get out your old marimba
and join in

sometime late at night
you will hear the cry
of the ancient Chip Monk

ignore the ancient Chip Monk

CYBERPUNK POEM

She was 15 the first time she jacked.
(That’s jack, Jack: as in plugged in)
Someday you will give your love away
Tokyo airport flashing past
contained in chains of
virtual molecules. The doctor
in mirrorshades at the baggage
claim carrousel: You got the face
of a 16-year old girl and the spine
of a 70-year old android.
Flying in from Seattle.
The boy with the chrome fingernails.
The fiberoptic co-axial cable
trailing away from the socket
in the back of his skull
trailing away into infinity
smoke rising from a plastic pack
of fake cigarettes
strapped to his bicep.
Some days you can’t give your love away

CYNICISM
for Quanah

cynicism is a waste of good mind;
a futile attempt to protect yourself
from a cruel, harsh world.
What can you do?
Don’t worry.
You’ll get over it.

DATE

she was shorter than he imagined
she had buck teeth
and she was blind

DOG TROT

the dog trots down the frozen street
tiny puffs of steam
popping out of his anus
as he farts along

DREAMS

come on kids, dream

and keep your dreams alive
let’s make them all come true
that’s what they’re for

all you got to do
is dream a little more

DRUMMERS
for Ditch

All over the world there are mountains
and valleys and forests.
There are lakes and rivers
and oceans. There are towns and villages
and cities. And everywhere you go, it seems,
every time you turn around, every time
you get settled down and start counting
on a little peace and quiet
YOU BUMP INTO A DRUMMER.

On the road, in roadside cafes. Drummers.
In five & dimes and supermarkets. Drummers.
Banks, car washes, drive-in movies. Drummers.
Even in your kitchen they’re in your face
beating their tom toms, whisking their skins
and tapping their cymbals.
This morning I went in to take a leak
and found a cool beater in my bathtub.
I sent him out to the garage
to smash in the back end
of my old pickup truck.

Tomorrow I’ll drive to the south
in search of a harmonica player.

[ Gig Harbor Washington, Oct. 1996 ]

ELEPHANT STORM

thunder from across the flatlands
vague flashes of lightning in the cloudy sky
It booms closer
and we count the seconds between the
flash
and the
boom
“one elephant . . . two elephants . . . ”
(and so forth right up to)
“12 elephants!”

12 miles away.

the storm creeps closer
8 elephants
4 elephants
the lightning strikes are visible now
huge electronic snakes curling out of the sky.

“only 3 elephants.”

then
Flash! Bang!
Right on top of us.
NO ELEPHANTS!

EULOGY

How’s this for a eulogy at my funeral

Delivered by an eleven-year old street urchin.

“He always stopped in the street and talked to us. He didn’t have to. We knew he was a real smart dude because he read books and he composed music and stuff like that, maybe he was even a genius or something, and most dudes like that are snobs and would never talk to the likes of us. But not him. He was real cool. He always asked us how we were doing. He wanted to make sure we were doing OK.”

Not a dry eye in the house.

WHAT KIND OF FATHER WAS I? (PART ONE)

Me (age 38): Hey, man. Want to stop
and climb around on that stack of boxes?
My Son (age 3): I don’t think so, dad. It looks kind of dangerous.

WHAT KIND OF FATHER WAS I? (PART TWO)

Me (age 41, in the front seat, smoking a joint): Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking this is some kind of dangerous drug, that I might start acting strange and say a few goofy things. But don’t be alarmed. I won’t go berserk or anything like that. Everything’s undercontrol. Completely . . . even tho those polar bears who just drove by in that pickup truck looked a little weird . . . and that semi we just passed, I know, it was about three miles long. But that’s OK. None of this is real or at least I don’t think it is -except you and me, we’re real, that much I’m certain of, and maybe those bees buzzing around in the glove compartment are real too, but I’m NOT going to open the glove compartment, not at this particular junction of our life at least . . . cause like I said, I’ve got everything under control -everything.”

My son (age 5, from the backseat): “Where’s mom?”

WHAT KIND OF FATHER WAS I? (PART HREE)

My Son (age 13, while walking the streets of Amsterdam on a warm summer day): That’s just some old hippie stoned on grass

Me (age 48): Yeah but thank god he’s there.

WHAT KIND OF FATHER WAS I? (PART FOUR)

My Son (age 15): That sounds like something Marshall McLuhan would say.

Me (age 50): What do you know about Marshall McLuhan?

FLASHION SHOW

She was shrugging her fist
and twisting her teeth.
She was blinking her butt
and telescoping her belly button.

What kind of woman is this
(I asked myself) who can perform
such original feats of entropy?
Is she the kind of woman
I’d want as a daughter in law?

It was some kind of show on TV.
They called it The Flashion Show
and not even the ordinary freaks
were invited to strut their stuff
This was a special event
for a rare species
of human mutation.

Those who could wrinkle their kneelobes
and flex their eyelips.

FLUPILL

“Wo ist der flupill?”
“Rat unter your tunk!”

GAUFRES

“Laquelle, m’sieur?”
“La Cerise, s’il vous please.”

REPORT CARD

How good is my French?

If I were to get my report card now
I’d get a C minus

THE REST OF THE REPORT CARD

a B minor headache in English
a riptide sine wave in Music
a four-minute bike mile in PE
redundancy upon redundancy in World History
denial upon denial in American Politics
shifting borders in Geography
a lot of zeros, followed by many more zeros in Math
a matchbox model of a Pontiac Convertible
with power steering in Driver’s Ed
a mistletoe kiss and a busted toenail in Drama

FROGS WITH WINGS
in memory of Marion McMahon

I never met Catherine Deneuve.
I don’t know why I told you I did.
The word just jumped out of my mouth
like a frog without legs
and landed on the wet pavement between us.
I looked down at the frog
and wished it would grow wings and fly away.

I worked long hours on the music
for that movie about Marilyn Monroe.
I had a video tape of it
playing in my studio,
right in front of my face,
day and night for 2 weeks.
I remember a couple of times
Catherine Deneuve jumped out of the screen
and landed in my face.
I can’t that she was beautiful
but I must say she was no frog.
Frogs don’t jump like that.

The girl I worked with on that movie
(who was my only link to C. Deneuve)
was definitely not beautiful.
She never washed her hair
and she had several clumps of bristles
on her upper lip. I kept hoping
she would grow a mustache
and make it complete.
She reminded me of a Bulgarian
long-distance runner in the 1976 Olympics.
She had met Catherine Deneuve many times.
If Catherine Deneuve was beautiful
it didn’t rub off.

To prevent any more legless frogs
jumping from my mouth,
I could make list of famous people
I have met and what I did with them.
If you saw this list, you would say
“You had no need to tell me
that you met Catherine Deneuve.”

The point is:
I didn’t WANT to meet her at all.
I’m not attracted to Catherine Deneuve
and I don’t especially like her.

What I do WANT to know, however, is this:
What happened to the stone
you skipped 6 times
across Lake Kawashawigamah.
I’m sure the stone hit each of the syllables

KA – WA – SHA – WI – GA – MAH

but what happened to the stone after that?

Did it just fall into the water and sink
to the bottom like a tiny lost treasure island?
Or did Catherine Deneuve, dive into the lake,
and catch it in her hands, saying,
“I ask for a cool cucumber and you give me this?”

Or did a frog leap out of the water,
catch the stone in his mouth,
then grow wings and fly away?

THREE GIRLFRIENDS IN THE DARK

The first tripped over my shoe
which I’d left in the middle of the room.
The moment she hit the floor
she bounced up and shouted, “YOU SLOPPY
BASTARD!” and other pissed-off exclamations
that went on and on for at least ten minutes

The second tripped over the same shoe,
fell to the floor and lay there,
rolling around, moaning,
trying to make me feel bad.

The third just stumbled
and trotted on into the bathroom.
“Hey, you got any toothpaste?” she shouted.
I knew she was looking into the mirror
and smiling like a pregnant goose.

“GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”
(R. Reagan’s last public words as president)

In Jan. 1989, after 8 years in the White House
R. Reagan gave a farewell speech

What is significant here
is not the speech
but that I listened to it

I figured I was safe

7 more days in office
and he’d be swept away
with all the other presidential trash

up until that night
I hadn’t listened to any of his speeches

not a single one

when one would come on the radio
I’d hit the dial
faster than Ronnie
could hit the red button

if my dial had been a red button
I would have blown up the world
several times

I couldn’t listen
I didn’t dare
I was sure I’d be so scared
I wouldn’t be able to sleep

and I’m glad I never did

8 years without sleep
would have been a long time

so old Ronnie said goodbye
on the radio
and I listened
and sure enough
there it was
the rhetoric
the double talk
the lies
and other samples
of ordinary bullshit
“Aw shucks I’m just
a kid with freckles skateboard
under one arm slingshot
in a back pocket, a coke-guzzling
bubble gum popping baseball card
trading kind of next-door used
lemon-aid salesman and when
I grow I swear I’m gonna drop
the bomb on all those commies
over there in Europe and Asia
and South America and Cuba
and make sure God blesses
the United States of America.”

my reaction was predictable
7 days and nights without sleep

it wasn’t too bad
nothing compared to my reaction
when George Bush gave his Inaugural
address a few days later

TALKING TO THE RADIO

Peter Gabriel came on the radio
and said he wanted to be my sledge hammer

I said to Peter, “I don’t want you
to be my sledge hammer.”

Peter said, “I want to be
your chauffer.”

And I said, “Forget it
I don’t want a sledge hammer
driving my car.”

Then Jimi Hendrix came on
and Jimi said he was stone free

“I’m stone free,” he said

I said, “OK, Jimi, that’s nice
you’re stone free
some people are stone free
and some are not.”

“Yeah, I’m stone free,” said Jimi

then I tweaked the dial
and Lynn Anderson told me
she never promised me a rose garden
but I already knew that
– she never promised me anything

another tweak
and Credence Clearwater Revival came on
singing “Have you ever seen the rain
comin’ down on a sunny day?”
And I said: “Mr. Revival,
not only have I seen the rain
comin’ down on a sunny day
I have also seen the rain
comin’ down on a Later Day Saint
so don’t try to impress me
with meteorological phenomena
that metaphorically suggest
the existence
of a Supreme Being.”

and Mr. Revival faded out
and Lou Reed faded in
telling me to take a walk
on the wild side.

and I before I could say
“Lou, can’t do
– I’ll walk with you
all the way to New Orleans
and back to Kalamazoo
but I ain’t getting no tattoo – ”

Todd Rundgren jumped in
and told me he saw the light
in my eyes
and I said, “Todd, I know
how you feel. I too
see the light
in my eyes, I see it
everytime I look in the mirror
and find I’m stuck
in the middle with you.”

so I switched off the radio

more musical excitement
from beyond the extremes
of the atmosphere
from all those alien creatures
in their space ships
from UFO Land
would change the shape of my face
and ruin my natural sense
of rhythm forever

I’ll need both
when it comes time
to twist again
like we did last summer

GUN FREE

Kid with Z.Z. Top
turned up full blast
on his walkman
ears plugged in
singing along:
“Gun free . . .
gun free and Steve.”
Actually the song goes:
“Concrete . . .
concrete and steel,”
but what’s the difference?

THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW

I watched Oprah on TV tonight
and saw a bunch of mothers
who had 4 or 5
or 6 kids each
sit around and bitch
about how hard it is
to raise a bunch of kids.
“My kids are out of control,”
said one mom
who was out of control herself.

None of the moms were satisfied
with their lives.
Some felt threatened,
cheated, imposed upon, blackmailed.
“Every time we go to the mall,”
said one, “I have to buy my kid a toy.”

And as usual everybody in the audience
had an opinion which they did not hesitate
to let everybody else know.

Of course I wasn’t there
but if I had been, I too would have had
an opinion.

If Oprah had asked me for my opinion
I would have said, “You don’t want to hear
my opinion.”

And of course Oprah would have said,
“But yes – let’s please hear it.”

And I would have said,
“I see a lot of stupid people
complaining
because someone made them aware
of their stupidity.”

I would have been booed out of the TV studio.
Those moms would have sprayed my face
with under-arm deodorant, they would have
slashed at my mouth with their tubes of
lipstick, they would have smeared my eyes
with cold cream.

It’s tough to be reminded of your stupidity.

Then they would have gone home
and beat their kids for the same reason
Good thing I wasn’t there.

HIROHITO

what’s all this noise about Hirohito?

he dies
and world leaders flock to Japan
to honor his memory

the president of the U.S.
jets in to stand by his tomb

what the hell is going on?

the man was a tyrant
he sent planes to bomb Pearl Harbor
he walked all over the South Pacific
until we sent in the Marines
thousands upon thousands of Americans
died stopping this maniac

so what the fuck is the prez doing
walking in Hirohito’s funeral parade?
standing by his grave and weeping?

the fanatic was in bed with Hitler
and Mussolini they signed pacts
they were going to get together
and fuck up the world
completely

next thing you know we’ll have
Hitler monuments on Washington D.C.
why not?
if you’re going to honor one fascist
then get out the confetti
and celebrate the whole hog of psychopaths
statues of Adolph in schoolyards
all across America
Mussolini Memorial Freeways
Stalin bridges and Tito national parks

“And over here on the left
we have the Hirohito Memorial ballpark
(used to be Yankee Stadium some of you
may remember) and over here on our right
(pardon the pun) we have the Benito
Mussolini International Airport
(used to be JFK, but that’s the way
things go) and straight ahead
we will soon be entering
the Adolph Hitler Tunnel
featuring slide projections from
his concentration camps
upon the walls.
So sit back, relax
and enjoy the show”

[February 1989 ]

HEADACHE

a bunch of guys
are tearing down the house
inside my head

they walked in
thru the tunnels of my eyes
and started swinging
sledgehammers

GIVE THAT HUMANOID A BANANA SPLIT

I.
We humans have such a shallow comprehension
of the world we live in
its age
its immensity
both micro & macroscopic
its place in a vast universe
is far beyond the highest IQ’s
conception of infinity.

We can barely tie our shoes
(so to speak)
we just manage to lift our forks
and feed our faces.
We are so fucking dumb
it’s a miracle we just don’t evaporate
into thin air.

We walk on our tongues
we rub our eyes back into our sockets
and stumble blindly
deeper into ignorance

the caterpillar, the glowworm, the turtle
are too wise to mock us.
The horse, the wolf, the wild geese
too smart to even pay attention
to our futile imbecilities

I have a cat.
He’s kind of stupid,
but compared to people
he’s a genius

II.
ON THE OTHER HAND
have you ever heard such music?
Bach’s Art of the Fugue
The Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations
Beethoven’s 4th & 5th pianos
Brahms Cello Sonatas
The Grateful Dead & Gesualdo
Ginsberg & Glenn Gould
Gabrielli & George Gershwin
Basho & Baudelaire
Browning & James Brown
Bukowski & Tim Buckley
William Blake & Bela Bartok
and that’s just a few of the Bee and Gees

Have you ever touched and tasted
such paintings, such sculptures
such poems and pastries?
such beer & wine
such rums & tequilas
such ice creams & chocolates?
Ice cream is a miracle.
Man invented it.
Man invented tractors
dentist drills & scissors
hot air balloons & bicycles.
Small miracles all
(the bicycle may be his best invention
almost as perfect as some of the creations
nature comes up with)
but man too is nature
and he’s come up with
chessboards & chesspieces
eye glasses & wrist watches
computers & saran wrap
harmonicas & submarines
mirrors, movies, moccasins, aspirins,
calendars, algebra, stirrups
kaleidoscopes & CDs
Q-tips & E-flat seven chords
He has explored the deepest seas
and put machines on Mars
even tho he can barely tie his shoes
count to three
and possibly conceive
that two men with differing opinions
can both be right & need not argue.

ICE PLANTS

I stand on ocean front property
already thought of as my own,
and gaze down at the thousands
of ice plants that lay spread
out in all directions from my toes.

On the other side of the dune
the surf smashes and rumbles.
SH-BOOM

But an ocean view is not the reason
I want to live here. I want to live
with the ice plants.
I don’t want to build a house.
I don’t even have enough money
to buy a tent.
I just want to dig a hole
and make my home in the middle
of this vast green vegetable carpet.

My friends will drop by
and we will have ice plant conversations.
If somebody wants to watch TV
he’ll have to go somewhere else.
In my home there will be
only ice plants to watch.
And I will say: who needs a radio
when you have all this ice plant music
to listen to?
If I ever get tired of thinking
about myself,
it will be easy to think of ice plants.

When I get hungry I’ll pluck
an ice plant and chew the cool cud
of frozen glacier memories.
When I get sleepy
I will lie down in the hole
and pull a blanket
of ice plants over me.
Life will be easy.
Life will be a dream.
SH-BOOM

ICH BIN LADEN

But let’s not talk about politics.
Our mouths are too small, too fragile,
they’re just tiny boxes
and they can hold only so much.
There’s no room for garbage.
There’s no room for conspiracies
plotted by the secret leaders
of the powerful Right Wing in America
who’ve finally got Congress
and a puppet president
under their thumbs these
oil-rich Republicans
who’ve been plotting the overthrow
of the U.S. Government
and the abolition of the Constitution
for the past 50 years
the most recent phase of which began
when they hired Monica Lewinsky
to get a Democrat President impeached
and having failed to disgrace his party
to such a degree that no one would cast their vote
for such a pack of sexual perverts
in the up-coming election
and having failed to obtain a majority
of votes legally, they went into Florida
with millions of dollars and bought the election
at which point they got down to the real serious shit
of bombing America
by sending two planes with full tanks of fuel
loaded with sacrificial lambs
and brainwashed pilots
into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center
in New York City, September 11, 2001
then followed up by bombing the Pentagon
to create a war with anybody, it didn’t matter
which country Afghanistan was a convenient
90-pound weakling in the sand easy to bully
just as long as it created panic and fear
in the populace and gave the leaders
an excuse to put the country under military law
and to justify their suspension of basic freedoms
(temporary they say, but we all know
we’ll never get them back)
and to force ordinary citizens into a position
where they voluntarily demand the protection
of a police state,
as we all plunge head-on and deeper
into the most absolute dictatorship
in the history of the world.

No, there is no room for any of that kind of garbage.
in a mouth.
A mouth is much too small.

THE JAZZ AGE

I. THE KINGS OF SWING

Tommy Dorsey strangled by a scarf
in his sleep
Glenn Miller with mud on his shoes
playing for the president
then disappearing into a fog bank
over the English Channel
Benny Goodman looking across
racial lines and grooving
with Charlie Christian
and Lionel Hampton
Count Basie signing over his orchestra
to pay a gambling debt to the mob
and continuing to play as a paid musician
in his own band.

Who were these Kings of Swing?
Where did they get all those
trombones and clarinets?
What were they thinking about
when they looked out
on the dance floor
and saw all those couples
doing the mambo?
Did they really believe
their drums came from the jungle?
Did they ever get sick
of the smell of gardenias?

We’ll never know.
The Kings of Swing
now live in their pyramids
drinking down darkness
wrapped in sheet music like mummies
talking about all the blind dancing dummies
who sucked in clarinet notes with open mouths
and found their feet in turmoiled delirium.
They’re laughing, heads bobbing,
and one king is snapping his fingers while
the baritone sax line of MOONLIGHT SERENADE
wiggles down the side of one leg
the string bass part of STRING OF PEARLS
crawls down the back of the other.
the trumpet riff from TUXEDO JUNCTION
wraps around one arm
and the piano chart of IN THE MOOD,
tattooed to his chest, begins to glow.

And what about that Zoot Suit Bop Boy over in the corner?

II. COOL AND HARD BOPPERS

Then came the Cool and Hard Boppers.
Miles, Bird, Dizzy,
later Cannonball and Trane,
Charlie Mingus, Art Blakey
the Five Spot, Blue Note Records,
the Village Vanguard, Birdland,
Blackhawk, Bop City.
Smoke, smack and bourbon.
Horace Silver and Thelonius Monk.
Hard Bop and Cool Blues.
Sweat and steam and streaming scales,
riding riffs in and out of Milestones
and Doodlin’
and Kinda Blue
ripping sheets of screaming sounds
from the walls of their skulls
snatching entire pages of chord changes
from their mind books
wadding them into fists of pissed-off notes,
tossing them in the air
and closing their eyes as they float
to the flooded floor
thru raindrops of icebergs
and thumbnails and thumbtacks
of frozen snow
as ice cubes rattle in the glass
of a 17-year old farmboy
sitting 3-feet away at the front table
nursing his coke
as he stretches his two-drink minimum
into the third set
and Miles turns his back on him
and blows muted seagull cries
into the velvet drapes

III. PLASTIC ALTO AND POCKET TRUMPET TRICKS

Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry
tweeting and twatting away on stage
plastic alto and pocket trumpet tricks
at the Both/And on Divisadero

it’s all over
the Jazz Age

I’ve still got Horace Silver
doodlin’ in a juke box on Grant
and I’ve still got Coltrane
soprano saxing on his latest LPs at home.

but it’s all over.
The Jazz Age.

I’m not crying
I’m just movin’ on
to higher forms of Bop and Jive
and praying that an electric guitar genius
will soon appear, sounding as good as
Horace Silver and John Coltrane
and playing such invitations to Joyful Panic
that we’ll have no choice
but to start Dancing in the Streets again.

THE MOVES

When the moves blacked in
the property values went down.

“Shit it’s the Moves!”
“God damn, not the Moves!”
“You can’t ever tell what they’re talking about.”
“You can’t tell one move from another.”
“Christ almighty, the Moves.”
“Anything but the Moves.”
“ANYTHING?”

“. . . The Moves . . . ”

NICE GUY

They’re whispering behind my back:

“He could change his underwear
more often
but basically
he’s a nice guy.”

OLD DUDE

Looking at this extremely old dude
on Larry King Live.
He’s the vet of a long-ago war.
Bent over, white beard, white hair,
wrinkles, toothless jaw.

Larry asks him, “How old are you anyway?”
And the old dude says, “Fifty-one.”

Son of a bitch.
I’ll be fifty-two next month.
Is that what I look like?
Some extremely old dude
waiting for the war to die
inside his brain?

DREAMLAND
(Nightmare City)

“Follow me, I know the way,” she said
as we entered the station and hurried
past the sleepers.

We were headed for the ancient city of Nightmare
on the miraculous transport of Dreamland Express.
We arrived in Nightmare City instantly
station to station
like electrons at the speed of light.

We were traveling light
one thin suitcase each.
We had just enough clothes
to leave them overnight
in her girlfriend’s closet.

Back outside
the rain was thicker than blood
and our umbrellas
were covered with gore.
by the time we got to the pool hall
we were soaked to the skin and sore.

We kicked off our boots
and strolled into the warm embrace
of Devil in a Blue Dress
jumping from the jukebox
and dozens of Mad Hatters
doing the boogitie bop
on the tops of the pool tables

“Nightmare City
this is the place for you and me,”
she said as we sipped
Jack Daniels and Jack the Ripper
zipped by the window in a 4-wheel drive
Razorblade convertible
with Studebaker hubcaps.

“This is place for you and me,”
she said as the jukebox stopped playing
and the Madhatters started singing
Devil in a Blue Dress
in 4-part barbershop harmony
and Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels
cruised in
and shot a game of 8-ball
at the corner table.

We were lucky to get out of there alive.

Later, we ate tacos and drank Dos Equis
at a stand on the corner of Columbus and Slime
then followed the footprints
in the concrete down the street
into the house of the Movie Stars.

“What a reception,” she said
as the Movie Stars started making love
to the various animals
they found out by the swimming pool.
Ducks and Gila Monsters
seemed to be their favorite targets
tho we saw James Stewart and John Wayne
fighting over a stuffed palomino.

Meanwhile, back inside the Ranch
the cowboys were getting restless.
They hadn’t roped a decent bull
in a coon’s age
so they had to settle for bullfrogs.
I couldn’t watch.
It was just too terrible for words.
She held my hand and led me down
to the corner of Humpback and Broadway
where for just 3 dollars
you could buy a wind-up yoyo
and the stretch pants
(one size fits all)
were tossed in for free.

Again I couldn’t watch
it was just too horrible for words
“Nevermind,” she said
“we got better things to do.”

One of which was to jump in a taxi
and tell the driver we were lost

we saw many sights in Nightmare City
we saw slobs on vacation
we saw oil barons on welfare
we saw the best minds
of that other generation
getting stuck in turnstiles
as they rushed into a tent
to be blessed by a stand-up comic
from Canada with no front teeth
and a microphone in the shape
of a hippopotamus turd

We saw a monk in a blue dress
We saw Jesus Christ
We saw Julie Christie
We saw Ben and Jerry
We saw Dido and Aeneas

We were lucky to get out of there asleep.

PHEASANT HUNTING IN THE LATE 20th CENTURY

each year in November
a bunch of Belgians
get dressed up in hunting clothes
go down to the woods
with cages of pheasants
and shotguns

then they release the pheasants
and shoot them as they try to escape

it all starts at 10 am sharp
they blast away
and the pheasants die
the woods echo with explosions
it’s an orgasm of firepower

some pheasants die
and some don’t
one or two get away

it’s all over
at a quarter past 10
they pick up the dead pheasants
and go to a bar
and sit around for the rest of the day
telling each other
what great hunters they are

the pheasants never had a chance
and the few that got away
are amazed
they’re alive simply because
the men were such lousy shots

I think that’s what gets me the most
and provokes this fantasy:
the men are in the cages
the pheasants have guns
the pheasants open the cages
and the men run for their lives
the pheasants open fire
and the woods echo
with an orgasm of fire power

the pheasants never miss

POOR BILL

I was sitting in a cafe
drinking a beer
a man walked over and said to me
“Are you fucking my wife?”
I said, “No sir.”
And it was true.
At that particular moment
I was not fucking Poor Bill’s wife.
I was sitting in a cafe
drinking a beer.

TWO PUKE POEMS

1.
They gathered around the campfire
under the pines
under the star-spangled sky.
They started singing
“Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore.”
They sang it sincerely with deep feelings
That was me
down by the lake
puking.

2.
“Not all jails have bars,”
he said profoundly.
That was me
down on the stool at the end
puking in my beer.

PURITANICAL MANACLES

I. SHAME
She copulated, conceived,
failed to show the proper amount of shame
and consequently gave birth to a boy with buck teeth.

II. PREGNANT
she conceived
failed to show the proper amount of shame
walked around with her belly button bulging
her bloated body blimping
no shame at all

and consequently
gave birth to a bucktooth bag
and a couple of other bubbles
that almost looked like babies

III. MOM’S ON PARADE
she had that kid
in a bed with no wedlock
no shame at all
roll out the headlock

QUATRAIN

Take a look at this:

It’s an ancient quatrain
from the Hang Tuff Dynasty.
Translated roughly it goes:

I TOOK A BUS TO THE END OF THE LINE
I FOUND MYSELF IN THE MOUNTAINS
I WASHED MY HAIR IN A WATERFALL
AND SON OF A BITCH IT TURNED WHITE

The poet then continues
with another quatrain
because that ancient 4-line jazzamarag
is not big enough to contain
his big idea (or maybe he was just
worried about his white hair):

WHO WILL RECOGNIZE THE WANDERER
WHEN HE RETURNS?
WILL THEY SAY “NEXT TIME, SON OF A BITCH,
DON’T USE SUCH A CHEAP SHAMPOO.”

Here’s another ancient quatrain

This time it’s from the Charlie Chan
and Fu Man Choo Choo Mingus Dynasty
and true, it’s longer than four lines,
but by only just one word (because he ran out
of space) and who’s counting anyway?

I STAND UNDER A BRANCH OF THE ENEMA TREE
WAITING IN THE INVISIBLE RAIN
HOLDING A ROLL OF TOILET PAPER
AND WONDERING: WILL THE WANDERER EVER SHIT
AGAIN

DEAR MR Z (FORM LETTER)

I RECEIVED YOUR PREVIOUS LETTER.
THE REASON I DID NOT REPLY IS (check one)

□ I didn’t ask you to write that letter and I have no intention of replying to it.

□ My dog ate the letter before I had a chance to read it.

□ I don’t answer letters. Why don’t you learn to use the phone like everybody else?

□ I don’t answer letters and I don’t answer my phone. Learn telepathy.

□ You mailed it to the wrong address. How do I know? Telepathy.

□ I’ve got a lot of other things to do which are much more important than answering your letter.

□ I’ve got a few things to do which I think are more important. I’ll let you know when I find out what they are.

□ I’ve been meaning to write back but you know how it is?

□ I really do intend to write back
□ 3 weeks from now
□ 3 years from now
□ 30 years from now

□ I was outrageously insulted by your letter. If you think I’m going to write back you’re outrageously mistaken.

□ It slipped my mind. I really forgot. Sorry. You must be a very insignificant person.

□ I read your letter, but unfortunately I never learned how to write.

□ I read your letter, but unfortunately I broke both of my hands in a yachting accident. I’m learning to write with my left foot, but these things take time. Please be patient.

□ I lost your address. First my cousin who collects stamps stole the envelope. Then I dropped a bottle of black shoe dye (so clumsy of me) on your letter – right down there at the bottom where you’d printed your return address in huge block letters. (Accidents will happen, won’t they?)

□ Who do you think you are? Some kind of important person? I am an important person and I know one when I see one. When I look at you I see nothing but UNIMPORTANCE. Why don’t you do something useful – like selling shoes. People needs shoes, you know.

□ Ho hum. And blah blah blah. I get a thousand letters a week from assholes like you. Why don’t you do something useful with your life – like putting a gun to your head and ending it as soon as possible?

□ I never received your letter. Must be those kids next door. You might hear the rumor that I pay them a dollar a day to steal my mail, but don’t you believe it.

□ You wrote to the wrong person. It’s my brother you want to talk to. Right now he’s on an expedition into the rain forests of Brazil and won’t be back for about 15 or 20 years. I’ll have him drop you a line when he gets back.

□ You wrote to the wrong person. You think I can help you in some way. What a mistake.

□ You wrote to the right person, but if you think I am going to help you. you’re out of your head. I have no intention of helping you or anybody else unless I know what’s in it for me. Name your price and I might consider.

□ I refuse to answer any of the above. What are you trying to do? Make me feel guilty? Do you think everybody is like you? Do you think everybody answers the letters they receive? Mr. Z, you are living in the wrong century. People do not talk to one another these days, much less reply to each other’s letters.

□ Hey! You are one persistent person. This document is proof of that. No – wait! You’re worse than persistent. You’re pushy. You’re aggressive. What do you want from me? Blood? Sweat? Tears? Take a break, Mr. Z. Take a vacation. Put yourself on ice for a couple of years. Then get tuned in. Relax. Watch a little MTV. Drink a case of scotch. Smoke a lot of crack. Shoot some smack. Have a pre-frontal lobotomy. Eventually you’ll completely forget about that letter you wrote me. You’ll say, “Letter? What letter?”

SENTIMENTAL GLUE

I.

“You’re getting sentimental,” he says.

I know what he means. I’m living in memory
almost exclusive to anything else. In memory
is my identity, my shape, my knowledge,
my wisdom.

The aim is to synthesize memory
with the events of the present moment.
The problem is that we lack cultural connections.
Our culture is fragmented, accelerating
approaching self-destruction.

So what is to become of the individual
nervous system? How can one maintain
balance? Keep from breaking down,
becoming fragmented?

Sentimental glue might help.

II.

All this to say:
It becomes increasingly more difficult
to write about the present moment.
The present moment has been shattered.

Or to come at it from the other direction:
The past – memories – are the only solid
complete perceptions we can grasp. It is not
a question of being sentimental
or looking back to the good old days
or some mythical golden age. It is simply
that we inhabit flashing, flickering
realities, like a sequence
of still photographs
played out in the mind’s eye
at 1/10th of second each,
a flashing, flickering reality
out of control, spinning beyond
what the human nervous system
can capture and make sense of.

“I’ll take a dozen bottles of sentimental glue.”

SHIRT OPINIONS

I worked in a department store
salesman
men’s clothing

a pint size runt comes in
he wants a shirt

“A shirt like that one.
Mind if I try it on?”

“This should be about your size,”
I pulled out a shirt
that was about his size.

“Bigger,” he said.

So I pulled out a medium

“Bigger.”

I pulled out a large

“Bigger!”

Extra large

He tried it on
the shoulders hung down
over his elbows
the sleeves hung down
to his knees

“That’s much too large,” I said.

He looked up at me
out of the collar
which was up around his ears
he got his mouth free
from the top button and said,
“Listen, Squirt,
you keep your god damned opinions
to yourself
and leave the driving to me.”

MOVIE STARS

1. MOVIE STAR IN MEN’S CLOTHING

Fred MacMurray walked in one day
“Hey, that’s Fred MacMurray!”

He was taller than I imagined
but otherwise
he looked like Fred MacMurray.

That’s because in his movies
he always played Fred MacMurray.

Now he was playing “Fred MacMurray
Walks into the Men’s Department.”

“Looking for Levis,” he said to me

I pulled out the largest pair we had

“I’ll take four dozen of those,” he said.

Other than that
Fred MacMurray
was just like everybody else.

2. MOVIE STAR IN WOMEN’S CLOTHING

One day Natalie Wood walked in
and headed straight for women’s clothing

I was over in men’s clothing, watching
hoping she would need a pair of men’s Levis
or some suspenders.

But she walked into women’s clothing
and started trying on
women’s clothes.

She tried them on for about two hours.

Watching from across the store
I got the idea
that she was having a hard time
making up her mind.

It was not a choice
between one dress or another
but between a dress
and a pack of buttons
and a swimsuit
and a raincoat

After two hours
she gave up
and bought everything.

All the dresses.
All the buttons.
All the swim suits.
All the raincoats.

“Put them on my charge account,”
I heard her say at the counter.

I guess she was going
to make up her mind later

THE SHOUTER

a man walking down the street
at 4 am, shouting
“AAUUUUUUGH!”

the city is silent, no cars
I hear him approaching
“AAAUGH!”
I hear him outside my window
“AAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGH!”

he’s either having an orgasm
every 20 steps or so
or he’s in tremendous pain

pleasure or pain?
I think it’s pain
it’s 1986 and it’s pretty dark
out there
I feel I should be
out there too
stomping down the street
opening my mouth
every 20 steps or so
and letting it all hang out
“AAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!”

THE SINGER

the blind singer limped on stage
the audience got up and walked out
he was hoping
to arouse their pity
but all he did
was stimulate
their disgust

SHRINK (OR 8 REASONS WHY I REFUSE TO SEE A PSYCHIATRIST)

1.
As I’m leaving her office and crossing the crowded waiting room, she appears in the doorway behind me and says loudly, “And if you’d quit masturbating so much – especially with all
those fantasies of 8-year old girls, I’m sure you’ll feel a lot better.”

2.
“Everything you say in this room is absolutely
confidential – except when the FBI and CIA come around to check my files. I can’t do anything about those guys.”

3.
“I used to have this geezer come in here – poor, pitiful motherfucker, working on his twenty-first nervous breakdown. He used to come in here and lie on the couch and cry his eyes out. You remind me a little bit of him. But don’t worry I won’t say anything about you fucking your daughter to
anybody else. I never talk about my patients behind their backs unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

4.
“Hey, I just read about your shrink in the papers. What a mess. She butchered some poor slob on her couch with an ax. They mentioned your name. You were supposed to be her next appointment.”

5.
“Now I know I’m not an authorized medical doctor,” she says, “but this four-foot electric cow prod I am about to inject in your anus will quickly speed up your treatment, I’m sure. Tell me if the straps are too tight.”

6.
“Just ignore that puddle of piss by the couch. The patient before you got a little hysterical when I started slapping her around.”

7.
“This is just a minor matter,” she announces, “But I must sign these papers that commit you to an insane asylum for the next ten years. The daily electric shock treatments I’m recommending will cure you of most of your problems. Think of it as a vacation.”

8.
“I just sold your life story to a publisher. They were impressed by your obsession for sucking on exhaust pipes and your need to wrap various parts of your body in rubber bands. They don’t think too much of your craving for lemon meringue pie sprinkled with thumbtacks – and I don’t either. You won’t see a red cent, of course, because that would violate all the rules of medical ethics. However, this book is bound to be a bestseller. They might even make it into a movie.”

SPITTING IMAGE

“You must be Bob’s brother,”
I said to the kid on the street.
“Yeah, that’s right,” he said.
” – how could you tell?”
“You have the same problem with your face.”

STRING QUARTET VOLCANOES

There are some string quartets
that play only for natural disasters.
Exploding volcanoes, earthquakes, forest fires.
You see them driving their trucks
– their special string quartet trucks –
into the mountains and losing their way
in the smoke. You see them sitting beside
2000-acre blazes playing Mozart and Beethoven.
Sometimes their instruments catch fire
and get burned up along with the sheet music
and they have to finish their concerts
by whistling from memory.

And there you are in the middle of your fancy
swimming pool in suburban Shangri-La-La-Land
bitching about too much mustard on your hotdog
and would somebody for God’s sakes bring me a
real bottled beer and not one of these canned
urinals of domestic piss.

Go jump in a volcano.
Feel some real pain.

TUBA MANURE

If you want to have some real fun
go down and join the smoking nuns
of the Salivation Army Band
outside the Museum
of Natural Childbirth
take your bugle along
pucker your lips and honk
a hole in the side of the sky, walk
down the street
and march against the beat
of miles of flooded broken sewer
over-flow and tuba manure
thru waves of heat
and wormish glow
join the circus
join the show
check it out
the protest signs
“I PUT MY ASS ON THE BOTTOM LINE”
“I DON’T BELIEVE I’VE GOT A PAIR
OF SUNDAY UNDERWEAR TO SPARE”
check ’em out
chicks with sticks
chicks with tongues and hungry licks
looking for slick romance
a backseat dance upon their bellies
a squirt of jelly in their pants
a gas mask goodbye kiss of death
a final gasp, a blast of breath
shit, you’re right, it’s lots of fun
tomorrow night I’ll bring a gun

TUBES

1. THE MUSICAL TUBES

the trombone player
plays so excellently well
you’d think the slide
is part of his mouth
a brass tube tongue
flicking out
to capture a fly
and slide it back in
that’s why trombone players
never get fat

the trumpet player
is pretty good
the tubes bunch up
in front of his mouth
much too close to his face
he’s going
to have to
breathe out hard
and stretch
those tubes
before he gets around
to making great music
he needs more practice

the French horn player
is just so-so
he’s got his tubes
curled up under his arm
he’ll never make great music
hiding his tubes like that
OK for wedding parties
and rotary club luncheons
hayrides (excellent
for football games)
but no good at all
for the big stuff
lousy on hunts
horn’s pointed the wrong way

the tuba player
is terrible
how he ever got such
an obese set of tubes
is a mystery
why he would want to make music
with those paunchy bulges
is another mystery
only sad, paunchy bulge music
is possible in his condition
no amount of practice
will improve his tubes

2. FAMOUS LAST TUBE

the straw
– a candy stripe spiral
hangs over the lip
of the empty Pepsi bottle

whoever sucked that straw
sucked the shit out of it

WALT

Walt came out to survey the ground
where he wanted to build his Disneyland.
Among the weeds and broken slabs of concrete
lay a corpse, the body of a man the mob
had strangled and dumped the night before.

Walt stood at the corpse’s feet and gestured.
“Over there we’ll put the roller coaster
and over here the Mad Hatters Tea Party.
And by the way get this dummy propped up.
He’ll be one of the spectators.
And remind me to send a note
to the Special Effects Department.
Those guys are getting really good
with rubber and plastic.”

WILD SIDE

Joe and Stella
take a walk on the Wild Side

Stella kneels down
to take a look
at a bum’s stamp collection

Joe is thinking:
“We should have brought along
a few turkey sandwiches
and a 6-pack of beer.”

He waves his cane over the river
hoping a fish will jump up
and nip at the tip

Stella is thinking:
“He has exhausted
all other possibilities”

[ Gig Harbor, October 1996 ]

WHYBIG (1)

The ad said:
TAKE A CHANCE AND GET LUCKY
WIN A BRAND NEW WHYBIG REFRIGERATOR

I got lucky and won.
The men brought the fridge
and put it in the center of my room
They plugged it in.
It worked.
I was delighted.
I said, “I’ve always wanted a WHYBIG.”
The last thing the men did before leaving
was to scrape the word WHYBIG
from the side of the fridge.
“Sorry,” they said,
“Maybe you’ll have better luck next time.”

After they left I got out a thick marker pen
and wrote WHYBIG into the scratches on the side.

My friends came over.
“Hey, that’s a WHYBIG!”
“I see you got yourself a WHYBIG.”
“I wish I could get lucky and win a WHYBIG.”

I stood before it proudly.
I opened the door
and showed them the ice
in the freezer compartment.
“This is MY WHYBIG,” I told them.

“Did he say LIE BIG?”
“I think he said MY BIG.”

I knew then
it was going to be big WHYBIG summer.

WHYBIG (2)

the refrigerator stood
in the middle of the floor
it was 7 feet tall, 4 feet wide
and four feet deep.
painted on one side, in foot-high
stencil letters were these words

WHY
PIG?

they came into the room
and started shouting
“IT’S A MY BIG!” he shouted,
“NO IT’S A LIE BIG!” she shouted,
After shouting this several times
they settled down to watch
the ice water dripping
from the door
and listening to the oinks
coming from behind it.
They knew they were both wrong.
It was a WHY PIG?
and it was too late
to do anything about it.

WHYBIG (3)

TAKE A CHANCE AND GET LUCKY
AND WIN A BRAND NEW WHYBIG TV
said the ad.
She got lucky and won.
The men brought the TV into her room
on one side it was printed
WHY
BIG?
They plugged it in.
It worked.
She was delighted
“I’ve always wanted to own
a Whybig? TV set,” she said.

the last thing the men did
before they left
was to scrape the words
WHY
BIG?
from the side of the TV.
“Sorry,” they said.
“Maybe you’ll have better luck
next time.”

After they left
she went out in the backyard
and smoked a cigarette.
She blew dozens of smoke rings
at the moon
They spelled out two words

WHY
BIG

The moon was delighted.
“I’ve always wanted to inhale
Whybig smoke rings.”

YOUTH IN ASIA

Go ahead,
you think I’m going to scream
if you rip open a map
and start pointing
at all the dusty trails you hiked
when you were but a youth in Asia?

Go head, point to your boots
number the number of times
you had to climb down to the cities
to have new soles nailed on
because of all the hours you spent
in the lava bedrooms
of your mother fucking earth.

Get out your old jeans too,
the ones with the holes in the pockets
and the patches on the knees,
the ones that were gouged by antlers
and plucked by grizzly claws.
Tell me about the sidewinder belt
you used to wear until it slithered away
one night when you were asleep,
and how you carried fishhooks in your fly
when you fished the streams
and built log cabins in your eyes.

Tell me about the campfires
on which you used to roast
entire antelope on toasted loaves
and mushrooms between your toes

I like the part about the gun
when you went shooting elk
and came back loaded down
with a dozen of sacks of groceries.

Go ahead, get out your sleeping bag
roll it out on the floor
and show me how you used to fart in it,
hop around in it when you’d wake up in the morning
while waiting for the water to boil
and how you lowered the zipper
and pissed out the side.

Go ahead, piss on the rug.
It’s not mine.

You can super glue your shoes together
for all I care.

ZEELAND
for Marie Claire

some places have church bells to mark
the passage of time
here they have cows

one mooed in the middle of the night
I looked at the clock
half-past two

later the cow cut loose again
39 moos
I knew exactly what time it was
7:15

CREATURES
(are they really birds?)

you never see them
singing, squawking, whistling
tooting away
they’re always hidden
up in the leaves
of some tree

or sometimes
it’s thru a window
a sound from another planet

a dog barks
and you just assume
from past experience
that it’s really a dog

but after a while
you start to wonder

Let my green book be the river

POEMS 2002-2004  |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

THE FAMOUS STRANGER

she was looking at
the famous and not
so famous stranger

I was OK
by the time
I reached Jean-Pol’s house

am I the Famous Stranger?

when I left Jean-Pol’s house
I was still doing OK

I walked down the Dreve
I was all alone
I was the Famous Stranger

I called Bear on the cell phone
to tell her not to worry
as I was walking down the Dreve
she wasn’t home
so I talked to her tape
I forget to mention
that I was the Famous Stranger

then came the Sniffing Circus
the Old Olfactory Factory
huge piles of shit in a row
alongside the Dreve
cow shit
pig shit
bull shit
baby shit
I couldn’t eat
my Famous Stranger Biscuit
the smell was so vile
and sweet mixed in
with all those cow barn memories

Then I saw a man
a runner in a red shirt
he was way up ahead
coming in on the Cemetery Road
he turned up the Dreve
and got smaller and smaller
where will they bury the Famous Stranger?
(where will the Famous Stranger be laid?)

then a kid walked by
with a dog on a leash
I thought maybe the kid
would pull out a knife

it was all those thoughts
about buried Famous Strangers
that was twisting up my mind

the kid was so empty
he wasn’t even there
the dog seemed to be
on the down-side too

neither would have known
the Famous Stranger
if he walked up to them
and bit them on the nose

I got into the village
I walked down the boulevard
like a Sherman tank
full of Famous Strangers

I got home OK
I was feeling better
Bear said, “Oh –
here comes the Famous Stranger.”
I said, “You had me worried
for a while.”

[ Stockay / St. Georges, April 9, 2004 ]
SACRIFICE

Isn’t it amazing
how we sail along
past traumas
and delights of yesterday
right into the dramas
and gesundheits of today
with only a casual
glance back
with only a twitch
of guilt down
in the back row
of the brain box
where a standing-room only
crowd of glowworms
and electric nematodes
are clapping their flappers
and slapping the crap
out of their brothers
and sisters?

reminds me of wolf-face children
(of which I am one)
standing around a campfire
looking down at their father
being roasted alive
on the coals
then shrugging their shoulders
and taking off for the river
for a cool drink of water

[ August 2004 ]

BIKE POEMS 2004

Bike Poem 1

TWO POEMS ON APRIL 24, 2004 AFTER BIKING WITH BEAR AROUND HANEFFE AND JENEFFE LOOKING FOR A FARM THAT SELLS POTATO EYES AND MAYBE SEEDS TOO AND IT’S WHITE LIKE AN OLD BARN ON THE LEFT UP HERE EXCEPT THERE WOULDN’T BE A ROAD COMING IN FROM RIGHT LIKE THAT . . . AND A JUST A LITTLE BIT WIDER TOO

1. Laughter

two chubby guys stopped in a car
windows open
laughing like mad
laughing like nothing else mattered
laughing for the hell of it

they were a jolly bunch of fellows

we should have stopped
and laughed along with them

2. Coming Home

down here there is no wind

Bike Poem 2

ROSES IN MY SPOKES

I go see the repairwoman about my bicycle
we meet in an empty basketball arena
we’re down on our knees on the hardwood floor
facing each other
she wants to put roses in my spokes
I bend over and slap the floor
with the palms of my hands
“I don’t want roses in my spokes!”
She slaps the floor twice.
“Then how about a couple of jokers?”

[ April 27, 2004 ]

Bike Poem 3

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

sunlight glancing, glittering
off car roofs
on a distant highway
that’s Sunday afternoon

[ May 2, 2004 ]

Bike Poem 4

DON’T RUN OVER STRANGE OBJECTS IN THE ROAD

1.
it could be anything
it could be coming at you
or just lying still
a beer can or a hedgehog

last night Kris said
he knows a good recipe
for cooking hedgehogs

Jef said the gypsies
bake them in clay

2.
it could be anything
a mirage or a deep hole

Kris and Jef and I
were talking about
black holes too

slip on the edge of one
you’ll fall in
and you’ll never come back

3.
it could be a bird
or a plain brown bag
or a superman turd
I read in a magazine
about parallel worlds
people who look
like you and me
and Kris and Jef
walking around and doing
things we don’t know about
and once in a while one of them
it could be you or me or Kris or Jef
sticks his foot into this universe and suddenly
there’s this bare foot in the middle of the road
and then it’s gone
as the man behind the foot
launches himself
into another dimension

4.
last night I said to Kris and Jef
I like being inside of me, seeing the way I see
if I get any riper I’ll fall off the tree
who’s that guy lying in the road?

it’s not Mr. Bag and it’s not Mr. Bird
a Superman turd? don’t make me laugh
and look at that bike, it’s turned up absurd
looks like the tree bit it in half

[ May 2, 2004
Two Trees Road – Les Waleffes, Hesbaye ]

Bike Poem 5

ROADKILL TOTAL

one fat black raven
one small hedgehog
ten snails
and a bent can half-full
of Heinekens beer

we will feast well tonight

[ Two Trees Road, May 11, 2004 ]

Bike Poem 6

STRETCH FLAP AND FLY

1. Prolog : Stretch Flap

riding my bike
I like to sit up straight
and stretch my arms
and shoulders
and reach back
and massage my lower back
first on the left side
then the right

what I’d really like to do
is sticking out my arms
and pretend I’m flying

sometimes I come close

there’s a brief instant
as I’m swinging my arm
and reaching back
to rub a back that isn’t sore
when my arm is out there
winging thru the air
just an instant
a flicker of the eye
an image that drops
between blinks
first one arm
then the other

2. Sequel: Flap Fly

I just did it
I even made the sounds
of a plane
vooo – vooo – voooo
with my left wing
yarn – yaaaaarn
YAAAAAAAAARN!
with my right wing

Twice

I did it again
“Joooooooo,!” with my left
and
“Swooooooooooooooop!”
I divebombed Pearl Harbor
the Japanese just watched
the Belgians weren’t there
Swooooooooooooooop!”
with my right wing
as I swooped into the side gate
in the notebook
to say I’ve been wanting
to yarn and swoop
for a long time
and that I don’t think
I’ll be doing it again

once every 65 years or so
is more than enough
for that kind of disturbance
I just set off a hurricane
that will reach
the east coast of Florida
about 10:30 tonight
local time
“Flap flap flap”

[ July 2004, Highpoint Hesbaye Road ]

Bike Poem 7

KILOMETERS

kilometers on the road
squirming like nematodes
kilometers on the road
they’re going to explode
kilometers on the road

mutton on the dike
looking all alike
mutton on the dike
looking at my bike
mutton on the dike

Bear inside a church
I think she’s going to pray
Bear inside a church
I wonder what she’s going to say
Bear inside a church

[ Schipdonk Canal – Sint Rita, July 30, 2004 ]

Bike Poem 8

MOBILITY

Question posed by myself:

if you (plural) were a car
what kind would you (plural) be?

(plural meaning the single entity
of human + bicycle)

I think I’d be a sky blue
mysteriously moveable
total context
solar-powered
lunar inspired
Ecology Mobile

my memory is slightly rusty
and my fenders are stoned
but I still get around
like the Fat Man

I just need a drink of water
from time to time

[ Old Farm Road Bridge
over the Liege-Paris Autoroute, July 31, 2004 ]

Bike Poem 9

LOOP TWO

this is where
I came in

to

the

loop

[The Verlaine Steep
at the Old Farm Highway Bridge
September 26, 2004 ]

Bike Poem 10

HIGH TIDE

hell freezes over
twice a day
low tide

then boiling hot water
comes pouring in
and everybody complains
about the weather

[ Lost Haiku Road, December 9, 2004 ]

BICYCLE DREAM

it’s taken about 5 years
including a couple of summers
of intense daily activity
in a row
but there I am
finally
cruising down a road
that exists nowhere in the world
but in my sleeping mind
and I’m stopping
to give directions
to lost bikers,
“Just go down the hill
and pass thru
the communist regime
until you come
to the academy awards
(if you turn right
you’ll end up
in the slow movement
of Beethoven’s Fifth
Piano Concerto)
so keep going straight
up the hill
and you’ll come
to the last episode
of the Jerry Seinfeld Show
you can’t miss it
you can almost see it
from here way over there
in the patch of sunshine
by that clump of trees.”

it’s taken a guiding hand
from the TV to reveal the maps
but I’m finally out there
riding around in my dreams
on cloud-padded country roads
and getting so completely lost
that I’m qualified to give
other people elaborate
precise directions
to places they don’t want to go

[ upon awakening, Aug. 6, 2004 ]

WHEELS

There were cars in my dreams

Golden Gate Park, hot summer
Sunday afternoon, bumper to bumper
sprawlcrawl with the sun
bouncing off all the chrome
and me, Jesus Christ,
keeping the old religion alive,
with a head full of acid
and not a clue about how
I was going to get
to the other side of the road

my proud 1950 Ford
wrecked it, totaled it out
3 weeks after buying it used
for 400 bucks most of it
I’d earned raising a selling
a yearling steer named Curly.
I rolled it, flipped it,
wrote about it in a song
except it turned
into a Fifty-One Ford
because I couldn’t figure out
how to make music with 1950.

the beat-up ’48 Chevy pick-up
I learned to drive when I was 12
and my feet reached the pedals
since I was 8.

the old green Simca wagon
that carried me a million European miles
from Rome to Copenhagen
and everywhereandthing in between

there are cars in my dreams
but I don’t like them
I don’t like cars
I don’t really turn my head
when a 1932 Chevro-Baker Studelay tools by
I tend to look the other way
when the latest Italian Gizomobile
slides by with a sleazy blond at the wheel
I might gaze upon the sleaze
but I’ll ignore the mobile
SUVs (Urban Assault Vehicles)
make me want to puke in my shoes
as I leap out of them
and go scooting away
like the Road Runner
on his footloose wheels

AND DON’T GET ME STARTED ON TRUCKS
truckers used to be cool guys
now they’re just assholes
hell-bent on taking over the world
by ruling the highways
they’ did it before
in the middle ages

motor scooters?
give me a fly swatter

FOREST

You never hear people say,
“That sure is an ugly forest”
They always say,
“That’s a beautiful forest,”
and that’s because
all the ugly forests are gone

It happened a long time ago

The forests held a beauty contest
and the losers had to walk
to the ocean
and set themselves on fire

[ Kastelenroute, Brugge, July 29, 2004 ]

KITES

the thing about these kites
swooping and dipping
above the sand packed beach
is that after you look at them
for an hour or two
you start to see the wind

[ Rømø, Denmark, September 2002 ]

FACE

The shape of my face
under the mask
of my pressed palms and fingers
is not the same face
I see in the mirror

[ April 11, 2003 ]

GRACELET

This morning
I worked in the garden
and graced myself
with a bracelet
of nettle stings

ARNO, AGE 4
painted for us
a beautiful picture
on the courtyard pavement
out of dried twigs
and palm-size
chunks of coal

later
after Arno went to sleep
we walked all over
his painting
without even thinking
about it

[ Aug. 3, 2003 ]

HELENE

for John Bennett

I don’t like Rachmaninoff
but I like Hélène Grimaud
I like her Brahms better
than hot milk on toast

and brown sugar, cinnamon
hey it’s Graveyard Stew
the bowl’s on the table
places for two

so here’s to you Hélène
keep tappin’ the keys
pumpin’ the pedal
and shootin’ the Bees

[ Oct. 18, 2003 ]

SILENCE IN BELGIUM AFTER 33 YEARS

There are many benefits in not speaking the language.
One of them is learning how to shut up.

DOG’S DOG

I’m sitting outside a Flemish cafe
filling my plastic bottle
from a glass bottle
of cold water and a dog’s dog
comes up and wants a lick
so I pour some ice cold water
into my palm and he laps it up
tongue tapping a coded message
that only hidden parts of my brain
can understand
and I keep filling the cup of my hand
and the dog keeps lapping
until he’s tired of lapping
and then he just walks away

I notice myself lately
becoming more and more
like that dog

[ Hex, July 31, 2004 ]

SHE WAS TOLD

1.
she was told
that if push came to shove
she should fall on the floor
and pretend to be crippled

this was about the time
Richard Widmark
started shoving old ladies
in wheelchairs down
long flights of stairs
in Hollywood

she didn’t have a chance
by the time she got to the city

thousands of men who looked
like Richard Widmark
leaped from thousands
of doorways
and didn’t even hesitate
to use her back
as a welcome mat

2.
she was told
“if slapped in the face
turn the other cheek”
soon she was spinning
in her tracks
as her first three husbands
took turns
keeping in shape
by practicing
Wife-Beating Aerobics

but they forgot to tell her
what to do
when the fourth husband
started using her guts
as a punching bag
and her ass
as a kicking mat

3.
she was told
that someday she would come
to a high wall
beyond which would lie
the Kingdom of Heaven

as it turned out
she got to that wall
a lot sooner
than anybody expected

she climbed a ladder
and peeked over
and saw that the Kingdom of Heaven
was a 16,000-lane bowling alley

the trick was to get
from one end to the other
without being de-footed
by one of the blazing
cannon balls
the gods were rolling
with frantic intensity

if you performed
the Bowling Alley Boogie
and survived
with both feet intact
you were rewarded
with a 6-foot teddy bear
and a free ride
on the ghost train

4.
they told her
she was beautiful
and she made the mistake
of believing them

[ August 2004 ]

SWEET LITTLE 13

She’s 12
and she believes
that good little girls
don’t play with snails
or puppy dog tails
or the fingernails
of greasy garage mechanics
until they’re 13

after that
it’s every grease monkey
for himself
and lord have mercy
on the flunky
who gets stuck
pumping up her tires.

[ Aug. 7, 2004 ]

DUMB

dumb dogs, dumb people
how could it be otherwise?

[ Baraqui Corner / May 2, 2004 ]

MR.GOBBLE DE GOOK

Guy on the phone says,
“I want to speak
to Mr. Gobble De Gook.”

I say, “Wrong number.”

He says, “Are you
Mr. Gobble De Gook?”

I say, “No, I’m not.”

He says, “Are you sure?”

So I say, “I know my own name.
I’ve had it for the past three years
so I should be very familiar with it
by now, Mr. Kafka.”

And he says, “I don’t want
to speak with Mr. Kafka.
I want to speak to Mr. Gobble De Gook.”

MONSTERS

(for Bill Maher)

Why do they show all these terrible people
on TV?
Larry King has them live all the time.
Monsters.
Horrible humans
filled with hate and greed
their faces twisted with evil
their eyesockets empty
just holes thru which you can see
the squirming worms packed into their skulls.
Never answering a question
but always sidestepping it
as if any kind of truth could be a trap
even the time of day.
Deceiving.
Dissimulating.
Faking belief.
Shouting propaganda.
Spouting poison.
Licking hundred dollar bills
and picking their fangs with sharpened claws.

Don’t the networks have somebody else they can put on?
Just one or two maybe?
Somebody funny
Somebody beautiful
Somebody compassionate
Isn’t there somebody in the world
who remembers what love is?
Or have the slow-burn fascists
exterminated them all
and only the Uglies, the Haters,
the Mental Mutants, the Monsters
are available for comment
and expert opinions?

But no, we don’t have the watchdogs anymore.
The watchdogs have been tamed
and shot full of junk.
The media’s been taken over by the Monsters
it’s become an engine of their propaganda machine.

These horrible humans are convinced
that they and their kind rule the world.
What an illusion. Even a blind man
can see that their method of control
is dedicated to the destruction of the world.

Toe the line, Larry, or we’ll put a bullet
thru your head
or we’ll stick you in a 747
and crash you into the Statue of Liberty
or if that flight’s all booked up
with stand-up comics
and leaders of Greenpeace
and Amnesty International
we’ll send you and Bill Maher on a one-way trip
into the south tower
of the Golden Gate Bridge

ASSWIPES

sometimes I get fed up
being around
all these asswipes

there’s nowhere I can go
where I won’t encounter
more asswipes

except maybe the middle
of the Atlantic Ocean
where I’ll probably
bump into a bunch
of asswipe whales

[ May 5, 2004 ]

NUMBSKULL HIGHWAY

it’s gets scary in the city
when you look around
and notice
that about half the people
walking past you on the streets
are imbeciles
halfwits
idiots
numbskulls

but it gets REALLY scary
when you realize
that in about an hour
most of these numbskulls
are going to be out on the highway
behind the wheels of powerful, fast cars
all racing to be
the first one home

SNEAK FREAKS

I’m sitting at my table
sipping tea
when I look over at a newspaper
draped over the armchair.
The headline reads:

BABY – 10 MONTHS OLD – RAPED BY FATHER

Christ almighty! Who invited this freak
into my house?

Nobody.
He just snuck in
like a baby rapist
and plastered his message on my chair

It feels like he shit in my eyes.
Sneak Freaks!
They’re everywhere.
They creep under your fingernails
and crawl up inside your skin
where they wiggle around like worms
and suck on your nerves.

I wish I’d never learned to read.

DRUNK DRIVING OLYMPICS

The cops are pulling cars over
to test the drivers
for alcoholic intoxication
make the them walk the white line
touch their fingertips to their noses
blow a balloon

He stops
pours himself out of the car
manages to stand erect for a second
or two
then passes out
at the cop’s feet
in a puddle of alcoholic stupor

“No need to test this one”
“He gets the gold medal”

The next day the driver
and two other drivers
who’d been pulled over for DWI
now sober
stand on a podium
against the back wall of the town jail
and bend their heads
as the cops loop ribboned medals
around their necks
Gold
Silver
Bronze

Then the police chief
takes out a ping pong ball gun
and shoots their mouths
full of ping pong balls

“Next time it’ll be real bullets.”
“And more ping pong balls.”

[ Old Farm Road, July 28, 2004 ]

THE HUNTER

the cop stops the car
in the middle of the forest

in the car
are four loonies, two in front
the one behind the wheel
is wearing lipstick
and playing with his balls

and the two in back are slapping
each other around like a couple of queers

the cop’d like to get a can of gas
from his trunk and pour it
over the driver’s head
light a match, toss it thru the window

nobody knows what’s going to happen next

after the first explosion
there will be no more screaming
the radio antenna will flip off
and bury its tip in a pine tree

be a good way to get rid of these bums
spontaneous combustion

it could happen at any moment

tongues of fire shooting across the road
and illuminating the eyes
of foxes who have crept up
to the edge of the forest
to watch the hunter
dance around
his campfire

[ May 6, 2004 ]

GRAVY TRAIN

see them riding the Gravy Train
hanging onto the iron sides
their hands crucified
pierced on death nails
their feet dangling
ankles broken
flapping in the breeze

that’s what happens
when you sign up
with the army
and you get a bonus
3-week, all-expenses
paid vacation
in the Bermuda Triangle

HOOKED

we’re all hooked
EVERYBODY
prozac
aspirin
nicotine
speed
junk
coke
crack
coffee
FEEL FREE
TO JUMP IN
AT ANY TIME
whiskey
rum
vodka
beer
wine
exstasy
viagra
opium
methadone
benzodiazepine
DON’T LET ME STOP YOU
FROM CONTRIBUTING
A FEW OF YOUR OWN
PERSONAL POISONS
morphine
absinthe
glue
quaalude
tequila
no-doz
codeine
valium
testosterone
EPO
everybody but me
I’m not hooked on any substance
and just as long as I can have
my three or four puffs
of locoweed daily
I’m sure I’ll be drug free
forever

BRAIN CHEMISTRY

My brain chemistry sucked for so long
really sucked
all that nicotine
all those noxious gases
and lack of oxygen

now I’ve got bananas
and prunes
and peppermints
lots of fresh water
plus the best gravity-defying
perspective-supplying
locoweed
that the earth-mothering
Dutch soil can provide.

[ while riding by the Destexhe farm
in Verlaine on the 16th of April, 2003 ]

SMOKE

I stopped smoking four years ago
or rather smoking lost interest in me
and walked away

How did I do it?
Puffing on all those rolled rice papers
packed full of tobacco
inhaling hundreds of thousands of lungfuls
of smoke
desperately pumping the nicotine
into my bloodstream
and praying it would numb my nerves.

I would have been better off
hitting myself over the head
with a hammer.

[ October 2, 2002 ]

COMA

“I didn’t know what was happening”

I’ll say it now
so when I wake up
you will know exactly what it is
that I’m trying to say

DEAD TIRED

I lie down to sleep
wait for sleep to come
sometimes I wait all night
sometimes sleep never comes

some people I know
drop off in seconds

if I dropped off
in seconds
I’d have to be dead

[ August 2004 ]

HANT WERPEN

If you really need a part of my body
to throw in your river
take my face

I need my hands
I’d be lost without them.

My face?
You’ve seen it before
it’s served its purpose
now it’s just ugly

on second thought
take my feet
they’re really ugly too

[ July 20, 2003
Antwerpen ]

JEF SAYS

I sit on the quay above the Schelde
legs dangling, leaning over
looking down into the wash of the out-going tide.

Jef says, “Can you swim?”

I say, “Enough, but the only way
I’d fall in
is if I passed out first.”

Jef says, “You’re always looking for a challenge.”

[ Antwerpen July 19, 2003 ]

HANDS

rub your kid’s back when he can’t go to sleep
lift a fork to eat
a spoon
lift a cup to drink
a bottle
salt food
pepper
toss another log on the fire
wipe your mouth
saw a log
shave
hammer a nail
put on your socks
shoes
set a screw
tighten a bolt
hold an ice cream cone
butter your toast
scratch an armpit
pour honey on your toast
trim your toenails
fingernails
pull a splinter from your finger
pick your nose
turn the pages of the book you’re reading
fold a newspaper
re-fold a map
punch a button on the VCR
strike a match
flick a lighter
hold a cigarette to your mouth
cigar
pipe
guide your bicycle
pump gas
turn the key
start the car
change radio stations
flip down the sun visor
adjust the rearview
flip somebody the bird
hold hands with your girlfriend
boyfriend
zip up your pants
button
flush toilet
wipe ass
wash hair
hands

wind a clock
shut off the alarm
grip a baseball bat
squeeze a pimple
open a window
shut the door
pull down the curtain
switch on the light
sweep the floor
pick up your mail
remove a letter from the envelope
shake somebody’s hand

slap somebody on the back
punch somebody in the nose
slide your trombone
tune your guitar
play piano
drums
flute
harp
swing a tennis racket
catch a baseball
dribble a basketball
swim
tap your PC keyboard
pick up your phone
dial a wrong number
pick up a pen
write words like these
(pick
one
of the above
or
one of the below
and imagine
doing it
with your feet)
put them in your pocket
hang out the washing
wash the dishes
hang a picture
read braille
pick your teeth
with a toothpick
pull out a handkerchief
and blow your nose
comb your hair
climb a ladder
load a gun
pull the trigger
peel a banana
wave a flag
salute
set a mousetrap
click a photo
mold a pot
weave a blanket
throw a spear
shoot an arrow
do a push-up

manipulate a puppet
apply make-up to your face
rake leaves
scratch your back
if you can reach it
dig up a few potatoes
fly a kite
pet a dog
cat
make your bed
pull out a dollar bill
and pay
pull out a credit card
pull out a coin
and drop it in the slot
pick up a coin
and drop it again
paint a picture
paint a wall
milk a cow
jump rope
pump a tire
peel an orange
roll a joint
roll the dice
deal the cards
hold a winning hand
hold a losing hand
raise the bet
fold
insert a suppository up your anus
suck your thumb
open an umbrella
button your shirt
wipe your glasses
pin the tail on the donkey
spin the bottle
make a shopping list
type a letter
wear a ring
wear gloves
wave
pray

CATHEDRAL

The Age of Aquarius
we’re in it
it’s all around us
it’s out on the freeway
it’s down in the mall
it’s out along the edge of the city
they call it urban sprawl

but here in the center of the city
under the highest spire
Christ still dangles on his cross
fish man, don’t like fire
fish man, hung out to dry
don’t like air, fish man lost

oh Jesus Christ, I’m sad to say
you’re not the number one curse
in the English language today

but they sure knew how to build them
these cathedrals
solid, rooted in the earth
by pillars of marble
stained glass windows
clarion bells chiming
in the tower above

the Age of Aquarius
it’s here
it’s out in the airports
it’s up in the planes
it’s in your living room
it’s electric, impossible to tame
it’s eccentric, hard to name
it’s got its fingers on Mars
and around the Man in the Moon

Hail Mary! Hard to Give Up

my damned Puritan forefathers
had it all figured out
“Got to get rid of the woman
she’s causes too much doubt”

Hail Mary! Hard to give up

and tho they kicked out Mother Mary
she’s hard to give up
Saint Marie, Santa Maria
Madonna, Notre Dame

even as we flash down
the cathedral malls
and the freelove freeways
of the Aquarius Corporation
she’s hard to give up

soft, compassionate
makes you want to cry
“MOM!”

hard to give up

loving, tender
she’ll rub your back
and Christ! she’s a virgin too

hard to give up
you just don’t walk out on a lady

[ June 2, 2003,
of St. Paul’s Cathedral in Liege, Belgium ]

STORM IN A CATHEDRAL

they sure knew how to build them
these cathedrals
solid, rooted in the earth
by pillars of marble
stained glass windows
clarion bells chiming
in the tower above
and beyond
the rumble of thunder
a storm raging
booms of god’s wrath
rain splattering
on the high windows
be just my luck
to be sitting right under
the cathedral spire
highest point in the city
when a huge bolt of lightning
zaps right down and nails me in my chair

“Poet tragically killed
while deep in prayer
by a thunder bolt from god.”

[ June 2, 2003, seated in the nave
of St. Paul’s Cathedral in Liege, Belgium ]

THE AGE OF APARADISO

The Age of Aquarius
we’re in it
that’s why I feel so at home
perfectly safe and secure
satisfied and blessed
if you leave out the parts
about the cities
and the airports and planes
and the cars and the highways
and the fast food joints
and the urban mall sprawl
and SUVs
and machine-manufactured music.

Other than that
I’m in Paradise

FOOTNOTE TO “THE AGE OF APARADISO”

make that all cities
except Rome, Italy
Amsterdam, Holland
Bruges, Belgium
and San Francisco, California

all the rest you can stick in a cannon
and shoot to the moon
tho they say
Barcelona is nice
and I know
Paris has its moments

THE MALL

slick haircut
trim mustache
18 maybe 20
form-fitting t.shirt
from CALVIN KLEIN
strategic macho poses
god, this is all he’s got
no future
no hope
this is the kind of Arab
who could pull out a gun
and shoot his sister
sitting across the table
reading a newspaper
right between the eyes

then you can go into a clean
immaculate pissoire
take a leak
wash your hands
with plenty of pink
liquid soap
blow them dry
in a warm summer breeze
then press 50¢
into the palm
of the white-hair lady
who sits outside
and says
“Tres gentil, m’sieur”
because the sign says 30¢
it’s a wet coin
didn’t leave my hands
under the blower long enough
she handles wet money all day

TEMPLE EMANU-EL

Try to become a Jew.
If they don’t let you in
walk up and down
the sidewalk
in front of the synagogue
wearing a yarmulke
carrying a menorah
in each hand
and singing Hava Nagila
as the Rabbi
comes up the driveway
in his black Cadillac.
If that doesn’t work
get a couple of your friends
to dress up as neo-nazis
go down to the front steps
of the synagogue
and sing Hava Nagila
as they beat you with
rubber truncheons (soft rubber)
while degrading you
with every anti-semitic
insult in the book.
Once you get inside the synagogue
start raving and ranting
about how Christ was a Jew
and soon the rabbis
will be beating you
with their rubber truncheons (hard rubber)
and chasing you back into the street
where the neo-nazis will be real nazis
(not your friends anymore)
and they’ll beat you
with their truncheons (bone hard rubber)
as you crawl across the street
and up the steps
and into the sanctuary
of the First Presbyterian Church.

THE GODS MESS AROUND

1.
they don’t have a sense of humor
those damned gods
who knows what they do
with their time
between apocalypses
between whispers
while shuffling the cards
for another game of 5-card stud
Do they twiddle their thumbs?
watch TV?
torment cripples?
They might think
that a runaway wheel chair
with a cripple
screaming for salvation
is funny.
I don’t.
The gods mess around
but they don’t have
a sense of humor

2.
the gods mess around
and who knows where they get
all those tin foil hats
and fake nipple suckers
maybe they think
it’s some fool’s birthday
maybe they’d like to blow
out the candles
maybe they’d like a piece
of the cake
maybe they think
they’ve got everything
under control.
Have I got news for them.
Everything’s a mess
and nothing is turning out
like they said it would
in Sunday School.
Maybe they think
this is a piece of cake.
Maybe they’re too busy
blowing out the candles
to take a look around
and see that laughter
is not on the menu

3.
Laughter?
You can get laughter
down at Chuck’s Hot Dog Wagon
laughter with mustard
and onions
The gods don’t hang out
at the Laughter Wagon
Chuckle burgers
Funny bones
Snicker bars.
These are not
among the aromas and tastes
that bring out the saliva
in gods
They like bitter burgers
they like sneer cream
in their sauerkraut milkshakes
that’s what they like best
that’s their nourishment
this is how they get fat
you can hear them say
“Nobody ever got fat laughing.”

4.
Divine Comedy?
Forget it.
You’ll never hear Jupiter
crack a joke
or see Zeus
rolling in the aisles.
If Aphrodite is slapping her knees
there must be
a mosquito nearby.

THOUSANDS OF HEAVENS

thousands of eyes
turn skyward
into thousands of heavens

we squint and squeeze
our eyes into the skies
of grey-dust dog-days
and all we get back
is a pack of barking clouds
and a jaw of the north wind
shouting at the moon
“SAY CHEESE”

thousands of eyes
turn skyward
into thousands of heavens

and in one Walt Whitman
sits smiling down
the tip of his long white beard
twitching in time to the blues riffs
Mark Twain in laying down
plucking from the golden strings
of his harp, moaning “Oh Walt,
you Kosmos, of Manhattan the son,
you dirty devil, damn you
your lines slip thru our fingers
like melting rubber bands
give us something solid
give us a word we can hang onto
a word we can eat
we’re hungry
we’ve had enough
of your Trans-Substantial Soup”

thousands of eyes
turn skyward
into thousands of heavens

and some of those eyes
are not human
some look out of pockets of sockets
thousands of light years deep
as they recall how life
in the Horsehead Nebula
was so much more relaxed
until the Tree Toads came along
invented radioactive mushrooms
and blew the place to dust
and now they’re stuck
on this backwater planet
knowing they’ll be rolling around
on two wheels
in a four-wheel civilization
for the rest of eternity

thousands of eyes
turn skyward
into thousands of heavens

and see angels strutting around
striking poses like body builders
with bald heads and oiled muscles
moving in slow motion
while the gigantic face
of Orson Welles
leans out of a cloud
puffs up his cheeks
and blows them all away
with a blast of cinematic wind

and thousands of eyes
look downward
into thousands of holes in the ground
and having seen the face of god
begin to pray:
“Jumpin’ Jehosephat
and Baby Jesus’ Leaky Diapers,
forgive us our passion
for idols with feet of clay
forgive us our blatant display
of Arnold Schwarzenegger ambitions
and Bruce Springsteen feedback
our Lee Marvin melancholy
and our Dennis Hopper hallucinations

no more Max Von Sydow death threat, please
no more Kathy Bates sledgehammers”

WILD GEESE

and we glance over and see
the harvest moon slide-popping up
and the wild geese slide-popping by
flapping out of the north
pointing their beaks into southern breezes
and we say we’ll come back later
and check ’em out
but there won’t be a later
the wild geese have better things
to do than twiddle their thumbs
while we wiggle our toes

and the moon keeps popping
she doesn’t stop for nothing
not even a cloud
you think she’s going to stick around
and get her teeth drilled?
you think she’s going
to pick up a loaf of bread
on her way home?
you think she’s going to wait
for the stores to open
so she can buy a can of cat food
or a bottle of tabasco sauce?

think again

the last time I saw the moon
stop for a bottle of tabasco sauce
she’d run out of gas
and was bouncing across a field
with her hands over her face

PIECES OF CARDBOARD
for Bear

She gave me these pieces of cardboard.

I said, “I don’t need these pieces of cardboard.”

She said, “You never can tell
maybe they will excite you.”

Now I carry these pieces of cardboard
with me everywhere I go.
What happened?
How did I become so attached
to these pieces of cardboard?

They didn’t excite me.
I don’t know many people
who get excited by pieces of cardboard
in fact I don’t know anybody
who even has pieces of cardboard
like mine.
They have other things
like tear-strainers for their eyes
when crying is unavoidable
they have autographed caveman bones
guaranteed to be authentic
but they never told me about
their pieces of cardboard.
Maybe they have them
but keep it a secret.

Not me.
These pieces of cardboard
have become public knowledge.
They stick to me
like rumors.

They don’t improve my life
I tried
but they have nothing to teach me.
Other people have dogs
to teach them new tricks
some people have serious possessions
like marble lion’s heads
to guard their gardens
and sleek watchdogs
that must be fed
the finest tips of sirloin.

Not me.
I don’t have watchdogs.
These pieces of cardboard
are worthless
I couldn’t even get rid of them
at a garage sale for free.

So what’s the big attraction?

I’ve never said it before
but I actually like
these pieces of cardboard.
There is nothing specific
about them that I like.
It’s just the way they sit
on my table and continue to be
pieces of cardboard
in addition to which
I’ve been thinking about them
for so long now
that they have become a small part
of my history.
Who can say
that I will not be remembered
as the guy who had
a few pieces of cardboard?

“Sure, I remember him –
he was always walking around
with pieces of cardboard
when he got home
he’d toss the pieces of cardboard
on the table
and sit down
and stare at them for hours.
How can you forget a guy like that?”

THE BEAR DISAPPOINTMENT TRILOGY

I. TWICE DISAPPOINTED

Bear was just disappointed
for the second time
this afternoon

I can’t remember why
she was disappointed
the first time

neither can she

while trying to remember
I forgot why
she was disappointed
the second time

[ afternoon, Baby Buggy Road, Aug. 4, 2004 ]

II. BEAR’S DISAPPOINTMENT

now I remember why
Bear was disappointed
the second time

it was because
she expected
the bicycle repairman
to be more joyous
(some of the time)
and more thoughtful
(the rest)

the first time
she was disappointed
(I think) was because
somebody else
was being less than joyous
and much less than thoughtful

I used to spend my afternoons
being joyous (some of the time)
and thoughtful (the rest)
Now I spend my time
trying to keep track
of Bear’s disappointments

[ Stockay – evening Aug. 4, 2004 ]

III. BEAR’S FIRST DISAPPOINTMENT REMEMBERED

I just remembered why
Bear was disappointed
the first time

she just remembered too
in fact
she was the first to remember

it was about an internet message
in Chinese
that appeared on her computer screen
this morning

it said, “Coming from China,”
and it promised many new
adventures

it said, “Click here.”

Bear clicked
and the whole thing disappeared

not a trace was left behind

I understand why she was disappointed
I understand why we both forgot

[ Stockay – night Aug. 4, 2004 ]

LOSING THINGS, MISPLACING THINGS,
CAN’T REMEMBER WHERE YOU PUT ‘EM

for Marie Claire

It all comes back and down
to when you put them down
and where you put them down
to the exactly spot
where you were thinking,
“I don’t really
have to bother my head
with such a trivial detail
I’ll drop by and pick it up later.”

And that’s exactly what happens
if you’re not in a hurry
next day
a week later
a year later
you’re just strolling along
past that exact spot
and you pick up your earring
and you say,
“I wonder where I put
my cell phone?”

[ October 12, 2004 ]

TIME

As time slips by
I find myself dating
past events
in a gradual
escalation of years.
25 years ago.
30 years, 40 years.
How did it get to be
44 years since
I started doing
adult-like things?
How did my son
suddenly become 27?
What happened?
Did I miss something?
Or is this the way
it’s supposed to go
when you lead
a normal life?
Good thing I didn’t
go in the Marines.
I might have missed
it all. That was 45 years ago.
I’d still wandering around
a jungle in Vietnam
smoking dope
and thinking it was still
1964. Good thing I didn’t
become a college professor
I’d still be wandering around
the gardens of some west coast
campus, smoking dope and thinking
I was in heaven.
When you get to heaven
time stops.

[ October 2004 ]

LUCK
to Marie-Claire

Have we run out of luck at last?
When you fell on the steps
of Place St. Lambert
and twisted your ankle
and broke your bone
and clawed a fingernail hole
in the front of my new Greenpeace sweater
to keep you from falling farther
and breaking more bones
I was quick to ask myself:
have we finally run out of luck?

When I got my head smashed
by various pieces of hard wood
3 times in the same day
my first thought was
have we run out of luck?

Then I went and knocked on wood
and smashed the table

Have we run out of luck?

“Absolutely not.”

We’ve been blessed
by 3 years
of amazing days of grace

and you say
“You’re much too quick
to say we’ve run out of luck.”

Our guardian angels
are backing off
and giving the earth spirits
a chance to run the show
all we have to do
is carry on
and never fool ourselves
into believing
that we might be control

[ November 2003 ]

LUCK SEQUEL

a year later
and we’ve been blessed
by nights and days of grace
many more than I can count

luck never had anything to do with it

the guardian angels
have turned their jobs
over to the spirits of the earth

it’s our pleasure now
to keep our doors and windows open
so those spirits can come in
and join us at the table.
We have a large bowl of wheat.
I gathered the grains
from the fields this summer.
The gods have plenty to eat.

[ December 2004 ]

BEAR SAYS ONE

Bear says :
“I saw enough of Egypt when we were in Tunisia.”

[ Feb. 29, 2004 ]

BEAR SAYS TWO

Bear says :
“I don’t think I would like to be an animal.”

[ Oct. 20, 2004 ]

BEAR SAYS THREE

Bear says :
“I feel protected when I eat onion soup.”

[ Oct. 28, 2004 ]

BEAR SAYS FOUR

Bear says :
“I’ll call you when the plates are smoking.”

[ Oct. 28, 2004 ]

BEAR SAYS FIVE

Bear says :
“I’ve got to stop looking at people.”

[ Oct. 30, 2004 ]

BEAR SAYS (speaking of our son)

“It’s almost one month since Quanah was born 28 years ago.”

[ Nov. 7, 2004 ]

BEAR SAYS (ten miles down the road) :

“I’ve been holding my breath since we left home.”
[ Celtic Twilight Road – Nov. 7, 2004 ]

BEAR SAYS EIGHT

“If the strikers from the post office come and take our
mailbox and try to burn it I will pull out their testicles.”

[ Nov. 9, 2004 ]

BEAR SAYS NINE

“When I think about life after death I get the hic-cups.”

[ Nov. 12, 2004 ]

BEAR SAYS TEN

“When it’s dark we don’t see anything.”

[ Nov. 19, 2004 ]

BEAR SAYS ELEVEN (Part 1)

“Everything is happening in September.”

[ Amsterdam, Nov. 20, 2004 ]

BEAR SAYS ELEVEN (Part 2)

“Everything is happening in September – almost.”

[ Amsterdam, Nov. 20, 2004 ]

BEAR SAYS TWELVE

“That’s what we’re here for – to fall apart.” *

[ November 29, 2004 ]

* implying : we’re here to provide entertainment for each other as we stumble blindly into old age

ONE

what happens when you put
two and two together?

[ Smugglers Road, July 30, 2004 ]

SYLLOGISM

if money is the root of all evil

and money can’t buy you love

then evil is the root of all love
(or he would like to be
if he didn’t have so many
coins to jingle around
in his pockets
while fighting off waves
of happiness)

[ August 2004 ]

SPINOZA

some sit by the river
reading Spinoza
others sit
reading a fashion magazine

I saw Spinoza
sitting by the river
reading a fashion magazine

she had blonde hair

[ Belle Isle to Esneux by bike, Sept. 2, 2004 ]

THE KISS

watch out for her kiss
she might bite you instead
she likes to do that, they say
just reach out and snap off
your nose
or dig up a chunk
of your lower lip

more than one good lover
had lost a tongue
to the Girl from Tusk-a-Loosa

GIRLFRIEND

1.
I was ready for anything.

When I came racing around the corner
motor roaring, tires squealing
kicking up shoulder dust
I was ready for strange adventures
ready for whiplashes of wild roses
and werewolf parties
ready for lost weekends and leap years.

But I wasn’t ready for her.

She was standing by the side of the road
and she wasn’t sticking out her thumb either
She was flagging down rides with her chest.
I stopped. She got in.
I said I’m ready for anything
and I was
I was ready for rude romance
I was ready for magnetic encounters
I was ready for supernatural paranormal
ultra-metaphysical moments
but I wasn’t ready for her.

I was never like the brown bear
who sat on a hill and watched
a mysterious woman
drop a mysterious box
into a river.
He looked at the woman
for a minute
then he looked at the river
for another
then he turned and trotted away.
Not me.
Every time a mysterious woman
drops a mysterious box
in the river
I have to jump in
and open it up

2.
I didn’t have a chance
when she turned to me
and said, “I’m lost.”
She blinked her long lashes
and I didn’t have a chance

I was helpless
when she asked me
if I knew my way around.
The maps in my head
crumbled to dust
and I was helpless

I was already curled up
in the palm of her hand
when I said, “Sure, just follow me.”
But it was me who followed her
it was me who was curled up
in the palm of her hand

I was completely in love with her
by the time we came to the office
two doors down the hall
the professor looked up
“Can I help you?” she said.
And I said, “She needs your signature
and I’m completely in love.”

And I fell in love again
after the girl left
with the signed paper
and the professor locked the door
and said, “This happens all the time.”
I said, “I know what you mean.
This is the second time today.”
Then I noticed a photograph on her desk.
“My daughter,” she said
and I fell in love again

3.
I never liked it when she started talking
about old boyfriends.
She ruined their names by pronouncing them.
She told me later, “The names have been changed
to protect the guilty.”

Girlfriend.
What a strange social and biological
set-up like ducks in a shooting gallery.
Girlfriend.
Not just any old friend
not a pal or a buddy or a chum
or someone you’d tell your deepest secrets to.

Fact is : she never knew anything about me
as I knew next to nothing about her
yet we got along
Just fine.
Most of the time.

4.
Some girlfriends become wives
and some girlfriends become the girls
the wives become jealous of

I never gave her reason to be jealous
but she didn’t need reason.
Strange how we never need reason
when it comes to all the important stuff.
The stuff that shapes your life.

5.
“The secret of poetry,” she said
“Is to use only a few words to describe
a whole bunch of stuff.”
Sounded good to me.
Bunch and stuff are good words
especially when you’re dealing with
poetic weights and measures.
“And how about love?” I asked.
“What’s the secret of love?”
“Same as poetry,” she said,
“only you leave out the words.”

6.
We meet again after 40 years
all that sweat seems impossible now
nights of held breath
mad dashes from one hiding place
to the next stopping the car
in the middle of midnight
to race on foot thru a dense forest
shouting OVER HERE strolling on mist
shrouded beach at low tide
curled up in a cubbyhole by the stove
on cold linoleum floor at 4 a.m.
no buses running paralyzed by visions
of love lost, losing it moment by moment
dripping like water from a clenched fist
seeping, helpless, leaning elbows
on windowsill to witness the dawn fade in,
letting her go, giving in,
hearing her bus hiss in the distance
as I stop in the street
to stare at the sex-shaped cloud
of lust and perfume
that surrounds this secretary
trot-clicking on high heels
late for work
and following this cloud
onto another hissing bus
where I fall in love with an elf
with large glasses and long straw hair
on her way to school.

7.
Leafing thru my yearbook
I can’t believe it.
The cheerleaders loved me
(and my trombone)

Class re-union 40 years later
she asked, “Do you still play it
(your trombone)?”
I said, “Do you still shake
your pom-poms?”

8.
We took a walk along the river
twilight I skipped flat stones
out across the water
showing her my skill
letting her know I was clever
and could be counted on
to protect her from the fierce mountain lion
and the devious rattlesnake.

9.
I said to her husband,
“I’m going to borrow your wife
for a few minutes.” We talked
about books we’d read, we talked
about the movies we liked the best
and for a few minutes
we were back in 1950
we were 7 years old
and she was the girl
the teacher said
I had to hold hands with
in the cafeteria line

old girlfriends don’t change
they just wear different masks
and costumes
when they get past 55.

10.
Her words become a blur.
They’ve been fuzzy from the start.
“Hurry up.”
Her body is a blur
saved up since birth
for this moment
for me and my desert boots
and my London Fog raincoat
now lying innocently
in a heap by the bed
while I gaze down upon
my conquered territory of flesh
and flex thousands
of nude muscles
and wonder what kind of ape
has suddenly got inside my skin
and started to yodel.

11.
But who were we kidding?
Only ourselves.
A widow with a year and a half
of empty arms
and a good-hearted cowboy
who needed a broom horse to ride.
“Just dropped by to see
how things were going”
see if she had a light bulb
that needed changing
unplug the sink, maybe
adjust the TV.
Who were we kidding?
Nobody. Not even the canary in the cage
or the cat up in the rafters
snapping at his tail.
Not when she broke the seal
on a fifth of vodka and said,
“A small drink, perhaps, before going?”
Not when I took off my boots
and said, “Just one for the road.”
Not when she came over and sat in my lap
and said, “It sure feels good when you tickle me.”
Not after we’d finished the bottle of booze
and started another
Not when I took off my pants and shouted,
“Where’s the fucking bathroom?”

By then we were way past
trying to fool the cat and the canary.
We had other fish to skin
and mud puddles to fry.

12.
Back in the days of vinyl discs
the girlfriend didn’t get up
to “turn the record over.”
That was the boyfriend’s job.
The girlfriend never drove.
She never paid.
She would chew gum
and sometimes smoke
But basically her job
was to look good.

I couldn’t do anything
about the way she sounded tho.
Her earrings were miniature maracas
and her ears seemed to be hissing
every time she turned her head.

13.
Riding the crest of a wave
LOVE IS A SURFBOARD
Slicing thru pedestrians
on a crowded sidewalk
LOVE IS A ROLLERBLADE
Girlfriend is the other blade.
Girlfriend cuts and slices
chops and dices
spreads like butter
on a slice of warm bread
and tastes like strawberry jam.

14.
Peanut butter and jelly
that’s all I want tonight.
As for breakfast
bring me peaches on pancakes
the salt of the earth
and tequila on lemon

Girlfriend is food
she’s a stick of liquorice
a sprig of wild garlic
a shot of Tia Maria
a cup of cappuccino
hot wine with cinnamon
cherry cobbler with whipped cream

15.
They say you can see her coming.
Not true. Never true.
She always catches you by surprise.
She always sneaks up when you’re not looking
“Boo.”
“Boo to you too.”
“Catch me, I’m falling.”
“Gotcha.”
“Boy, meet girl.”
“We already met.”
“You’ve already dreamed of her?”
“She came in the back door.”
“I see. You’ve already drunk her milk of amnesia.”

16.
I’m starting over
from “Scratch my back”
and working down to the fishing permits
of “Seven down, four letters, starts with L
and rhymes with dove.”
and “What can I get you for your birthday, big boy?”

17.
I see her clearly now
but it’s too late.
She’s here to stay
until she’s gone
until she’s danced on my tail
dusted my ragged edges
winked my dreams
and dreamed my sleep.

18.
Girlfriends and Farmerwives.
Don’t ever take them together on vacation
in a car with no back seat.

She lived next door.
She was only 17, divorced, sort of
almost innocent
asking nothing from life
but an honest break
and maybe a chance to laugh
and chase the blues away
once in a while.
We were just sitting at the piano
playing a Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltz for 4 hands
when the Farmerwife walked in
whistling “Pop goes the Weasel”
and cut off our tails with a carving knife.
Did you ever see such a sight in your life
as two myopic musicians
and one clairvoyant Farmerwife dancing
around the piano as severed tails
and popped weasels whipped and flipped
in the air and the bust of Brahms
gazed down from above
whistling “La Cucaracha”
and the blues crawled back
thru the open window
on yellow-spotted salamander feet.

19.
We lay in a hollow of grass
in a public park past midnight
huddled under a blanket
listening to the footsteps
of perverts shuffle thru the leaves.

20.
I had the force of ten men
I could leap over small cliffs
and large motorcycles
I could run marathons
and circles around the sun
I could play the piano with 8 hands
and 14 feet
I could hold off the rain
with one raised fist
and paint rainbows across the sky
with the tips of my fingers
I could breathe in ocean storms
and blow out candles in the Amazon.

I could lift her in one arm
and myself in the other.

Sometimes a girlfriend
can do these things to you
and then sometimes a girlfriend
can turn you into a mouse
begging for a chunk of cheese
begging, “Please let me stick my head
in your snap trap,” pleading
for a drop of holy water
and a sharp stone
from the Roadrunner’s slingshot

“Say cheese,” she said
and snapped a picture of me
that I would never see.
A photo she kept hidden
in the bottom of the bottom
of a bottomless bus station locker
and refused to show anyone
except her mother.

21.
We were going to have lots of fun.
We were to grow up and go to Paris.
We were going to learn everything in school
then march around collecting money
and giving everyone with polio a dime.
We were going to read every book in the library
out loud
to each other
We got up to page 15 of the 7th book
and switched to diving.
We were going to master the jack knife
and win gold medals in the Olympics.
We were going to run the mile
and break the world record.
of broken hearts
We were going to go fishing
and catch the last of the Mohicans.
We were going to sit in the Red Dog Saloon
and drink each other under the table.
We were going to teach each other
how to play the guitar
then go out and join a country band
and pretend we were Waylon Jennings
and Tammy Wynette.
We were going to give dance lessons
to all the animals in the zoo.
We would teach koala bears
how to do the Alligator
teach turtles how to do the Monkey,
teach the hippos how to do the Camel Walk,
and flamingos how to Walk the Dog.
There were hours when we were invincible,
invulnerable but nobody ever noticed us
not even the street sweepers
and we never got to Paris either.

22.
She sent me a postcard from Hawaii.
She tried to convince me it was her picture
on the front, the girl in the grass skirt
playing a ukulele.

I sent her a postcard from Reno, Nevada
with a picture of the snazziest hotel in town.
I put an X on a window of the top floor
and printed THIS IS WHERE I LIVE
tho I was camping out in back of a cheap motel
on the other side of town.

23.
She wanted me to be her Mark McGwire
and hit a 70-homerun season.
I bunted into a double play
and hung up my spikes.

She wanted me to be her Popeye
so I ate some spinach and my skin turned green.
She told her friends I was becoming a shrub.
When I started losing my leaves,
she left me out in the garden at night
with all the other bushes.

24.
I wanted her to be my spice girl
She tried cinnamon and she tried cloves
She tried curry and soya sauce
She spread a pint of rum-soaked ice cream
on her face and lost her smile an hour later.
She jammed chilli peppers under her tongue
and went for the super-hot goodnight kiss
that left me with blistered lips
and glowing teeth.

25.
She wanted shirtless Australian surfers
with 20-year old sun-tanned muscles
but instead got a geek with glasses
and a scrawny body covered with sand

She wanted a smooth-talking, longtall Texan
and she got a broken-down brakeman
from the Rhode Island Line.

She wanted a suave, debonair soap opera announcer
the man who did the voice-overs by day
and at night was a contrabasso, bari-tenortone
in the real opera downtown, who sang lead roles
in Tannhauser and Rigoletto,
but instead she got me
the kid who used to sprint
the length of the pasture
with a half-size football under his arm
and dodge the cow pies
as if they were real
vicious tacklers from Notre Dame
trying their best to keep him from scoring
a windmill touchdown.

26.
The crowds we lost ourselves in.
Throngs of lost lovers.
Flocks of fleeting Memory Ducks
paint-brushing us into a corner
with weathered wings.
Names nibbling at our nerves
with numbered teeth.
Herds of Rumor Cows,
stampedes of Story-Stallions,
a gang of Gossip Gorillas,
heavy-booted Reputation Goats
running roughshod
over our most populated areas.
27.
She was my biggest city,
my favorite metropolis.
She was filled with movie theaters
and art galleries, planetariums,
jazz clubs and Mexican restaurants.
Her streets were perfect for skateboarding.
Her streetcars ran on time.
Her taxi drivers were polite and courteous.
I climbed her skyscrapers
and rode her elevators to the top floors.
I shopped in her department stores
and I robbed her banks.
I was caught trying to escape
into the labyrinth of tunnels
in her subway system. Her cops
dragged me off to her jail. Her courts
condemned me to 30 minutes of hard labor
as an ambulance driver for her hospitals.
She let me off after 30 seconds
of good behavior. I promised never
to rob her banks again.
Then I hot-wired the ambulance
and turned a joy ride into an exodus
and ended up in one of her smaller towns
in the south.
I was a total stranger there.
I lived at the Green Iguana Motel
I bowled a perfect game at her bowling alley
I ate the blue plate special at her greasy spoon.
Her local newspaper wrote me up
in her gossip columns, and her Sheriff
finally caught up with me
as I was shooting a losing game of pool
in the backroom of The Swamp.
It was the ambulance that did me in.
I shouldn’t have tried to pass it off
as a milk truck at her used car lot.
“Milk trucks don’t have sirens,” she said.

28.
She looked good wearing the river
as a pair of liquid shoes
which flowed together and spread
from shore to shore.

She looked good wearing that mask
thru the eyeholes of which
you could see the sky.
“Cloud Passing” was an expression of hers
I liked a lot.
“Full Moon” was bizarre
since it appeared in only one eye,
and the red of the setting sun
was too orange to look at when it was in both.

There were moments when a bee
or a butterfly flitted thru a hole
and turned her face
into a pastoral landscape.
You could hear the chirp of crickets
in her ears

29.
“O Garbanzo bean, baby
You were my chick pea
you were my crossed fingers
you were my fountain faucet
and my C major arpeggio
my ticket to the mainline
my tumbling knucklebones
my straight flush and full house
my new moon walk
you sang in the Mute Muse Choir
you gave away eye drops to the blind
you were my borderline
and city limit sign”

She kicked the winning goal
in the World Cup Soccer final
and we all watched in amazement
as the ball turned into
a cloud of exploding confetti

30.
She was my fortune cookie.
She could slip into my future,
put it on like a sock,
then come back and tell me how it fit.
“What about breakfast?”
“I see toast and jam,” she would predict,
“and cream in your coffee.”
tho I never ate anything but scrambled eggs
and had given up coffee years before.
She was better at lunches and dinners.
“I see breaded veal and frozen peas
on your plate tonight.”
Half of the time she was right,
even tho she did the cooking.
She always had trouble with the frozen peas.
Sometimes they would turn
into tiny crystal balls
into which you could stare
and see dozens upon dozens
of different tomorrows.

BOBOLINK POEMS
(for Lawrence Ferlinghetti )

1.

it all started when Bobolink
gave an interview
and told the world
that his number one influence
was Lawrence Ferlinghetti
the journalists jumped all over Bobolink
(whose real name was Robert Boblincoln)
they wanted to know
who this Ferlinghetti character might be
and what was his real name
and why wasn’t he standing up in the back of the crowd
peeking over shoulders
waving “Hi, mom” to the cameras?
Bobolink ignored the last question
and went into details about influences
“He put swim flippers in my heart beat”
“He got into my nervous system
and repaired the broken lines”
“He tossed rhyme out the window
and hauled in a fresh truck load of alliteration”
A journalist raised his voice.
“Oh – you’re talking about POEMS
I thought you were talking about swimming pools
full of telephone
wires”
Bobolink said, “I’m talking about Tea for Two
with Tim Buck too
and twisting your teeth with his tickling toe.”

2.

it was about the time
that Bobolink’s poem
Saturday Night at Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s
came out
and a little outfit down south
picked it up
They said Bobolink
(whose real name was Robert Boblincoln)
should have called his poem
Saturday Nights at City Lights
they thought
Bobolink’s poem pulled up too quick
at stop signs
and was much too tight
on the u-turns

“People are getting tossed out in the road”
is how they put it
nor did they like
the way Bobolink’s poem
smiled
when it should have grabbed them by the shirtfront
and shook the living daylights out of them
or grabbed them by the testimonials
and squeezed
and shook
the wrath
of god’s own family jewels in their faces
or at least
snapped their suspenders
to let them know that he was sweat serious about all the
hypocritical hijinks
and the lustful lowblows
and the schoolyard capers
and the white house motel peccadilloes
and how magazines subscriptions were going to the wrong
addresses
INTENTIONALLY
such as the one that advocated
the overthrow of the King of Rock and Roll
sometime
within the next year or two.
“Let’s flood the sucker,” were his exact words,
“and let’s take out the C of Cuba
while
were at it.”
“You just make jokes out of those morsels of meat”
is how the boys down south put it.

Bobolink came back with a poem with a frown.
They ate it up.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti
watched from down the block
he cast an amused eye
upon the scene
then went back inside his shop
He had a late-night customer
who wanted a copy of Jaime Angulo’s Indians in Overalls.

3.

they came out of the dark
carrying a Bobolink poem
strapped to their backs. They’d been walking
for miles
thru the snow and hard rain.
The poem FERLINGHETTI’S CAPE
was soaking wet
they came
to a girl’s apartment in the city
and they put FERLINGHETTI’S CAPE in her oven
to dry out
then they went
in the other room and sat around smoking and drinking wine
for the rest of the night
and when they came out
to find out
if FERLINGHETTI’S CAPE
was dried out
THE KITCHEN WAS ON FIRE
flames were shooting from the oven
FERLINGHETTI’S CAPE – a black blanket of ashes –
had already done the damage
there was nothing they could do to save the house
the fire department arrived too late
“How did this thing
get started?”
the Chief wanted to know.
“This ain’t the first time we’ve had one of them
poetical spontaneous combustions
with my own eyes
I’ve seen poems like this
blow up in people’s faces
you’re lucky to be alive”

4.

When they changed Price Row
to Via Ferlinghetti
Bobolink
came up with a poem
about how
it was a shame
they chose a short
dead-end
alley
to honor the poet

Bobolink’s poem was called VIA FERLINGHETTI
“They should have given him a big street,”
he writes
“Columbus Avenue would have been about the right size
they got delis and coffee shops
on Columbus
they speak Italian on Columbus
you stroll into Washington Square from Columbus
to see how the Columbus
pigeons are doing
are they starving?
or are they rolling around on the grill of the hot sun
sidewalk?”
Broadway is out. Everyone agrees.
what would Ferlinghetti do with a tunnel
at one end
and all those sex dives
at the other?
Kerouac
got short changed too
it’s an alley
without a mailbox for five buildings
three of which
are already condemned and slated for demolition
they’ll sneak in some night
put up some high
rise
monstrosity and call it Herb Caen’s Castle
(Herb Caen was a
newspaper columnist who dealt with rumors and liars
he had a
cynical way of poking fun at Bobolink’s poem COIT TOWER and he
didn’t like any of Ferlinghetti’s poems either)

“What do you have to do
to get better than dead-end alleys?
Bobolink
wanted to know.
“Did he have to write the I Ching
to get Grant Avenue?
or would they have given him Geary all the way to the beach
for coming up with Homer’s Odyssey?”

5.

PITCHFORK was from the countryside. Hayrides
under a full moon, filled with girls
ready to explode
under the pressure
of harvest hormones
of male bodies
prone to procreation.

Let’s make this clear.

Bobolink (whose real name was Robert Boblincoln)
didn’t pull punches when it came to birth control
“Let them get pregnant as porpoises”
runs the first line
of his poem PITCHFORK
“Let them get impregnated
BY porpoises”
which is the line
that gives the poem its exciting end
nobody knew about
the pregnant chip monks
the pregnant polar bears
and the pregnant pauses when zoo keepers
looked around and saw Bobolink standing
in the shadows

“Who knocked up the kangaroos?” is what the Chief
wanted to know.
It was the last straw.
“I’ve got connections,” writes Bobolink
pumping up
his word power
and squirting it into the right passages

The Chief was irate. “I don’t believe it. He can’t be verbally
acquainted with outside conspirators. They do not walk poetic
paths. And look at all the destruction they left behind.”
No one suspected that the sudden increase
of lady bugs
daddy long leg spiders
and limpets
would soon be sending shock waves around
the Bay Area
these were followed by hordes of flat worms
fire ants
and bdelloid rotifers
all of Bobolink’s friends
jumped in their French sports
cars
and headed for the hills
and soon the city was deserted
and Bobolink sat alone
on the beach
looking up at the cliffs
where one of his quadruped abalone
sat perched on a rock
banging out poems
on a two-finger typewriter

6.

DRUNKEN SAILOR
is a busy poem
that criticizes
the ads
that made Aerosmith
Microsoft
and CNN famous
it goes: The Coney Islands of Our Minds
have been torn down
and
Chernoblys
have been
erected in the bottoms
of our brain pans
along with : “breaking news”
“read my lips”
and
“weapons of mass destruction”

the poem
invites
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
to join in
he says, ‘What are you gonna do with a drunken sailor?”

Bobolink seldom
writes poems
like this
he prefers
poems

with titles like: Chuck Wagons of the Wild West
Balloon Chronicles
Turtles and Other Forms of Perfect Balance
Rip Van Winkle’s Trombone Technique
The Encyclopedia of Magnifying Glasses
Translations from the Tremors
(and its sequel)
Five-O-Nine on the Richter Scale
and We Still Haven’t Got
to the Scary Part

tho he is grateful
to Ferlinghetti
for coming up
with a title
for his poem

7.

it was an homage to Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

They came
with their umbrellas, kitchen doors, car doors
and City Light Bookmarks

Bobolink came with his suitcase
on which he’d
printed his poem years ago
and had since packed twice
around the world
His real name
was Robert Boblincoln
but nobody had heard of Bobolink
either
first they read their umbrellas
and their kitchen and car doors
and City Lights bookmarks.

then Bobolink read his suitcase, both sides:

Where is the shaman to lead us out of our misery
and aching
teeth?
Where is the teacher to lead us out of the low-down
high-schools and away from those barracks on the other side of the
university library?
Where is the poet to lead us out of nursery rhymes
and Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall?
Where is the monk from the animal fair who sat upon the
elephant’s trunk while confused, desperate kids stood on Twin
Peaks and waved to him and chanted “and that was
the end
of the monk the monk the monk the monk the monk the monk
the monk”?

“Here’s right in here.
Inside the suitcase,” said Bobolink
Bobolink opened the suitcase
which contained
every poem that Lawrence Ferlinghetti
had every written
“Take your pick,” said Bobolink.
“And don’t forget to take your time.”

soon the poems were scattered all over the floor
and everybody thought the suitcase was empty
but a voice
chuckled out from one of the side
pockets
and laughter
filled the room with contagious giggles
and snickers
and soon
the whole gathering was laughing their fool heads
off
for how long?
who cares?
and when the last titter died away
the voice in the pocket said
“There is no Beat Scene, man
only the wisp in the willows
and the plump in the pillows
the dream of a scream
and the fireflies
at the bottom
of your garden.”

[ written after reading Ferlinghetti’s Pictures of a Gone World
for the first time in 40 years.
6 am – 6 pm April 21, 2004 ]

WIPERS
(in memory of Allen Ginsberg)

we’ve seen the best
windshield wipers
of our generation
sticking fingertips
into their nostrils
and ripping their noses
from their faces

“Smell that!” they cry
waving their noses
under our noses
and wiping their lips
on stumps
of bloody teeth

“Blow that!” they shout
flinging their faces skyward
to a flock of crows
shooting overhead
who pluck their noses
out of thin air

And the crows jaw and jabber,
“You’ve just seen the best
of this Generation of Wipers.
Now get ready
for the Snotrags from Moloch
who’ll piss in your gas tank
and take you out behind the garage
and beat the shit out of you
if you mention their weird
East European accents.”

BEATNIK BABIES

you can see them after midnight
slouching along the avenues
in raincoats and shades
picking thru garbage cans
for scraps of cabbage
slinking off into alleys
when they hear a car coming

looks like I’ll have to get out
my drumsticks
and whip a few of these wild cats into line

COMPUTER VIRUS

there’s a lot of pissed-off
unemployed geniuses out there

they have the brains of twin Einsteins
and the emotional maturity of baboons

you can see them after midnight
prowling along the avenues
in their raincoats and shades
picking at garbage cans
for scraps of cabbage
and slinking off into an alley
when they hear a car coming

looks like
I’m going to have to get out my copy
of Beowulf
and whip these nematoads into line

[ May 5, 2004 ]

ORDINARY DAY

I’m going to say
it was just an ordinary day
then I remember
all the weeds I pulled in the garden.
For them, it was a momentous day
It was the last days of their lives.
I killed them all.

[ July 5, 2003 ]

PUNCHING THE CELL

with the cell phone
you can’t slam down
the receiver
like you used to do with the old
dial phones
get pissed off and
stick that old horn
into the fucking cradle
and beyond.

not that I ever did.

the closest you can come
to reviving that out-moded
social custom
is to toss your cell phone
up in the air
and punch it
right on the fucking cut-off button
with your fist
as it comes down

it will sail about 10 yards
and you might have to buy a new phone
but think of your name
in the history books
the first man
or woman
to punch a cell phone
you will have invented
a new social custom
known as “Punching the Cell”
you’ll see people standing
out along the edge of the road
tossing their phones in the air
like tennis balls
and punching the cell shit
out of them
stop
smile
take a bow
after all you were the first
manorwoman
to “Punch a Cell.”

enjoy your celebrity
but don’t forget the guy
who told you all about it.

[ High Road, July 28, 2004 ]

PAPER PLATES

the violence of the kitchen sink
the rips and slashes
of gushing water
the saber rattles
of knives, forks and spoons
the smashing clatter
of cups and saucers
these are not paper plates
these are not sponge rubber pots
these are instruments of torture
these are annihilators of sanity
this is total war
on the Battlefield of Tinnitus
and these are weapons of mass destruction

COLUMBUS DAY

Columbus was a butcher
alive today
he would be convicted
and executed
for crimes against humanity
he chopped up the Indians
and fed them to the crocodiles
they were in his way
he wanted the gold
he wanted
ocean front property

Happy Crocodile Day

ROADSIDE

I just saw a dead baby
by the side of the road
and that’s all I’m going to say
about that ¹

¹ or it could have been
a couple of bloody diapers ²

² or a towel somebody used
to wipe their bloody ass ³

³ and that’s all I’m going to say
about that

SMILE

you’d look a lot better
if you stopped
picking your teeth
in public
and just let the cabbage
hang out
when you smile

[ August 2004 ]

PITY IS A CRIPPLING DISEASE

Pity is a crippling disease
a cracked mirror, a trick tongue tease

If I felt sorry for poor old me
I’d always be down upon my knees.
There is no prayer that’ll save your face
wrinkles, smiles or that empty place
between your teeth

up against the wall, the wall of pain
all fiddled out, no one’s to blame

there’s nothing like walking on glass
with yesterday’s bullets up your ass
while saying nothing but, “Howdy Folks!”
and flexing your belly and popping jokes

Up against the wall, you fortunate son
it’s your turn to dance the Son of a Gun

PRAISE

Praise is a good thing for all artists
painters, poets, novelists, sculptors,
film-makers, composers
it keeps you going
it keeps the channels open
it provides nourishment
and surprise.
There’s nothing wrong with someone saying,
“You do good work,” or, “Hey, that’s great.”
or, “You might even be a genius.”
There’s only one danger to beware of :
you’re in for a boatload of trouble
if you start to believe it.

PRIZES

Medals of Honor
Oscars
Pulitzers
Nobels
Grammy Awards

Are we supposed to believe
that these various industries
are doing anything more
than applauding themselves?

WHAT’VE YOU GOT

what’ve you got
for me?

what’ve you got
that I can stick
in the neon tubes
of my brains
to stir up
a thunderstorm?

what’ve you got
for me?

what’ve you got
in the pouches
of your secret kangaroo?
fireflies?
ladybugs
with lightning rods?

what’ve you got
in the hand
behind your back?

what’ve you got
for me?

I ENJOY A GREAT DEAL OF FREEDOM

having said that
I’ll probably come home tonight
and find that Saddam Hussein
has taken over the country
that my house is occupied
by the ghosts of nazi soldiers
and that my wife has become
a Brittany Spears fan

NEW COUNTRY POEMS

1.
Cruise controlled
on the high desert roads
of Eastern Oregon
New Country on the radio
knowing that
the most horrible thing
in the world
could happen to you
at any moment

2.
washing dishes
in Northern California
New Country on the radio
knowing that at any moment
a 30-foot albino alligator
could come ripping up thru the plumbing
smash thru the sink
and bite my head off
with a snap of his razor-sharp teeth
or I could go kung fu on the beast
punch him in the jaw
kick him in the balls
and there we’d be
surrounded by broken dishes
and thousands of ceramic
chunks of sink
with Hal Ketchum on the radio
singing
howl at the moon
shoot out the lights
small town Saturday night

TO JACK CODY, IN SALEM

Salem used to be a small cow town
I know
I was there in the summer of ’53
I spent my time
dodging raindrops
and milking cows

Now Salem’s just an ugly shitpile
what are you doing there, Jack?
why have you tied your hands
to that yahoo TV movie cowboy town?

pack up your sorrows
and get over to Bend
where the real cowboys live
you can walk into
another Rockin’ Rodgers
with your baseball cap
on backwards and Twist Again
Like You Did Last Summer
any time you want

so pack up your sorrows, Jack
and get your twisting ass
over to Bend
waste no time

[ Old Churchyard * Aineffe, Belgium
1st day of September 2004 ]

* and when I say “old” churchyard
I’m talking about an eglise romaine
of the 11th century ]

OLD MAN IN BOOTS

The old man
wore a new pair of work boots.
They were stiff.
His body lacked the vigor
and flexibility to break them in.
His feet lacked the spunk.
It would be a long time before
they were even half broken in
and even then they would not
bear the scars and wrinkles
of a younger man.

This old man’s shoe style
was Soft Bedroom Slipper.
Still he persisted and wore
only these new work boots.
They swallowed his feet
like leather eggshells.

GEEZER QUARTET

1. GEEZER DEATH

you drop by
to see a pair
of geezers
you haven’t seen
in a few years

and you spend
the next half hour
watching them die

you don’t get to see
the end
that’s somewhere
down the road
beyond today

what you get to see
is how hard
they’re working at it

it’s like watching
a lizard lick the face
of a rotting carved pumpkin
illuminated only
by the flickering
candlelight inside

2. GEEZER BEACH

“Come on down to Geezer Beach!”

That’s what they say
in the back pages
of the geezer magazines
with colored photographs
of naked geezers
most of them dead
others dying slowly
lying on the hot sand
waiting for a wave
to roll in and wipe them out

Why would anyone
want to go down
to Geezer Beach?
Unless you’re a geezer
and even then
you can probably come up with
a few better places
to kick the bucket
than a bed of sand
with a wild surf

I know a good place
up in the mountains
there’s a little stream
and it flows out of a rock
you lie down
and float
all the way
to the Lake of the Juvenile Delinquents

3. THE GEEZER LEAGUE

I say, “I’m out on these farm roads
almost everyday
rain, snow, ice, wind, sometimes sunshine
twenty, twenty-five miles”

and he says, “How old are you?”

And I say,
“I know I was getting close
to thirty in 1969
but after that
I just sort of stopped counting.”

and he says,
“How’d you like to race for our team?”

“What team is that?”

“The Bike Racing Team. In the Geezer League.
For racers over sixty. We’ll pay you 20, 000
dollars a month. Ten races a season. April
to October. The Geezer League.”

“You don’t want me on your team.
If some other bike bum got ahead
I’d catch up and stick a crow bar
in his spokes. If that didn’t work
I’d slash his tires with my six-inch
steel blade.”

“You’re just the kind of geezer
we’re looking for.”

“And sometimes I have to stop
and write a poem.”

The man jams his car in gear
and drives away
without looking back.

[ July 2004 ]

4. GEEZER TEETH

the less said about that
the better

[ Old Farm Barn, Oct. 14, 2004 ]

GRANDMA’S AGE

“I ain’t getting any younger.”

That’s was grandma’s age
when people asked her
how old she was.

Actually she used the words
“I am not – ”
and actually the person
I have in mind
was a man in a barbershop
in 1949
with a bald head
and a great fondness
for girly magazines.

Couldn’t the gods have given me
just one uncle
like that?
Why do I have to heap
all the memories
of these life-defining moments
on poor grandma?

GRANDMOTHER’S FAVORITE LAMENT

we barely have time to get used to it
before it starts going the other way

that’s life
that’s summer
that’s acid
and all the other ears and eyes
that open minds
like Beethoven’s Ninth
Bach’s B Minor
and Hieronymus Bosch

that was my grandmother’s favorite lament

we barely have time to go the other way
before it starts getting used to us

UNCLE

I was raised by an uncle
who felt only contempt for me.
I was too skinny
I was blind in one eye
and couldn’t see out of the other.
I refused to slaughter the rabbits.
I refused to skin the deer he shot.
In my photos
I’ve got lumpy cheeks
like a chipmunk.
I’ve got pink, plastic rim glasses
I’ve got a cherubic crewcut
I look like a dork
you’d like to smash the face
with your fist.
My uncle did that
once in awhile.
He whipped me with a belt too.
He boxed my ears because
I listened to music.
He died of lung cancer,
a nasty, old man.
Who knows?
I may end up the same.
But this much is for sure :
I’ve dug potatoes
he never heard of
I’ve tuned guitars
he never imagined
and I’ve made love to women
a hell of a lot more beautiful
than his waspish wife
and a lot more willing
than his robotic 9-year old son
he used bugger in the barn
on Sunday afternoon.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PRINCE IN EXILE

PART ONE :
I sure grew up
with a screwed up
lot of people

Uncle Howard : “What are you? Some kind of pansy?” (Any graceful male was a pansy)

Aunt Alice : “I swear those UFOs are out to get us. They want us for their Christian Scientist experiments.”

Cousin Ken : “I wonder what’ll happen if I put these baby kittens in the milk can and then set the barn on fire?”

Aunt Joyce : “We don’t talk about your dear Aunt Grace. She lives in Chicago and she’s in a mental institution. And that’s the last I want to hear on that subject.”

Uncle George : “Your Aunt Grace? She’s a dingbat. Nuttier than a fruitcake. They keep her locked up because she goes around seeing things that aren’t there.”

Gene Toad (Sophomore year, Driver’s Ed, pulling out a pre-rolled joint of grass from the glove compartment) : One puff of this and you’ll be addicted for life.”

Jerome (one of Mom’s buggy boyfriends) : “I saw some beatniks the other night and I will say this for them : they were clean, their shirts were ironed and their pants had a crease in them.”

Larry, the high school bully – the senior who picked on sophomores : “You called me a bastard? You called ME a bastard? . . . No? . . . you called me a fucking son of as bitch? You called ME a fucking son of a bitch? YOU called ME a fucking son of an asshole?”

Grandpa Balder : “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be around until kingdom comes.”

Grandpa Ben : “Now here I have all these shoeboxes and they’re all labeled. Short pieces of string. Shorter pieces of string. And pieces of string too short to be useful – but you never can tell.”

Grandpa Lena : “I think I’m coming unglued.”

Uncle Hugh: “I don’t want to hear any nonsense about gravity. It’s your own dad-blamed fault. All that music you play. Life is not supposed to be fun”

PART TWO :
I sure screwed up
with a lot
of grown-up people

“Cut your hair!”

“Cut your beard!”

“You can’t come in here.”

“The Divine Comedy by Dante? Don’t even bother. You’re not smart enough to understand something like that. Stick with the Saroyan.”

“Who stole that collection of dimes I was saving for the little polio kids?”

“I never saw anything like it in my entire life. You are only seven years old. And she’s at least twelve. What were you thinking of?”

“Playing music by those perverted Beach Boys in your class is strictly forbidden. One more caper like that and you’ll be out of this music department in an instant. What were you thinking of?”

“I think I’m pregnant.”

“I think you’re going to find your draft notice in the mail within the next week.”

“Your draft notice is in the mail. You should expect to receive it within the next two days.”

“Did you say you hate Chopin’s music and the reason you want a renewal of your Fulbright scholarship here in Rome is because if you can’t stay here, you’ll have to go back to America, and if you go back they’ll draft you into the army and you will go to Vietnam where you will probably get killed. And you don’t want to die.”

“Look, kid. You just hold this sack open right here and I’ll go down to that barn, down in the field, and you stay right here in the forest – don’t move and don’t make a sound – and I’ll chase all the snipes up this way.”

“I’ll see you later.”

“Don’t call me. I’ll call you . . . maybe.”

“Here’s ten bucks. Get your hair cut.”

“Let’s see if I got this right. I just go straight down this street, then turn right, then left, then right again, and I’ll come to a small piazza where I’ll cut across and take the southeast alley leading out, then immediately turn left and left again, then right and go straight for about 200 yards, then you think I’ll pass a bakery. That’s where I’ll go left and right and left and right again, then straight ahead until I come to a V and you think it’s the left fork. I can’t miss it?”

THIS SUMMER

I promised I wouldn’t cry
if we had another rainy day
this summer

but that was six weeks ago
and I’ve been walking in mud
ever since
and sitting around in damp clothes
looking at cloud-boiling grey skies
that sneak in a patch of blue
once or twice a day
then snatch it back
before the sun can make me squint

and then the wind
starts smashing thru
at gale velocities
and the river floods
and this is NOT
how a summer is supposed to be

[ September 2004 ]

TWO SUMMER POEMS AGAIN
[ 44 years later ]

1. The Summer of the Sky

The sky whispers down
The sky shouts
rumbles, rips
this is the Summer of the Sky
it blasts down
it raves and rants
it drops wet muzzlings
and damp dumplings
as it tumbles and cries
this is the Year of the Sky
it speaks, we listen
we watch the clouds float
and we cannot predict
the sky’s desires
storms build up in minutes
stir up in a black soup
with a spoon of unpredictable
wind and all we can do
is stand around with our hands
in our pockets, chins lifted
eyes lost in the white infinity
between the ragged, rolling
black bombs and forget
we have feet
and forget the earth
we are standing upon
at which point the sky’s
got us right where
it wants us
right in its hammerlock eye

[ Highpoint Hesbaye, last of days of August 2004 ]

2. That Way

I tend to lean that way
– just blow the fucker up
and get it over with

I’m talking about the world
– the earth and how badly humans
have treated it

I’m talking about rich
white humans with greedy guts
who cannot think past
the ends of their own lifetimes

I was raised to lean that way
the H-bomb could drop
at any moment and wipe out
us kids beyond imagination
in the blink of an eye

Curl up under your desk
and you’ll be saved

none of us believed it

Put your arms over your head
and don’t open your eyes.

we’d seen the photographs
from Hiroshima and Nagasaki

You have nothing to fear
You are in the safest place
in the world : an American
elementary school classroom

and 20/30 years later
we learn that our ceilings
were packed with asbestos
which sifted and drifted
down over our angelic heads
like devil’s dust
while we sat and slurped
up every morsel
of Fake American History
they could dish up

Toss it out the window
I don’t want any of that crap
littering my back seat

so we littered the gods’ garden
with plastic and scrap metal
and tissue and tires
while the fat frogs
in their white skins
tossed out radioactive wastes
and chemical wastes so diabolical
they could breed
(and did breed) plagues
of monstrous
crippling
obliterating
disasters

All you can eat for $1.50
and some of us got fooled
and waddled out of the joint
weighing 300 pounds

Come to Marlboro Country
and some of us
walked a mile and got fooled
right out of our filter tip souls
and came limping home full of holes

and now the wheat has failed
and I want to shout at the sky

but the sky has been suffering
all summer whipped and tortured
by those grasshoppers
in California who’ve been
flipping out and freaking
around and creating
windstorms of microscopic
dimensions which disturbed
the buzzards and hawks
in Arizona who flapped out
and slammed into telephone
poles and stop signs
in New Mexico and blew up
those windstorms of major
proportions which were cheered on
by the farts of those frogs
in white skins in Texas
and now the hurricanes
and the cyclones
and the tornados
which have been banging around
the American skies all year
are bumping shoulders
with Belgian skies and French
and Dutch and German skies too
and given us gloomy days
and fuzzy cotton-cloud
curtained sunsets
with rainbows
chopped by thunderclouds
and waterlogged nights
in which every plant
attempting grow
(save the corn and the beetroot)
has been flooded in its tracks
and drowned to death

so bring on the thunderclaps
and broken rainbows
bring on the lightning strikes
and tornados
let’s get it over with
let’s clean house
with a clean sweep
of fresh air

I was taught to lean that way
and some days
I lean
HEAVILY

so it comes as no surprise
to hear that bees
are dying out
(pesticides this time)
tho it is strange to think
that in 20/30 years
there will be born
the first of thousands
of generations
who will never know
the taste of honey

[ Highpoint Hesbaye, last days of August, 2004 ]

SUMMER’S GONE

and not even a tribe of Indians
can bring it back

[ October 20, 2004 ]

BEDTIME PRAYERS

1.
now I lay me down to sleep
and I pray the lord
won’t bounce me out of bed
in the middle of the night
with a rat attached to my toe

2.
and I pray the lord
doesn’t come in
and fill my floor
with sand
then drag in a big barrel
of salt water
and make me walk around
and around it
in my bare feet
like a shipwrecked sailor
with my eyes
on the horizon
and no hope of rescue
in my heart

3.
I pray the lord
doesn’t invite a crowd
of rubber necks
from another planet
into my room
and speaking
like a tourist guide
say, “And here
is a typical human.
Observe the way
he babbles and burps
rumbles and farts
you will be amazed to know
that he has no control
over his body functions
in this state of hibernation.”

I won’t mind
the rubber necks so much
if they don’t start
popping flashbulbs
and taking pictures.
but Lord, I pray
don’t let them crawl into my bed
and start demonstrating
love practices from alien planets
that’s something I do NOT want to know about

4.
And I pray the Lord
won’t short change my dreams
with square nickels
and pyramids of pennies
won’t tooth pick my
threadbare pockets
and please no smiles
with curveball screams
that go in
under the fingernails
and come out with a wink

PORTRAIT OF THE COUNT AND HIS WIFE

the gate was open
there was no one in the castle
we wandered around for hours
looking for the count

my wife liked the paintings
I looked at the statues
there was immense garden in back
with trimmed shrubbery
and Baroque fountains

then a bus arrived
tourists poured out
and swarmed thru the castle
they looked at the paintings
and the statues
and the suits of armor
standing in the halls

they all ended up at the kitchen door
looking for a bite to eat

we invited them in
we had lobster cocktails
we told everybody
“We don’t live here.
We just wandered in.”
but nobody believed us

they kept saying,
“Hey, Count
where the hell’s the bathroom?”

LONGSTORY SHORT

to make a longstory
short :
no matter how heavy your name
or the way it grows roots
and keeps you chained
to rocks in the earth
just remember
we all think
we’re in one place
while we seem
to be somewhere else

4-PLAY

I’m sitting in Gary’s Muffin Shop in Amsterdam, eating one
of his muffins and thinking maybe I just might have turned
into Harry Haller – the hero of Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf.

I’m a stuffed teddy bear
who needs a new life
at the age of 60 or something
and he sees this poster
promising him everything
from soup to nuts
Paradise, the Garden of Eden
Shangra-lee and Shangra-la.
The Magic Theater it’s called.

So what have I got on the wall at Gary’s Muffin Shop?
What kind of posters? I got one that announces 4-PLAY,
that’s the name of the event at the Exit. 4-PLAY

Live Strip Sex Shows
Special Acts
Bigger Darkrooms

Sounds like the Magic Theater to me, this 4-PLAY. I like the
bigger darkrooms. The ones they had before are were so small
you couldn’t even turn around.

We NEED bigger darkrooms.
We need room to stretch out
We need room to relax
and boogie the way our
rock ‘n roll ancestors
defined the act, the way
our genetic code glows
when it gets close
to the source of the fire
and demands the ultimate boogie.

Now all of this happens from 23:00 to 4:00 AM every
Wednesday night, please note, every Wednesday night.
And if 4-PLAY isn’t enough to sate my ageing appetite,
I’ve got EASTER BANG at the Cockring.

Sunday Night, April 20
After hours till 12 AM
check that out
that’s noon the next day

And the main features of the EASTER BANG
are the LIVE SHOWS BY INTERNATIONAL PORN STARS

all of which is a little more
than I bargained for
Which is to say
Harry Haller never had
this kind of invitation.
He never went to the Cockring.
He went to the Magic Theater.

But over here, down in the corner is a poster that even
Harry Haller could clap his hands over.

Easter Bunnies
A Party for Playboys
Sat. 19th of April

That’s the one I’ll go to. I want to see the Easter Bunnies.
Maybe I’ll score an Easter Bunny and we’ll go into the
bigger darkroom and bounce around for awhile, except the
bigger darkroom is at 4-PLAY, so the darkroom at the
Easter Bunny place might turn out to be a little cramped

But there’ll be good dancing tho
DJ GAP is coming
all the way from Berlin

And that’s good news because the last time Harry Haller, the
late middle-age teddy bear, was in Berlin, he became friends
with DJ GAP.

DJ GAP must be 90 years old now
but I’m sure he still spins
the toe tappers
the hand clappers
the knee slappers
the jaw snappers

and the total iconic cyberworld brain dissolvers. Gary’s
Muffins. They’re not bad at all. Drop in and have one the
next time you’re in Amsterdam.

[ April 3, 2004 ]

LOVE JACKET

bought this jacket
in the Amsterdam flea market
for 15 euros
burgundy red
with orange and black flannel lining
it keeps me cozy and warm
as I bike the canals
and then I notice
that tho it zips up normally
it buttons from the wrong side
I take it off and look at the label
it says : WOMENS OUTERWEAR
it’s a woman’s jacket
it’s a used woman’s jacket
but it’s not very used
only slightly
and so now I have to wonder
about the woman who used it
only slightly
she had to be pretty big
or else she was tall
and wore a stack of sweaters
and now I recall
that when I tried it on
at the flea market
the cuffs of the sleeves
were rolled back
twice
so now it looks like
we’re talking about
a rather smallish woman
a girl perhaps
this is not turning out
the way I wanted it to
I wanted her to have blond hair
long, curly blond hair
I hoped she would look like Aphrodite
I hoped she was a big blond Dutch Amazon
I have to stop thinking here
or I might just start falling in love

[ Amsterdam, April 4, 2004 ]

GUN LOVE & GIRL LOVE

1. GUN LOVE

I remember
age 10, 11
hot summer day
laying belly down on the bed
leafing thru the Monkey Ward catalogue
and dreaming over the pictures of guns
rifles
pistols
pages full of shotguns
were my favorites
I loved the pump-action 12 gauge
I prayed I would own one someday
I would love it more than any girl
more than any of the loose women
hiding in the catalog’s secret pages
wearing nothing but white satin
bullet shell bras

2.. GIRL LOVE

a year later I’d left the guns behind
I was going straight for the girls
in the secret, hidden pages
the 36-C cup blondes
with fluttering eyelashes
and pouting lips
to the hell with that pump action 12-gauge

good thing I didn’t put the two together
I might have joined my name
to the long list of perverted serial killers
who were brooding and festering
in those days of glorious rebellion
in those days when Jerry Lee Lewis
married his 13-year old cousin
and started busting down High Society doors
and kicking Bing Crosby in the balls

FOUR MEMORABLE LEAKS

1.
Fourth Grade. New kid in school.
First day. Scared shitless.
First class after lunch.
I make it half way before
the need to take a piss
hits my body. I hold back.
Afraid to raise my hand.
What am I going to say?
Everybody will laugh.
I’ll be shamed. Outcast.
The need hits like a flood.
I stare at the clock on the wall
the minute hand clicks slowly
a quarter to two
clicks another notch.
I’m not going to make it.
I can’t hold back.
I feel the warm liquid
leaking down my leg
I look down and see
a small puddle gather
around my shoes.
I’m frozen with fear
swamped with shame
I can’t move a muscle
The bell rings
and everybody jumps up
and scrambles for the door
I get three invitations.
Miss Petray told them this morning
to make me feel welcome.
“Come on, Tucker – Let’s go outside
and play marbles.”
I can’t move. The classroom is empty.
Here comes, Miss Petray
She’s going to shove my face
down in the puddle and make me
lick it up. “Oh I see,” she says.
“Don’t worry about that.”

And I head for home early
wondering if this was just the first
of many days to come
when I would piss in my pants
and eventually erode Miss Petray’s
compassion and I would float
thru the next 8 years of school
all the way thru high school
scorned and mocked as I sat
in my daily puddle of urine
and I would be known as THE PISSER

it was just that one time
but I feared many more
and Miss Petray is long gone
and I never went back
to thank her for being so nice
that day and opening my heart
for the first time in my life
and showing me that there was
absolutely nothing
to be afraid of.

2.
age 14, drunk on cheap sauterne
staggering around the catholic school gym
new years eve, my first party
drooling at girls, propping up the wall
trying to figure out
how I’m going to have some fun
thinking at the stroke of midnight
I’ll jump on some girl and suck
the tongue right out of her mouth

lulled to lethargy
by the soggy-bread dance band
I stumble down to the basement
and I’m pissing out my soul
when I hear up above in the hall
the twelve toots of midnight
from the trumpets and saxophones
and I know this is going to be
the story of my life

and it turned out to be true
I pissed away almost every chance I had
at being a successful lover

3.
longest leak ever?
I didn’t time it
but a hundred of the world’s best
long distance runners
would have turned a decent time
in the marathon
while I stood hunched over
in the window’s dim rainlight
barefeet freezing on the floor
white plastic bucket
getting heavier and heavier
in my hand as by body
grew lighter and lighter,
thinking : if Marie Claire wakes now
she’ll think : since when
did we get a sink installed
in our bedroom?
and why doesn’t he shut off the tap?

4.
November 12, 2002, 2 am
standing in the pitch-dark field
tilted downhill
knees bent
taking a leak
and thinking :

if somebody were to come along right now
and shine a light in my face
they’d say, “Hey, that looks like Celine Dion.”

HANG DOG

Piss dog piss against the lamp post in passing
Gertrude Stein, Everybody’s Autobiography

hang dog hang from the gate
above the path to the Lamp Post Park
hang down hang down
your tail dipped in blood
don’t look don’t look
into my eyes
with your dead dog eyes
don’t look I don’t need
those dead dog eyes
those teeth dripping blood
I don’t need I don’t need
your permission to pass
I pass I pass on the path
into the Lamp Post Park
I stop I stop looking
into your dead dog eyes
as I pass I pass and touch
your dead dog tail
dipped in blood I pass
and I piss against
the lamp post in passing

BACK IN 53

when the president
was playing around
with mushroom clouds

when I was listening
to Fats Domino
and James Brown
on Oakland
black ghetto radio
and my aunt believed
I would burn in hell
and everybody else
thought I was crazy

I was 12
I wrote elaborate
philosophies
in notebooks
and I haven’t written
a decent thing since

tho I came close back in ’68
when I wrote a talking blues
called NORTH NORTH AFRICA
which recalled my hapless
miserable trip to Tunis
and Algeria that nosedived
into Marseille where I
with empty pockets
begged for pennies and mercies
from a neck-tie-choked
rubber face burgocrat
at the American Consulate
and got chewed out
for my wayward ways
and poetic student urges
a conversation
that ended with him saying:
“you can’t go around looking
at all the sunsets of the world”
and me replying:
“I’ll figure out a way.”

But back in 53
I was milking cows
morning and night
and thinking about Shirley
and Suzie and Patti
and Jeanie and Betty
squeezing those tits
and thinking about Betty
and Jeanie and Patti
and Suzie and Shirley
from morning to night

and all I had to do
was stick my head out
the milk barn window
and take a good look
at the beat-up tractor
under the walnut tree
to know that my future
was all mapped out

[ 1st day of September 2004 ]

THE PAINTER

at first I was just an ordinary housepainter
the year was 1961
and I had a night job
re-painting the walls and the ceilings
of about a dozen old apartments
in the Haight-Ashbury district

the hard parts were the ceilings
up on a ladder with my tray
of white latex paint and sponge roller
I got loose and inventive
swoops, swirls I slopped it on
before my arm could cramp

a few years later
the hippies took over the Haight
and I’ve often wondered
about those ceilings

I’m sure that at least one
had to be the landscape
of some poor kid’s first acid trip
I can see him lying on the floor
his eyes locked and lost for hours
in the swoops and swirls of dried paint
I can hear him say it,
“Wow – that painter was a real artist.”

at first I was just an ordinary housepainter

by 1958
Playland at the Beach was deserted
no more flashing lights
girls screaming from the roller coaster
no more white-capped U.S. Navy sailors
staggering drunk down the midway
with their arms around fat bar girls
who were clutching kewpie dolls
blowing pink bubbles of gum
and scattering the shells of peanuts

the Fun House was shut down
the Laughing Lady frozen
between a giggle and chuckle
Laff in the Dark boarded up
its tunnel full of real cobwebs
the Octopus and the Tilt-A-Whirl buckets
were sacked in canvas
it was so quiet
you could hear the ocean waves
breaking over on the other side
of the Great Highway
so quiet you could hear the wind
whistling thru the mirror maze
and tumbling scraps of newspaper
past the salt water taffy pull
and the tracks where Caterpillar
used to hump around the bumps

only the Pie Shop survived
open until midnight
mug of coffee
best blackberry pie in town
Pete and I were just out of high school
just into college
the Pie Shop
was the best place to go
late at night
we sat and smoked
ignored our reflections
in the mirrored walls
and decided what we were going to do
with the rest of our lives

he was going to be a Bum
I was going to be a Dirty Old Man

That was 45 years ago.

I can’t speak for Pete
but I know I haven’t come close
to fulfilling those high hopes
I had for myself back then
– back in those midnights
of Lucky Strikes, blackberry pies
and our baby face reflections
in white neon-flooded mirrors

other than that
things have turned out
pretty much as I expected

[ December 8, 2004 ]

TWO MORE BIKE POEMS 2004

for Pete Petersen

when your bike takes over
and starts controlling you
two explanations occur :
you’ve been riding it too long
you’ve come too far
(time to pull over
and peel a banana
or take a big bite
out of an electric wire fence)
OR
you’ve actually entered
a parallel universe
where man and machine
have traded places
and you soon will be
chained to a post
outside a news agency
while your bike pops in
to buy a copy
of this weeks’ TV Guide

after a few seconds
of wisdom-inspired thought
you conclude
that you’ll be a lot better off
if you drop the idea
of trying to explain anything
and just ride on

[ Oct. 21, 2004 ]

You’re headed home
aimed east of the rising moon
with the sun setting down the line
of your right shoulder.
If it gets any better
you’ll have to stop screaming
at the freezing wind
sliding up your nostrils
and chewing away at the gopher holes
behind your eyes

[ Oct. 21, 2004 ]

OLD BIKE

today we took the old bicycle
out to the recycling lot
and tossed it into a bin
marked METAL with all
the scrap iron, water heaters
busted, rusted plumbing
deck chairs and lunch pails
the bike belonged to Bear’s dad
He gave it to me
when I first came to Belgium
I rode it to pick up my boy
from kindergarten
at the village schoolhouse
then it lived
under the chestnut tree
for 22 years
with all the rain
the snow the fog
and a few squirrels
it was a mess
when we tossed it in the trailer
and hauled it away

I stood looking down into the bin
at the old bike in its new home
with all the other forgotten
scraps of metal
thinking that when I first rode it
we were living in a house
less than 200 meters away
across the field
and down the road

all I had to do was lift my head

the house was still there

34 years ago this spot
was in the middle of an apple orchard
I remember seeing the blossoms
from my window
I rode the old bike
past this spot many times
coming and going
and I never once thought
it might end up lying rusted and busted
in the middle of an apple orchard
that wouldn’t be there
when it came time
to say goodbye

[ December 3, 2004 ]

HOUSEWARMING

heading out, down Old Farm Road
(a narrow, concrete slab tractor road
between two vast fields)
I heard a voice say, “Someday
all of this will be built up –
a wide, two lane black top
with spillover houses on both sides
garages, driveways, mailboxes
as far as the eye can see.”

another voice said, “Take a good look
appreciate what you’ve got.”

I said, “I do appreciate.
I’ve been appreciating for a long time.
I’ve appreciated for hundreds of long times
and hundreds of long times more I will appreciate.
Nobody out here can out-appreciate me.
I’m an Appreciator of Appreciators.”

coming home, back up Old Farm Road
less than two hours later
I find my way blocked
by six plastic sacks, large, black
full of garbage, some slobs
tossed off the back of their truck.

I said to the voices, “The Spillovers
are already moving in.”

[ Dec. 11, 2004 ]

IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD, 2004

In the year of our Lord, 2004
the sky was be-deviled
with tin pan alleys
and raindrops the size
of hot air balloons

the sun gooned around
with the clouds and the clouds
gooned around with the moon
in the mud

In the year of our Lord, 2004
Mug Face and Chin Nobel
played poker with a loaded deck
Chin Nobel won
with a pair of queens
over a bed of hot coals

Mug Face went back
to fucking up as many peoples’ lives
as needed
as possible
as were there.

Chin Nobel was last seen
trying to have oral sex
with the Statue of Liberty.
He’s now being held
on federal rape charges
in Guantanamo
without a lawyer
without a beard
without a shrink to tell him :
“This idea of yours –
that you’re the President
of the United States.
Did you ever hear about delusions?
Did you ever have hallucinations
when you were a kid
over there in Vietnam
crawling thru the jungle
with a reefer glued to your lip?
it might take a few years
But don’t worry
but we’ll get this ironed out.”

Meanwhile the Mugwumps
and the Goonbuds who’ve really been
running the show since 1776
(thru great great grandchildren’s
great great grandchildren and maybe
tack on another great or two
to make sure we’ve got ’em all nailed down)
are pulling invisible triggers
and sucking up the oil

In the year of our Lord, 2004
the folks who live up near Sirius
who bumped off Alpha Centauri
and were about to cruise
right into our troposphere
took one look
at all the crazy shit
we were doing to each other
with bullets and bombs
and loads of religious manure
turned around and headed back home.
“See you next year,”
were their parting words.

In the year of our Lord, 2004
I sat before a blazing bonfire
in my field and got this all down
on my son’s 28th birthday
with a breeze stirring
the leaves of the maple trees
and fire sparks popping out
and floating to extinction
in the dampness of the dark
and everything else
was just there
no literary trick or treaters
no stone face stone mason
from Big Sur
peeking over my shoulder
and pecking on the page
with his hawk beak nose
humming, “Hmmmmm –
I really like that title.”
no bullshit jokes or junkyard jingles
no blabbermouth burps or iconoclastic blasts
no far away echoes
but those of an owl.

In the year of our Lord, 2004
you could hear Leadbelly singing
“Oh LORDY, pick a bale of cotton!”
you could hear me singing
“Oh LORDY, pick a bale of hay!”

you could hear Leadbelly singing
“LORDY, LORDY OPEN YOUR DOOR!
LORDY, LORDY OPEN YOUR DOOR!”

you could hear Leadbelly singing
“Then along came a gray goose
LORD! LORD! LORD!”

In the year of our Lord, 2004
you didn’t hear
too many other people singing

they had other things to do
like lip reading silent Houdini movies
like milking their horsecows
and petting their cowhorses
and running off to market with DNA
nipping at their heels *

[ thus ends our fireside chat ]

*Remember that word: DNA. It someday may denote a wide range of fanatic religious persuasions The Church of Deoxyribonucleic Acid Heads, The Temple of the Double Helix Crossers, The Cathedral of Saints Watson and Crick, The Born-Again Chromosomes

IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2004 REPRISE

In the year of our Lord, 2004
November slid over into December
on thin ice
and we all held our breath
until it began to snow.
After that it was easy
we could see the footprints
and we knew
where everybody was going

BICYCLE POEMS

2003  |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

for Kris De Meyer

PREFACE TO THE BICYCLE POEMS

These poems were written on the run, Spring, Summer, Fall of 2003. I was out almost everyday on my bike. 3 to 6 hours, sometimes more, riding the farm roads of the Hesbaye. Most of these roads, tho unnamed and unmarked, became my home in the long afternoons and evenings of summer and thus acquired names that only I am familiar with. Someday I will provide a map of these roads, the hidden and secret byways of the Hesbaye. It was here I lived thru the entire cycle of the seasons, the plowing, the planting, the crops as they grew, the harvest – and beyond. Wheat, barley, betraves, corn, flax, potatoes. Thousands upon thousands of acres of farm land. These poems came from the earth, up thru the rolling tires of my bike, thru my hands, arms, neck and into my brain – then back again down into my fingers and into my notebook. As always, the trick was not to get in the way.

Bicycle Poem 2

BICYCLE WEATHER

warm, hot patches
slight wind
white t.shirt soaked
blue denim workshirt open
flapping behind
warm breeze
sweat
cool breeze
bicycle weather

Bicycle Poem 4

FLUTTER BIRDS

Curlews. Black and white swoopers
I meet them out cycling the farm roads
springtime summer they’re waiting for me
in the wheatfields.

At first, when they fluttered
and swooped around me
and my moving bike and piped
their tiny seagull croons
so far from salt water
I thought they were just glad to see me.
I would shout,
“OH MY FRIENDS!
“HELLO, MY FRIENDS!”

Now, 2 springs later,
I understand why they flutter for me.

It’s the mama, protecting her babies.

I stop and watch her fly east, south
north and west hoping to lure me
into following her across the field
away from the nest

I wait until she comes around again
then start rolling my bike down the road
sure enough
she flutters past me and down the road
in front of me. I follow.

What genius.
All this from the brain the size of a pea.

About 200 yards down the road
she whirls back – towards her nest.
She’s not crooning now
she got me out of her territory
I’m already forgotten.
I watch her glide, swoop
back to her nest.
She hovers above it
gives her babies a piping croon
then flutters down over them

Bicycle Poem 5

HEADER

on my bike
when I hit one of these headers
I don’t need my fingers
to feel my face.
The whole world is doing it
with the wind.
[ April 14, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 10

THIS AFTERNOON

Biking the streets of a Belgian village
this afternoon
I pass an old man, withered in a wheelchair,
being forked-lifted into the back of a van
a half-dead piece of meat
being transported from one place to another.

And a mile later
down the road I realize
I could become that crippled monster myself
this very afternoon
blind-sided by a motorcycle
rear-ended by a bus
side-swiped by an old lady
in a Suburban Utility Vehicle
who thinks the line of white dots
down the middle of the road
is a decoration that needs to be observed
from both sides.

Where are the angels?
The beautiful maidens
of romantic intensity
who used to leap out of the wallpaper
and make me fall in love with them?

my chances of getting sideswiped by an SUV
this afternoon
are much greater than
ever falling in love again

[ Vingt Ponts, April 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 17

SURPRISE

Life is full of surprises.

One minute I’m riding along on my bike,
gazing into a heart-breaking
earth-quaking sunset
and existing in an absolute state of grace.

The next I’m choking to death
on a life saver.

[ Two Trees Road, Hesbaye, May 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 21

THE DEEP RAVEN WALTZ

cavemen crossed the river
in boats of straw
and upon the shore
they broke the law
when they danced the deep raven waltz

gypsies are gathered
down in the valley
among the thorns
among the legends
they dance the deep raven waltz

bounty hunters are scattered
out on the bridge tonight
their rifles twinkling
in the moonlight
they’re loaded for skunk
they’re loaded for convict
while in the river below
fish are dancing the deep raven waltz

she has a feather in her hair
she’s Raven Girl
the new baby sitter
the baby’s asleep
she closes her eyes
and with only the toes
thru her barefooted sandals
she dances the deep raven waltz

down on the Barbary Coast
the ragtime whores did their worst
they tommed, harried and dicked
until they were sick
but they saved their best
for the man in the vest
the velvet hat and the green silk coat
they always saved
the last dance for Jesus
Christ he could do the deep raven waltz

They scared up a storm
up on bald mountain
the witches the warlocks
on Walpurgisnacht
they slaughtered the sheep
raped the young virgins
then drank to the bottom
of their skins, fell asleep
and when they awoke
the virgins were dancing
spinning on tiptoes
gracefully spinning
like slow boats to hell
their steps were not false
they were true, unforgiving
spinning for satan and the deep raven waltz

the hangman nails the scaffold
the rope dangles down like lace
the bars of the jail cell window
frame the tears on the poor sucker’s face
his neck is already itching
he’s tapping his feet as he weeps
he’s practicing like mad, this is for keeps
tomorrow he’ll dance the deep raven waltz

beware of the Irish fiddlers
they know every tune in the book
they dwell in cool shady places
they live on fish from the hook
at night they tune up their strings
and plucking surround you with sound
they’ll take you aside, whisper your name
and whistle the tune of the deep raven waltz

they dance the slow crow polka
they dance the green goose jig
but they always come back
from their twists and fandangos
and dance like ghosts to the deep raven waltz

the blue turkey tango?
“we’ve heard it before.”
the wet wing of pigeon?
“play something else.”
the hot pipe of horn?
the slow trot of foxes?
“we have only feet for the deep raven waltz”

some ravens are lost
some ravens are slow
and others are just fast asleep
but the ravens I know
they dance with the thunder
they waltz in the raven black deep

[ Onderdonk Drive, June 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 22

OLD POEMS

1. Wild Roses

It’s that time of year
when the wild roses are in bloom.
I read about stuff like that
when I was a kid.
It was in all the old poems.
It didn’t mean doodley-squat.

Now I squat before them
and do what I then didn’t dare
I sniff the air
I mumble a prayer
teach me to care
teach me to care

2. Corn Scorn

It’s that time of year
when you can see clearly
which farmers are nice to their crops
and those who are not.
On one side of the road
the wheat grows knee-high
on the other the wheat struggles
to put down roots.
On one side the spuds
are singing Verdi operas
on the other the spuds
are screaming for affection.
On one side the farmer reads aloud
the old poems to his field of corn
every day at sunrise and sunset
while on the other
the corn is scorned.

3. Old Poems

It’s that time of year
when you start to wonder
about the old poems.
Which ones are old?
Do they have grey hair?
Missing teeth? Arthritic bones?
Grandchildren who sit on their knees
and piss on their pants?

Or are they stuck in a corner
of a rest home
where no one comes to visit
and only the cagiest and most clever
escape from time to time
and run amok on the grass
of manicured lawns
and hide in the sprinkling water
of the Japanese Gardens
before being captured
and hauled back to captivity.
“I saw Ode to a Grecian Urn
down at the bowling alley last night.”
“That’s nothing. I saw Homer’s Odyssey
at the ballpark today
running the bases naked
during the 7th inning stretch.”
Beowulf on the high road
hitchhiking
to the nearest city
where he intends
to get lost on skid row

4. Moonlighting

And what do old poems do
in their spare time?

The Divine Comedy
tries to do stand-up
at the local laughter pit.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
is out on the highway
behind the wheel of a big semi
hauling a load of pigs
coast to coast
while sniffing coke
and listening to Neil Young
on his quadraphonic audio system.

The Wasteland continues to rob banks
and never gets caught
tho he leaves behind
a pertinent quotation
on each job.

Howl sneaks a smoke
late at night
out behind the garage
and once a month
when the moon is full
he lets loose a wail
that chills each sleeper
in his bed for blocks around.

The Spoon River Anthology
vacations once a year
in the Swiss Alps
arriving in June
for the last few days
of ski snow
then hanging out with the shepherds
in high alpine meadows
until September
when the Canterbury Tales
come slouching around
and driving everyone nuts
with their phony English accents.

Don Juan and couple of the boys
from Browning
have gone hunting Jabberwock
up in Wonderland
while Evangeline
sits around watching TV
at the Star Dust Trailer Park
waiting for Don to come home.

Fra Lippo Lippi tends his 40-acre
crop of genetically engineered
megamarijuana
down in the Mexican jungles
and at night
swinging in a hammock
under mosquito netting
he reads a few
of the old poems himself.

[ up from Warnant-Dreye to Highpoint Hesbaye, July, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 24

HARVEST

August first the wheat comes in.

Say it again.

AUGUST FIRST THE WHEAT COMES IN

I rode by the field when the earth was bare
cold, windswept, snow-drifted, iced.

I rode by the field
when they were planting the seeds
and leaving behind smooth, fine dirt
in organized, harmonious rows
that erased all memory
of the scrabble chaos
of the winter-frozen earth.

I rode by the field
when the wheat was sprouting
and birds were nesting
in their harmonious rows
and darting up like rockets
shout-cheeping, saving their babies
by stealing the show

I rode by the field
when the sun was burning
and the tops of the wheat
bent over in the wind
Came back the next day
in the still of the heat
the wheat tops were brown
but standing again

and for two months the wheat ripened

now they’re ripping it down
with their big machines
spouting the grain into the trailers
and kicking up a cloud of dust
you can smell a mile away

I see the tractors
lined up at the granary.
That farmer there
he’s just holding on
and he’s grimly proud.
His life savings
is in that trailer behind him.

Sundown
they’re getting ready to make a lot of noise
it used to be called the harvest feast
now it’s just scattered excuses
get a few garage bands
and call it a Rock Festival
fill the parking lot with sand
and get a few local teams in
and call it a Beach Soccer Tournament
and the Model Airplane Society
hosts their annual convention
and keeps at least three
of those pesky mosquito buggers
buzzing around at rooftop altitude
while just across the road
the Lions Club hosts their annual Skeet Shoot

The fires grill meat all day and night
2000-watt speakers pump out techno
from noon until way into the middle
of your dreams.

There used to be a village here.
Everyone’s lives depended on the harvest.
Now there’s too much city here
The farmers are being ignored.
This year it was good
the best harvest in 25 years

You could feel it in the air today
you could smell it from a mile away.

[ August 1, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 25

HARVEST MOON

there was this mound of manure
about 9 feet high
ceiling high
dried dung and straw
in the twilight
so I climbed up and sat down
and watched the full moon rise
across the stubble
of a thousand-acre wheat field

it was a harvest moon
it marked the turning of the seasons

I watched it turn blue
then I couldn’t watch anymore
everything was getting too symbolic

[ August, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 26

MELODY LANE

Melody Lane
where never a sour note
is played
Melody Lane
that’s what I call
this one-lane blacktop
that drops
down thru the thistles
and nettles
down past driveways
that lead up to no houses
Melody Lane
where a sweet tune
is playing
and tree branches are swaying
and all that I’m saying
is that no dogs are barking
and no car radios
are telling me
the time of day
in Rap City

[ Melody Lane, August 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 27

MEATHOOK MAMBO

the meathook mambo
that’s what I’m doing
out riding my bike
smooth road, flat
slightly uphill in a few patches
headwind
3rd gear all the way
I’m dancing the meathook mambo
that’s what I came out here for

when I was 17 I wrote
“animal blood
thru animal heart
pumping
stops”
it seemed enigmatic at the time
now it seems obvious
I have not heard
in the 45 years since
a better definition of death

gotta keep the animal blood
thru the animal heart pumping
gotta keep dancing
the meathook mambo

[ Chapon Road, August, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 30

THE HUMMER

he’s just a kid on a bicycle
you watch him pass by on a country road
a chubby kid in red shorts
humming
a slow, innocent tune.

hey hey, whata’ya say?
ho ho, whata’ya know?

at the last moment
you glance over and notice
a hatchet attached
to the back of his bike.

a few miles down the road
you hear someone humming
coming up from behind.
It’s a slow, innocent tune
but it’s coming up fast
and it gets closer
with each accelerated
pump on your pedals.

hey hey, whata’ya say?
ho ho, whata’ya know?

[ Rue de Tambour, Jehay ]

Bicycle Poem 33

CARROTS

carrots are big orange roots
that turn out to be edible
that’s what carrots are

and what am I?

I am a big chunk of meat
waiting to get rained on

[ August 25, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 34

FOOTNOTE TO “CARROTS”

Being a big chunk of meat
is not my only quality.

I have pace.
I have rhythm.
I am not unfamiliar with
or unsympathetic to
the notions that we are not
alone in the universe
or that telepathy is
a common occurrence
or that there is more than
one race of humans
on this planet
(and I’m not talking about
the color of your skin)

I like to laugh

I keep an eye on the sun

I can imagine a time
700-800 years from now
when every creature on this planet
has learned to get along
more or less
and a peaceful harmony
rules the world
like a sky full of everyday weather.

I dream of a world
with less gravity
where the illusion
of being able to fly
is a lot more convincing
and I’m a reasonably good storyteller too
(if the light is right
and the moon is in Capricorn)

[ Aug. 26, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 35

HARES

Biking a Belgian farm road
wheat fields on both sides
and out steps a pair of hares
I’m 20 feet away when they start
strolling across.
I’m 10 feet away when I say,
“Howdy, folks.”
I hit the brakes
They stop. Stare at me.
Continue strolling.
Hares?

Bicycle Poem 36

DUCKS

ducks of plastic bags
are walking around in the wind
or maybe they’re geese
they can’t fly
their bellies are full
of beer bottles

Bicycle Poem 38

SPILLOVERTOWN

that’s what I call them
the Spillovers that collect
and gather together
to live in perfect spillover harmony
the surplus of our over-population
The Spillovers
Every town has them
spilled over at the city limits
those fancy new houses of brick
and peerless gardens
but inside live the Spillovers
trapped in their born belief
of Spilloverism
it does not occur to then
that they could escape

so listen up, Spillovers
this is your last chance
you can stay here
in your swimmingpool fishbowl
or you can bust out of this place
and see what goes on beyond
the limits of Spillovertown
Spin your wheels
and keep them spinning
and for gods sakes
don’t stop and visit
another Spillovertown
even tho they got the best booze
and the best-looking babes

SPILLOVER SPILLOVER

Rise up, you Spillovers!
And stop spilling over!

Bicycle Poem 40

SLOBS

I pass a pile of junk
tossed from a car
alongside a freshly-plowed field
I shout
(tho nobody’s around)
“YOU SLOBS!
YOU DIRTY, FILTHY SLOBS!”
I add something about “ignorance”
then I pedal away
saying loudly to myself
(tho nobody’s around)
“THERE IS NO HOPE FOR THE EARTH!
THE PLANET IS DOOMED!”

Then I say softly to myself,
“I better shut up.
I don’t want to be known
as that crazy man
who rides around
on his bike
shouting.”

And I realize
that I better REALLY shut up
I don’t want to be known
as that crazy man
who rides around
talking to himself.

I want to be known
as that crazy man
who never
speaks
a word.

On the other hand
at least I have a self
to talk to.
Jung says that’s important
discovering your self
and hanging onto it

I’m not going to argue with Jung

Before
I had nobody to talk to
It’s much more fun this way
and besides
when it’s all down on paper
a lot of strange people
can listen in.

[ from Tuck’s Woods past Bear’s Woods to Willow Fork – Sept. 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 42

STUD & SEQUELS

1. STUD

she was out bouncing around
on the lawn in a pair of shorts

I glanced over

he was sitting in the shade
bald head shooting bullets
from his eyes into mine

that was his piece of ass
nobody looked at his piece of ass

2. STUD SEQUEL

she wasn’t outside today
on the lawn, bouncing around
she was inside
he was inside too
the door was open
he was shouting,
“YOU DIRTY BITCH!
YOU WHORE!”

maybe she’d seen me
coming and said,
“I think I’ll say hello
to this beautiful stranger.”

The Stud keeps
his Piece of Ass
in line
no smiles for strangers

3. THE STUD STRIKES BACK

the next time I passed the house
she was out, sitting in the swing
motionless, hands in her lap
black bruises on her jaw.
she wore dark glasses
she didn’t look up as I pedaled by
the outside world was off limits
the Stud makes the Rules.
the Stud keeps the rules.
the Stud knows
exactly how much punishment
his Piece of Ass needs.

4. THE SON OF STUD

a week later
I passed the house again
A kid was outside on the lawn
kicking a soccer ball around
he nudged it over to the edge
as I pedaled by.
I said, “Hi there.”
and he kicked the ball
as hard as he could
at my head.
The Son of Stud.
It had to be
some Piece of Ass’s
Son of a Bitch.

5. THE CURSE OF THE STUD

The stud’s house is white
with a black door
and black window frames
and windows
with black curtains.

6. THE LAST STUD

The last time I passed by
the house
there were two cows
on the lawn
humping.
No kid.
No soccer ball.
No piece of ass
with a bruised face
Just those two lesbian cows
and the Stud
standing in the shade
of the tree
with a whip in his hand
and the satisfied smile
of a man
who has just taught
those two cows
how to do
the Life & Death Boogie.

I’m out of here.
I can’t take anymore.
I quit. I stop.
The Stud surpasseth
all understanding.

Bicycle Poem 44

ORDINARY MAN

he was just an ordinary man
your average
stupid human

what did I expect?
a literary genius
with the reflexes
of a formula one driver?
An organizer of space
and the taster of expensive wines?
a Zen monk
and a lifetime member
of Amnesty International?

I’d’ve settled for a zookeeper
with a couple of ballroom skills
a librarian in a wolf costume
or the runner-up
in an Aunt Jemima look-alike contest
who moonlights as a fortune teller

What I got
was a one-lobe baboon fucker
with emotional rabies
whose primary ambition
was to be a shoesalesman
to blind amputees

I was just hoping
he’d give me a chance
to keep on living

Just your average moron
behind the wheel
of a thousand horsepower
Splat Mobile
with thousands of others
just like him
all lined up waiting
to run me down
and turn me into a dead
hedgehog by the side of the road

Bicycle Poem 46

VIRGIN

She’s on a horse
riding high
my virginal destroyer
take me to your house
feed me fried potatoes
sausages and beer
give me a blowjob
then bash out my brains
with an ax
what haunted desperado
could ask for more?

(written on an isolated wheatfield road with the sound of horse hoofs clopping like distant thunder, growing louder and louder, coming up from behind (they’re always young virginal maidens astride these horses) I jump off my bike without daring to turn around and begin to write this poem as fast as I can to ward off the power coming up fast at my back and as I write the final line the horse thunder-clops past me and yes indeed the rider is a virginal maiden and right behind her are two more virginal maidens astride two more thunder hoof horses and at that moment they all three veer off the tractor lane and set off across the field at a gallop kicking up clouds of dust and escaping the intentions of this evil-minded oracle who is fearfully hunched over his bicycle jotting his prayer in a notebook)

[ Sept. 19, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 47

THREE VIRGINS GOING AWAY

which immediately inspires
a going-away prayer :

O three virginal maidens
take me with you
to that barn over yonder
we’ll lay down in the straw
and chew the fat
you’ll tell me you love me
then you’ll split my skull open
with an ax
and feed my brains
to the bulls.
[ Sept. 19, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 50

FAST CARS

“AND YOUR BIRD CAN SING”
but you can’t see me
– Lennon & McCartney

[ to Patrick Ferryn ]

you think I’m just some maniac
on a bike
riding around
looking for a fast car
without your permission?

you haven’t seen anything yet

you haven’t seen me
dancing naked
in the middle of my room
in front of the TV
and pretending to jack off
on the weather woman
as she points to an electronic map
full of cyclones and tornados
or maybe not pretending
after all

but you haven’t seen anything yet

drop by sometime
and I’ll show you
how I keep my face
in place
how I stand
in front of the mirror
with a rolling pin
and work on
my aesthetic ascetic look

nor have you seen me
strolling around downtown
in my Chinese dragon
that’s me up front
holding the stick in the head
but unfortunately
nobody ever volunteers
to give me a hand
with the tail
so it just drags along
in the street behind me
sweeping candy wrappers
newspapers and coke cans
while sopping up
the puddles of oil
and drunken puke

and you never show up at the annual
Blindfold Chainsaw Sculptors Convention
so I have to tell you
last year we attacked a grove
of Redwoods in California
and one guy carved up
something (we think) that looked
like a leaning tower of pizza
as for the rest of us
we just came up with a lot
of tooth picks and amputated limbs
then we all got drunk
and finished off the party with our
annual Blindfold Marathon
along Highway 1
and I assure you
the winner
was one lucky son of a bitch.

but you haven’t seen anything yet

you’ve never seen me stand still
and let a lot of strangers
walk around and touch me
which is the first step
in the natural process
of becoming a legend

but that’s not all

you haven’t heard me
on the phone
in my Sean Connery voice.
soliciting contributions
for the Teeth for Two Foundation
also known as the False Dentures Fund

nor have you ever seen me
in action in my lightning glasses
standing out in a storm
as bolts of lightning
strike the metal frames
of my glasses repeatedly
until my eyes are glowing
and my brain is
is white with fire
and my thoughts
are not of this world

and you’re never there
when the landlord
comes around
to get paid in prunes
and my back room
is stacked with sacks
of dried figs and apricots
and everything but prunes
and I have to slip a sack
of walnuts in his hands
and he pretends to be
too drunk to notice
tho later when I go to sleep
in my back room
I find my window
smashed and my sacks
of apricots and figs
gone and the floor
is littered with the shells
of walnuts with little
smiling faces painted upon them

and you’re never there
when the shepherds
come down from the mountains
with their bagpipes and sheep
and I have to build hundreds
of wooden pens for them
down in the pasture
and turn the place into
a pastoral parking lot
Let me tell you about it
let me tell you how I bring in the girls
who used to dance at the Moulin Rouge
in all their feathers and sequins
and tho they might be old and stiff
I get them up in a line
and get them doing a decent Can-Can
while all the shepherds in their pens
go wild and start fucking
their sheep and blowing
their bagpipes
and let me tell you
I have to walk up down
in front of the pens
flicking a whip
to keep them in their cages
and what with all their moaning
and groaning and all
their bagpipes whining
and wheezing and all
their sheep bleating
and bellowing and all the girls
squealing and shrieking as they hoof
to the technorap playing
thru their headphones
let me tell you
my strength is stretched
to the limit as I flick
the whip to keep them all
under control in which moments
I know I am the greatest
orchestra conductor of all time

tho you’ve never seen me at my best

you’re never around
when the pole vaulters
arrive from Poland
and the Acro Bats
come flying by
in their Batmobiles
and the Gang Greens come hopping
in from Greenland
humming Greensleeves
and a fat fish
named Marlin Brando
swims up and flops
into my swimming pool
and I turn up the heat
put a lid on it
and soon I have enough
slumgullion
to fuel the entire
gangster ghetto team
with their tattooed basketballs
enough at least to
give them the energy they need
to crawl up the hill
for their big game
at the School of Fools
where the albino players
are all genetically mutated
8-foot tall monsters
with 4 legs, 4 arms,
and no heads each
and their armored tails
make them more dangerous
than alligators
the School of Fools
(need I remind you?)
is where you are obliged
to bring a greased palm
to every handshake
and the parking meters
give change for thousand-dollar bills

but that’s not all.
I can also think of a number
between 1 and 1000
and you’ll never guess what it is *

* it’s 692.67672
if you got 692
that’s close enough
so I’ll give you two more chances **

** The first was one
and the second was two

but that’s not all.
I can count
from 1 to 21
without thinking
of anything else
but the number at hand
after that
I get distracted.
22 reminds me of a rifle
23 is the Illuminatus password
64 used to be worth a lot
in million-dollar questions
and 104 is the original
metronomic marking
of Beethoven’s 4th Piano Concerto
first movement

but that’s not all
for many years
I coached a crucifixion team
we mastered the art
of nailing serpents to the wall

in fact, you haven’t seen
the half of it

I’ve got an 85-year old back
and 25-year old heartbeat
you figure it out

so let’s forget about the fast cars
with or without your permission
I’d probably mess up the lives
of a lot of friends and relations
beyond recognition
including that of the driver
who’d turn out to be
some little old lady
who can barely reach
the pedals
who can barely see
over the steering wheel
who would be so shattered
by the experience
of smashing me to a pulp
with the grillwork of her Toyota Civic
that her 40-year old son
would have to quit
his job as a bulti-billionaire
in the city
and come live with her
in Spillovertown
and have to do all the cooking
and the sweeping
and washing the dishes
and washing the clothes
and going out shopping
and all they’d have in common
would be a couple of hours
of TV everynight
where eventually the ads
would remind him of all
the things he couldn’t buy anymore
after 6 months of which
he’d murder his mother with an ax
then drive down to the mall
and start chopping up customers
shopping for shampoo
biscuits and Hallmark greeting cards

besides
the fast cars
are always on the other
side of the road

[ September 23, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 51

STOP BREATHING

Like I said
forget about the fast cars
it’s too messy that way.
Today I tried to give myself
a heart attack
head wind
third gear
pumping uphill all the way.
It didn’t work.
My legs asked for more
and my knees started
to come unhinged
I don’t want unhinged knees.
I just want out.
I want out of this whole
fucking shitload of crap.
Fast cars have only spontaneity
to recommend them.
Much better, I’ll go into Tuck’s Woods
lie down in the grass
and swallow a box of sleeping pills
and never wake up.

But that takes planning.

You know what this reminds me of?
The list I made about 10 years ago :
20 good reasons to stop smoking.
5 years later I stopped smoking
and it didn’t have anything to do
with any of those reasons.

I just stopped.

[ September 24, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 52

TOMBSTONE

[ being a footnote to STOP BREATHING ]

So if I had stopped breathing today
I know what the engraving
on my tombstone would have said :

Bryan Tucker Zimmerman
February 14, 1941 – September 24, 2003

That’s what it would have looked like.
Imagine that.

Bicycle Poem 54

LEAVES ARE FALLING

leaves are falling
this is the springtime of winter
jungle vibes are dying
and bending to touch the earth
this is the springtime of winter
wasps are going underground
spiders are headed
for the 4 corners of the room
mice are sneaking off
with parts of my straw basket
to add insulation to their nests
in the ceiling
this is the springtime of winter
the corn I thought would last
until Halloween
is gone
the potatoes I thought would be gone
by Labor Day
are still rotting in the earth
and all that’s left besides the spuds
are fields full of tractor tire tracks
this is winter of summer.

Bicycle Poem 55

GLASSES

My eyeglasses are special
not only do they make things
less blurred
but they also magnify the light.
Not everybody has the chance
to see magnified light

[ written while hunched over my bike with my back lumped by a backpack that contains one box of muesli two packs of chocolate chip cookies one dozen apples and a dozen brown eggs right up there at the top on Sept 24, 2003 – as was the previous poem LEAVES ARE FALLING ]

Bicycle Poem 56

SPUDS

we eat the earth
yes we do
I pick up the small spuds too
I’m not going to turn up
my nose at good food

[ Sept. 25. 2003 and tonight I’m bent over the bike with a back pack full of potatoes I’d like to say 25 pounds but it’s probably only 15 kilos ]

Bicycle Poem 58

IVAN THE POMME DE TERRIBLE

and who is Ivan the Pomme de Terrible?

give me a minute to make up my mind.
I knew him in school
he was last in the class
now he’s out riding
the Deep Purple Line

you can see him at night
when your TV stutters
and a program drifts in
from out of the blue

he’s got his own talk show
Jivin’ with Ivan
they play Spin the Bottle
with bottles of glue

his guests are extreme
they’re punctured and pounded
they scream when they can’t
find just the right word

they crawl on the floor
punch holes in the door
they’ve got scores to settle
their faces are blurred

and then Jivin’ Ivan
will show you an ad
for phone sex with robots
from the planet of Sad

intergalactic girls
with no front teeth
tentacles on their tongues
and tar pits beneath

hey hey, it’s your lucky day
Jivin’ Ivan will make you pay

he’ll slap your face
with a glove of lace
he’ll say that love
is out of place

“In here we cater
only to freaks
druids and dreamers
and kids who can’t speak”

ho ho, be the first to know
tune in to the Tater’s Late Late Show

he’ll show you the wheel
of his pimpmobile
he’ll show you the hole
in his rubber boot sole

he won’t give you a chance
for a second glance
he’ll pinch your eyes
and call it romance

he’ll unzip your lip
with his boarding house reach
he’ll tell you your fortune
with a figure of speech

he’ll pepper your pot
with a garbage can lid
he knows what the green
and the grey people did

he’ll yellow your belly
he’ll tickle your pink
he looks like Toscanini
with a Frank Sinatra wink

he looks like a Z Z Top
after a Burger King Whopper
he looks like Burger King
and Burger King’s daughter

at night he looks like Stephen King
til 3 AM or so
then he starts to look like Larry King
he’s Jivin’ Ivan, the Talking Potato

he’s got a couch and a camera too
he’s got a crutch and wheel chair
but those are just props
like the eyes and nose drops
and the Batman wings in his hair

he speaks his mind
in greeting card rhymes

he’ll give you a ride
on the sawdust side
of his chain saw blade
I’m afraid, I’m afraid
it’s Ivan de Spade

and who the hell is Ivan de Spade?
his dad was de Sade
his mom was the maid
they danced the moonlight serenade
they played one on one
in the slam dunk parade

their only child
grew up alone
he played with his teeth
and a slide trombone

he ran with the geeks
his name was Bud
we called him Ivan
Ivan the Spud

[ from Highpoint Hesbaye to Four Bulls Corner, Sept. 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 59

CANDY BAR

I open the candy’s bar silver wrapper
into the dark brown chocolate
of the candy bar’s reason for being

RIDER DIES IN STORM
It was the silver candy bar wrapper in his pocket
that attracted the lightning strike

Having written the last lines
I stuff the pen in my pocket.
It rubs against something.
The candy bar wrapper.
What the hell?
oh yeah, I just wrote a poem
about it

I bite off a chunk
wrap the rest of the bar
in the silver foil wrapper
and stuff it back
in my shirt pocket.
It bumps into something
what the hell?
oh yeah
it’s the pen I just used
to write a poem about it.

I chomp down on the last chunk
stuff the empty wrapper
back in my shirt pocket
What the hell?
What happened to the pen?
That’s right
I put it in my other pocket.

and somewhere in the middle
of all that
I ate the candy bar
but it wasn’t until
the last chunk
that I realized
I’d better start tasting it.

[ Sept. 28, 2003, under the willow tree at Willow Tree Fork in the Hesbaye rain ] *

* p.s.
What the hell is only
the top of my pen
doing in my shirt pocket
with the empty candy bar wrapper? *

* ps
Six months later
I bump into something
in the pocket
of my purple plaid flannel shirt
as I’m stuffing an arm thru a sleeve.
What the hell?
It’s a silver foil candy bar wrapper
Oh yeah
that was the day
I rode into
illuminated rain *

*ps
I should have stopped
writing this a long time ago.
I should have stopped
around verse number four.
You shouldn’t be reading this.
Go back and start over.
Stop before you come to the part
where I start eating the candy bar.

Bicycle Poem 60

CARS

I don’t like
people in cars

and when I’m in a car
I don’t like ’em either.

[ written in the last days of summer in the shade of the red brick ruins of the railroad bridge
in Horion/Hozemont ]

Bicycle Poem 61

MYSTERY

I get run off the road
once a week average
(cars, trucks, jeeps
machines with 4 wheels)

I’ve been shouted at
cursed and insulted
and today I got spit at
a mouthful of beer
from the passenger window
of a passing truck

why do I stir up this hostility?
this fear?
in what way do I threaten
these people?
I’m just riding a bike.

It’s a mystery to me.

[ September, 28 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 62

JACK THE RIP

people ask me
aren’t you afraid
to be out there all alone
on those deserted farm roads?
aren’t you scared you might meet
one of those weird characters?

And I say
the most dangerous man
out on those roads
is me
I’ve got a six-inch blade
and a short-fuse temper
I’m a Jack the Ripper
I’m Attila the Nun Killer
I’m Genghis the Cannibal
You better hide you tan
cause I’ll tan your hide,
Doctor Jackal
if you fuck with me
you better be ready
to take a big bite
from the potato of death.

[ Sept 30, 2003 on first run for spuds
at Mystery Spud Field ]

Bicycle Poem 63

SUNDOWN

backpack stuffed with potatoes
on the back of my bike
fender sagging over back tire
front wheel a-wobble
heading into a southwind
big smile on my face
my jacket pockets
a-bulge with spuds
this is the last
I’ll be taking
from the Haneffe field
there’s another over in Jeneffe
it’ll be the last to go

[ sundown Sept. 30, 2003, Cross Road ]

BICYCLE TEACHINGS

PREFACE TO THE BOOK OF BICYCLE TEACHINGS

Up ahead I see a rose garden
in full bloom
and out in the middle of it
sniffing the roses
are two old ladies
rosy-cheeked
curly white hair
cute in an old-fashioned way.

Thinking I’ll be gallant
and generous and thought to be
and all-around charming gentleman,
I stop my bike
look over and smile into their smiles
and say, “Beautiful, Ladies.”
I point to the roses.
“Very beautiful.”
I wave my hand in their general direction.
“And you too.”

A moment later
a bald octogenarian
bursts out of the house
limping and leaping
brandishing an ax
and shouting,
“You leave my wife out of this!
Go find your own piece of ass!”

BICYCLE TEACHING NUMBER ONE

The bicycle, when well-ridden,
can teach us many things

such as

never go faster than 120 mph
while coasting down a hill
unless, of course, you’re stoned
in which case
the speed limit should be 95

BICYCLE TEACHING NUMBER TWO

The bicycle, when well-ridden,
can teach us many things

such as

never argue
with human-controlled machines

beware of them
but do not challenge them

they’ve got 4 big tires
they’ve got bumpers and headlights
and windshields and exhaust pipes
and sometimes they weigh 16 tons
and sometimes they have drivers
with little or no intelligence

open one of their skulls
and you’ll find it completely empty
except for a couple of rusted wires
and an exhausted 9-volt flashlight battery

BICYCLE TEACHING NUMBER THREE

The bicycle, when well-ridden,
can teach us many things

such as

BEWARE OF THE RIGHTEOUS
they love to kill people
just to prove their point

dogs are OK
FEAR NOT THE DOG
they are gentle creatures
and the worst they can do
is nip and untie your shoelaces
except of course
when the dog
is bigger than your bicycle
is snarling viciously
and slavering blood
from its foamy lips
and its razor-sharp teeth
are clicking like castanets
in a drunken cantina
in which case
STOP
and find another way home
EXCEPT OF COURSE
when there is no other way
in which case
you just pedal like hell
and hope the mutt ignores you.

BICYCLE TEACHING NUMBER FOUR

The bicycle, when well-ridden,
can teach us many things

such as

if you ride around long enough
and start thinking about books
your bike will teach you
how to simplify the classics

Simplified Classics Number One :
“Orpheus and Euridice”
HE LOOKS BACK

Simplified Classics Number Two :
Homer’s “Odyssey”
SON OF A BITCH

Simplified Classics Number Three :
Homer’s “Iliad”
ALL THE CRAP THAT GOES ON
WHILE GETTING READY
TO KICK THE SHIT
OUT OF EACH OTHER

Simplified Classics Number Four :
“The Book of Revelations”
A BUNCH OF BEASTS SHOW UP
AND KICK THE SHIT OUT OF EVERYBODY

Simplified Classics Number Five :
“Waiting for Godot”
HE NEVER SHOWS UP

Bicycle Poem 64

HIGH

I want to get high
and higher
and higher
and higher
I want to get high

I want to get low
real low
deep down and dirty below
like a low blow to the scrotum
I want to get high

I want to go sideways
slip, slide, sideways
onto parallel world highways
I want to get high

I want to go around
around and around
I want to ride
the merry-go-room
I want to see
the backside of the womb
I want to get high
see the dark side of the moon

Bicycle Poem 70

THE ULTIMATE BICYCLE POEM

this cannot always be

someday
I will be somewhere
else
doing something
else

however

that does not stop me
from hoping (crossed out)
wishing (crossed out)
praying that I can
float out here
between these wheatfields
these corn and snow fields
forever
and ever

and don’t forget
the crossed-outs.
they are not only the most
important parts of this poem
but of your
whole
life
story
too

praying’s for sinners

Bicycle Poem 74

KNEECAP

this pain will pass
they always do
sometimes it’s a muscle
sometimes it’s a joint
right now it’s the right knee
have patience, relax
keep pedaling
ride it out slowly
stop
stop pounding your knee
it won’t make it any better
STOP
it might make it worse
STOP POUNDING ON YOUR KNEE
OH JESUS, LOOK WHAT YOU DID
YOU BROKE YOUR KNEECAP

[ Oct. 8, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 76

ROADKILL
(a tribute to the Werewolf of London)

male pheasant struts across the road
in front of me
beautiful blue-green plumage
I say, “Nice coat,” and quote
Warren Zevon
“I’d like to meet your tailor.”

[ Thunder Road, Hesbaye, October 9, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 77

CORN’S DOWN

Corn’s down
damn it
I was hoping
to be talking to it
until November

“I guess you won’t be around
for Halloween
I’ll carve you a pumpkin”

[ Old Farm Road, Hesbaye, October 9, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 78

MORE CARS AND THE RAISED MIDDLE FINGER

I never challenge the cars
on these narrow tractor roads
I pull over and stop on the edge
of the grass with my foot on the verge
and wait for them to pass.
I am not being polite.
Yesterday a driver smiled
and waved as he rolled by
inches from my bike.
I gave him a sneer
and felt like flipping him
the bird.
If it’s a farmer
it’s my duty to get
out of the way.
If it’s just some asswipe
taking a short cut
I’m not taking any chances.
He’s against the law
and his insurance won’t protect him
if he runs me down
but I don’t feel like
testing his insurance policy
and I don’t think it’s a good idea
to get involved
in the Raised Middle Finger Syndrome.
There would be no end.
I’d be jabbing my fist in the air
so frequently
my fingers would fall off.

[ Tuck’s Woods, October 10, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 79

SPUD DIGGER

I’m in the middle of a vast
field digging up potatoes
when I get caught by the rain.
Soon I’m covered in mud.
I look like one of those guys
in the Van Go painting
The Spud Eaters.

I’m a spud digger.
I’m a spud nigger.
I’m a spud eater
look – my feet’re
mud slides on the pedals.

[ Spud Road, October 10, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 80

THIS ROAD

I like this road
I like this road a lot
I knew you were here
I saw you on the map
here I am
and I’ll be back

[ This Road, Oct. 11, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 81

A GUIDE TO SENSIBLE BEHAVIOR

Do not attempt to waltz
without a partner.
Do not ride a bicycle
that isn’t there.
Do not smoke
an imaginary cigarette.
Not only will you look
silly and stupid
they might lock you up
if you persist in your behavior.

However, there are a few things
you can get away with.
You can (and must)
throw caution to the wind
especially when the teeth
of the wind is at your back
and caution is standing
in front of you making
nasty comments about your family.
You might be able to get away with
strumming an invisible guitar
if the neck is as long as
a giraffe’s and you have to climb
a ladder to hit the low notes.

[ written on the backside of a Mcdonald’s burger sack with which some fastfood idiot has decorated the roadside. ]

[ Old Farm Road, October 12, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 82

TWO LITTLE OLD LADIES

Two little old ladies
out for a stroll
along a country road
at sunset.
I say, “Hi there, ladies”
as I zip past on my bike
and at that very moment
I realize these ladies
are no older than sixty
younger than me for sure
I saw geezerettes EXACTLY like them
at my 40th class reunion.
And in that blink of an eye
GOD DAMN, SAM
I see that any fantasy
of me giving them a quickie
WHAM BAM THANK YOU MA’AM
has long since vanished
from the empty cellblocks
of their desiccated brain tubes
tho there’s a twinkle in their eyes
for only an instant
a cellular memory
directly from the tongue
that remembers a kiss
stolen and sudden
forbidden and hidden.

Then the twinkle’s gone
and they’re just a pair
of frightened old ladies
cringing from the light
of the setting sun.
And as I flash past
they look into my eyes
and see the other end
of the gangplank.
They look into my eyes
and see the spinning blade
of my chainsaw soul.

[ Rum Road, Hesbaye, Oct. 12, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 83

GARBAGE

I am constantly amazed by the garbage
that idiots toss from their car windows
because I know they would never toss
all this crap in their own backyards.

I refuse to pick it up.
Even on one self-designated road
I will not begin to be their janitor.

The back of my bike would be sagging
with bulging garbage bags.
I would disappear behind a mountain
of beer cans, pop bottles
burger bags and cigarette packs.

And when I’ve made my weekly run
down Old Farm Road
I’d start thinking about Thunder Road
and Rum Road and Power Line Road
and Spud Road and Two Trees Road.
How could I ignore them?

You get the picture.
That’s me, at home
in my backyard
down at the bottom
of a pile of garbage
that now rises higher
than the roof of my house.
I’ve been buried alive
and no one can hear
my cries for help.

[ from Tuck’s Woods to Bear’s Woods,
Oct. 12, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 85

DRINK AND DRIVE AND DRIVE AND DRINK

Talk about DRINK AND DRIVE
if you start counting the number
of empty beer cans, beer bottles,
gin bottles and fresh empties
of whiskey and coke alongside the road
then you’ve got to conclude
that these roads
are full of drunk drivers.
Behind the wheel
of each mobile
sits a man with tears in his eyes
and a gut full of puke
shouting, “If I only had a hammer
I’d’ve beaten my brains out years ago.”

[ Two Trees Road. October 15, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 86

EXECUTION ON THE HIGH ROAD

I held a gun to his head.
He was on his knees
trembling with fear.
I said, “I bet you didn’t
know when you ran me off
the road back there
that this would be
the last day
of your life.”
He began to weep.
I pulled the trigger
The bullet blew his brains
out the back of his skull.
I said, “Take that along
with your petty fears
and hypocritical tears.”

Shit!
I don’t have a gun
I hate guns
I’ve got a knife tho
wood handle
for peeling apples
so that means
I’ve got a big surprise
for his throat
and his petty fears
and his hypocritical tears.

[ High Road. October 15, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 87

HARMONICA WIND

Brought along a D harp today.
Held it up in the north wind
as I pedaled straight into it.
Got a nice D major chord
going, got it up to my ear.
No human could play that long.
Think I’ll make some
harmonica headphones
D major in the left ear
A major in the right
turn your head from side to side
and hum along
and we got the makin’s
of a Beethoven Spaghetti Sauce

[ Onderdonk Drive / October 15, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 88

EARTH

Except for the farmers
I’m probably the only guy
out here who spends
so much time
looking at the earth.
I’ve seen millions of acres
some of them hundreds of times.
I’ve prayed for the crops.
I’ve talked to the corn
while it was growing
I cried for the flax
when it got bent over in the wind.
I rejoiced in the harvest
and I gathered spilled grains of wheat
on the road with my hands
and brought them home
and put them in a bowl by the door
to honor the spirits of the earth.

Then again I’m probably
the only guy out here
on a bicycle flying high
on good mother
earth-grown wonder weed.
I can’t speak for the farmers.
You never can tell about them.

[ Farm Road East, Oct. 16, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 89

FARMER AND SON

mongoloid midgets
out in the middle
of an empty field
with shotguns in their hands
blasting away at an empty sky?

No. It’s just a farmer
and his son
shooting at a pheasant
that flew by about
an hour ago

[ Winterfrost Road, Oct. 16, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 90

THIS ROAD REVISITED

I still like This Road
especially with the wind
at my back and the sun
in my eyes and my hands
reaching all the way down
thru the handlebars
into the front tire
where my fingers
can almost touch
the black top.

It’s a perfect road
except for one small detail:
that drainage ditch
across the road up ahead
covered by a rusted, busted grill.
I hop over the danger
hit high gear and shout
at the sky, “I want
this repaired
immediately
not tomorrow or the next day
or whenever it’s convenient
for you, but RIGHT NOW
and I want it done before
I reach the top of the hill.”

And as soon as these words
are out of my mouth
lo and behold
a convoy of bulldozers
back hoes, shovels and rollers
plus a troop of men comes
swarming over the hill.

When I reach the top
I look back
and there below
in the dip of the road
a brand new wooden bridge
spans the drainage ditch.

I like this road a lot.

[ This Road, Oct. 16, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 91

THIS ROAD REVISITED AGAIN

I went back to This Road
to try out the bridge.

The bridge was gone.

Phantom American bombers
from W.W. Two
destroyed the bridge last night
also wiping out
a phantom battalion
of their own troops.
Then a phantom of the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers
moved in and restored
the drainage ditch
to its original form
according to the antique codes
in the authentic style
of late 18th century grills.

I hop over it, hit high gear
and head for the top of the hill.
I still like this road a lot.

[ written on the Hundred Acre Woods Road, Oct. 16, 2003, hoping that what I just wrote about the bombers and the soldiers and the engineers won’t come true ]

OCTOBER 17TH POEMS

OUR LADY

The chapel of
NOTRE DAME DE DOULEURS
a roadside sanctuary for dead leaves
about the size of a bus stop
paint peeling, plaster chipped away
Mary herself black faced
with dust and grime
with her dead boy
sprawled out across her lap.
Hanks of hair, lockets in plastic bags
children’s mostly some from ten
twenty years ago
tied to the grill with faded ribbons.

Good place to come
when I feel like crying.
Good shelter for a match
when the north wind is blowing
and I feel like taking
a few puffs of Our Lady of Sorrow’s
weeping weed.

Ride back out
into the bright sunlight
thumbing snot
into the slipstream
of the hard north wind
with my soul purified
and my heart beating
in the right direction again

[ Power Line Road, Oct. 17, 2003 ]

SORROWS

I mean, there’s got to be
a place where you can take
your sorrows
even when you don’t know
you have any

[ Power Line Road (right under the power lines)
Oct. 17, 2003 ]

FANGS

The dog splayed out in front of me
yapping, growling, snarling
showing me his fangs

The fat lady
blocking the middle of the road
won’t get out of my way
I stop. We’re out in the middle
of nowhere, surrounded
by plowed wheat fields.
I say, “Please step aside.”
Then the dog leaps
sinks his jaw into my calf
and all three of his fangs
fall out.
I say, “Jesus Christ, lady,
you better keep me on a leash.”

[ Spud Road (thinking about Power Line Road and why I had to stop at the wayside chapel to recover my balance), Oct. 17, 2003 ]

THE DOG

The next time I saw the dog
he was riding a bicycle.
He wanted to have
leg muscles like mine.

[ Spud Road, Oct. 17, 2003 ]

BICYCLE PRAYER 1

Earth to earth
tomorrow we part
pump me up
with a bicycle fart

[ Oct. 17, 2003 ]

BICYCLE PRAYER 2

Ashes to ashes
dust into spud
I’m gonna be
a bicycle stud

[ Oct. 17, 2003 ]

BICYCLE PRAYER 3

Peanut to butter
peaches to cream
don’t wake me up
it’s a bicycle dream

[ Oct. 17, 2003 ]

THE BRIDGE

Back on This Road
coasting down the hill
from the south
ahead in the dip
I see the bridge
that spans the drainage ditch
with planks of carved oak.
I fly over it
like a moon-shot monkey.
Look back over my shoulder.
No bridge.
Just that rusted, busted grill
over the drainage ditch.
I’m going to have to talk
to someone about
the scenery here.

[ This Road, Oct. 17, 2003 ]

REFLECTIONS ON “THE BRIDGE”

Nothing that happened in “The Bridge”
is real. I imagined it all.
I didn’t write it on This Road either.
I wrote it on an eastbound road
that doesn’t have a name yet
but from which This Road
runs north, after I zipped
right past the turn
and continued on the east-bound
road that doesn’t have a name yet
until I came to This Other Road.

[ This Other Road, Oct. 17, 2003 ]

THIS OTHER ROAD

This Other Road
runs parallel
to This Road

You can actually see This Road
over there to the west.
You can see the barn.
You can see the fence posts.

[ Not written on This Other Road but a little farther along on a road that doesn’t have a name yet but which I’m tempted to call This Other Road Over Here, but if you back up a few hundred steps or so you’ll be on This Other Road / Oct. 17, 2003 ]

RUE DES CHAMPS (BAPTISM)

Out here on this road
that doesn’t have a name yet
but which I’m tempted to call
This Other Road Over Here
but which I won’t
tho I will now give it a name.
The French speakers
call it Rue des Champs
so I’ll stick with tradition
and baptize it
Three-Horse Virgin Road.

[ Three-Horse Virgin Road (because this is the exact spot where I was standing when those 3 maidens came riding by in Bicycle Poem 46) / Oct. 17, 2003 ]

FRENCH SPEAKERS

French speakers?
There’s a few
near where I live.
In fact, I’m surrounded by them.
In fact, everywhere I go
I’m mobbed
by spillover* French speakers.

[ Thunder Road, Oct. 17, 2003 ]

* for more information about the Spillovers see Bicycle Poem 38 (SPILLOVERTOWN) in which I urge the Spillovers to rise up throw off their chains burn down their houses and purify the landscape so I can plant more spuds

BURNT OFFERINGS

As for those tokes
of wonder weed
in the wayside chapel
consider them
burnt offerings
to the goddess
Our Lady of Sorrow.

Oh Goddess of Sorrow
Goddess of Pain
hand me down
my walking cane

Lady of Sadness
Lady of Tears
give me back
my wonder years

Lady of Spain
Mother of Ra
you better start wearing
a big wonder bra

[ Power Line Road, just having come up behind the wayside chapel and passed it for the second time today / Oct. 17, 2003 ]

BICYCLE PRAYER 4 (OUR LADY REVISITED)

Lady to Mary
sorrow to joy
let’s see your bouncing
big baby boy

Bread to fish
rip to rap
get that man
off your lap

he’s married to Mary
Magdalena you know
he pimps for her
at the Palestine Bowl

he’s got a string of whores
he makes big bucks
his motto is
Jesus Christ Sucks

From famished to Spanish
rice a la mode
no need to panic
I’m not blocking the road

From soup to nuts
with pheasant between
slap me with
a fat magazine

there’s a picture of Mary
dressed up as a nun
she rips off her habit
and son of a gun

it’s that female singer
from northwestern Maine
she once lived in New Nashville
it’s Shania Twain

I say, “Howdy, Shania
get off your knees
and sit down beside me
have a toke with me, please

we sip some rum
we talk of pain
she gives me back
my walking cane

I walk around
in my new Levis
thirty-two waist
that’s my size

Thirty-six leg
it’s all lean meat
Stop right there, Miss Twain
I can’t take your heat

Get off my lap
get back in your cage
Hail Mary, Sweet Jesus
I’m all the wrong age

My back’s eighty-five
my mind’s in a dream
good golly, Miss Molly
I’m sweet seventeen

and you’re just a statue
covered with dust
and the hinge on your gate
is squeaking with rust

it sounds like the voice
of a long-lost gal
who once sat on my lap
and sang Bach chorales

we sang all the psalms
and the holiest hymns
from the Book of Job
and Huckleberry Finn

so wipe that smile
from your mouth, Miss Disgrace
take a look in the mirror
you got smoke on your face

[ Onderdonk Drive, Oct. 17, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 93

DOG SNIFF DEATH ROW

Riding west
on the east-bound road
that connects
This Road
and This Other Road,
thinking I should
give it a name too.
A hunting dog
in the middle
of a beet field
comes over
and sniffs at me.
I think I’ll call this
Dog Sniff Road.
No, that’s no good.
There’s a hunter
with a shotgun
behind the dog.
Maybe he’ll shoot me
Maybe I’ll call this Death Row.
The hunter comes over
“What are you gonna call it?” he asks
“I haven’t decided yet,” I reply.
“Then get the hell out of here
and don’t come back
until you’ve given it a name.”

[ Dog Sniff Death Row, Oct. 18, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 94

DEATH ROW

Dog Sniff Death Row?
That’s a stupid name
Where were you born?
On Dog Sniff Death Row.
Where did you grown up?
Dog Sniff Death Row.
Where do you live today?
On Spud Field Road
not far from
Dog Sniff Death Row.
Why don’t you move?
Why don’t you get a dog
and go sniff
at your own Death Row

[ Oct. 18, 2003 ]

BLUES ONE

You can’t win for losing
the Beet für Elise
the Shake for the Spear
and the Numb of the Beast

You can Dance the Milk
with the Forks of your Feet
but don’t Mambo with Sambo
on Treasure Card Street

[ Treasure Card Street, Oct. 18, 2003 ]

BLUES TWO

Don’t Mambo with Sambo
on Treasure Card Street
Don’t Groucho with Marx
or Harp on his Feet

You might Fight with Might
or Collide with a Scope
but don’t Limbo with Jimbo
that’s my cat, he’s a dope

[ Treasure Card Street, Oct. 18, 2003 ]

BLUES THREE

Don’t Dexter with Gordon
or Park with the Bird
don’t Rack with Jack
or Ginsberg the Word

don’t Hawk with the Coal, man
or Kroop in your jeans
or Fiddle with Castro
or Elbow the Scene

Don’t El Dorado
Collar your Butt Downs
Touchdown. I’ll give you
these green, greasy dollars.

[ Treasure Card Street, Oct. 18, 2003 ]

BLUES FOUR

You can put on the dog
you can take off the fat
you can stick in the mud
of green greasy dollars

But you can’t wash the tons
of grief-sodden grime
from the face of the future
with March of Time dimes

[ Oct. 18, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 96

THAT BEER

empty can of Tuborg
lying by the side of the road

a rare individual drank that beer

the man who has the good taste
to drink Danish beer
usually also has the good sense
not to litter the landscape

not this guy
he just cruises by in his 4 by
pops the top of a Borg
chugs it
and tosses the can out the window
into the largest garbage can
in the universe

that beer
is long since pissed away
but the can remains

NEXT DAY

I biked past the Borg again
it was still there
Jesus fart in heaven
what did I expect?
that it would biodegrade
overnight?
it’ll be here
for another 50-60 years
long after
the man has pissed
his last beer

NEXT DAY

Jesus fart in heaven
make that 5000-6000 years
it’s stainless steel

POSTSCRIPT

the “it’ referred to
in the last line
is of course THE BORG
an empty can of beer
carelessly discarded
by the roadside
by some mindless jerk
However
when I biked past it
the next day
I saw it was can of Carlsberg
but I didn’t want to go back
and change the poem
because I had already become
attached to THE BORG

LONG LIVE THE BORG!

Bicycle Poem 98

TWILIGHT ZONE

there’s a moment
just before dark
when you can’t tell
if the light is coming
from the sky
or from the earth
thru a transparent road

then comes a few moments
when it’s almost dark
and you can’t tell
if you’re moving over the road
or the road is moving
under you

you have just entered
the twilight zone
keep pedaling
this is where you want to be

[ Two Trees Road, October 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 99

LOOP

this is the loop
this is where I came in
you’re headed for home
the moment you leave your doorstep

[ Old Farm Road, October 2003 ]

BICYCLE TEACHINGS

Teaching No. 10

you can get a flat tire
at any moment
when you least expect it
usually
this is true about
of the rest of life too
so don’t fall in love
with the 16th of an inch
of rubber that rolls
between you and annihilation
with every turn of the wheel

Teaching No. 9

Headwind, tailwind
they all even out
they become the same
sail on the tail
rejoice in the head

Teaching No. 8

Stop and have a snack
whenever you feel like it
peeled apples are good
besides, you can wander around
with the wood-handled knife
in your hands
and a menacing look on your face
to impress all the other cyclists
who are slouched on the bench
and won’t slide over
to give you a place to sit.
One flick of the knife
in a northerly direction
and you’ve got the whole bench
to yourself
in 3 seconds flat.

Teaching No. 7

There is no Teaching No 7.
You already know it.
It’s the one about
Moses when the lights went out
Where was he?
In the dark.

Teaching No. 6

Never leave your bike
where wild animals can get at it
The most untamed beast of all
is, of course, the human brat
He comes in all sizes
from Peanutbrat to Geezerbrat.

I never had any trouble
with the wolves and badgers.

If push comes to shove
with the Peanut Brats
snarl loudly
and show them your fangs

Teaching No. 5.

The bicycle is a musical instrument.
And the only time you can hear it
is when your mind wanders.

Teaching No. 4.

Next to rollerskates
rollerblades and skateboards
this is the closest
you’ll ever come
to know what it’s like
to be a machine.
Cyborg.
Android.
The phenomena
of man and machine
occupying the same shifting
spots of space
at the same time
or if you prefer
the delicious
discontinuous
blend of bone and metal
grease and blood
and air everywhere
inside and out.
this is possible
because the bicycle
is a perfect machine
(maybe the only perfect
machine ever invented)
It has no flaws
and I have no complaints
about its design.
It’s impossible to say
at certain elusive moments
where the foot ends
and the pedal begins
where the hands stop being hands
and the handlebars take over

Teaching No. 3

Each breath you take
could be your last.
Bicycles do not have a monopoly
on this morsel of knowledge.
You can learn it
while operating a power drill
with one hand
and a chain saw with the other.
You can learn it playing poker
with guys with guns.
You can learn it in a bar
dancing with a 300-pound Mexican whore
while her jealous husband
watches from the shadows
honing his knife blade on his belt
and she, pointing to the room upstairs,
reminds you that no less than 14 men
have died in her arms
including her 6 previous husbands

This lesson can also be taught
by a guy named Gus
who drives a school bus
and chortles with glee
each and everytime he swerves
out of the way to smash
a rabbit or a skunk
a chipmunk or a squirrel
a dog or a cat
a frog or a toad
into the tarmac
while his busload of kids
scream with delight
each time a tire bumps
over a lump of squirming meat.

As for the kids
they know how to chortle
and scream with delight

Conclusion:
avoid schools and buses
and maybe some of those
screaming kids too

Teaching No. 2

keep your mouth shut

there are too many asswipes
driving around in cars
to start getting verbally excited

Teaching No. 1

“I’m feeling lucky today”

don’t EVER say that

you’ll fall into a deep
dark, dirty, deathly hole
and you’ll never come back

Bicycle Poem 100

VIDEO GAMES

in video games
you stand still
and it’s the scenery
that moves under
and around you.

This can also happen
in real life
like when you’re riding a bike
on a smooth, straight road.

Attention!
DO NOT ENTER!
You don’t want to go
into that parallel universe
where you have no control
over your nervous system
and the dimmest of understanding
resides in that cluster of cells
on the other side of your brain.

[ Two Trees Road / Oct. 21, 2003 ]

ONE LAST BICYCLE TEACHING

the wind
it’s either there
or it’s not

Bicycle Poem 101

THE WIND

sailors cursed the wind
when it turned against them

cold wind can lay you low
leave you exhausted
lying in the weeds
behind a round brick tower
the only shelter for miles
and a piss poor shelter it is
against the deathcreep chill
leave you staring up
into the deep blue sky
at the white vapor trail
cross of two planes
thinking : this is it
this is where it ends
your body is empty
you can’t pick it up
and take it home
and right up there
between the arms
of the vapor trail cross
is a rainbow
so faint
that it can only be seen
by the swimming eyes
of a dying man

all you have to do
is close your eyes
and float up
into that rainbow

I wonder if the sailors
ever saw those tiny rainbows

[ High Point Hesbaye, under the huge oak, in freezing cold wind, Oct. 28, 2003 reflecting on BLUES ONE and TWO of October 18 when I lay in a patch of dried nettles on Treasure Card Street, clutching my notebook, staring at these two poems and wondering if they would be the last words I would ever see in this life ]

Bicycle Poem 102

LAST BICYCLE POEM OF THE YEAR

this may be
the last bicycle poem
of the year

take off wool gloves
to write
fingers freezing
too numb to hold the pen
feet frozen
no good
for mind-wandering poetry
no good
for pipe puffing
which often kicks off
mind-wanderings
tears on face
cold wind
no good
for poems
no place to fit in
the man or the beast

[ Old Farm Road, Oct. 28, 2003 ]

Bicycle Poem 104

FIRST WINTER POEMS

1.

There is no fall
out here on the farm roads
out here in the cold wind
riding directly into the setting sun
blinded by the light
riding into some kind
of resurrection

these Flanders bike paths
don’t have names
just numbers

[ Haspengouw 158, Nov. 5, 2003 ]

2.

Leaving 158
heading south into
French-speaking Hesbaye
why am I in a hurry?
thinking that darkness
will catch me
and eat me alive?
I’ve got the setting sun
on my right
and the rising full moon
on my left
plenty of light

3.

I climb south
into the Hesbaye
and when I emerge
from the cool, steep tunnel
of trees and rise above
the high banks I find
the sun perched
on the horizon
half down
its arc of light
like a neon sign
at a burger joint
next to the church
in the distant village

4.

I hate to lose the sun
don’t mind keeping
that full moon in my eye tho
I’m not going to lose the moon
tonight

5.

Rolling down into twilight
the moon’s light not yet
strong enough to take hold
I’ll be home in time
to see Celtic Glasgow
play Anderlecht

I’ll be rooting for the Celts
I don’t like Belgian soccer teams
and besides I came so close
to being a McCullough
it isn’t funny.

6.
I don’t know anything
about those German ancestors of mine
I never knew my father
I grew up in the shadow of Scotland
The McCullough clan
you don’t mess with the McCullough clan
ask any Englishman
ask any Belgian

[ Celtic Twilight Road, Nov. 5, 2003 ]

7.

The moonlight has taken hold
enough to give me a moving shadow
but not enough
when I stop to write
I’m only guessing

Nothing left to do
but pedal home
and thank my bike
for taking me this far

[ This Road, Nov. 5, 2003 ]

AFTERTHOUGHTS ON FIRST WINTER POEMS

there’s nothing like
a moonlight ride
over those deserted farm roads
across the fields
and down thru the dark woods

I can hear Marie Claire:
“I couldn’t do that
I would be afraid.”

I say : What could be
out here at night
that isn’t out here
in the daylight?

Besides I still consider
myself the most dangerous
animal around.
I can strip you of your mind
in seconds flat
I’m so fucking crazy
you’ll think it’s contagious
and you’ll run the other way
to keep from being contaminated

There’s nothing like a midnight ride
for talking to the moon
and practicing my Scot’s accent:
“Goodness gracious, great balls of fire
that’s one extraordinary
celestial
apparition.”
It works best with words
with lots of Rs.
“Goodness gracious
great balls of fire.”

There’s nothing like a midnight ride
right into the twinkle
of Sirius
dog star companion
of Orion

[ Backyard, Nov. 6, 2003 ]

The dreadful gate

POEMS & ESSAYS 2004 |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

This is a completely different summer. Completely. East is west and south is down the back of my neck. Last day of June 2004. Who’s going to bring in the wheat a month from now? Same guys as last year but this time they’ll be wearing masks.

(ital) Well, that’s something I didn’t know.

Who said that? See what I mean? everything’s different this summer south wind down the back of my neck nothing’s complete and this is more of a notbook – that’s NOTEBOOK – to be read with silent eyes in silent nights when the lines have shut off and the wind has stopped humming no space notebook last summer it was poems there’s not many poems out here these days and that’s all I need to say about that. So there – that’s decided. Didn’t know which way this was going. Been pondering the exit for a month and I didn’t even notice this gate. It just crept up out of the wheat field and jumped into my lap. The Notebook Gate. [Carrot Stop]

 

Let’s just let the wind blow you down here and see where it takes you and as much as I don’t want to admit it I’ve got my cap on backwards.

(ital) I never wanted to be a catcher.

Who said that? you see what I mean? but it’s either backwards or get blown off the south wind is chewing up my face think of what the north wind does in winter tho now we’re two miles down the road and a hell of a lot wiser. And I’m curious as hell to see where this goes. [Chapon] and the road goes on in memory of the great Jack Kerouac (pen fade, I’ve got another in my old burlap Vincent Van Go kit bag which is just the right size for painters with brushes and tubes of oils with a heavy leaning towards the impressionists the great Jack Kerouac I cry when I read his books he’s the only writer who makes me do that [Chemin Des Parapluies] Jack would have loved that name. Chemin Des Parapluies. Elderly elegant ladies strolling in the rain, in the hot sun, Jack jumping out from the corn (knee high) and snatching them umbrellas away. Anything you’ve ever wanted can be found on Chemin Des Parapluies. Nobody in sight. I wanted that. Just a leaky airplane up there above the clouds a million and a half betraves a broken soccer ball a mile of sunshine a graveyard a hedgerow with sparrows and a tree full of songbirds but not a crow in sight. I WANT A CROW.

[Chemin Des Parapluies] a mole hole and a car in the way [Chemin Des Parapluies] That car. It was a big black SUV the driver had his door open and his naked legs propped thru the open window and from the passenger side drifted the aroma of sweet perfume and a few strings of a romantic melody. I know what it was. It was a bordello. A cat house on wheels. Special service for midgets [High Point] I left my bottle of water down on Chemin Des Parapluies last stop when my pen ran out of ink and I had to delve into my kit bag for a fresh one, then the rolling bordello rolled by and I forgot to pick up the bottle so now the Chemin has everything including a whore house and a drink of water [High Point].

 

I came back and got the bottle. My 75cl Vittel with the squirt pointed top that I never use it was still there I could see it from a hundred meters away from the crossroad as an elegant elderly lady on a bicycle turned in from the side road and disappeared down Chemin Des Parapluies. There it was standing up straight on the paving stone edge in a pale of sunlight how many people had passed it by? perhaps only that elegant elderly lady or perhaps somebody came along and spiked it with acid. That’s all I need right now, a brain full of LSD and that lady heading down Chemin Des Parapluies doesn’t know about Jack Kerouac in the corn and she sure a shit doesn’t suspect that she’s about to get involved in a midget prostitution ring. Before I got down here I was up the hill on High Point and looking around and seeing that High Point had many things to offer too but then I discovered my missing water bottle and those marvelous things all went out the window in a hurry so I phoned Bear and told her about my first day with this notebook and how I’d left my water at the Chemin Des Parapluies crossroads. “Maybe some people who are thirsty will come along and be glad to quench their thirsts,” I said but I could hear it in her voice that I was willfully littering the landscape. Nobody in four seasons was going to take a drink from that orphaned bottle and besides I was getting THIRTSY but first I had to stop and contemplate the road up to High Point. It has a name. Rue Cinq Bonniers. What does that mean, Jack?

(ital)It means five good men.

“Bullshit. It means five bonnets.”

“OK, Five Bonnets. I’ll settle for that.”

So now I’m here back at the crossroads of Chemin Des Parapluies and a motorcycle and a car just jammed thru like suddenly this is the city and not a deserted fork in the road facing an old brick castle wall. So which way do I go? Back around again past the floating funhouse? I’m pointed the other way back towards home the way I came and that’s the way I’ll go.[Chemin Des Parapluies ] NO IT ISN’T. Now I’m halfway along Chemin Des Parapluies to check out the mobile bordello and that last car that passed me at the crossroads was full of very small prostitutes I think. But the bordello is gone. Where is that load of very small prostitutes going? There only one place down at the end of the road. The graveyard. That’s where all the elegant elderly ladies from past times are buried. Take another drink of water and I’m headed home. [Chemin Des Parapluies]

 

Closing off the mind of my thoughts about Day One here at the end of Two Trees Road. We met Jack Kerouac today. That was a good thing. I needed him. I hope he comes back tomorrow and I wonder if Jack’s wasn’t the first voice I heard saying something about not wanting to be a catcher. I also did not mention the house I passed where lives a potential love affair if only would be foolish enough to stop and ring the doorbell. I passed the place coming back thru Chapon and that’s where I heard the crows. They were not to be seen. They called down from the cloud above the house and their opinion on the potential love affair was to be expected. “Stay away from the house with the red trim door and the flowers in the window.” I wanted a crow and I got a baker’s dozen. Two Trees Road was a dream. Floated all the way down with the south wind nipping at my back in winter I came down here thru a field of snow a road with no borders just a wide expanse of frozen white across which I took my bearings from distant trees and it took me a half hour or more today a couple of zippy minutes at the most. This is what happens when you mix a puff of weed with two wheels. Take another puff and let the south wind chew off your collar. [Two Trees Road] *

 

* Rule number one: no writing when you get back home. This Notebook Gate is only for what happens in the collective mind of that creature of me and two wheels and moving parts of the most wonderful machine that man has ever invented. The symbiosis of my muscles and bones and the bike’s rubber tires rolling up the road and it’s sensitive metal frame which supports my weight while transmitting its messages into hands and butt and thus up the channels of arms and backbone to my neck and my skull and into all the interior tractor roads and two lane blacktops of my brain with an occasional N65 and N64 or N637 with their high speed double suicide lanes to cross. And of course I am breaking this rule as I intrude it upon the freehwheeling spin of this gate. However I will keep these Home Thoughts from Folly* contained in footnotes that can be ignored or meditated upon when the rest of the notebook gets messy or starts going to sleep or gets plain hog wild incomprehensible. The puff shall be optional. The Two Wheels the most essential.

 

* Who’s Folly? I knew I was going to say that.

 

(ital) Who’s that writin’?

Jack’s back. I’d recognize that voice anywhere.

Same thing as yesterday, Jack. Wearing my Sunday-go-to-meetin’ jeans, the last pair my mom sent me before she died in a supermarket in Salem, Oregon, maybe shopping in the Levis department for 501s button front 33 waist 36 leg, falling and whacking her head and maybe it was upon the 33/36 shelf? Denim shirt loose open in front black t.shirt solid sneaks black good on the pedals and a beige with aquagreen bill baseball cap that says I play on the Forma Lingua team. This pair of levis and another arrived in the mail a week after she died. They are now starting to wear out and I am starting to wear out too. I can only take so many washings it seems. This pair is at that soft, peak-of-arc stage just before the fade.

 

First puff of the ride under the giant willow where the road from Bear’s Woods forks into Cross Road. I’ve been wanting to say this for a long time. leaning against the rough bark of the tree, shoes and socks off in the receding hairline of grassy knoll, south-west wind whipping around making a light impossible, sifting thru the willow leaves and it’s time to be moving on – north east – sandwich eaten, apple half devoured, puff performed before the eyes of the wind and the willow and Little Mother Mary down in her tombstone altar get my socks and shoes back on and head out * into the most unknown and least expected. [Willow Fork]

 

* “Thread up,” as Dylan used to say.

 

Mother Mary she is small. Need binoculars to see her face down here at the end of the gravel aisle at a distance of what would be the world’s record in the long jump. She is small. We are all small.

“Thread up!” Oh shit. It’s Dylan. How’d he get in here? I was hoping Jack K would show up today which is Day Two of the Notebook Gate on the last day of June (two in a row, how about that?) [Willow Fork ]

“Thread up!”

“Shut up!” I don’t mind Dylan being in here, it’s just that he’s been in so many other of my writing events lately and not so lately I thought he let me have this one alone with Jack.

(ital) Face it. You’re just an old man on a bike. Why don’t you start acting like one?

Jack’s back. I’d know that voice anywhere. I bid Jack to hop on my left shoulder. “Watch me work. I’ve got pace.”

(ital) You got face, man.

And I feel Dylan in the shape of a mystical butterfly fluttering down and trying to land on my right shoulder. I WANT A CROW. I WANT TO HEAR WHAT THE CROW HAS TO SAY. [ High Road ] “Thread up!” I knew I shouldn’t have listened to all those Basement Tapes [ High Road ]

(ital) Not bad, man. I’m impressed.

“I’m best on deserted roads,” I say. And High Road is the best of deserted roads and that’s why I call it High Road nary a car in sight and on harvest days only a tractor or two. Due west and flat. High Road. Enormous flax field on my left I can’t see the end, over the hill and dipping down into a valley and betraves and betraves by the train load on my right. I’m not a betrave fan. So I’ll spend most of my time gazing at the flax.

“Thread up!” Dylan just landed. [ High Road ]

Looks like I’m cutting this trip short because of that damned butterfly. I was hoping to go face to face with Jack Kerouac today, but now I’ve got these faceless fluttering wings to contend with.[ High Road ]

Up Pissing Road. The first to be named. Bear : “Where can I take a leak?” and I say, “Over there in that clump of trees..” Pissing Road. It was inevitable. This was 4 or 5 years ago, one of our first trips together. After that came Two Trees Road and Onderdonk Drive and Bear’s Woods and Tuck’s Woods and Power Line Road and all the others. We needed names, Bear and I, to recall the places we’d been and the places I’d gone on my own. A storm chased us up THUNDER ROAD and we sheltered in the chapel of the Madonna Dolorosa. Thunder Road. It was the second to be named.

And I just got my crow. He didn’t like me coming around and disturbing the heat of the flat concrete tractor road flowing up into his claws. He could smell me too. So could his 5 companions. “Let’s get the hell away from this guy,” they said, and this was from a hundred yards downwind. [ Pissing Road ]

“Most likely you’ll go your way, I’ll go mine.” It’s Dylan, of course.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” I reply.

(ital) Who is this damned mysterious butterfly?

“Cool it, Jack. He’s the bright elusive butterfly of destruction. Let’s all have a toke and shake hands.” I take my puff on the peace pipe but I don’t see what happens to it after it leaves my hands. I hear sharp pucking noises coming from my right shoulder, soft and professional. Then I hear massive gasping and gulping on my left. Jack’s going for the big impression, carburation plus chatting while holding his breath. (ital)I was really looking forward to that face to face with you. Jack’s disappointed. It’s enough to make me cry. “We’ll get around to it another time.”

(ital) Is that a promise?

“It’s a threat.” [ Give This Road a Name Road – which veers south west from the Verlaine Speed Road and bisects with Apple Cart Road ](ital) So if we come out here tomorrow you’ll probably say “It’s the last day of June” again. How many more days do you have past the 31st?

“But that’s not likely, Jack. Tomorrow, if it doesn’t rain, Bear and I will go on a faraway bike ride, load up the wheels and drive to some enchanted island of Flemish bike paths. These are the trips I like the most. [ Give This Road a Name Road ] And I got my solitary crow too. He was with a companion on (Let’s call it Hard Luck Road – just gave it a name) Rum Road. They flew straight ahead down the road 100 yards then swooped up to the telephone wires to perch. They waited for me to pass underneath. Then he spoke. He said “Caw!” four times. In crow that means “Keep moving, man. Don’t stop here.” I didn’t stop.

[ Steep Road – the sweep and swoop hill up from the Rooster Farm-a-See ]

 

We didn’t get around to some of the topics I wanted to explore today * but they can wait for another day. Saw a couple of things I didn’t mention. Cows. I learned that cows are stoned all the time. It’s in their brain chemistry. Nature’s way of keeping them amused, perpetual injections keeping them riding high and spilling milk. I also did not mention that I heard the Voice of Folly calling to me as I passed thru S-le Chateau, calling down the 2-mile road from Chapon, “Come to me, my little species.” Or maybe she said “feces.” She had a Japanese voice. [ Farm Road South ]

 

* such as that comment Jack made about me being just an old man on a bike

 

Alone at the fountain 1st day of July not even Jack Kerouac showed up. (ital) Take another look, buster, and what’s with those three bottles of water? “For my wonder weeds. They get moody, restless, sometimes downright nasty if they don’t get their fix of pure spring water. Rain won’t do for a steady diet.” (ital) Well, man, you got some dynamite dope. I saw that yesterday. Dylan the mystical demolition derby butterfly hasn’t shown up and I’m sure he won’t. (Ital) I’m not one hundred percent certain about that cat. He’s got fragile teeth. “Yeah, and I’ve got a stiff neck today, Jack. Go flop somewhere else.” [ Fountain Road ] (ital) You say it’s the first day of July but how do you know it ain’t another extra last day of June? “You’re drunk, Jack.” (ital)I’ve been drinking for sixty-three years – scotchkavock – vockasnotch – one them hundred proof remedies for the wagon wheel tongue you get from rolling out all them noms and

verps as you lap up the miles. Better’n what’s in these here damned bottles back here. I hate sitting on these things. Water, man. I can’t stand the sight of it. It’s against my religion. Look, let’s make a deal. Let me flop back on your shoulder and I’ll shut up.

I can see now that this Notebook Gate is not going to be written on the run. Not like last year’s poems, scratched out while hovering over my bike. whipping the wind onto paper with my whistling pen. This Gate needs repose. It needs restful verbs and it wants to take a good look at all the adjectives too. *

(ital) Gate. I like that. It’s a pretty good title.

“It started out as a door.”

(ital) Gate’s much better.

“We had a deal.” [ Carrot Stop – which is where this gate got started a couple of days ago on this exact spot tho today my first puff was at Ditch’s house. And I feel it’s too far between stops, finding a place where I can park my butt. The voices and the verbs pile up, spill out and get lost forever which means that much of this will be written in the pasture bedtime type of tension. I got a C minus in English IV, teacher said I’d never amount to a hill of beans, caught me in the library thumbing thru Dante’s Divine Comedy. “You’ll never understand this book in a million years. Stick with the Saroyan.” And it’s true. I’d messed up looking for the Saroyan and got sidetracked in Dante’s puzzle and 10 years later I’m in Rome on a scholarship composing my Dante Oratorio (in Italian, Teach) and let me introduce you to Jack Kerouac ]

 

The nouns have it : green upon green with yellow-tip wheat and flax clouds bouncing around, dueling with rain hard, sharp sunlight south-west wind shifting around to the south. I made a wide swing around Chapon in case I’d hear the siren song coming from the far side. Taking no chances today. But I didn’t hear any singing, didn’t hear her saying, “Come to me, my little feces.” Or maybe it was, “Come to me, my little Teazee.” Her name isn’t Folly. It’s Molly and I swear she had a Japanese accent. [ Carrot Road ] And Jack’s keeping quiet. I think he passed out. Scodfavotch. Flopped out over my shoulder. It’s enough to make me cry. [ Hard Luck Road ]

“I SEE YOU DIDN’T TAKE THAT FAR AWAY BIKE TRIP WITH YOUR BEAR.” Shit, it’s Molly. And she does have a Japanese voice.

“How can you see something like that? You’re two miles away.”

“TWO AND HALF.”

“Buzz off, Molly. Get lost.” All further enquiries are being postponed until tomorrow. [ Hard Luck Road ]

 

* the gate swings both ways and it opens into many different roads and shrines and woods of various densities. The subtext could be “Gate Notebook.” All these names. We’re going to have to talk about them sometime. Hard Luck Road. Used to call it Rum Road, three years ago returning from Les Waleffes with the last pint of rum from the shelves of the village shop going out of business, drunk at twilight and not knowing it until I started rolling down Rum Road. The Verlaine Speed Road has other names too. The Mean Machine Road from when Quanah was a kid and the huge rusted iron cow shit claw over the slop pit reminded him of mechanical monsters that do not hide their human nature, also known as Treasure Card Street. Last year, thought I was a dead duck in the cold, hard-hitting late October east wind, lay down to die behind the squat brick tower, lay down in a patch of dried nettles, sheltered by the tomb tower, and stared into the setting sun and up into the crossing vapor trails of jet planes an X right above me and in the center of it all a tiny rainbow only a few inches long and I heard this rainbow calling to me to come up and join in the fun and I knew then that the sky is always filled with tiny rainbows if there’s moisture up there then there’s a rainbow it just depends on the angle of sunlight dozens maybe hundreds of tiny rainbows filling the sky above your head at this very moment if you know where to look and I think you get the general drift of my message about choosing the right moment to wave farewell (take a final bow) and so knowing this rainbow was nothing special I cellphoned Bear and she came and rescued me from my day of death. Dog Sniff Death Row, This Road. This Other Road, Thunder Road, Power Line Road, Old Farm Road, Two Trees Road, High Road, Winterfrost Road, Onderdonk Drive – named after my friend and teacher Henry Onderdonk because that was where I came to cry the day I heard he’d died. High Point Hesbaye. Four Bulls Corner (and they’re still there, all 4 frisky studs, this year), the Mystery Spud Field. Bear’s Woods, Tuck’s Woods, the 100-Acre Woods, Spud Road, 3-Horse Virgin Road, Melody Lane. I’ll have to draw some maps to go along with this gate.

 

I used to think cows were dumb. They’re not. They’re high. Stoned out of their horny heads. (ital) I heard you say you used to be a cowboy.* “I grew up around cows, milked them morning and night for ten years. I was a boy. So I guess I was a cowboy. I don’t know shit about horses, never been on one. I wore a baseball cap and I drove a pick up truck.

 

* That was Jack. He sounded sober today, the 2nd day of July

 

I thought he heard a marching band, but it was an ambulance walking across the land on two lumpy feet, dragging one, sliding, slurring it along thru the dust. (ital) Yeah, I heard that too. I thought it was Gerry Mulligan Quartet tuning up. You dig Mulligan?

“Mulligan was a genius, Jack, and so was Bird and Trane, and Miles and Monk, but I’m not interested in playing like those cats.” (ital) Bop prose.

“And I’m not interested in writing like you either. I come from a weird place, from between the Sons of the Pioneers and Hank Ballard and the Midnighters.” (ital) I’d feel sorry for you if you wouldn’t get pissed off and kick me out.

 

They say the cuckoo wobbles when she flies. They say she doesn’t fly until the 4th day of July. (ital) Have we come to the 4th yet? “Yesterday.” That’s where I come from. The cuckoo’s nest. One flew east.

(ital) And one flew west.

Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Somewhere between Moondog and Leadbelly. (ital)I’m hip. Between the dog and the belly. Not bop. Jimmy Reed high harmonica. That’s in here too with a Glenn Miller muted trombone, a Yogi Berra swing, a Jesse Owens sprint, a Jim Thorpe high jump, a frog man flipper, crawfish holes, fishing poles and buck shot 4-points and if I ever got one of them beautiful beasts in my sights again I’d beg for forgiveness for being a brainwashed teenager who allowed himself to be tempted into almost pulling the trigger.

[ from between the crops – flax on my right, betraves on my left, on a road yet to be named, but which deserves a name a few hundred yards south of Rouleaux “puffed and took off” to Winterfrost Road “From between Burl Ives and Fats Domino the fox went out on a chilly night and Annie had a baby Zane Grey is more my style” to the Viemme Roundabout ]

 

I was ready for a face to face with Jack today but he took off with Neal in an ’02 Packard that looked like a ’48 De Soto, headed for the coast, and then I was ready for a face to face with the sun at Tombstone Tower on Treasure Card Street but when I get here there’s a strip of wheat plus poppies planted between the edge of the road and the tower and no way in without crushing the crops so I guess I’ll have to wait a month or so before I get out there on the other side with the nettles and the sun is too far off to the north anyway and with a quick glance I see there are no rainbows overhead. Face to face with my death. But this ain’t October 18th that was long ago.

 

you can shack up with Jack

you can butter the Fly

but don’t fuck with Tuck

when he’s high as the sky

 

on Treasure Card way, high, some people like my writing but what they don’t know is that I’m reasonably stupid. I don’t know one word from another. If I knew, I wouldn’t use any words at all. * I’d ——– ? [Treasure Card Street, also known as the Verlaine Speedway and the Mean Machine Road ] Between the Grand Ol’ Opry and Bouncin’ Bill Doubleday on KWBR Oakland California and I don’t want to press the black skin too hard. Mine’s white and even if I could sing like Ray Charles I’d still have to sit in the front of the tub. Red gold setting sun reflected in the rims of my glasses. This is not face to face. The Verlaine town limit sign is a blazing mirror against the dark line of distant trees, a flaming square window into another universe, a sign that says “Welcome to the Solar system, population many and good luck of you’re looking for privacy. We got pig iron. We got John Lee Hooker. We got —— * and all god’s chillun got dem golden slippers and the backbone is connected to the headbone and the setting sun now fits right into the right frame of my glasses

 

[ THE REMAINING PAGES OF THE NOTEBOOK GATE ARE STILL TO BE TRANSCRIBED ]

On the side of the angels

POEMS 2005 |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

LAST NIGHT

last night
I landed a job
as a piano repairman
for the Boston Redsox

the pay was good
they liked my work
they really needed
my repaired pianos

I told them, “Of course
they will have to be re-tuned
when you get them to Boston”

they understood
they knew all about
how pianos
need to be re-tuned
when they get to Boston

tonight I’m going straight
for the Steinway Corporation
they’ll make me Vice President
in Charge of Spitballs
The audiences in symphonic halls
in London, Paris, Vienna, Milano
New York and thousands of other
places all over the world
from the Pacific Rim
to the Atlantis Tribal grounds
will be delightfully surprised
when Hélène Grimaud
punches out the first chord
of the Brahms’s Second
and a Pedro Martinez fastball
flies out of the piano
and scores a 95mph
on the radar gun

[ December 19, 2004 ]

THESE MOMENTS

THIS MOMENT (1)

I’ve got Hélène Grimaud
playing way down there
at the other end of the hall
in the glass room
under my table

it’s Brahms tonight
solo piano

just thought
you might like to know

that’s what’s happening
right now

THIS MOMENT (2)

If you squint your ears
she could be playing bar music
in the atrium lobby of some fancy downtown hotel

Brahms might have enjoyed that

THIS MOMENT (3)

there are more dark moments
in the longest night of the year
than in the shortest

about three times more
or two

the longest day moments
are harder to see
and by the time
you get to the short night moments
it takes you about an hour
to really believe it’s dark
another hour
to get used to the darkness
then another couple of hours
to pull on your boots
and get outside
to do some serious counting

but by the time you get there
it’s dawn
the sun is rising
and the longest day moments
are pouring over
the eastern horizon
like an invisible waterfall
and you completely forget
if it was two
or three

THIS MOMENT (4)

photo of Brahms
inside the CD box
he looks just like
Scott Joplin’s
music sounds

a German Scott Joplin
is in town tonight
playing down at the end
of the hall
in the glass room
under my table
where waiters waltz around
on rollerskates
with bottles of champagne
balanced on their silver platters
and some girl
with a string of beads
is trying to do the twist
even tho that dance step
will not be invented
for another 40 years

that’s what’s happening
tonight

[ December 20, 2004
midnight of the longest night of the year ]

FLIP A COIN

flip a coin
and hope it comes down
on the side of the angels

I’m not so tall
that I can’t bend over
and pick up a book
that fell to the floor

I’m not so fast
that I can’t stop on a dime
the skid marks on the dollar bill
are from much smaller feet
don’t look at me

flip a coin
and hope it comes down
on the side of the angels

butter your bread
on both sides
and hope it comes out even
balance is essential
gravity keeps us honest

flip a coin
and hope it comes down
on the side of the angels

they came to the crossroads
he pulled over and stopped
she got out and watched the sunset
they waited all night
for the moon to rise
the calendar told them
the moon would be full
the sky was filled
with sparkling stars
they learned later
that the moon
was in total eclipse
and it would stay that way
until someone went up
and fixed it

flip a coin
and hope it comes down
on the side of the angels

we make most of our decisions
without even knowing
choices are made
flashing thru the room
on beams of red and blue lights
while we sit and watch TV
choices are dancing
behind us in the dark
waltzing around like lunatics
and we don’t even know
they’re there

flip a coin
and hope it comes down
on the side of the angels

we’ve all been lost
we practice in the mirror maze
when the fair comes to town
then we go out into the night
and stumble down dark alleys
until a bull emerges
from a doorway
and blocks our path
with nostril smoke
and twitching tail

flip a coin
and hope it comes down
on the side of the angels

tell me it’s a dream
pinch your skin and squeal
this little pig
goes oink all the way home
oink sliding down greased skids
right back into the slaughterhouse
where the butcher boys
wait with sharp knives
and a sharp appetite
for pork and beans
floats over the town
like a dirty joke
and just as the ax
is about to fall
the phone rings
you pick it up
it’s your mother
she says, “flip a coin
and hope it comes down
on the side of the angels”

ignore my advice
and you will risk losing
your last chance
to get your whims
in line with your impulses
of getting your sighs
spelled out in proper language
so you can study them
in your free time

I’d hate to be the one
whose name comes up
in the mountains
as the man
who disrupted the class
with demonstrations of violence
on the day
we were supposed to learn
how to read maps

flip a coin
and hope it comes down
on the side of the angels

you think your sack
is better than mine
because you got an extra pouch
on the side?
but I want you to take a look
at the interior decorations
on mine and how they blend in
with the universal harmony
of my afterthoughts

come over here
I won’t hurt you
take off your sack
take off your shoes
and put your feet
under the neon light
I think it’s amazing
that we have the same
shape of toes
and a tendency to tap them
when the music gets lost
between the first little pig
and last little porker

slip thru the crack
but don’t forget
where you came from

tie your shoelaces
to Bach’s Locomotive Fugue
and go skidding down the tracks
with sparks flying from your heels
into a Beethoven tunnel

but don’t forget
where you came from

flip a coin
and hope it comes down
on the side of the angels

[ December 24, 2004 ]

POETIC FISH

HEY PETE
give me that kayak
and a pipe of mild
homegrown weed
and I’ll show you where
the poetic fish are hiding
in that lake of yours

rum’s no good
for poetical fishing
as you can see
right about here

rum’s good
for biking down
snow-slushed roads
mid-winter
and blinking away
the sunspots

long after the sun
has gone down

[ Rum Road, Dec. 29, 2004 ]

THE SHRIMP

He wanted to sleep
he wanted to dream
a dream of impossible dimensions
so vast he could walk
from one end to the other
and discover he was back
at the beginning of his life
and that his dream was identical
to his life – tho backwards
and not once
did he have to repeat
a single moment

for all this
the shrimp moved heaven
a few inches to the right
if you’re going up
a few inches to the left
if you’re writing down

he wanted to dance
a dance of unexpected emotions
a dance of demonless delight
he had perfected the windmill arms
and the deep knee bends

and for all this
the shrimp moved heaven
right off the map
and into the side pocket
of his lap
along with the keys
the coins and the cards
the fleas and the ladybugs
who tapped out messages
in his loveloins
and told him he’d better
take the bo-demons
and their dancing dust
along with the muses’ mouthful
of verbs and verbal abuse
and bake them all into an encyclopedia pie
or go around for the rest of his days
in a night without light
looking like a misplaced definition
of homesick fever

he wanted his sad little bookmark
to grow up into a tree
he wanted to be found and free
from all the aches and pains
and cold winter rains
and cold winter winds
that haunted him
with their whimsical ghosts
and made him hope
that for just once
they could skip the bullshit
and go directly to the leaves
and the flowers, the grass
and the birds, the trees
and the bees and the way
they jumped out every year
without a springtime doubt
in a sudden sigh of surprise

and for all this
the shrimp moved heaven
and when the angels
popped out the front door
for a night on the town
they found themselves
on another street
in another city

[ January 14, 2005 ]

ANTICIPATING SPRING

burnt my fingertips in the fire
first thought :
butter
bag balm
aloes

then I remembered
I had everything I needed
at my feet

I bent over
and pressed my fingertips
into the wet earth

the earth was cool
and refreshing

I pressed my palms
onto the moss
and the dead leaves
still half-alive
with the evening dew

and I could feel
creatures moving around
down inside the earth

getting ready to jump out
for the springtime chivaree

they spit on my wounds

I had everything I needed
in the earth beneath my feet

then I went for the Bag Balm

[ Feb. 4, 2005 ]

IN THE POST-CAMBRIAN

I think I was the fuel-gathering guy
in a previous life
back in the Cave Man Ages

I was the designated camp warmer

at first I was alone
out in the woods
breaking branches

then I invented the ax
and the trees fell like rain

then I had a dozen sons
and I put them to work
making axes and felling trees
we went into the logging business

and we got so big
I had to hire help
– a few Brawny Boys
from the next cave

and they did their job
just fine
until slavery was discovered

so I got a few slaves
and a few more
until I had about ten thousand
and I fired the Brawny Boys

and soon I had the slaves
taking down entire forests
from Scotland to Spain

we showed a big profit that year

maybe you’ve heard of me?
Henri De Lescaut

Lescaut & Sons Lumber Yard

we spoke French

I was the richest guy
in the Post-Cambrian

[ Feb. 4, 2005 ]

SOCCERTEAM (THE PHILOSOPHY OF)

“Hey, officer
what’s your first name?”

“Sil.”

“Hi, Silofficer,
do you read
the works of Soccerteam?”

with Marie-Claire, on the road, coming home after a Wizz Jones concert in Holland, passing thru Maastricht in the night, March 17, 2005

JEF SAYS TWO

I came off stage
and they told me
the pope just died

I say, “Probably while
I was singing Miracles.”

Jef says : “Are you sure
you want to take on
that kind of responsibility?”

[ Oudenaard, April 2, 2005 ]

TOUR OF FLANDERS
(the day I didn’t see Lance Armstrong drive by)

we stayed overnight
after the concert in Oudenaard
old hotel on the main square
and walked out Sunday morning
into the Tour of Flanders
the biggest bicycle race in Belgium

we dropped by to see Herwig and Minelle
and from the window of their apartment
we saw the lead cars and motorcycles
of the race pass by in the street below

we went down to watch

they told me later
that I was standing less than ten feet away
from Lance Armstrong
as he flashed by at 90 mph

he was in the pack

they were trying to catch
the leaders who were 2 minutes ahead
going like bats out of hell
and as silent too

later we talked about Crete
I think I’ll go south
next winter
south coast of Crete
rent a cabin
write a book
eat a lot of sea food

[ Oudenaard. April 3, 2005 ]

YOUNG NUN’S TONGUE

and the communion wafer
on the young nun’s tongue
is a peppermint Life Saver

[ European Highway 40, somewhere
between Oudenaard and Liege, April 3, 2005 ]

NICO

So what happened to that guitar?
Did you learn to play it?
Did you become a second Segovia?
Or did you smash it against
a chair after coming home
from a Jerry Lee Lewis concert?

[ Brugge, April 5, 2005 ]

POPE OPINIONS

pope dies
pilgrim on TV says,
“He was the greatest man
of the 20th century.”

that’s what’s called
having an opinion

[ April 6, 2005 ]

A MAN DRIVEN INSANE
by the sound
of his own farts

it’s not difficult
to conceive
this possibility

he hears voices
people talking about him
behind his back
saying nasty things
with stinking connotations

I wouldn’t want to be that man
there’s nothing about him that’s funny
those voices are not telling jokes
their Woody Allen imitations
are not begging for laughter
they don’t care if he lives or dies

they’d like to see him go out
and strangle a cat
they’d like to see him bend down
and kiss his own toes
they’d like him to punch his fist
thru the wall
and let a little fresh air into the room

they don’t care if he walks around
with his penis in a mousetrap
just as long as he keeps the gas
pumping out the hole in his ass
as long as he keeps
those people talking behind his back
it’s not funny at all

[ April 2005 ]

ANIMAL POETRY

CATS

what if cats wrote poetry?
alley cat poetry
tom cat poetry
domesticated poetry
wild cat poetry
persian cat poetry

Ton says, “There would not be any
wild cat poetry
because they’re too busy
doing other things.”

Amsterdam, April 13, 2005

WILD CAT POETRY

I like wild cat poetry
it does exist
they write it
when they’re not busy surviving
but survival takes
only about 10 minutes
per day
and then they spend about 4 hours
fucking around
(and some will say this should be included
among their survival activities)
and they spend another 12 hours
sleeping
the rest of the time
their minds are filled
with blinding visions
and hallucinigenized distortions
they speak with William Blake
they chat with T.S. Eliot
and then they come back
with mouthfuls of savage charm
fancy-footed violence
carnivorous grace
wild cat poetry
don’t miss it

Amsterdam, April 13, 2005

BASIC WOLF

here is some horse poetry
“room”

I don’t speak horse very well
as you can see
I don’t speak lemur at all
it has a Madagascan accent
but I would like to

usually it’s basic wolf
I’ve been speaking it
for 60 years
west coast accent
but I understand Canadian
and old European
don’t let them talk you
into the tall-tale
about how wolves used to sneak
into French farmhouses
and eat the babies
I know the true story
I learned it from the Old Wolf
that’s been hanging around
in my dreams
since I was 4 years old
he says the farmer’s wife
took the baby out to the edge
of the forest
and left it on a tree stump
it was either the wolves
or the hawks
and little red ridinghood
didn’t have a chance
the minute she stepped out her door
and forget about the grandma
the grandma was a producer’s idea
spice up the shadow show
little red was long gone
before she was half way
to any kind of old lady’s house
and don’t get started
on some lame-brained speech
about child pornography
and pedophilia
the minute she put on
her bright red bonnet
she knew exactly
what she was doing
she was asking for it
she got it
no tears for red

Amsterdam, April 14, 2005

MORE ANIMAL POETRY

JAGUAR POETRY

it’s clawed into the barks of trees
and the living hides
of water buffalo

it’s like Wild Cat Poetry
but with a jungle flavor

[ April 2005 ]

RATTLESNAKE POETRY

rattlesnake poetry is very rare
so far in the history of the earth
only three rattlesnake poems
have appeared

the first was hissed
at a Mayan
15,000 years ago
unfortunately
the passing Mayan was deaf
and the poem went unheard

the second was heard
by an Aztec
3,000 years ago
unfortunately
the snake bit the man
and the man died
before he could repeat
the poem to another human

the third poem was rattled
into the ear
of a sleeping Hopi
about 300 years ago
unfortunately
this Hopi belonged
to the Badger Clan
and could not speak rattlesnake

nevertheless
he repeated his dream
to the chief
of the Snake Clan
who spoke fluent rattlesnake
unfortunately
most of the lines
were lost in translation

nevertheless
the chief of the Snake Clan
repeated the poem
to his grandchildren
and they repeated the poem
to their grandchildren
and down thru the generations
the poem was repeated
unfortunately
each generation made a few changes
and in the version
that survives to this day
there is not one word
that makes any sense at all

everyone agrees
that it’s not worth repeating

[ April 2005 ]

TRAIN POEMS

1. YOU GOTTA HAVE SOMEONE TO TALK TO

you gotta have someone to talk to
you feel good
you gotta have someone to tell it to
you feel sad about leaving Amsterdam
and you don’t have anyone to tell it to

you gotta have someone to tell it to
you miss your train by 3 minutes
you’re gonna be in Maastricht
and hour later
than Bear thinks
and you don’t have any way
to reach her
cellphone isn’t connecting
not one pay phone in the station
she’s gonna wait for an hour
wondering where I am, worried too
and she won’t have anyone to tell it to

leaving Amsterdam, 16:28 (not 15:28)
April 15, 2005

2. BEAR WAITING IN MAASTRICHT

she could
(have some one to tell it to)
she could invent someone
she could pick any stranger
he could be an old guy
sitting on the bench next to her
he sort of looks like me anyway
she could pretend the old guy is me
“Boy, I sure am worried.”
the old man doesn’t even look up
but that’s OK
she had someone to tell it to.

somewhere between Eindhoven and Maastricht, April 15, 2005

JUNK MAIL

when I stepped over the branch
of the fallen tree
I did not expect
to step on a rattlesnake
coiled and ready to strike
on the other side

and indeed I did not

people here in Belgium
wouldn’t know what to do
if they opened their mailbox
and a rattlesnake popped out
along with the junk mail

nevertheless
I stepped over the log
as if there was a rattlesnake
coiled and ready to strike
bury its fangs in my ankle
and send me on my way to Hades

some things are printed
so deep
in your rural California
childhood mind
that they make even less sense
than junk mail

[ Highpoint Hesbaye, April 18, 2005 ]

GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JON – PART ONE

note to the listener :
don’t stop listening *

[ April 28, 2005, Maastricht ]

* it gets better in the end

GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JON – PART TWO

note to the composer :
don’t put them to sleep *

[ April 28, 2005, Maastricht ]

* they’ll wake up for the last part anyway

GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JON – PART THREE

(if there ever was a PART THREE it has been long forgotten and is now therefore useless. Personally I don’t think there ever was, tho if there was you can be sure it had something to do with Maastricht. Jon can’t remember. All I can say is you’re lucky to have PARTS ONE and TWO. So stop complaining. Two out of three is not that bad. If we were playing baseball I’d be leading the major leagues in batting average.)
[ April 29, 2005, Stockay/St. Georges ]

RIVER BARGE
for Patrick Riguelle

come on down to my river barge
come on down and we’ll float away
float away down to the tide-turning towns
float away tomorrow today

I don’t live in the city anymore
I live alone on the river barge
I lay my head in river barge hay
I make my bed on River Barge Bay

come low tide, I’ll take you for a ride
out in my River Barge home
River Barge food
River Barge beer
music by River words by Ear

[ April 2005 ]

MOTHER, BABY, BABY BUGGY

she pushes her shame
thru the crowded street

you didn’t want to have that brat
last year god damn it
but things got all fucked up
on the ranch
when the bull sitter
ran off before you could slap
a paternity suit on him
and by the time you got around
to the abortion it was too late

and now you push
the baby brat
around the city
showing him the shop windows
you had to sacrifice
for his skinny, shitty little soul

[ Liege – April 30, 2005 ]

DEATH TWICE

1.
it makes no difference
if I laugh or cry
go insane
or come to my senses

it makes no difference
if I live or die
no difference at all
you’ll see

2.
if I had any sense
I’d blow my brains out
right now
any fool can see
what lies ahead :
more suffering and pain
more misery and disease
lies and deceit
more betrayal and bullshit

but I keep hanging on
and I don’t know why
maybe I’m hoping to catch
a wisp of smoke
that’ll burst into a flame
or see a mote of light
that’ll blow up into a sun
and make it all worthwhile
in the end

or maybe I’m just too stupid
to know that I’m already dead

[ May 4, 2005 ]

WHEEL CHAIR 1

I can walk from building
to building up and down
streets, I can go anywhere
I want and I don’t have to think
about how I am going to get there.
Boy, am I lucky to have legs.

[ May 6, 2005, Autoroute E-40 * ]

* speeding along at 80 mph and wondering what it would be like to be in a smash up that would leave me paralyzed from the waist down and change my life is such radical ways that I’d have to make elaborate plans and devise clever schemes to get from the English book shelves in the shop over to the classical CD department (I’m still looking for that simple, elegant recording of Bach’s Third Orchestral Suite) to say nothing of how I’d manage to get my god damned wheelchair across the traffic-jammed avenue, thru the electronic gates that x-ray your innards to a crisp everytime you pass thru them, and up the god damned escalator and into the mobs of greed-possessed shoppers who are trying to get something for nothing. All I can say (again) is, “Boy. I am lucky to have legs.”

WHEEL CHAIR 2

a woman runs
past
a man
in a wheelchair

she trips
and falls

the man
laughs

ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS OR MINE?

he got out of his car
he was all puffed up
he was all puffed up
on his car

one of your friends or mine?

the girl dropped dead to the floor
shot in the breast
“thank god for that,” she said
“I’ve been wanting to get some rest.”

one of your friends or mine?

he was an extremely fat man
surrounded by many other
extremely fat people
fat women, fat mothers,
fat children, fat brothers
fat sisters and fathers
It was a fat convention.
And by his side on a leash
trotted the tiniest dog
you ever did see.
It weighed no more
than a pint and a half
it got a few smiles
got lots of laughs
300-pound laughters
tons of belly jelly
rolling and trembling
shuddering, slobbering
it went on all day
it continued at night
the little dog bounced
and yipped with delight

one of your friends or mine?

he was talking about Happy, his boss
and how Happy had invited
the entire crew of Happy’s Recap Shop
over to his house
for drinks and entertainment :
“We just sat around and took turns
fucking his wife. We had to hold her down
at first but after a while
she stopped kicking and screaming
and we had some fun.”

one of your friends or mine?

she said she was from Peruvia
but nobody tried to find it on the map
she said she was 4.7 years old
in dog years
but nobody bothered counting
she said she knew every answer
on the millionaire show
she said all these things
whether we were listening or not

one of your friends or mine?

she was over six feet tall
she swung her arms by her side
some said she was enthusiastic
she looked like a hysterical maniac to me

one of your friends or mine?

he has a quirk
an annoying habit
he can’t walk up a staircase
without trotting his fingers
along the rail
like a long-legged mouse
he says it’s a mouse
but to me it looks like two fingers
pretending to be
a tiny, amputated man
running up hill to meet
his missing upper half
which he already knows
will not be waiting for him at the top

one of your friends or mine?

she gave all her love
(and her money)
to an idiot she saw
on TV one night
accidentally

one of your friends or mine?

she came out of the dark
with blinking eyes
she had an umbrella in one hand
“Let the rain fall,” she declared
but you were seated in a Chinese Restaurant
“It’s not raining in here,” you said.
“That’s what you think, buster.
There are so many things
happening in here
you wouldn’t have time
to write them down.”

one of your friends or mine?

she believed in keeping her real name
a secret. “Call me Pogo Toes,”
she said. “If you are desperate
to tag me with a name
call me Limp Chimp
the Girl with the Glass Eye.”

one of your friends or mine?

why did she start chewing
on her hair?
chomping it off in clumps
and acting surprised?
soon her mouth
was full of golden curls
that looked like coils
she found impossible to swallow
so she spit them out
in the soup
and now no one in the room
can take their eyes
off the celestial apparition
with hair and drool
hanging down over her chin
with hair and drool
bobbing up and down
as she explains the plot
of a Mel Gibson movie
in such a way
that no one in the room
will ever have the desire to see it

one of your friends or mine?

He wears his hangnails and mosquito bites
like trophies from glorious battles
he says, “Take my advice –
put your mouth where your monkey is
and loop before you leak.”

one of your friends or mine?

an incomplete chuster with a grim (not a grin)
out taking his forklift for a spin
on a Sunday afternoon

one of your friends or mine?

white knuckles
beer belly buckles
chicken stickin’
outta his corner pocket
layin’ eggs like bath tub bubbles
he says, “Hey, get your liver lovin’ lips
around one of them saw tooth burgers
with whistle blow sauce to go”

one of your friends or mine?

lest we forget
he came out of a Bavarian
mistake factory
hated the world he wanted to rule
hated himself and invaded Poland
murdered Jews and saluted swastikas
screamed for Cro-Magnon supremacy
and ended up gassed
in his own farts
underground in a hole
like a mole in a bucket of mustard

one of your friends or mine?

he shouts “Ho-La!”
as I pedal past on my bike
is it the blue bandana
rolled and knotted around my neck?
what does he think I am
a gypsy or something?

one of your friends or mine?

and who is this freak in the mirror?
I’ve never seen him before
he’s got my number, he’s got my mouth
he speaks
and all his words
pile up inside my mind

one of your friends or mine?

[ May 9, 2005 ]

REPLY TO PETE WHO DECLARED THAT I FINALLYMADE IT INTO THE BEATLES’ SONG “64”

at 19
I thought
I’d be a goner
by 30

[ May 9, 2005 ]

MORE FUNK

Pete’s right
I didn’t want to be
a dirty old man
when I grew up
I wanted to be a FUNKY old man

now I’m 64
and I’m on my way
haven’t shaved in 25 years
shower once a week
change my socks twice a month
never comb my hair
keep the same pair of jeans
until they stand in the corner
while I sleep
wipe my ass casually
and change underwear
when I can’t stand the smell
and who needs sheets on the bed?
or pajamas?
or underwear?
hell, who needs a bed?

my bike looks like
it’s been thru the war
and I’m so stoned
most of the time
my wife doesn’t recognize me

current personal evaluation :
NOT FUNKY ENOUGH *

[ Poppy Road, May 9, 2005 ]

* tho this actually sounds more like a description of a DIRTY old man.

conclusion : less dirt, more funk

TV

every time you turn on the TV
you get someone acting stupid
and saying stupid things

occasionally you get
a ring-tail lemur from Madagascar
but only because
he’s going to be extinct
in a couple of years
because of a lot of stupid people
are doing and saying a lot of stupid things
to him

once in a while
you get a naked lady
and she’s OK
until you realize
that what she’s doing
doesn’t have anything to do
with the reproduction of the species
but is rather some idiot’s idea
of seeing how many other idiots
he can humiliate by paying them
as little money as possible
while making them perform
degrading deeds

so finally the naked lady
is just another stupid human
greedy for money
and a chance to be in the spotlight

and once in a while
you get a volcano
with all that red hot lava
flowing downhill
and you wish it would flow
right into the cameras
and down the cables
into that TV station
destroying everything in its path
until eventually
it flows out of your own TV set
and burns up the rug

for the first time ever
you won’t have to go searching around
for the clicker to turn off
your stupid TV

[ June 16, 2005 ]

KEYCHAIN BEEPER

if you push the big button
on your keychain
the car doors lock
automatically

if you want to open them
you push the small button

what does this tell us?

it tells us
they want us
to stay out of the car

it’s better than letting us in

they’re a lot happier
when you’re not inside the car
less problems
less court appearances
with all those lawyers
hanging around the garages
these days

KEYCHAIN BEEPER REPLY

the news that the beeper buttons
on the keychain
favor the lock out
doesn’t disappoint me at all

I prefer being outside the car

[ June 17, 2005 ]

BUG-SPLATTERED T-SHIRT FOR PETE

you ride your bike
thru a swarm
of the little buggers

they’re splattered all over
your white t-shirt

when you get home
take off the shirt
toss it on a chair

in the morning
you won’t even have to
get out of bed

just whistle
and the t-shirt
will come crawling
to you

all you’ll have to do
is lift your arms
and close your eyes

[ High Road, June 30, 2005 ]

THE WRATH OF THE BARAQUI WHELP

Marie Claire picks up the phone
and calls a married couple
she hasn’t seen in 30 years.

the wife’s immediate reaction:
“How the fuck did you get this number?
We told the publisher never to give to it anybody
not even my dying mother we don’t want
to be bothered and we’re sick
and we hate living and we think about
killing ourselves everyday and my husband
sits in his room upstairs and writes poems
about his piles and his heart attack
and his brain tumor and he can’t be disturbed
and we don’t have a computer
and we don’t have a cell phone . . . ”
and on and on

and on

Marie Claire would have been better off
phoning the baraquis down on the corner
and exchanging a few words
with their wild dog

[ Mystic Frites, July 28, 2005 ]

BOOKS – 1

1.
it’s an old paperback copy
of Trout Fishing in America
by Richard Brautigan
I’ve had it for 33 years
published in 1972
by Pan Books Ltd
33 Tothill Street, London

riffle the pages
with your thumb
while holding them
up to your nose

it smells like chocolate
it must be a good book

2.
the best books
have delicious aromas
they make you want to eat them
sometimes the pages
cook up a lot of strawberry jam
and sometimes
it’s barbecuing bacon
they make you want to
take a bite
a few of my books
have chewed corners
I tell people
“It’s the mice
they build nests
with the parts
I’ve read too many times.”

we all know it’s hopeless
I won’t be re-reading them
no matter how hard I stare
or how loud I shout
as I read them
in my Edgar Allen Poe voice
they won’t stick
it’s easier to talk about
the mice
none of my friends want to know
about a shotgun-blasted memory
and even fewer friends
want to hear about
how I eat my books
how can I explain
that the aroma
and the taste of each
is usually different?

3.
there was this book
I thought it was going to be good
at first it smelled
like baking bread
but it tasted like shit
I could only eat
a couple of paragraphs.
I had to spit them out.

4.
John Steinbeck
in his 40-year old
25 cent Bantam paperbacks
always smell good
I’ve never tried eating one

5.
one bite of Shakespeare’s Sonnets
and the stench of Elementary School
cafeteria baked beans
wafts thru my head
and I have to toss them
in the trash
in with the Chopin banana peels
the Marilyn Monroe nutshells
and the Elvis Presley
fungus-coated tuna on toast

6.
I had a cold
when I read Bukowski
so I can’t say how he smelled
between sniffs
I caught a distant odor
of burning rubber
but I can’t be sure
if it was Bukowski
or me
I was barefoot at the time
it might have been my toes

[ July 30, 2005 ]

BOOKS – 2

I could spend all my time
reading books I enjoy

Greil Marcus
Jim Harrison
Robert S. Parker

I have to be careful
not to get carried away
and get too stuffed

Jack Kerouac
Michael Ventura
Neal Stephenson
Larry McMurtry

look, my mind is becoming obese

Tom Wolfe
John Irving
Carl Hiaasen
Leslie Marmon Silko
John Nichols
Richard Brautigan
Charles Bukowski

watch my eyes fall out

IT HAPPENS ONCE IN YOUR LIFE
(AND IF YOU’RE LUCKY IT HAPPENS WHEN YOU’RE YOUNG)
to Marie-Claire

we keep doing it
over and over
going into crowds
where people are shouting
where each of us is alone
hoping to be seen
hoping to be heard
hoping to hear just a word
that will touch our heart
just a word
that will send us home
with the warm illusion
that we’re not alone

and then she sits down next to you
and tells you her life story

and you know
you will never
have to go
into a crowded room again

[ August 3, 2005 ]

LEAVING A DREAM

leaving a dream
I hop over a stream
and land on my belly
in bed

that’s one way to wake up

[ August 10, 2005 ]

TORONTO ONE
(to Phil and Janine)

stuck in Toronto
in the lap
of luxury
and just when I thought
there were no voices
in Canada
to fill my head
to buzz my ears
just like that
I want out
back to the farm
to no more voices
no more noises
please
with no disrespect
to your Lap of Luxury
and your hospitality
and your generosity
but Toronto’s not my town
it makes my back ache
and I could say
I just can’t wait
to get out

but that’s not true
the waiting’s easy
I’d just rather be
somewhere else
end of buzz

[ September 8, 2005 ]

TORONTO TWO
(to Phil and Janine)

not so bad in the morning
I’m not going to make any promises
like I’d like to
come back
and celebrate everybody’s birthday
and I’m not saying I love it
(like those coffee mugs
with their red hearts
in the shop windows of Queen Street)

but up here on Maple Court
under the trees
far from the busy street
and the slop scramble shuffle
of money buggers
it’s not so bad

especially when the sun
shines down thru the trees
and the breeze
bounces the leaves

[ September 9, 2005 ]

TORONTO THREE

leaving Toronto
I’m not exactly weeping
and stomping on the floor
boards especially after
all this urban scrawl sprawl
you have to reshape yourself
into deformed sizes
just to get in and out
of the city, the neon slums
the freeway tangle, tunnel sucked
like a baby being dragged
thru a polluted birth canal
just to get to the edges
of what the wiggling worms
of lost tribal dimensions
call the fish hook of survival

I just don’t feel like
being reborn that many times

[September 9, 2005 ]

TORONTO FOUR

I looked back at the room
where I slept
in Phil’s stained glass
window house

you’d have never known
I was there

isn’t that the way
it’s supposed to be?

[ September 9, 2005 ]

FARM HAIKU

back on the farm
nothing happening
the way it’s supposed to be

[ Mount Forest, September 9, 2005 ]

JAW HAIKU

one blackjack cat
one fresh chicken egg
dripping from the jaws of a hungry dog

[ Mount Forest, September 9, 2005 ]

BARN HAIKU

one bug
two claps of silence
no clocks ticking

[ Mount Forest, September 9, 2005
– in my room at the top of the barn,
getting ready to go to sleep ]

ARE WE CRAZY
or what?

bum scraping for dimes
along Queen Street
White Buffalo Woman
banging the tribal drum
to bring back mother earth’s
spice box of laughter
all on the same day

pip squeaks lip speaking
goats belly-aching
dogs ripping holes
in the sky
with barking teeth

and some blog-eyed
devil-drunk hag
wants my pocketful of change
or the rags from my back
or christ’s phone number
for christ’s sake
and White Buffalo Woman says,
“It’s just the way the night
falls down around our shoulders
and catches some of us
by surprise.”

are we crazy
or what the hell’s happening
out there on the edge of the world
that they’re not telling us about?

out there, just over the rim

thousands drowning
by the thousands
looting and shooting
in New Orleans
fans screaming
for some joker
in a Johnny Depp mask
when he sticks his head
out of a broom closet,
grins, and waves, “HI.”

while farther down Queen Street
the used-refrigerator dealer
scrapes his shoe
over another cigarette butt
on the pavement
and puffs out his last
smoke signal of the day

are we crazy or what?

and what I want to know
is not what I get

and what I get
is not what I expect

and what I expect
doesn’t have anything to do
with what I want to know

are we crazy
or what?
I’m not

[ Mount Forest, September 9, 2005
– in bed in the barn, waiting for the owls to hoot and the ghosts to start bumping around ]

ONTARIO DARKNESS

the flashlight dims
for 6 days
it dims
until I’m groping around
in the Ontario Darkness

so today I buy
new batteries
and when I’ve got my back turned
Phil gives the flashlight
to Tom the Framer
to find his cow
and I’m still groping around
in the Ontario Darkness
with not even a dead flashlight
in my hand to sweep away
the spider webs, squinting
at the stars
trying to get them to squirt
their dust down
on my path
so I won’t piss
on the flowers.

[ Mount Forest, September 9, 2005 ]

WHITE BUFFALO WOMAN DREAM

1.
what do you do
when you’re born
with this guilt?

I don’t know

I don’t try to hit
every pot hole in the road
I don’t bark back
at the dogs
I breathe the air
and try not to keep
too much for myself

that goes without saying

but I just don’t know
where to pump the bad blood
my ancestors dumped
into my heart

I’m not asking
for forgiveness

I wouldn’t dream of it
it can’t be given
it’s not even possible
for me to forgive myself

the stupid men’s deeds are done
the dumb act is over
long ago, long gone

and they left me out here
to pick up the bones
pay the organ grinder
pull the curtain

I could never pull a curtain
on you, White Buffalo Woman

I love the earth
as best I can
tho I know
it’ll never be enough

[ Mount Forest, September 10, 2005 ]

2.
they white washed my brain
with Jesus
but Jesus never cared
about the shadows
lurking in the shadows
Jesus doesn’t save
he just casts millions
of chunks of stone
to hoodwinked blinkers
and talks them into believing
it’s raining rainbow trout

the best that Jesus can do
is keep us away
from the real dirty stuff
otherwise he’s useless
and I will never turn to him
and his other cheek
again
truth is, he doesn’t give a shit
about what my blood-thirsty
fear-screaming, crucifix-thrusting
ancestors of mine did
when the murdered
the land
Jesus was on the side
of the land killers
when they raped and butchered
and burnt when they lied
and stole a toothpick
and by the time they stopped lying
they had whole trees in their mouths
and their feet firmly planted in the soil

Jesus, you approved
Jesus, you were out there
in blue and grey uniforms
(it didn’t matter – they
were just clothes to you)
up in the saddle
on the lead horse
slashing your sword
stroking your mustache
and laughing like a maniac
as you counted the scalps

[ Mount Forest, September 12, 2005 ]

3.
I’ve seen pictures of the barns
I’ve heard there’s a curse
upon this land
the pale face condemned himself
as he unrolled his maps
and chopped the land
into square pieces
using a ruler
and his flat-sided mind

I’ve seen pictures
of your people trudging north
to barren lands
to farms where the soil
would not even grow a whisper
of a thistle

I have seen my dreams
and my eyes have been damned
forever
there’s no escaping it
in this life
to die in shame
and I really don’t want that
I’d like to have a few years
of land-blessed days and nights

I’m trying my best
but I don’t think
I’m getting thru
old mother earth
is a tough woman
I’m sure you know her
and how tough she can really be
White Buffalo Woman,
so could you put in a good word?
tell her, “That blue man
who played the drum
his heart is still beating.”

you might mention
that the drum
was blue with a bite
of white lightning flash

no matter what mother earth
decides to do with me
and my tangled mind
may I live to see you again
may I stand once again
in your circle, White Buffalo Woman,
and listen to the thump
of your white buffalo drum

[ Mount Forest, September 12, 2005 ]

ORION

first view of Orion
each year catches me
by surprise

this year I’m out taking
a pre-dawn leak
in the Ontario pasture
I look up
and OOOOPS
there it is
the jukebox of stars
with my 3 favorite tune buttons
right in the middle
waiting to be pushed

it’s tilted above Phil’s house
getting ready to spill
music down his chimney

and where is Sirius,
the trailing dog star?

she’s riding the edge
of Phil’s rooftop

“Too soon, too soon,”
I say, “It’s only September 12.”
much too soon
for the first lamplights
and the approaching skidmarks
of winter

[ Mount Forest, September 12, 2005 ]

ORION AFTERTHOUGHT

watch out for the dog
she brings chaos and calamity
they knew it in Nile-flooding Egypt
they’re learning it down
in hard way New Orleans
“the dog can come on strong.”

and of course she’s been leaving
her footprints on the land these days
tongue blood dripping from the trees
the maples this week going from
solid green Cadillac wooly mammoths
to used Toyota convertibles
left by the side of the road
with graffiti painted on their sides
in tongue blood red
and vitamin-enriched urine yellow
that only crows can decipher

wait’ll the dog cuts loose
in a couple of weeks
we’ll be begging for Halloween

I’m not complaining, Orion
it’s been a wonderful summer
may I live to see another
please

[ Mount Forest, September 12, 2005 ]

GASPS AND GULPS OF GEESE

geese gathering
in gasps and gulps
getting ready
to fly south

geese gathering
geese honking
and gathering
over the river
found a place
to sleep tonight

geese gathering
preparing
to join the chorus
the ten million voice choir
flapping, floating chorus
singing songs about the north
all the way south.

me?

I’m just wandering around
a little but lost
looking for the shortest
way back home I guess

walking thru screen doors
and hallucinating black cats
sneaking into the steaming sauna
waiting for the golden half moon
to tip over
and spill out
an ocean
of alien alphabet soup

and gazing at the sunset sky
where gulps and gasps of geese
are gathering, getting ready
to fly south

[ Mount Forest, September 12, 2005 ]

ANYTHING

I can say anything
I can say
hum I can cay
humdinger
I can say it
so loudly
you will almost
see it in print
ham bunker
rim runner
gum bummer
plump numb
deaf and dumber
anything

[ Mount Forest, September 13, 2005 ]

BARN
(Let’s Humiliate the Bum)

wind whistling
thru the slats
of the barn
but where is the hay
to dry?
no hay

two girls whispering
back in the corner
of the bank

sun slanting
thru the gaps
of the grey barn boards
tell time
like a sundial
turned inside out

one girl comes back
to the counter
“Sorry, Sir
but we cannot serve you.”
(all I wanted was 100 Canadian bucks)
I get on my rusted bike
and ride away
like a funky old man
I have firmly arrived
in heaven
and I can now tell you
what it looks like

it looks like West Ontario

It is here that I have finally
attained Funky Old Manhood

imagine her reaction
if I had turned out to be
a Dirty Old Man

she would not have been sorry

sounds floating
thru the gaps
between the boards
goats rumbling
tractors strumming
wire-strung guitars
wind whistling
and straw dust hanging
and drifting
as the sun keeps slanting

[ Mount Forest, September ? ]

ANYTHING TWO

I can say anything I want
I can say hump
for example I can say
Bump and Blimp
listen to me say
Lump and Limp
went out in a Pumpo Bean,
built a leap across
Lake-on-Terrible
with a lick warm puke box
and a charmed arm load
of J.S Bach’s “Wart Slammed
Clamper Fear Bugs –
Volumes One thru Once
while Oliver and Oiler
paddled their hullaballoon
cocoon pantaloons
up the Passamappie Lapper
with only a pair
of spit-a-cartoons
and a whole log
of hope dope
in their pucking pock markets

they saved the fig logs
and ate the mooze
and the big meat
and the fag peat
and they desserted upon
the pleasant pizzicato ant
as they roped the rataloup
and crooned
to the bat-a-loon

(just reminding you)

and when they got back
to Lump and Limp
who were now driving
a Humble Bee
that ran on ear wax
they were so full
of eye-wig manure
they couldn’t tell a Limp
from a Lump
let alone trying
to colonize everybody’s brain
with piggyback scratches

[ Mount Forest, Sept. 7-14, 2005 ]

SEQUEL TO “BARN” (a story)

What were the two girls whispering about in the back corner of the bank?

They were talking about me.

“He looks like a bum,” said one.

“He IS a bum,” said the other.

“And he smells bad – like smoke and mint.”

“Cigarette smoke?”

“Woodsmoke.”

“Well, you can be sure he’s not wearing deodorant and I wouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t been smoking one of those illegal weeds they keep talking about in the newspapers – the weeds that make you wacky.”

“I could smell it on his clothes. He reeks. He hasn’t had a bath for weeks.”

“And did you see his front teeth?”

“Dentures.”

“Cheap dentures.”

“It looks like they’re ready to fall out. Right on the counter.”

“He’s some kind of American but he lives in a place called Euro. He’s got this funny kind of money that comes from there.”

“Euro? I never heard of it.”

“I suspect it’s counterfeit. And look at his passport. It’s counterfeit too.”

“Definitely a forgery.”

“And he’s ugly too. He never combs his hair and that black t.shirt he’s wearing – food stains up and down the front. Disgusting.”

“And that worn-out denim shirt he’s wearing. He’s probably had it for 40 years.”

“With all the wrinkles.”

“It hasn’t been ironed in ages.”

“He probably sleeps in it.”

“And his shoes – all that mud.”

“He’s up to no good.”

“And his eye glasses. He hasn’t cleaned his eyeglasses in years. There must be an inch of dust on the glass.”

“Plus fly specks.”

“And dandruff.”

“And the look in his eyes.”

“It’s mad.”

“I know. He was leering at me.”

“He’s some kind of pervert.”

“Ugh!”

[ victim’s interruption : sorry, sister, but don’t kid yourself into believing that you were worthy of a leer. I’m blind in one eye and according to my other you were about as attractive as a wet dishrag in a cold lasagna pan.]

“He might be a Wandering Jew.”

“Yeah, look at the name. One of them Jews that steal our money.”

“He gives me the creeps. I’d rather jack-off an Ojibway.”

“UGH!”

“Sorry, sir. but we can’t serve you.”

[ September 14, 2005 ]

LEAVING TORONTO

scratchy dead neon sky
we drive down Airport Road
Phil and I
into the zone
into the numb tunnel
that stretches from Toronto
to London loops around London
and spills out in Brussels

bright light fast chain-food
where lost and losing souls
sleep in their cars
in the back lots
until they step out for a leak
and some other losers
steal their cars plus
all the paranoid conspiracy
documents piled up in the backseat
and leave them with nothing
but a paper cups of coffee
and a fatal heart attacks

the lost sound of their voices
shouting past my open window
a blinking neon Dante sign

LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA

curving rainbow overhead
as we slide into the zone
and up the ramp
into hell

goodbye Phil
goodbye old dog
my soul’s attached to you both
it begins to stretch
as I back away slowly

I’m running on thin
the plane rumbles, whines
dawn comes up on the east wing
4 hours too soon
London Heathrow
lost souls by the pound
lost time snagging
in my beard like cobwebs
as I get shoved thru security
passport clutching
border control snooping
bus fuming
escalator grinding
steps clattering
rolling walkway to forever
and I’m back in another smile face
and another bumpy landing

I call Bear on my cell phone
back turned to the baggage carrousel
I turn around
there’s my bag
first off the plane
“Bet that’s never happened to you,”
I say to Bear on the phone.

I’m the first out the door.

she grabs my hand
and pulls me out of the zone
now all I’ve got to do
is wait for my soul
to catch up

hope it took a shortcut
around Heathrow
it gets tangled up
in that confusion and scramble
of lost souls and mindless machines
up there
I might never
see it again.

[ Brussels Airport, Sept. 15, 2005 ]

ONTARIO POSTSCRIPT

a few hours later
my soul comes snapping
down the ethereal hot line
dreaming at the speed of sound
convinced that humans
must evolve to a speed
that approaches light
or face the consequences

(the planet earth
covered with squirming worms
sparkling souls mixed up with brooding bodies
that don’t belong to them)

I take bite out of the do-nut
Bear just brought to me
from the village baker
while I waited in the car
staring at the door
of the village church
and listened to its bell
bong out the hour

It’s been busted for years
always off by six hours

in Toronto it’s ten o’clock in the morning

the bell is ringing Toronto time.

[ Verlaine, Sept, 15. 2005 ]

NEW RADIO

on my new radio
the Cleveland Indians
lead the Chicago White Sox
4-3 in the top of the 7th

on my new radio
the Indians score again
5-3

on my new radio
the Indians and the Sox
go into extra innings
6-6

on my new radio
the White Sox homer
in the bottom of the 18th
and beat the Indians 7-6

everybody in Chicago
is excited
and the announcer is shouting
and fireworks
are popping off
in the background

fireworks!

that’s why I bought
my new radio

[ Sept. 20, 2005 ]

HOLE IN THE HEAD

he leaned over me
at the wedding reception
he was huge and skinny
his face a bag of knobs

he held a drink in one hand
I knew it was whisky
(I’d heard somebody giggle
and whisper “whisky,” earlier)
I knew WHISKEY was a big deal.

He leaned over, looked down at me
marbles pouring from his eye sockets
he held out his drink
and said, “Boy I need one of these
like a hole in the head.”

I was about five
I had my hands stuck in the pockets
of my shorts which were hooked
over my shoulders with elastic
suspenders
I had my hair slicked over
with a wet comb
(this is before they found out
I needed glasses)
I was leaning back, looking up
into the blurry, blurred eyes
of the brooding drunk
and laughing and laughing
HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!
forcing it
real hard
scared shitless
that he would think
I didn’t like his joke
that he was going to get mad at me
and put a hole in my head
just to show me
how much fun you could have
at a party

[ Sept 22, 2005 – for Marie Claire to whom I started out explaining a common American phrase ]

THE MATERIALISTIC BUMPS

there once was a couple
of 60-year old bumps
and in one year
from October to October
they bought the following :

one central heating system
one audio mixer
one CD recorder
one couch
one piano
one stereo stack with speakers
one refrigerator
one washing machine
one dryer
two printers
one laptop
one radio
three bicycles
one heavy duty bicycle rack for the car

all new

one day they didn’t have a penny
not even enough to buy a 40-watt lightbulb
for the kitchen table
“That’s it!” they shouted
“From now on we live in the dark.”

[ September 28, 2005 ]

BACK TO YOU, DAVE

to Dave Evans who sent an e-mail to Marie Claire on October 30, saying, ” Tell Tucker, gently if you can, to try & straighten up a bit . . . he seemed to be bending over like he was rehearsing for old age.”

thanks for noticing
I’d be walking around someday
and I’d find myself
looking up at Marie Claire

I’d still be 6 foot 3
but only the lower half
would be vertical

RHYMES

when the crack in the sidewalk
wiggles around for a little while
then you know you’re
right where you want to be

IN THE CENTER OF THE WORLD

and now you can clearly see
and understand and ignore
all the chaos around you.

all the willful destruction
and the threats to body and mind
all the entropy
all the reasons without rhymes
all the rhymes without reasons

then the half moon slides
over in front of a mirror
and now you’ve got two of them
hanging there in the twilight

that’s where you want to be

[ November 7, 2005 ]

EYES

freeze your eyes
and give them away
to a peeping tom
400 years from now
when everybody else is blind

[ Nov. 22, 2005 ]

WHISPERS

they say he didn’t have a chance
with all these dadless daughters
coming in from France

how to be true to Maggie Boogaloo?
how to be faithful to Soft Shoe Jane?

all these girls with their aimless accents
letting him correct their mistakes
so he could tell them
what they were trying to say

boyhood romance didn’t have a chance
against these whispers from France

they dance, they glide with wheels on their feet
smoke spilling from the sides of their mouths
you can’t run and hide, repeat or retreat
they fill up your mind these whispers from the south

AFTER DINNER

(leaving Bear after dinner, going down to my studio)

I think I’ll go
be real
someplace else

[ Dec. 28, 2005 ]

ALPHABET BLOCK SOUP

A is a good letter
it really works a lot
it appears in a lot of words
(like “appear”)
and it doesn’t complain.
What more can you ask?

O is a zero. Omega. Oh my.
No amount of persuasion
will ever get it to lie down on its side
It just rolls away
and comes back again
It connects the Irish.

I sings.
What a burden.
What confusion.
It gets in the way.
take it out
hang it on the line
see if it’s wet.
Does it still get in the way?
You know what to do.

W
Don’t talk to me about the double U.
Double me. Don’t get me started.

Y is an old hippie trucking along
thinking about thinking
and taking it easy does it, man
not bothering to bother
to explain why or what
and where are we anyway?
someplace between
here and there
yesterday and everywhere.
Give him space.
He’s just trying to make one end meat
and maybe cop a vegetable
for a two o’clock lunch.

Z
oh what a snooze.

P
don’t piss me off
don’t pull my daisy
don’t put all your eggs in my basket
I’ll mind my Qs but not all the others
they’re green and they roll off my fork

Q
I said I will mind them
I’ll give them a U
I’ll give them an answer
from the tip of the poolstick

V
from the tip of a pitchfork
the victory sign
from the end of an arm
dona nobis pacem
But what’s in the crotch
in the split of the fingers?
traces of feces and sperms all a-glow
bacteria and unwashed juices of love
crabs and lice and everything nice
that’s what little girls are made of

K
is for Kafka
he made it his own

OK
is ours
but we have to share
half with Citizen Kane

T
take a T to dinner
give him some meat
a t-bone steak
grilled mean streaks

take him for a drive
let him sit behind the wheel
in the fur-tickled pinkish
catbird seat
and watch him turn the corner
at the end of T-Square Street

get him all dressed up
in a whopping white t-shirt
and take him out behind the backstop
and flush him with toilet jokes
stomp him with stupidity
punch him down with pokes
and waves of steaming heat

but no matter what you do
he’ll pop back up again
flexibility?
it’s printed in concrete

trees that bend with the wind
he grows them in his backyard
he takes them for a spin
see them cluster like pinpoints
around the foot of his feet

T’s a treat
he can’t be beat
don’t cross him out
just cross him indiscrete

G
gut smoke
rolls right over into gas
its goes whiz
its goes gash and god
and gobble around the gooseberry gush

J
Jerry Lee Lewis sat on this fish hook
and it’s never been the same since.
Elvis never influenced language like Lee
he flopped around in it
slopped around
shopped around
but he never bent a C
not like Jerry Lee
Jerry Lee sat on a C
and kicked it around
he limped from Tennessee
with a C wrapped around his knee
Oh Suzanna, don’t cry for me
just bless the soul of Jerry Lee

C
as explained above
C has had a hard life
road torn and ripped with strife
rolled out of rock
and rocked out of love

after all the shock and sewers
when the people shouted for a middle C
they were shouting into an empty sky
some of them settled for less
some of them settled for an S

S
it’s obvious

E
Rimbaud said it’s white
blanc
he wanted the translation rights
but he and everything else he wanted
got lost in translation
in Amerenglishican
E’s just an excuse
a nudge of the tub
in a 3-point earthquake

L
is going to fall over
if J doesn’t move in
next door
soon

F
hovers above you
like something bad
you might do
heavy and heartbroken
shivers over you
like a sinbad fingersnap

H
trembles the pocket of air
in which your head is trapped

when you get back from Europe
tell me about H
how do the Germans exploit it?
how do the French explain it?
how do the Italians skip it?
Spanish sweep with it?
Greeks sleep with it?

M
entire book shelves have been written
with the help of M
You might need a B
once in awhile
and a D will do just nicely
in a pinch when you come
to the last paragraph

U
is it something you want to keep?
find it in a battered cigar box
40 years later in your bottom drawer
with a dried-up tube of brylcreme
and an empty bottle of wildroot
smear it in your hair
right now
get it over with
bust the bubble
let its grease pour down
over your ears
and drip from your lobes
onto your padded shoulders

Q
I said I’ll mind them
I’ll give them a U
I’ll give them an answer
from the tip of the poolstick.

But I won’t answer those questions
if I hear Q’s wheels
crunching in the gravel
trying to trick me into thinking
it’s got a flat tire

CANNIBAL CAT

Jimbo Jimbo
the cannibal cat
grab his tail
feel his heart beating

call him mister
he’s as wild as a weasel
he’s lean and mean
he would not make good eating

BEAST (another Jimbo)

foaming and farting
and feisting a path
thru my tumbledown teeth
dripping with drool
I come to the edge
of the rain rotten pool

I’m an un-mommed mammal
I’m parasite fuel
I spit in the soup
of frozen leaf mold
I hit all the bumps
I crawl thru the dumps
my fangs are a-dangle
my bones are banging
I’m a thousand years old
my teardrops droop

I slump, I sleek
I slink with my feet
I claw and cheat
watch me snatch
and catch a batch
of wild and wingless
menacing meat

[ December 18, 2004 ]

CNN : FACT AND FICTION

1. FACT

we’re watching CNN
the man reporting the news
signs off
“I am Chimpanzee.”

there must be some mistake
on the tele-prompter
at the start of the program
he said, “I am Jim Clancy.”

Now he’s somebody else

2. FICTION

does CNN have more surprises
up its virtual sleeve?

of course it does
for 25 years
it has been moving slowly
in a direction
from truth to lies
from fact to fiction
it’s become a huge
propaganda machine
within the next 25 years
you can expect to see
other animals taking over
replacing the humans
they’ll slip them in
discretely
blink one night
and you’ll see an alligator
snapping out the sports news
blink again
and he’s back in human form
“Thank for watching,
this is Ali Gaytor –
and here’s a weather up-date
from Crock O’Dial.”

MORE HANDS
(Sequel to “Hands” in Bicycle Poems)

1.
chin-ups
grip the rail when you start to slide
scatter seeds for the birds
tie an angel to your christmas tree
give up your guns when they say “Hand them over.”

2.
pump water
slingshot a rock
jiggle coins in your pocket
comb your hair
do exactly what they say when they say
“Handle with care.”

3.
and don’t hesitate to co-operate when they say,
“Could you please point him out?”

NOTHING

there’s nothing all around us
there’s nothing where you stand
there’s nothing in the morning mail
there’s nothing in your hand

there’s a whole lot more nothing
out beyond the moons of Mars
there’s nothing in your glass
or the gas tank of your car

there’s nothing in your cigarette
there’s nothing in your stovepipe hat
there’s nothing in your way
if you’re on your way to getting fat

there’s nothing under your umbrella
nothing new in the news
and when you go to bed at night
there’s nothing in your shoes

“What did you do at school today?”
“Nothing”
“What did the teacher say?”
“Nothing”
“How about lunch? No, wait let me guess –
– nothing . . . . . yes?”

SHORTSTORY LONG

his name was Chain Gob Smoker
and he lived between
Any Truth in a Rumor
and Fear of a Tumor
and why shouldn’t his name
be Chain Gob Smoker?
because he took chances
with his teeth
and his body language
was a mess?
or is it because
he couldn’t put
two and two together
and come up with something
between a push and a shove?

  

his name was Benjalopy Spoke
and he was stuck between
the boys smoking dope
in the doorway
and the parking meter
which had just swallowed
his last thick dime

  

her name was Sardalina Prawn
and she lived between
Courage and Stupidity
she never gave up
until the chain gangsters
jumped out of the bushes
and stuck her head
in a bucket of blood
after that she was
good for nothing

  

he said his name
was Garsopholist Crump
he drove the turnpike
between Peace and Perplexity
until he came to the bordertowns
where all the good songs were born
and nothing else got out alive

  

he said his name
was Solipsistical Crunch
and he lived between Prosperity
and the Penultimate Question :
“What’s the Capital of Punishment?”
down in Death Valley Row
down among the cactus cries
the gila monster tears
down by the Busted Border
where love has the life expectancy
of a firecracker
and a firecracker
has the life expectancy
of a finger snap

  

he said his name
was Carsophagus Bump
and he lived on the mainline
between Comfort and Confusion
nobody believed him

  

her name was Gloss-o-Lalia Beef-A-Jerk
and she was hard to pin down
she lived in a pretty town
but there was nothing pretty
about the way she sang
“Pop Goes the Squeaky Weasel Wheel”
it was all Sturm und Drang
her voice was stuffed stewed prunes
that bubbled to the surface
and left no tongue unturned
they thought she might be Russian
but there were rumors of Aztec
vocabularies in her speech
she shifted from an Elton John
effete face-slapper
to a Bruce Springsteen
semi-automatic
convertible, 4-wheel drive
at the click of a tooth
we’ll talk about the minor
details later, about the way
her hands and feet
were nailed to her bedroom wall
and the word “crucifix”
was being tossed about
in whispered gossip
we’ll talk about all that
at a time when she is not
around to feel the backlash
of our pity.

  

her name was Lipmood Chapstick
and she lived between Nervous Breakdown
and Lip-Drooling Servitude
between a swarm of sweat flies
and chin-drooling bustatude

  

His name was Pugnacious Presley
and he lived like a kink
between the blink of a blind eye
and a tongue pop in a pig’s ear

  

His name was Rawberry Cod Liver
and he lived between a mumble
and the suck of a needle
he was nourished from the drip
of a slippery spoon
and they thought he was long gone
until the day he showed up
making movies on the Champs Elysses
and chasing fashion models
around the Musee de Louvre
they didn’t expect him to be there
and neither did he

  

His name was Bo Fiddley Flop
and he lived between Hysteria
and a state of Boredom
between the devil
and the deep blue sleep
who knows how many times
he had to sing
before they opened his cage
and let him flop around
on the floor

  

His name was Meataphysical Mix
and he lived from drag to drag
with one foot loose in the Fancy Free
and one boxcar fist on the gravy train
you never saw him come into town
without his neck in a knot
dragging a noose
and a hot-wired battery cable
snaked thru his belt loops
and stuck up his ass
where it sparked
and ignited each puff of gas
with a muffled explosion
that brought a distant look
of nostalgia to his eyes

  

His name was Zimmer Mangoose
and he lived between
a Moment Too Late
and the Next Best Thing
he was so sensitive
he was worthless
everytime he looked up
he was climbing down

  

his name was Portable Jug Whipson
and talk about boats!
by the way he cruised on ragged sails
thru the Tunnel of Love
from the turnstile
to the Wedding Chapel
by the way he fell in love with the darkness
you know he had to be a troubled sailor
eventually he bowed out singing,
“I wish I wash a Washy Wish.”

Her name was Bustagutta Grundge
and she was famous
for rolling around on the table
until one day she rolled off
(the table) and it was so far
to the floor that she is still
falling at this very moment
suspended, so to speak,
between the table’s edge
which has long since disappeared
and the floor that has yet
to come into view

  

and she had a boyfriend
his name was Honky Tonk Tim
he lived in the boondocks
on the borderline between
of tip of his hot tongue
and the flames of his cane
he grew up believing
that the clock
measured the beat of his heart
he prayed along with every tick
until he pushed a button
and time started going backwards
and he found himself in the middle
of the Middle Ages
between a peasant staked
in a pile of straw
and a grey shrouded monk
sneaking up with a match

  

to make a longstory
short
no matter how heavy your name
or the way it grows roots
and keeps you chained
to rocks in the earth
just remember
we all think
we’re in one place
while we seem to be
someplace else

DEAD OR ALIVE?

take me down
when I am dead
flip thru my pages
see what I said
did I get it right
or upsidedown?
did I dig deep enough
or just scratch around?
did I hit your heart
or your funny bone?
or both or neither?
did I slide your trombone?
did I get in your way?
did I cramp your style?
did I make you walk
an extra mile?
do you see what I saw?
do you hear what I heard?
until then, my old friend
don’t say a word

THE GOLDEN ROAD
TO UNLIMITED DEVOTION

THANKS

to Jerry Garcia
gratefully dead
to Jack Kerouac
who slept under my bed
to Bob Dylan
you fucked up my life
to Waylon Jennings
you fucked my wife
to Shawn Philips
you taught me how to ride
my 12-string guitar
to the other side
to Tony Visconti
you drew deep lines
into my underground songs
and made them all rhyme
to Derroll Adams, banjoman
I followed you out into the land
of quicksand and roses
whiskey and wine
the trail goes on
you left me behind

Elevation

POEMS 2006 |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

I. CYRPUS POEMS

CYPRUS POEMS
for Marie Claire

I walk around
from room to room
I look at the clock
almost midnight
I listen to the rain
on the roof
I walk around
flicking light switches
quarter to one
I’m still here

I push a button
on my cell phone
to see what day it is
23.01.2006
this is my third day
here in Klonari
and I’m still waiting
for the word waves
to come washing in

I haven’t become reckless
in my mental wanderings yet
rain on the roof
I walk from room to room
I’m still here

no windows in this house
the Old Mill House
except in the end room
I never go into
sliding doors everywhere
if you want to listen
to the rain
you slide open a door
and let the whole world in
from head to toe
they say it rains 10 days
a year
down here
one down
nine to go

I’m still here
down here
couldn’t be anywhere else
and If I was
I’d be there

I was in Belgium
numb feet on frozen ground
then I was in the air
riding the thermal bumps
then I was sitting in a car
zipping down the left side
of the highway
no steering wheel in my hands

now I’m here in Klonari
blowing my nose
walking from room to room
picking up a book
looking into the fireplace
flushing the toilet
trying out the light switches
wondering what my new routines
will be, they’ll sneak up on me
I’m sure and I won’t even
notice that I’m just tossing
orange peels in the bucket
by the door like I’ve been
doing it for years
I won’t even notice
until it’s too late

I carry my notebook
around the house with me
everywhere I go
just in case the word waves
come crashing in and catch me
standing on one foot
like a long-legged water bird
who lives on mosquitoes
and thin air

I’m still waiting
I’m still here

now I notice at last
I’m writing
how did this happen?
and what does it mean?
am I getting comfortable?
am I becoming reckless?
am I starting to forget
that I’m here?

don’t think about it
just write it down
start anywhere
stop when you’ve had enough

a thousand moments
in a minute
a million miles an hour
I’ll never catch up
sitting propped up in bed
almost 2 AM
I’m still here
tho a couple of times
I almost wasn’t
like a long-legged water bird
that lives on mosquitoes
and thin air

sleep sneaking up
creeping in
breathing thru both nostrils

[ Klonari, Jan 23, 2006,
this could be called, “Alone” ]

let’s call this one NOISE
they said it was going
to be quiet here
“Silence like you’ve
never heard before.”
first morning, 4 AM
the rooster cuts loose
he’s sitting on the rail
of my courtyard
outside my sliding door
roosters all over the village
begin to chatter
this goes on for 3 hours

second morning (Sunday)
shotguns blasting
up and down the valley
hunters shooting birds
and maybe rabbits too
and anything that moves
with their double barrels
not a good time to be out
walking in the dawn
this goes on until noon
I guess the hunters
go home to eat the birds
and the rabbits and the mice
if I were an old dove
I would not migrate to Cyprus
beware young geese
and all you other long-legged
waterbirds who live on insects
and rare air
they’ll blast your socks off

third morning
chainsaw
right outside the door
this goes on from daylight
until they’ve got enough wood
to build a house

I’m still awake

[ Klonari, Jan 23, 2006 ]

you know you’re not completely
settled in
when you open the bedroom door
and half-expect to find
Goldilocks and the 3 bears
sleeping in your bed

you know you’re not
feeling right at home just yet
if you keep looking at the clock
and expecting a cuckoo to jump out

how can you be at home
when it’s not your home?
when it’s not your sink?
not your stove?
when you don’t know the name of the cat
paw-patting across the roof?

you know you’re not
even close to feeling at home
when the most familiar things
in the house
are the characters
in the novel you’re reading *

[ *Jim Harrison, “True North” ]
[ Jan 23, 2006 ]

rain on the roof again
I slide open the door
and hear it splattering
on the bushes
(two down
eight to go)

I step out
into the courtyard
barefoot
the rain’s not
tapping on the roof
it’s clicking like a clock
pounding the round metal table
I left under the eaves
like a giant drum

back inside, door closed
(table moved)
I couldn’t say
if it’s raining or not

[ Jan 26, 2006 * ]

* 1:30 AM when everybody else in the village is asleep and unaware of the rain, so who knows? maybe it rains 300 nights a year in Cyprus and nobody’s awake to count

returning on the dirt road
from Akapnou
at dusk today
shotgun shells
litter the side
the creaky cry
of a pheasant
down in a gully
a sly one
who escaped the slaughter
yesterday

got back home at dark
with an olive branch
over my shoulder
made it just in time
another 10 minutes
and I would have been out there
all night sweeping the branch
back and forth
from side to side
in the dirt
trying to find the edges of the road
and hoping I wouldn’t
step off the mountain
and slide
into tomorrow morning

rain
and this time
it’s really on the roof
AND in the bushes
the white cat hiding
under the round table
under the eaves
scoots away
when I open the courtyard door
pretending
he wasn’t there at all

raining hard now
2:30 AM
splattering
on the courtyard stones
waking up the whole village
(all 12 adults, children plus dogs)
again glad I got back before dark
I’d be out there
in a gully with that pheasant
and I would be shouting,
“Those shotgun shells are not mine!”
and he’d be creaking my hinges
and having the last laugh.

[Jan. 24, 2006 ]

yellow-white lizard
on the bathroom wall
(almost transparent
and about 6 inches long)

several reactions possible
1.
Oh look. Another creature of god
I’ll leave some food
and we’ll become friends
2
that’s the last time
I’ll be walking around barefoot
around this place
last thing I need
is squashed lizard
curling up around
the sides of my feet
and oozing up
between my toes
3
jesus christ
there’s a serpent in the house
I’ll never sit on the toilet again
the monster drops from the ceiling
right down the back of my neck
and takes a bite out of my butt
4
maybe if I just ignore him
he’ll go away

5
he’s probably been there
all the time
these past 6 days
and I just didn’t notice him

Bobby says
“That was a gecko –
good for the house –
he eats the flies and the mosquitoes
– much good luck.”

Bobby says
they got some black snakes
on the island
“about 3 feet long
big as my wrist”
(shit, I’m moving out)
“Harmless tho,” Bobby says,”
“You wouldn’t want to kill
one of those.”

(Bobby’s from Scotland
and sounds like it
his is the Voice of Klonari)

more rain
make that four and five down
with six and five to go

I skipped the 4th downpour
tho its water turned
the steep alley by the house
into a creek

Bobby says, “Only a teaspoon of water
up in the reservoirs.”

I can picture the people
climbing the mountains
with a spoon in one hand
and a shotgun in the other
be interesting to see
who gets the last drop

[ Jan. 26, 2006 ]

there were jaguars
prowling around
the house
last light
moving slow
they could have
come inside

this morning
they’d turned back
into cats
lounging in the winter sun
we all have our reasons
for becoming jaguars
or geckos
or beasts of bear
and boar dimensions

we all have our reasons
for being here

sometimes late at night
I go for the lemur
don’t ask me why

[ Jan. 28. 2006 ]

I just want you to know
I’m moving slow

not as slowly
as the gecko
that melts into the butter
on my yellow bathroom wall

but much slower
than the white cat
who sneaks slices
of corned beef
I leave for him
on a cardboard
in the courtyard
when I’m not looking
that’s fast
I never ever moved that fast
before I started slowing down

[ Jan 30, 2006 ]

what’s that tapping
on the leaves
of my mind tree?
could it be rain?
slide back the door
hold out my hand
one drop, two drops
does that count?
– one more –
equals three
and that’s getting serious
six down
four to go

I saw the darkest of clouds
building up all day
but the slysky waits
until after midnight
to sneak ’em down to earth

[ Jan 31, 2006 ]

he picks up the clock
shakes it hard
he wants to get
more time out of it
an extra hour or two
at least
maybe a day
“Give me another January!”
he shouts and he shakes
until all the ticks
spill out
and he’s left holding
an empty salt shaker

[ Jan 31, 2006 – 2 a.m.]

bust the Gut
of Mortalicity
droop apart
drag the dust
you’re just a guest
with just a guess
of a doubt just a ghost
with just about nothing
nothing to say
and not a leg to stand on

what’s next?
another drop of rain?

[ Jan. 31, 2006. 2:30 a.m. ]

talk about tinnitus
loud and sharp sounds
and I have to be tired
(which I am right now)
then the Tinnitus Hellways Bus
drives thru my head
with Knifegut at the wheel
grinning
and all the other seats
are filled with
philharmonic phantasmagoria
slow tempo quick castanets
in one ear
and out the other
where Blast Mouth Fuller
with his brush whistles
goes rag-mopping
from door to door
selling bubble gum pops
and whipcrack snaps
while the monophonic mob
in the center aisle
with Buzzcut Nicolodeon
behind the baton
goes out of control
and the best that Buzzcut can do
is keep those rat-raped woman
squealing and screaming
like iron wheels
on rusted railroad tracks
while slapping my head
(that’s Buzzcut Nicolodian we’re talking about now)
while slapping my head
with flabby rubber tubes
and telling me
this will be music to my ears
and I will say, “Who gives a gooey Louie?”
and slap him right back
with a busted rubberneck tune
of my own

[Feb. 1, 2006 ]

goundhog day

no sun, no shine
grey wind, no shadow
the groundhogs
are dancing
on the empty shotgun shells
by the side of the road
goofing off
and singing about spring
just around the turn
of next weekend
and ignoring the distant
shotgun blasts
from over the hills
which seem to be proclaiming:
“Fresh, hot groundhog chops
coming up for supper night.”

[ Feb. 2. 2006 ]

the wind drives by my door
like a car
nobody at the wheel
it crashes
head-on
into a wall of silence
and vanishes

it’ll be back
next year
about this time

[ Feb. 2. 2006 ]

you start walking
and soon
you’re someplace else

[ Feb. 3. 2006 ]

I feel like
I’m one of those ancient
wandering sages
seen from a distance
he climbs a dirt path
on a barren hillside
the knapsack
over his shoulder
becomes a bundle of sticks
(kindling for the fire tonight)
illuminated by a single beam of sunlight
thru the hazy clouds

if I were to meet another
like myself on this dusty path
he would say, “Shut up!
You talk too much!”

[ Feb. 3. 2006 ]

I sit on a mountain top
peeling an orange
and eating it
like an ordinary wandering sage
looking down into the next valley
and wondering if I’m looking for
nirvana or am I looking at just another re-run
of the orange-peeling scene from Aida

[ Feb. 3. 2006 ]

quatrain: the sage’s reply after returning from the misty
mountains.
“Where have you been?”

“Gathering firewood
for the orange-peeling
scene in Aida”

[ Feb. 3. 2006 ]

rip-off strip

he walked into the nose-noise
of Rip-Off Strip
into the disguise of joys
into the rise of loaded lips

past the fastbuck junk
past the short-change punk
of the Double-Dealing Dream
and the bubble-popping machine

he walked until he crossed paths
with a bouncing baby boy
staggering and stumbling
across the broken sidewalk
into the arms
of his father
whose sudden smile
was the only wisp of perfume
in the panoramic toilet

from then on, each step
he took deeper
into Rip-Off Strip
was as if he were
placing his feet
in wet concrete
and the prints would last
for years beyond
his own lifetime

[ rolling back to the afternoon and evening
of Jan 31, 2006, Boulevard Cristodolou
Chatzipavilou, Limasol, Cyprus ]

ΥΨΩΜΑ ΣΙΝΟΑΣ
ΣΗΜΕΙΟ ΘΕΑΣ
(ΥΨΟΜΕΤΡΟ 770m)

(elevation 770m)

now I know how to say “elevation” in Greek
upsometro

camp ground sign

STRICTLY
DO NO FIRE

and wouldn’t you know it?
a couple of rusted bullet holes,
one dotting the “i” of “fire”

in Greek that’s

ΑΠΑΓΟΡΕΥΕΤΑΙ
ΑΥΣΤΗΡΩΣ
ΤΟ ΑΝΑΜΜΑ ΦΩΤΙΑΣ
(no bullet holes)
αραγορυεται

[ Feb, 4, 2006 ]

woke up
went outside
held my face
up to the grey sky
3 drops of rain
one on my nose
one on my lower lip
one on the right eye
of my glasses

it was not a deluge
the cats were not scampering
for cover
in fact the drops
were drying as they hit
the flagstones
(vanishing salamander spots)

the village folk
were not rushing up the hills
to the reservoirs
with their buckets and spoons
and I cannot claim
that it ruined
my Sunday afternoon hair-do

but I’m still going to say
seven down
three to go

[ Feb. 5, 2006 ]

I might remember
coming to this place
and staying a month
in these mountains

roads with funny names
chickens and goats
phones that don’t work
and shotgun blasts in the hills
on Sunday morning

take a picture?

how could I take a picture
of the single sliding
silver goat bell
ringing on the hill
after midnight?

or the roaring canned laughter
from a late-nite TV show
seeping thru the weatherbeaten
boards of my neighbor’s
stone house shutters
followed by Maria’s real
3-tooth cackle of delight
that stretches out
for 3 short blasts
then the blue light
goes back to flickering
thru the cracks
like fingers of ghosts?
(that was a question –
how do you take a picture of that?)

[ Feb. 5, 2006 ]

restless
wandering
from room to room
from hill to hill
up dirt paths
looking for the place
where I can begin
to wander

[ Feb, 6, 2006 ]

Chopin’s Nocturnes on the CD player
lightning snaking up
over the mountains
popping up to flash in the clouds
climbing in from the west
until it has Klonari surrounded

then the thunder hits
from all sides
echoing off the mountains
bouncing off the hills
and the rain pours down
where I wandered
gathering wood this afternoon
flooding the paths I walked
washing the gulleys
setting off landslides
grab a flashlight
let’s go see
are you nuts?
nobody halfsane
is going to poke his nose
out into this skull crasher

[ Feb, 6, 2006 ]

and then it’s gone
the storm
and you can see them
the village people
climbing to the reservoirs
in the hills
flashlights in one hand
spoons in the other

[ Feb, 6, 2006 ]

“I think I’ll take a nice hot shower.”

[ Feb 7, 2006, 00:00 AM ]

it’s hard to be funny
living alone
for two weeks

humorous remarks
bounce off the walls
like deflated balloons
and laughter
is just plain weird

[ Feb 7, 2006, 4:30 AM ]

I saw the sky
this afternoon
I walked out
under it
I saw the snow
sprinkled on the mountains
to the north
I stood and watched
as fog swirled in
around the snow
until the mountains
were completely hidden

[ Feb 8, 2006 ]

the snow is gone
from the mountains
the mist wiped it away

[Feb 9, 2006]

I feed the birds
out under the olive tree
every morning
two slices of brown bread
(they like it)
I pick up an extra loaf
at the bakery
I prefer the white

[ Feb 9, 2006 ]

sometimes I feed
the cats in the courtyard
slices of corned beef

and sometimes they just sit
waiting for me to feed them
all six with their eyes closed
thinking maybe the orange
I’m eating
will turn into a chunk of meat

[ Feb 9, 2006 ]

we find different ways
to get thru the winter

start anywhere
stop when you’ve had enough

started drinking ouzo today
(small bottle: 10cl)
(but on an empty stomach)
I biked up the hill
(into the wind) to Kallaki
I walked a few kilometers
into the hills
collecting firewood
(and observed the three-quarter moon
drifting up from the east
over the mountains
to wash the melted snow away)
now all I need
is a flooded valley
to swim across
and I would be in
the Ouzo Triathlon

[ Feb 9, 2006 ]

hail on the roof last night
like dozens of pigeons
with thimbles on their claws
tap dancing around
as my CD played “Caruso”
this was it
the limit
ten rains down
zero to go
from now on
tropical weather
sweating in the heat
swatting flies
fanning your face
with newspapers
in the shade

[ Feb 9, 2006 ]

it’s a quiet night
I switch the lights off
crawl in bed without thinking
sit up reading Jack Kerouac’s
Memory Babe
and don’t hear the roosters
crowing at 3 AM anymore
I knew it would come to this

[ Feb 9, 2006 ]

I step out the front door
the flagstones are dry
the moon (almost full)
scoots along behind
the clouds and I feel
a pinch of spring in the air

I go inside
walk thru the house
go out the backdoor
into the courtyard
and it’s pouring rain
my clothes on the line
are soaking wet
I twist their tails
and squeeze out the winter

I can see now
why some people
might get a little confused
about how many days it rains
in Cyprus each year

it all depends on
which door you go out

[ Feb 10, 2006 ]

Cyprus Bike Poem

I sweep around Eucalyptus Corner
slow, stop to pick up a branch
blown down by the storm last night

and there’s this man
coming up the road at me
and I say, “Hello there.”
and he growls, “Hiss!”
(or maybe it’s “Yiss!”)

I looked it up
in the dictionary
when I got home
“Hiss” in Greek
means, “don’t pick up
the Eucalyptus branch.
It belongs to me”

“Yiss” means nothing
the man was having a hardtime
getting the word
out of his mouth
he was trying to say
“Eucalyptus.”

either way
I kept the branch
and brought it home with me
on the bike
and it now stands
in an empty milk bottle
in the middle of my table
I fill the bottle with water
so it won’t fall over
I look at the branch
once in a while
it belongs to me
I say, “Yiss!”

[ Feb 10, 2006 ]

the great thing about
living alone
in an isolated house
is that you can wash the dishes
at 3 AM
and nobody will say
“Wow! You’re doing the dishes
at 3 AM.”

there might be other great things
about living alone
in an isolated house
but I can’t think of them
right now
and they’re probably not
worth mentioning either

[ Feb 10, 2006, 8:30 PM, thinking of my friend Pete Petersen
for no particular reason ]

I did the dishes
at 3 AM
and there was nothing great
about it
maybe I should have waited
until 3:30
when the fun really starts

[ Feb. 11, 2006, 3:15 a.m. ]

or maybe the fun starts
when you build a fire
in the open fireplace
you stick up your feet
to warm your toes
and the heat melts the soles
off the bottoms of your sneakers

[ Feb. 11, 2006, 4:00 a.m. ]

everyday
(as always)
I feed the little birds
that fly down
from the olive tree
chunks of brown bread

a couple of days ago
one asked,
“Do you think
we could have it toasted?”

no problem
I toasted the slices
diced them
and tossed them out

that was yesterday
that’s when one of them asked,
“Next time, how about
a little butter?”

no problem
this morning
I buttered the toast,
diced the slices
into tasty squares
and scattered them across the grass

everybody was happy
except one bird
“How about some
strawberry jam?”

now I know why
the hunters come out
on Sunday morning
and shoot these birds
they started asking
for cream and sugar
in their coffee

[ Feb 13, 2006 ]

tonight I’m eating
a Linda McCartney Country Meat Pie

who the hell
is Linda McCartney?

isn’t she dead?
didn’t she die of some
kind of horrible
infectious disease?

what is this crap
I’m eating?

[ Feb. 16, 2006]

from one week away
I can see how this journey
will end

flying down the highway
on the wrong side of the road
to the airport

rolling down the runway
and lifting into the air

to the end of dreamtime

to the end of this songline

[ Feb 17, 2006 ]

  

II. PARIS POEMS

PARIS POEMS
Part One

cold windy day
in front of the Louvre
dropped a glove
on the cobblestones
went back, picked it up
put it on
the fingers were still warm

[ March 2, 2006. Paris ]

Hotel Henry IV

this old hotel
the walls so thin
you can hear Henry IV
burp in the next room

the bed so narrow
you bump into Henry IV
every time you turn over

the steps so steep
you feel like Henry IV
by the time you reach
the fifth floor

the floor so old
you can feel your feet
sinking thru the carpet
into the thousands
of footprints
in the wood beneath
only a few of which
were made by Henry IV

most are much older
from about the time
the Hunchback was ringing bells
down at the other end
of the island

[ March 2, 2006, Place Dauphine, Paris ]

Paris

it’s the same city
that made Henry Miller
jump for joy whenever
he walked its streets
and got caught up
in his senseless philosophizing

the bums under the bridges
are long gone
30 years now

the bookstore at 224 Rue Rivoli
is still there
as elegant and English as it was
when soldiers of the British Army
took a break from Napoleon’s retreat
and went shopping for the latest
Alex Pope and Popular Mechanics

it’s the same city I walked
30 years ago
and got lost in its maze
of streets which really
didn’t matter to me at all
and still doesn’t

I pass more people
than I count in a year
and tho none of them
are jumping for joy
neither am I

we’ve all agreed
to skip the cheap philosophizing
too
and concentrate on the essentials
like keeping your eyes open
all the time
like avoiding parking posts
and dodging cars against the red lights

we will hop for joy
only when it’s really necessary

[ March 2, 2006, Paris ]

Conversation in a Crepêrie

“What city do you have to see
before you die”

“Venice!”

“Venice?”

“Naples.”

“No, not Naples.”

I hope nobody is listening
to this conversation

[ March 3, 2006, Paris ]

Mooving Bar

“ladies and Gentlemen
Thalys and the Caterers
have the pleasure
to invite you
to the MOOVING BAR
situated in the middle
of the train . . . ”

where are the cows?

[ March 4, 2006, train from Paris to Liege ]

PARIS POEMS
Part Two

And Don’t Forget Paris – 1

the old man
in Le Chien Qui Fume
corner of Boulevard Montparnasse
and Rue du Cherche Midi
alone at the table by the door
“Can I ask you a question – ?
I’m writing a book
takes place in Paris
late sixties, 1970
and maybe one of the characters
is going to live around here.”

the old man is nodding his head

I ask my question :
“Can you see the Eiffel Tower
from the 6th floor
of any of these buildings?”
I wave my hand around
to include the entire quartier
the old man waves his arms around
and says (in French)
La Tour Eiffel can be seen
from any sixth floor balcony
at least and I hope
it will be a love story.

“They always are.”

“That’s good.
Love stories are the only kind
of stories worth reading.”

he’s probably right

And Don’t Forget Paris-2

Rue Rivoli
I see her coming
old lady in faded levi jacket
and Gyspy hair
she bends over
in front of me
and picks a coin
from a crack in the sidewalk
I say, “Go for it,”
and keep walking

but Marie Claire
who’s 2 steps behind me
stops
when the lady
holds up a gold coin
I stop and look back
oh shit, the lady’s
got Marie Claire hooked
and it’s not a gold coin
it a golden ring
and she’s telling Marie Claire
that because of her religion
she can’t wear this ring
but maybe Marie Claire could
and maybe Marie Claire
could give her some cash –
she’s a little short today –
maybe 10 or 20 euros
would be just about right
so Marie Claire exchanges
some euro money
for this ring of pure gold

she catches up
“It’s probably not real gold.”

“She put it on the sidewalk
and waited for us to come along.”

they know all the con games in Paris
and I guess we look like
real live suckers

And Don’t forget Paris – 3

down on my knees
in the back corner floor
of Shakespeare & Co
sorting thru stacks of
contemporary fiction paperbacks
W – Z
displaced and dumped
while they’re repairing
the shelves at the front of the store
looking for William Wharton
they’ve got a few Tom Wolfes
lots of Wodehouse
(P.G.. – Picadilly Jim
Right Ho, Jeeves , A Damsel in Distress)
no Wharton (William)
but a handful of
Wharton (Edith)
nothing worth reading
until I come to
David Foster Wallace
this one looks good
The Broom of the System
I’m going to read this one
David Foster Wallace
is a kickass storyteller
David Foster Wallace
plays tennis
with the molecules of your brain

PARIS POEMS
Part Three
(Two Months Later)

UNEXPLAINED MYSTERY N˚ 1

passengers
start talking louder
and faster
as the train gets closer
to Paris
they’re standing up now
and shouting

by the time
we hit the suburbs
they’re so excited
they’re ready
to piss in their pants
or is it all
included in the price
of the ticket?

they’d be jumping
from the windows
if they could open them

May 4, 2006

UNEXPLAINED MYSTERY N˚ 2

if you lean hard
on the handrail of a down escalator
your hand slowly creeps
forward, ahead of your feet

if you keep leaning hard
you’ll soon be vertical
and by the time you reach the bottom
your clutching hands
will be stretched out straight
in front of you
and the toes of your shoes
will be thumping down
the steps

May 4, 2006

back in Paris
back at the Henri IV
and for the first time
in educated memory
I don’t have a book to read
when I go to bed
no biography of Chaucer
to sing me to sleep
no Jim Harrison
or Robert B. Parker
to strum the lobes
of my restless brain
no Bruce Chatwin
or Greil Marcus
to assure me
that my dreams
will be simple, peaceful
and harmless

tonight
I’m stuck with a map
the back pages
of “L’Indispensable de Paris”
telephone numbers
for cinemas and museums
piscines and patinoires
addresses for parking lots
detailed maps of cemeteries
du Père Lachaise
and Montparnasse
I know where Baudelaire
is buried
at number 4

they planted Serge Gainsbourg
at number 22
and Jean-Paul Sartre
at 41 right next
to Simone de Beauvoir
at number 5

meanwhile over in Pere La chaise
they got Oscar Wilde
at 19
Marcel Proust at 26
and Balzac at 30
but no sign of Jim Morrrison
they’re keeping the lizard man
under wraps and his whereabouts
a big secret

then for light poetic reading
I’ve got the complete pharmacological
run down on my sleeping pills
Lorazepam
to calm nervous tension
to suppress exhalation
of psychoneurotc origins
can cause vertigo
should not be taken
while driving a car
or drinking alcohol
with extended use
can cause psychic addiction
and even physical dependence
great literature
fascinating reading
cuts right thru my insomnia
like a wet sock
thru a bucket of oatmeal
and sends me off
to neverland
with images of junkies
dancing in my head
and if that’s not enough
I’ve got some idiot
out in the hall
slapping up and down
the steps
in swim flippers

and while pissing
in the sink
the Sinkpiss police bust in
“We warned you!” they shout
(they didn’t, I’ve never
seen these beanheads before
these wobble gut hair brain buckets
with SINKPISS patches on their shirts)
“We’ll have to take away
your sleeping privileges! !”
they gather around my bed
kicking at the edge of the mattress
bouncing off the corners
and making sure I don’t get
a single snootful of snooze

May 4, 2006

a man and a woman
with three little daughters

the man bends the woman
over backwards
as if they’re performing
a tango
and kisses her on the lips

the three little girls
dance with joy
they jump and squeal
as if they have
hot chili peppers
in their toes

all this just on the other side
of a bed of orange flowers
all this right in front of
the south side fence
of Notre Dame Cathedral

May 5, 2006

on the other side of the flower bed
(and I’ve been waiting all winter
to see these yellow and orange
flowers, waiting so long
I feel like crying)
a young woman is pushing
a five-month old child
in a baby carriage
down the gravel path

she’s running as fast
as she can
the baby is smiling
with delight
the baby doesn’t know
who’s pushing the carriage
all she knows
is that the wind is fast
and she’s having fun
she doesn’t know
she’s being kidnapped

May 5, 2006

UNDER THE SIGN OF THE HARP

under the sign
Rue de la Harpe
I stand singing
“You are my Sunshine”
with the Lonesome Gamblers
in a high lonesome voice
so high I don’t think
that it’s a real harmony line
it’s so high (my voice)
that I realize
what a sad song this really is
“please don’t take my sunshine away.”

Paris, May 5, 2006

And that’s when a cop steps up
and asks me if I have permission
to sing under the Sign of the Harp

and that’s when I notice
she’s beautiful
(lipstick, eye shadow and
a touch of perfume too)
what’s going on?
what is she going to do with me
in that uniform?
take me in a back alley
and beat me senseless with a truncheon?

but she’s nice
respectful
sweet voice
I say, “No, ma’am. I don’t have permission”
and she says, “Then you must stop singing.”
(all this is French)
I say, “Right away.”
she holds up a white gloved finger
“Just one more song.”

she was probably enjoying
the music and felt bad
about making us stop

but in the back of my head
I’m still face down
on the cobblestones
of a cul-de-sac
and the beautiful cop
is beating the shit
out of me with her nightstick

why do they do this?
the French
they ruin everything
with one blow

May 5, 2006

QUAI DES FLEURS

a flock of a thousand bikes
or more at midnight
lights blinking
pedals churning
ghost riders
in the dark
floating down Quai des Fleurs
(Ile de la Cité)
above the river
like metal moths
hovering, fluttering
smoothing the pavement
everybody silent
tiny red eyes winking
is this a race?
or is this just a new type
of Parisian After Midnight
Public Transportation?

where can I get a bicycle?

I want to ride
I want to float
thru Paris
down the Quai des Fleurs
after midnight
I want my tiny red eyes
to wink and blink
I want to smooth out
all the roads
all the way
thru Place Dauphine
and across Pont Neuf
and all the way
to the Brooklyn Bridge
and back

May 6, 2006

I feel a vague
Mother Mary fixation
coming to light
here in Paris
when I park my butt
in the side alcove
with the madonna
just standing there
waiting to drop
her alabaster cloak
and I start crying

is this how I spend
my Saturday afternoon?
at St. Jean of Montmartre
made of brick
at Place des Abbesses?

VIETNAM VET

and on Saturday evening
it rains
sprinkles at first
I tempt fate
walking thru the Tuileries
instead of hopping the metro
it starts pouring
as I cross Pont Neuf
and duck into the Henri IV
with wet spots
on the bill of my cap
I climb to the 6th floor
lie on my bed
and listen to the rain
drip in the lightwell
drops pinging off metal tubes
past my barred window

I was looking forward
to a long walk tonight
but I end up across the street
“A Ma Salle à Manger”
with a few more drops
on the bill of my baseball cap
first customer
for the two girls
(one sexy tough
to keep the boys in line
the other angelically
and plumpishly blissful
as she creeps up the stairs
peeks over the rail
and gives me a heavenly smile)
eating hot camembert
and soft sausage slices
drinking Grolsch
(best beer in the world)
and listening to brainless
Americans just come in
powdered and flattered
Americans
pampered and silver-spooned
at the next table
talk about NEXT to nothing

I wish it would stop raining
I want to walk
I want to see
the wet lights of Paris
it’s at times like this
I feel a long way from home
for all they knew
I might have been
a Vietnam Vet

May 6 (10pm) 2006

COP FLASHBACK

about that cop last night
I still can’t believe she was real
when she walked up
and started talking
she looked like
she was getting ready to kiss me.

SHAKESPEARE & CO

Paris Saturday night
dampened with showers
keeps the yahoos inside
shivering in shelters
only a few careless cruisers
out under wrinkled umbrellas

my cap spotted with a few more drops
my grey Kimberly Festival cap
given to me by Phil
in Ontario last summer

Paris is sensational
at night in the rain
like a spinning top
a gyroscope
filled with tiny lights
that will never fall over

written in Shakespeare & Co
Saturday night, May 6, 2006

LA RHUMERIE

Saturday night
approaching midnight
the place is packed
with Parisians
alcoholics
like me
Havana Club 3 years
goes down like silk
stockings
on a Bukowski whore

who walked these streets?
Kerouac
Ginsberg
Derroll too
me
how about that?
all these dead alcoholics
and I’m sitting here sober
pouring white rum
down my trap
touch of coke
back to the Havana Club
I got a lot of catching up to do
who said I was clean?
all my aunts and Uncle Gene
all dead and gone
buried in the earth
or ashes scattered
to the wind
I’m just getting around
to being born

May 6, 2006

I can write anything
when I’m feeling like this
write it now
throw it away later
who’s keeping score?
Rimbaud and Rilke?

May 6. 2006

RIMBAUD & RILKE

Rimbaud in his drunken boat
give me an oar
give me an onion
it’s hard to be alone
in a crowd
sometimes

back on the street
I got Rilke’s solitude
of childhood days
tracking me like a ghost

May 6, 2006

WALKING POEM (May 7, in the a.m.)

I walk Paris at night
brain-flipped stoned
Rue de L’Abbaye
Passage de la Petite Boucherie
Rue Cardinal
Rue de L’Echaude
am I ever coming back?
or will this be the last time
I’ll see these streets?
Rue Jacob
the labyrinth
of the Left Bank
I’ve been avoiding it
for 3 days now
here lives the minotaur
and I don’t know
if I’ve got the muscle
or wit
to take it on

I should stop
and recite this
to passersby
like a true beat poet
I can’t take two steps
without stopping
to write down another line
here comes a car
missed me by inches
and I wasn’t even looking
was that a minotaur?

Le Petit Prince
is a shop
do they have any stuffed squirrels
behind their darkened window?
please, Bear, don’t go out on me
I couldn’t take it
I’d cry all the time

back on Rue de Seine
two-legged minotaurs
glide past
whispering, whimpering
one male
one female
I’m drunk as a skoot
Rue Visconti
lost in the labyrinth
Rue des Beaux Arts
getting close to the river
I can feel it
wonderful to be wandering
lost in the labyrinth

I come out right in front
of a domed palace
and Pont des Arts boardwalk
35 past midnight
on the dome clock
who can contain me?
Rilke? Rimbaud?
no way
Ginsberg & Kerouac
no chance
a mermaid from the river
with long wet kisses
and a 6-pack of beer?
she’d have to be really smart
or I’d drink her river
for a midnight snack

crossing the bridge
looking upstream
to Pont Neuf
a pair of bridges
four lit arches each
with a pointed
island between
that’s where I live
if a bad man
should come up with a knife
and ask for my 550 euros
I’d open my knapsack
take out my blue bandana
and whip it around
in front of his face
saying,
“You’re gonna have to deal
with my badger first.”

DEAD BADGER CODA

back in my room at the top
room 22
6th floor
not enough room
to swing a dead badger

I place my fingertips
against the wall
over my bed
and flick my bandana
at the opposite wall
almost touches
the back of the closet
the other direction
is a snap
fingertips above my pillow
my bandana flicks out
between the bars
of my open prison window
what can contain me?
nothing
not a small hotel room
6 floors up
never
not even a city
as large as Paris
I’ll eat its rooftops
for breakfast

And just as I pull
up the leg of my shorts
and turn on the hot water
the SINKPISS police
knock down the door
and bust me for pollution
where is my beautiful
white-gloved loitering cop
when I need her the most?
What a way to end the day.

JIM HAYNES

back on the bed
leafing thru the books
I bought today
I linger over one called
Whitewashing Fences
a celebrational tribute
to Jim Haynes
who let me sing in his Arts Lab
in London in 1969
for absolutely free
and my sagging, drooping eyes
latch onto one final fact
as I fall asleep:
Jim Haynes lives right here in Paris
been here 25 years
out on the Tombe Issoire
I think I’ll drop by
tomorrow

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

it’s a good time to drop by
and see if Jim Haynes is still around
I knock on the door
he’s there with 5 or6
medium-aged creatures
preparing a dinner
for 100 tonight
I wash my hands at the sink
sit down behind a wood block
with a perfectly-sharp and thick
butcher knife
and begin to chop onions
(“Give me an onion”)

I chop about 30 onions
then I peel and chop a few gingers
and skin and slice a dozen cucumbers
all the time Jim is talking to someone
and sometimes it’s me and sometimes
I’m talking to someone else this goes on
for three hours and the onions give me time
to listen, to refrain from speaking
I didn’t have anything special in mind
I just dropped by to say hello
and Jim invites me to dinner.

LATER SUNDAY AFTERNOON

I like irony a little too much
from the Cité looking across
the river to the right bank
I see a strange skyline
to the left
the obelisque with the golden angel
perched atop
at Chatelet

to the right
the tower of St. Jacques
now shackled in scaffolding
under repair, towering
dominating, all boarded up
waiting for resurrection

and between the two
(the angel spindle
and the St. Jacques blockhouse)
I see the blue and silver
tubes of Beaubourg

where would we be without irony?

on my way back to Jim’s
for dinner at 8
(I must say I had a couple of
puffs on the pipe
before I left the hotel
and the cars in the street
tho they’re staying in their lanes
are testing out suddenly appearing
ramps and trampolines)
the digital clock
in the bus stop
says it’ll be a 12-minute wait
for the 38 Porte D’Orleans
and my first thought:
“These will be
the most terrifying 12 minutes
of my life.”

the bus stop
is the Palais de Justice
on the Ile de la Cité
between two rivers
the ramps and the trampolines
have suddenly stopped appearing
and the cars are just growling by
like disgruntled metallic dogs

now the clock says
6 minutes
nothing has happened
and I’m halfway there
on my way
to the most terrifying
12-minute bus ride in Paris

the bus stops
on Pont St Michel
beautiful girl
propped against the parapet
of the bridge leaning
on her bike
it’s Naomi, age 23,
40 years ago 1966,
long blonde hair
jeans, leaning forward
touching her bike
I keep staring
thru the bus window
the glass between us
is 20 feet thick
I keep staring
she sees me staring
she smiles
she waves, “Come here”
I can’t stop looking
she waves again
she wants me to get off the bus
and go with her

a boy and girl appear
from around the back
of the stopped bus
they trot up to the girl
with the bike
she’s smiling at them now
her head’s turned
and she’s listening to them.
they’re glad to be together
and I’m back in Paris, 2006

There is a generous man
and his name is Jim Haynes
he lives in an atelier
on the Tombe Issoire
he feeds 100 people
every Sunday night
he brings people together
that’s his theme
bringing people together

she peeks out
like an unnamed nocturnal animal
from eyesocket tunnels
from darkness to darkness
we’re not dealing with a machine here
this is a live human
with a history
and hopes
smashed and survived
what makes me think
I’m so special
as I dish out another mask
of left over freckles
pale skin
and wounded black crow hair
from my theatrical mind
I can’t do it
go thru the pain
of getting to know
another woman
intimately
not again

please?

thank you

I chopped the onions
I peeled the ginger
I sliced the cucumbers
it was a delicious dinner

I am very lucky
I experience unbelievable
moments of grace
I must be careful
I don’t want to start thinking
I’m a holy man

I walk from Jim’s house
out into the night
I feel I am glowing
that people can actually
see and feel a ball of light
around me as I pass by

I like it
when the ball of light
pops up
and covers me

but I love solitude more
4 days in Paris
is my limit
it’s time to go home
back to my cave.

May 7, 2006

I LOSE MY CAP

I lost my baseball cap
somewhere
between Jim’s house
and the hotel

the old grey Kimberly Festival cap

none of the young dudes of Paris
are wearing baseball-type caps
side ways or other ways
this time around

I was the only bum
in my Kimberly Festival

so I’m thinking
maybe caps have gone out of style

and I’m thinking
or maybe there’s a shortage
of baseball-type caps in Paris
they’re not being manufactured
anymore and all the young dudes
are looking at me with envy
and waiting for an opportunity
to snatch it

so I can assume
that the whole Sunday
evening dinner on Tombe Issoire
was a set-up
by Jim Haynes
and his beautiful woman
to keep me distracted
while some sly fingers
dipped into my knapsack
and plucked out my Kimberly
(the cap a gift from Phil
in Ontario last summer)
sad to see it go
perfect fit
Bear said I looked good in it
can’t beat that
I’ve never been to the Kimberly
Film Festival
neither has Phil

if Jim is wearing the Kimberly
the next time I see him
I’m going to have to say something
LOUD AND CLEAR

I might be the first bum
to wear a baseball cap
off the field in Europe
1976 or so
San Diego Padres
burnt brown and yellow
no adjustable strap in back
I wore a cap to keep the sun
out of my eyes, still do
a good rain break
for glasses too

I’ve been thru many baseball-type caps
major leagues
language institutes
film festivals

I’m going to be pisssd off
if Jim starts strutting around
in my old grey Kimberly

“you fucked my woman
once in London
and that was enough.
Now I’m getting tough
this baseball cap is the limit.”

PABLO PICASSO

before catching the train
I walk over to the Pablo Picasso museum
on Rue Thorigny

it used to be Silvia Monfort’s
Theatre Carré

“J’ai chanté là,”
I tell the postcard man
across the street
“Il ya trente ans,”
I say and join
the crowd at the gate
pay my 9½ euros
and make a bee line
for the toilets in back
that’s why I really came in here
to take a shit
I wander around after
up and down stairs
thru galleries filled
with Picasso’s drawings
half-blind
not really looking

my critical opinion
remains the same:
Picasso is hardly worth
three turds
and a long fart
he hangs decent wallpaper
but I wouldn’t let this guy
feed my cat

Rue Thorigny, May 8, 2006

TRAIN

I’m going home
back to my cave
right to the end
of my Paris trip

second beer goes down
smoothly, sundown sunshine
slanting thru the window
at every turn
we deal with human life
not flesh-covered machines
will I ever
get this thru my head?

sunlight flickers
thru the passing trees
at 300 miles per hour

it feels like we’re standing still

May 8, 2006

PARIS POSTSCRIPT
(Buddy Holly in Paris)

oh yeah
while I was under the Sign of the Harp
busking with the Lonesome Gamblers
I had a mint in my mouth
I never do this – have anything
in my mouth while singing
and all the time
I was sucking on it
flipping it around
from cheek to cheek
clamping it between
my front teeth
and grinning
so everybody could see
the white circular edge
blink and it’s gone
the mint’s back behind my lips
getting tucked away
behind a seasoned toothless gum
while I hit the next line
of Summer Days

the night before going to Paris
I saw a bio feature
on Buddy Holly
he was always singing
and chewing gum

I must have been impressed.

May 15, 2006

  

III. BICYCLE POEMS 2006

TWO APRIL POEMS

1. Bicycle in the Key of F Sharp

crosswind thru the spokes
singing thru them like strings
of a harp
in the key of F sharp
low note
jumping up an octave
with each swift slap
of wind
gets me singing
C sharps
and A sharps
and E naturals
as I go sailing
between a short-shooted wheat field
and a fine-tooth plowed field
waiting for seed

some people pay
good spiritual money
to have a choir like this
as a backing group

April 7, 2006

2. Prayer to the Young Shoots of Wheat on Farm Road East

may we have a perfect spring
(with just the right amount of rain)
and may we have a long, hot summer
that goes all the way to the first of November
and then tapers off into a mild autumn
that lingers until early January
at which time we might have a couple of nights
of frost, maybe a snowfall or two
which brings us around
to another perfect spring
(with just the right amount of rain)
followed by a long, hot summer
that goes all the way
south
and stays there
for a hundred years or so

Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006

THE FIRST REAL* BIKE POEMS OF 2006

scads of them

* when tears aren’t streaming from the corners of your eyes and down your cheeks as the north wind cries thru you

when the white-knuckle grip on your handlebar
can be seen thru your black wool gloves

and when you’re wearing so many clothes
you’re actually thinking of switching to a motorcycle

I came skimming around the corner
and the kid kicking the soccer ball
said, “I hate you.”
and I said, “That’s OK
I’ll just do my best
to stay out of your way.”
(and when I can’t
I’ll just have to get out
my marker pen
and give your fat lips
a thick, black moustache)

plum blossoms falling
now I know why
the old Japanese felt sad
it’s the beginning of the end

back from Switzerland
Bear heads for the garden
with shovel and gloves
I grab the bike
and head out into the Hesbaye

second conversation:
little girl screeching
at the edge of a lawn
as I slow and almost stop,
“I will waaash squibby!”
I shut my jaw
go, “Grr- ”
she screeches,
“I will squibby sendup!”
I say, “In that case
I’m sorry,”
and get the hell
out of there

coming back from Switzerland
last night we stopped
at the Luxembourg
autoroute gas pumps
and duty free stuff shop
booze, smokes.
“I’ll have 10 quarts of Jack Daniels
20 cartons of Marlboro lights
and 30 cases of Heineken
(that sort of thing)
(you can also get
teddy bears for you baby
and sex mags for
the autoroute maniacs

riding around on my bike
I never get to see their faces
– the drivers –
they’re just machines
with sky-reflected windshields
now I could see
what they looked like
I could see their faces
the warehouse was filled with them
running up and down the aisles
screaming, foaming at the mouth
grabbing and groping
and I could see what they wear
(and don’t wear, especially
from the waist down)
I saw their knees
I saw their feet
such horror has not been seen
since Stephen King retired

today I’m back on the road
with them, machines
with sky-reflected windshields
and solid steel doors
keep those knees hidden
keep those feet to yourself

I’ve always said it’s 50/50
asswipes vs those humans
who seem to have control
of their machines (more or less)

Jim Harrison says it’s 80/20
4/5s of the people do the right thing
the other fifth make a mess

the Dalai Lama said the cause
of all this is
IGNORANCE
I think the translator was cheating
what the D. Lama really said was
“Dumb assholes.”

entering and leaving
a large stage
of a darkened auditorium
full of curious people

there’s nothing like that walk

I come in carrying my guitar
trying to remember how Richie Havens
walked on stage with his guitar in 1972
and I pretty sure I’m not carrying mine
the same way

then the people start to clap
and I sit down

And I stay seated until it’s over
and time to leave
so I stand up
holding the guitar neck in my left hand
like a cooked goose
wire harmonica rack
hooked thru my middle finger
G harp hanging down, all blown out
I hold up my right hand
I’m not sure what I do with it
it’s not a wave
or a salute
it’s some kind of subtle gesture
I wouldn’t even recognize my self

I turn
and start walking
towards the dark slots
in the curtains
and the people
are still clapping
and that’s how
you leave a stage.

coming home (last lap)
my legs always tired
on the first day
of warm weather biking
and I’ve pedaled 20 km more
than my body was ready for
welcome to suffering spring

all poems were written, between Borlez, Les Waleffes, High Pont Hesbaye, Two Trees Road and Rue Vingt Ponts on April 25, 2006

SECOND REAL DAY OF BIKE RIDING

coming home
legs a little tired
like yesterday
I’m amazed
I kept in such good shape
over the winter
at least my quadriceps
are not bulging down
over my knees
like sacks of fat

riding between two worlds
on my left the autoroute
25 yards away thru the trees
a field of dark green
mustard plants
already knee-high
on my right
a crow glides
over the field
and dozens of tires
scream their highspeed notes
on the tarmac
the less said the better
tho now I’ve said too much
(too much, too much)
(where does it end?)
the birds warble
deep in the field
they’ve found a nest
of worms, the drivers
flash thru the trees
they don’t want to be late
for their depression lessons

Old Farm Road Bridge
over the Liege-Paris autoroute
April 26, 2005

but of course up here
on the bridge
it’s one big mess
for the ears, the eyes
the nose and the throat
(crow and wormbird forgotten)
the soles of my sneakers
swept by the roofs
of the west-bound traffic
I think I’ll go to Paris
next week

April 26, 2006

KNOCK TO BE-YUMS

“Knock to be-yums,”
growls an oldster
from the sidewalk
to his ancient wife
crossing the street

which is further proof
that the aliens have landed
and live out on rue Vingt Ponts

they brought along their old folks
and sometimes the old folks
can’t help blurting out
in the ancient tongue
of a far-flung galaxy
as nostalgia sweeps
thru the tubing
of their rusted brains

there is no reply to this geezer

I keep wheeling
I’m headed for the wheatfields
to talk to the birds

May 9, 2006

RAY CHARLES’ FACE

lured and lulled
down a cul-de-sac
in Flanders
where the wheat
is already 12-inches high
I saw Ray Charles’ face
in the mud
as I was pissing
on his shades

lost in the Haspengouw, May 10, 2006

MUD PUDDLES

and just when I think
I’ve seen it all
but for the shape and size
of the mud puddles
here comes one of those
murder monsters
behind the wheel
of a speedy death machine
to keep me
entertained

Lost Haiku Road, May 18, 2006

WAR ZONE

riding my bike
down these old familiar
farm roads
after a storm
like last night
with thunder-rattled skies
and lightening-blasted fields
is like driving
an old familiar jeep
thru a war zone
the day after the big battle
both sides wiped out
and all that’s left
are the fertile fields
pumping up vegetable-type plants
and an occasional mud puddle

Chemin des Parapluies, May 18, 2006

MONSTER CHICKENS

the cars headed this way
down the road
are in such a hurry
you’d think
they’re running from something

can’t be the huge black
thundercloud looming
over head
they’ve got roofs
and besides
I’m not scared of that

I am scared of the drivers tho
and their speed
and their recklessness

they must have seen a monster
farther down the road
something so horrible
every atom in their bodies
says, “FLEE!”

monster chickens
let’s go see

(later, back home)

I was lucky
to get out of there
in one piece

about twenty mud puddles
down the road
I saw the monster

I barely had time
to drag my bike
into the field
and out of its way

it was a huge ice cream truck
and it was devouring the road
and everything upon it
and spitting everything
left over out the back
in various flavors
of ice cream
I saw people’s faces
down in the chocolate
screaming to be released
I saw babies writhing around
in the pistachio
I saw car fenders
(the unlucky drivers)
being dissolved by vanilla

and right behind it
stood a 9-foot statue
of Shakespeare
wimpy beard and all
that someone had sculpted
out of a mud puddle
and it was muttering
dumb Shakespeare-type things
such as “Hark,
and york the pork!”

it’s the last time
I’ll call a crazy driver
a monster chicken

Thousand Pear Tree Road, May 29, 2006

WEIRD

to be biking around
and wearing hunting gloves
on the 29th of May
is just plain
weird

Onderdonk Drive (May 29, 2006)

FREAKY

to be biking around
on June 1st
NOT wearing gloves
and risking frostbite
is just plain
freaky

Farm Road South, June 1, 2006

RIDICULOUS

to be biking around
on Purple Potato Road
on June 2nd
wearing a t-shirt
a sweat shirt
a wool sweater
a long sleeve flannel shirt
my winter vest
and my yellow windbreaker
and remembering
it snowed in France last night
is just downright
ridiculous

to Dave, an Existential Poem

not every day, Dave
you don’t go thru all that
rigamarol
and ambiguous
stultiloquence
everyday
killing yourself
hanging
slicing
swallowing or whatever
it is
you do
when you have
the suicide blues

I go thru it
once
or more likely twice
a year
and I barely
have the strength
to pick myself up
from the floor
after each event

every day?
come on, Dave
let’s be fair
and we’ll make a deal

I’ll go thru it
bi-annually
and you go thru it
on weekends
and holidays
that should give you
plenty of time
between
to drink a few Guinness’s
swallow a few balls of honey
pluck a few notes
on your guitar
play a few games
of chess
with your computer
and entertain fantasies
of a few women
my wife included
if you wish
(tho you’ll have to check
with her on the details)
before you sink
back into the miasma
of bleak despair
totally hopeless
but animate existence
and absolutely
no reason
to carry on

on the Meuse River bike path
between Huy and Andennes
June 13, 2006

RIVER ROAD INCIDENT

biking along the old tow path
between Huy and Andenne
I meet a gang of yoots ¹
wearing only swim suits
muscled and crew-cutted
they stand with arms crossed
legs spread
blocking my path
and tell me
that for one hundred dollars
they’ll let me live
and continue on my way

“Are you crazy?” I shout
waving my arms at the river
upstream
downstream
“Do you see that water?
it’s mine
I own that river
and everything in it.”

I point to one of the yoot’s
naked chest
“See those drops?
that’s my water
and they’ll cost one hundred dollars
each and at a glance
I can see that you already
owe me 931 –
no, make that 932 –
hell, let’s call it even
one thousand bucks
and I’ll keep the change.”

the boys are backing off now
astounded and amazed
at how insane I am
they fear insanity
is contagious

I remount the bike
kick off in 1st gear
“And don’t forget,”
I shout back
as I pedal down the path
“Every time you jump in the river
it’ll cost you an automatic
135,000 dollars
so you better keep track
and have your money ready
when I come back this way
in a half hour.”

when I return
an hour later
all the yoots are gone
not even a wet footprint
I’ve got the gravel pits
to myself
I might as well strip
and go for a quick dip
nothing like a $135,000 dip
for free

June 14, 2006

¹ Joe Pesci’s pronunciation of “youths” in My Cousin Vinnie, directed by Jonathan Lynn in 1991, co-starring Marisa Tomei

HESBAYE BIKE POEMS 2006

I ride into a swarm
of bug soup
and they’re all over me
the little buggers
they don’t bite
or sting
or even tickle
they’re just THERE
all over me
my white t.shirt
my blue denim shirt
my beard
in my ears
up my nostrils
in my eyes
I’m covered with little buggers
they don’t die
they just ride along
then drop off

swarm after swarm

a parachute
glides overhead
above the wheat fields
man suspended below
with a motor
strapped to his back
leaning how to fly
another one, way up high
like a bug against the sky

Bug Stop Road, June 28, 2006

random molecules
of my body
(my shirt included)
are becoming black holes
stick your finger into one
and you’ll come out
at the other end
of the universe

swarms of black holes
appear on the lenses
of my glasses
I peek into one hole
it’s nighttime in there
they are not celebrating
the second day of summer
in there

June 28, 2006, Bovinistier Road

in there
they are performing
everyday chores
that would look like
miracles to us

in there
they breathe in waltz time
and let their eyes
do the dancing

June 28, 2006, steps of Bovinistier Church

in there
their eyes are not roasted
on atom-blast sunsets
in there
they don’t have machines
in there
they walk around on their tongues
and let their belly buttons
do the talking

Hay Bale Road, June 28, 2006

kids on bikes
circle around me
curious
I swerve down
down a tractor road
field of flax on one side
wheat on the other
roll over and stop
drink of water
pull out my notebook
here comes one of the boys
on his bike
rides past, shouts
“BONJOUR!”
pretends he’s not curious
about what I’m doing

he returns to his gang
down on the corner
mumbles and whispers
I hold up this notebook
hold up this page, shout,
“THIS IS WHAT I’M DOING KID!”

Hay Bale Road, June 28, 2006

dusty red sun
hanging on the horizon
light not strong enough
to cast a shadow

I’ve got it behind me now
in the left lens of my glasses
like a rear view mirror
a tiny red dot
mixing in with all
the bug black holes

Hay Bale Road, June 28, 2006

the things I see
the things I imagine
in there
they don’t have eyes
in there
they don’t have imaginations
I’m not even sure
they have a THEY
shapes of recognizable substance
thoughts with musical curves
and mathematical memories

I think they have love
in there
or some thing that looks
like the love we know
and maybe that’s all
they’ve got
unconditional love
with ghosts riding
around on bicycles
and warm pockets of air
and plenty of places
to take a piss
and maybe a couple
of mosquitoes

Thunder Road, June 28, 2006

the sun is down
just a blanket
of golden light
over everything

the bugs have stopped
black holing
and everybody’s going home
to get a bowl
of real soup

Thunder Road, June 28, 2006

I came home
in the dark
walking my bike
thru a swarm of fireflies

BIKE POEM (RACE)

a cluster of boys
on bikes
circling around me
teasing me
silently putting me on
this happens
occasionally
when I pass thru a village

I weave a path
thru the carrousel of bikes
one kid rolls along side
he has that “wanna race?”
look in his eyes
(he’s 10 years old – maybe)
“How far?” I say
he points to the light post
at the end of the street
I shake my head
point out across a dozen wheat fields
to a water tower
on the horizon
“Beyond that tower,” I say
“about ten miles or so
there’s this – ”
but the kid’s already gone
u-turned back
to join his buddies
and their circle
of village bikes
” – there’s this little chapel
full of Mother Mary
and grief
but sometimes if you sit there
with your eyes closed
long enough
you’ll feel someone
tugging at the cuff
of your jeans
Mother Mary does not always
have, spiritual intentions
of the purest flavor – ”

July 8, 2006

AROUND THE WORLD IN 2000 HOURS

out on the speed road
from Maastricht to Tongeren
the bike track a red-orange strip
adjacent to the highway
a large screen attached
to a radar gun flashes
a message as I approach it
“Your current speed is 21 kph”
I back off
stop pedaling
coast
the number drops to 20

at 21 kph
it would take me 2000 hours
to bike around the world
but I could take another week
or two and coast
around the world
with a lot less effort
just sit back and float
thru the various scenes
mother nature and her strange
human cargo have shaped
for all of us
over Swiss Alp mountains of molehills
across Parisian rivers
alongside number 38 buses
under the surface of streets
thru tunnels of love
around the corner
and into a mirror maze

I hear a car
coming up from behind
fast
from the corner of my eye
I catch a last glimpse
of the flashing sign
the number shifts to 120 kph
the car blasts past
leaving me with a cloud of dust
and a temporarly-shattered brain

so many drivers
are in a hurry
they want to be the first
to get around the world
or maybe they just want
to get home
and get a bottle of wine
whiskey, rum or whatever
under their belts
before they have to face the fact
that today was another total bust
best not contemplated

July 12, 2006

BIKE POEM (AMERICAN)

walking my bike along
Deep Rut Dirt Road
the other day
talking to the old boy
with the dog
hearing myself say,
“No, I’m from California.”

when did I stop being
an American?

a long time ago

almost 40 years now

Two Trees Road, July 17, 2006

BIKE POEM (MY BODY)

the only attractive parts
of my body that remain
are my well-tanned
muscular forearms

the rest of me
is white and horrible
sagging gut
and legs that look like
a plucked free-range
rooster’s

so I roll up my sleeves
and keep pumping

Two Trees Road, July 17, 2006

HESBAYE COWBOY

I can’t ride a horse
but I can ride a bike

Hesbaye cowboy
what’re y’doin’?

I bless the barley
I pray for the wheat
I tell the corn
to grow up sweet

I squeak my door
with the partridge
I coo with the dove
I hoot with the owl
we hoot about love

RUE DE BLUES

this is where I came
2 years ago
to nest down
in the wheat
eat my lunch
puff my pipe
and watch the sun set

now it’s a field
of green corn
higher than my head
and smelling
like a forest of goats

Rue de Blues, August 1, 2006

MIRACLE BOMB

I’m packing around
a $300 camera
on the back
of $150 bike

also in Derroll’s
old canvas painters’ bag:
this 85 cent notebook
I picked up in Canada
and a plastic flask
of green shampoo
I just bought
in a supermarket
along with 2 bottles
of Spa water
and a light bulb tube
and 4 Ultimate
Energizer batteries
plus (been in here a long time)
a red terry cloth sack
with a zipper
containing
a Swiss pocket knife
a small white plastic
canister (used for film
negatives) half full
of toothpicks (broken
in two) a roll of
medical tape
a wooden clothespin
a small phial
of Systane eyewash
(expired in 2003)
an emergency notebook
golden yellow
as wide as my clothespin
as long as my pocket knife
a short green pen
for emergency writing
in the small notebook
(not quite out of ink)
3 thin jewelers screwdrivers
to fix my glasses (in case)
2 small Allen wrenches
one stubby socket wrench
with 8 different sizes
for various nuts and bolts
plus one third
of a roll of peppermints
also in the canvas bag:
a thin wool
light blue
knit cap
a blue and white
Mexican bandana
4 pens (including
this one) long
with yellow and black stripes
a box of kitchen matches
(half full)
3 sealed sacks
of eyeglass wipers
containing moist papers
a worn plastic CD sack
from Concerto
in Amsterdam
containing a flat roll
of toilet paper
and an age-worn wash cloth
a bright blue plastic covered
steel loop chain
for locking my bike (with key)
a spare blinking
battery powered red light
for the back of my bike
and one rusted
Marine Band harmonica
in the key of D
not to mention
the blue denim shirt
that could be on my back
and not counting
what’s in the 4 pockets
of my jeans
which I don’t feel like
talking about right now

if a miracle bomb
should fall
and explode
and wipe out
everything
and everyone
on the earth but me
these would be my entire
worldly possessions

Ginsberg Woods, July 20, 2006

GINSBERG WOODS

Kerouac Forest
has been around
for a couple of years

and Ginsberg Woods
was dreamed up today

and that’s it
I’m not turning the Hesbaye
into a beat memorial

there will be no
Burroughs Roman Burial Mounds

there will be no
Ferlinghetti Creeks
or Neal Cassady Speedways
or Gary Snyder Zen Mountain Molehills

tho I’m thinking about
starting a late Baroque
section over there between
The Art of the Fugue Footpath
and Water Music Ravine

Leg Knee Road, July 20, 2006

HESBAYE HAIKU
(in which the tradition of Japanese-flavored brevity gets tossed out the window)

twilight
cool and damp
in the wheatfield village
the husky aroma
of freshly-thrashed wheat
hanging in the air
like thick ropes
of sweating animal sperm

and here comes
an ice cream truck
speaker on top
blasting a taped tune
on a warped cassette:
“jingle bells ”

Limont, July 28, 2006

THE HANDS OF THE ANGELS

blinding sunlight
in my eyes
the wind whipping the bill
ready to rip the cap
off my head
cars whizzing by
in both lanes
some of them
only inches away
while the cobbles stones
bounce up under my tires
like fat frogs
in army helmets
and suddenly and momentarily
I am in the hands of the angels

the angels can handle
more than a moment
take a look at those huge crates
being unloaded down
at the docks, from ships
that have sailed
the seventeen seas
all those crates
are packed with photographs
portraits of people
long dead
a century ago
or more
and notice the writing
on the sides of the crates
stencil-mopped black:
“all in the hands of the angels”

the wind is sculpting
black clouds
on the horizon
huge translucent blobs
with god’s own
glorious whiskers
poking thru

deep twilight
I approach the Hundred Acre Wood
men with shotguns
running around
down there
shouting curses
at rabbits

I freewheel down
the road
into the forest
and into the hands of the angels

a rabbit comes
barreling down the road
straight at me
peels off to one side
at the last microsecond
held in the hands
of the angels

Derroll’s Corner (Dommartin) August 1, 2006

PSYCHOTHERAPY ROAD

kids at the edge
of a village
riding bikes
circling around
staring at me
I say, “Bonjour,”
silence
I might as well have said
“fuck you” in Chinese

they’ve all seen me before
they all think I’m crazy
if they could see into my head
they’d stop smirking
and start screaming
and racing their bikes home
like baby deer
in a lightning storm

“It’s OK, boys,
I’ve just had a little bit
too much locoweed today.”

they would drop their bikes
in their barns
and never ride them again

“Don’t worry, boys,
I’ve got everything
under control
see this pheasant feather
sticking out of my bell?
it tells me everything
I need to know
except when it flies away.”

the boys would scream
and run to their rooms
and hide under their beds
and never come out
for the rest of their lives

this is not what I had in mind
when I started out today

Psychotherapy Road
(Horion Hozemont) August 3, 2006

FARM ROAD SOUTH

entrance to Farm Road South
old boy out in front of his house
where 4 iron grills
cover a drainage ditch
that crosses the road

he’s messing around
with the heavy grills
banging them with a hammer and chisel
“they forgot to put them
back in the right place
cars go over all night
whomp
whomp
keep me awake,”

I lent a sympathetic ear
the hammer and chisels
were useless
just a way to knock out
his frustration
there was nothing I could do
to help

as I turned to ride away
he said, “Mer-theeee!,”
and I saw from the corner of my eye
his upper dentures
squirt out of his mouth
bounce off the grill
slither between the bars
and drop down into the drainage ditch
like a pink, slimy slug

I pretended not to see
and I kept on pedaling
he wasn’t going to get
any help from me there either
not even a sympathetic ear
for his toothless mouth

Farm Road South, August 7, 2006

WEIRD WEATHER 1 ( BIKE POEM)

refrigerated ride
as my t-shirt grows
damp with sweat
and the north wind
sticks his snout
in my belly
and gives me
a frozen blow job

August 9, 2006 (Hesbaye)

WEIRD WEATHER 2 (Bike Poem)

it’s raining
polar ice caps

Aeolian Road, August 11, 2006

WEIRD WEATHER 3 (Bike Poem)

crossing under the powerlines
electrified drops of rain
bounce off
my shoulders
and sizzle
in my ears

Old Farm Road, August 11, 2006

WEIRD WEATHER 4

one lone harvester
out in the field
kicking up a cloud of dust
trying to reap
the rain-soaked
weather-bent wheat
3 weeks too late

they’ll be eating
pumpkin pie
before they’ll bake
their first loaf
of bread

GA Road, August 19, 200

MORE WEIRD WEATHER (NICOTINE JUNKIES)

people standing outside
their house
smoking
in the rain

they’ve had 25
straight days
and nights of deluge
and they can’t wait a minute more
for the next cigarette
after hearing
the weather report
on the radio
that said we can expect
a steady downpour
for the next 2,999 years

that’s much too long
between hits
for these nicotine junkies

August 25, 2006

DRY LEAF

a dry leaf
chases me down the road
tumbles alongside
for a few seconds
(“Hello, dry leaf”)
then tumbles ahead
and out of sight

the west wind
at our backs
pushing both of us
into the last days of summer

Sept. 15, 2006

CYCLISTS

we’re all out here
alone
inside our bike bubbles
of personal silence
pedaling away
heading out
coming home
just running around

some drunk
some pumped on cocaine
some stoned
some just biking off the blues

(plus various combination
of the above)

some old
some young
some so young
they think they’re immortal

mostly male
a few female
and most of them
try to look like men
they pass me by
SNAP
in their bi-sexual spandex
and their stargate skid-lids

some are crazy
some are sane
and some can’t wait
to take this road
all the way
to the end
where it turns
into pain

somewhere in the western world, Sept. 21, 2006

DON’T GO DOWN THAT ROAD

don’t go down that road
it leads to a pack
of snarling beasts
in a circle
around the fat bald man
who passes out
the Prizes of Peace

some get it
some don’t

“Thou shalt have peace
thou shalt not”

don’t go thru that door
it leads to where they’re
whipping potato salad babies
into shape
running them thru the ropes
teaching them whore love
and expensive passion
while in the distance
and English explorer
stands on a snowy
mountain top
with an erect penis
like a 9-inch frankfuter
that projects like a telescope
thru which he (one-eyed)
peers at the babes
and wonders how soon
they’ll grow up to be
teeny bopping Grateful Dead groupies

don’t go thru that window
there’s traps on the other side
baited with dice
and mechanical mice
baited with breath
and tongues of kisses
premonitions of death
and other near-misses

don’t go down that path
it’s blunt and blind
it’s full of dead-end sacks
it’s a sucker of wrath
a ticker of time
a tricker of tracks

don’t go thru that door
it leads into miserable meatpie-hood
to a wolf-infested Grimm Brothers’ woods
where under a dome
the mushroom mainliners
gnaw on the bones
the coal-black bones
of the one-armed forty-niners

don’t go thru the Ragmop
Automated Milking Machine

don’t go thru the wrist-slap
family dinner scene

don’t go thru the mind-bending
empty mailbox view

don’t go mainline junkie
with only a chunk
of tobacco to chew

don’t go thru the motions
of a sad-face smile
and don’t even think of trying
the 10-prong walker for juveniles

don’t go near the water
when the mermaids swim to shore
and sing out your name
and show you how to play
their games of peace
and war

don’t go down that road
it leads to a snarling dog
on the end of a leash
attached to man
who says, “all women are freaks”

it leads to Moses and Abraham
and many biblical verses
it leads to the preacher who speaks
in obvious religious curses

it leads to where the man
steps out of a van
points a gun
and shoots you completely dead
and you only have time to say, “Shit!”
and touch a strange part of your head

you only have time to forget
to breath as you take
another gulp of air
you only have time
to think of Jeannie
the babe with the light brown hair

so don’t go down that road
unless you’re feeling mean
and couldn’t care less
about the mess
when the lady with roses
starts to scream

they’re taking away
more than her flowers
they’re taking away her smile
and her passions minute by minute
her love dreams hour by hour

they’re giving her a scrape job
without ether or novocaine
it’s just a slice in the pie of life
down in the factories of pain

where the Land of Magic is erased
and all you have left in the end
is a beat-up, empty face
and a memory of an empty-handed friend

somewhere in the western world,
Sept.21, 2006

  

IV. DORIS, PAMELA,
HELMINA, JAMES
AND OTHER MEMORIES
I CANNOT LEAVE BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD

PEACEFUL PASSING

they say (of a man
who died in his sleep)
he had a peaceful passing

“the best way to go”

how do they know?

maybe he was trapped
in a nightmare
of a multitude of dimensions
too horrible to imagine

or maybe he was simply
inside a dream,
dreaming he was awake,
in which he fell to sleep
and dreamed he was climbing
a vertical stone wall
naked, with greased fingertips
with ten thousand rats
scampering up the wall
behind him
their teeth snapping
at his balls
getting ready to rip
them off and turn them
into strings of raw meat
at which point
he awoke
back into the first dream
and thought he was awake
and looked into a mirror
and saw that the hungry rats
had done a complete job
on his entire body

but all that was tolerable

he didn’t freak out
and give up the ghost
until the man in the mirror
began doing somersaults
spinning faster and faster
until he turned into a glazed do-nut
which was about the time
the man outside the mirror
felt two gigantic fat fingers
pluck him up
and dunk him in a cup
of boiling hot coffee

[ March 26, 2006 ]

ALBATROSS
(WHY THE ANCIENT MARINER SHOT THE ALBATROSS)

and why did I shoot the pecker of wood?
I already knew I was going to hell
for kicking the cows
in the bags
after milking
when they disobeyed my whims
and were slow leaving the barn

and now I stood with the dead
but warm body of a woodpecker
in one hand
and a BB gun in the other
it was a freak shot
right thru the head
from the front porch
to the telephone pole
a drop of blood or two
and a huge hole in my soul
and I promised the bird
I would never do it again

tho years later
in the U.S. Forest Service
at dusk we stood around
the back of a pick up
shooting at bats
(impossible to hit
by the way they flit)
and I grabbed a .22
pointed it at the sky
pulled the trigger
and a dead bat fell at my feet
shot right thru the head
the fire crew was awed
called me a crack marksman
the best shot in the entire
Pacific Northwest
and all I could think of
is how I kept killing animals
even when I didn’t want to
even when it was impossible

I haven’t touched a gun
since that day
I’m too good
I pull a trigger
and dead animals fall out of the sky

you do that more than twice
in your life and your life
will get messed up beyond recognition

[ March 26, 2006 ]

TIME

a few minutes ago
it was
3 seconds
past 1:02 am
of May 4, 2006

and we had these numbers
lined up :
01.02.03.04.05.06

we’ll have to wait a hundred years
for this one to come around again

THE WEST WIND BREEDS FANTASIES OF A MOST BIZARRE CHARM

in loving memory of Pamela Coffee, wherever you may be (dead or alive) these 50 (give or take) years later

1.
the wind is blowing so hard from the west
it’s boosting boats
out of the water
and onto the coast of France
onto the mainland
and in some cases
blowing them clear across France
and into Belgium

one just landed
next to me in a wheatfield
it’s the U.S.S. Nautilus
the first atomic sub
I didn’t know it had been sunk
dredged from its depths
and rocketed thru the air
to this wheatfield

the hatch opens
a guy steps out
it’s Sgt. Coffee
recruiting officer
for the U.S. Navy
I dated his daughter in high school
I almost fucked her
he was afraid of that
me too

he salutes
steps down the ladder
shakes my hand and says,
“Want to join the Navy?”

2.
the west wind is blowing so hard
the vanes on the windmills
are spinning around
like air-conditioning fans
too fast to see

one breaks loose
and comes tri-podding my way
like a rogue UFO
jamming the tips
of its vanes
in the mud
as it rolls

it stops beside me
a hatch opens
a small man
(the illegitimate child of Pam and I
45 years ago)
steps out
it’s plain to see
he’s an idiot
he says, “I’m one of the guys
who lives inside the vanes
and on calm days
I have to run up and down
inside the vane
to keep the aeolian turning

Carrot Stop, May 24, 2006

3.
the west wind is blowing so hard today
I have to walk my bike
DOWNHILL into a header

4.
the west wind is blowing so hard
that it blows my bike
off the road
and we go skimming sideways
across green wheatfields
where cows are turning cartwheels
and a stone church steeple
bends over like rubber
and kisses its cross tip
to the top of a gravestone

5.
the wind whips so violently
thru the telephone wires
that it stirs up
ancient conversations

“Hi there, this is Sgt. Coffee
former crewmate of the U.S.S, Nautilus
now recruiting agent for the U.S.N.
does anybody in Belgium
want to join the U.S. Navy?”

Les Waleffes, May 24, 2006

6.
Sgt. Coffee must be long
in his grave by now
maybe Pamela too
they’re dropping like flies
all around me
it’s getting harder to find
a beautiful
sexy
intelligent
chick
over 65
these days

7.
the wind peels away
the layers of the landscape
and first you get leather
tanned, age-stretched hides
from all the humans
who fell and died
on this field
(wars, feuds, accidents)
in the past million years

then the hides blow away
and you get the bones
with a lot of dead teeth
scattered around
millions of dead teeth

and the wind blows the bones
and teeth away
and all you have left
are the screams
and the howls
and the wailings
and the weepings
that have been blocked up here
forever

some days I wish the wind
wouldn’t blow so hard

Farm Road East, May 24, 2006

HELMINA

skinny old baldy
slides out of a rented van
shouts back inside
“God damn it, Helmina!
If they don’t have that kind of water
I’ll get you another!”

he slams the door
limps away
shouting
“Fuck you, Helmina!”

on the edge of Reims, France,
June 18, 2006

RESPONSIBILTÉ

for Jean-Baptiste

the guy who hammered in the nails
what a responsibility

the girl who looked
Hitler in the eye
and told him to go
fuck himself

the doctor who climbed
the Eiffel Tower
and held up a tiny pill
between his fingers
and declared,
“I have just discovered
the secret of birth control.”

quelle responsabilité

LEAVES DANCE IN THE SPACES BETWEEN US
for James Emanuel

newly-mets
lovers
close companions
walk thru the park
joined
side by side
holding hands
arms around shoulders
around waists

other partners
walk apart
they seem to be married
to each other’s ghost
by accident
it’s been far too long
since they’ve touched

kids run up
and down
the alleyways
between them

sometimes no kids
just the space
with the wind
blowing back
and forth
scattering leaves

maybe they’ve fallen
for the illusion of
WE’RE GOING TO LIVE
FOREVER

June 26, 2006, waking from a dream of James Emanuel whom I met a couple of days ago in Namur and whose poems I was reading this morning before going to sleep. This poem is not about James tho I see the scene in Paris (Jardin des Tuileries) and I hear the sounds of French in the air along with the rustling of the leaves

DORIS”S THOUGHTS OF ME
ON THE EVENING OF JULY 6, 2006
AFTER RETURNING HOME FROM A CHINESE DINNER

did you notice?
the only time he stopped
moving around
is when we listened
to the blues

he sure is a good looking fellow
I’d like to hop into bed
with him – hop
like a rabbit

oh no – he can’t sing
he has a terrible voice
and that damned harmonica
he keeps playing
that damned harmonica
that he doesn’t know
to play

oh no – he’s going
to sing another song
I asked for only one

my 14-year old boy
could do a better impression
of Chuck Berry
than that

he sure is vain
he doesn’t look in the mirror
and he brags about it

but he’s good to Marie Claire
you can see that he really
really loves her

he said I looked beautiful
when I got dressed up
for the Chinese dinner
or at least
that’s what I think he said
I’m amazed that he even noticed

he was attracted to my red sequin shoes
he said it several times
“red spangled shoes”

I guess that’s because
he’s always looking down

and always moving around
looking for something
he lost a long time ago
and he can’t remember
what it was

maybe he’s a nomad
and doesn’t know it

he took us on a bike ride
and we went down a road
he called “Lost Haiku Road”
is that what he lost?
a haiku?
what’s a haiku?
sounds like a Japanese disease

all those books
on the shelves
all around him
he must think I’m stupid

but I’m not
and he knows it

if he keeps looking
at me like that
thinking I’m stupid
or something
then I’ll hit him
over the head
with my Castle Story
“I lived with
Chris de Burgh’s Father
and Mother in a castle
in Ireland
for a long time
and Chris de Burghe
is REALLY famous.”

I actually love
cute disabled
white American men
who want to win an Oscar

seriously tho –
if I could figure out
his weird sense of humor
I’d have to say
that he is the most intelligent
most amazing man
I’ve ever met

actually

except Prince Edouard

RED JAG SLAPSTICK
for Prince Edouarde and Doris

Miles Davis
steps out of his private jet
and into a red jag
and drives away

years later
I arrive by jet
for the Montreux festival
I step out of the plane
get behind the wheel of the Jag
(roll down the roof
to make room for my guitar)
I fire up the Jag
drop it into low
pop the clutch
hit the gas
and drive straight
into a luggage truck

July 7, 2006

DRIVING LESSON NUMBER ONE

I used to crank up
the old tractor
and drive it up
the country road
a mile or two
to see my friend Jim
on a hot afternoon

too much trouble
to climb the hill
and fire up the Chevy pick up
(keys always in the ignition)
and there was no question
about taking my uncle’s
brand new 1957 Ford Fairlane
two-tone, white wall jerk mobile
(the keys always in my uncle’s pocket
and don’t even think about
sitting behind the wheel)

(and the ways in which my uncle
discouraged me from fooling around
with his privacies
is a story for another day)

I was 15
the following year
I was driving the pick-up
into town, to school

a week after graduation
I totaled my 1950 Ford
at 120 miles per hour
unbanked left turn
flipped it twice
rolled it about seven
times, dug a ditch
in the freshly-plowed
prune orchard
and came to rest
up against a tree
upsidedown

and some people think
I can’t drive

DRIVING LESSON NUMBER TWO

1960 San Francisco
a speeding English sports car
took me out
one night on Lake Street
I was sliding into the street
at 15 mph
he was going 115
over the hump
headlights and all
and smacked into the driver’s post
just behind my head

the cops came
I was driving with an expired license
I didn’t bother
getting it renewed

I haven’t sat behind the wheel
of a moving car
since

MISERABLE CRITTERS

Jimbo
my black and white
wild cat
trotting up the wood chip
path, the concrete
steps ahead of me
in the dark
in his furry golf pants
and lemur tail
I say, “You poor miserable
critter walking down
among the snails and slugs,”

and then I look up
and see god peeking out
from behind a half moon
and he smiles
and whispers,
“Poor miserable critter
yourself.”

Farm Road West, Sept. 27, 2006

IT

this is it

it’s not around
the next turn
or over
the next hill

it’s right here
right now
this is it

I don’t know why
but the thought
makes me so fucking depressed

Haspengouw 157, July 10, 2006

NOTHING IS CLOSE TO NOTHING

what? you’re asking me
to pass that off as a tooth of wisdom?

it does create a certain perplexity

it creates a huge vacuum

but at least it’s uncontestable

incontestable

that too

all nonsense is incontestable

but you have to admit
that it has a definite flavor
of infinite knowledge

“nothing is close to nothing?”
it’s garbage
and don’t give me that ragmop
about “nothing”
being separated
from “nothing”
by only 3 words
I’m way beyond that

I count 8 letters

3 words, 8 letters
who cares?
they’re separated
by a bag of eels
and high-flying jumbo jets
spilling thousands
of parachuters
from their doors

it’s a charming conunudrum tho

look, I got a 4.0 BA
in the History of Philosophy
a masters in aesthetics
with a minor in logic
and a black belt in metaphysics
and your cute conundrum
doesn’t speak
any language I know
I also know that your precious
gold tooth
ain’t gonna raise no eyebrows
around the faculty coffee table
and it sure as shit
ain’t gonna raise
any helium balloons
at the knight’s last round table
in the pentagon

but it has a particular VIBRATION
if there were any hippies here
from the 60s tonight
they’d’ve picked up on the buzz
and they’d be saying things
like “Far out!” and “Groovy!”

(maybe he’s right
I know he is
he’s COMPLETLY correct)
TRUTH IS NEVER CLOSE TO THE TRUTH

“NOTHING!”

TIME

“NEVER!”

FAR OUT

“”FAR OUT YOURSELF!”

in the same way
SINCE is never close
to ALMOST

but not quite

“BUT ALMOST!'”

July 14, 2006

TRIVIAL THINGS

I used to be impressed
by what I now consider
trivial things
bow ties and buttons
baseball caps and cards
buicks and brass horns

crewcuts and white suede shoes
buttondown shirts and shocking news
the commies are coming
we’re all gonna die
they’re gonna drop the bomb
we’re all gonna fry

now I’m impressed
by what I then called
trivial things

the sun
the moon
the stars
the sky

the sun
the moon
the stars
the sky

I say them twice
so they won’t go unnoticed
I say them again

the SUN
at sunset see the ring of fire
the exploding SUN
it doesn’t sleep
even on cold days

the pale half MOON
in the afternoon sky

the STARS bending their light
around thousands
of upraised thumbs

the SKY stretching out
cracking open
then healed by a flash
of lightning
and a clap of thunder

SUSAN SONTAG

Susan Sontag says
when you see a beautiful
landscape you see it
as a photograph

I disagree

you can’t see the wind
and I’m sure not
looking around any frames
right now

Rue de Blues, Aug. 1, 2006

“JACK KEROUAC ”

Jack Kerouac never
invented a better
fictional name for himself
than “Jack Kerouac”
tho he tried

Sal Paradise? Who’s that?
Some beachcomber
in a seersucker Hawaiian shirt
which doesn’t quite cover
the bulge in his gut
as he nails the sign
VACANCY
back to the post
with the arrow
pointing to
the Shangri-La Motel

Leo Percepied? Why didn’t
he just come out and say
EARWIG. Call him EARWIG
and get it over with.
Pierced feet belong to the Indians
and Leo belongs to Peggy
and if you ever meet Peggy
you’ll know why she calls him
EARWIG

Ray Smith? Now there’s a clever
moniker. Shove him in
with the groceries
and send him home
to watch TV.

And of course
Jack wanted to boil
all these names down
into one and call the pot
JACK DULOUZ

could you say that again?

Deloose?
De Louse?
Dee-louse?
Dee-lose?
toss it a scrambled egg
and maybe the dog’ll eat it
Doolooz stew

but some of the others
didn’t get off easy either

Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassidy, On the Road)
What was that all about?
Rebel without a Cause
meets Sherlock Holmes’
arch enemy?

and I’m sure Allan Ginsberg
has had a few words to say
about Irwin Gardens
and the imaginary monopoly game
playing in Jack’s head
when he tossed that one out

“Jack Kerouac”

the best name of them all

can’t beat “Jack Kerouac”

so why did he keep changing it
from book to book?

cause he was writing fiction

and he didn’t like the idea
of a becoming a fictional character

I don’t mind

that’s where I’m one up
on Jack Kerouac
I’ve known for years
that I’m a fictional character

and I like it

Old Farm Road in the rain, May 20, 2006

LIEGE CITY TALK

“Coo’tree swee.”
(an old boy at a bus stop
each of his words
smelling of stale
cigar fumes)

“The squid and the whale.”
(woman sitting across
the table from ne
at the coffee bar
wearing dragonfly
earrings)

“Missus see alla teebo.”
(overheard while waiting
in the check out line at FNAC)

“That’s really a quelque chose.”
(that was me, mumbling
at a shop window
my voice bouncing
back from the glass
as I stared at a pair
of mannequins wearing
silver thermal underwear
and don’t ask me who I was talking to)

“BAA TA TA . . . BA-BAAA-TA TAA.”
(guy on a cellphone
on the street
8 floors below)

“we weh we nuh.”
(also from the balcony
8 floors above
heard thru the motor
rumble of traffic
a couple of pedestrians
waiting for the light
to change)

“chut . . . . . ”
(two sidewalk strollers
heard momentarily
from the open window
of a passing car)

August 2, 2006

RODEO
for James Emanuel

I was never a rodeo rider
like you
the closest I ever came
was when we’d drive down
to the city
to see the Grand National
at the Cow Palace

they had everything
bull riding
bull dogging
calf roping
bronco busting

back on the ranch
after a visit to the city
one year
I decided I’d become
a bull dogger

I practiced
on a 6-month old steer

I’d run him around pen
get him excited
then jump on his neck
and drag him to the ground

this was about the time
he was getting stronger
everyday

one day I closed the gate
but forgot to slide
the heavy bar
back into place

I jumped on Curly
grabbed him around the neck
and he took off

he dragged me across the pen
butted thru the gate
then dragged me down the hill
thru the pasture
and thru a barbed wire fence

slashed my left hand
wide open
in the web
between the thumb
and the first finger

wrapped my hand in a rag
didn’t say boo to nobody
no stitches

I still have the scar
a small half moon
that’s almost faded
into my sun-baked hand

I didn’t think of it then
as an initiation
but I do now

passage into manhood

I didn’t have a shaman
or a medicine man
or a witch doctor
but Curly the steer
did a pretty good job

I know, James, you know
that these days
you take your initiations
where you can find them

churchyard cemetery of Jenneffe,
August 5, 2006

POSTSCRIPT to RODEO

went into a cemetery
to eat lunch
and maybe write a poem

walked in
said to all the graves,
“Hello there, Dead.”

sat down
ate my lunch
wrote a poem
and the dead
kept on being dead

Aug. 6, 2006

OUTLAWED DREAMS

nobody should have
the kind of dreams
I’ve been having
innocent people
down on the ground
whimpering
in heartbreak pain
as their killer
keeps machine-gunning them
in the head
these kinds of dreams
should be outlawed

August 16, 2006

SONOMA COUNTY COWBOY YOUTH

I milked the cows
separated the cream
slopped the hogs
dreamed a dream
of a dream
of a dream

PRAYER (LAST SUNSET OF SUMMER)

come, sun
into my head
fill it with shine
fill it with hot fingers
from the last day
of summer
stuff it full
of atomic flames
that will keep
my skull bones
warm all winter

September 21, 2006

WHAT THE FUCK?

do I really know
what the fuck is
going on?

by doubting, I do

Les Waleffes (altitude : 157.8m)
Sept. 30, 2006

FROG LIGHT

lean my bike
up against a bridge rail
and the white blinking light
on the handlebar
pops off
like a startled frog
and plops into the canal
below

it lies on its back
floating on the water
blinking

and it blinks

I come back
a half hour later
it’s still there
under the bridge

blinking

Amsterdam, Nov. 14, 2006

INCIDENT AT OWL CREEK BICYCLE RACK

1. THE EVENT

I pull into the supermarket parking lot
roll the front tire of my bike
into the rack, two girls sitting
on the ledge next to me, watching
sexy clothes, make up
12-13 years old
“Hey, Monsieur!”

at first I don’t even realize
they’re talking to me
“Hey monsieur?”

“Oui” (I’m still reluctant to speak)
“Comment ca va?”

“Bien.”
“Hey monsieur?”

“Oui.”
“C’est le bon temps aujourd’hui.”

“C’est froid la bas,” I say
pulling my bike out of the rack
I’m not lingering in this pocket
of danger another minute

”Hey, Monsieur?”

“Oui.”
Tu fumes?” (meaning: do I smoke
grass or hash) (or maybe asking me
if I’m stoned)

“Non.” (tho it doesn’t sound
too convincing to my stoned ears)

I jump on my bike
can’t get out of the parking lot
fast enough

they sussed me out
the two girls
one thin and dark,
other blonde and chubby
they spotted me
a stone head freak

I’m not as invisible as I thought

then I remember
their last words
the blond girl
pointing a finger
at her nostril
saying. “Parce que . . . ”

that was it
they sniffed me out
they could smell the cannabis smoke
on my clothes

I’m not going back
to the supermarket
near the high school
until sometime next century

2. ALTERNATE SCENE (Prelude to Owl Creek Bridge)

“Hey, Monsieur?”
“Oui?”
“Tu fumes?”
“Meet me down on the Dreve
in a half an hour.”

and a half hour later
I’m dealing dope
to two Belgian jailbait
who want to see if it’s true
all the things they say
about pedolphiles
ten grams of purple locoweed
at ten bucks a gram

and three hours later
the girls have dropped by the house
and brought along 5 more girlfriends
and they’re all lying around
in string bikinis
slouched out on the couch
in our straw chairs
one’s got her feet on the table
painting her toenails
and Bear’s slaving in the kitchen
to keep them all fed
and we’re all so stoned
we can’t remember
our own names
and I’m sitting hunched up
in a corner thinking
I can see the end
of this huge mistake:
me swinging free
on the end of a rope
off Owl Creek Bridge

muttering : “Jesus Christ!
how did I get into this mess?”

and the thin dark girl says,
“Don’t worry about us
we’re not underage
we’re almost FOURTEEN!”

November 29, 2006

LOCOWEED

if I smoke a puff
of locoweed
and stumble
don’t worry
the path
is just a little wider
than usual

today

LOCOWEED CODA

riding along
for a couple of hours
pause astride the bike
in a sheltered spot
fire up the pipe
I’ve already loaded
at home
take a couple of puffs
pedal on
about 10 minutes
later I start thinking
I would mind getting high
right about now
might be a good idea
to stop right here
and take a couple
of tokes on the pipe
and get things started

then two things happen
at the same time

my bike starts to float
and my mind starts humming
(that’s one thing)

and I remember
(poke me with a pig snout)
that I’ve already toked
and if I get any higher
I’ll have to call in
a shaman to get me down
out of this tree
which I seem to have climbed
with my eyes closed
it could be a cherry tree
but it doesn’t have any cherries
and each branch
is a farm road
that shoots off
in different direction
each one curving off
and dipping and rising
into delightful distances

so I head for the sun
which is just above
the bill of my cap
and the next time I blink
the sun’s behind me
and I’m coasting
into my shadow
and there’s a hare
a huge brown
Belgian hare
almost as big
as a kangaroo
bounding away
thru the dirt
of a beet root field
kicking up clouds
of dust that get
smaller and smaller
until they become
puffs of dust
and I look and look
until I can’t stand
to look anymore
because the puffs
are becoming tiny
vaporous people
who seem to be
crying out
as they disintegrate
in the wind :
“Coo – coo – roo
raw – roo – too
PLOW!”
this is not a concert
for the ears of an innocent
child such as I
but by then
I’m headed back into the sun
which is playing
hide and seek
with the bill of my cap
and by now I’m on my 6th
or 7th branch road
and the sun is starting
to revolve around the earth
you can see it
down in the deep forest
below the road
where doors are opening
on squeaking hinges
this is where the peasants
live tho some of them
call themselves pheasants
but no matter
their doors are opening
and they’re speaking
in squeaking voices
as they head off
to the underground pub
at the end of the forest

and the next time I turn around
the sun’s slamming
right into my eyes
and I can’t see
a damned thing
and that’s just to show you
how things can go
out on the Locoweed Highway
on any particular day
especially
if you’ve been
reading between the lines

TREATISE ON MORALS

A brief apologia about my occasional use of the words locoweed, grass, pot, etcetera (there is no individuality apart from the tribe this is what worries me the most as the world tends towards tribal living the individual the eccentric the artist belong to the international cosmopolitan spread of city life that is disappearing (no place for the rebel) (suggestion one if your high seems to be taking the elevator to the basement groveling around your solar plexus and fucking up your mechanical operations hit it with a pint of Guinness the stout will lift it (the high) back to the brain where it belongs) which I’ve mentioned from time to time in the pages of these poems and in previous poems and stories (or if you feel like you’re walking on air) which in all cases is the homegrown female flowers of the plant known as cannabis sativa, the flowers themselves sometimes referred to a sensimilla (and sometime can create an illusion of over-confidence) at the age of 60, having had tobacco abandon me 3 years previously and thinking my system could handle a few tokes of the weed for a change (combined with Belgian laws relaxing their grip on certain aspects of this victimless crime) I decided to grown my own and give the devil a chance. Why not? I’d kept him bottled up for 40 years (the previous stringent Belgian laws were just not worth the risk (I wouldn’t be too concerned about the light foot feeling but I would be concerned about the over-confidence you can get 5 bottles of Guinness stout shoved up your ass from the back rack of your bike (broken glass and all) by an errant driver (most drivers are errant 20 percent of them are pure asswipes who would run you down if they could get away with it) (suggestion two smoke only on warm days locoweed likes the sun in your eyes it wants you to have a shadow avoid the hard north winds if you can’t avoid a chilly day) and which I have enjoyed in small amounts while bicycling around and writing poems I also enjoy puffing on the pipe at home while working on my stories (suggestion three if you think you’re lost don’t worry you’re not lost you can’t be the road you’re pedaling goes somewhere trust the instinct that put you on this road in the first place) (suggestion four take off a few days now and then to recover a constant dose of locoweed day in day out month after month will turn you into a monster (“if you smoke a joint every day, you will gradually become a different person.” e-mail: wernard @xs4all.nl) proper studies of the long term effects of THC (tetrahydrocannibinol) have not been carried out on the age group 65 to Death tho I’m sure they’d be as worthless as any other study about anything else I mean who wants to know how many brazilions of Brazilians some old lady saw on her windowshade after inhaling five hundred kilos of what the Mexicans call potaguaya and the Jamaicans call ganja and the swinging hipsters of the forties call Mary Jane (second suggestion continued confidence that’s the word be confident act confident otherwise those drivers will roll all over you if you start to wimp out they’ll get you for sure bang your fist on their fenders as they drive by do not hesitate to use or be sparing in the usage of the upraised middle finger shout “fuck you!” as often as possible and carry a sharp blade knife with a wood handle at all times) so where’s the morality? where’s the good and the bad? I’ll tell you they don’t exist there is no good there is no bad just a huge pile in between a pile of scrap metal and orchids velvet curtains and pesticides raw meat and romantic novels oil slicks and Gordon Lightfoot lyrics rainbows and toilet seats and other items of doubtful value too numerous to mention which nobody knows what to do with tho everybody spends most of their time climbing around in digging holes in naming and blaming and getting pissed off at for example according to the US government MURDER is a GOOD thing if you’re a soldier busy invading a foreign country whereas and more to the point the possession and smoking of pot is a BAD thing and hence illegal and punishable by arbitrary laws that favor the righteous the rich and other assorted boneheads and spongebrains too numerous to mention tho it is a humble weed that grows naturally by the side of the road and which none of the above too numerous to mention (including great green gobs of greasy grimy greedy guts) can make money from not a red cent and certainly not the millions of billions they cannot stop dreaming about but wouldn’t know what to do with if it jumped out of a doorway like a Doberman and bit them in the pockets for example in the bible it is writ THOU SHALT NOT TELL A LIE mendacity is a BAD thing according to the GOOD book yet if everyone were to start telling the absolute truth all the time every minute of every day there would be broken friendships violent divorces fist fights on street corners stabbings in elevators shoot outs in supermarket check out lines planes would fall out of the sky and the total destruction of the planet would follow for example Jerry Garcia holding up a joint at Woodstock and declaring “Marijuana – good for you,” or something simple like that which is to say that I’m neither advocating nor condemning the puff of smoke that drives some men mad and makes other just mellow it’s up to you not me and if you think there are such things as good and bad then that’s your illusion (suggestion five forget the continuation of suggestion two lie low be inconspicuous banging the fenders of cars and flipping drivers the bird is senseless and can only lead to grief and above all forget the blade and do your best to live in a peaceful world despite it being very unpeaceful despite the mad machines and their drivers who seem determined to destroy it if any of them should stop their cars and ask directions shrug your shoulders and say, “I’m lost,” tho it’s a bald face lie (see suggestion three) and send them on their way wondering why they thought they could get reliable information from a pothead with a slapstuck shadow let the current of the world flow thru you like a river and if you think for one minute that you’re in control – well that’s another illusion.

THE SYLVIA PLATH THESAURUS WITH XMAS LIGHTS
you ransacked thesaurus in your poem about it
(“The Earthenware Head”
Ted Hughes : Birthday Letters )

you see these Walloons
slinging haphazardly
strings of xmas lights
around the outside
of their houses
framing windows
and doors

mostly yellow-white
sometimes all green

not a straight line in sight
bumps and sags
dips (and if Sylvia Plath can do it and get away with it why not I?) and CLUMPS

and then you start to wonder
maybe they’re being precise
maybe this really is the way
they see their windows
and doors

Walloon Republic,
December 19, 2006

SYLVIA PLATH RELAPSE

head for the Thesaurus
for a COLLIDED alternative
come on, Sylvia
this can’t be the reason

crash 283.12

the word I want is CANCEL
equalize 30.6
neutralize 178.7
obliterate 693.16

the word I think I want is neutralize
neutralize. nullify, annul, cancel
out, negate, negative, negativate, invali-
date, vitiate, void, frustrate, stultify,
thwart, come or bring to nothing, undo,
offset, counterbalance 33.5 buffer

I don’t want any of these words
negativate?
How about you, Silvia
did you ever run into
negativate?
Did you ever use it?

come on, Sylvia
THAT can’t be the reason

SPROCKET & DUMB DRIVER ESSAY

there’s nothing like
the dry-click sound
of a well-oiled chain
biting into the teeth
of a top-class sprocket

but that’s not what I really want to talk about. I want to talk about Dumb Drivers. I know, I said I wouldn’t mention them again, but these are so dumb they’ll have to erect monuments to their studipity, They run me off a bikes-only road and they wave as they go by, as if I’ve done then a big favor. I want to yell at them, “You’re driving on a bike path.” I want to ask them how they’d feel if they were driving down a cars-only road and 16-wheeler semi came barreling over the hill straight at them at a hundred miles an hour – and ran them off the road. Would they wave back? I can’t wait until the world runs out of oil.

Rage Road (Farm Road East),
October 10, 2006

PANDEISTIC

(an essay on the various powers that guard the Gates of the Metaphysical)

There’s a mystery in the previous poem – god peeking out from behind the moon, whispering etc. It was not THE god, simply because there is no THE god. It probably was the God of the Moon, and god knows I’ve seen him hundreds of times, tho I always get him confused with his wife, the Moon Goddess – which doesn’t seem to make much difference to them and their peaceful marriage. It could have been the Sun God, and tho I’ve seen and talked to him thousands of times I can never look him in the eye without being blinded, so I don’t know what he looks like in his street clothes, especially when he’s wearing shades.
The point is: that god could have been any one of the numerous Gods and Goddesses that guide our lives and hope that we can hear their advice. The Gods and Goddesses of Grass, and Wheat, and Apples, and Corn. Don’t confuse them with Angels. They only thing the Gods and Goddesses guard are the Gates of the Metaphysical. (The Angels have other things to do.) You’re always welcome inside, but they’re there to make sure you’re not carrying a gun or a bomb, or any other destructive device – like Descartes Dictum or Occam’s Razor.
Animistic Fallacies are allowed, even encouraged, and if you take along your cat you’ve got a lifetime membership without debate.
As for the Angels, they sometimes get a little out of line and get playful, and tempt you into dangerous waters. “Just having fun,” they’ll say. “See how far you can swim.”
You must know they won’t let you drown. How can they? They too have a social life and must have a news update every night around the dinner table – around the old round Metaphysical Table.
I’m only wondering where all those Gods and Goddesses were a while ago when I got into that discussion with one of the Angels about Miserable Critters.
No, don’t tell me. It was Goddess of Love, masquerading as an Angel- a trick she likes to play on all gullible souls

Carrot Stop, September 28, 2006

PANDEISTIC TWO

(in praise of all the God and Goddesses who guard the Gate of the Metaphysical and guide us poor, miserable critters around one bend in the road after another)

I guess it all started in biblical times
the old testament, some goon
mistaking himself for ALL of you.

He must have been blind.
He had to be blind.
Even I, a much less powerful
and influential fool than Moses
can tell the difference
between a Sex Goddess
and a Thunder God.
All you have to do is look.

The Thunder God is the guy
who runs around ripping up the sky
with his fingernails.
The Sex Goddess – well, like I said
all you gotta do is look.

Dream me a spinning wheel

POEMS 2007 |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

RULE OF THUMB

driving into dark
rule of thumb:
click on the blinkers
back and front
red and white
when the street lights come on

until today

today the thumb
was not reliable

today it got dark early
and the drivers had trouble
seeing me

so I hopped off the bike
and punched on my back blinker

and at that same instant
all the street lights came on

so that’s how it works

I’ve been in control
of the universe
for years and I didn’t know it

that explains
EVERYTHING

January 8, 2007

STAIRCASE

I made the spiral of stone stairs
and the curved roof tunnel
above them
ten feet wide

what use are my words
as you descend
deeper in the earth
if you cling to the inside wall
and look straight down
at your feet
for the next step?

I could have made the steps
only two feet wide
I could have made
the curved ceiling
so low you would have
to duck your head

Jan. 27, 2007

ONE BOOK

loss of memory?

less expensive
just need one good book
read it over
and over
keep being surprised

Jan. 28, 2007

JUNKIE

I shake the monkey
off my back
kick him into a corner
turn my head
he jumps up
sinks his teeth
into the back of my neck
gives me fuzz gloves

gives me spin brain
gives me empty tunnel
eyesocket train rides
hair mouth
ice foot

I kick him back
behind the door
I’ve got him busted
down in the dust
and all he can give me now
is a sick grin
and a monkey middle finger

Feb. 5, 2007

MY COLLEGE EDUCATION

they say some students’ characters
are marked for life
by the universities they attend

Harvard
Yale
Stanford

and so forth

the way they slide into oxymoron
when the conversation becomes
too tense with the present
the way they leap
with a grim smile
into irony
when seduction
and satisfaction have failed
the way they eat their peas
with a knife
when no one is looking

I knew I would not be mistaken
as one of those students
martyred by privilege for life
when I graduated
from San Francisco State

until two years ago
I did not know the meaning
of oxymoron
I could not tell irony
from the knees
of other primitive metals
and the way I ate my peas
bowl tipped to my lips
as I scraped the little green balls
into my mouth with a spoon
fooled not a single professor
with a final grade
that would change
the direction of my life
and send me spinning into galaxies
of light-trap stars
and cheese-dipped moons

I married foreign
I speak French
like a tongue-tied ox
like a mud-splattered moron
and irony mixed with green peas
has kept me from starvation
in many imaginary situations

I dip not into denial
about my degrees
from S.F. State
tho I keep them hidden
in a thin membrane
that covers my skull

who could guess
that I’m a genius
who shaped his life
from scraps of knowledge
that have no value
to anyone but himself
and a few friends
who run alongside
and keep him supplied
with vivid dreams
and pointless jokes?

April 2007

FAST TRAIN FROM AMSTERDAM

toss a timetable
in my path
and my nervous system
goes berserk
train schedules
airplane departures
arrivals
connections
add a couple of pieces
of luggage
and I have a metabolic
breakdown

alarm clocks
should be outlawed

May 9, 2007

CATHAR COUNTRY POEMS

WINE

there is something
aristocratic
about driving thru the fields
of the famous vineyards of Languedoc
Fabrizan
Fitou
Tautavel
Rivesaltes
and all the other
celebrated wines
of the Corbière
while sipping from a bottle
of cool Dutch beer

Abbey of Fontfroid, May 17, 2007

(BEAR SAYS)

“We’re going uphill
– that’s a good sign.”

Road D613 (to Fontfroid), May 17, 2007

first crickets of the year
along the road from Carcasonne
to Lagrasse
one here
one there

frogs at night
after dinner
in Lagrasse
down by the river
one in each
open car window

Lagrasse, May 17, 2007

I knelt down on a slab
of stone by the River Lot
and cast my raisin bread
on the waters
for the raisin bread ducks

I dipped my hands
in the River Lot
I splashed the fast moving
water on my face
I did not drink

I walked along
the River Lot
I saw nettles
I have not seen nettles
in the south
for one week

nettles
and crickets

Les Salelles, May 18, 2007

easting goat cheese
and olive toast
at the Café de Gare
in Chanac
along the River Lot
dozens of crickets
coming to life
I will miss them
when we drive north

Chanac, May 18, 2007

climbing away
from the River Lot

in Badaroux
we drive north
up the slope

across the valley :
the hills
floating
pockets of mist
escaping from pine forests
lightning
thunder
then the rain

clouds of mist
spreading out
pretending
they just got back
from China

May 18, 2007

I didn’t dip my hands
in the River Loire
so nothing happened
they didn’t even get wet

then I went down
from the bridge
and dipped my hands
in the River Loire

I touched a nettle

Goudet, May 19, 2007

a pictographic sign said
(if translated into ordinary English)
BEWARE OF LEAPING DEER

we did not see
a leaping deer
but we saw a sign
that said
“In 200 meters
you will change
into a bus.”

we did not change
into a bus
but later
we turned into a gas station
and filled our tank
with stuff
that will eventually
destroy the world

Dorne, May 19, 2007

VIRTUAL REALITY ONE

you know you’ve been watching
too much TV
when you wake up
and you’re hanging over
the edge of the bed
holding the zapper

you can feel its weight
and its shape
in your empty hand

May 29, 2007

VIRTUAL REALITY TWO

you know you’ve been
sitting too long
in front of the TV
when the face on the screen
reaches out
grabs the zapper from your hand
and zaps you back
into a French Comedy
where everybody laughs
at you because
all you can do is stutter
and point to the English subtitles

May 30, 2007

EARTH FILL

radioactive earth fill
grass growing
on the earth fill
cows climbing
the earth fill
chewing the grass
cows glowing
in the dark

fireflies?

June 2, 2007

THE SECRET OF LIFE – PART ONE

I saw it on American TV:
a bunch of humdrums
and show boats
fly halfway around the world
to India
to meet a swamp-gut guru
who knows the secret of life
(longevity, immortality
and beyond)

after ripping them
for $3000 each
he gathers them around
in an ashramic circle
and tell them the secret:

“Breathe deeply,” he says

that’s it
the secret of life
breathe deeply

so they all took
a deep breath
and only Buddha knows
what happened after that

June 5, 2007

THE SECRET OF LIFE – PART TWO

I could do that too
at no expense to you
(in fact
I probably spent 6 or 7 dollars
for print, copy and binding
of this gift
so
in fact
I’m paying you
to learn the secret of life)
but without hesitation
or further delay
I say unto you
TAKE A DEEP BREATH

that’s it
the secret of life

doesn’t do much for me
out on the bike
hundreds of these deep breaths
and all I get is high
(tho I must say
that a couple of deep breaths
from a small pipe
filled with smoldering
wonderweed
will help you get prepared
for what may follow)
(and only Buddha knows
what comes next)

so it looks like
I’m paying you
to learn the secret of life
longevity, immortality
and what lies beyond:

let’s start with
interstellar galaxies
and forces of gravity
waiting to suck you
into a hole
of such blackness
that you will become detached
from your fingernails
and never find them again
so watch out
for those suckers

then there’s all those
metaphysical wrinkles
in the 27 dimensions
(11 of which are invisible)
(tho you might catch a whiff
of garlic bread from one
and I’m certain
I heard the high reed
of a faint harmonica
humming on the breeze
from a gopher hole
(a gopher BREATHING OUT
between his harmonica reed teeth)
one night as the full moon
crept into the circular window
of the owl house
while the owls were out
horsing around)

and beyond that
not even Buddha will speculate
unless it has something to do
with those creatures
whose DNA structures
are built upon 100 million different genes
and who put them thru
their military band formations
100 million times per second

also helpful advice
concerning longevity:
throw away your clocks
and calendars
then one day
you will die
and you won’t know
the time of the day
or the day of the year
all you’ll know
is that it’s been
a long, long time

June 6, 2007

DOG BARKS (Bicycle Poem 1)

A guy laid back
in his back garden
relaxed in a recliner
straw hat
dark glasses
pina colada in one hand
joint in the other
smile on his face

sounds coming from
the speakers of his boom box

dog barks

his old dog
recorded in this same backyard
20 years ago

dog barks

while at his feet
lies his old dog
long dead
long decomposed
now nothing more
than a rack of bones

dog barks

June 7, 2007

DOGS BARK (Bicycle Poem 2)

dogs bark
that’s how they talk
imagine that
what a limited conversation

they better have ESP
because their discussions
are beyond banal

Carrot Stop, June 7, 2007

LOST (Bicycle Poem 3)

three times it happened
three times today
as I was riding along
my mind went so far away
that when I came back
I didn’t know which road
I was riding on

now I’m lost again

and I’m pleased to know
that my mind can now
go so deep again

after 5 months
of bouncing off the surface

oh yeah, Pissing Road, June 7, 2007

WHAT AM I DOING HERE? (Bicycle Poem 4)

after all these years
I still haven’t done
what I’m supposed to do
yet

and I can’t even imagine
what THAT might be

June 7, 2007

OUTSIDE

don’t be alarmed, dear Bear
when I’ve got my nose
poked out the door

I’m not ignoring the vast
kaleidoscopic scenes
behind me, moving displays
paintings
photographs
poems
maps
stained glass windows

I’m just curious

I like to stick my nose
out the door
to see what’s going on

I guess my curiosity
doesn’t include
getting close
to other women

June 7, 2007

BIRTHDAY PARTY (Bicycle Poem 5)

I come to a T-junction
in the village
off to my right
– raised lawn –
a bunch of little kids
playing around
– a birthday party –
they’re wearing
shiny paper witches’ hats
and one’s got a horn
– a reed blast
that sounds like a constipated oboe –
honk honk honk honk

I turn left
from behind my back:
“honk – honk – honk – honk.”

I keep pedaling
“HONNNK!”
they’ve spotted me
I shift up a gear
pump down hard
escaping
“HONNNNNNNNNNNNNNK!”

Chapon, June 9, 2007

MOIST PLACE

waiting in a bus stop
in Verlaine Deep
thunder overhead
buckets of rain in the road
plastic sack with 6 snails
in my backpack
taking them to a new
moist place

Bear calls
she locked herself out of the house
she’s down in the barn
counting last year’s potatoes

lightning
thunder
what am I going to do
with the snails?

Verlaine Deep, June 11, 2007

SLAM DUNK

flashes on the TV screen
(few lasting longer than one second
many no more than one-tenth)
stressed faces
angry faces
gigantic black men
with tattoos covering their arms
and shoulders
and necks
sweat dripping from their faces
close-ups of their shouting mouths
and intimidating attitudes
running, slamming
into each other
shoving, grabbing
poking elbows in eyes
this is Game 2
of the NBA finals
it goes on for 3 hours

I’m not sure
I should he watching this
just before going to bed
if I hope to have a chance
of a peaceful sleep

June 11, 2007

VIRTUAL REALITY THREE

you know the TV set’s been on
too long
when
you walk into the empty room
and it’s playing over in the corner
pock -pock
pock
some kind of tennis match
pock
pock
pock
and you turn your back
to the pock
pock
pock
and bend over the table
and write in your notebook
kaleidoscopic scenes
moving displays
paintings
photographs
poems
maps
stained glass windows
which you punctuate
with a big blast of free fart
which is followed by
a massive explosion
of applause from the corner
and you’re saying
what the hell?
what the hell?
what the hell?
until you turn around
and realize
that Justine Henin
just scored the winning point
in the Roland Garos final

what a charming coincidence

June 13, 2007

ARISTOCRATIC

I keep getting surprised
I keep forgetting
that I’m not the same
as everybody else
in the world
I keep forgetting
until an idiot
on the sidewalk
(5 feet away)
bellows, “UGGGGGH!”
as I ride past
“UGGGGGH!”
and I jump

I keep forgetting
that there’s a vast difference
for starters
I’ve got about 80 IQ points
on the idiot
for kickers
I never open my mouth
that wide in public
(even when I’m singing)
and for closers
I’ve got more creativity
in my middle finger

but I don’t want
to get too carried away
and start acting aristocratic
because some fat, bald
mustache fucking moron
might run me down
in his Suburban Attack Vehicle
then release
his Malamute
from the passenger seat
and chuckle
while the dog
slurps up my warm blood *†

Two Trees Road, June 13, 2007

* which of course all comes from
(and feeds back to)
the 3rd grade
in San Francisco
(Lagunda Honda
between Judah and Irving
on 7th Ave.)
and a half dozen 8th graders
decide to end the first day
of school
by grabbing me
outside the 6th Ave. gate
holding me down on the sidewalk
and letting their German
Shepherd dog
lick my face

I piss in my pants
and this goes on
everyday for about a week
until my grandma
comes down with a broom
and sweeps them all away *

Lost Haiku Road, June 13, 2007

†or the slobs
who live down on Baraki Corner
(who sit around
drunk chain smoking sawdust
and candle wax
and discussing
sub-atomic physics
the history of meta-fiction
and the more esoteric polarities
of the nature-nurture paradox
while their monster slob of a dog
that lives in a cage
they keep right next to the road
comes to life
every time I pass
leaps up
and tries to claw down
the bars
dying to clamp his slavering jaws
around my liver
but always giving up
and just barking
barking
barking
while the slobs
guzzle around
with their guts hanging out
and chat about exploding galaxies
the metaphysical dangers of neo-existentialism
and the stainedglass windows
of Chartres
and who think
their barking dog
is some divine creature
speaking a language
too subtle for human understanding)
might come rolling out
of their courtyard
on their spare tires of tub-a-gut fat
barking like their dog
and grind me into the ground

Baraqui Corner, June 13, 2007

TWO CLOCKS
(the Longest Day of the Year)

two quartz alarm clocks
one on each side of the bed
one slightly faster

one day they’re exactly
half way apart
perfectly synchronized
left right
in stereo
click – click
click – click
click- click

3 weeks later
the left click’s moved up
until it’s limping along
almost touching the right click
ca-click
ca-click
ca-click
I go to sleep
listening to the stutter
ca-click
ca-click
ca-click

when I wake up
into the longest day of the year
they’re both in tune
CLOCK !
CLOCK!
CLOCK!

June 21, 2007

BIRDS’ DREAMS

I walk out my door
stand in the dark silence
only moments before
the light breaks
and listen
to the birds wake
tuning up to sing
preparing to chatter, warble, twitter
all thru the woods
from east to west
to pop out of their sleep
and whisper their dreams

June 21, 2007

SUMMER 2007 (Bicycle Poem 6)

looks like
it’s going to be
an overcast summer

grey skies
a confusion of clouds
flooded beet fields
flax flattened
by the rain

the sun pokes thru
the mist
from time to time
and gives me a fuzzy shadow

I’m not quite sure
if I’m here
or not

June 21, 2007

CURSES

now I know why
I fear landing
in an airplane

every time I see one
fly over the house
I curse silently:
“Why don’t you go crash
in a cornfield?”

so when I’m actually in one
I know there must be
at least 100 people
down below
doing their best
to curse me into eternity

June 21, 2007

GEEZE TUB

I look like a geezer
I feel like a geezer
I must be a geezer

where did all this geezer
come from?

I geeze
you geeze
we geeze

I was just geezing along
when I geezed
into another geezer
he shouted:
“You old geezer.”
so I just
geezed by

it was too complicated
to explain
that he was so full of geeze
I would have to spend years
soaking in the geeze tub
to equal his level
of geezerability

June 21, 2007

ARISTOCRACY

he said:
“Some people around here
think their shit
smells like perfume.”

I said:
“Mine does.”

July 25, 2007

JUNK MAN (Bicycle Poem 7)

big truck coming down the street
speaker on top
man behind the wheel
shouting into a microphone
saying he’ll haul away
all our junk
“Lumiere!”
“Jeunes Femmes!”
“L’eau de veau!’
“Nuages Vides!”

he must be drunk
or maybe I’m flipping out
losing my grip
on the French language
“Coupe de grace!” (glace?)
“Blagues court-métrages
“Champs (chants?) des oiseaux!”
“Pistage mignon!”

the back of the truck is heaped
with unstable molecular structures
that defy identification
his words are distorted, blurred:
“Lazy loozion!”
(I’m translating now)
“Mug shots!”
“Moose scatter!”
“Heuristic quests!”

he slows as he passes me
looks over into my eyes
shouts into the microphone
“BICYCLES!”

rue Grevesse, June 30, 2007

CHILE
(Avignon Revisited)

walking around Avignon
I bought a map
sat down to look it over
started curiously wondering about
the word “chile.”
(pronounced “sheel” I suppose)
obviously designated a church
or a temple
Chile des Pénitents Gris
Chile de l’Oratoire
Chile des Templiers

the word bounced around in my head
sounding like it rhythmed
with “mile,” “style,” “guile.”
(or maybe it should have been “chilly”
– like the country)

two months later
at home
I take out the map
and study it
with a magnifying glass
and I see it’s not “chile”
but CHLLE
in short
an abbreviation for Chapelle

did I really walk up to a stranger
and ask him
where I might find
the Chile des Templiers?

he didn’t know
and I’m not surprised

June 30, 2007

CLOSURE

“closure”
what’s that?
another weasel word

is it something
you lock in a room
then throw away the key?

and years later
here comes a gang of boys
they break into the room
and stagger out a minute later
looking like old men
(wrinkles and bent backs)
“They breathed too much
stagnant closure.”

or is it something
you seal in an envelope
and send off
to a broken lover
he opens the envelope
and stabs himself
to death forever
with the letter opener

“What happened?”
“He got a sniff of closure.”

June 30, 2007

BUSINESS NEWS

I saw it reported on CNBC:

Coca Cola buys Air France
Air France buys Microsoft
Microsoft buys Coca Cola

and that’s the way the money goes
pop goes the Wealthy Weasel

July 6, 2007

DREAM SCREAMS

I’m taking a beating
in my sleep
strange people
walk into my dreams
and I don’t know
a single one

a man comes up
shakes my hand
and his hand comes off
and (what else can I do?)
I stick it in my pocket

girls with two heads
one saying, “Yes.”
the other saying, “No.”
walk circles around me
while I shout
“Do I have a single friend
in the entire world?”

arrogant animals
growl and bark at me
dog-headed cats
giant toads
slurp and snap
jack rabbits
with impossible
enormous teeth
snarl and burp
while I shiver with fear
behind the bars
of my cage

I walk on stage
with my guitar
look down and see
I’m not wearing pants
I say, “They’ll be along
later,”
nobody laughs
I say, “No pants?
this is a lot worse
than forgetting to button up.”

children come running
children go pouring
over the cliff
like a waterfall
of blood and bone raindrops
I don’t know a single one

I don’t have a chance
the moment I close my eyes
the circus behind my lids
starts to jump
and flash
“Here we go again,” I say
“another losing round
with the hard-fisted punchers
and the suck-tube plungers
of my toilet brain.”

as a kid
I called these disturbing
mind movies
nightmares
now I just sit around
and watch
and wait for the dream
to collapse
into its own
destruction

July 25, 2007

FOOTNOTE TO A FOOTNOTE TO A FOOTNOTE

I enjoy stopping
to read the posters
of the local rock festivals
names of bands
that nobody’s ever heard of
which at best will become
a footnote
to a footnote
to a footnote
to a cultural history
of north-western Europe
in the early 21st century

Bouldou & the Sticky Fingers Plays the Rolling Stones
Nehäl Coldshot
Tommy Plays the Who
The Ignition
Acta
Yew
Free Launch
Bleach plays Nirvana
Cedric Gervey
The Dancing Naked Ladies
Kat’s Boys
Trez
Jakob Maerks
Parallax View
You Peace
The Only Room
Ios

maybe I should go
and check out Sticky Fingers
they probably sound better
than the Stones ever did
before they started lip-synching
to their own studio-recorded
digital playbacks

then again Bouldou’ll probably
miss the accent by a mile
I can just hear it now
“Joo-pang Jacques Flush!”

Burnt Picnic Table Road, July 27, 2007

TEENAGE MANIACS

they dump on a can of gas
toss in a match
and the fire explodes
flaming up into the trees
as the picnic table melts

that’s what happens
when you make tables
out of plastic

that’s what happens
when desperate drunken
teenage maniacs
take over the world
and decide what’s best
for everyone
like where you can sit down
and eat a sandwich
and where you cannot

Carrot Stop, July 28, 2007

MORE TEENAGE MANIACS

on the other hand
I remember well
the night 51 years ago
when Tom and I
and a couple of other guys
got drunk
went for a drive in his pick up
and ripped up every stop sign
on 25 miles of road
ending in Dry Creek Valley
where we chucked all the signs
we’d collected
from Wine Creek Bridge

I remember being elated
I guess I was striking back
at all the conformity
the hypocrisy
and social deceit
but I wasn’t thinking
with those kinds of words
back then
I just remember the elation

unfortunately
Tom dropped his wallet
on the bridge
and the next day
the cops dropped by
to see his dad

our punishment
was to take the truck
back to the bridge
climb down into the creek
into the brush
the thistles and briars
and retrieve every one
of those damned stop signs
and take them back
and plant them from where
we’d uprooted them

it wasn’t easy sober
and I remember I was not
elated

as for symbolic acts
who knows
who got the better deal?
Tom’s dead now
and wherever he is
I doubt if he’s blowing up
power stations or stealing
doormats

July 29, 2007

WHO’S GROWING OLD?

I don’t hate growing old
it just keeps catching me
by surprise

teeth
bones
bladder
blood
it seems like they’re working
for somebody else

eyes
ears
toes
testicles
refusing to work
for lower wages
tired of abuse
they’re walking off the job
leaving the barbarians
from the south
to do the dirty work

my teeth don’t speak Spanish

July 29, 2007

A HERD OF TURTLES

a plague of locusts
a school of fish
a swarm of bees
a flock of sheep

an army of ants
a leap of leopards
a pack of dogs
a pod of whales

a skulk of foxes
a sloth of bears
a pride of lions
a hover of trout

a murder of crows
a gaggle of geese
a flight of doves
a risk of rain

July 29, 2007

A MONTH OF SUNDAYS
(A Herd of Turtles – part 2)

a giggle of girls
a fraud of Freudians
a flex of muscles
a trumpet of jazz fans

a telescope of stars
a wagon of anonymous alcoholics
a paved road of good intentions
a pool of cars

a keyboard of pianists
a string of violins
a shadow of doubts
a ghost of chances

a grapevine of rumors
a chain of smokers
a sleeve of aces
a march of dimes

July 30, 2007

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
(hidden haiku)

the moon is so full
it’s about
to spill over
into the trees

July 30, 2007

STRIP POKER

and so I pulled the Fool
from my Tarot deck
and tossed it down
with my two deuces
remembering at the last moment
that in the game
of deaf & dumb
dead & done
jokers aren’t wild

August 11, 2006 (Hesbaye)

HALLUCINATION SNAKES

it starts with
the little red
hallucination snakes
as thin as spaghetti
darting into the earth
the moment your flashlight
shines them alive
in the blink of an eye
they’re gone as if
they never were there

after that
you will see ANYTHING
that comes along
ANYTHING that most people
overlook such as
the little red
hallucination snake’s
big brother
the huge green
hallucination snake
that leaps out
of a tree top
and smashes into your eyes
or the little red
hallucination snake’s
fat mother
the obese yellow
hallucination snake
that rolls out of
the high grass
and flattens you
liking a hissing
protoplasmic steam roller
or the little red
hallucination snake’s
enormous father
the monster black
hallucination snake
that jumps out of the night
and swallows you whole
after crunching you
between its venom-dripping jaws

after that comes
the gargantuan spiders
the mutant alligators
the two-ton slugs
and the gigantic rats
with deformed human faces

but all that’s for later
right now
all you have to worry about
are the little red
hallucination snakes
and make sure they don’t slide
under your toenails
as you slop barefoot
thru the wet grass
at midnight

or maybe they’re just fast worms

August 12, 2007

NIGHT & DAY (LIFE & DEATH)

each night
I go to bed
for the last time

each day
I wake up
surprised
to be alive

this has been
going on
for 60 years

how much longer?

I wouldn’t
be surprised
to find myself
saying the same thing
100 years from now

Old Farm Road, Aug. 24, 2007,

SMASHED JAM SANDWICH

I’m snacking on
smashed jam sandwiches

strawberry
raisin bread

that’s the flavor
of these days

try one
and you’ll know
exactly
how I’m perceiving
the world
right now

High Point Hesbaye, Aug. 24, 2007

DRIZZLEHEAD

some drizzlehead
has spray painted
FUCK
MY
WIFE
in the middle of the road

is that a loose translation
of a traditional
French expression?

or does the author
of those words
have absolutely
no fucking idea
what he’s talking about?

Aeolian Road, Aug. 24, 2007

CHAIN LINK FENCE

all the great men
have been paid off
in supermarket prizes
and run out of the world

or sent into the next room
to wait
for some trivial event
that’s never going to happen

Aug. 24, 2007

THE LITTLE BUGGERS (Bicycle Poem 8)

this is a bug day
I ride into a swarm
of the little buggers
until the front
of my white t.shirt
is covered
from top to bottom
with tiny black dots

I shake them off
keep riding
and collect another population
of insect hitchhikers

I swallow
one of the little buggers
and the beast spends 10 minutes
trying to crawl back
up my throat
I cough up a storm
to help him
but it’s no good

so I gulp down
a half bottle of water
and send him sliding
into the deadly
gastric juice swamp
of my guts

fresh meat

on a day like this
keep your mouth open
and you won’t go hungry

High Point Hesbaye, Aug. 24, 2007

POEM

I’ll say it once
and get it over with

I don’t like to read
poets who write poems
about writing poems

having said that I see
I’ve become a clown
of my own criticism

please forgive me
I promise I won’t
do it again

go read the next poem
and forget that you
got sucked into this one

Aug. 27, 2007

CROW FEATHER

wind singing
in my bike spokes
the caw of a crow
over the field

two crows

my old crow feather
is bent and ruffled
looks a little
like I feel

I stick it back
in my front blinker
but I’ll always remember
where I almost
buried it in the wild weeds

Crow Feather Road, Aug. 27, 2007

GEESE

small flock of geese
flying low due south
thru the dusty beams
of the setting sun

they’ve seen enough
they’re headed for a winter
in Spain
it’s been a lousy summer
for them too

Old Farm Road, Aug. 27, 2007

GEESE (THE SAME ONES)

38 geese
exactly
headed south

in a couple of hours
in the dark
they’ll bounce their honks
off the earth
and know exactly where they are

then the moon will rise
and they’ll keep on honking
anyway

Old Farm Road, Aug. 27, 2007

MORE GEESE – 1

and here come the geese
flying north?
into the wind?
are they lost?
did they decide to go back
and hang out
at the Norwegian Goose Pond
and work on their suntan
for a few more days?

another flock on the horizon
headed in the same direction

Pissing Road, Aug. 30, 2007

MORE GEESE – 2

geese honking
wings flapping hard
glide by above my head
above my outstretched hand

the tears in their eyes
are they from the cold wind?

or are the birds sad and lonely
because all their goose friends
in Spain
kicked them out
and told them to get lost?

they sound sad to me
I think they’re lost

Pissing Road, Aug. 30, 2007.

MORE GEESE – 3

it’s the same pack
I saw 3 days ago

28 of them
what happened to the other 10?

Pigeon Toe Joe
Pheasant the Peasant
Crow Feather Weather Man
Duck Bill the Dope
Stork Raving Mad Mike
Peckerwood Woody
Screamin’ Blue Jay Hawkins
Swan Lake Bullet
C. Gullible
Owl Pacino

I think the boss goose
down in Spain
didn’t like the way
they were honking
and told them to get lost

The Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion, Aug.30, 2007

CROW FEATHER REVIVAL

crow feather miracle
unruffled
unbent
(just gracefully curved)
all in the night
when no one was looking
crow feather is still alive

High Road, Aug. 30, 2007

TALL

Bear’s old French teacher
drops by after 45 years
takes a look at me
and says to Bear,
“Oh my, he’s tall.”
and I say to myself,
“Not as tall as he used to be.”

these past ten years
I’ve lost an inch or two
all that cartilage
wasted away
at the bottom of my backbone

time was, age 17
I grew to 6 foot 3
I might have grown
a couple of inches more
if I hadn’t lifted all those
bales of hay
and 100-pound feed sacks
when I was 10
and put a crook in my spine
x-ray looks like
a curved swan’s neck without feathers

but it’s just as well.
I’ve slept in a hundred
European beds
I couldn’t stretch out in
and there’s a hundred scars
on my skull
where I’ve whacked it
on low doorways

Old Dove Road, Aug. 29, 2007

LOW DOORWAYS

one is at the bottom
of the stairs
into the bathroom
another on the other side
into the kitchen

I don’t even bother
straightening up
in between

these two doorways
are so low
they’d take my head
off at the neck
if I didn’t duck

I enter the kitchen hunched over
looking like a caveman
only recently evolved from
a floor-knuckle-dusted ape

Old Dove Road, Aug. 29, 2007

TOOTH GOD

god is not perfect
he gave us fantastic
bio-mechanical bodies
but for one flaw

teeth
he could have done a much better job
on the teeth

imagine a life
free of dentals worries
and cares
eating anything you want
anytime you want
from age zero
to age omega

but since I am god
it’s all my fault
next time you’re in the dentist chair
and his drill hits a nerve
point your finger at me
I’ll take the blame for your pain

Water Tower Road, August 29, 2007

STUBBLE BURN

why do the farmers
fire only one corner
of the wheatfield stubble
the day they bale the straw
and haul it away?

is it because they’re lazy
and hope the wind
will do the job for them?
(it never does)

or is it an old superstition
– a good luck gesture –
to keep away the evil spirits
and prepare the field
for an abundant
harvest next season?

I’d like to believe
it’s a ritual that dates
back to the last ice age
when the first farmers
were discovering the secrets
of the earth

but it’s probably
just plain gut flab laziness

Pissing Road, Aug. 30, 2007

SCARF

“Hey foulard!”
the boys shout as I bike by

I think that means “scarf”

I didn’t know I was a scarf

I thought I was more of a
creepy old fartbag

Rage Road, Aug. 31, 2007

MAD PORK

or maybe it was fou lard

which means “crazy bacon”

that’s me
Crazy Bacon the Bike Bum

Rage Road, Aug. 31, 2007

MORE MAD PORK

the old hog
comes grumping, snuffling, mumbling
over to the fence where I’ve stopped
“grump – snuffle – mump – grunt – ”

she touches her snout
to the electric wire
leaps in the air
and scampers away
squealing like they do
at the slaughterhouse

now that’s real crazy bacon

Old Farm Road, Aug. 31, 2007

SUNSHINE SUPERMAN PARANOIA

what happened to the sun?
I haven’t seen my shadow
for 3 months

wait. I know.
it’s a conspiracy.

first THEY blanket the earth
in a permanent cloud cover
then THEY shoot a few astronauts
to the sun
who chop it up
into little pieces
and bring them back
so THEY can shoot
the little pieces of the sun
into our brains
when we’re asleep
so THEY can locate us
at all times
and hear what we’re saying
and know what we’re thinking

they can even spy on our dreams

now that’s serious paranoia
you say

and you’re right
because that’s what’s REALLY happening

Carrot Stop, Aug. 31, 2007

MORE OBSCURE ROCK FESTIVAL POSTERS
(and these are for real)

Donceel, September 22:
Stereo Jacking
Dexter’s Truancy Problem
Colored Mind
Citizen Jack
Blue Mojo
Castle Road
Hotel California Plays The Eagles

Wanze, September 1 & 2:
Sylph
Lost in Moscow
Milky Tits
Les Vaches Azteques
Kill My Drummer
Doktor Caligari
Next Exit to Nowhere

Oreye, September 1:
Stereo Jacking
Dexter’s Truancy Problem
Dawn Nation
Rock You Daddy
Blinded Head
Klimax
Zone-A
Bouldou & the Sticky Fingers Play the Rolling Stones

in a few years
there’ll be revivals
of revival bands

Clorox Plays Bleach
Holiday Inn Plays Hotel California
Bidule & the Athlete’s Feet Play Bouldou & the Sticky Fingers

August 2007

GARDEN PATCH

little old lady’s
got a tiny vegetable patch
down on the corner
(I’ve never seen her
so I don’t know if she’s old
and little, but the garden patch
is small)

sitting in her side window
above the patch is a speaker
quietly playing music
24 hours a day
barely audible as I ride by
in the street if the wind
is right I hear a distant
melody and a sound
that might be an orchestral chord

after 5 years
I’ve finally figured it out
she’s playing music
for her plants
to make them happy
and to grow up dancing

so I stop to listen
get right down next to the fence
and finally hear the music:
some kind of Las Vegas
cha-cha-cha

no wonder her spuds
look like sagebrush
and her corn
looks like dead fox tails

Carrot Stop, Sept. 3, 2007

GARDEN PATCH SEQUEL

her spuds, parsley and corn
might look like they’ve been pre-cooked
with a flame thrower
but her cannabis
is flourishing
(then again the old weed
will dance to anything)

Carrot Stop, Sept. 3, 2007

RAINBOW STUB

I’m thinking
about nothing at all
except a left-over observation
that’s followed me
down the road (the dozen
pheasants that refused
to fly away as I approached
trotting down the road
ahead of me
looking like they had
pickles stuck up their asses)
as I ride into a stub
of a rainbow
that can’t quite
get itself off the ground

Rainbow Stub Road, Sept. 3, 2007

RAINBOW STUB GAP

riding back
into the rainbow stub
it’s not connected
at the other end either
(over in St. Georges)
(I saw the pheasants
on Thunder Road
again and still
they refused to fly away)
and into the blue sky gap
between the horizon
and the rainbow-painted
black cloud
from north to south
fly a flock of black birds
thousands of them
like specks of dust
flickering in the light
of the setting sun

Rainbow Stub Road, Sept. 4, 2007

RAINBOW STUB MIRAGE (Bicycle Poem 9)

plunging thru
the rain water puddle
that fills the road
I see a rainbow
reflected in the muddy water

waves from my front tire
flow out and make
the rainbow wiggle

then the upsidedown rainbow
trembles and falls apart

Rainbow Stub Road, Sept. 4, 2007

PLANT LIFE

chubby woman
walking along
with a transistor radio
hanging from her neck

she thinks she’s a plant
and the music will make her grow
bigger

but it’s not music
she’s listening to the news
and she grows smaller
and smaller
with each step

Jean-Baptist Boulevard, Sept. 6, 2007

(YOU MIGHT SAY) TOO SOON

pockets of mist
hang over the fields

breath rises from my nostrils
and steams my glasses

the sun burns down and out
in a sharp pie slice of neon blood

you might say
it’s that time of year

High Road, Sept. 6, 2007

SAD SIGHT

there is no sadder sight
than that of an old hippie
(after all these years)
getting confused
about his uppers
and his downers:
“Let’s see – blue is UP
and red is DOWN
cause we reversed it
in 1967 to confuse the fuzz..”
and then paying the price
of his own confusion:
“I thought I was going
to bike out to the beach
walk barefoot in the surf
silently seduce a couple
of bikini-clad 50-year old
teeny boppers
then end the night
atop Twin Peaks
jacking off
for Old Mother Nature

“Now look where I am –
in this deep hole
out in the corner of the yard
where the dog comes
to bury his bones
and that’s what I am
a bag of bones
ready to go into one
of these holes

“Oh shit! here comes
Wavy Gravy, my yellow
Labrador mutt
he’s going to bury me
alive – no – he’s going
to eat me first . . . ”

like I say
nothing sadder

Verlaine, September 9, 2006

DREAM DICTATE

no need to try not
to do something
you’re not going to do

just don’t do it

Sept. 10, 2007

KIDS

I can’t help it
but I still see us
as kids
playing house
and digging holes
in the earth to China

the old games
mud pies
hide & seek
tag, you’re it
king of the mountain
post office
spin the bottle

strip away the pretense
and other masks
of arrogance
and sophistication
and we’re still
a bunch of 7-10 year olds
hiking thru the woods
stoned
looking thru the shadows
hoping to find the ghosts
of innocence
and spontaneity
we lost 60 years ago

Sept. 10, 2007

(haiku)

crash in the bathroom
and here comes Jimbo
mouse in mouth

September 12, 2007

(haiku)

the sun comes out
from behind the clouds
and it’s autumn

September 12, 2007

BEAR BEHAVIOR

Bear coughs for awhile
and then she yawns

that means
the coughing is over

Mamma Mia’s Italian Restaurant
(Engis)
September 13, 2007

HOOT TO YOU TOO

I slam the spade
into the slug
and from above me
in a tree
an owl gives a HOOT

September 13, 2007

THE HUMAN APE

the human ape
has a horrible belief

he believes he is superior
to all the other animals

what arrogance
what stupidity

so he can walk on two feet
he has opposable thumbs
he can invent languages
and speak them

what good are words
if all he can babble
is hateful insanity?
what good are hands
if all he can do
is throw rocks?

the human ape
has been fighting wars
since he’s been on the planet
he hasn’t given us animals
a moment of peace

now I ask you:
does that sound like an intelligent species?

September 13, 2007

BICYCLE POEM

you may ask:
why do you wander
the farm roads and fields
of Hesbaye and Flanders?

and I will tell you:
I don’t know

you may ask:
will the wanderer
ever return?

and I will reply:
I hope so

September 14, 2007

THE NEW AEOLIONS

I.
in old Japan
they used to enjoy
going out to see
the cherry blossoms
fall from the trees
they liked to look at
the harvest moon rise too
they enjoyed this much more
than going to hear
Yama’s Kamikaze Godzilla
with their tattooed eyeballs
and frontal lobe rings
(grab a ring, pull hard
and a brain falls out)
sing brutal lyrics
from the Kojiki:
UTITE SI YAMAMU!
UTITE SI YAMAMU!
UTITE SI YAMAMU!
SAKERU TO MË!

II.
in modern day Belgium
I enjoy going out
to the new Aeolians
and watching their wings
slice thru the sky
as the swift wind
rustles thru the cornfields

who’s playing tonight?
me?
if I were not me
I wouldn’t go

Frozen Eyelid Road,
September 16, 2007

ECCENTRIC

sometimes I think I’m eccentric
and sometimes I think
that scares people

how can that be?

I’m just an old geezer
cruising by
with inner tubes
wrapped around my legs
and a black crow feather
sticking up from my handlebar

eccentric?

I don’t think so

now if I ate smashed jam sandwiches
talked to myself
puffed on my harmonica
held my harmonica up
to a strong headwind
and sang along with the endless
D major chord
and hopped off my bike
at unexpected moments
whipped out a notebook
and scribbled down the words
that have been piling up
in my head – now that
might be considered
slightly unusual

but you’ll never see me
riding to the end
of a dead end road
and stopping to stare
at the pale half moon
rising in the sky
as if it could be viewed
from this particular place
and no other

that would be eccentric

Dead End Road, September 21, 2007

OBSCURE POEM & ANNIHILATING EXPLANATION

leaving on Old Farm Road
and seeing the vast delicate
network of spiderwebs
covering the furrows of the plowed field
shimmering in the setting sun
I know I must return
on Two Trees Road *

Old Farm Road, September 21, 2007

* In old Japan the poets often gave their poems deeper meaning and beauty by referring to lines of traditional poems, sometimes quoting a line that all cultured people knew. I, having no tradition but my own, must refer to moments in my own past poems to achieve the same effect; to be specific, several years ago I was biking up Two Trees Road at sunset and I stopped to be amazed by the delicate network of spider webs etc. – you get the idea – and which I captured in a poem at the time. Or maybe I didn’t. Maybe I talked that poem out before I had a chance to put it down on paper. Or maybe I just forgot. Which makes this poem, based on a non-existent poem, even more obscure. *

Carrot Stop, September 21, 2007

*And it now occurs to me that if I return home on Two Trees Road I’ll be going the wrong way to be amazed by the shimmering webs of etc, because I’ll have my back to the setting sun and I’ll have to keep looking over my shoulder to enjoy the scenery.

Carrot Stop, September 21, 2007

LESS OBSCURE & NO EXPLANATION

and so I come home on Two Trees Road

but most of the fields
are scattered with pigshit
and other nameless manures

and none of the fields
are plowed with neat
winter furrows in which
spiders can build their webs

so I guess the spiders
have packed up and moved off
to another field

and besides the sun
is behind a cloud
and I wouldn’t be able to see
the spiderwebs
shimmering even if
they covered the land

but I do get to stop
and count the number
of huge carrot boxes
fork-lifted and stacked
along side the road

4 x 13 x 8
+ 2 x 4 x 8

530 boxes and no spiderwebs

I think the boxes are empty

Two Trees Road, September 21, 2007

ONLY SLIGHTLY OBSCURE

and so I came home
on Two Trees Road

Lost Haiku Road, September 21, 2007

NOT OBSCURE AT ALL

the corn is still standing
on Lost Haiku Road

BLACK CLOUD

“I’m deeply disappointed,”
I say to the black cloud
pouring rain on my head.
“We were trying to get
a summer started down here.”

but it’s too late
we both know it
most of the birds
have flown and the leaves
have already turned
and started to fall

September 24, 2007

THE FUTURE OF BANKS – 1

when I moved to the village
30 years ago
the two main banks were called
G-Bank
and
Credit Communale

about ten years ago
they changed names
now they’re
Fortis
and
Dexia

(quite a difference
in linguistic implications
– poetic, semantic
symbolic or whatever)

30 years from now
there’ll be more changes
new names
ئ ؤ خ ف
and
ل ن ض ق

come back in a hundred years
and you’ll see
╬╧╗╚╡│╞╬╤
and
╞╝╚╦╗╔╛╢║

September 2007

THE FUTURE OF BANKS – 2

Man walks into a bank in Amsterdam, says,
“Can we speak bluntly?”

Girl behind the counter says,
“Of course
I speak fluent bluntly.”

“Indeed you do.”

“I studied bluntly in school
for twelve years. What
can I do for you?”

“I wish to deposit
eighteen million.”

“Eurotics
or Dobros?”

“Dobros.”

“Mexican
Canadian
or Bluntly?”

“Bluntly.”

“I’m afraid
the exchange rate
is not so favorable
this year.
The value will come to –
let’s see –
.00000008 in Eurotics.”

“About what I expected.”

“Plus it will cost you
a service charge
of twenty million.”

“Tics?”

“Of course.”

“About what I expected.”

“I love doing business when I get to speak bluntly.”

POETS

reading Yeats
I find my mind drifting:

ah, but the Americans
are such a rough
and tumble bunch

October 3, 2007

THE ROUGH AND TUMBLE BUNCH

Whitman
Jeffers
cummings
Patchen
Roethke
Ginsberg
Snyder
Ferlinghetti
Harrison
Brautigan:

when they get on the bus
you don’t know
if they’re going to ride
to the end of the line,
get off at the next stop,
or hijack the driver
and take everybody
on an unscheduled cruise
around the world
at 2000 mph

October 3, 2007

WINDOW SHOPPING

shop window in Liege:
an Arturo Toscanini fountain pen
for only $505

that makes for a few
expensive autographs

who’s Arturo Toscanini?

Liege, October 24, 2007

CROWDED EMPTY CITY

the stench of humanity
the women’s perfumes
failing to mask
3 weeks worth
of legpit sweat
the men farting
into stinking clouds
of cigarette smoke
while burping up
last year’s beer

why do we come to this place
this crowded empty city
if we don’t want to feel so lonely?

Liege, December 26, 2007

THE MECHANICS OF CELESTIAL HARMONY

razzle-dazzle music
on the lamp-post speakers
on Christmas Street

a car pulls up to the curb
honks
loudly
and according to the mechanics
of celestial harmony
he’s perfectly in tune
with “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer Mambo”

G major

so he honks again
just to make sure

Liege, December 26, 2007

Lightning written in puddles of rain

POEMS 2008 |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

I. Cannigou Poems
II. The Seven Days of Spring & Other Poems
III. Rome Pomes
IV. The Seven Days of Winter & Other Poems

Cannigou Poems
RIVER TECH (1)

there must be
a 67-year old
Iraqi man
sitting by a river
right now
watching the wind
ripple the water
listening to the ducks
splash down
around the bend
and thinking
this is the way
it’s supposed to be

Le Pont de Reynès
Feb. 3, 2008

RIVER TECH (2)

I wish I was
a Labrador Retriever
and a man
would come along
and throw a branch
in the river
so I could jump in
splash around
grab the branch
in my teeth
and drag it up
on the leaves
where I would lie down
and chew it to shreds

Le Pont de Reynès
Feb. 4, 2008

CADAQUÉS

1.
getting there’s a hassle
once across the Spanish border
we’re mired in crap
driving thru an endless
row of junk brain high rise
fast food cheap barns
rubber, oil, plastic
built yesterday
and already
falling
into ruin

tomorrow this land
will be a trash heap
with weeds growing
thru broken concrete
and birds starving
if they linger too long

not even birds
shit in their nests
and a bird’s brain
is no bigger than a pea

2.
ten years ago
I would have biked it
up over the hill
and down
into the white town
cliff-trapped
sea gull bay
old water lapping
onto old sand

we pass Frankenstein’s monster
and his black wing girlfriend
escaping from the Mardi Gras parade

3.
two drunken jokers
pissing on the beach

I pet a crippled man’s dog
feed cheese
to a wild cat

and the boys and girls go
to and fro
talking about Pablo Picasso

and I can’t get my mind
off all that junk
stacking up
and spreading out
over on the other side
of the hill

Cadaqués
Mardi Gras
Feb. 5, 2008

RIVER TECH (3)
for Maya

wavy reflections
of ivy trees
and bare branches
in the slow flowing water

this river musty have
looked the same
1000 years ago

so why
did we have to wait
for Monet
and Cezanne
and Utrillo
to come along
and paint what they saw?

was it the camera
that didn’t lie?

or maybe
the painters
were not looking
in the right places

Le Pont de Reynès
Feb. 7, 2008

CHEW STICKS

it’s a good game

first you grab a stick
and then you sit down
and start chewing on it

ask Roxie
she’ll tell you everything
you need to know
about playing
chew sticks

River Tech
Feb. 7, 2008

MT. CANIGOU

Mt. Canigou
got more snow
last night

it rained soft
down here
but up there
it turned white

25 years ago
I would have
climbed Canigou

just a foot trail
up thru the rocks

and on a night
like tonight
you would have seen me
a small campfire
on the pic
winking and blinking
over Vallespir
as I sipped
from a bottle of wine

Le Pont de Reynès
Feb. 7, 2008

A SMALL COUNTRY IN CENTRAL AMERICA
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter – T.S. Eliot

and now I’m doing both
escaping the ice age
frost-bitten feet
back aching from packing
around a pair of sheep
on my shoulders
hibernating like a wolf
in wool cap and gloves
and trembling with joy
if the sun should poke
a stingy nose
thru the grey sky
for only a few moments

now I’m down here
in the south of France
next to the Spanish border
le Pays Catalan
where the sun shines
24 hours a day
and it’s much easier
to read much of the night
without gloves

and Belgium
what’s that?
and where is it?
a small country
in Central America
perhaps?

Le Pont de Reynès
Feb. 9, 2008

RIVER TECH (4)

duck flying
above the tree tops
neck stretched
against the sky

Roxie gnawing
on the stub
of a wet tree branch

waterwave reflections
shimmering on sunlit
rock wall

is it possible
that somewhere
in the world
somebody
is crossing off
a number on a calendar
and saying,
“there goes one more day.”?

Le Pont de Reynès
Feb. 8, 2008

REWARD

this is my reward
for sitting patiently
by the river
and waiting for the sun to set

and that was my reward
for riding deep
into wheat fields
and watching birds
fly out of the setting sun

Le Pont de Reynès
Feb. 10, 2008

FEAST

a couple of crumbs
from last night’s toast
anything more would be greedy
anything less a blessing

Le Pont de Reynès
Feb. 10, 2008

MEDICATIONS

the trick with meds
is not to confuse
the stuff you put in your nose
with the stuff
you put in your eyes

and the stuff
you put in your ears
doesn’t taste too good
either

Le Pont de Reynès
Feb. 10, 2008

I’D WALK A MILE FOR A PACK OF CAMELS

I wasn’t going to tell
this story on myself
but I can’t resist
nobody saw it from
my point of view

Collioure
sunny afternoon
not much left of the day
when I climb the stone steps
to the sea wall

old boy sitting
with his face to the sun
“Avez-vous une cigarette?”

Mediterranean high tide waves
crashing on the rocks
behind us

I shake my head
“Don’t smoke.”

he nods his head
I walk away

back in the narrow
streets of the town
I find a tobacco shop
buy a pack of unfiltered Camels
(been 10 years
since I’ve done this)
and a mini Bic lighter
head back to the stone wall

the old boy is still there
waves crashing higher
on the rocks behind us
red face squinting
into the red sun
half down over the hill

“Avez-vous une cigarette?”
I say, “Oui,” and take out
the Camels and the lighter
give them to him
he’s speechless
“Pour moi?”
then he’s speechless again
he thanks me in French
I say, “Avec plaisir.”

I walk away thinking about
spontaneous acts of kindness
but I can’t get that sign
out of my head
the white square
bordered in funeral black
that covered half the pack
I saw as I handed it to him
FUMER TUE

how about that?
I just gave him a gift
that will kill him

Le Pont de Reynès
Feb. 11, 2008

STONE ON STONE

two ducks
cruising upstream
motionless
like small motor boats
past a white rock
in the middle
which could be
flood-washed trash
so I throw a few stones
one hits
and clicks off
not plastic
click
stone on stone
click
Roxie thinks it’s a game
and plunges into the river
going after invisible ducks

Le Pont de Reynès
Feb. 12, 2008

GRAVITY

I fell out of bed
this morning
I haven’t done that since ever

and so
on the day before
my 67th birthday
a new phase
of my life begins

falling down
falling in love with gravity

Céret
Feb. 13, 2008

DOG FEEDING
for Roxie

“What is this?
“What can this be?
“What can this possibly be?
“Can it be?
“Can it be something good to eat?
“Is it possible?
“Yes, it’s possible
“It really is!
“I think – yes, I think it really is!”

Le Pont de Reynès
Feb. 14, 2008

TWO CATALAN PORTRAITS

1.
his laughter sounds like
car tires running over
loose gravel
in a parking lot

2.
his hair line
starts an inch above
his eyebrows
we saw him long ago
in a werewolf movie

Céret
Feb. 14, 2008

LE PAYS CATALAN

people still hitchhike
down here
even old ladies

gazing at the stars at night
the only things
that get in the way
are a few unpolluted clouds

nobody throws their trash
alongside the road

listen –
no boom box cars
or planes flying overhead

no power lines
nothing to get excited about

it’s easy
to feel good down here

Le Pont de Reynès
Feb. 15, 2008

SOMETHING & EVERYTHING
for Laszlo

we’re always leaving late
to visit someplace
like Prats-de-Mollo

Laszlo thinks
(I think)
that we’re missing out
on something

but how can that be?

I see everything

even after dark
I see many interesting
things

Prats-de-Mollo
Feb. 15, 2008

SAINT CAMELOPARD

long bone
hanging out over the church door

leg bone of giraffe
it could be

the faithful don’t kneel down
when entering this church
they scream their prayers
while jumping up
to slap both hands
against the Holy Camelopard

Prats-de-Mollo
Feb. 15, 2008

CHAGALL SOUNDTRACK

out of the pandemonium
and confetti storm
of the Mardi Gras parade
and into the cool rooms
of the museum
where Marc Chagall waits
for our eyes

and as we look
at his ceramic
pots and paintings
our ears are tickled
by far-away drum beats
and brass band blasts

this usually happens
only once in a lifetime

Musée d’Art Moderne
Céret
Feb. 16, 2008

PHOTOGRAPH
(Pablo & Marc)

Pablo Picasso
and Marc Chagall
photographed
making ceramic plates
in Valllauris

Marc is smiling
because Pablo just said,
“I like to take off my shirt
when the ladies come around

do you think
some ladies are hiding
inside that camera?”

Musée d’Art Moderne
Céret
Feb. 16, 2008

NEITHER HERE NOR THERE

neither here nor there
the mind moves ahead
long before the body
and imagines
what it’s going to be like
look like
feel like
tho it never turns out
like that at all

and what’s more
after the body catches up
and the eyes see
what it really looks like
the mind can’t remember
the old imaginary pictures
it drummed up
to keep it from being
surprised

Le Pont de Reynès
Feb. 17, 2008

AFTER CANIGOU

1.
I’m gazing up
at the fireball
of the setting sun
thru the branches
of the young sycamore

and he starts
talking about
the branches

Lamanon
Feb. 17, 2008

2.
sign language:
leaping deer
falling cows
rolling bulls
snailing oysters
crocodile farms

what else
do they have down here
that I don’t believe
really exists?

Autoroute du Soleil
Feb. 18, 2008

3.
romantic love
is wanting to be as close
to some one as possible

sometimes you almost
get there
but not quite

after which the world
goes back to being
full of wonderful
white elephants

Suresnes (Paris)
Feb. 20, 2008

  

The Seven Days of Spring & Other Poems

THE SEVEN DAYS OF SPRING

on the first day of spring
we get the first snow of winter

the second day of spring
full moon and snow flakes
the size of butterflies

the third day of spring
the owl is hunting
for her frozen easter eggs

the fourth day of spring
I get out my snow boots
and roll a snowman down the hill

the fifth day of spring:
which are the cherry blossoms
and which are the snow flakes?

the sixth day of spring
only 231 shopping days ’til christmas

on the seventh day of spring
the sun comes out
the birds start to sing
and everybody forgets
about christmas

March 27, 2008

FEATHER FENCE POST ROAD & SURPRISE
(BICYCLE POEM & SHORT STORY)

first bike of the year

I bury last year’s feather
on Apple Tree Road
(plant the tip in the pointed top
of a rotting fence post
let the wind carry it away
someday)
which will now become
Feather Fence Post Road
and with the shifting winds
humming thru my spokes
head for home *

Carrot Stop, April 22, 2008

* what happens next is so weird that it refuses to be puffed into the above bag of air, so I’ll try to squeeze it into this box of unblown bubble gum down here at the bottom: I’m bent over the back of my bike, writing the above in my notebook, when suddenly – and I do mean suddenly, I’m surrounded by kids on bikes. A swarm. 40 or 50 of them in red white and black racing gear, skid lids, and MIRACLE printed on the backs of their jerseys. 3 or 4 older guys teaching them how to race in a pack. I think they’re going to move on, but no, they take a break while I sit on the verge and eat a banana. It’s as if the cycle gods in the sky spit them out of the exhaust pipe of winter saying, “Take that, bike bum, see what you get for waiting so long to get out here on the road this year.” I’m amazed and stunned of course because I never – and I mean almost never, see anyone else on a bike out here on these remote farm roads. And I’ve certainly never seen such a pack as this. Weird too because they all have a completely different reason for being out here than I. I do not intend to accelerate and stick close to my teammate when I come to the next corner. Also half of the boys look like they’d rather be home watching TV. If a film crew had snuck up on me and shot a scene with a troop of monkey escaped from the zoo I wouldn’t have been more surprised.

Two Trees Road, April 22, 2008

COOL IN CARS

I took a walk around the village
this evening
and saw people
trying to act
cool in cars

peeling out
from the bakery
driving around with their heads
hanging out of windows
with the boom box
turned up to max

then one swerved by
but missed the cat by inches

and I said, Holy Saint Pitiful
this is the best they can do
this is the high point of their lives

Stockay, April 22, 2008

CHERRY BLOSSOMS

in old Japan
(so I’m told)
they used to organize
elaborate expeditions
to watch the cherry blossoms fall

in northern Europe
we do it differently:
we take an umbrella
and a flashlight
and go out at night
and watch the rain
beat the blossoms
off the branches

April 24, 2008

THREE SECONDS IN THE LIFE

a cherry blossom
lands on the table
a single small petal

a fat fly lands next to it
and the petal flies off
on a whistle of wind

April 24, 2008

THREE MORE SECONDS IN THE LIFE

another petal lands
on this page of my notebook

I close the notebook
and promise the petal
I will never open it again

April 24, 2008

23 HOURS, 59 MINUTES & 57 SECONDS LATER

the wind blows
the notebook open
and the petal flies away

April 25, 2008

AGE

she asked, “Are you really 67?”
“That’s what they tell me,” I said,
” I don’t remember much of 1941″
“I thought you were my age.”
“Which is?”
“58.”
“Now that’s really old.”
She didn’t even smile.

Heerlen, April 24, 2008

FISH ON BICYCLES

Amsterdam is a flat city
it is not famous
for its hills

most cities have hills
some are famous
for their hills
and rivers

not Amsterdam
it is famous
for its canals

we’re underwater here
swimming around
at the bottom
of an invisible sea
everybody you see
is a fish

Amsterdam, May 1, 2008

DEFINE ASSHOLE

a man or a woman
who is totally
insensitive
to the feelings
and needs
of others

and goes around
making a big deal
about how proud he is
of being that way

the cure : yet to be discovered

but who cares?
there’s enough kind,
gentle, intelligent
generous,
compassionate
people in the world
to keep us supplied
with good vibrations
until the end of time

Mighty Jericho Road
May 4, 2008

CHUMBAWAMBA

I get knocked down
I get up again

I get so excited
when I hear Tub Thumping
for the first time
ten years after its release
(on BBC Four’s 100
most annoying pop songs)
that when I finally
track down the CD
I put it on repeat play
and listen to it 30 times
in a row

I get knocked down
I get up again

I get so excited
that I stomp around the room
doing a Cheyenne shaman dance
punching my fists
in the air
and shouting along

I get knocked down
I get up again

I get so excited
that I want Marie Claire
to hear it

he drinks a whiskey drink
he drinks a vodka drink
he drinks a larger drink
he drinks a cider drink

she sits
with her hands in her lap
and listens patiently
to the end
then she gets up
and finishes
drying the dishes

May 20, 2008

SLIP & FALL

stepping out of the shower
(precarious moment)
I was thinking of Jean Pol
who is getting married today

one day last week
I was thinking of Adam Sandler
I remember one time
it was Bela Bartok

which is to say
if I’d suddenly slipped
& fallen & killed myself
those would have been
the images
I would have taken
into the afterlife
the pictures
I would have carried around
in my head for eternity

or until I was reborn

I’m glad I didn’t slip
& fall today
Jean Pol is OK
but I don’t want to carry
his picture around forever
and I’m sure glad
it wasn’t Adam Sandler
he thinks he’s funny
but he’s not
somebody told him
when he was small
that he had a great
sense of humor
they lied

but this is not about
Adam Sandler
this is about the last picture
which will be my eternal future

it might not be a shower
it might be a plane
falling on my head
or a man with a knife
sneaking up from behind
I just hope
it isn’t Adam Sandler

St. Georges, May 27, 2008

CAT LUCK

Wei Wei says in China
if a cat comes into the house
it’s bad luck
somebody will die

I think of Jimbo
who’s been in and out
of our house
day and night
for seven years

and before that
there was Moon
and Shortstop
and Breakdance
and Chunga
and Lumberjack
in and out of the house
night and day
thousands of times
for 30 years

now I know why
the political-industrial
American war machine
had to invade Iraq
and murder a lot of people

it’s all my fault
I should have known
that Jimbo and his brethren
were serial killers

May 28, 2008

LOOKING FORWARD TO THE 2008 OLYMPICS

something tells me
that this year
the Olympic Gold
will mean half as much
as it did in Barcelona
Atlanta
& Sydney
which already was half
of what it had been in Tokyo
Mexico City
& Munich

for the silver
it’ll be a toss up
between a runner-up sash
in a Miss Sasquatch beauty contest
and the green silk ribbon I won
in the hop, step & jump
in junior high

as for the bronze
it’ll be worth about the same
as a boy scout merit badge
in wood burning

May 29, 2008

HOP, STEP & JUMP

junior high, 1955
the Sonoma County Track Meet
I’d practiced all year
for the high jump
but didn’t even come close
to 4-feet

somebody said
“Hey, they’ve only got
2 guys signed up
for the hop, step & jump”
nobody knew how to do it
so I watched, figured it out
and scored third place
with a jump of 11-feet, 3-inches

first time I tried it
never tried it again

I went on to become
a famous musician

WAITING FOR BEAR

outside the glass door
looking back inside
at all the people
who came to the wedding
walking about
and talking
and dancing
I’ve already said goodbye
to everyone
can’t go back inside now
but
I can see
they’re going to get along
quite nicely
without me

Les Awirs, June 7, 2008

KEEP DANCING

and so maybe I think
too much about death
after five beers
it’s on my mind

Dave says I’ll live
to be a really old man
and by then
I won’t be thinking
about anything at all

Les Awirs, June 7, 2008

JAMES BROWN COW

I rode out today
and I saw Al Gore
walking along the street

I saw Chris from the Eggheads

I saw James Taylor
and I saw Jason Lee

I thought I saw Luciano Pavarotti
but he turned out to be
a brown cow

the people around here
keep me busy
trying to figure out
which celebrity
I might look like

Watertower Road, June 19, 2008

WHEAT, BARLEY & RYE (BIKE POEM 1)

today I rode out
between the fields of wheat
and barley and rye

I still didn’t know
which was which

the corn?
was that really corn?
or was it me?

Old Farm Road (heading out), June 24, 2008

EVERYBODY KNOWS WHERE THEY’RE GOING
AND EXACTLY HOW TO GET THERE
(BIKE POEM 2)

people stop
and ask directions
as if any old geezer
on a bike
knows these roads
which I do
every inch
except my head
is usually somewhere else
on birds for instance
or (for instance)
when I’ve got the four
windmills lined up in a row
in the distance
blades whirling
it looks like they’re all
feeding off the same
wave of wind

or
hey, the poppies
are being picked
to extinction

or
I’m carrying on an imaginary
conversation with Pete
about bicycle poems

or
I’ve got 4 or 5 lines
of a bicycle poem
stacked up in my head
that needed to be unloaded
into this notebook

(I’ve got 4 or 5 lines
of a bicycle poem
stacked up in my head
that needed to be unloaded
into this notebook)

“Can you please tell us
how to get to Rue de Heppelette?”
and suddenly we’ve got another problem

“I know that one
except I call it Mudslide Road –
and to get there you go down to the end
and turn left onto Frozen Eyelid Road
then you go until you come to a junction
and turn right on John the Baptist Boulevard
go for about two miles on John the Baptist
past the Mystic Frites
past Jawbone Alley
and take the next right –
no – that’s Mambojerk Lane
you don’t want to go on Mambojerk
cause that dead-ends in Twilight Zone Avenue
take the next right – Busted Chain Guard Road
you should be able to see the Chocolate
Watertower from there
and follow Busted Chain Guard
until you come to a fork
fork right and you’re on Mudslide
can’t miss it.”

they nod and drive away
they know exactly where they’re going
and so do I

Aeolian Road, June 24, 2008

MORE DIRECTIONS

I know where I am
and exactly where I’m going

I’m here
and I’m going over there
what more can you say?

nothing

because it’ll get all twisted
and mixed up if I start
talking about this being
my first visit to High Point Hesbaye
this year and look at the huge gnarly
tree stump that got blown down
a couple of years ago
and when I stepped over a branch
I thought if I were in California
I’d have to watch out for rattlesnakes
but all I’ve ever seen in Belgium
serpent-wise
are a few sliver gliders
but don’t get me started on the BUGS
they’re everywhere
fruit flies, horse flies
dragon flies, fire flies
wasps, mosquitoes
hornets, bumble bees
fire flies, gnats
ticks, bo-hicks
plasterboles, groo-munsters
swarks, snides
figglestabs, pesterbuggers
juggergnots, nasty jasters
mellowsmellows, jimbohooks
farthersomes, mugsomes
bildersnags and pink winks
there must be a million species
and most of them don’t have names

like I said before
what else can you say?

nothing

Rainbow Stub Road June 24, 2008

THE SEVEN DAYS OF SUMMER

on the second day of summer
hail fell from the sky
stones the size of my thumb nail

who’s calling the shots up there?

on the third day of summer
the sky is so true blue
that when I touch it
I leave a thumb print

the fourth day of summer
while Bear cuts my hair
a bird in a tree overhead
tries out for the soprano part
in La Traviata

on the fifth day of summer
it rained so hard
that there were mudslides
all over the land
people everywhere said:
“This is not summer –
this is the end of the world.”

on the sixth day of summer
the rain fell so lightly
the snails in the garden
thought they were on vacation
in an old Chinese painting

on the seventh day of summer
after 40 years of marriage
I bought Bear
a wedding ring
from a bubble gum machine
in a supermarket
it was made of precious purple
and I made her very happy

you might ask:
what happened
on the first day of summer?

and I might say:
I really can’t remember
I was still thinking about
the last day of spring

June 27, 2008

SLUGS

going up to bed
I find a slug
trying to crawl
into my flannel shirt pocket

one of these moonless nights
a slug will be waiting for me
above the doorway
when I come home
it will drop on my head
and suck at my brains

I will fall to the ground
the cat will come up
and lick my face
but it will be too late

the slug will have consumed me

there will be nothing left
except my clothes
a 6 foot 3, 180-pound
slug in a flannel shirt
jeans sneakers
and baseball cap
crawling away
towards a moist rock
in the forest

I haven’t mentioned this yet
but I don’t like slugs

and neither will you
when they drop on your skull
and suck out your brains
in the middle of the night

July 10, 2008

HARVEST

mid-July
and the wheat’s coming down

2 weeks too soon

the farmers are hungry
they haven’t had a loaf of bread
since last year about this time

Carrot Stop, July 12, 2008

THE MINI GREED
OF THE MATERIALISTIC BUMPS

today, July 24, 2008
the Materialistic Bumps bought
one lawn mower
one French fryer
one watering can for the flowers
one big plastic bucket for the garden
one fly screen of plastic strips for the front door
four 20-watt halogen light bulbs
two ordinary 60-watt light bulbs

a remarkable trend
can be noticed
in the purchasing habits
of the Materialistic Bumps

their greed has diminished

everything they bought
could fit into the trunk of their car

plus
after 3 years
of living in darkness
they will be able
to see what they’re eating

NEW JUNK

first we loaded up the trunk of the car
with an old broken lawnmower
a broken plastic garden chair
a bagful of frigolite cubes
a basketful of empty bottles
and a burnt out French fryer

then we took them over
to the recycling dump
and dumped them

on the way home
we stopped at a couple of stores
and filled up the trunk
with more stuff
that someday
we will have to load
back in the trunk
and haul off to the dump

you know what I was thinking?
why don’t we drive the new junk
straight to recycling center
and save us a trip later

July 24, 2008

TOUR DE FRANCE

who watched it?
nobody I know
who won?
who cares?

July 27, 2008

ACRONYM

isn’t there anybody out there
who’s as alarmed as I am
about this hyper-acronymic world
we’re living in?

it started with “OK”
and quickly escalated thru “PDQ”
and “ASAP”
to “NAACP”
and now there is no end in sight

MTV
VCR
DVD
BVD
CIA
FBI
DAR
EMI
CBS
NBC
ABC
CNN
GSM
GNP
PSA
PTA
TWA
BBC
BRT
RTB
RCA
PLO
HMO
CEO
DIY
FYI
FCC
FDA
UHF
UVL
UFO
RAI
SMS
USA
USO
NRA
TVA
VAT
RTL
WWW
SOS
CHU
DNA
RNA
DDR
COD
HIV
TNT
DDT
GOP
KLM
KIA
HRE
EUR
THC
BMI
MRI
JVC
NBA
MLB
NFL
IOC
IBM
IOU
LSD
LDS
PhD
UPS
BSA
GTO
GMC
AFL
CIO
OBE
AKG
DWI
DOA
ARD
ZDF
IRS
IRA
EEG
RSA
PVC
MVP
VIP
PGA
PMS
HBO
HMS
ETA
ELO
CPR
DMZ
GMT
BLT
BTU
SAC
SAT
SUV
USC
MGM
MiG
MIT
TLC
TKO
MIA
PAT
FDR
JFK
ERA
DST
SST
KLM
KKK
AAA
IPS
BIA
SOP
SOB
MPH
RPM
REM
RBI
FFA
MLK
RKO
LBJ
LFO
LPG
BMW
RAF
AMA
APO
CPA
QED
NCO
PTO
RIP
WWF
AFN
LPG
STP
PCP
ICU
ATM
VSO
VFW
POW
KLA
KRO
NPR
AEC
CNS
ESP
OED
XTC

give us another hundred years
and we’ll have our language
reduced to 3-letter words or less

ID
CD
MP
KP
KO
TB
BO
MS
MA
DT(s)
PC
DB
DA
DH
PO
CV
JC
JD
JG
BP
OD
TA
AA
CC
UN
LA
RV
RN
FM
AM
TV
TD
BM
JV
RV
DP
HP
CB
PR
PG
PS
PA
VD
VC
UC
PI
PJ (s)
OJ
PE
BS
CO
DM
GP
LP
MC
NB
QV
SF
WC
VW
IV
IQ

and we’ll be stumbling around
speaking like first graders
trying to learn the alphabet

Feather Post Road, July 31, 2008

END QUOTE

Bear leaves me a note that says

“Writing is the only space
of total freedom.”

which means
that it can no longer be

because from now on
writing will be
(quote)
the only space of total freedom
(end quote)

which means
if you think about it
you’re screwed

good thing I don’t think about it

August 16, 2008

BEAR SAYS

“I don’t mind
having grey hair

except it makes me look tired.”

August 16, 2008

QUADS

snow mobiles
jet skis

I hate ’em

quads are worse

wheel chairs
for mental parapalegics

every time one goes by
I wish him a solid
& fatal collision
with a power pole
an impact so total
that every molecule
of his body
will become so deeply enbedded
in the concrete
that not even a cyclotron
will be able to pull them out

August 31, 2008

EAST OF CARROT STOP

sitting on a bale of straw
(that won’t be here the next time
I ride down Pony Cart Road)
in the middle of a field
(which I seldom get a chance to visit
because of winter and spring mud,
spring wheat planting, summer
growth and harvest)
facing west into the setting sun
into the wind
watching the windmills turn
and the silver rain
slant down from black clouds

in less than an hour
everything here
will be soaking wet

I’ll be somewhere else
down the road
across the fields
getting soaked
in a different place

August 31, 2008

SWEET SPIT

strong cross-wind
from the south
I spit north

and the glob sails
way out
into the field
of sugar beets

for that special touch
of Hesbaye Bike Bum flavor
in someone’s coffee
on a cold winter morning
next year

Blinking Light Road, Sept. 2, 2008

FALL

the poplars
are the first victims
of the winter chill

I stop to watch
the leaves falling
and I realize
that I’m already
looking forward to
the cherry blossoms

Jean-Baptist Boulevard, Sept. 8, 2008

EGO-GEOCENTRICUS

what we have a habit of forgetting
(ego-geocentricus)
is that when the sun goes down
it keeps on turning and burning
turning and burning all night long
and it’s still
turning and burning
when it comes up in the morning
and it’s been turning and burning
for six billion years
(as a matter of fact)
tho neither you nor I
can comprehend the idea
of six billion anythings

even one million is impossible

I have trouble
with a thousand
years
dollars
balloons
wishes
pages
people

but of course the sun
doesn’t bother counting
it just turns and burns
and someday
in the blink of an eye
it will burn out
and we will be
all alone
with no light at all

Rage Road, Sept. 27, 2008

THE SEVEN DAYS OF FALL

on the first day of fall
I find myself bundled up
in scarf, sweater, flannel jacket
and wool cap
thinking today might as well be
the first day of winter

they say that today
– the second day of fall –
is shorter than yesterday
that might be true
but I don’t know about the night

the night is capable
of doing anything

it’s been creeping up on me
earlier and earlier
these past couple of weeks
with such obscure determination
that I have started
to take it personally

on the third day of fall
when I switched off the light
and lay down to sleep
it was still dark outside the window

for the first time in 6 months

no birds were singing

this is not good news
if I’m not awake to make sure
the daylight will return
and bring back the sun
we all might get tricked
into years of perpetual night

think about that

it’s not a very nice thought
is it?

and now, at last
you can understand
the importance of my work
and if I started falling
to sleep on the job
I won’t blame you
if you get someone
to take my place

what can I say
about the fourth day of fall
that hasn’t been said before?

we all know about
the soft thump of ripe apples
falling in a distant orchard
we all know the cool
nostril-tingling
scent of fresh apples
gathered in boxes
in the woodshed
filling the air
with wood stump perfume
that makes us want
to linger and sniff
until our noses grow dull
and seek out the last rose
of summer still swaying
atop it’s long stem
in the garden
stealing light
from the wind-chilled sun

but I bet you didn’t know
about the 3 million, 575 thousand
sub-microscopic creatures
that cover your body
strolling around on your skin
climbing around in your hair
shopping in the malls of your armpits
and feasting on picnic lunches
in the public parks of your legpits
who are now growing long noses
and burrowing down deep
into your pores for a long
period of hibernation
give ’em a scratch
with your fingernails
and stir up a riot

there is something about
the fifth day of fall
that is difficult to talk about

for instance
on the fifth day of fall
I listened to the weather report

they said we were going to have
more weather

and they were right

while mowing the lawn
on the sixth day of fall
you can tell yourself
that this won’t be the last time
this year, tho you know
when you roll the mower
into the shed, drain the oil
and cover it with a plastic tarp
you won’t be seeing it again
until sometime early April

watching the leaves fall
on the seventh day of fall
we can console ourselves
with the fact
that we live longer
than a leaf

SUICIDAL COWS
for Amandine

she says in France
they have to put up
fences along the edge
of the sea cliff
to keep the suicidal cows
from jumping over

I say I’ve never seen a cow
who was not depressed

QUATRAIN

he lays them all away
on the lay away plan
try to stay away
from the Slam Hammer Man

QUATRAIN

he never looks up
at the vulture in the sky
he will always be
Once Bitten Twice Shy

  

Rome Poems
EAR-POP TUNNELS & MIST-COVERED HILLS

lifting the curtain
& peering out at the dawn
as we roll out
of a night tunnel
from Paris to Bologna
into ear-pop tunnels
& mist-covered hills
wondering what Italy
looks like after 40 years

pine forests with bulldozers
& earth-cut road construction

looks like Northern California

Castiglione
October 23, 2008

BARBARIAN INVASION HEADACHE

and here I am
on a train
returning to Rome
after 40 years
looking forward
to the old ways
of ancient civilization
getting ready to float
in warm memories

and instead
I come face to face
with a pair of hostile
loud-mouth, obnoxious
black-skin barbarians
from the south
who insult me
with their noise
and egotistical pollution

I call him an asshole
he calls me a racist
I tell him to shut up
he shuts up

and if any of you think
I might be a racist
let it be known
that I just voted for
Barack Obama
(and Otis Redding
and James Baldwin
and Ralph Ellison
and Jesse James
and the Temptations)

Arrezo
October 23, 2008

OPEN MOUTH

sliding down the rails
towards Rome
Bear across from me
asleep with her mouth
wide open

it looks like
she doesn’t have any teeth

it looks like
she’s trying to catch a fly

it looks like
she is trying to sing

Orte
October 23, 2008

COMING BACK TO ROME

coming back to Rome
I didn’t know what to expect
but I wasn’t expecting
to see picture window billboards
spray painted graffiti
huge red & green balloons
holding up entire
flatroof supermarkets

bright white taxis

the blue flashing light
& siren blasting police escort
streaking across the Gianicolo
with a fox-face politician
on his way to a cage
full of plump chickens

or to get crapped on
by a seagull
while eating an ice cream cone

or to see 100,000
migrating blackbirds
as fine as mist
dancing over the rooftops
of the city
from Piazza Navona
to the Spanish Steps

and this is only
our first day in Rome

River Tevere
October 23, 2008

HOW DO THEY DARE

how do they dare
build a city like Brussels
when there’s Roma
waiting for the whole world
to drop by for a visit
& to see exactly how
a beautiful city should be created

Piazza San Egidio
October 23, 2008

I NEVER EXPECTED

on our second day in Rome
I didn’t expect to see
grey-robed nuns
with backpacks
trudging thru the church
in Santa Maria in Trastevere
and peeking into
the chapel of the Madonna

I expected to see
a barbarian invader from the south
but I never expected
to see one walking
thru Trastevere
with a stack of white sweat socks
in a plastic sack
under his arm

I expected to hear
a few church bells
(and so far I’ve heard
more than a few)
but I never expected
to hear Bear say
she’d like to drive a streetcar
down via Arenula

and I never expected
to be sitting in a waiting room
of the ER
on Isola Tiburina
waiting for a doctor
to pull out a tick
from my belly

and I never expected
to go down the steps
of Piazza Argentina
to the cat sanctuary
where 300 cats live
or have one of them
jump up on my lap
and go to sleep

I half expected
to get another flavor
when I ordered a blackberry
ice cream cone
so I wasn’t too surprised
when I got cherry

from Trastevere to Piazza Navona
October 24, 2008

STORNI & ZECCHE

“Storni,” says Francesco
slowly pronouncing the word
which describes the migrating
black birds which flood the skies
of the city at sunset
and settle in the trees
along the Tevere
“Storni,” he says
(almost rolling the R)
“Storni”
(putting the word
in a delicate box)

“Zeccha,” says Marion
sharply pronouncing the word
which describes the tiny beast
with its claws buried in my bellyskin

starlings & ticks
they sound better in Italian

via Mattonato (Trastevere)
October 24, 2008

POLITICAL RUMORS & THUNDERSTORM

when I came to Rome
I expected to hear music
& bump into a few
political rumors

but I never expected
to find myself
surrounded by thousands
of rumors in Circo Massimo
in the middle of a political rally
for the partito democratico
while live television
beamed pictures on the wide screens
next to the festival stage
of a million more rumors
50 abreast in a mile-long parade
clogging the streets of Rome
& waving red and white flags
while the speakers pumped out
5000 watts of Bruce Springsteen
singing “Born to Run”

when I came to Rome
I expected
some weather
but I never expected
a lightning
& thunder storm
over Piazza Colonna
in the late afternoon

from Circo Massimo to Piazza Colonna
October 25, 2008

LOOK

Bear has a favorite word:
“Look!”

she says “Look!”
and I look

she says, “Look!”
and I look over there

then she says, “Look!”
and I look to where she’s pointing

she says, “Look!’
all the time

I’ve never done
so much looking
in my life

vicolo del Leopardo (Trastevere)
October 25, 2008

ITALIAN ELVIS

and I never expected
to see an Italian Elvis
walking around Trastevere
with a rock-a-billy haircut
sideburns, shades
and a cane

vicolo del Leopardo
October 25, 2008

DAYLIGHT SAVINGS

set back the clocks
last night
one extra hour in Rome
which I put to good use
this morning
by walking around
our rented apartment
in my bare feet

via Panieri
October 26, 2008

PILES OF RUINS & ERODED STONE STATUARY

walking around Rome
in a single day
the city builds up
piles of ruins
and eroded stone statuary
in my nose and I spend
an hour each night
before going to bed
tearing them down

don’t get me started
on the other
nostril

via Panieri
October 25, 2008

UNIFORMS

Romans are a bunch
of decent, friendly folk
until you put one
in a uniform
cops
doctors
nurses
museum guards
then look out
he turns into a puffed up
(and don’t forget stupid)
piece of stronzino maiale
and will try to spread
his turdness
all over you
if you give him
half a chance

Campidoglio
October 26, 2008

MORE STORNI

thousands of birds
in the trees
along the river
at night
sleeping & chirping
in their dreams

I emerge
onto Ponte Sisto
covered in bird shit

I thought it was raining

Ponte Sisto
October 26, 2008

INSTANT DREAM MEAT

the psycho-docs
will have you believe
that dreams contain deep
arcane messages
from the underground tombs
of the mind
which can be instantly
recognized & reduced
to simple explanations

for example
getting bit by a dog
in a dream
“simple-izes” your own
animal nature in rebellion
against arbitrary restrictions

I say; bullshit
if you get bit by a dog
in a dream
it means that you got bit
by a dog in a dream
and the reason for this
will remain
mysterious & impossible
to explain
forever

via Panieri
4:30 am, October 27, 2008

INSTANT FREUD & JUNG

Bear wakes up
and asks
“who was the first
to interpret dreams?”

I say, “Wait til you hear
what I just wrote down
– and if you tell me
that you just got bit
by a dog in your dream
I’ll start barking.”

via Panieri
4:45 am, October 27, 2008

CRAPODASTRO

there was a single hair
from Bear’s head
sticking to the end
of the glycerin suppository
when I stuck it in
for my morning crap

now can say
with pride:
I have a wild hair
up my ass
via Panieri
October 27, 2008

DIALOGO

Bear asks:
“Do you think you can die
from too much happiness?”

I say:
no
you keep on living
whether you like it or not

via Panieri
October 27, 2008

NEW ITALIAN DIALECT

after a few days in Rome
strange combinations of words
pop into my head:

sposati regionale
mango tastro
glossferatu
fanccio ribasi
spiradiamo questini
tulicamoli
sublancianta rodulgo
pacolacio giropappo

stay here a few more days
and I’ll have a lexicon
of useless expressions

ralentondi garseppio
arancimbolo astro lunchi
luzzabilio dulla bardunna

with a map of street names
nobody’s ever heard of:

via Pergovaldi
vicolo della Pagastrina
piazza Carbonasto
corso Gacchio

after the study of which
the citizens of the city
will be lost & frustrated
& reduced to uttering
foul oaths & colloquial curses:

“Verboclappo!”
“Zagonistra!”
“Fungopretondo con fongusto!”
“Vogliolesciutto!”
“Grasto la basto!’
“Che sicorpo!”
“Hosta paduto!”

in a few years all these spontaneous words
will become the foundation
of a new Italian Dialect:

Io grimo decombotato crusti spizzico la nano barsevi scruffiamo mimolisti.
Caperno campofasti mistimo rivopallo pochi.
La tigrata porti nello lustopiggerasto de lupisto formigianna e dei fighetti collaborundi soni quilla quodo pastorano.

PALAZZO RICCI & I SUOI LEUTARI

violins hang from hooks
in the wood dust air
a glass case of violas
a row of cellos on the balcony
their red wood glowing
in the shadowed light
from the high, barred windows

dozens of string quartets

their silent music
fills the workshop
and the thunderous applause
they will gather someday
is overwhelming

Piazza Ricci
October 27, 2008

THE HISTORY OF THE ROMAN STRINGERS
to Claude Lebet

when I came to Rome
I expected to bring back
a couple of extra pounds
of books
but I never expected
to be bringing back
two centuries
of violins & cellos
that weigh more than
all the cobblestones
of via Leutari

Piazza Farnese
October 27, 2008

THE HUNCHBACK CRONE SPRAWLED ON THE STONES IN THE DOORWAY
OF SANTA MARIA IN TRASTEVERE

she can get expensive

she gets you coming
and going

October 27, 2008

FRIENDS

I hope we see some friends
when we get back to Belgium
so they can say:
“You sure picked up a lot of sun”
and
“You got a great tan”
and
“It looks like you’re feeling pretty good.”

UMBRELLA

sorry, Claude
a dead-hearted thief
stole your beautiful black umbrella
in the Paris metro
while we were going
from Gare de Lyon
to Gare du Nord

I was looking forward
to many rains
under that umbrella
of having it over my head
keeping me dry
while thinking about you

now I’ll have to go back
to wearing
a baseball cap

Gare du Nord (Paris)
October 30, 2008

MAPS &PHOTOS

now all I’ve got
are old street maps
and a few fuzzy pictures
to confuse my memories

Belgium
October 29, 2008

  

The Seven Days of Winter & Other Poems

PERFECT EVENING

I step out
into the autumn twilight
leaves falling
fallen apples perfuming
the cool air
a perfect evening

then I look back
and see the half moon rising

is it possible
for an evening
to be more than perfect?

November 8, 2008

T. ZIMMERMAN, HERMIT, AGE 67

I hear the boys
shouting in the woods

I go out and lean
in my doorway

and here they come
a half dozen boy scouts
tramping in the ditch
along the fence line
kicking up the knee-deep leaves

they’ve never been here before
hardly anybody ever comes here
because there’s no place to go
a dead-end up the valley
but they hike on by
intent on getting
out of the woods
and not getting lost

none of them see me
50 feet away
except the last boy
trailing behind
alone
he looks up
I slowly lift my hand
shoulder high
– a half wave
he slowly lifts his hand
and half-waves back

I’m sure he’ll remember
this silent encounter
with the old hermit of the valley
for the rest of his life

and with a little luck
the old hermit
will remember too

November 8, 2008

T. ZIMMERMAN, POET, AGE 67

I never look in the mirror
and I hadn’t looked closely
at a photo of myself for 10 years
until Bear brought back
all these close-ups of my face
from Rome

wrinkles, grey beard
missing teeth
holy shit
I’m an old man

crazy thing is
everybody has seen me
this way
for 10 years or more
and all the time
I thought I was still 25

November 8, 2008

T. ZIMMERMAN, POLITICAL ACTIVIST, AGE 67

I got this candle
from Amnesty International
red-brown, 4 inches high
with a spiral of barbed wire
printed on the stubby cylinder
from bottom to top
the idea being that with every
link of wire I burn
another prison fence
in the world will fall

I wish it could be that easy

still, I give it a try
I let the candle burn
down past the first barb
and a half hour later
the TV tells me
that a Canadian journalist
had been released
from a hostage prison
in Afghanistan
holy cow!
it really works
give me more candles
thousands of candles
I’ll light up the world
and put the sun to shame

November 9, 2008

T. ZIMMERMAN, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, AGE 67

everybody knows
that poetry and politics
don’t mix.
(ask Ezra Pound)
but I can’t help myself
on this one:

five days ago
we, the American people
elected Barack Obama
as our new president
and I still can’t believe it

for the first time in my life
I voted FOR a candidate
(and not against one)
for the first time in my life
I’m almost proud
to be an American
(been ashamed for so long
that I’ve grown weary
of avoiding of my own face
in the mirror)
for the first time
in my life I can actually
believe that something
good can happen
when people get together
and try to alter
the disastrous slide
into oblivion in which
we the people of the world
have been headed
for the past 50 years.

for the first time in my life
I’ve heard good news
when I switched on the TV:
“Crowds all over the world
are celebrating!”

maybe this time, folks
maybe just one time
for the first time in my life
and not the last

November 9, 2008

SLEEP

sleeping has become
such hard work
I should be
getting paid for it

by the hour

November 11, 2008

CRUISER

a PT Cruiser
with an electric purple
paint job

I would look good
behind the wheel
of one of those

highway to Liege at twilight,
November 12, 2008

THE FIRST DAY OF WINTER

the trees are empty
the leaves are all down
summer lying dead
in small pieces
around my studio

this looks a lot like
the first day of winter

Nov. 12, 2008

WASHING MACHINE BELLY

I eat a couple
of soft boiled eggs
then crawl back into bed
and feel my stomach
working on them
like a washing machine

first it goes:
“THUMP – THUMP – THUMP”
then it settles down into:
“YUMMY – YUMMY – YUMMY”

at the end it shifts up
into the spin-dry cycle
and I fall to sleep
spinning around in the funnel
of a whirlpool
and drowning
in my own dreams

November 16, 2008

WEASEL BASKETBALL

last winter
a couple of weasels
got under the roof
and into the attic
they scratched around
at night, bit each other
and squealed

I went up
to chase them away
but they were hidden
under a pile
of 30-year old junk

I latched onto
some sports gear
my son left behind
from his childhood:
a red and yellow
basketball
and an orange and plastic
t-ball bat

I beat the half-deflated
basketball
with the bat
and the weasels
went away

now they’re back
thumping around
biting and squealing
so I guess it’s time to go up
and pound on the basketball
again

November 21, 2008

THE FIRST DAY OF WINTER – 2

snow
and
more
snow

look familiar?

looks like
the first day of winter
to me

November 22, 2008

WINSTON CHURCHILL DREAMED

Winston Churchill dreamed
he’d discovered
the secret of the universe:
THE SMELL OF TURPENTINE

I wake up
and find out what it really is:
THE TASTE OF RHUBARB ICE CREAM

November 22, 2008

FIRST DAY OF WINTER – 3
(Frozen Worms)

blackbirds pecking
at the crust of icy snow
starving

don’t look now
it might be
the first day
of winter

November 23, 2008

QUEEN WITH MOUSE

saw a documentary on BBC
about a painter who painted
a portrait of Queen Elizabeth

she was sitting royally
back straight, hands in her lap
with an “off with his head”
kind of smile
curling her stiff
upper lip

too bad I never became
a famous portrait painter
who got a commission
to do the queen
I would have put her
on a toilet
with a roll of pink paper
in her hand
and the tail of a mouse
dangling from the corner
of her mouth

November 24, 2008

ORIGINAL FOOD

how did we ever
get roped into eating
broccoli?

the original tribe
must have had a human
guinea pig
a food taster
he’d nibble on a chicken egg
find out it tasted better boiled
and without the shell

then he’d chomp down
on a mushroom
puke and go back
to sucking on carrots

stick his nose
into a bee hive
slurp up a bellyful of honey
get stung a few times
then go back for more

he’d scoop up a handful
of rotten peanuts
declare it to be peanut butter
and soon all the moms
would be sending
their cave kids
off to school
with peanut butter & jelly sandwiches

but what I want to know is this:
what was he thinking
when he approved of
brussels sprouts?
he must have had
a bad cold that day

November 26, 2008

JIMBO THE SNOWMAN

stepped outside
to see if the cat
wanted to come in
from the cold

I bent over
and said softly:
“How about it, Jimbo
want to come in
where it’s warm?”

no reply

I took a step closer
and found I was talking to
a pile of snow

December 3, 2008

FOOTBALL GAME

each Christmas
when I was a kid
age 8 to 11
my namesake uncle
Charles Tucker
who once upon a recent time
(before the war)
had been first string defensive guard
from Wake Forest
would give me piles
of football gear
hoping I’d grow up
to become a famous
football player

fat chance
I was skinnier than a goalpost
with no promise of bulky muscle
on my physical horizon

I never used the gear

tho sometimes I’d put it on
the shoulder pads
the pants
the helmet
and sit on the edge of my bed
and listen to football games
on the radio

December 5, 2008

DYLAN’S WHITE BIRDS
(“What do you think of the white birds?”)

some will turn black
before they come back

some will still be white

some of them might
but they won’t be white

some won’t come back at all

December 4, 2008

THE SEVEN DAYS OF WINTER

the calendar says
it’s the First Day of Winter
but as far as I’m concerned
we’ve been here a couple of times
already
so let’s skip ahead to

the Second Day of Winter
when Jimbo (bless his primitive soul)
blesses our barren landscape
with his black and white ball of fur
as he sits on the snow-bleached grass
contemplating a pile of dead leaves
and wondering where all the fat
tasty field mice
are hiding

on the Third Day of Winter
the nights are already getting shorter
(or so they say)
I don’t know if this is true
I think the nights are getting faster
and so are the days
they been getting
faster and faster
for years
the average length of a day
is 17 minutes now
and as for the night, alas
it’s down to 6½

on the Fourth Day of Winter
(Christmas Eve)
I prepare my holiday spirit
with my annual repeat play
audition of the Pogues
Fairytale of New York
(the most beautiful
Christmas song ever written)
and it’s comforting to hear
that the boys in the NYPD choir
are still singing
Galway Bay

it’s the Fifth Day of Winter
(Christmas morning)
and for the first time in my life
we don’t have a tree

no big deal

I didn’t even notice
until Santa Claus
pulled up
and didn’t know
where to park
my new PT Cruiser

on the Sixth Day of Winter
(the day after)
we drive into town
and walk thru masses
of humans waving
shirts and sweaters
and underwear
and necktie gifts
trying to get the stores
to exchange them
for a different size

not us
we buy a 40-pound turkey

the check-out girl
stares at it for a long time
and I know what she’s thinking:
some people just can’t get enough
of that Christmas dinner

on the seventh day of winter
I look out the window
and I see the sun shining

the sky is blue
and birds are flying

I know about the window
and how I’m not supposed to believe
everything I see on the other side

I know that it’s 45 degrees
below zero out there
cold enough
to freeze the tears in my eyes

but let’s pause for a moment
and forget about the window
let’s just say (you and I)
that from where we’re standing
it looks like the first day of spring

I read much of the night and go south in the winter

Canigou Poems – Series Two – January – March 2009 |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

PARADE

driving the freeway
you join the parade
you just plug in mentally
and flow along
with the collective amoeba mind

only you might know
where you’re going
but how you get there
is everybody’s business

near Arlon
on the highway to France, Jan. 9, 2009

HUMAN SUITCASE

packed car
heading for the south of France
Bear takes out the food
and eats a couple of sandwiches
“Making more room
in the back,” she says
using her stomach
for storage space

near Troyes
on the Autoroute de Soilel, Jan. 9, 2009

PUNCH LINE

the curious punch line
of staying in a luxurious
3-star hotel for a night
is that when you sleep
(the reason you came here in the first place)
you could be anywhere
(in your humble bed back home
or wrapped in a dirty blanket
in a skid row doorway
or buried in pelts
in the back of a mossy cave)
and the dreams you enjoy
or suffer (your meeting
with the doctor
who gives you 24 injections
in the wrist
or listening to a radio
where some slope artist is talking about
the nostril police
or trying to take a picture
with a camera full of whipped cream)
would emerge
from your interior landscape
no matter where you might be
in the world

St. Quentin-de-Poterie, Jan. 10, 2009

ALIEN AEOLIANS

many aeolians
in the south of France

recently one was found
with a broken
and melted blade

folks say
it got hit by a u.f.o.

the aliens thought they saw
an old friend from back home
and dropped down to say hello

now we know
what the men from outer space
look like

they look like windmills

Autoroute du Sud near Perpignan,
Jan. 11, 2009

BACK AT THE MAS TRILLES

Canigou covered with snow
the River Tech a foot higher
than last year
Roxie a pound or two
heavier
with a few more grey hairs
and a little slower

about the same as me

Pont Reynes, Jan. 11, 2009

GRANDE CAFÉ DE PARIS

sit down by the window
order a hot chocolate
the friendly and charming
waitress younger than I
(but not by much)
sets the cup down in front of me
saying: “Voici, jeune homme.”

I hope Bear
in the cyber cafe up the street
finishes her messages
and comes down to join me
before I finish
so the waitress can see
what a great “jeune femme”
(friendly and charming
and younger than I
but not by much)
has chosen to be my lifetime companion

Amélie-les-Bains, Jan. 13, 2009

TWO NO FOOLS

sitting by the River Tech
after sundown
Roxie chewing
on a wet branch
the chill of wet leaves
seeping up thru my jeans
both of us
just letting the river flow by

I’d be a fool
to ask for more

at moments like this
I’m not so foolish

Pont Reynes, Jan. 13, 2009

DOG & HOG

Roxie smells something
along the river
maybe an animal

I get down on my hands
and knees
and stick
my nose
in the pile of leaves

what can this be?

yes it is

wild boar

Pont Reynes, Jan. 13, 2009

NOTHING

I spent the whole day
doing nothing

then I came home
and did nothing

then I read for a while
after which
I didn’t do anything
at all

Pont Reynes, Jan. 14, 2009

MORE NOTHING

Marie Claire says
that doing nothing
doesn’t mean anything
unless you’ve been doing
something
before you started doing
nothing

doing a lot
of something
can be followed by
doing a lot of nothing

we are both prepared
to start doing
a lot of nothing

Pont Reynes, Jan. 14, 2009

LIGHT

light falls
and drops into the river
like tiny pebbles

light flows
and sweeps up against
the snowy southern slope
of Mt. Canigou

light stands still
frozen
and I sit inside
its icy bubble
eating a Spanish orange

Pont Reynes, Jan. 14, 2009

PERPIGNAN

Bear does not drive
on her birthday

we take the bus
into the big city
(one euro each, one hour)
and spend the day
prowling around
searching in bookstores
for line 18
of T.S. Eliot’s Wasteland
in a French translation

I’ve got this idea
that it would make
an appropriate title
for this collection

we find the poem
in the public library
(the mediateque)
but only in English

I read, much of the night,
and go south in the winter

Bear says, “Why French?
It’s much better in the original.”

and so it is.

Perpignan, Jan. 16, 2009

CATHEDRAL ST. JEAN IN PERPIGNAN

Perpignan was OK
empty back streets
and total silence
until we went into the Cathedral
thru the back door
dark and gloomy
need a flashlight
to find your way
to the Madonna shrine
and an extra battery
to see her face
I mean that could have been
any old hag up in the shadows
and the whole place
creepy and spooky
ripping at your fingernails
with Spanish inquisition
pain wave memories
I mean we couldn’t get out of there
fast enough

so we walked out
the front door
into a changed city
thousands of Perpiggers
banging around
like billiard balls
in the narrow streets
thugs with attack dogs
hysterical youth
elbow-in-the-rib pigs
with no eyes and green skin
we couldn’t get out of there
fast enough

jumped on the bus
and rode until
the windows steamed up
then we forgot about the city
and remembered
it was Bear’s 65th birthday

Perpignan, Jan. 16, 2009

SATURDAY MORNING STREET MARKET IN CERET

we stroll down
the traffic-closed street
lined with stalls, crowded
with shoppers
we buy sweatpants & oranges
a pillow & a book
a chicken & a mouse pad
then we slide
into a side street
over to the Places dels Nou Raigs
to an outdoor café
where I eat an after-shopping omelet

we are already
falling into a ritual
and we don’t even know it

Céret, Jan. 17, 2009

SATURDAY EVENING MUSSEL DANCE IN AMELIE-LES-BAINS

Bear’s birthday dinner
at the Grande Café de Paris
dozens of geezers
under a mirror ceiling
gulping down moules & frites
while the soccer teams
jump around on the big screen

we eat
we drink

I give Bear her presents
then all the geezers
go into the back room
and start dancing

Amélie-les-Bains, Jan. 17, 2009

SMOOTH STONES

river going down
after the snow melt
the big stone
in the middle
its water-polished top
just emerging
into sunlight

all the round-top stones
near the shore
how many years
of gently-flowing water
has it taken
for them to become so smooth?

hundreds
thousands
millions upon millions
of drops

who can imagine a million
of anything?
I can’t

Roxie lifts her head
and looks at the river
then goes back to chewing
on the wet stick
covered with a thousand
grains of sand

Amélie-les-Bains, Jan. 19, 2009

SAD SIGHT IN VALLESPIR

drove up to Arles-sur-Tech
to check out
their Wednesday morning
street market
and there in the shadow
of Mt. Canigou
were 4 tables set up
in front of a burnt-out factory
a few spuds
a few bananas
a couple of t-shirts
and no customers
droopy faces wrapped in blankets
standing knee-deep in snow
looking like kids
playing lemonade stand
alongside the road
makes me wish
we hadn’t driven up
to Arles-sur-Tech this morning

Arles-sur-Tech, Jan. 21, 2009

HOME

pot of cold soup
in the corner of the bedroom
feels like home

Jan. 22, 2009

WORST DRIVERS IN THE WORLD

six years driving around Belgium
in our Citroen Saxo
not one single dent
on door or fender

three weeks in the south of France
two dings

I know where these people
learn to drive:
in the bumper car arena
of the village fair

Jan. 22, 2009

MACHINE-SPED METAL

standing squinting
into the sparkling
sun-filled pool
below the high bridge of Reynes
sensation of falling forward
mouth open
splashing down
my body filling with water
is this the place
where I will someday die?

or will it be
in the twisted wreckage
of machine-sped metal
on a fast-lane highway?

or in my backyard
mauled by a hungry tiger
escaped from a traveling zoo

or maybe I’ll choke
on a spoonful of honey
while watching an episode
of Family Guy

or get stabbed in the back
by a cloak & hooded monk
in an alley in Venice
dead-ending in a canal
while reading
a Daphne du Maurier novel

or get crushed under the weight
of a 747
I had refused to fly on
afraid it might crash

or watching my body
flop around in the dust
of a chicken yard
thru the dimming eyesight
of a head lopped off
by the sword
of a fanatic barbarian

or maybe the ground
will crumble beneath my feet
and I’ll tumble into the deep hole
of an abandoned mine shaft
older than Van Gogh’s ear
while walking across
a grass field to a stage
with my guitar
to perform at a Hesbaye folk festival

or maybe I’ll be up on that stage
singing the “K-9 Blues”
and the whiskers of my beard
will brush against
a short-circuited microphone
and I’ll make an exit from this life
doing the Spastic Electric Laugh Dance
while the smoke of my brain cells
pours from my ears
and a tiny black cloud
puffs up and pollutes
the air above my head
for an instant or two

if we knew
we could avoid the time & place
and live forever

Jan. 22, 2009

WORDS

How easily we toss these words around
love
life
death
when not one person
in a quadrillion
knows what they mean

Jan. 22, 2009

DARKNESS

darkness everywhere
the big wind comes
and blows out all the lights

blows down trees
blows away the leaves
bounces off the house
and rattles the shutters

blows under the door
and shivers the candle flame
oh lord, can this be
the big bad wolf?

Jan. 24, 2009

THE LORD’S REPLY

oh wicked
and unrepentant sinner
I speak to you
from this whirlwind
so hark & behold
& heed my words

there shall be no TV tonight
no reading from the novels
of Jim Harrison, Mervyn Peake
or Willa Cather
nor shall you gaze upon
landscape paintings
portraits or photographs
or postcards or maps

so go to bed
close your eyes
and don’t let the bedbugs bite

and if you should die
before you wake
I’ll be glad to drop by
and take your soul
and put it in my pocket
with all the other
dog barks
duck quacks
and owl hoots
I’ve collected tonight
and when Mr. Doomsday
drives by in his black Cadillac
I’ll toss you up in the air
and you and all your friends
can go and whip up
the biggest windstorm
the world has ever seen

Jan. 24, 2009

STRAIGHT FROM THE BEAR’S MOUTH ON JAN. 24TH

“I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

Jan. 24, 2009

STORM DAMAGE

total damage at le Mas Trilles:
one fallen ivy-choked tree

which is nothing compared
to all the bent power poles
and broken power lines
and the 28,000 people
still without electricity
in Languedoc-Rousillon alone
four days later

try explaining that
to the 3,283,521 microscopic
wood bugs who live
in the wind-fall tree
who will be without electricity
water & food forever

Jan. 27, 2009

SHORT MOUNTAIN

from down here in the valley
with my view of the mountain
cut off by local hills
I wish Canigou
were a few inches higher

I wouldn’t even mind
if it sprouted up
and became
the tallest mountain in the world.

Jan. 27, 2009

DOG STAR
for Roxie

dog barking at the night sky
into the millions of stars
maybe the sound is traveling
into the universe
for hundreds of light years
and the creatures living on K-9
in orbit around Sirius
are picking up their pointed ears
and saying to each other
“It’s that Labrador retriever again!
The one down in the Vallespir.”

“Which one?”

“Sounds like Roxie to me.”

Jan. 27, 2009

REYNES-CASTLENOU, ALLER-RETOUR

1.
and we go sailing over the mountain
blithely mispronouncing
the names of the villages
Llauro
Fourques
Terrats
Llupia
Thuir
as if we were never coming back

2.
and we come back
over the mountain
thru all the mispronounced towns
as if we have a reason
for being here

Jan. 28, 2009

TWILIGHT

the end of the day
the beginning of the night
somewhere between
the last slide of sunlight
and the blindfold of darkness
pin-pricked by stars

this is about the time
the dogs start howling

this is about the time
our grandfathers
crawled into their caves
started their campfires
and prayed to the Gods
of Good Dreams
and Short Summer Nights

any god would do
as any god today
will do

this is about the time
we close the door
pull the curtains
fix our eyes
on the dancing dots
of our TV screen
and try to forget
our sanity could be wiped out
in a moment
by a single scream
of a wolf at the window

Jan. 30, 2009

ENGLISH BOOKS

walk down
thru the Saturday morning
street market of Céret
and there at the bottom
are the ENGLISH BOOKS

used paperbacks
spine-broken
dog-eared
with rumpled covers
shuffled on cardboard boxes
spread out on tables
under umbrellas

makes me feel
like we’re eight years old
playing shop
she should be selling me
dusty Looks and Lifes
and I should be paying
in acorns

Jan. 31, 2009

COTTON EAR

when I was a kid
I used to think
that a man walking around
with a wad of cotton in his ear
was the coolest thing
on earth

I wanted to try it
but was afraid
they’d laugh at me –
a boy trying to be a man

now I’m mostly a man
and I’ve got a wad of oil-soaked cotton
stuck in my left ear
and let me tell you
there’s nothing glamorous
about having an ear
plugged up with wax.

Jan. 31, 2009

EPITAPH

I fooled them all
went to college
got a few scholarships
wrote a thousand poems
wrote a thousand songs
recorded a couple of albums
managed to hold my own
with an occasion certified genius

imagine their surprise
when they found out
I was a simple-minded idiot

Jan. 31, 2009

CARNIVAL

it’s carnival day
in Arles-sur-Tech
Fete de L’Ours
(Festival of the Bear)
15:00 : chasing the bear in the streets of the village
(grande chasse de l’ours dans les rues du village)
17:00 : shaving the bear & dancing
(rassage de l’ours et sardanes)

but it was raining today
and we didn’t go

which is probably for the best
our imaginations being
much better than factual reality :
some fool in a ratty bear suit
running around in the streets
being chased by kids
getting caught & held down
while people rip off his buttons
and pour beer on his head
after which the fool stands up
grinning
and starts to dance

our imaginations?

a 10-foot grizzly
from the Canadian Rockies
runs amok
wipes out half of the spectators
with his claws
chews up
hundreds of kids
spits out the bones
and goes out of control
until the big guys
get out the spears & knives
and go to work
stabbing & scraping
reducing the beast
to tail and tongue

big feast for all
bear chops
bear ribs
bear stew
mixed in with a ton of potatoes
a truck load of onions
a wheelbarrow of garlic
and a bucket of walnuts

now that’s something
to get up and dance about
that’s the way they did it
in the old days
when bears were bears
and men were such excitable savages
they didn’t care if one of their own
fell into the pot
and got boiled up with the onions

Feb. 1, 2009

WALKING THE DOG

on a long peaceful walk with Roxie
she has her head down
sniffing here and there
filling her head with smells
of other dogs
other animals
and who knows what

just as I am filling my eyes
with mountains & rocks
mist in the valley & trees
with sunlight thru their leaves

and just as I have names
for these things
and note their changes
“Hmm – Canigou
picked up a few inches
of snow last light.”
she notes the changes
of odors with a language of her own
“Hmm – somebody’s been
putting pizza crusts
in the poodle’s food.”
and she comes back home
with her head full of scent images
always eager
to go back and pick up more

I’m sure glad I learned how to read

Feb. 4, 2009

BOOKS

when I was 19
prowling thru the stacks
in the basement of City Lights
I thought, “It might take me
25 or 30 years
but eventually I will have read
everything that has ever been printed.”

25 years later
I had to admit
that each book I read
suggested 10 others

like
my grandma telling me
that every time she learned
something new
she only discovered
how much more
she didn’t know

they say that 2,500 books
were published in France alone
last year
and I can’t even read French

I have also discovered
that I really don’t really understand a book
until I’ve read it
at least 3 times

at this rate
I’ll need about 500 – 600 years
to make a small dent
in the classics

Feb. 4, 2009

FLOWERPOT SNEAKERS

the trouble with age’s
failing eyesight
is that you become
unspeakably filthy
in the eyes of others

walking around
in flowerpot sneakers
with a dried dose
of last week’s vegetable soup
hanging from your beard

“Get that bum outta here.
He looks like warmed-over garbage.”

Only then do you realize
that you haven’t taken a bath
for six weeks
and bugs fly out of your hair
every time you pop off your cap

“Kick that drool fool
out in the street where he belongs
he smells like wet dog fur.”

and when you catch
an accidental whiff
you have to agree
that your nose
has not been keeping up
with the latest news either

Feb. 4, 2009

YONDER HILLS

all the wild plants
and sprouts & brushwood
that line the narrow footpaths
on Yonder Hills
above the River Tech
have names

but I don’t want to know them

I have my own:
Scrapewhistle
Holler-Me-Yellow
Yeller-Me-Hollow
Slow Poke Slope Oak
Haze Purple
Glasstronomy
Bambaloo
Rollpops
Big Lip Loopers

and you won’t find
the Yonder Hills
on any roll map either

Feb. 5, 2009

DOG & LOG

Roxie’s two favorite things
when we sit on the shore
of the Tech:

look at the river
chew on sticks

I have only one
and I’m not about to start
chewing on wet wood

Feb. 6, 2009

WEST WIND

full moon midnight
west wind whips the trees
on Yonder Hills
the yipnip of a coyote
drifts thru the sky
from 9000 miles away

Feb. 7, 2009

NO WIND

full moon 3 a.m.
still night
not a whisper
from Yonder Hills
so quiet
I can hear
from the other side of the planet
thousands of people
(sitting on California coast sand dunes)
holding
(above the Pacific Ocean)
their
(as the sun goes down)
breath

Feb. 9, 2009

CONVERSATION WITH A DOG

questions to Roxie
while taking a walk along the River Tech :

What are you thinking?
What are your thoughts
at this particular moment?
What can they be?
Are you thinking about
jumping in the river?

Roxie’s telepathic replies :

What is this?
What can this possibly be?
Is it a stick?
Yes, it is a stick.
Is he going to throw the stick in the river?
I hope so.
Yes! He’s throwing it in the river!
Am I going to swim after the stick?
Yes! I am swimming!
The water is wet and cold
just the way I like it!
I am grabbing the stick in my mouth.
Am I going to bring it back to him?
No, I am not.
I’m going to take this stick
over here
and chew on it
Hmm – this tastes good.
Now what?
Am I going to swim across the river?
Yes I am!
I think I see a duck.
or a fish
or something alive
over there
Am I going to float down the river
like a duck?
No, I am going to float down the river
like a dog
And I’m going to give him the impression
that I might float all the way to the sea
like a duck
like a dog

Feb. 10, 2009

THE HONKER

there is only one road
in and out of the valley
two lanes from Céret
to Prats de Mollo
and it runs a hundred yards
from where we sleep

cars zoom by at night
headlights flashing
a motorcycle hums east
in the key of B major

in the morning & afternoon
packs of racing bikes
riders shouting
a ping pong ambulance
rattle-door vans
honking, fender-dented cars
speed demons
daredevils
hot dogs
speedballs

a big bus every hour or so
with disgruntled drivers
stacked up behind

it is here you will find
the honker
impatient
reckless
arrogant
dangerous
half the drivers on this road
are honkers
the kind of driver
that would make me ashamed
to be riding around
in car with French plates

Feb. 10, 2009

OLD FOLKS

a lot of old folks
in sweat pants & sneakers
strolling around Amélie-les-Bains

I might be
the youngest geezer in town

some of them look like
they came here to die

I hope I don’t look like that

I might buy a cane here
for later use
but that’s it

Feb. 10, 2009

WEREWOLF CANE

what kind of cane
do I have in mind?
nothing too conspicuous
just one of the carved wooden jobs

one with a werewolf head
with red flashing eyes
(runs on batteries in the shaft)
which emits snarling noises
from drool-dripping fangs
with a tip
that turns into a claw
at the touch of a button

a fearless beast
to guide me down
the final paths of my life

maybe I’ll get two
one for each hand
go out in ferocious style

Feb. 10, 2009

GAMBLING IN AMELIE-LES-BAINS

we dropped into the casino
to see how they were doing

flashing light machines
electronic beeps in the dark
with vacant-eyed lost Vegans
pushing buttons
pulling handles

they were betting on the rat races
rat number seven was ahead
but everybody had their money
on rat number one

Feb. 11, 2009

THE MOSS CANAL WOODS

(in memory of Jack Kerouac upon reading
his On the Road original scroll)

today the dog & I
hiked up to the Moss Canal Woods
where the beer bums
come to guzzle
and cast their bottles
into the Sinister Pit
of the great Catalan Wilderness
where we were surrounded
by Belgian-type atmospheres
and stopped by
electrified waste wires

defeated by rock scramble slides
and gloomed out by dead tree shades
we returned thru fading beams
of sunlight

we were lucky
to get out of there alive

take my advice
do not venture
into the Moss Canal Woods
if you want to hike another day
without broken limbs
into limbo, Jimbo

Feb. 12, 2009

STRAIGHT FROM THE BEAR’S MOUTH ON FEB. 13TH

“I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

Feb. 13, 2009

VERTICAL CLOUDS

I.
lying on the bed
after sunset
looking out the small high
square window
at the damp blue sky
no mountain, trees or clouds
in sight
like looking at a framed painting
of a single color
for a long time

we watch the painting
slowly turn
from luminous blue
to ice pipe blue

suddenly
a thin grey horizontal
cigar-shaped cloud
floats thru the painting
from right to left
it’s gone in less than a minute

we wait
no more clouds
we’d like to see
a vertical cloud
a thin one
shoot up from the bottom
and disappear into the sky
above our window frame

or how about a round one
dropping down from the top
like a ball of black cotton candy
sinking below the bottom
of the frame
then bouncing up & down
a few times
before vanishing forever

II.
would that be a welcome sight?
or would it wipe out everything
we know about the atmosphere
above the earth’s surface
and stick around all night
waiting for the moon
to drop from the sky
and bounce off Mt. Canigou
like a sponge rubber ball
then rise again in the night sky
flip over to reveal
its dark side
which would be covered
with a network of orange,
yellow, green, red & blue
flashing neon letters spelling out :

COME INSIDE & SEE
THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE

Céret, Feb. 14, 2009

BIRTHDAY POEM

68 years ago
at this moment exactly
I was an ugly, squirming
screaming wad of pink protoplasm
2 hours old

who could have dreamed
that I would grow up to be
such a handsome man?

Céret, Feb. 15, 2009 (4:30 a.m. local time)
(in San Francisco it’s 7:30 p.m. Feb. 14)

BEETHOVEN

they played Beethoven’s
5th Piano Concerto
on the TV last night

the piano man was handy
with his fingers
but his piano was a bust

out of tune it was
and the top end notes
sounded like seagull heads
being smashed with a hammer

everybody was suffering
almost as much
as Beethoven suffered
when he wrote the piece
with live seagulls
pecking at his ear drums

Feb. 15, 2009

RESURRECTION DAY

old church graveyard
at the foot of Yonder Hills
tombs packed in rows
covered boxes full of bones
awaiting Resurrection Day

and what a day
that will be
I can see it now
millions of skeletons
standing, walking around
dancing in discos
shopping in supermarkets

driving by in cars
I think I just saw one
down the road
with a dog skeleton trotting
on the end of a leash

Feb. 15, 2009

LEVIS

been wearing 501 button front
since I was 7

when I was young
they were great
for working on the ranch
tough durable
a pair would last a couple of years

later and since
in the cities
they’ve been great
for sitting anywhere
and not showing dirt

a few years ago
I noticed they were selling them
pre-faded
so you could pretend
you’d been out
riding the range all day long
punchin’ cows & bustin’ broncos

more recently
I see they’re selling them
pre-wrinkled
give everybody the impression
you’ve been sleeping in your jeans
and kicking around
the wide-open spaces
of your dreams

Feb. 19, 2009

SUN WORSHIP

walk along
the old railroad bed
from La Forge to Amélie-les-bains
pause on the bridge
in the day’s final field of sunlight
before crossing into the cold
shadows of the town

turn around and discover
dozens of silent people
young old male female
scattered everywhere
on benches & stone walls
high & low
all facing the sun
eyes closed
smiles on their faces

I turn back
and smile at the sun

Amélie -les-Bains Feb. 19, 2009

RIVER DREAM

I like to lie in bed at night
with the window open
and listen to the river
roaring and white-noising
down below the woods
this is tame country
not at all wild
like where I grew up
but when I close my eyes
the river takes me away
down past the fishing hole
and the catamount paw prints
down past the rock rapids
and over the waterfall
into the whirlpool
which sucks me down
into the cave where the bears
toss me around
from claw to jaw
and the coyotes drop by
to watch the action
and grin
until I get snagged
in the whirlpool again
and get sucked up
thru the vortex
and spewed high in the air
along with a million burning
cinders of lava
and projected over the forest
until I’m grabbed at last
in gravity’s clutches
and tumbled into the sea
where sharks attack me
and dolphins glide by
at the last moment
and snout-nose the sharks
tho they cannot prevent a whale
from swallowing me
and plunging to the ocean floor
where he spits me out
into a prehistoric darkness
where neon lantern jawfish
and electric crabs
pinch me into a riot
of screaming pain

but that’s enough excitement
for one night
time to shut the window
go to sleep
and take my chances
with a dream or two

Feb. 19, 2009

GHOST BONES

I’ve never known
what I really look like
how could I?
I don’t live
in my muscles and bones
I live in the ghost
that dwells in the muscles and bones

as I grow older
and begin to lose my force
the flesh gets thinner
and I begin to see
the outside world

from time to time
I get a glimpse
of what I look like
to those outside

who is this man
with his memories
on the tip of his tongue?

Feb. 20, 2009

STREETCAR EYESIGHT

1.
age 7
I stood at the front
of the Market Street street car
next to the stand-up brakeman
with my nose pressed
against the glass

while turning to talk to me
– “Hey, sonny boy,
want to grow up to be
a streetcar man someday?” –
we ran smack into the back
of a car
crumpled metal
and broken glass everywhere

I ran back and sat down
next to my mom

a few weeks later
they decided I needed glasses

2.
a few weeks later
down in the Forest Hill station
inside Twin Peaks
waiting for another street car
(the modern green & white
streamlined kind)
when it emerged from the tunnel
my mom asked
“Which one is it?”

I had three choices
K
L
M
I squinted and guessed wrong
the next day
I was wearing glasses

Feb. 20, 2009

POSTCARDS, NEWSPAPERS, PAPERBACK BOOKS

you can get a lot of stuff
at the Maison de la Presse in Céret

such as a Bob Dylan
“Blowing in the Wind” bookmark

such as a battery-operated
Zen fountain

and if that isn’t enough
how about a porn mag
featuring a babe with boobs
that weigh 20 pounds each?

Feb. 20, 2009

GATHERING MIMOSA ON YONDER HILLS

what did you expect?
we gathered mimosa
on Yonder Hills
and then we came home

Feb. 21, 2009

(WHY I’LL PROBABLY NEVER EAT ANOTHER) McDOGSHIT BURGER

down in the park
Roxie shit out 6 or 7 turds
on the patch of ground
where they play petanque

I dig down in the trash bin
and find a faded red and yellow
Golden Arch french fry cone
(large portion)
take a twig
brush the shit balls into the cone
and toss it all in the woods

if you’re looking for
a hidden meaning here
you don’t have to look far

Feb. 20, 2009

SOMETHING WE CAN DO
TO SURPRISE LASZLO & MAYA
WHEN THEY GET BACK FROM HONDURAS

soak Roxie in a bathtub
full of peroxide
until all her fur is blonde
(even the tail)

CARNIVAL FUNERAL

we stop outside the church
as they carry a coffin
down the steps
and slide it into a van

the cortege passes us
and heads down the hill

when all is quiet
except for the tolling bells
we go over to the church

all the cobblestones
around the bottom of the steps
are covered
with confetti

St. Laurent-de-Cerdan, Feb. 26, 2009

FOR BEAR ON THIS DAY WHEN OUR MOTHERS WOULD HAVE BEEN 96 & 94 YEARS OLD

I rise up at the crack of noon
and go looking for my faithful friend
and long-time companion
the Bear

is she down in the woods
trimming ivy vines
from the wind-fallen tree?

no she is not

nor is she over
on the other side of the villa
pulling weeds

where can she possibly be?

oh here she is
up the drive by the gate
raking leaves

hello Bear
how’s it going?

Feb 27, 2009

TIME

“How old is it?” she asked
“Half past ten,” I said
looking at the clock

Feb. 28, 2009

HOW OLD DO YOU WANT TO BE?

coming down the far side
of Cabanassa Mountain
I run into the Cabanassa Mountain Man
who saw me climbing
the steep firebreak

“Hola.” he said
“How old are you?”

“Seventy,” I lied
adding two years to my life
to make my climb seem more impressive

I remember a time
when I was twelve
I took a girl in the woods
“How old are you?” she asked
“Fourteen,” I said
trying to impress

about the same time
I fell down and bruised my knees
big boys don’t cry
I started crying
guy came along
“How old are you?”
“EIGHT!”

March 1, 2009

ODD JOB

on a cold day
I run around the house
clapping my hands
stomping my feet
and picking up a few extra bucks
as a room warmer

March 2, 2009

PILGRIMAGE

on the road to Santiago di Compostela
we climb the steep path
to the Abbaye of San Martin di Canigou
we stop for a few minutes
on the steps of the church
and pretend we’re pilgrims
from the faraway Kingdom of Wallonia
then we turn around
and head back downhill
to our parked car
at the bottom of the canyon

March 3, 2009

ALMOST SILENCE

inside the high & thick-walled
medieval village of Villefranche
empty streets
absolutely alone
sitting in mist-filtered sunshine
on a bench in the village square
trying to imagine
what it must be like
here in the summer
packed with tourist-populated crowds
the shouts of drunks
the deafening blast
of drumbeat music

now
just a gentle gust of wind
and the tinkling reply
of delicate wind chimes
from the balcony
above our heads

Villefranche-le-Conflent, March 3, 2009

ONE HOUR & A HALF

Céret to Ille-sur-Tet
via Llauro & Thuir
ONE HOUR
to Prades
ONE HOUR & TWENTY MINUTES
onto Villefranche-de-Conflent
ONE HOUR & A HALF

return
Villefranche to Céret
thru Perpignan & Le Boulou
ONE HOUR & FIVE MINUTES

Y.B. Yeats
would have never approved
Charles Bukowski
but in a drunken moment
might have turned a blind eye

March 3, 2009

FURTHER FLORA & FAUNA ON YONDER HILLS

Scrumflex (also known as brutalis bastardo)
Spoonerino
Stellocate (a tree)
Snigger (a bird)
Chookroot (another bird)
Rassletoms (trees)
Skeetlewheet (another bird)
Froster (a lizard)
Bruce
Fingle Buzz
Persiphaliphia
Mascalitos (a species of mouse)
Methuslash (more trees)
Thumbpatch (a very small bird)
me (a very small human)

March 5, 2009

CLOSE TO HEADING HOME

car packed ready to go
Bear sweeping the floor
nothing left for me to do
but sit out here in the sunshine
and pet the dog
and pick the largest chunks
of last night’s soup
from my beard

March 6, 2009

ALMOST HEADING HOME

strong west wind blowing
Bear mopping the floor
I’m still out here
sitting in the sunshine
but my mind’s already gone
down the road
tumbling past Perpignan

March 6, 2009

REALLY HEADING HOME

sailing past Perpignan
on hurricane winds
around Beziers
across the bridge at Millau
up hills
and down hills
the wind left behind
the wind forgotten
and down into Le Puy-en-Velay
and up to a 2nd floor hotel room
to a wide screen TV
on which we watch
a live rugby match
from Perpignan
where the wind is so violent
they players think twice
about kicking the ball
afraid it might sail
out of the stadium
and into the sea

Hotel Ibis, March 6, 2009

ABSOLUTELY HEADING HOME

driving north
from Le Puys to Vichy
to Moulins
to Nevers
to Auxerre & Troyes

from sunshine
into cloudy skies
and rain

from spring
back into winter

Arlequin Hotel, Troyes, March 7, 2009

ABSOLUTELY & DEFINITELY HEADING HOME

driving into pouring rain
from Troyes
to Reims and Charleville-Méziers
across the big bump border
into Belgium
and a rotten road
packed with pot holes
large enough to swallow a car

March 8, 2009

ABSOLUTELY & WITHOUT A DOUBT BACK HOME

wake up in a strange bed
mine
for a minute I think
I’m in the Arlequin Hotel
getting ready to re-run yesterday from scratch
with a Road Runner on the wide screen

Bear says, “What’s new?”
I say, “It snowed last night.”
“Tell me some good news.”
“It melted as soon as it hit the ground
and now there is nothing but sunshine
everywhere.”

March 9, 2009

ENVOI

that was that
and this is this

March 9, 2009

Sky dive & parachute poems

March – December 2009 |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

I WILL SOON GRADUATE FROM LEVIS

a sky dive & parachute poem for Pete

I will soon graduate from Levis
I do believe
I’m down to the second button now
When I won’t be able to get up past the third
I’ll be forced to wear old man pants

old man’s pants are the kind
that make you look like a pear

I want to look like a banana
until I’m too ripe to stand

DOMESTIC DRUM BEATS

the flash of full moon
in the gap of the curtain
as I pass thru the dark room
on my way to bed
water dripping
from the leaky faucet
drums the sink

March 14, 2009

DOMESTIC PUNCH LINE

for 31 years I have lived in this house
I never imagined I would ever live
in one place for so long

the boy who lived 8 years
here & there
a couple of years up & down
a couple more in & out
would say that 31 years
is a long time

the man who was that boy
cannot believe how fast
time has passed
31 years is a drop of rain
on a shaggy dog’s fur

he shakes it off
and tells another endless joke

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

I can’t believe the TV movies
I get sucked into
and all their talk about marriage
what’s the big deal?

it’s amazing how many people
still feel the need
to get stuck together
with a piece of paper

and when the gun appears
it’s the same thing

I get up and walk out

March 15, 2009

DOMESTIC SILENCE

she complains
about the way he chews his food
about the way he slops water
on the floor when he brushes his teeth
about the way
he leaves his socks
on the couch
after watching TV

but everybody
(even he)
knows it’s all about something else

she just basically hates his guts

THE GOLDEN AGE OF CHAUTAUQUA

somebody’s been stealing the CDs
I’ve been mailing out to friends
been doing it for years
he’s got a big collection now
probably works for the post office
right here in the village

THE BASTARD!

looking at the thin
bright side
it just may turn out
that 500 years hence
after the big atomic wipe out
one of those CDs
will be discovered by archaeologists
and become the only piece
of evidence of civilization
in our time

scholars will devote
their lives to the study
of the Chautauqua Culture
each line of each song
will be analyzed
and vast, profound theories
will be constructed upon each phrase

the entire vocabulary
of the Golden Age of Chautauqua
will be based on those lyrics

within a couple of centuries
the words will have been distorted
to fit dictatorial political laws
and reactionary, fanatic religious doctrines

the original meaning of my songs
will have been twisted beyond recognition
and I will be reviled
as the most hideous monster
in human history

THE BASTARDS!

April 3, 2009

IMMORTAL SPARK

despite factual evidence
and all reasonable logic
I know deep down inside me
there is a spark

it glows in the dark
it sings in a whisper
it dances like a candle flame
in a soft breeze
thru an open window
filled with moonlight

it will burn forever
beyond the limits of my flesh
beyond my ashes
far beyond the day when
I have been completely forgotten
and all memories of me
have faded to silence
and been wrapped in the arms
of mother earth

without it
I might as well be dead

March 16, 2008

NORTH WIND (BICYCLE POEM 1)

first bike ride of the year
turned around and came back home
too much cold wind

down on the Spanish border
they say it’s 24° in the shade
and the cyclists are humming around
in t-shirts and shorts

next year
I think I’ll stay south
until early November

down south
where the north wind never blows

March 18, 2009

MEMORABLE QUOTATIONS FROM THE BEAR

MEMORABLE QUOTATION N° 1

“We were up there for two hours
– and so was I.”

Radio Seraing, March 20, 2009

MEMORABLE QUOTATION N° 2

“But do you think your grandfather
would have been appalled Butterfield?”

September 30, 2009

MEMORABLE QUOTATION N° 3

(replying to my statement: That man is so karmically screwed up he’s going to have to come back as an animal.)

” . . . he’s going to have to come back as an adult.”

Rome, October 15, 2009

MEMORABLE QUOTATION N° 4

“I was looking at that warehouse window over
there when the curtain lifted and an old woman
looked out at me.”

Rome, Oct. 17, 2009

MEMORABLE QUOTATION N° 5

“We’ll soon be at the border between Pakistan
and India.”

on the train from Rome
to the Leonardo Da Vinci airport,
Oct. 19, 2009

MEMORABLE QUOTATION N° 6

(while driving thru the village down by the river)

“A family of rabbits live here.”

Oct. 27, 2009

MEMORABLE QUOTATION N° 7

“She’s going back to December
on the 21st of Australia.”

Oct. 27, 2009

MEMORABLE QUOTATION N° 8

“It’s amazing that when it starts to get dark
nobody screams.”

Oct. 30, 2009

MEMORABLE QUOTATION N° 9

“When you work at a round table
there’s always a corner missing.”

Nov. 30, 2009

THE INVENTION OF FOOD

while dipping
into the brown sugar jar
I accidentally
(and unknowingly)
dribble some over the bowl
of onion rings

later I snack on the rings

delicious

I wish I’d been there
when they invented
peanut butter and jelly
and tuna on toast
and spaghetti and meatballs

I wish I’d been there
when they invented
peaches
and cream

March 29, 2009

COMPUTER ENGLISH

“windows is shutting down”

that’s what my computer tells me
when I switch it off

OK then
I is going to switch off the lights
and I is going up to the house
where Marie Claire’s got supper waiting
and we is gonna sit down
and eats dinner

April 4, 2009

COMPUTER GLASSES

broke my computer glasses
last night
bent over
and they slipped off my face
like greased pigskin
hit the corner of the table
cracked a lens

looks like I got shot
in the left eye
with a bullet

had a headache
all night

April 5, 2009

SECOND FIRST RIDE
(BICYCLE POEM 2)

pumped up the tires
and took out my two wheels
to see which way the wind was blowing

it’s cool when I’m moving
stirring it up
glad I brought along
my blue and white bandana
and yellow windbreaker

the rat-ass dog
at Baraqui Corner
still barking at me

new wheat
pushing up green
on Old Farm Road

fields on Lost Haiku
plowed but not planted
(I’m not too far behind)

new houses being plotted
on Hemp Road
being resurfaced
to accommodate
the fat cat BMWs
and the gas-guzzling
air-polluting UAVs
(Urban Attack Vehicles)

5 new Aeolians
sprouted up on Two Trees Road
saw them from Lost Haiku
and figured this is where they’d be
closer to home
so I don’t have to go so far
to worship the wind
the 7 over in distant Aeolian Park
are not turning either
none are waving
no wind

eat a banana in Chapon
the limit of my short loop
flock of doves
hooting from the church roof
put on my windbreaker
and head for home

pause at Carrot Stop
for a drink of water
and a gaze at the half moon
overhead

pause on Rum Road
to worship the sun
setting, burning thru the mist

walk the bike
up from the Verlaine Deep
on rubber legs
gazing at the pale half moon

give Bear a call on the cell
tell her I’m doing OK
(don’t mention the rubber legs
she might worry)
(don’t mention my empty
hypoglycemic stomach either)
(or that I just hallucinated
being attacked by a pack
of wild dogs
and that the sun
just exploded in my eyes)
(keep it smooth and simple
this is just the same, ordinary
short-circuit ride I’ve taken
a hundred times)

back into the village
on Rue Vingt Ponts
thru barbecue smoke

coast down into the courtyard
ring the bell twice
so Bear inside will stop worrying
and walk the bike to the shed

my muscles feel
like they’ve been soaked
in pickle juice

April 5, 2009

OBAMA CAP
in memory of Bill Dobie

my old friend Bill
died in January
age 82
cremated in his Obama cap

he was a long time
waiting for the man
long before the time
he had a black cat
named Stokley

those were the longest years

April 10, 2009

CHERRY FLAVORED SMOKE

coal smoke pours
from the steel factories
along the river

and thru the smoke
the trees on the far hillside
covered in cherry blossoms

April 10, 2009

EASTER SUNDAY EVE

for only a few short days
and nights of the year
can I walk under the cherry tree
loaded with blossoms
and feel that they might all
suddenly fall
and I will be buried under
an avalanche of flowers

I walk on in the dark
feel something
crunch under my foot
an easter egg?
nope
the first snail of the year

April 12, 2009

THE WAY I FEEL

all this talk
about children and adults
and the difference between
(as if you climbed
over a wall
to get from one
to the other)
is bullshit

I can’t speak for you
but I don’t remember
any wall
I never had to jump
a ditch or swim
a river

it was just day
after day
one day
at a time
and now I’ve lived
68 years of those days
and who I was back then
and who I am now
is the same

the envelope changes
(yes)
but what these eyes see
these ears hear
and how this mind
understands
and misunderstands
the complexities of life
has not changed
will never change

and I’m not going to say anything
about the spirit
in fact, I’ve already said too much

April 14, 2009

FINAL FLING

I found a small
blue-grey and yellow
bird lying dead
in the courtyard
(flew into a window
and bashed its brains out)

I flung the bird
on its final flight
into the orchard

later, at night
I’m standing on the path
above the orchard
taking a leak
I switch on the flashlight
look down
and oh shit
I’m pissing on the bird

April 14, 2009

HASPENGOUW 181
(Bicycle Poem 3)

cherry blossoms drifting down
onto a wet patch of the road

I ride thru them

and for the next two miles
I have spring snow
sticking to my tires

April 16, 2009

DREAM MAPS

I wake up
with a network
of dented lines
on my left arm
the print of t.shirt wrinkles
grooved into my skin
when I slept on the arm

I don’t think they’re accidental lines
I think they’re the maps
of my dreams
the road I took
to get to the haunted house
where I ripped at the wallpaper
and shouted at god
and blamed him
for creating me in human form
the path thru the field
where I jumped into a hot air balloon
and sailed off
into the limitless sly
tapping out a farewell melody
on the octave of my front teeth
with a giant Q-tip
and humming behind them
a harmonic background sigh
to god’s great and quiet reply
“Let’s Not Get Too Carried Away.”

April 17, 2009

BOB DYLAN’S FAMILY TREE

Marie-Claire’s brother
is 4 months older than me
and I am 3 months older
than Bob Dylan
so maybe Marie-Claire
is Bob Dylan’s long lost
little sister *

April 21, 2009

* Does this need an explanation? If yes, then I’ll just say that since I’ve been taking my songs on stage these past 40 years, I’ve been plagued by the absurd question: Are you Bob Dylan’s brother? My answer is obviously: impossible – unless we have different mothers, tho somehow I can’t imagine my mom with Bob Dylan’s dad.

AEOLIAN COMPLAINT
(Bicycle Poem 4)

don’t get me wrong
I’m all for the windmills
but the row of new Aeolians
that line Two Trees Road
are visible wherever I go
on my local runs

they mark the landscape
I can see them all the way over here
on La Cucaracha Road

I liked it better before
when Two Trees Road
(if I thought about it at all)
was off in some distant
invisible land
beyond the horizon
where the buffalo roam
and the skies are not cloudy all day

April 21, 2009, La Cucaracha Road (where the mythical lion lies down with the proverbial lamb and the skies are not cloudy all day)

PURPLE MOONRISE ROAD
(Bicycle Poem 5)

I’ve got a pair
of incredible & miraculous feet
who push the pedals of my bike
and who are attached to a pair
of incredible & miraculous legs
who supply the muscle power
and keep me rolling

above the legs
there’s not much worth mentioning
especially that knot of noodles on top
which sometimes gets the wild idea
that these feet and legs
will last forever

April 21, 2009, Purple Moonrise Road (where the clouds lie down with the sky and seldom is heard a discouraging word)

BEER-SPLASHED FORGIVENESS
(Bicycle Poem 6)

nothing like cruising down
Two Trees Road
sipping from a can
of Glock Pils
and gazing up
at the high and mighty towers
of the new Aeolians
having forgiven the bastards
who planted them

April 21, 2009

SPECTACLES

more and more
I find myself
taking off my glasses
and setting them aside

I remember grandma
used to do this
past the age of 65
(“Has anybody seen my spectacles?
I seem to have misplaced them.”)

occasionally
when taking off my glasses
I have the desire
to take out my eyes
and give them a rest

it hasn’t happened yet
but I’m sure
there’ll come a day
when I’ll wish
I could take out my brain
toss it on the floor
next to the bed
and get a few hours
of decent sleep

April 23, 2009

BIRTHDAYS

past the age of 65
we should stop
celebrating birthdays

we should start
punishing them

then again
each extra year
is just that much more
punishment

April 27, 2009

DREAM DEMONS

everybody has their dreams
and I don’t mean
wishes and aspirations

I’m talking about
the humbugs and the hobgobs
that come boiling out of your head
when you sleep
the demonic creatures
you love
in ways you didn’t know
you could love
in ways you wished
you didn’t know
how to love
so well

I just wish
I didn’t know these gob bobs
so well
I wish they were strangers
and I really wish
they wouldn’t still
be hobnobbing around
my bed
when I wake up

April 28, 2009

ROAD KILL BELIEVERS
(Bicycle Poem 7)

not many pheasants
lying in the road
these days
have died a natural death

a bloody, smashed head
is not natural

unless the pheasants
themselves
believe in cars
like we believe in the gods

they sit around
their campfire at night
drinking from hub caps
full of beer
and toasting their dead comrade

“It was the gods’ will.”
they say
and
“the gods work in mysterious ways.”

Onderdonk Deep, May 7, 2009

PLUMAGE
(Bicycle Poem 8)

I still haven’t found
this year’s feather
to stick on my handlebar

I’m tempted
by one of the road kill pheasants
maybe I’ll just go over
and rip off a wing

but no
a feather from that bird
would not protect me
the beast couldn’t even
avoid a car
and he could fly

then I realize
that all the different feathers
I’ve had on my bike
the past 10 years
have come from dead birds

Jean-Baptist Boulevard, May 7, 2009

THE FLIGHT OF THE COOPER

Ton, Bogusia and I
sat up late
watching the Flight of the Conchords
on TV
we laughed
and we laughed
it felt good to laugh

then Ton put on a DVD
of Tommy Cooper
and we laughed some more
we laughed so hard
we forgot
we were in the same room

Amsterdam, May 15, 2009

BEDTIME STORIES

last night
we were talking about
reading in bed

Ton said
“Long ago
I taught myself
that beds were for sleeping.”

not me
I like to read in bed
I can’t go to sleep
unless I’ve read at least
part of a book
a chapter or two
a few pages
a few lines
(sometimes I read
until the birds
start singing)

I write in bed too
I write
and I write
and I write

I do lots of things
besides sleep
I drink in bed
and once upon a time
I smoked in bed

imagine that

Amsterdam, May 16, 2009

LOUD RAIN

rain pouring down
over Amsterdam
over the Ij
over the ferry
everybody is so quiet
and wet
the windows
are steamed up
and I can’t feel
if the boat is moving
or not

then the front doors open
and we all get off

Amsterdam, May 16, 2009

AMSTERDAM WHEELIE

it was accidental, I swear

crossing a canal in the Jordaan
I slowed for a concrete ramp
to the sidewalk beyond
a dozen pedestrians
stopped and waited
on either side of the lane
for me to pass between them

as my front tire
touched the ramp
I stomped down hard
on the pedals
and my bike leaped up, tilting
front wheel in the air

I said “Oops!”
the dozen spectators said, “Wow!”
and watched in amazement
as their favorite
68-year old bicycle acrobat
zoomed off down the alley
on his back wheel

May 24, 2009

KANGAROOSTER

a rooster lives next door
his companion is a pheasant
the rooster sounds like
he’s got a sore throat
the pheasant sounds like
the rusted hinge of a barn door

they go at all day long
croaking and whinging

I’ve never seen them
so I can easily imagine
that it’s just a single animal
a mutant beast
that croaks and whinges

what does it look like?

a monster dragging his balls
thru a swamp of foggy mud
filled with blackberry vines
and thorny bushes
and trying to convince himself
that once upon a time
he dwelled in a land
where the ground was covered
with cotton candy
and the most dangerous creature
he’d ever encountered
was a cross between
a custard cream pie
and a swimming pool
full of cottage cheese
with a dozen poached egg eyes

Onderdonk Deep, May 23, 2009

DRUMBEATS FROM THE GLOBAL VILLAGE

thump! thump! thump!
coming down the valley
from the village
on Saturday night
thump! thump! thump!
drums
electronic drums
the music too far back
to hear – just
thump! thump! thump!
the new tribal
drumbeat
for the new tribal
dance
thump! thump! thump!

time to send up a few missionaries
with rifles and diseased blankets
convert the backsliding heathens
turn off their drum machines
before it’s too late
and civilization
(as we know it)
disappears forever
into a hypnotic swamp
of mind-numbing
thump! thump! thump!

May 31, 2009

WE WILL IRON OUR BRITCHES NO MORE

we were doing just fine
cruising along
brushing our teeth
watching Desperate Housewives
surfing the net on our PCs
listening to our Andrea Bocelli CDs
snacking from the fridge
loafing like untoasted
slices of white bread
in front of our air conditioners

then the lights went out
no more electricity
forever
and within three days
we were unwashed cave men
crawling around in our ignorance
stealing candles and flashlights
biting each other’s feet
sweating like pigs
bitching about the weather
and worshipping Satan

June 1, 2009

CHOCOLATE-FLAVORED APPREHENSION

the lights went out

and here comes
the ice cream man
mopping up
on everybody’s insecurity

June 1, 2009

PASTORAL

beautiful day
late afternoon
Bear says, “I wish
I could push the PAUSE button.”

I say, “I’m going for the REWIND.”

June 1, 2009

THE MOUSE

mice in the kitchen
we set up a trap

in the morning
the cheese is gone
and so is the trap

I think we’re looking
for a beast much larger
than a mouse

July 17, 2008

THE RAT

let’s face it
the mouse is a rat
he’s walking around
with the trap clamped
over his nose
telling his friends
about his adventure
in our kitchen

his friends
all want to have
a piece of nose jewelry
just like his

he’s laying low
waiting for the day
when Marie Claire’s
old French teacher
will drop by for a cup of tea
then he’ll pop out
from under the stove
with that slab of wood
clamped to his nose
he’ll say “Howdy, ma’am”
and she’ll shit in her pants

July 17, 2009

THE WEASEL

let’s face it
it’s not a rat
it’s a weasel

he’s lying low for now
waiting for the moment
when we least expect it
then he’ll come walking out
from under the stove
with a mouse trap
clamped to each foot
he’ll say “How do you like
my new wooden shoes?”
and we’ll all shit in our pants

July 17, 2009

THE WILD BOAR

let’s face it
it’s not a mouse
or a rat
or a weasel

it’s a wild boar

and some night
when we least expect it
he’ll knock a hole on the wall
come roaring in
with dozens of mouse traps
dangling from his tusks
and shout into our shitless faces
“When will you people
ever grow up?”

July 17, 2009

SPA CASINO

the high priests
in their black apron-robes
on invisible feet
float around the Rose Room
with glasses on their trays
some full of wine
others empty
they’re the only people
who seem to know what they’re doing

the rest of us just stare
at each other
and wonder why we came

then a politician gets up
behind a feedback microphone
and blabs about this
and that
and more of this
and more of that
and I’m still looking around
wondering why I came
all the faces are a blur
wouldn’t recognize anybody
even if they walked right up to me
and dropped an earwig in my ear

recorded barbarian noise
chipping, rap-hopping
from the speakers
trying to break down the gates
from audible distances
which are neither here
nor there

we finish our drinks
and I follow MC back home
still wondering why
I had to get up so early
drive 50 miles
to the Rose Room of the Spa Casino
and stand around with fuzzy eyes
and stare at a bunch of people
who had no business
being neither here
nor there

July 20, 2009

TOOTH TALK

I say to my dentist
“God was a genius
when he invented the human body
except
he really messed up
when he came to the teeth.”

and my dentist says
“Ah, but it is man
with his bad habits
and lousy food
who ruins his teeth.”

I never thought
this would turn into
a theological discussion
about teeth

Aug 3, 2009

HARVEST
(Bicycle Poem 9)

haven’t been out
on the bike
much these days
figured I’d missed
the harvest

but no
Bear and I
ride right into the middle of it

all the thrashing
the dust blowing
the chaff flying
the tractors humming by

looks to me like
they’re just getting started
the lazy bastards

Aug. 4, 2009

PIG LATIN QUATRAIN

we used to speak it when we were idskay
trying to disguise all our irtyday ordsway
but what I want to know is who the uckfay
invented a language and called it igpay atinlay?

Aug. 4, 2009

TWENTY KILOMETERS A MINUTE
(Bicycle Poem 10)

2½ hour ride

but when we get back
to the village
all the people outside
are doing the same things
they were doing
when we left

which leads me to believe
that our 20-kilometer ride
took only
one minute

Aug. 4, 2009

TWO KINDS OF STORIES

everything causes cancer
brown sugar
white sugar
apple pie
peanut butter
toothpaste
dog shit
oysters
public transportation
Broadway musicals
string bass solos
moonlight
mirrors
rumors
jazz
sperm
dark glasses
ear plugs
Tibetan chants
maps
and stories that begin:
“There are two kinds of stories:
(1) stories that end: there are two kinds of stories
and
(2) stories that begin: everything causes cancer.”

August 9, 2009

WOULD THE PATRIOT WITHOUT SIN
PLEASE STAND UP AND THROW THE FIRST STONE

opening day of baseball season
the president was eager
to throw out the first pitch

he tossed it into the batter
who realized when it was
halfway to the plate
that it was not a baseball
but a bull’s testicle

the batter swung anyway
and connected
and splattered the bull’s ball
all over the field

everybody cheered
even the cheap seats
in the centerfield bleachers
some of whom
were covered in bull sperm

the game started
and by the 3rd inning
all the bull seed in the grass
had begun to sprout
and thousands of tiny bulls
were trotting around
in the outfield

by the 6th inning
the bulls were knee high
and the players
were tripping over them

by the 9th inning
the bulls were fully grown
tens of thousands of them
and they had chased
the players from the field
the game was over

then they sent in the matadors
it took the matadors
hours to kill all the bulls
and carry them away
and when they were finished
all that was left
was a baseball field
full of bullshit

“Excellent job,”
said president’s toadies
“You’re a real magician.”

the president waved away
their compliments
“Nothing to it,” he said
“Don’t forget I organized 9/11
and paid a couple of my boys
to fly their planes
into the World Trade Center.”

“You are truly a genius.”
replied the toadies.

“That was nothing,”
said the president.
“But getting everybody
to believe that the Arabs did it –
now that was a stroke of genius.”

August 14, 2009

GOD’S EYE
(Television Poem One)

saw a cripple on TV
wheeling his wheelchair
up a mountain trail
in the High Sierras
backwards

tough haul

he hit a rock
and tipped over
he lay in the dust
looking up at the sky
like he was wondering
if he was going to get rained on
or get hit
by a shower of meteors

I can’t have been
the only one watching the show
who knew he wasn’t alone
that there were all those people
from the television crew
standing around and staring
with their cameras and microphones

I said, “Why doesn’t somebody
help the poor fuck back in his chair?”

but they all had to pretend
that they weren’t there
that only God was present
and we were looking at the scene
thru his one good eye

August 14, 2009

FRANK BUCK’S GRANDCHILDREN
(Television Poem Two)

the TV vampires
are like the old-time animal trappers
who went into Africa
and brought back gorillas
and white rhinos
and spitting baboons
and wrestle-exhausted snakes

Frank Buck
“Brings ‘Em Back Alive.”

these new Frank Bucks
travel all around the world
capturing people
and putting them in our TV cages

starving children in Africa
weeping survivors
of a hurricane in Florida
a black motorist in LA
down on the pavement
while the white cops
beat the shit out of him
a courtroom close-up
of guilty faces
being acquitted by corrupt judges
and paid-off juries

animals in our cages
sometimes they’re alive
sometimes they’re dead
sometimes they stick
to the insides of our eyelids
and we can’t blink them away

August 14, 2009

THE SHAMAN’S GIFT

some kid stole
the eagle feather
from the handlebar of my bike
last year
the eagle feather
that Job blessed
and gave to me
to protect me on my rides

I just found out
what happened to the kid

an hour after swiping
the eagle feather
he drove his bike
into a hole and broke
both his legs
then his bike caught fire
and burned off half his face
after which
a flock of crows
swept down from the sky
and pecked out his eye balls

so take heed
you thieving magpies
don’t steal
the gift of a shaman
or mess around
with his sacred magic

non-material things
can happen to you
in your material world
that you will not believe

August 14, 2009

THE REVENGE OF A LESSER SHAMAN

this year I ride around
with a pigeon feather

nobody wants to steal
a pigeon feather

and if some kid does
what’s the worse
that can happen?

the pigeon flies by
and shits on his head

August 14, 2009

CREAM OF CONNUBIAL SOUP

big wedding reception
at the old farm house
they converted into a fancy
catering restaurant

the odor of high-class
expensive perfume
mixes with the aroma
of cowshit
and wafts across the field

the perfect blend

ahhhhhhhhhh
cream of connubial soup

August 14, 2009

37° IN THE SHADE

hot wind blowing in from the west
lightning flickering on the horizon behind it
what happened to the grasshoppers?
where are the leaping lizards?
where are the hummingbirds hiding?

down deep in a weeping willow hole
in a bubble of melted butterflies

August 20, 2009

37° IN THE SHADE
(Japanese version)

hot wind blowing in from the west
lightning flickering on the horizon behind it
ho! look at the glow worm

August 21, 2009

WHERE WERE YOU ON AUGUST 24, 2009?

I was home
thumbing thru my address book
and watching the ink fade
from my friends’ telephone numbers

NOSTRUMS & PANACEAS

checking out my medicine cabinet
for nostrums and panaceas

Efferalgan
Dafalgan
Osteo-Rhumal
Vioxx
Celebrex
Calamine lotion
Temesta
Loramet
Sinutab (extra strength)
Di-Antalvic
Sipralexa
Perdolan
Parodontax
Nexiam
Feldene Lyotabs
Audi-Sspray
Ex-Lax
Arcoxia
Zyrexa
Trafloxal
Hextril Spray
Systane
Otravine
Rad Salil
Baum Kamol
Aloe Vera
Bag Balm
Bio-Magnum
Hyabak
Sofrasolone
Docranti
Acetylcyteine
Rhinathiol
Inhalo Rhinathiol
Rhinargion
Nyogel
Fenigel
Nasonex
Unisept Otic Drops
Serulyx
Scheriproct

excuse me while I try
to stop getting old

SUMMER WITH HIBERNATION ON THE HORIZON

early Sunday morning
I pop a half pill
and wait for sleep

outside the window
the dawn is still dark
the birds haven’t awakened yet
the nights are sliding
into the days
and it gets harder
to stick around
to make sure
the world will turn
and be folded again
into the sun’s light

the calendar says it’s still summer
but I can feel winter
sticking its cool finger
down my throat

come on, birds, sing
sing me to sleep
sing me back into summer

August 30, 2009

CHILI PRIDE

I fail to understand chili pride
“I make the HOTTEST chili in Texas,”
he boasts strumming his suspenders
as if he’s getting ready
to play Camptown Races

how much skill does it take
to dump an extra pound of peppers
into the pot?
what kind of culinary finesse
does it take to stir them around?

and I’m still trying to figure out
the attraction of the hottest chili
in the world
all it will do is rot
the lining of your stomach
beyond repair and eat holes
in your intestines as it works
its way down to burn you
a double-wide anus

these chili boasters would be kinder
to promise you something better
than a lingering death
“Drop by tomorrow afternoon, sir
and I’ll cut out your heart with a knife.”

Sept. 2, 2009

FUNNY BONE

talk about the cosmic giggle
that tickles your toes
and rises up to make your hair stand on end

it’s that great gulp beyond laughter
that crushing of the heart
close to love
and you don’t want it to stop
(to laugh would stop it)
so you hold your mouth
and let the fluttering moths
build up inside
until you’re ready to rip
to stomp your feet thru the floor
and never come back

Sept. 2, 2009

TRAIN STATION

you can skip the part
where you wait outside
on the track
and wave goodbye

once I’m inside the train
I’m in another world
halfway to where I’m going

you and your waving hand
outside the window
are in a country
I’ve already left behind
a distant memory

stop waving
go home
and wait
I’ll be back

September 8, 2009

YOUTH BRIEFLY

raised on a ranch
electric fences
windmill thunder storms
miles of irrigation pipe
milking machine handshakes
country music on the cow barn radio

raised a 300 pound
white-face steer
traded it for 400
slaughter house dollars
traded that
for a blue 50 Ford
totaled the Ford
and moved to the city

September 9, 2009

FIREWORKS

he went up to the village feast
he wanted to see the fireworks
he found a low chair
next to the tennis court
and settled back to wait
in the dark

at 10:30 they shot off
the first cannon
it tilted sideways
and the rocket shot across
the tennis court
and pierced his heart
then it exploded
and he disintegrated
in a shower of dazzling sparks

everybody went, “Ahh!”

September 13, 2009

FIREWORKS AFTERMATH

later they said
it was no accident
the higher powers of the universe
had his death arranged
from the moment he was born
he might have been in on the secret
knew exactly where to sit
and was looking forward
to having his body blown up
into shattered streamers
of white light
while his mind expanded
in a flash of dazzling luminescence
as millions of brain cells
popped off like microscopic firecrackers
until he was nothing but
a delicate puff of smoke
in the sky that floated
over the village, down over the river
and disappeared into the deep forest
on the other side

September 13, 2009

BEOWULF OF THE UNGULATES

the deer come out to graze
in the meadow at sunset
I watch them from my studio window

mother, father and two young ones

twenty years ago I found a female
tangled in the fence
that borders the meadow and the woods
and with much care
and soft words I set her free

now the story of my deed
has been passed down
from generation to generation

I am the hero of the deer’s
favorite bedtime stories

“See that man watching us
from the window,” the mother
tells her children –
that’s him
the man who set us free.”

I am the Beowulf of the Ungulates

September 14, 2009

THE FAMOUS MAN

and when it comes to drugs
the famous man says
“Of course I don’t
take drugs myself
but when others around me
take them I always say,
“To each his own,”
I always say, ‘If you want
to destroy your mind and body
that’s your business
that’s your money
I won’t stand in your way
it’s a free country.”

I’m glad he told us that
we can see right away
what a superior man he is
how tolerant
how special

he is also a liar
I say to my TV screen
where his proud face
is producing hypocrite words
“Shut up, you stupid famous man.”

September 15, 2009

THE SECOND FAMOUS MAN

the famous man says,
“I invented electricity,
“I sailed around the world in a hot air balloon,
“I climbed the highest mountain in the world
“I can do anything I want
“I stuck my finger in the dike
and kept the land from flooding.”

and we say
“Oh what a famous man he is.
When I grow up I want to be a famous man.”

and then we go out
and becomes bank clerks
and garbage collectors
and dead soldiers

September 15, 2009

DARKNESS

they got all kinds of night time darkness
waiting for you out beyond the campfires
graveyard darkness, under-the-log darkness
monster spider movie darkness
bat cave darkness
wrong-side-of-the-moon darkness
fuzzy interstellar darkness

the accordion’s breath wheezes
in musical darkness
the computer toils
in digital darkness
the crowds cheer
but inside the football
there is only battered darkness
as kicking feet
try to puncture its skin

and down inside your body
where the muscles shuffle
and jiggle their joints
it’s pitch dark
close your mouth
and your teeth start chattering
and your tongue flicks around
trying to find the light switch
your turds pop out
rubbing their eyes
blinking in the blinding brightness
before drowning in the deep-sea darkness
of the sewer
down where the lamp fish
glow in the dark
and the sharks in shades
with phosphorescent white canes
are no joke

and how about the brain?
inside its black-as-night skull
with all those sparkling neurons
and the cells flashing out
neon signals that say:
“IT’S ONLY A STATE OF MIND.”

September 18, 2009

AMERICAN OPINIONS IN THE DARK

they opened the new train station
in Liege last night
the biggest in Europe
40,000 people showed up
to see the Prince of Santiago Calatrava
cut the red ribbon
then we had fireworks
and light works
and sound works
(with subsonics that vibrated the gut
and made everybody fart)
and we had dancers
and wild horse bareback riders
with sweeping Apache hair
and stilt walkers
and trampoliners
and bungee cord bouncers off the roof
and a man on a string
buzzing in circles above the entrance
with a propeller fan

we sore-footed back to the car
in the distant dark parking lot
2 young Americans arrived at the same time
at the car next to ours
“How was it?” asked the young American driver loudly
“Disappointing,” said one young American (loudly)
“Boring,” said the other young American (loudly)
then they got in their BMW and drove away

the jaded youth of America
they were expecting the Incredible Hulk
they were hoping for lions
ripping virgin maidens apart
and feasting on their organs
they were hoping for atomic death blasts
that would wipe out the city

but I’m making an assumption
maybe they weren’t at the inauguration at all
maybe they were around the corner
sampling the gay flesh
at the homo whore house
and had good reason to be disappointed
and bored
the Incredible Hulk
wasn’t there either

September 19, 2009

THE DIRTY SNOT RAG JOKE
(A STORY OF A STORY)

a true story I’ve told many times
on my old friend Dan
back in Rome in 1967

he steps out for breath
of fresh air
crowded sidewalk of via Cavour
what is it? why all these people?
it’s the pope, the pope is coming
and he comes
walking along the street
kissing the handkerchiefs
that people hold out
here comes the pope
Dan roots in his back pocket
and hauls out his snot rag
holds it out
too late
it’s crumpled, soggy
and full of nostril crap
the pope kisses it

at this point
when telling the story
(how many times?)
(too many)
I always reach in my back pocket
and (without thinking)
haul out my handkerchief
and always it’s crumpled
soggy and full of dried snot
(sometimes it’s at the dinner table
over fresh food)
too late
it’s not funny
loss of appetite

last night it was over
a fine buffet of shrimp
even I was disgusted

September 19, 2009

SONS OF ANARCHY

I don’t believe it
a Hells Angels’ soap opera?

will the 6-month premature baby
with half a stomach
and a hole in his heart
survive?

did the junkie mother
start foaming at the mouth
because she’d OD’d
in her hospital bed?

tune in next week and find out
the solutions to these and many other
burning social puzzles

such as
will the dirty Mexican gang
take revenge
on the pure white Caucasian gang
who got revenge
on the dirty Mexicans
for stealing their guns
and burning down their warehouse?

were the Korean tourists
at the night club
disappointed when they didn’t get
an Asian Elvis
and got a pure white
Caucasian Elvis instead?

thing is:
I probably will tune in next week
no, I lie
I most certainly will

Sept. 22, 2009

ROMAN ON THE RIVER

he always gets his rock music wrong
Cosby, Stills and Nash
The Velva Tunderground
Brittany’s Pierce
War and Zevon
Fleetwood Mag
Joe Jet and the Blackheads

he sings along with his old favorites
Let’s Spin the Night Together
Shake, Marilyn Monroe
In a Garden of Eden
Roman, Roman on the River

tell him he’s wrong
he’ll close his eyes and keep singing
Lazin’ on a Sunday Afternoon by the Kings
Give Peas a Chance by John Lemon
R-E-S-B-E-C-T by Uretha Franklin
Ho Lotta Shapin’ Goin’ On by Larry G. Lewis
Go Tell California by the Beagles

but what the hell
maybe he’s right
not even the singers themselves
know what they’re singing half the time
When a Man Loves a Walnut
Sitting on the Duck of the Bay
A Whiter Shave Appeal
How Could I Dance with her Mother
When I Saw Her Standing There?

Sept. 22, 2009

CHANGE
(Bike Poem 11)

see the potato pickers
in yonder field
think: hey I better go do that
it’s been 2 or 3 years since

see a pheasant feather
in the path
stop pick it up
stick it in my handlebar lamp
it’s old and moldy
walk 2 steps
toss it away
another feather
this one’s white
same thing

leaves starting to fall
it’s that time of year again
but it’s never the same
I’m in a completely different place
than I was the last time
the season started to fall
and so too is nature
a puzzle
I’ve been trying to figure it out
for a long time
change
I don’t have time
to catch up

Power Line Road, Sept. 23, 2009

PHEASANT FEATHER
(Bike Poem 12)

a hundred yards down the road
lies a long slender
pheasant feather
looks like the eyelash
of a tiger
flickers lightly in the breeze
bends towards me
as we pick up speed
as I pedal into the rest of autumn

Power Line Road, Sept. 23, 2009

POTATO
(Bike Poem 13)

a hundred yards past the point
where I picked up the pheasant feather
lies a single potato
about the size
of a pregnant golf ball

I stick it in my pack
that’s my harvest for the year
should see me thru the winter
if I take small bites

Onderdonk Drive, Sept. 23, 2009

POTATO STEW
(Bike Poem 14)

a hundred yards later
there’s a squashed hedgehog
in the middle of the road

conclusion:
there is a new adventure
waiting for you
every time you blink your eyes

all you have to do
is keep your eyes open

Onderdonk Drive, Sept. 23, 2009

PARAPHRASE
(Bike Poem 15)

Proust once said (paraphrase)
go out
keep your eyes wide open
and live one day to the limit

then come home
and spend the rest of your life
writing about it

that’s what I’m doing
that’s what I just did

now I’m ready
to go back out
and do it again

Rooster Pharmacy (Verlaine)
Sept. 23, 2009

THANKSGIVING
(Bike Poem 16)

population explosion
people everywhere
cars whiz by on Two Trees

cars were backed up
at the gas station
when I stopped for a drink
long line at the cash
when I got to the front
I said to the girl (in French)
“Il ya du monde.”
and she said (in French)
‘You noticed.”
and I said “What’s happening?”
and she said, “I don’t know.”
she gave me my change
and said, “Merci – merci –
beaucoup – beaucoup – beaucoup.”
I looked back at the waiting line
of dead fish faces
she was not thanking me
for buying a drink
she was thanking me
for speaking to her
she’d been looking at
an endless line
of dead fish faces all day
she was happy to see
a lemur face for a change

Two Trees Road (idem)
Sept. 23, 2009

THE ODORS OF AEOLIAN
(Bike Poem 17)

sitting in the spinning shadows
as the blades of the Aeolians
slice thru the setting sun

the world is different
every year
every day
every minute
every second

so listen up, lunk head:
stop getting your neurons
and your synapses
all stirred up
because nothing’s the same
as it was last time
because
because
what’s that smell?

Parisian pachyderm perfume?

pipe smoke floating in
from the 14th Century?

a Chinese dinner of steamed
prawns and special fried rice
sliding onto a table for four
at the Shanghai Gardens
a hundred miles due west?

Two Trees Road (idem)
Sept. 23, 2009

VEGETARIAN VIOLENCE

“I think I’ll have a taste
of something nibblish,” he said
and she slapped his face so hard
the olive popped out of his mouth
went squirting across the room
and the hit the wall so hard it stuck
looking like the small eyeball
of a beast who had bored
thru the plaster to watch
the final round of nightly violence
in the Lunatic’s Vegetarian Restaurant

Sept. 24, 2009

BOOK REVIEW

as I mentioned before
at the age of twenty
I set out to read
all the books in the world

by the age of thirty
I lowered that number
to all the important books
in English

age 40 I gave up
on important
and narrowed my ambitions
to only books that interested me

age 50 I realized
that many interesting new books
were being published every year

age 60 I gave up
and just kept reading

soon I’ll be 70
I’ve got over 5,000 paperbacks
on my shelves
I’ve read most of them
but lately I’ve been nagged
by an annoying question:
where am I going to find the time
to sit down and read them all again?

Sept. 28, 2009

OBLIGATORY OBLIGATOS FOR VIOLATED GITAR’N CELLO
IN NINE MOVEMENTS

Lethargy

In Tonation

Urination Plus

Flatulenza a l’Americana

Parallel Fifths in a Parallel World

Give me a break, my shoes are too tight and my toes are squeaking

One more of these tunes and I’ll have to start punching my guts in 5/8 time while my nose wiggles a waltz

This better be the end cause, if it ain’t, I’m gonna set off a fire alarm and the trucks’ll come and pump everybody full of water

Oh no they’re coming back for an encore – this could be the end of everybody’s aural sanity when they get going fast up in the high parts where bird’s nests are full of disoriented crickets and grasshoppers beeping and burping in the night, waiting for the curtain to come down and plunge the whole world into total everlasting darkness

Waremme, Oct. 8, 2009

THANKSGIVING BLUES

“NO MORE BIRDS,”
he said throwing a steaming stuffed pheasant
out the window daring it to sing into the jaws of a storm

EATING DISORDER

you’ve got one
if you find yourself
sitting on the toilet
crapping out last night’s dinner
while slurping from a bowl
of breakfast cereal
loaded with peaches, fresh cream
and a couple of slices
of left-over salami

Oct. 9, 2009

ROME POEMS

INTROIT

expect the best and you’ll be disappointed
expect the worst and you’re bound to get it
expect nothing and you’ll be surprised
beyond your wildest expectations

Oct. 13, 2009

THIEF (LADRO)

he got away with my knapsack
he got away with a folder of notes
on a work in progress
a current notebook with poems
a small notebook I had for 25 years
my address and phone number book
dating back to 1975
a hardbound copy of Nick Hornby’s
Juliet, Naked
a paperback of the new Robert S. Parker
cell phone plus charger
Canon Sure Shot plus pictures
baseball cap
eye drops
headache pills
sinus pills
all my pens but this one
my bed side clock
my reading glasses
(no more reading for a week)

so if you see him lurking in the shadows
of the entrance at Stazione Trastevere
hang onto your knapsack
he’ll be wearing a blue and green
jogging suit and black sneakers
he’s fast (10 seconds
while I had my head turned
to see if Marie-Claire was having any luck
flagging down a taxi)

he’ll be squinting thru a pair
of thin tortoise frame reading glasses
that makes his left eye
twice the size of his right
and holding Juliet, Naked
open to the first page, trying to read
he’ll be struggling
it’s not easy to learn to read
on such short notice

he’s going to ruin his eyesight
with those stupid glasses
and he’ll never be a poet
no matter how fast he runs

Rome, Oct. 13, 2009

A LOTTA GOTTA (GONNA WANNA)

one day in Rome
and my head’s already full
not an extra cubbyhole
for another cobblestone
not a single corner
for a haircut to hide in

gotta go to sleep
and dream a lotta dreams
unplug a few holes
toss back a few musical chairs
for a new game
we’re gonna have a bunch
of new faces coming up
tomorrow and they’re not
gonna wanna take no
for an answer

Rome, Oct. 14, 2009

BARBARIANS IN ROME

rhinogutts in my nose
muggentwerps on my wall
a pair of schulmplugs in my ears
what kind of place is this?
I thought we was in Rome
where the barbs gave up long ago
trying to knock off the mamas and papas
and the girls a la la
and the boys a da da
no more ja ja
no more yo yo
no more spigott spitz
no more zigzag mouth graffiti
German should be outlawed in Rome
French acceptable only under
special conditions (if spoken softly)
like if you’ve got an earwig in your ear
or you want to take a shower
but don’t know how to get wet
send them to Florence or Venice
if they want to ümlaüt the air
with kroots and krauts

and while we’re at it
no more Arab parasites
crawling around clawing
at you with their Kasbah crap
and cheepo street clog
send them all to Napoli
where they can scratch out
each others’ eyes
while scoring fantastic bargains
over chunks of junk
that have a half life
of less than a minute
and will fall to pieces
before you get home

and while we’re at it
– but no, we’ll leave
the self-satisfied, duck quack
pigeon toed, pinch face
squeegee brain Americans
for another day

Rome, Oct. 14, 2009

ROMA PAZZO

people walk around
with cell phones glued to their ears
talking loudly

you can see them anywhere
but how about the recent models?

ear plugs with microphones

they’re all over Rome
a crowd of lunatics
walking around
waving both arms
apparently talking to themselves

apparently hell
the ear plugs
are just for decoration

Rome, Oct. 15, 2009

THE TRASTEVERE COWMAN

and here he comes
an old guy
with six or seven
big cowbells in each hand
clanging, banging
you can hear him
from a block away
and you wouldn’t be surprised
to see a herd of cattle
following him down the street

here he comes, passes by
the clang and bang so loud
the pigeons start to moo

Rome, Oct. 16, 2009

THE WORLD IS SUCH A COMPLEX THING
to Marie-Claire

the world is such a complex thing
we can only dream to hope
to understand a very small part

having said that
I know that what holds the world together
is love
laughter
friendship
and compassion

without these
you and I would fall
between the cracks
and we would have to spend
all of our time
hopelessly trying to catch
each other

Rome, Oct. 16, 2009

THERE’S NOTHING LIKE

1.
there’s nothing like
a drunk bellowing in the street
at 2 a.m.
and you lean out the window
and see him pissing against your door
and you’re so surprised
all you can do
when he looks up
is reach out and tilt
the can of beer you’re drinking from
and watch it spill down
like a stream of urine
into his open mouth

2.
there’s nothing like
crossing an intersection
and having an impatient driver
ease his car up against your leg
and push you out of the way
and you’re so surprised
all you can do
as he shakes his fist at you
as he drives away
is to lift your hands in the air
and shout, “Come back here, bastard –
and we’ll talk about it.”

only to see him a minute later
as you continue down the sidewalk
coming around the corner
and pulling up to the curb
next to you and shouting
“Do you speak English?”

and without reply
you slowly walk over to the curb
and he is so surprised
that he panics, thinking
you are about to destroy his car
his mind and everything else
that he hits the gas
and squeals off down the street
on piggish tires
and all you can do
is to jab a middle finger
high in the air
and hope he sees it

this only works in Rome
where words speak louder than actions
and a man values his front teeth
his testicles and his sanity
far above a breakdown
in communication
that is just about (Oh holy son of a bitch!)
to turn into pure atavistic violence

no young Italian hot shot
is stupid enough to cross horns
with a stoop shoulder
70-year old American geezer
with a bad back and no teeth
especially if the geeze is 7 feet tall
has less to say than Clint Eastwood
on a bad day
and has his hands in his pockets
(perhaps) clenched around a pair
of venomous salamanders
which he can throw with deadly accuracy
thru an open car window
into a face that hopes
to look at itself in the mirror
on some near future occasion
without screaming

3.
there’s nothing like
a young woman triple-parked
on a busy corner
trotting across the street
to a bank’s money machine
where she tries to score
a couple hundred euros
while traffic piles up
behind her car, buses twisted
out of shape, taxi horns blasting
motorbikes scooting along
the sidewalks, drivers shouting
the sun blasting down
and whipping up extreme emotions

and this small episode
of street theater
would conclude perfectly
if the woman could score her loot
trot back out to her car
waving 3 hundred euro bills
in the air to the clamor
of a hundred car horn salute
hop in her car
and drive away
with the Beach Boys
blasting on her radio
“I GET AROUND!”

but of course
the gods of drama
have other ideas
about this triple-car-park scenario
and therefore nothing goes
as she had planned

she stands at the money machine
punching numbers
and nothing happens
she looks around
walks up and down
in front of the machine
punches more numbers
still nothing
three things are possible
(1) she’s forgotten her pin code
(2) she has no more money in her account
(3) she’s not using her bank card but a plastified business card that says: EAT AT JOE’S –
BEST PIZZA IN TOWN
she tries the numbers again
no dice; no free money today

she rushes into the bank
and hops out a minute later
with a plastic sack
full of hundred euro notes
in one hand
and a water pistol in the other
she squirts one car in the windshield
and it stops honking
she slides into her BMW
drives away
holding the gun to her head
she pulls the trigger
and the radio starts playing
OH HAPPY DAY
as water dribbles down
the side of her face
and off her chin

4.
there’s nothing like an exhausted
brain-dead tourist lunging your way
down the street on Frankenstein
monster feet that don’t bend
at the ankle, hypnotized eyes
that see nothing but vague shadows
squirming around in the last traces
of the illuminated world, swimming
down the lines of his sight
powergliding into his eyeballs
then with intolerable explosions
blasting up the tubes into his skull
where the sponge is already
soaked to the maximum

one sure thing you can say
about this man:
he’s not exactly enjoying his vacation
at this particular moment
in fact he’s given up trying to figure out
what kind of thousand-ring circus
he’s fallen into

where is he?
he might be back in Po Dunk
on the wrong side of the tracks
in the dark gloomy mind of the night

or in a 19th century mining town
on the edge of the American West
where gamblers play with bent corner cards
and will shoot you between your crossed eyes
if you accuse them of cheating

tell him he’s in Rome
and he’ll break down and cry
and wonder how he got here

5.
there’s nothing like
24 cop cars
blocking the bridge
2000-volt blue-white
flashing lights
120 decibel choppers
hovering overhead
waiting for a horde
of barbarians
to come charging down
the river road
shouting insults
throwing cobblestones
intending to turn the city
upside down
and create a riot
that will be imprinted
on the minds of all
who witness it
as a memory of chaos
that will be passed down
thru the generations
to the end of time

and thru the crowd-packed streets
comes a high-soprano choir
of little girls
waving big plastic pink hands
their thin melodic voices
floating over the madhouse mess
and delivering everybody
to the heaven of their choice
whether they like it or not

6.
there’s nothing like a sip
from an empty tea cup
when you’re expecting
a mouthful of Sir Winston
and all you get is Sir Winston’s
peach-flavored breath

7.
there’s nothing like
the beggars of Trastevere
stumbling along
from one foot to the other
limping on rubber legs
smiling thru twisted teeth
eyes burned out
by the hot Roman sun
faces heated by years
of hot red Roman wine

they all want money
for their boozed-up blood
but what they need
is a bar of soap
a toothbrush loaded
with peppermint-flavored yogurt
and a real sharp spanking

Rome, Oct. 16—19, 2009

PIGEON FEAST

a small round table in the sunshine
outside the Cinema Café
four people, having finished
get up and leave their mess behind
crusts of bread
edges of pizza
cake crumbs
the moment they’re gone
the pigeons attack
hopping up and swooping down
they go hog wild
pecking at the scraps
flapping their wings
and slapping the water glasses
and coffee cups to the ground
the sound of breaking glass
and broken pottery fills the air

then they fly away
leaving their mess behind
like spoiled children
on their way
to conquer the world

Borghese Gardens, Rome, Oct. 16, 2009

A SCARLATTI SONATA
for Francesco

he hammers the keys so hard
the elephants back in Africa
lift their trunks
and trumpet a requiem
for their dead ancestors

he taps the keys so softly
the feathers of the crows
in the Canadian snowlands
are ruffled by whispers of wind
from the north
that tells of their vacations
in the tropics

and down thru the centuries
come the notes of music
nobody really remembers
because all he’s left behind
are a few bubbles of ink
on a river-floating page
that rise and drift away
as they pass by only
if the hand of an angel
reaches out with his fingertips
and sets them free

Rome, Oct. 16, 2009

THE HONOR SYSTEM ITALIAN STYLE

free tram rides
all over Rome
buses too
best value in the city
you buy one ticket
make sure you don’t punch it
as nobody else punches theirs
(this is called the honor system
Italian style)
and you can ride forever
everyday, all day long
and pray that the ticket police
won’t come around
and throw you in tram jail

Rome, Oct. 17, 2009

CAMPO DE’ FIORI SATURDAY MORNING

Campo de’ Fiori
Saturday morning
Bruno on his perch
looking down on all the wealth
of the world
heads of lettuce
bunches of grapes
persimmons
gigantic pumpkins
flowers
carrot peelers
I ♥ Roma sweat shirts
fountains
motorcycles
flashing cameras
2-wheel pushcarts

looking down
upon all the people of the world
poets
pickpockets
backpackers
scam artists
movie stars of no future
garbage collectors
in neon orange jumpsuits
old babies in luxury strollers
small old ladies with big ear rings
dogs trotting around in red wool sweaters
cell phone addicts who use the entire piazza
as their phone booth
North American bible belters
with bite-mouth voices
white glove smokers
with ivory cigarette holders
dog-pulling sandwich stuffers
map-reading Orientals
and shave-head heretics

looking down
upon
the
world

Rome, Oct. 17, 2009

FLEA MARKET
(Porta Portese in the rain, 7 a.m.)

not much
some stuff
you see
on the street
multiplied by 1000
maybe a few
extra fleas

Rome Oct. 18, 2009

BLACK DUST COWBOY

the Black Dust Cowboy
of Piazza Navona
covered in liquid lead
sitting in the dirt
leaning up against a lamp post
waiting for the next train
into the Wild West
leather jacket and jeans
cowboy boots and outlaw hat
tilted down over roll-up smoke
dangling from the corner
of his mouth
quick-draw pistols in holsters

kids approach, sit by his side
to get their pictures taken
a shy woman tip toes up
and drops a coin in his tin can

the Black Dust Cowboy
jerks awake
quick draws a gun
and squirts water
in her face

I stroll over
drop a few coins in his can
he turns his head
hawk-eyes me leaving
winks
and goes back to sleep

Rome Oct. 18, 2009

FAMOUS QUOTATION FROM THE ROMANS

SELF BAR SELF BAR SELF BAR SELF

Rome (Stazione Trastevere) Oct. 19, 2009

SAY GOODBYE TO THE PEACEFUL MADNESS

leaving Rome
with a headful of heartbeats
sad bent knees and sorrowful feet
with eyes full of a thousand-counted cobblestones
ten-thousand faces we’ll never remember
and a million dots of dust on our backs

leaving Rome
with two new knapsacks
and a week-old Roman haircut.

Rome Oct. 19, 2009

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR EMERGENCY WINDOW REMOVAL

1. pull down on lever
2. lift up the handle
3. rip out the window
4. throw it out the door
5. jump out after it
6. scream
7. pretend you’re wearing a parachute
and float to the ground like a feather

34,000 feet over the Alps, Oct. 19, 2009

CAOUTCHOU

“Lady, if you go round
coughing in people’s faces
you have no more intelligence
than a caoutchou.”

“What’s a caoutchou?”

“A small mean animal
that walks around on three legs
because it hasn’t figured out
how to operate
the other two.”

Liege Oct. 21, 2009

THE LITTLE TYKE
(Bicycle Poem 18)

I see a little tyke
in a red anorak
trudging up the road towards me
holding his mom’s hand

I slow as always
they move over to make room
and I get the wild idea
I’m going to give the kid
a thrill

so just as I’m about to slide by
I ring my bell
(Grandpa Clown at the circus
entertaining the kiddies)

the little tyke doesn’t react
but his mom does
her mouth drops open
her face stretches wide
her eyes bulge in horror
and she begins to whimper

then the kid begins to wail

and so ends my career
as a child entertainer
word will get around:
watch out for the lunatic
with green teeth
with a pheasant feather
bent into the shape
of a grim-reaper finger
if he points it at you
scream and run the other way,
don’t wait for him to ring the bell
you may never recover
from its evil vibrations

Old Farm Road, Oct. 21, 2009

HUNCHBACK PHEASANT
(Bicycle Poem 19)

before going to Rome
Bear tossed a wool blanket
folded double
over my handlebar
ignoring the tall, proud
pheasant feather
sticking up from my light

now, after a week
of violent suppression
the feather is bent in half
tortured into a relic
of a hunchback pheasant

I turn it around
so that it points ahead
and pray to the wind
to straighten its spine

the wind hasn’t done
much for me and mine
so I don’t have much hope

Rum Road, Oct. 21, 2009

COLD WIND TUNNEL
(Bicycle Poem 20)

blink your eyes for a week
and all this year’s food
has been harvested
brought in, stored
or thrown away
(or whatever)
corn
potatoes
beets
even the apples
the fields are empty
deep ruts in deep brown mud
from the tractors
with an occasional
spliced spud
sticking up

across an empty wheat field
aeolian blades
spin unobstructed

I can see it coming
in the distance
the cold wind tunnel
reaching out and sucking
at the earth as it glides
our way in slow motion

must get home before dark
the night’s another tunnel
that runs ahead of the cold wind’s
shutting down the day
tossing up a sign that says:
do not enter –
unless you want to get
into a boxing match
with Mother Earth
who wears gloves
loaded with horseshoes
and all you’ve got for protection
are a few mistaken ideas
about how to improve the climate
in these northern lands

Carrot Stop, Oct. 21, 2009

MONSTER TRUCKS
(Bicycle Poem 21)

two black monster trucks
rolling down the tractor road
between two empty wheat fields
towards me
8-wheel drive
smoked windows
spinning blades under front bumpers
to chop up human road kill
huge hooks in back
for dragging bodies
until they forget that laughter
has ever been an essential
part of their lives

I know who they are
gangsters
child molesters
rapists of Romanian girls
they’ve got victims
in the back
blindfolded and gagged

I turn my head
and close my eyes
not because I don’t want to be
a witness
but because I don’t want
to get dust in my eyes
from their fat tires
as they speed past

Two Trees Road *, Oct. 21, 2009

* It used to be a nice neighborhood, without neighbors, but since they put in the aeolians not even the imagination can keep up with the horrors that lurk in the hearts of these occasional inhabitants

CAT & OWL & FALLING LEAVES

the click and the clatter
of dead leaves falling
in the night breeze
sounding like a herd of tiny deer
racing up the hill thru the woods

and there’s the old owl
who is he up to
on a night
when the moon
is humming down thru the trees?

and the cat’s paws
ticking on the window glass
as he pedals at his reflection
trying to reach
the paw-pedaling creature
on the other side

and out of the half moon
booms a monster jet airliner
the roar of its engines
blotting out all sounds
but the shout of my voice
as I curse it out of the sky
with a rude and lonely
“YOU BASTARD!”

Oct. 27, 2009

HALLOWEEN FALL

we’re having a gentle fall
this year
soft breezes blow
from time to time
and a leaf falls
from a tree
from time to time

then Bear slips
on a rotten apple
falls
and breaks her ankle
in three places

a breeze blows
a leaf falls

two

Oct. 31, 2009

BOSCH

used to be an insult
in Europe
during and after
World War Two
“Them dirty Bosch.”

now it’s the name
of a fine fridge
the name stares out
from a million Belgian
refrigerators
into six million
pairs of eyes
everyday
Bosch!
Bosch!
Bosch!

that’s the name
of our new fridge

I’m looking forward
to our next new stove
it might be
a Goering & Goebbels

“I cooked my goose
on a Goering & Goebbels”

don’t tell me
language ain’t funny

November 4, 2009

A TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE THING TO SAY
TO A MIDDLE-AGED LADY DOCTOR

Bear (in a wheel chair recovering from a broken ankle) says,
“It’s at times like this that I’d like to have a sister.”

The Lady Doctor says, “I have four.”

And I say, “Are they all as sexy as you?”

November 6 2009

END OF A DREAM

I shut off the computer
and wake up

curious dream

so what happens now?

go down to my studio
switch on my real computer
and start dreaming again?

pick up where I left off
in my sleep?

and where did I get the idea
of a virtual computer?

Nov. 19, 2009

THIN WAIL
for Garrett List

what can I do
to make it new
can I make it fast
tho it may not last

can I make it slow
with a sky full of snow
make it cry
with a poke in the eye

can I make it old
by making it cold
then thawing it out
with a tickle and a shout

I don’t want to make it cold
or cry or slow
I want to make it smile
at least for a while

I want to make it run
make a shadow in the sun
I want to make it warm
in the pit of my arm

can I make it hot
will you like it a lot
will you still love me
if I make it for free

can I make it hum
like a tribal drum
can I make it dance
right out of its pants

can I make it wail
can I twist its tail
can I make it spin
right out of its skin

can I howl like the wind
will you still let me in
will you love me more
if I break down the door

what can I do
to make it come true
can I leave it alone
with my old trombone

can I make it new
by painting it neon blue

can I make it sing
can I make it grow wings
can I make it fly
away
and never
come back again

Liege, December 7, 2009

FOLDED NOTE

the kind you pass
across the room
in the 6th grade
to the girl by the window
and hope none of kids
in between will open it
and sneak a peek

Bear, you broke your ankle
six weeks in a cast
six weeks in a wheelchair
six weeks of bellyshots

cast comes off
and you’re walking around the house
that same day not even glancing
at the crutches

next day you’re in therapy
and driving the car

four straight days
you’re up early driving to the clinic
on your own
for the painful therapy

I woke up this morning
you were not sleeping on the couch
where are you, Bear?

oh, I know
you’re over at the clinic
for more therapy

you’ll never sit down
and let the world kick you around
I love you for your determination
I love you for everything
I love you so much

December 30, 2009

I wake to sleep and take my walking slow

Canigou Poems – Series Three | January – February 2010 |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

GOING SOUTH

driving out of snow
into more snow
driving south
into France
snow all over the place
frozen aeolians
colder than Belgium

where is the south?

the famous L’Autoroute du Soliel
is packed with ice
looks like Norway on a bad day

past Troyes
snowflakes falling
snow drifting across the road
snow plows poised
by the side of the highway
yellow lights flashing
ready to jump out and stop an avalanche

driving south
into snow and more snow
speed down to 50 kph
nobody’s driving in the fast lane
overhead signs blinking
“Trucks get off the road!”
(SORTIE OBILGATOIRE)
but some trucks keep driving
blocking the road
traffic jam
snow flakes dancing
in the low beams

driving south
into snow
and more snow

Dijon Jan. 8, 2010

INFLATION RATTLESNAKES

when I was a kid
in San Francisco
I saw an ad
a painted poster
of a fat rattlesnake

in had a word
printed on its side:

INFLATION

somebody from above
was holding it down
with a forked stick
but you could see
it was writhing around
rattles buzzing
jaw open
fangs dripping venom

I understood the message
but what could I do
to hold down the inflation rattlesnake?

I didn’t even know
what inflation was

today I found out
at a Mac’s in France
bought a burger
a muffin
and a small bottle of Evian

20 years ago
it would have cost me
a third of what I paid today

with cigarettes a $12.50 a pack
the smoker with a serious
nicotine problem
has to fork out at least
25 bucks a day to keep
his addiction rattlesnake pacified

that’s 85 bucks a week
that’s $350 per month
and $7,700 per year
cheaper to be hooked
on heroin

and I still don’t know
what I’m supposed to do
to keep that inflation rattlesnake
from jumping up and biting me
refuse to pay?
grab the burger and run?

they probably got a whole team
of inflation rattlesnakes
hiding in the parking lot
waiting to attack
those who grab and run

I think I just saw one
slither back into the sewer

Dijon Jan. 8, 2010

SLIPPING THRU THE CRACKS
OF THE STAGE
AT THE LAST CHANCE CAFE

the drummer crumbles

the lead guitar grows thinner
and thinner until
he’s down to skin and bones

the bass player’s pulse
has been stolen by the crowd

the piano player’s fingers
hit only the black keys
he can’t stand the sight of white

and the lead singer
is confused about who he is
and the words of his song
are not helping

I looked in the mirror
and my face disappeared
the first of April came after
October the ninth this year

my hand and arm are not attached
cause I don’t have a wrist
I thought you loved me
but you do not exist

the crowd is not a crowd
it’s just a mob of drunks
some of them are bastards
and some of them are punks

there’s only one girl
but she be won’t one for long
she has no mouth
but she tries to sing along

I thought you loved me
but you do not exist
I can’t dance the tango
I can only do the twist

I’ve been laid from end to end
but seldom kissed
I thought I loved you
But I do not exist

the night grows long and fat
someone’s sucked up all the air
the beer has gone dead flat
but no one seems to care

it’s just one more night
down in Satan’s Cage
the band keeps playing
but there’s no one on the stage

we thought we loved each other
we thought we would be missed
but no one even noticed
when we vanished in the mist

so you give me the finger
and I’ll give you the fist
no one’s looking, no one cares
and we do not exist

Dijon Jan. 8, 2010

GOING SOUTH QUATRAIN

Lyons?
snowed under
where is the south?
the south is snowed under

Lyon Jan. 9, 2010

GOING SOUTH HAIKU

SIGN:
EXTREME BREAKING CONDITIONS AHEAD
USE YOUR IMAGINATION

Autoroute A7 South Jan. 9, 2010

GOING SOUTH & GETTING RIDICULOUS

these truckers are killers
someday they will be tried
for war crimes

“Were you driving
a Scania 16-wheeler
German license plate BORT GK 421
on the A7 freeway going south
between Valence and Montilimar
on January 9, 2010?”

“I was just doing my job, sir.”

“Condemned!
Execute the bastard!”

“It wasn’t my fault, sir.
It was the truck’s.”

“Execute the truck too!”

Valence, Jan. 9, 2010

GOING SOUTH & GETTING SLIPPERY

Avignon snowed under
streets sidewalks
a skating rink
worst storm
in a hundred years

back then
they did not have cars
or maps
or boots
or gloves

they had prayers
sometimes the prayers worked
and sometimes they didn’t

Avignon, Jan. 9, 2010

AVIGNON 1910

back then they didn’t have
a lot of things
not even the idea
that they didn’t have
a lot of things

they only had
what they could scare up
from the cellar
when the going got tough

they mostly had people
and a few dogs and cats

Avignon, Jan. 9, 2010

AVIGNON 1911

by the following year
they had a few more things
they had some memories
and they had something to talk about:
the worst snow storm in a thousand years
the city under a blanket of snow
20 feet deep

but back in 910 AD
they didn’t have very much at all
not even much of a city
ramparts
a few cannonballs
aimed at removing
your digestive system
from front to back
and a couple of fanatic priests
warming up their tongs
for the Inquisition

this is a complete history
of Avignon 911 – 1911
all other details
are irrelevant
and should be ignored

Avignon Jan.10, 2010

LEAVING AVIGNON

the sharp snap ice crack
of snow heavy tree branches
overhanging courtyard walls
in the night

in the morning
olive trees in the snow

on the road to Nimes Jan. 10, 2010

COLD WISHFUL THINKING

if only we could
get away with
building a fire
in the sink
and using the bathroom window
as a chimney

Mas Trilles, Jan. 10, 2010

HOT WATER BOTTLE FEVER

dedicated to the memory of Richard Brautigan

the Bear wants to buy
a sleeping bag
I think we should buy
five sleeping bags
and one hundred
hot water bottles
fill up the bottles
with hot water
and stuff them into
the sleeping bags
make a nest to sleep in
lie down with our heads
on hot water bottle pillows
and pull hot water bottle blankets
over our heads

or how about hot water bottle pajamas?
and if we get warm enough
we could read hot water bottle books
or watch hot water bottle television

sometimes we’d stop
and sing hot water bottle songs
about hot water bottle people
and their hot water bottle problems

we are staying
in a hot water bottle hotel
in the south
of hot water bottle France
not far from the Spanish
hot water bottle border
and we are dreaming
of hot water bottle heaven
where hot water bottle angels
fly around
on sleeping bag wings

Mas Trilles, Jan 11, 2010

HOT WATER BOTTLE EPILOG

also dedicated to the memory of Richard Brautigan who invented such people as Trout Fishing in America Shorty and places such as Watermelon Sugar

actually all these hot water bottles
are getting us ready for the day
when the world gives up
no more gas
no more electricity
and we’ll have to go live
in contemporary caves
of wrecked cars
and rusted house trailers
at night we will gather around
the campfires
where we will boil
huge bathtubs full of water

and in the morning
we will slide down the hill
to the Hot Water Bottle Emporium
where we will buy
a lot of hot water bottles
with hot water bottle money
then we’ll climb back home
to our hot water bottle camp
and when we get hungry
we will eat dead hot water bottles

and when we give up hope
we will take out
our hot water bottle guns
and shoot our heads
full of hot water bottle bullets
then we will go
to air-conditioned heaven
where angels in bikinis
will fly around
on sun tan lotion wings
and somebody will tell
a hot water bottle joke
and we’ll all laugh
because we will not
want to remember
what life was like
in hot water bottle hell

Mas Trilles, Jan. 11, 2010

MOM & DAD

phone text message
from Quanah
he’s happy we’re down here
in the south

Bear thinks he’s happy
because mom & dad
still have the courage
to travel around the world
when the spirit moves them

I think he’s just relieved
to know that mom & dad
are not so stupid
that they would stay home
suffering and complaining
and forgetting to put on their shoes
when they wander outside
into the snow and ice

Mas Trilles, Jan 11, 2010

MEMORABLE BEAR QUOTATION FROM THE CATALAN Nº 1

“When you start passing trucks on this highway
you have to believe in the future.”

Autoroute du Soleil, Jan. 9, 2010

MEMORABLE BEAR QUOTATION FROM THE CATALAN Nº 2

“I got cramps in my pira-knees.”

Céret, Jan. 10, 2010

MEMORABLE BEAR QUOTATION FROM THE CATALAN Nº 3

“I feel like a hard-boiled egg.”

Mas Trilles, Jan. 24, 2010

MEMORABLE BEAR QUOTATION FROM THE CATALAN Nº 4

“It’s a butterfly that can’t fly. So it must be a butter.”

Perpignan, Feb. 3 2010

MEMORABLE BEAR QUOTATION FROM THE CATALAN Nº 5

“If I looked at my wool sleeve under a microscope I would see a lot of small snakes and worms with dripping noses.”

Mas Trilles, Feb. 16, 2010

MEMORABLE BEAR QUOTATION FROM THE CATALAN Nº 6

“My biggest discovery was Switzerland.”

Mas Trilles, Feb. 23, 2010

MOSQUITO DREAM

and so we went out
and bought a sleeping bag for Bear
(we already have a hot water bottle)

now she’s sleeping in a sleeping bag
and she’s as warm as toast

the bald man on the TV
is talking about
more snow and ice
in Brittany
and avalanches in the Alps
but the Bear smiles
and sleeps on dreaming
deeper into the tropics
where she’s swatting
mosquitoes and looking
around to see where I might be
“One hundred and twenty two – ”
she says from her sleeping bag
(counting swatted mosquitoes)
“One hundred and twenty three”

but I’m back here
looking out the window
at snow-covered Mt. Canigou
and eating cold toast

Mas Trilles, Jan. 12, 2010

BOSS MAN & BOSS WOMAN

it’s taken us a couple of days
to find our balance
and get back in tune
with nature
even the weather
is obeying our wishes
and is warming up

soon we will take control
of the sun
and the phases of the moon
will be at our command

Mas Trilles, Jan. 13, 2010

BIRD LIVES

a bird flits by
between me and the hedge
just three feet away
she doesn’t even see me
sitting here in the sun

she was a small bird
I was a small human
who has collected
so many memories
that sometimes he thinks
he will go crazy
and sometimes he wishes
he had a pea-size brain
like the bird
who has completely forgotten
the branch in the tree
on which she was resting
only a moment before

Mas Trilles, Jan. 13, 2010

IN TEN WORDS OR LESS

in memory of a conversation with Garrett List

the mind goes out the window
and we talk
keeping our hands busy
as the mind goes out the window

“In ten words or less,” laugh
pick up the glass, drink
keep the hands busy
as the mind goes out the window

“Hand over hand
along the rope of life.”
drink, say, “Yep.”
as the mind goes out the window

“You put ideas in my head.”
as the mind goes out the window
tap a finger on the table
move the can of beer

a half inch to the left
to match the ring of light
“I didn’t know I knew that.”
and the mind goes out the window

Mas Trilles, Jan. 14, 2010

RED BERET

sometimes she wears her red beret
I can spot her across
supermarket aisles
or driving by
in her new Berlingo
my eyes are giving up
but I can still see red

Mas Trilles, Jan. 14, 2010

LABRADOR DESIRES

who knows what a dog wants?
maybe not even the dog
she sniffs my sleeves for crumbs
licks the pebbles
after I finish toasting

time to take a walk?
she leaps in the air
races back and forth
across the lawn
down the steps
into the woods

I unlock the gate
and she rushes out
into the park
there she sniffs
at everything
except me
she ignores me completely
I do not exist

until we get back home
and she sniffs my hands
and licks her chops
because she can smell
the do-nut I was eating
while we were walking in the park

Mas Trilles, Jan. 14, 2010

BIRTHDAY SNEEZES

yesterday
Bear sneezed
one hundred times

OK – so maybe
that’s a slight
exaggeration

let’s say
between 80 and 90
with the arrow
leaning towards the high 80s

OK –
make it the low 80s
or
the high 70s

on second thought
it was probably
down in the low 70s

wait
I got it
66 times exactly
she was practicing
a fancy way
of blowing out
the candles
on her birthday cake

Mas Trilles, Jan 16, 2010

NO BIRTHDAY

today
on her birthday
she sneezed 5 times
no cake
no candles no gifts
nothing
the next 61 sneezes
will be cries
of deep disappointment

Mas Trilles, Jan. 16, 2010

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED

they’re running
the Paris-Dakar
in South America this year

what’s next?

the Tour de France in China?
the Indianapolis 500 in Samoa?
the Kentucky Derby in Alaska?
Wimbledon in Viet Nam?

I say put the Boston Red Sox
and the L.A. Lakers
in the Superbowl
and see what happens

that’s enough to think about
for the moment
no need to mention
tennis players pole vaulting
golfers in boxing matches
or marathon runners
playing ice hockey

Mas Trilles, Jan. 16, 2010

THE VANISHED MOUNTAIN

Canigou disappeared
into fog
last night
and it’s been gone
all day

now the fog has lifted
and we know the mountain
is gone forever

they came in the night
with their big trucks
and took it away
piece by piece

where did they put the snow?
what will the goats do?
they could have left a flag
or something
but there’s nothing there
not even a sign
that says:

COMING SOON
CANIGOU HOTEL
1,898 METERS HIGH
4,201 ROOMS
WITH SWIMMING POOLS
BARS AND RESTAURANTS
ON EVERY LEVEL
VISIT OUT MILE HIGH SOUVENIR SHOP
AND BUY POSTCARDS
WITH PICTURES
OF THE VANISHED MOUNTAIN

NEXT YEAR
WE WILL TAKE THE RIVER
AND GIVE YOU BACK
A 150-MILE LONG
SHOPPING MALL

Mas Trilles, Jan. 17, 2010

THE UNVANISHED MOUNTAIN

bright sunshine
Canigou’s back
some of the snow is missing
and as far as I’m concerned
they can keep it
and while they’re at it
they can stop fooling around
with the fog and the mountain
I don’t trust them
they make mistakes
they’ve been known
to misplace mountains
put rivers back in the wrong places
loan lakes to other parts
of the world
and never get them back

there is a well-known story
of how they borrowed an ocean
misplaced it for a couple of days
only to see it reappear
on the moon
astronauts say it’s doing fine
its fish are happy
whale and dolphins
have no complaints
but I don’t believe them
when I was a kid
they took the purple light
of a sunset
from one of my favorite hills
and I didn’t see it again
until 20 years later
when it appeared
on television
as a character
in a cop show
his name was Shingle
he was old and bent over
and faded around the edges
it was a violent story
and Shingle died
before I could figure out
if I still liked him or not

Mas Trilles, Jan 18, 2010

ARIE MUSICALI

the lingering melodies
of Frescobaldi
and the echo
of a birthday sneeze

and so ends our first week
in captivity
and so begins another

Mas Trilles, Jan. 17, 2010

IN THE SHADOW OF THE 20TH CENTURY
(IGGY POP IN CATALONIA)

Lazlo 65 years old
from Hungary living down here
in the South of France
for many years
couldn’t believe his eyes
when they put Iggy Pop
on his TV one night

Iggy Pop really got to him
disturbed his psyche
upset the balance
of his world

I think Iggy Pop
is probably a decent guy
I don’t like his music
or the way he performs it
but that’s just my oblique taste

on the other tattooed hand
I suspect Iggy is an interesting human
and I wouldn’t mind sitting down
and spending an evening
chatting with the guy
we’d probably smoke a joint or two
drink a couple pints of rum
but that’s the way it goes
when you’re living in the shadows
of the 20th century
I’d probably mention Lazlo
and Iggy would say “Wait
until he meets Marilyn Manson.”
that’s an encounter guaranteed
to unloosen all of Lazlo’s psyche knots
and set him loose swimming
in a boundless sea of 20th Century shadows
that would wash over into the 21st
and steal his soul forever

Mas Trilles, Jan 19, 2010

TIME TRAVEL

they say time is the 4th dimension
what a noodlebag of crap

it’s not a dimension at all
it’s a creature so far beyond
our understanding
that our teeth would fall out
and our brains spin so fast
they’d exit from the top of our skulls
in a twisted mass of protoplasm
if it actually appeared to us
in all its magnificent glory
and manifold shapes
and said, “Hey, people
step over here
and take a look
at my new salt and pepper
Cadillac convertible
hop in
and I’ll take you for a ride

and we’d hop in
and we’d never come back

they say that over 100,000 people
disappear, vanish without a trace
every year
in the U.S. alone

Mas Trilles, Jan 20, 2010

ELECTRONIC SMILES AND FROWNS

coming into town
they’ve got an electronic
speed limit sign
numbers below
to tell you how fast you’re going
a face above
two eyes and a mouth
if you’re under 50
the face smiles
over 50
he frowns

not good, that frown
you don’t want that face
to frown at you
ruin your day

but if they really want
to ruin your day
they could have that face spit

over 50
the mouth opens
and out comes
a stream of water
like a fire hose
soak your car
from front to back
and too bad
if your windows are open
be especially effective
on speeding convertibles

Céret, Jan 20, 2010

BIRTH OF THE BLUES

ice age caveman
sitting outside his cave
soaking up sunshine
back when summers
lasted only one day
the 5th of Mugwump
(snow yesterday, snow tomorrow)

I am that caveman
the sun lighting
a thousand microscopic
fires in my skull

ice age caveman
fires burning inside his skull
gets an idea
he picks up a deer hoof
and starts thumping
on a buffalo skull
he opens his mouth
and out comes
a voice wrapped
in vibrations of smooth
sinus frequencies

“what’s that racket?”
says the nextdoor cave wife

his voice floats out
over the valley
dogs begin to howl
the caveman adds words
to his vocal wailing
woke up this morning
heard the weather news
I think I got
the summertime blues

people gather around
to listen
what’s he doing?
what’s that noise
coming from his mouth?

“I like it,” says a girl
and she begins to wail
and soon everybody joins in
all the open doors of the caves
are filled open mouths
warbling and trilling
basso profundo booming
scatting and riffing
crooning and yodeling
syncopating and counterpointing
sharping and flatting

and across the valley
the residents of Pithecanthropusville
sit listening
and shaking their heads
“Last week,” says an old timer
“They invented painting
– and now this – ”
“What’s next?” asks a young timer
“Who knows?” says a visionary sage
“Poetry?
Theater?
Musicals?
Opera?
Photography?
Cinema?
The sky’s the limit
with those folks.”

I sit in the mouth of my cave
the sun burning fires in my skull
remembering how it used to be
and humming an ancient tune

Mas Trilles, Jan. 21, 2010

THE KING OF CATALONIA

the donkey is the totem
of Catalonia
many people here
have small donkey decals
on the backs of their cars
we got one yesterday
4 inches high (with ears)
black with a white nose
we are slowly becoming Catalan

the next step will be
to get a real donkey
and put him on the back of our car
build a platform
he can stand on
sticks out 6 feet
with rails so he won’t fall off
give him lots of hay
to chew and sleep on

and when we drive around
people will come out to look
the children will pet the donkey
we will become popular
in Catalonia

soon I will become
the leader of the Catalonia
Separatist Movement
I will wear a yellow beret
with red stripes
we will declare independence
from France and Spain
I will become a brave
freedom fighter
I will win a Rebel Peace Prize
for my efforts in the resistance
and for having killed
that noxious dictator
Karposy Sarcoma

Spain will give back the land
they stole from us
people will cheer
when I go out with Bear
she will wear a big bear claw
on her head
and I will wear
donkey ears on my beret
I will be elected
by overwhelming popular vote
the King of Catalonia
Bear will be the queen
we will rule over Catalonia
with a friendly but firm
bear claw and donkey hoof
there will be donkey farms
everywhere
our athletes will enter
the donkey-riding contests
in the next Olympics
and win all the gold medals
I will be remembered for centuries
as King Tuckeroo
– the Donkey Dictator

Mas Trilles, Jan. 22, 2010

FIFTEEN OBVIOUS MINUTES

I was mistaken
for a Belgian today
the old guy in the park
was a little hard of hearing
and didn’t hear my accent
so maybe that explains it

for 15 obvious minutes
I was a Belgian
the setting sun was in my eyes
the dog was sniffing around
in the grass
I wiped my dripping nose
with a white handkerchief
and I thought:
so this is what it’s like
to be a Belgian

the old guy said Belgians
were kind people
“Very friendly,” he said
“Some of my best friends
are Belgian.”
I kept my mouth shut
I didn’t want to say
something obvious
and let him down
I had the idea
that Belgians do not disappoint

Pont de Reynes, Jan. 23, 2010

WESTERN CIVILIZATION ON THE ROCKS

when you see old folks
stumbling around town
in sweat pants
you know this is the end
of civilized civilization

when I was a kid
in Smalltown, California
a geezer wouldn’t be caught dead
running around in his pajamas

Céret, Jan. 23, 2010

THE GUSTAV MAHLER WOOL CAP

late last night
Bear’s fingers growing tired
eyesight blurring
as she knitted towards
the final knots
of my black wool watch cap
said “I can’t make it –
too much counting.”

so I fired up the Sound Machine
and put on Mahler’s 10th
also unfinished
(too much counting perhaps)
thinking tomorrow morning
I will walk down
the streets of Céret
thru the Saturday morning market
with a cool head
and paw thru the CDs
on the blues man’s table
looking for Vivaldi’s
“Four Seasons”
or something equally finished

but surprise
an hour later Bear comes in
with my cap
finished
(Mahler had also finished his 10th)
and I was so happy
I slept in my new cap
had the best dreams ever
and when I woke up
it was much too late
for the street market

who needs Vivaldi
when you have a deep black
warm as a polar bear
basking in the midnight sun
Gustav Mahler wool cap?

Mas Trilles, Jan. 24, 2010

OCEAN PINECONES

as soon as we get down
to the sea
monster waves crashing
on the beach
Bear starts picking up
sea shells
she’d rather be
in the mountains
picking up pinecones

Argeles-sur-Mer, Jan. 24, 2010

EYEBALL SONATA

feeling under the weather
today
focusing on the world
outside my skull
is like trying to play
a rubberneck cello

Mas Trilles, Jan. 25, 2010

THAW
(IF IT ISN’T ONE THING IT’S ANOTHER)

just getting thawed out
wake up with a nose ache
never had one of these before
tooth ache
ear ache
head ache
belly ache
heart ache
“Oh my aching bones.”

but a nose ache is nothing
that can’t be chased away
with a couple of sneezes

and just as I’m chasing it away
I look down
and see
that way beyond suspension of belief
my toe nails are on fire

Mas Trilles, Jan. 26, 2010

LE VOILE INTÉGRAL (COMPLETE VEIL)

a pair of eyes
peeking out on the world
from a slit
in a black hood
much discussed in France
clash of cultures
who can it be in there?
and elephant woman?
Madam Zorro?
a dumb-ass suicide bomber?

it’s anti-biological
as far as I can see
no animal in the wild
would ever voluntarily
block its hearing
cut off its sense of smell
limit its peripheral vision
and expect to survive

then again
it’s just as well
they keep their faces covered
they’re probably nothing
but a bunch
of real ugly chicks

Céret, Jan. 26, 2010

UNTIL THEY TOUCH OUR EYEBROWS

I roll up the curtain
mid-morning
“What’s it like out there?”

“There’s nothing there
– just a couple of trees.”

I know I should have stayed awake
they never sneak in
and steal the landscape
when I watching

they caught me off guard
I snoozed and now this –
nothing but a couple of trees
no land, no sky
no sun, no mountain
no river, not even a rock
just a vast foggy wilderness
with a couple
of transparent trees
and they can go at any minute

what am I going to tell Bear
when she steps outside
and has nothing to stand on
I’ll grab her
before she disappears
into the shapeless cloud of fog
puffing against the doorstep
but I won’t be able
to give her a weather report
of joyous dimensions

looks like another day
inside our bubble box
cups of hot chocolate
crossword puzzles
mystery novels
lentil soup
wild honey wine
and raisin bread
Mahler’s 6th
and Fauré’s Requiem

could be could worse we could be
stuck in a land where smoke
has replaced fog
where on bare feet we’d dance
on the tips of flames from below
to the music of Elvis the Pelvis
while bats flutter around
and brush our teeth
with leather wings
and leaping lizards
improve our smiles
by latching onto the corners
of our mouths
and stretching them out
until they touch our ear lobes

Mas Trilles, Jan. 27, 2010

ILLUSION UPON ILLUSION

setting sunlight
reflected from trees
across the river
bouncing back
from the water
into my eyes
a double sunset

the river runs backwards
upstream
back into the mountains
the wind blowing
ruffled waves
across the surface
(while deep down
the water rumbles to the sea)

a double deception
my eyes are tricked twice
in the same moment

River Tech, Jan 28, 2010

SCARECROW

a few days ago
I was hanging out with Thomas Sanchez
in Key West Florida
the next day I was in southern Sweden
with Henning Mankell 1990
the day after with Tony Hillerman
on a late 20th century
Navajo reservation
a couple of weeks back
I was shipwrecked
in Antarctica with Ernest
Shackleton in 1917
and after that I was wandering
around the Texas Panhandle
in the depression years
with Will Ferguson
the past couple of days
I’ve been in L.A.
in the middle of the late 60’s
stoned madness with Thomas Pynchon

J.D. Salinger died on the news tonight
at the age of 91
memory kicked in
and I was back with Holden Caufield
catching children
as they were coming thru the rye

I realize now that Holden
was the catcher trying to grab
my entire generation
and keep them from tumbling
over the cliff

did he stem the tide?
looking forward to where I’ll be
in a couple of days
with John Irving
In New Hampshire, Boston
and Toronto climbing around
on a ladder of years
in the last half century
of American history
it looks like (according to the blurb
on the inside of the dust jacket)
it’s going to be the same old story
told and retold
over and over again:
some of us are going to tumble
some of us will stop
at the cliff’s edge
and others will turn around
and run the other way

Salinger will catch no one
tho he’ll be standing there
for another century or two
arms outstretched
like a scarecrow
catching nothing more substantial
than a mouthful of wind.

Mas Trilles, Jan. 30, 2010

WEATHER REPORT

rain today, rain tomorrow
and in between
a full moon at midnight
that will do tricks
it picked up
since the last time around

watch it spin slowly
listen to it sigh loudly
see it grow a face
hear it whisper
“Do not be surprised.”

do not be surprised
to see it spin quickly
and throw off sparks
that turn into a multitude
of stars that quickly slide
together in clusters
of constellations
never before seen
in the history of the human eye

do not be surprised
if the face puffs up
and smiles and says,
“You’re looking at heaven, sir
– now take a peek at hell?”

do not be surprised
if a woman steps up beside you
to watch the spectacle
and grabs your arm
and squeezes it
until your hand
is bloated like a rubber glove
full of water

do not be surprised
if you turn your head
and see that the woman
is not your wife
but a stranger
you’ve never seen before

do not be surprised
if she spits at the moon
and the moon’s smile splits
wide open
and tiny planets spill out
some covered in green grass
some covered in blue water
others covered with tiny people
playing ping pong and poker

and when the strange woman
shoves you into a pit
which opens at your feet
you can say, “I’m not surprised.”
not even when you tumble forward
and roll down the hill into the pit
where a cloud of moths
is hanging over a microphone
and giving the weather report
(Rain today, rain tomorrow etc.)

you will say you are surprised
but when you hit bottom
and you see a blinking neon sign
that says WELCOME TO HELL
and beside it you see and hear
a band performing
Ludwig Van Beethoven on piano
J.S. Bach on organ
Paganini on fiddle
Gustav Mahler on bass
Marvin Gaye on drums
and Jerry Garcia on banjo
while all around
Albert Einstein and Mae West
George Clooney and Jackie Kennedy
Leadbelly and Emily Dickenson
Johnny Depp and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Woody Allen and Ella Fitzgerald
Luciano Pavarotti and Dolly Parton
Gertrude Stein and Jackson Pollock
Marlene Dietrich and Marcel Marceau
Virginia Wolff and J.D. Salinger
dance the mambo
tango the tarantella
jiggle the jig
leap and spin the boogaloo
wooly bully the waltz
and trip the light flamingo
then you can look at the moon
and say,” I never thought
it was going to be this good.”

Mas Trilles, Jan. 29, 2010

SARDANE

one left hand piccolo
with wrist drum
two soprano mountain oboes
two alto mountain oboes
two trumpets
two baby tubas
one valve trombone
one string bass
this is the band
this is Principal de Roselló

they play mountain goat music
with bullring Oles!
and Catalonian Holas!
and Charlie Chaplin
jazz-age cadences

the dancers gather in circles
holding hands
they stand on their toes
and shuffle their feet
the piccolo player goes “Hey!”
and the dancers lift their arms
and keep their toes shuffling

these are the dancers
they dance inside the church
for a couple of tunes
then they go outside
and dance in a vague whisper
of sunshine

the band gets lost
in the cloudy sky
but they find their way back
at the end

where do they come from
these mountain goat musicians?
these tiptoe dancers?
they come in cars
they dance up to the stars
and then
they’re gone
with
the
wind

Reynes, St. Paul’s Chapel, Jan. 31, 2010

CRASH BLOSSOMS

headlines noted by Ben Zimmer
in the International Herald Tribune
Monday, Feb. 1, 2010

VIOLINIST LINKED TO JAL CRASH BLOSSOMS

“McDONALDS FRIES THE HOLY GRAIL FOR POTATO FARMERS

GIANT WAVES DOWN QUEEN MARY’S FUNNEL

EIGHTH ARMY PUSH BOTTLES UP GERMANS

SQUAD HELPS DOG BITE VICTIM

RED TAPE HOLDS UP NEW BRIDGE

BRITISH LEFT WAFFLES ON FALKLANDS

GATOR ATTACKS PUZZLE EXPERTS

STUCK AT 3:30 PM

stuck in Corsavy
(Cortsavi in Catalan)
car won’t start
high above the River Tech
in the Vallespir
surrounded by mountains
a lot of old stone houses
a church with one rusted bell
a café with bottled beer and bananas
and a few friendly people
I can think of worst places
to be stuck
I can think of a thousand
a hundred thousand
in fact it’s like
not being stuck at all

Corsavy, Feb. 1, 2010

STILL STUCK AN HOUR LATER

on the outside wall of the post office
is a heart attack machine
Fibrilator it’s called
if someone is suffering
from a stopped heart
you take out the fibrilator
apply it to the suffering heart
and push the button

I think we should try it
on the engine of our car

Corsavy, Feb. 1, 2010

UNSTUCK AT 5:00 PM

car starts
just like that
I pay up at the café
(beer and bananas)
step outside thinking
about Kurt Vonnegut’s dictum

unexpected travel arrangements
are dancing lessons from god

we head down the mountain side
dancing on our toes
dancing the Sardane

Vallespir, Feb. 1, 2010

MANKIND’S TIME

and so we slide into February
not that the moon
sliding out of full phase
into its third quarter
or the river
sliding downhill
to the sea or the fog
sliding off the sides
of Mt. Canigou
have any idea
about the way we choose
to measure time

not even the groundhog
getting ready to climb
out of his hole tomorrow
has any idea about
the six more weeks of winter
he might burden humanity with
if he sees his shadow
what’s a week?
is it something you can eat?
is it something you can ride?
how much is six?
groundhogs don’t have fingers
is it a philosophical matter
as deep as the earth?
as profound as gravity?

a groundhog in his right mind
will scamper back into his tunnel
and sleep thru another full moon
the wise groundhog
avoids contact
with that crazy species
of animal known as human

I agree
I avoid as much contact as possible
and still I’m a nervous wreck
everytime the full moon
rolls around

Mas Trilles, Feb. 1, 2010

THE YOUNG GROUNDHOG
(THE LITTLE GUY)

the young groundhog waits
in the tunnel below
his burrow hole
like an actor about to make
an entrance on stage
waiting for his cue
to pop up
and get freaked out
by his shadow
or not

he’s young and inexperienced
he’s nervous
this is his first time
above ground
he can’t imagine
what the sun will look like
he doesn’t know
what a shadow is
tho the old folks
have been getting him prepared
all winter

the moment arrives
there’s light at the top of the hole
the young groundhog holds his breath
and pops up

his small eyes are blinded
by the light
his small brain
is shattered by the light
he screams
and dives back into the hole

“Did you see the sun?”
the old folks ask
the young groundhog shakes his head
he doesn’t know what he saw
he cannot speak
“Did you see your shadow?”
the young groundhog breaks down
and begins to babble
he can’t remember what a shadow
was supposed to look like

the old folks pat him on the shoulder
“You did good, kid –
real good.”
and they lead him down
into the tunnels
down to the deepest part
where he will remain
for the rest of his life
strapped to the roots
of a tree
freaked out
insane
mute
his brain shocked into silent screaming terror
everytime he dreams of sunlight

the old folks shake their heads
did he really see the sunshine?
did he really see his shadow?
no way of knowing
the little guy could have seen anything
“Let’s play it safe,” they say
as they curl up
into tiny balls of fur
and go back to sleep

Mas Trilles, Feb. 2, 2010

FROM THE ALCOVE OF THE MADONNA

this is the 2nd funeral
we’ve witnessed
in Céret this week
BANG! WHANG! BANG!
the funeral bell
of the church
stabs me in the heart
WHANG!
stabs me in the back
BANG!
an old rusted bell
with a cold iron tone
that vibrates my foot bones
WHANG!
that vibrates my skull
BANG!

then the doves take over
coo
coo
softer than their feathers
coo

St. Pierre’s, Céret, Feb 4. 2010

TWO CAT LUNCH

a rough and tumble bum
shaggy beard and dirt-smeared face
garbage-stained orange surfer shorts
bent over trying to touch
a small cat passing in the alley
he looks up at Bear
and says to her,
“I ate a cat for breakfast
and I think I’ll have another
for lunch.”

“Why do strange men
tell me these things?”
asks the Bear

I suggest she slap back
with strange replies:
“Thanks but I’m already married.”
“Try up the street, they have a telephone there.”
“Once I took a bus to Syracuse
but I didn’t know where to get off.”

Amelie-Les-Bains, Feb. 4, 2010

OMS (MANTRA)

it’s a village called OMS
and it’s not a strange name
to the people who live here
they say it all the time
“I come from OMS.”
“Welcome to OMS.”
“Where do you think you are?
– in OMS?”
“When will you be coming back
to OMS?”

but I don’t think
I’ll be coming back to OMS
I wouldn’t want to live
in a place called OMS
and I don’t think
I even like visiting a village
with such a name

OMS?

on second thought
I’m starting to get used to it
OMS?
it has a certain hum to it
OMS
I like it
OMS
I’m going to live here
OMS
I’ll buy that house over there
and I’ll be able to say
“Welcome to OMS.”

OMS, Feb. 5, 2010

BIRD IS A WORD

irate driver
honking horn
everytime we slow down
for a roundabout
tailgating us
impatient and rude

I turn in the passenger seat
to observe the impatient
rude driver
it’s a young woman
another one of those egg-laying assholes
who think they rule the roost
the face of a hag
hair flying all over
she sticks out her tongue
and wiggles it around
I slowly crank up a bird
she goes crazy
jabs her middle finger
at the windshield
pounds on the steering wheel;
jabs another bird
So I flip up my other middle finger
and she goes berserk
screaming (tho I can’t hear her)
spittle flying from her lips
both of her birds
pumping up and down
both hands off the wheel
she can do nothing more
(except drive off the road
into a ditch
which I wish she would)
she’s depleted her arsenal
of hysterical insults
I turn back around
lift my left hand
and wiggle my fingers
she honks again
I wiggle my fingers

what a conversation

Feb. 5, 2010

FENDERBENDERLESS

up to Ile-Sur-Tet
and the Organ Pipes
and back home
thru Thuir, 4-Q et al
thankful to have survived
another day
of reckless French drivers

Feb. 5, 2010

WIND, RAIN, OBNOXIOUS PEOPLE & ME

we can’t do anything
about the things we can’t
do anything about
but that doesn’t stop us
from wondering what would happen
if we could

for instance the wind
knocking at the door
I’d grab it, twist it around
my little finger
take it down to the river
squeeze it into the shape
of a butterfly
and toss it to the fish
who would leap out of the water
snap it out of the air
and gobble it down
as they keep leaping
straight up into the sky
where they would puff
into huge balloons
and float around
pretending to be
trout-shaped clouds

for instance the rain
sometimes I would invite it in
for a cup of hot chocolate
othertimes I would not feel
so hospitable
and I would chase it
up the hills into the mountains
where it would bump into
a host of falling snow flakes
which would teach it
a thing or two
about rude news
(you just don’t go dropping
on people’s heads
when they’re not wearing hats)

for instance obnoxious people
there’s just too many of them
to send them over
to the highway
where they could spend
the rest of their days
in the fast lane
dodging speeding cars
and 40-ton trucks
so I’d lock them all together
in some football stadium
and give them lots of things
to throw at each other
like
transistor radios blasting hip hop
and the raving voices
of fundamental christianity preachers
bibles of various organized religions
(for those who are deaf)
enema bags
with STICK THIS UP YOUR ASS
printed on the sides
stuffed owls
chicken heads
bull testicles
and a lot of good, old-fashioned
rotten tomatoes
then I’d drop a football
filled with laughing gas
in the middle of the field
and say, “May the best
obnoxious man or woman win.”

for instance myself
I’d have to be strict
and severe about this one
he can be kind and tolerant
on certain days
but on others
(and especially at night)
he can be a real drag
telling me to go to sleep
much too soon
hour after hour
telling me to shut the book
page after page
so I’ll stick him in a bottle
with a swarm of mosquitoes
that should keep him busy
until the birds start singing
and this neck of the woods
if safe for another day
at the races

Feb. 6, 2010

PESTER BOUNCE
(PESTER ROOF BOUNCE)

VESPERS
LADDER
where do we get these words?
what do they mean?
SKILLET
LAMPOON
two syllables each
where do they come from?
the throat of man?
his tongue?
his jaw?
GOOFY
say it over and over
GOOFY GOOFY
and you too will start to feel
GOOFY
STICK
just a sound we stick
into our speech from time to time
CHEESE
it could be a kind of fish
a noise in the dark
a number
one two three CHEESE
it could be the big thumb
counting
how many fogs am I holding up?
3 fogs and 1 cheese
PESTER
could be your left foot
a Cro Mag sitting by his campfire
one night pointed at his left foot
and said “PESTER.”
BOUNCE
could be your right foot
PESTER BOUNCE PESTER BOUNCE
the first marching song
PESTER BOUNCE
I could be YOU
and YOU could be THEM
and WE could be a secret
that neither of us
would want to talk about
NICE could be BAD
and GOOD could be GUILTY
and what a moral pickle we’d be in
if MORAL meant NORMAL
and PICKLE meant TICKLE

ROOF
PANTHER
CRYSTAL
BUBBLES
SOON
FOG
THUMB
where do these cumb frumb?

Mas Trilles, Feb. 7, 2010

CATERPILLAR

walking slow
never thought I’d come
to this pace’s place
charging around
for 68+ years
here & there
up & down
side to side

now I’m cruising
taking it easy on my back
no hurry
going to get there
just the same
no pot of gold
I’m going to miss

me & the caterpillar
one day I’ll turn into a butterfly
but I can wait
no hurry
sit on this bench
and let the world
come to me

Amelie-Les-Bains, Feb. 8, 2010

PALM PSALMS

so what does the world
have to offer me?

it holds out its fist
unfolds its long fat fingers
and there in the palm of its hand
is a miniature city
with miniature people
walking around
and miniature cars
driving by
sunlight bouncing from glass rooftops
time escaping from old wrist watches
goldfish bowls overflowing with coins
trees in the shape of artichokes
there’s a bus full of rascals
a pair of wicked villains
a postman quoting Pascal
a butcher quoting Dylan
there’s a one-legged doctor
performing two leg imitations
a three-footed jogger
doing one-foot improvisations

there’s a song on the loudspeakers
along the windpipe streets
the tune is late baroquish
and it goes like this:

could you”? would you?
hey not I
put the birds back
in the black bird pie

take all the food
and all the watery stuff
and put them in a place
where they don’t have enough

not I, not me
how about you?
scrape the 20th century
from the bottom of your shoe?

and there I am at night
gazing up at the stars
where angels cruise around
in astronomical cars

and the longer I gaze
the more I see
a thousand pair of eyes
gazing back at me

Amelie-Les-Bains, Feb. 8, 2010

TOMORROW

scraping the 20th Century
from the soles of our shoes
and chasing after a creature
called TOMORROW
is like following the trail
of a beast that’s been extinct
for a million years or more
whose footprints in stone
are the only traces left
of its ferocious passage
on earth

Feb. 9, 2010

INTELLIGENT SNOW

TV weather report last night
said snow at 900 meters

and today all around
the mountain tops
are capped with snow
at exactly 900 meters

conclusion:
the weather is more intelligent
than we guessed
it may not know
how to read and write
but it’s learned how to watch television
and fall down at the feet
of those with the biggest paycheck

Céret, Feb. 9, 2010

SLOW TAKE ON THE FAST SHOW

“Did you get everything
we need in Perpignan?
Bread? Milk? Eggs?”

“Even better –
I got a ticket
for a free hour
at a cyber café
called Games Bond.”

Mas Trilles, Feb. 10, 2010

MUSIC ON THE BUS SPEAKERS
FROM PERPIGNAN TO CERET

first a song that goes
“Shake Shake Shake.”
repeated a thousand times
“Shake Shake Shake.”
every other word
(and sometimes less)
is “Shake Shake Shake.”

then comes a song that goes
“Snake Snake Snake.”
repeat 100 X

after that one that goes
“Easy Easy Easy.”
repeat 100 X

then they give the news
about enriched uranium in Iran
which means they take
a gallon of uranium
and pour in a pint of ketchup
a pint of milk
a bar of chocolate
and a jar of honey

then it’s back to music
“Duh Duh Duh.”
(a French song)
“Buh Buh Buh.’
(another French song)
and it’s back to
“Shake Shake Shake.”

I don’t know if you’re counting
but I am
that’s five different songs
more or less
that sound the same
which is a big surprise
I thought Western Civilization
had invented only four different songs.

Feb. 10, 2010

SIXTH SONG

as long as we’re counting
Western Civilization songs
how about a sixth?
it’s one I just made up
it goes
“EEE-YOW!”

Feb. 10, 2010

CHAOS

in the corner of the bathroom
the wastebasket lies on its side
paper spilled out onto the floor

outside our front door
tiny bits of cardboard
lie scattered around in the gravel

in a small village
in the south of France
chaos rules
things fall apart
entropy has become
a way of life
that no one wants to talk about

the future looks grim

Mas Trilles, Feb. 11, 2010

I LIVE AT OP. 50 AVENUE GABRIELLE FAURE

I repaired the motor
of the boat that carried
music across
the lake to the other shore
by taking both apart
and putting them back together
with a few pieces missing
“Works better that way,” I said

the people were happy
they let me rename the streets
of the town:

Quai de Canard Enchaînées
Place des Chaises Musicale
Rue Rageous Gratoon
Avenue Gabrielle Fauré

they even let me rename the town
if life is but a dream
then we should all live
in Roxieville

Roxieville, Feb. 12, 2010

ORANGE PEEL NOTEBOOK

we toss everything in the back of the van
luggage and garbage
and we head for the hills
stop at a bin
I toss out the black plastic sack
and the white plastic sack

back in the car
I’m pretty sure
I tossed the garbage
and kept the luggage
but I’m not completely certain
some days I forget to remember

a year from now
I’ll probably be tossing out
Bear’s computer and my knapsack
and driving home with the trash
and who knows? by then
I might not be able to tell the difference
between a handful of orange peels
and this silver-tongue notebook

Amelie-Les-Bains, Feb. 12, 2010

BIRTHDAY GREETINGS

and as I enter my 70th year
I wish myself
another peaceful
turn around the sun
a life free
from fear of myself
and a lot of empty pages
in notebooks
shouting to be filled
with words

I’ll be listening and writing
even if they’re whispering

Mas Trilles, Feb. 14, 2010

O SOLO MIO

how far have I come?
not far at all
how many footsteps?
one or two more
than I expected

the planet earth is small
the nights are short
the days are shorter
and what am I going to do
with the people
who look at me
as if they expect to see
a cuckoo clock bird
pop out of my forehead
and sing “O Solo Mio” ?

Amelie-Les-Bains, Feb. 15, 2010

VANCOUVER 2010

winter Olympics
they ski
they skate
and the winner goes home
with medals of enriched uranium

Feb. 15, 2010

WINTER OLYMPIC INSOMNIA

I stay up late
watching winter Olympics on TV
then I go to bed
switch off the light
close my eyes
and there they are
hundreds of them
snowboarding the half pipe
speeding skating with hockey sticks
slapping pucks at goalies
downhill skiers
twisting and turning
they’re all dressed in red
wriggling and squirming
hundreds of them
flashing past
jumping up and down
faces hidden inside
bubble helmets and goggles
darting back and forth
like fish in an aquarium
I flip over on my other side
and they’re still there
going the other way
skiing and skating
snowboarding from left to right

I let them play
until they get tired
and go home
then I go to sleep
and dream about nothing
worth mentioning

and wake up wondering
what it would be like
to listen to Beethoven’s Ninth
with earplugs

Feb. 19, 2010

MIDDLE EAST GOLD MEDALS

there are no athletes
from Iran this year

too bad
if there were
and they won
they would get gold medals
with enriched Iranium

Mas Trilles, Feb. 16, 2010

DUFFER

we met a duffer in the park
walking his peanut-shaped dog
stopped and heard his whole sad story
summed up:
“Life is a pain in the ass.”

he lifted up his jacket
and wanted Bear to feel
some kind of implanted
black box under his rib skin
push a button
or rip a zipper
and the box blasts
electric vibrations and relieves
a pain in the back

good thing we didn’t
invite him back to the house
for a cup of tea
he’d’ve taken off all his clothes
and showed us all
of his black box lumps
arms, legs, feet, toes, ass
push a button
and a sack in his back
injects a shot of morphine
into his blood stream
push another and his brain
gets energized with a dose of coke
too much speed?
push another button
and opium smoke
pours from his eyes
all kinds of remedies available
at the touch of a button
whiskey meth junk LSD
we would’ve never got rid of him
he’d still be dancing around
our apartment
hallucinating
singing
squeezing the buttons
in his balls and showing us
the ultimate miracle
of modern medicine

Mas Trilles, Feb. 19, 2010

I AM NOT A FISH

I have to bounce up and down
to button the top of my old levis

Bear says,
“Soon we’ll need a crane
to move you around.”

I say,
“What?
you think I’m a beached whale?”

and she says,
“No –
more like a tuna.”

Mas Trilles, Feb. 20, 2010

MIDNIGHT HALF MOON

slow setting moon
cupped to catch
falling stars

occasional flash
of a headlight
up on the road

some of them
are going home

behind me
the dog scratches
an imaginary flea
then groans from old bones
and settles back down
to sleep

Mas Trilles Feb. 21, 2010

90 WINDS

strong winds today
– up to 90 they say

I wake up early afternoon
as the 36th wind
rattles my window

sitting by the river
mid-afternoon
dog and I watch
thousands of leaves
ripped from trees
by the 47th wind
bobble by
dog thinks
they might be small ducks
or a new species of fish
I think dog might be right

back home
the 49th wind
blows open my paperback
of Ogden Nash verse
to page 155
it wants me to read
the one about the turtle

late afternoon
the 53rd wind
blows open my notebook
to a blank page
I wonder what the wind
wants me to write
I wait, watching
the page remains blank
the wind has writer’s block
I sneeze 6 times
and the wind backs off

twilight I doze off
while reading
I miss the momentous passage
of the 65th wind

early evening
I walk out in the field
with a flashlight
and find 2 puffs
of the 77th wind
lying in the grass
I don’t know
what to do with them
so I leaving them puffing

late evening
I hear noises outside
I go out with the flashlight
and see a wild boar
streaking across the field
in the moonlight
the breeze of the 82nd wind
whistling thru the bristles
of his back

before midnight
still waiting for the 83rd wind
I go outside and look around
see only the footprints
of the wild boar
in the dirt
no wind

after midnight
switch on the TV
weatherman says
the last 8 winds got lost
3 swallowed by cyclones
and 5 got talked into tornados

so I zap over
to Vancouver
Olympic ice hockey
and watch Team USA
beat team Canada
5 tornados to 3 cyclones

Mas Trilles Feb. 21, 2010

FAREWELL FEAST
to Laszlo & Maya

a pear pie
of couple bottles of cider
a few ghost stories

it’s a wild night
at the Mas Trilles

Feb. 22, 2010

LAST MINUTE

car packed ready to go
I lie on the bed
blanket over my head
and listen to Bear
do the last-minute cleaning
and sweeping of the apartment

slosh slosh
that’s Bear
filling the vacuum cleaner
with hot water

snip snip
now she’s clipping clothespins
to the dog’s fur

rattle rattle whang
she’s trying to get a bicycle
into the refrigerator

amazing all the last minute
touches needed
to get the place
back in its original shape

Mas Trilles, Feb. 23, 2010

ROUTE D115 PAST CERET

leaving Canigou
heading back to Belgium
looking forward
to see my old cat Jimbo
and my new friend Gary

Feb. 23, 2010

EXPENSIVE ANGEL

stuck again
at a rest stop
on the highway between
Montpellier and Nimes
car won’t start
(minor theme of this trip)

and here come Joseph Delacre
from Liege
we’re from Stockay St. Georges
Bear’s name is Marie Claire
Joseph is from Esneux
his wife died
in a memorable car accident
in Jehay 3 or 4 years ago
Joseph says, “Take out the key
lock the doors with the clicker
then unlock them
– and start the car.”

it works
the car starts
Marie Clair is smiling
Joseph says, “Short circuit.”
Marie Claire is happy
Joseph says, “Give me 16 euros
I have to get back home..”

I give him a 20 euro bill

he says, “Marie Claire,
I will call on Saturday
and return the money.”

I don’t believe him
watch him walk away
across the vast parking lot
thinking we’ll never see him again
thinking it was worth it
to see Marie Claire smile

and now I pass it on
for free

Feb. 24, 2010

HOTEL AT NIGHT

in the Hotel Ibis
in Nuit de St. Georges, France
you can get:
100% Zen
a questionnaire that asks
(check one)
at the bar
I had a drink
yes □ passable □ no □
and liquid soap
enriched with white-dead
nettle extracts

in the restaurant
you can get
thigh of crystallized duck

I ask:
are we still on Planet Earth?
or did we take a wrong turn
back at the crossroads?

Feb. 24, 2010

DAYLIGHT HOTEL

8 am
wake up
with workers pounding
on the floor above

but are they workers?

no they are not

they are special agents
of the establishment
who have been sent up there
to take care of the guests
who refuse to pay their bill
hammering on their skulls
ripping off their jaws
power drills in their teeth

the message is clear
pay up right now
or we’ll unleash the gorillas
with the chainsaws

Nuits-de-St.Georges, Feb. 25, 2010

LEAVING FRANCE

road signs with pictures
of fake deer
white license plates
with red letters and numbers
pothole highways
man running across
the 6-lane freeway
chasing a tire
fewer cars with dented
fenders and doors

reminds me of Belgium

Feb. 25, 2010

Twenty ten

POEMS MARCH-DECEMBER 2010 |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

PERFECT WORLD

“What would be the first thing you would do
if you woke up in a perfect world?”
(Garrett List)

same thing I always do
sit up on the edge of the bed
grab a notebook and pen
and write down the words
in my head shouting to get out

where in the perfect world did you get
the paper for your notebook?
where did you get the pen?

OK – skip the words shouting
to get out

then I’d put on my glasses

and where did you get those glasses?

OK – skip the glasses
I really don’t need to see
all that much

then I’d go outside and piss

but only if you had a plot to piss in

OK – skip the leak
and go straight to breakfast
OK – skip breakfast
go hungry

I don’t think I want to live
in a perfect world
skip the perfect world
go back to waking up
open my eyes
sit up
let out the shout
lay down
go back to sleep
and dream about
a world less than perfect

March 1, 2010

BOOKS

it was the first place I went
when I was a kid
where nobody could bother me

into Steinbeck country
into Zane Grey’s Nevada
Jacques Cousteau’s Silent World

and it was a silent world
nobody shouting
only my imagination turning
sometimes spinning
sniffing up the flavors

I went to the center of the earth
with Jules Verne
and climbed the White Tower
with James Ramsey Ulman

the writing came later
first the poems
then the stories
when I had shapes
to imitate

March 2, 2010

PIGEON HOLES

it used to be called Experimental Music
it used to be called Modern Jazz
it used to be called Contemporary Music
it used to be called Progressive Jazz

what the hell was that all about?

some dull-witted dopes
with college degrees
digging more pigeon holes

jazz was already
a crowded pigeon hole

so was music

“Pigeon Hole”
was the smallest
pigeon hole of them all

March 4, 2010

BACK TO THE TV

back to the Eggheads
(BBC 2 weekdays at 19:00)
back to the endless re-runs
of Family Guy
back to TIVO recordings
of movies we may never watch
back to an occasional symphony orchestra
that is compulsively obsessed with Mozart
back to searching CNN (from time to time)
and finding it’s still a huge ball of crap
(owned by the Arabs and propaganda programmed
by the same)
and back to last moment late night
surfing of 112 channels
trying to find a friendly face
to switch off on

March 5, 2010

BEARD

I’ve heard it more than once
these past 35 years:
“Why do you grow a beard?”

and my reply is always the same:
“The beard grows itself
I just don’t cut it.”

March 6, 2010

AND WE WILL HIBERNATE NO MORE

it’s been a cold winter
for everybody
next year
I’ll gather all my friends
(and their musical instruments)
and we’ll go down
to the Canary Islands
and get a job in a nightclub
playing bongo music

we will dress up
as Quaker pilgrims
and appear nightly
at the Lizard Lounge
and rock the house
with our Junior Walker favorites

thousands of frozen loggers
will fly in from the icy regions
of North America and Europe
they will line up in the street
and dance to our music

we will shotgun
we will do the boomerang
and we will hibernate no more

March 7, 2010

LITTLE SOLDIERS

a troop of boy scouts
swarming over the hillside
in the woods
shouting
learning
how to become good soldiers
screaming
learning how to torture prisoners
and rape their women

March 20, 2010

ANIMALS IN THE NIGHTGARDEN
ON THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING

owl (1)
hedgehog (1)
cat (1)
moss eating deer (2)
pheasant with insomnia (1)
dart worms (now you see ’em now you don’t) (2½)
migrating geese (between the treetops and the clouds)
(going the wrong way) (2, possibly 3)
squack bird as loud as a seagull
(but is probably some kind of grey pigeon) (2)
insects
including lady bugs
misguided butterflies
sour milk moths
(100,000,000)

March 21, 2010

BELGIAN NEWS

in the interval of 30 seconds
the Belgian TV (French speaking) news
attempted four English words
and got two of them wrong

Big Bang became Bing Bang
and Soul Kitchen turned into Soul Chicken

at least they got the stories straight

the origins of the universe
did not begin with an exploding chicken
and the most glamorous glutton
of soul food in Harlem
was not Bing Crosby

March 30, 2010

WAKE ME WHEN IT’S OVER
& TIME HAS BEEN RESTORED

used to have a groovy travel alarm
quiet it was, fold up out of sight
slip it in a shirt pocket
like a half pack of cards

it sat by my bed
wake up, see what time it was
go back to sleep
wake up, see what time it was
get up and go down stairs

got stolen last year in Rome
traveling in my knapsack

still haven’t replaced it
I’m trying something new
trying to get along without time

wake up, no clock
go back to sleep
wake up, no clock
go back to sleep

St. Georges, April 13, 2010

OVER THE HUMP INTO A CRACKPOTHOLE

I’m almost over the hump
just need a gentle push
and I’ll be among the eccentrics
stumble bumming the streets of the city
waving my hands around
carrying on elaborate conversations
with people only I can see

got a solid start this morning
humbling along mumbling
singing softly, “T’was brillig and the slithy toves . . . ”
talking to myself making
editorial comments
and meta-linguistic observations

and found myself saying aloud:
” . . . and found myself saying aloud . . . ”

St. Georges, April 13, 2010

NOISE FOR ETIENNE BOURS

Etienne is a man
of few words

so why are we
inviting him to supper?

to listen to
his silences?

May 7, 2010

“Scotch-scotch!”
goes the early morning bird
outside the bedroom window
daylight glows thru the glass
and reminds me that night
did no more begin
than day will ever end

after reading e.e. cummings
from midnight to summer-time dawn
May 10, 2010

HOMAGE TO THE AVATARS

e.e.cummings & T.S. Eliot
W.B. Yeats & Walt Whitman
the poets who were there
when I was growing into creativity
Allen Ginsberg & Kenneth Patchen
I grew into the mysterious misty deeps
between Their lines
what did I know? I had no guide
what did I care? They became my guides
They took my mind in hand and carried me
across the threshold of puritanical grubhood
into rooms full of sky and roomfuls
of electric bodies
Robinson Jeffers & Theodore Roethke
They showed me the way
into a half dozen possibles of many ways
I followed Their footprints large in the sand
and hot in the ice I followed
Their handprints on stone and I have never
regretted my voyage into Their loosely mapped
explosively-charged territories
I homesteaded land in Their forests
I landgrabbed the very earth
from beneath Their feet
They never missed it
(or were too kind to complain)
“There’s enough for everybody,”
They said, “And many more to come.”

May 10, 2010

THE BIG BAG HYPO-THESIS

I am a bag
full of food and liquids
who’s invented a body
of bone and muscle
and skin and hair
to carry me around

they call me the Big Bag
the Big Belly Boy
what a glut of a gut I am
junk food and foul liquid
undigested indigestion

I’m thirsty
gimme a beer
fill me up to overflowing
rub-a-tub-a-dubba guts
let me show you how we do it
down in Bubble Land

May 10, 2010

WATCH POCKET MEMORY

45 years of writing –
11 novels
9 journals of autobiographical fiction
14 collections of poems
35 short stories and
859 songs
all fit onto one memory stick
that fits into the watch pocket of my jeans
with enough space for another
225 years

May 13, 2010

OLD PISS POT

he’s so lazy
he doesn’t even bother
to zip up his pants
between urinations

May 21, 2010

TAB LLOYD CANDORLANDO

Dave plays beautiful pieces
on his guitar composed
by a blind harpist
from Ireland

Turlough O’Carolan

must remember the name
write it down
so I won’t forget

Turlove Carpoland

late 17th century
early 18th century

Turbo Carvercap

hung out with the Scarlatti’s
Alessandro and Domenico

Turploo Capperdoom

hey, can’t forget about that CD
from Francesco in Rome
with all those cembalo
sonatas by Scarlatti

Turf Bob Cadillac

pieces in harmonic
suspension dance
forms like the jig
the bourée and gavotte

Turbash Cannonball

that blend in with
the dance suites
of Rameau and Couperin
and of course
J.S. Bach

Tugboat – ?
Totebug – ?
Tabloid – ?
what was that guy’s name again?

May 23, 2010

FLY NOW PAY LATER

for Dave Evans

1. JUNKIE WORLD

ah look at all the junkies
see how they run
see how they slide
from today
into tomorrow
fly now pay later

credit card junkies
wristwatch junkies
labor junkies
lust love and luck junkies
beer bible and baby
rum riddle and religion
movie money marriage
fear fuck and fun
talk tobacco television
newspaper paranoia
number muscle make up
on-line poker junk food
fly now pay later

2. COLD TURKEY

my brain feels like
a greasy goose
sliding around on a platter
my fingers feel like
they’ve been dipped
in candle wax
my feet are trapped
in glass blown boots
full of dried tomato juice
laced with tabasco sauce
teeth tangle
as I try to speak
my tongue pokes a hole
in my cheek
I wiggle it around
in the breeze
somebody screams
(a girl I think)
my eyebrows hang down
into my eyes
I want to pick my nose
with a pair of pliers
water goes thru me
like a drain pipe
gulp in one end
it gushes out the other

3. MAGIC POTION

there is no magic potion

4. DANG GOOD DOPE

I fly you fly
we fly and crash
smash our faces in the mud
crawl back out of the slime
like prehistoric fish
breathe air swear
“God damn give me more
Dang Good Dope!”

we can’t resist
we all want to fly
we all want to rise
leap beyond our limits
who can blame us?
it’s built into our blood

what’s that you say?
fly now pay later
someday we’re going to fly
and never come back

THE THINGS SHE HAS TO DEAL WITH

she asks me to pick up a bread board
on my way back from the kitchen
so I go outside and bring in
an 8 by 4-foot slab of plywood
rainsoaked
and spiderweb infested

she says
“The things I have to deal with.”

I get a high-pitch jingle
dancing around in my head
and think it would be a great idea
to translated it into falsetto
and share it with the world

“Tee tee zoo-zeee! Tee tee zoo-zeee!”

I repeat it until she says
“The things I have to deal with.”

she’s not going to hear the end of it
every chance I get, I say
“The things you have to deal with.”
which now includes
“The things you have to deal with.”

May 26, 2010

WORTHLESS CENTIMES

stop at the rest stop
by the highway
to buy a bottle of water
that fits my bike rack

the cashier rings up the cost
1 euro and 1 centime

I hand her a five
pick a sou out of the bucket
that says: Tips for the Cashier
and say, “Last time in here
I tossed in four.”

she says, “It doesn’t work that way.”

so I toss the sou back in the bucket
and she gives me my change:
3 euros and 99 centimes

and now I see the greedy reason
why she doesn’t want me using her tip jar
as my personal bank

she wants those 4 worthless centimes
she just gave me
she wants me to toss them in the bucket

June 16, 2010

WHILE UNLOADING
SOME OF THAT EXPENSIVE WATER

stop to take a leak
at the edge of a wheat field
look down and see
a pile of dried puke
christ I’m pissing on somebody’s
$25 dinner

June 16, 2008

MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S CELEBRATION

now who would ever think
of going into a battle camp
the night before
an enemy attack?

the soldiers are sitting
in the dirt playing poker
the officers in the tents
have brought in the girls
they’re drinking
and dancing
they take off their clothes
and keep dancing

the boys outside
hear the music
they take off their clothes
and start dancing
leaping around in the moonlight

and that’s when the enemy attacks
they crawl over the wall
with knives in their teeth
machine guns in their hands
lobbing hand grenades
into the celebration
of a midsummer night
turning it into
a Nightmare at the Hamburger Hop

June 21, 2010

OPTICIANS IN THEIR OPTICAL SHOPS

do opticians in their optical shops
realize that their place of business
is also the shrine of great goodness and hope?
that they are witness to miracles?

a new pair of glasses
“Amazing! I can finally see!”
“Yes – isn’t it wonderful?”

or is it just another pair
of humdrum specs
and another 150 bucks in their box?

“Oh what colors! What reds! What blues!
Look at all the sparkling glass!”
“Yeah – far out – whatever.”

Lost Haiku Road, July 23, 2010

STRANGER’S STRANGER

going and coming
you leave
and come back
and everything’s different
(it happens every day)

all over the world
people are coming home
and going away
nobody knows where
they are anymore
or who they are
some stranger
that other strangers
almost recognize nothing’s
changed

so you keep coming
home and leaving
because that’s all
you know how to do

it happens every day

IN ABSENTIA

we leave
and life goes on
where we used to be
even tho we’re not there
goes on and on
almost
as if we never
had been there at all

SMILE

a smile with a curveball scream
you don’t want a smile like that
on a grinning face
a smile that sneaks up
under your fingernails
and pops out of your belly button
nine months later as a child
with laughter problems
who wiggles his tongue
waves his ear flaps
and is gone with a wink

GENERAL MACARTHUR DRIVES ON
DEEPER INTO BELGIUM

recently uncovered
the teddy bear I was given
back in ’41
when I was one week old

they named him General Macarthur
and as I grew up to speak
that’s what I called him
it was just a short string of sounds:
(“gen-ral mac-ar-thur”)
that stuck in my head
for the next 2 or 3 years
(and what does a 3-year old kid
know about the Philippines?
and “I shall return” ?
and diabolical plans
to cobalt bomb Korea?
or the madman’s private ambition
to become the next president?)
to me General Macarthur
was just a small brown and white
teddy bear with missing eyes
(I’d pulled them off
hoping to get a glimpse
of the inside of his skull, I guess)
until he went down
into the limbo
of the childhood memory box
not to resurface
until 66 years later

Marie-Claire who knew him
only as a rumor
got his name twisted around
in her head
She held him up and said,
“Here’s Murphy.”

my head took a spin dive
“Murphy?”
I grew up speaking the name
attached to that bear
and the name was not “Murphy.”
“Macarthur” might have been
one of the first words I ever spoke
(it was certainly among
my earliest vocabularies)
Murphy?

the feeling was like looking into a mirror
seeing your mouth move
and hearing your voice say
“Hello Tugboat.”

Aug 16, 2010

PETE’S PICTURES

Pete and I walking down
a dirt road
in the valley above
the creek
seen from the back
we’re two old bums
geezing along
just like we’d dreamed we’d be
back in our college years
for 60 years we’ve been friends
grew up in the same valley
where the creek was much larger
and dry in the summer
my oldest friend

two glasses of beer on a table
Pete behind one
me behind the other
Pete’s smiling
he likes being here
me too
crazy thing
in all our years together
we’ve never had an argument
never had a fight

close up of our faces
Pete listening to
me telling one of my
fact-fiction stories
Pete laughing
he understands
it’s mostly bullshit

shot of Pete
getting on the train
that will take him away
God I hope he comes back

Sept. 20, 2010

LONDON POEM

BBC Delaware Road
down to Warwick tube stop

hot house chickens
& free-range sheep
can’t find their way home
without stepping on a few toes
dancing around in front
of a huge blower
drying their wet underwear

Sept. 22, 2010

WHEN I WAS A SLAVE (AND SHE WAS A CHICK
HOT ON THE TRAIL OF LADIES’ LIBERATION)

she said please
with her knobby knees
while I swept the floor
with my paint brush beard

I promised much more
as we crawled out the door
she on her knees
and me on the seat of my pants

Oct. 1, 2010

PERFECT TOUCH

I don’t know how I do it
reach back as I’m passing thru
the bathroom to go upstairs
give the door to the kitchen
a casual push with my fingers
and the door, riding smoothly
and silently on its oiled hinges,
always swings shut behind me
and stops perfectly in its slot

OK so I’ve been doing it for 30 years
and with all that practice
(5-10 times a day)
I had to get good

but even when I finally noticed
I had this perfect touch
(even now when I think about it)
I can still swing the door shut
perfectly, just the right amount
of pressure (and the error for margin
is a fraction of an inch)

I wish I could teach myself
to do this trick
after perfecting my touch
on a hundred other swinging doors
both literal and figurative
I could rule the world
without even trying
or caring

Oct. 15, 2010

ALL HALLOWS EVE

we passed a poster that advertised:
HALLOWEEN: OCT. 23

that’s a new one on me
but here in Belgium
anything is possible

I wouldn’t be surprised to learn
that Christmas will be on Dec. 11
and that New Years Eve
will be postponed to Jan 3rd

why waste a week day
when you can celebrate
for a whole weekend?

America, take note:
from now on
all Thanksgivings will fall
on every Saturday
between June and November
and the 4th of July
has been stretched
from Memorial Day
to Labor Day
(continuous fireworks
not only permitted
but vigorously recommended)

just so you know

Oct. 21, 2010

THE JOY OF LOOKING

the How-To-See recipes

Visibility Soup
Eye Spin Pie
Lingering Gander Salad
Quick Glance Barbecue Sauce
Hypnotized Cupcakes
Myopic Fudge
Tunnel Vision Sandwiches
Peripheral Scrambled Eggs
Observed Onion Rings
Peek-a-Boo Mashed Potatoes
Scrutinized Tuna on Toast

have a bite of
Voyeuristic Venison

AUTUMN ROSES

autumn roses
growing out into the path
waist high
brush against me as I pass

you can hear them whispering
“Here he comes
– I hope he rubs against us.”

these are very friendly flowers

November 11, 2010

IT GETS BETTER AFTER THE DREAM

first I was playing
a baritone sax
and tearing up
pieces of paper
with my toes

then I woke up
and I knew I had to go
downstairs
and eat an avocado

Nov. 29, 2010

MOUSE TRAP CHEESE

I don’t like to talk
about my dreams
I like ’em
but there’s nothing
I can do with ’em
once they’ve been dreamed

they’re like old chunks of cheese
that escaped the jaws of mice
which escaped the jaws of the trap
there’s not a chance in the world
that some dumb mouse
will come back
and try to take another bite

Dec. 3, 2010

BEAR’S SLIM KNOWLEDGE OF THE REBEL

Bear says she knows what I was like
as a kid because this morning
I had my sleeping feet sticking out
from under the blankets
and when she covered them
I kicked them off again
and when I was sure she was looking
I kicked the blankets higher
right up to my knees
and wiggled my feet around in the air

Bear thinks she knows
but that foot wiggle was nothing

she should have seen me
when they told me
I had to go to church
that was no mere foot wiggle
I assure you
if they’d put footballs in front of my feet
I’d have scored the winning field goals
in all future Super Bowls
even from dozens of years
and thousands of miles away

I’m not going to mention
what I did with my middle fingers
when they told me
I had to go to school

Dec. 8, 2010

SATURDAY NIGHT

when I was a small kid
the main event on Saturday night
was a bath
I had to take it
whether I wanted to or not

about age 13
I heard rumors
and started thinking:
oh boy, some exciting
Saturday nights
that don’t have anything to do
with taking a bath
are headed my way:
getting drunk on cheap wine
chasing after chicks, smoking
cigarettes, stealing door mats etc.

at 15 I was still waiting
for Saturday nights to improve
we had the wine and cigarettes
the girls were there
and the door mats too
but I knew it had to get better

by the age of 23
I knew I’d been tricked
not much was happening
on the social scene
bowling, ball games
driving around aimlessly
getting drunk and smoking
cigarettes

it took me 30 years
to admit I’d been tricked
nothing could compare
to that Saturday night bath
when I was a kid

now I’m almost 70
and I don’t have a bath tub
I have a shower

showers don’t quite cut it
for that warm Saturday night
wet feeling
showers fall somewhere
between driving around
aimlessly and bowling drunk

Dec. 13, 2010

WASHING MACHINE

being essentially a lazy man
and dumb when it comes
to mechanical matters
(as well as being too busy
to wash my clothes)
I am now inventing
a new kind of washing machine

I say why take off your clothes
and put them in a machine
when you can get inside one
and let the machine do the work
while you go about your business

my prototype is the Waist-Down Model
since I have only one pair of pants
(which I also sleep in)
I’m working on a thick plastic sack
with two legs and a battery pack on the back
it circulates the hot water around
between your skin and your pants
stirs up the dirt
spin dries it
and flushes it out the bottom of the legs

and you get to take a bath
at the same time

I’m working on it right now
it’s almost done
there!
it’s done
hop in!

December 4, 2010

TOES

I look at my toes
and I know I can’t go back
not that I want to go back
forever or even
a long time
just for a few minutes
would be fine
and see the lively toes
of the small barefoot boy
who hopped around the rug
and bounced on the bed

I look at my hands
and know I can’t go back

Dec. 14, 2010

LOST NEIGHBOR’S LOVE

I dreamed I took some LSD
and that was nice
as long as I was walking around
in an overgrown garden
with weeds higher than my head

then it got really boring
when we had to shoot
at the neighbors
with machine guns

Dec. 15, 2010

NO CHEESE DREAMS

I’ve been reduced
to talking about dreams

I once had a rich life
full of action and surprises
full of drama and romance

now my life is in ruins
all I can do
is close my eyes
go to sleep
and dream about the most
boring things in the universe

my mind is still a mousetrap
but I’ve dreamed away
all the cheese

Dec. 15, 2010

THIS IS NOT A DREAM BOOK

I can see where this is going
it’s already got a title

DREAM BOOK

don’t let me do it
don’t let me write a dream book
I hate the idea of a dream book

can you imagine a dream book?
thousands of pages
filled with second-hand stories
dug up from the sludge of my brain
and polluting the minds of everyone
foolish enough to read it
but so powerful and persuasive
in its imagery and narrative style
that soon everybody will be dreaming
and writing all their sludge down
in their own dream books

and that’s all, folks
the end of the world
no more civilization
culture or communication
everybody will be sitting around
in their shells dreaming
and writing dream books
that nobody else will ever read

on the other hand
writing a dream book
is better than no book at all
which is just about
where we’re at
in this day and age
as we slide into the pit
with our bottles of Aristotle
our poses of Moses
and cheeses of Jesus

Dec. 15, 2010

GIFT FOR BEAR

you got me over a barrel
and the barrel’s full of monkeys
and the monkeys are hanging up
xmas decorations

they’ve set up a small pine tree
at one end of the barrel
and strung it with blinking lights
wrapped gifts are scattered beneath
and the stockings have been hung
by the chimney with care
of course the chimney’s a fake
just pictures of bricks
painted on the inside of the barrel
nothing worth sliding down
tho there is a bung hole in the side
and Santa might want to crawl thru that
if he is extra small, about the size
of a mole

one of the monkeys’ favorite games
is Port Hole TV
they peek out the bung hole
to see what’s going on in the world
while the barrel is rolling down hill
the monkeys hang on tight as their eyes
get confused beyond comprehension
by what they see flash past

when the barrel stops rolling
they look out and see
my eyeball staring back
we look at each other for long minutes

then I start rolling the barrel again
down the hill and into a lake
and the monkeys inside
get seasick and start screaming

it’s the best I can do, Bear
I wanted to get you an xmas gift
of profound dignity and tenderness
but I couldn’t think of anything else

I roll the barrel out of the lake
up to our door and into our house
I roll it under the xmas tree
and there it is. all for you
your own barrel of monkeys
don’t tell me I don’t care
don’t tell me you would have preferred
a bucket of perfume
you’ll see I made the right choice
after keeping the monkeys inside
for a few years you will open the barrel
and discover that they have all evolved
into tiny humans
you will find that all the rumors
about Darwin’s Law of Evolution
are true

boy, are you going to have fun

Dec. 16, 2010

FILM STAR WARS

“Film stars such as Shirley Maclaine and Woody Allen spoke against the war in Manhattan.”
Peter Doggett, There’s a Riot Going On.

I know I’ve been out of touch
with recent events for the past 40 years
but I never suspected
that things were so serious in New York

December 22, 2010

AND THE SNOW KEEPS FALLING

cat footprints
leading off into places
I didn’t know existed

and the snow keeps falling

and there goes my trip
to Amsterdam
can’t see myself
sliding around the icy streets
on a bicycle

and the snow keeps falling

it piles up around the house
loads down the branches of the trees
the birds are hungry
they wait for me to hang out
the balls of seeds

and the snow keeps falling

I scratch my head
and dandruff flakes drift down
onto the front of my black sweatshirt
the doctor said it’s a yeast thing
and it might RETURN!!

and the snow keeps falling

moles and gophers
dig deeper into the earth
as the freeze comes creeping down
deeper into tunnels and soon
they will be scampering around
in ancient diamond mines
abandoned and forgotten
and they will be wearing
rings on their noses

and the snow keeps falling

the barbed wire fences
are hidden under
a foot of white powder
don’t grab
nails sticking out of boards
are hiding too
don’t be deceived

and the snow keeps falling

climate change
we’ve created our own hell
the world is going to look
like the 9th circle of hell
– a lake of ice
with the bodies of the worst sinners
the men who are responsible for this
cold state of affairs
frozen into the ice
with only their heads
sticking out
we’ll all skate around the lake
and most of us will do our best
to avoid the suffering heads
but not me
I’ve already got a few picked out
who could do with a good spanking
all the power freaks
and war mongers
from the past 60 years
all the greedy guts (I do not
wish to pollute your mind
with their names)
you know who they are
you know their deeds
watch me skate close to their faces
skid right up to the heads
and spray ice in their ears
slap their noses
with my blade
watch their broken noses
flap back and forth
scare the shit out of those bastards
and never stop reminding them
that they will be here FOREVER
“And after forever stops being
forever
there’s going to be another forever
that will last much longer
than the first.”

and the snow keeps falling

December 23, 2010

LEAF

is a dead leaf alive?
place one
on a blanket of snow
and watch the snow
melt

then imagine the woods
in high, hot summer
multitudes of green leaves
chattering
tree branches bending
breathing
in a gentle breeze

there’s something going on there, folks
beyond your wildest imaginations

December 24, 2010

WRONG NUMBER

imagine a phone
that never stops ringing
not one that starts
and stops
and starts gain
but one that never stops

you pick it up
it keeps ringing
you say hello
it keeps ringing
you hear nothing
but ringing in your ear

you hang up
it keeps ringing
you unplug it
it keeps ringing

you run out of the house
drive around for a few hours
come home
the phone’s still ringing

you pick it up
it stops ringing
you say hello
a woman starts screaming
she doesn’t start
and stop
and start again

imagine a woman
who never stops screaming

December 25, 2010

BURIED ALIVE

shovel away the foot-deep snow
lift up the 6-inch ice pack
and there, sprouting from the earth
a blade of grass
growing & glowing
& greener than spring

December 30, 2010

I wake to a perfect patience of mountains, I am not sorry when silence becomes singing

Canigou Poems – Series Four | January – February 2011 |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

PHOTO CAPTIONS FROM THE ABBEY HOTEL

1. Even on tiptoes his footsteps on the creaking floorboards
could be heard for miles.

2. She made the mistake of waking up in the middle of the night.

3. The TV was so high up on a platform
they got stiff necks watching the news.
So they stood on a ladder to watch the news.
and when they got tired of bumping
their heads against the ceiling.
they brought it down to watch the late show

Clairvaux, France Jan. 7, 2011

A WELL-BALANCED DIET

travel 900 miles
thru blinding fog
flooded roads
and hostile traffic

then sit down
to a meal of one
chocolate covered prune

Mas Trilles. Jan 9, 2011

190 POUNDS AND GAINING WEIGHT BY THE MINUTE

wake up with a heavy heart
heavy feet
a heavy nose
and heavy teeth
everything about me is heavy
there’s a ditch
down the middle of the bed
12-inches deep
and growing deeper by the hour
within the next few days
I’ll be crawling out
within weeks
they’ll have to rescue me
with ropes
they will say:
“He’s one heavy son of a bitch.”

Mas Trilles, Jan. 10, 2011

120 POUNDS OF BLUES

once (not so long ago)
I weighed 200 pounds
five years later I was down
to 120 pounds
it was a hot summer
and I was riding my bike
seven hours a day
and cranking out a song
every hour or so

they were all blues songs
I knew I was in danger
of disappearing

Mas Trilles Jan. 10, 2011

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND

now I am in danger
of re-appearing
people will look at me
when I walk down the street
and say, “Look at that man.”

others will say,
“He stands out like a snowman
in a museum.”

dogs will sniff my feet
they’ll know I’ll be visible
without looking up

Mas Trilles, Jan. 10, 2011

THE SUN’S VOICE

the sun is speaking from the sky
“Hello, hibernating human body
– comb your hair, pack up
your black sweat pants
and sweat shirt pajamas
and join the flow of atoms
in my version of hot reality.”

I’ve never heard the sun speak
in such a loud voice

Mas Trilles, Jan. 10 2011

AFTER THE RAMPAGE
A NATION LOOKS INWARD AGAIN

headline International Herald Tribune, Jan. 10, 2011

and what does the nation see?
more rampage
madmen crawling
out of holes in the ground
their mouths spraying bullets
from automatic tongues
spewing hate
their eyes popping from their heads
and rolling around
like wet marbles

more rampage
button heads singing
“Give me that old-time rampage
that gunned down dear old dad!”

rampage in the cradles
rampage in the schools
rampage in the graveyards

and here come the goons
drinking Rampage Beer
their rampage teeth
glowing in the dark

motorheads driving
rampage mobiles with rampage dogs
growling from open windows

followed by berserkers
just wait til they get inside
your head and show you
their rampage stuff
they’ll make ordinary chaos
look like a ride
on the sweet swan float
in the easter parade

the nation will have to look inward
again
and again
as they watch the berserkers
grow to life beneath their skins
grab innocent bystanders
hold them by their feet
over open fires
and bite off their roasted heads
with dabs of mustard

Mas Trilles Jan 10, 2011

GEORGE & THE PIZZA

lady got her red car stuck
in the exit of a narrow street
front tire up against the steep curb
the other side scraping fender
against a corner stone

she got out and cried
me and a kid and another guy
got behind and lifted
the car off the corner stone
she got back in the car
raved and ranted
jumped and jived
and got her car stuck
as never before

she couldn’t even open
her door to get out and cry
only one thing to do:
stay inside the car
eat a lot of pizza as people
stuffed it thru the window
listen to some entertaining music
(a sad song by Georges Brassens
for instance) on the radio
while pissing into a bucket

later, after the tow truck
rescue team
got out their can opener
and sliced open the roof
she said that the combination
of George and the Pizza
made time fly
like a rabbit escaping
from a magician’s hat
on the wings of a dove

Céret, Jan. 10, 2011

LED ZEP MOON

midnight
Orion perched perfectly
above an olive tree
can of beer in my fist
humming a tune
where from
I can’t remember
a Led Zep riff
I think
but who needs to think
at a moment like this?

Mas Trilles, Jan. 10, 2011

ADVENTURE IN LUMBERLAND

on the outskirts of town
we passed a lumberyard
and picked up a piece of wood
a six-by-eight pine plank
thirty-two feet long
“Could you please wrap it up,”
we said. “It’s a gift.”

we headed
for the center of town
she on the front end
me on the back

we had some trouble
at first
getting on a bus
“It’s a gift,” we said
as the back end
smashed into the driver’s face
up ahead I heard a woman scream
as the front end
knocked out her teeth

in town, out on the street
we got good at going
in and out
of shops
breaking glass doors
knocking over displays
of glass bowls and flowerpots
we got so good
at the end of the day
we hired people
to carry the plank
while we stretched out
on top and rested

after all it was a heavy
piece of wood
(170 pounds)
and we needed a break

we closed our eyes
and fell to sleep
as strangers carried us in and out
of bars and cafes
getting drunker by the hour
until they had to leave us
(still asleep)
propped between two benches
in the park
with the scent of fresh-cut pine
in our nostrils
and moonlight bouncing
from our eyelids

Perpignan, Jan. 11, 2011

DOWN BY THE RIVER – 1

numerous chewsticks
to choose from
dog thinks the first two
are exciting
is less than enthusiastic
about the third

pig riffles in the wet sand
wild boar excavations

the river changes shape
all the time
but not until the 4th year
do I notice

Mas Trilles, Jan. 12, 2011

DOWN BY THE RIVER – 2

where’s me waterboard?
eh?
where’s me waterboard?

Mas Trilles, Jan. 12, 2011

SUN HAIKU

sun today
sun tomorrow
son of a bitch

Mas Trilles, Jan. 12, 2011

50 MILES AND 5 FEET

pondering imponderables
at a great distance
thru a small square window
the peak of Mt. Canigou
outlined again the last glow
of twilight

at a much lesser distance
the knotted round end
of the curtain cord
dangles down
an inch above the mountain peak

both as solid as shadows
as insubstantial as eyesight

Mas Trilles, Jan. 12, 2011

INTERNATIONAL NO FLY ZONES

a fly?
in the middle of the night?
in the middle of the Pyrenees?
in the middle of winter?

I swat it
with a folded copy
of the global edition
of the International Herald Tribune
(Wednesday, January 12, 2011)
with the face of U.S. Secretary
of Defense Robert Gates (left)
listening to the Chinese president
Hu JinTao in Beijing
on Tuesday.

Gates is looking at Hu
as if he might want to buy
an Eskimo Pie from the Chinaman
he will be surprised to learn
that his face just smashed
a French fly

I’ve never killed a French fly before
but it was no different than killing
a Belgian fly
a Dutch fly
an English or American fly

maybe it came from across the border
maybe it was a Spanish fly
maybe Gates is not thinking
about Eskimo Pies
maybe he’s thinking about
life back in the U.S. of A.
maybe he’s saying to himself:
What am I doing here
in China?
and
How did I get involved
in this mess?

or maybe he just spotted
a fly on Hu’s nose
and is wondering
what it would feel like
to swat a Chinese fly
maybe later he will go back
to his hotel room
and wonder
what it would have been like
to swat a Chinese nose

Mas Trilles, Jan. 13, 2011

WILD HONEY

holy snorkle
a bee!

yesterday a fly
today a French honey bee
buzzing around the dog’s nose
looking for nostril nectar

Dog paws it away
and Bee goes looking for
a wild boar

everybody loves wild boar nostril honey

Mas Trilles, Jan. 13, 2011

BREAKFAST IN CALIFORNIA

eating breakfast
at the table outside
down to a t.shirt
squinting into bright sunshine
a southern breeze
bending pine branches

all we need
is a big lake
with a few rowboats
and kayaks tied up
at the dock
and we’d be back in summer camp
1948
swatting mosquitoes
licking suntan oil
from our arms
and jumping in the water too soon

“Come back!
You’ll get cramps!
You’ll drown
and never grow up
to feed the bag ladies!”

Mas Trilles, Jan. 13, 2011

THE DUMMY DESPERATION PARADE

boys going for the jailbone-junkhouse look
girls going for the look-a-hooker look

“Tattoos’ll rule ya!”

innocence drowned
as yo predicted

Perpignan, Jan. 13, 2011

AND SO WE LIVE OUT OUR LIVES IN THE MOST UNEXPECTED WAYS

1.
I worked myself into a spiral
until I was 25
then I turned around
circled back out
until I came to a straight line
followed the straight line
until it became
a dotted line
hopped from dot to dot
until I landed on an island
where few people knew my name

2.
at about the age of 10
I started visualizing time
as a long flat line
I moved along it
from left to right

I still do

if I want to go back to 1972
I slide back to the left
1325 is still on the line
I can slide back that far
but I can only pretend
to be there

time started in 1941

today’s’ a panoramic screen
I step in and out of it
tomorrow’s a nudge
to the right of today
and so we live out our lives
in the most unexpected ways

lately however (in the past 10 years)
the timeline has begun
to rise and fall
like a vaudeville ocean
climbing and dipping
and recently (a few days ago)
it tied itself into a knot
in which I wiggled around
and coiled crawled
into a wormhole
which wormed me to a destination
far distant and mirror-warped
where I peeked out
and saw myself being born

3.
before I was 10
time didn’t exist
my head reached
from my eyebrows
to the horizon
my eyes wrapped around
my head and I saw
the entire world
in the language
of verbalnacular rebellion
and nounish treason
I had no past
I had no future
I was riding on
a big blob of red hot jelly

once in a while
I’d hop onto another blob
it would be green or blue
it would be smooth peanut butter
or cool watermelon with seeds
or a chocolate bar
melted into the shape
of Abe Lincoln’s head
plus beard by the sun
I remember once
it was a submarine-shaped
marshmallow another time
it was a mutated mushroom
that bounced across a football field
and scored a touchdown
and so we live out our lives
in the most unexpected ways

4.
some people live in tipis
some people live in cardboard boxes
some people live in gutted cars
some people live in Arizona

some people dwell in agitation
some abide in Jesus
others go back to their broken bubbles
at night and kiss their asses goodbye

some look forward
to another round of golf
on the tilt-a-whirl
or riding bumper cars
on the roller coaster

some look back in rage
at ruined childhood cathedrals
and remain victims
of a pig-pricked father
until the end of their days

some live out their lives
in the most unexpected ways

5.
some people carry lumber for a living
others carry postcards
from exotic places
like Exelland and Corpse De Ville
and put them in other people’s
mailboxes

some people play flutes
for fun
others have secrets
and leave buried treasures behind
which are never found
others dance in white-face
monster shows
for money

some people crawl
into scenes on their TV screen
and never come back out

Mas Trilles, Jan. 14, 2011

FAUCET FUELS

turn on the hot water tap
light a match
and watch the flames shoot up
from the drain

when this happens
you’ll know you have reached
the end of man’s
surrealistic conquest of nature

nothing can compare
to washing your hands
in a flaming sink

Mas Trilles, Jan. 17, 2011

BONE BACKSLIDE

played trombone as a kid
got pretty good at it
my teacher said
“You must practice every day
– miss one day
and you slide back two.”

I stopped playing the bone
when I was 18
according to his teaching
I am now 37,960 days behind

it will take me 104 years
to get back to my previous
level of accomplishment

Mas Trilles, Jan. 19, 2011

LAPTOP SHOPPING

I want a Mac Pro
with a 15-inch screen
and a QWERTY keyboard
the robosuck
at Fucknacks in Perpignan
says, NO
they can’t get it
won’t get it
we’ll have to go to Montpellier
so we go to Montpellier
by phone
(3 hours by car round trip
2 minutes by phone)
they say no QWERTY
they will have to order the letters
and stick them onto
an AZERTY keyboard
we think about that
and imagine the result:
a few keys higher
than the others
a few lower
some stick up
and bend to one side
others high on stalks
have to pound them
with your fist
they get the E and the F
mixed up so we end up
with a QWFRTY keyboard
we say forget it
and drive back from Montpellier
in the time it takes
to hang up the phone
so we go looking for a QWERTY
in town
boy shows us
a huge QWERTY keyboard
that we can plug
into an AZERTY laptop
this keyboard is built
like an ocean wave
it looks like it’s been
left out in the rain
and run over by a car

I settle for a cheap laptop
with an AZERTY keyboard after all

buy a couple of speakers
and a wireless mouse
good for watching DVDs
and playing games of Solitaire

Mas Trilles, Jan. 20, 2011

INVISIBLE DOORKNOB MUSIC

my new laptop wants to know
the style of each of my recorded songs
which I have dropped into its memory

what can I say?
each of my songs
is different from all the others

so I listen to them again
and come up
with a style for each

Flash
Munk
Rocka Junk
Stoned Crow
Hippopotamuse
Ice Screamish
God & Plod
Prunegroove
Chloroform Romance
Smash Mouth
Neuro Toe Bubble
Goose Noose

and that’s just the first dozen
the next dozen are in styles
I didn’t know existed
until I started typing

Gun Club Boom
Baby Bottle Buffalo
Outta Tuna
Invisible Doorknob
Bloo Gloo
Washund Drei
Lost Greedy Guts
San Fransitiondental Medication
Crisp Lipstick
Memotrash
Loose Eyebrow
Drunken Dobro Nuts

the computer swallows them all

Wrecked Rooster
Dogarhythm
Neoslum
Elephant Cheese
Climatonal
Obscene Teeth
Bumpersticker Rustic
Horrible Hamburger
Lazlo Pop
Mustango
Psychofreeze
Episcapalominto
Megalith Gob Ladder
Goof Giggle
Local Motive a la John Mule Train

new doors are opening
singer-songwriters are rushing in
to exploit the new categories

Bandwagon Zero
Last Ditch Flinch
Pig House Has Been
Rabbit Punch Surprise
Soft Lizard Population
Mustard Moustache
Heavy Mental
Gut Bucket Vegetal
Guaca Molehill
Digital Sneeze
Phistalistical Liquid
Pig Sty Dynamite
Boomtown Smorgasbord

the list goes on and on
and I’m surprised
by how many styles
my songs have introduced
to the world

Classic Pump
Ultra Pump
Multiple Pimp
Watermeloncolic
Aquarium Mumble
Bible Raider
Plastiquemystique
Stale Breakfast Bait
Western Alcoholic
Particular Total Brutality
Essential Habitation
Absolute Goatee
Easy Freak
Violent Freak
Freak Muscle

Mas Trilles, Jan. 20, 2011

FAST TIME

been down here 2 weeks now
we both agree
that time seems to be moving
faster and faster

that’s good
that we both agree

what if one of us
felt that time
was moving
slower
and slower?

When will it ever end?
But we just got here.
I miss our cat.
But we’ve only been here a week.
A week? It feels like a year.
Relax.
Is it time to go home?
In about two months.
Two months!
It’ll flash by in the wink of an eye.
That’s what you always say.
You don’t know what it’s like
when it takes an hour
for your eyes to blink.
Go to sleep.
When you wake up
it’ll be another day.
That’s not true.
Every time I wake up
it’s always the same day
and one sneeze takes an hour
and the birds fly by so slowly
I can reach out and grab them.
Great. Go catch a bird.
We’ll have it for dinner.
Is it already time for dinner?
Sorry. Lunch.

Mas Trilles, Jan. 21, 2011

TIME TALK

She: I thought it was ten o’clock
He: It’s a lot worse than that
It’s a quarter to seven

Mas Trilles, Jan. 21, 2011

HE WAS THINKING OF CHARLES DICKENS
& THE MAN WHO SLOUCHED

he emptied his bladder
& bowels
he brushed his teeth
& combed his hair
then
feeling pure & refreshed
he got on the bus
& realized
he had forgotten
to put on his clothes

Mas Trilles, Jan. 21, 2011

THE DAILY GRIND

what am I doing here?
is a good question
it can be asked anywhere
at any time

while facing a trout-mouth woman
who wants to snag onto the tips
of your moustache
which she has mistaken
for a pack of sweathorse flies

while gulping air
thru a breathing tube
in the OR
of an Egyptian hospital
as doctors feverishly try
to remove your liver
and replace it with an elephant tusk

while climbing a distant mountain
and getting lost
in a labyrinth of ice caves
where hairy beasts
dance around a campfire
and chant verses
from Byron’s Don Juan

while crawling up
and down the aisles
of a crowded movie theater
as spectators in zombie masks
dump saliva-soaked popcorn
on your head

while running around
in an empty stadium
at midnight
with a deflated football
tucked under your arm
and realizing the grass
beneath your feet
is not grass at all
but the crew cut scalps
of dead soldiers from the Iraq
and Afghanistan wars

while trapped beneath
a heavy blanket of moonlight
eating a Dylan Burger
practicing illegal levitations
and hiding from the pajama police

while standing on a rooftop
in a thunder storm
clutching a satellite dish
in both hands
and receiving TV stations
with each lightning strike
your entire body shifting
to take the shape
of each program change:
a Mexican weatherwoman
tossing a sun disk on the map
and saying “Scorchio!”
Fatboy Slim rapping
on an MTV video
Lance Armstrong cycling
into an Australian sunset
Wolf Blitzer reporting live
from the White House
a deaf and blind girl playing an accordion
with one hand while spinning a wheel
of her tilted wheelchair with the other
on a prime time show
called “Trapdoor Talent”
Rafael Nadal slamming a shot
past Roger Federer
then Roger
serving an ace
past Nadal
and punching a hole
in the sky with his Swiss fist
Iggy Pop conducting
the London Philharmonic
thru the last 4 beats
of Mahler’s 10th Symphony
and so forth and so on
for the next 12 hours

and believe me
any of the above situations
will seem quite normal
even mundane
after you take a closer look
at the series of tragic mistakes
which are the grist of your daily grind

here’s another good question:
how did I get here?
the path that leads to this answer
is so twisted and convoluted
you’ll have more peace of mind
if you go back to asking
what am I doing here?
the answers will hang in your mind
like blankets of electric wallpaper
they will sound in your ears
like telephone calls
made from a sinking boat
in the middle of an ocean of foam
where the sharks give
swimming lessons
but at a very high price
they will seep thru your socks
and turn your feet
into Eskimo Pies

they will drive you crazy
reducing your brain
to a ball of meat
that can only repeat
what happened?
what happened?
what happened?

Mas Trilles, Jan. 24, 2011

THE ANTINOMOUS BEAR

“The opposite of waterfall
is butterfly.”

Mas Trilles, Feb. 1, 2011

GROUNDHOG GRAPEVINE

bright sunshine
too many shadows
the dreadful news is obvious:
six more weeks of winter

Bear says:
but that’s only for here
in the south of France
– up north in Belgium
it’s raining no shadows

I say: it doesn’t matter
the groundhog grapevine
has grown vast and powerful
we’re living in a one-world
groundhog ecology now
Maltese Groundhogs
Guatemalan Groundhogs
Icelandic Groundhogs
Greek and Japanese Groundhogs
they will all be hiding
quivering and trembling
in their groundhog holes
as the rumors of these shadows
cast by these international folk
down here in the Pyrenees
spreads thru the vast network
of their tunnels and eventually
all the groundhogs
will become so freaked out
they’ll stay in their holes
all year round
and we’ll be living
in the shadows
of perpetual winter

Mas Trilles, Feb. 2, 2011

EL CENTRO DE MON

I skim across the surface
of a troubled and troubling
world radio blasting hits
echoing off the high glass walls
of the empty mall
at the center of the world

I dance to the beat in the echo
as humanity prepares
another mausoleum
for its mass death

I don’t know how
I learned to skim and dance
and I don’t really want
to know it just
amazes me
that I can skim and dance
thru the center of the world

Perpignan, Feb. 4, 2011

SATURDAY MORNING STREET MARKET

give that nuclear physicist
a lot of room
he’s coming up the wooden steps
(clomp! clomp!)
in his hobnail boots
with his black horn rims
smackdab over
his bulbous eyes
while behind him his wife
in a fur coat
with mascara around her eyes
gets uglier
moment by moment

Cerét, Feb. 5, 2011

SATURDAY AFTERNOON HAIRCUT

1.
burble birds
burbling in the bush
shirt off
not a goosebump in sight
sun burning thru my eyelids
and filling my brain
with red blindness

2.
most barbers start at the bottom
and work up
Bear starts anywhere
snips here and there
until I look like
a half-plucked rooster
she’s going for that anti-machine look
and I can’t blame her

3.
the sun goes down
the wind comes up
and blows all the snipped hairs
away

4.
I look at my snipped head
in the mirror
probably the best haircut
in the world

Mas Trilles , Feb. 5, 2011

BOO TO THE BEAR

we’re among thousands of people
slowly flowing down
a narrow, half-tunnel street
like a stroll to a peaceful suicide
some peeling off
to stand by the side and wait
for the mountain bear

we flow on
all the way down
to the hill above the river

and here comes the bear
stumbling out of the woods
and crossing the river
hunters are shooting
shotguns in the air
kids are screaming
men are shouting
women are laughing hysterically

the bear is on a rampage
knocks over the men
who are pretending to be bushes
another shotgun blast
and here’s the bear
a man in a ratty brown
pajama suit with a wide leather belt
and a huge wooden head
with too many teeth
the crowd goes, “BOO!”

he jumps on a young woman
rolls her around on the ground
making rude movements
the crowd goes, “BOO!”

bands of trumpets and trombones
and mountain saxophones
are blasting
drums are whacking away
to beat the band

the bear stops in front of me
and grins
I say, Boo to the bear.”
and the bear keeps grinning

Arles-sur-Tech, Feb. 6, 2011

WILD BOAR ADVICE

I would not want to walk
down by the river
at midnight
wild boars rule the turf
down there
snatching up rabbits
in their jaws
and tusking
lost fishermen
in the moonlight

Homer (or some Greek myth)
(I can’t remember which)
(maybe both)
tells about mere mortals
facing down wild boars
and dealing death
to their savage jaws
with spears

I cannot imagine
breaking off a branch of a tree
and sticking it in a boar’s nostril
as he snorts and rumbles up
to me even in broad daylight

wild boars are best avoided
in the dark

Mas Trilles, Feb. 6 2011

ANAL RECTIFICATION

enough!
I’m tired of calling
assholes “assholes”
the word has become
worn out and vague
in fact some assholes
like to be called “assholes”

these arrogant, obnoxious
and extremely annoying people
from this moment on
shall be known
as TURDBAGS

“Hey, Turdbag!”
“Huh?”
“You’re a turdbag..”
“Huh? I thought I was an asshole.”
“Not anymore. You’re a TURDBAG.”
“Shit! I wanna be an asshole.”
“Too bad. You’re worse than an asshole
– you’re a TURDBAG.”

I’m tempted to call them
“Mere Smears of Crotch Sweat
but that’s too complicated

“Hey , c’mere MERE SMEAR OF CROTCH SWEAT!”
you shout at the driver of a speeding car
who almost wiped you out
from the waist down
but he’d be gone
by the time you got to “smear.”

“Turdbag!” would not only slow him down
it would stop him in his tracks
he’d back up, roll down his window
and shout, “What did you call me?”

and you’d say, “Turdbag.”
and he’s say, “OH – I thought
you called be an asshole.”
and you’d say, “Or maybe
you’re a mere smear of crotch sweat
pretending to be a turdbag.”

and he’d drive away
shaking his head
he would be one of those
turdbags with a limited vocabulary

Mas Trilles, Feb. 6, 2011

PERFECTLY COMFORTABLE
for Pete

not uncomfortable
almost just about right
a few degrees higher
an inch or two to the left

there
perfectly comfortable

Mas Trilles, Feb. 8, 2011

CLOCK TIME

got me a new
thin portable quartz
alarm clock

been living outside clock time
for over a year (since the thief
in Rome stole my knapsack)

the soft tick-tick
on the table by my bed
is back

I look at it
and it tells me
it’s ten minutes
to midnight

I’m not really sure
I needed to know that

Prats-le-Mollo, Feb. 9, 2011

MICK & KEITH

listening to old Stones tunes
jumpin’ jack flash
street fighting man
gimme shelter
sympathy for the devil
honky tonk women
I finally figured out
what two of them are

Mick Jagger is the coyote
the old trickster
he will lure you into a trap
then laugh in your face
as you squirm & squeal

Keith Richards is an eagle
he dives from high in the sky
goes straight for the sore throat
of the rabbit

anybody who says that Allen Ginsberg
was a pontificating gasbag
has to be an eagle

Mas Trilles, Feb. 10, 2011

CLOCK 2

I’m not sure I can get used
to this new clock
it’s not the clock’s fault
it’s an elegant, delicate time piece
it’s slim
and pleasing to look at

I’m looking at it right now
it’s twenty past five a.m.
and I feel a certain pressure
to turn out the light
and go to sleep

that’s not the clock’s fault
it’s just ticking away relentlessly
as it was taught to do

it could be any clock
a big circle on the wall
a grandfather clock in the hall
a wristwatch
any clock

it just makes time slide by
much too quickly
so my gripe is not
with this particular clock

except that it ticks

I lie in the dark
and listen to the ticks

another hour of this ticking
and I’ll get a hammer
and smash it into 6o pieces
and that would be a shame
because the noise is not
his particular fault
he was born to tick
as most clocks are

finally I have to get up
and take out the batteries
and put them back in their box

I like living
the timeless life better

Mas Trilles, Feb. 10, 2011

IF ONLY BIPLO CAPASO WERE HERE

they’re taking down
the huge letters
on the roof of the INTERMARCHE
supermarket outside town

they’ve got all 11 letters
on the ground
cleaning them

I suggest that when they put them back
they try different combinations

minteracher
rachtermine
machentirer
chinamerter
tirecharmer

“Use your imaginations,” I suggest
“Give people something to think about.”

chamertreni
timerarchen
trincherame
hamertrinch
thermicarne
ramteechirn
chineertarm
teachermirn
eachternrim
chanrimtree
mireranchet
reranchitem
ritermencha
rinchemarte
mertarinche
chinmartere
merchertain
chartnimree
rainmetcher
namrincheet
themercrani
archemtrine
methanricer
nicetramhen
racerhintem
mentinreach
inchtermare
traminecher
meanrichter

“Give everybody an urgent reason
for going in and sampling some
of the new foods
you have on display.”

bing streams
and scale outpan
um yum
very tasty
all this maw reat
and fruish frets
like vacadosos
and chotarikes
give me ten pounds
of log rivereens
and a hundred pounds
of finger geek change reck

Cerét, Feb. 11, 2011

PINE TREE FRAME UP

don’t point your finger at me
tree
I’ve got my hands full
of this river
trying to keep the water
from escaping to the sea

and don’t accuse me
of stirring up the wind
blame it
on the mountain

Mas Trilles, Feb. 12, 2011

PRUNES & BERRIES

dumped a portion of bran
in my bran bowl
took 7 prunes
chopped them up
tossed them on the bran
then I poured a portion of milk
into the prune container

I was getting ready to scatter
a spoon of brown sugar
on top of the milk
when I realized
I had just prepared myself
a delicious breakfast
of 43 prunes

after I got the 43 prunes
washed and dried
and got everything in its right place
I went outside
and saw a hedge sparrow
pecking red berries from a bush
“I don’t want to talk about it,”
I told the bird

I ate my prunes and bran
the bird kept pecking berries
my food went straight to my belly
and began to churn and grunt
the berries were hallucinogenic
the bird had fantastic visions
the sky turned orange
and I turned into an avatar
with prunes for eyes

he went back to his nest
and established a new religion
now I’ll wake up everyday
and hear the birds praying to me
I will have become
the hedge sparrow prune god

Mas Trilles, Feb. 13, 2011

BIRTHDAY POEMS

1.
I finally did it
I reached the age of 70
tho it seems I’ve been 70
for the past couple of years

it was easier to say “70”
when asked
than to get my mouth
all tangled up with 67s, 68s and 69s

I was like a 7-year old kid
who said, “I’m almost ten,”
and sometimes I left out the “sometimes.”

but I’m not a kid anymore
I’m 70 and I can’t go back
tho deep down
in the spirit that dwells
in this sack of skin and bones
I feel more 17 than 70
a lot more
and a lot less
sometimes too

Prats-le-Mollo, Feb. 14, 2011

2.
seven decades
with few scratches and scars
not bad
for a child of fear
who cowered under the school desk
waiting for the atom bomb’s fire blast
which at any moment
would sweep thru the window
and wipe his x-rayed bones
from his small earth
he was sure he’d never
reach the age of 20

at the age of 20
men and women of 30
seemed really old

40 passed him by
in the blink of an eye

50 caught him by surprise
rounding third base
and heading for home
with a cake full of flaming candles

at 60 he began to forget
round numbers and hoped
he’d make it past
the Beatle’s curse of 64

at 67 he told everybody
he was 70
hoping it would come true

now he’s completed his 70th year
what a strange number

and what strange number
is waiting for him now?

Onderdonk died at 73
Derroll died at 73
my dad died at 73
do I hear anybody say, “75?”
“85?”
“90?”

he holds up his hand
the auctioneer stops the bidding
the crowd falls silent
he’s not sure he wants
to drag his bag of skin and bones
and thumping heart
that far into the future

“Absolutely certain, sir?”
“Almost.”

Mas Trilles, Feb. 14, 2011

3.
Quanah calls
says, “Happy birthday –
you’re seventy now.”
and I say to myself
“There must be some mistake.”

Mas Trilles, Feb. 14, 2011

CECIL SHARP HOUSE, CAMDEN TOWN,
SEPTEMBER 22, 2010
(A MEMORY)

and as Maggie was singing “Oregon”
from the stage in front
I slipped thru the door in back
stood next to a kid
whose face hung out, open
his ears picking up
every note and word
“You don’t know it, kid,”
I said to myself
“But you’re standing next to the guy
who wrote that song.”

song over
the room filled with applause
I turned and looked at the kid
the kid was gone
he had never been there at all

Mas Trilles, Feb. 14, 2011

SPANISH BORDER POEMS

1. FROM HIGH TO LOW

across the border into Spain
pass at Coustoge (Costoja)
looking down
and down
into the vast
wide open spaces
of red dirt and red stone
veiled in mist
along the great white highway
thinking of the thousands of people
who walked up this valley
and over the pass
on bleeding feet
escaping from plague
and persecution
from dictators and inquisition
centuries of migration
thousands upon thousands
trudging along
how many people
buried along the way
the quick walking on the bones
of the dead, heartbreaks
lost hopes, fearful tears
that watered the roots
of these trees

I step into a woods
touch a branch
it breaks off in my hand

soldiers and pilgrims
beaten and starved
fleeing, plodding along
backs piled high
with mattresses, chairs
family photographs
stumbling along, climbing
ignoring the view
too tired, too hungry
to look up
at the mountain-etched sky
and the clouds beyond
the layers of thin fog
in the valley below

ear pops
down the hill to Tapis
one small café – closed
no habitation
still wild country
this is where the bears live
foxes, wolves
wild horses

and down beyond
on the new white road
humans scarce
land too large, too wild
if houses, hidden

onto the old grey road
past Macanét and Cabrinus
down to the flood plain
feeling manic-depressive
thru Darnius
and it starts to rain
to Figueres
and the Dali Museum
hidden behind crap
highrise jail cells
for prisoners
of a worn-out civilization
dark dark
and it’s still raining
why did we come here?

2. MUG MUCHACHA

we came for Salvador Dali
we came for the Palace of the Wind
we came for Inaugural Gooseflesh
the Soft Self-Portrait with Grilled Bacon
and the Average Pagan Landscape

we came for the crypt
and the Fishmonger’s Room
we came for “The Girl in the Window”
tea mug (“Mug Muchacha”
is spelled out on the cash register window
along with the price)

3. ALCHIMA

and we came
for philosopher seeds
outdoor variety
Morocco grown
100% sativa
ten of them please
bake them into a loaf of bread
serve it with butter and jam
feast like a fool
give the heels to the cat
let him make up his own mind
about the circumference of the world

Figueres, Feb. 17, 2011

SOME OF THAT GOOD, OLD FASHIONED FRENCH SURREALISM WILL HAVE TO DO

1.
cruising and feeling loose
definitely not discontent
my thoughts turning homeward
less than a week
before we start the return trip

riding the Dog to Perpignan
not even the bumps in the road
or the vibrations and rattles
of the spring-shot bus
can shake my teeth loose

Mt. Canigou covered with snow
rained down here last night
but up there it was below zero
and absolute white

thinking of the Lascaux Caves
(not far from here)
see the hunter with his dog
his arrows and spears
see the bison and antelope
see the children gather around
open mouths drooling
hit them when their young
with that old meat-addiction advertising

2.
yesterday we saw Dali’s horses
white swans and black Cadillacs
now I’m ready
for some real old-fashioned
surrealism

3.
a bum on a street corner
upsidedown inside
a garbage can
his feet sticking straight up
as his mouth gobbles
the remains of a fried noodle
Chinese takeaway

a bride screaming
from a church doorway
as the groom rides off
with a giant poodle dog
in the back of a limo
with empty tomato cans
bouncing from the bumper
and ringing out the theme
of J.S. Bach’s Art of the Fugue

man reading a book
on a park bench
a squirrel hops over
and unties his shoelaces

4.
walking in Perpignan
down Rue Charles Gounod
do the people who live
on this street
know who Gounod is?

I doubt it

I cross over
to Rue Jean-Baptiste Lully
how about these folks?
do they know Lully’s operas and ballets?
can they whistle a tune
from Pastorale Comique?
I haul out my mouth harp
and give them a taste
of Fêtes de Versailles
they hold their ears
scream, chase me away
Lully fans?
I don’t think so
they thought Jena-Baptiste
was a new French soccer star
some are planning to move out
all the way over
to Rageous Gratoon Boulevard

Perpignan, Feb. 18, 2011

DOGS

my dogs are killing me
especially my left dog

Perpignan, Feb. 17, 2011

YAK HAIR

they say Lon Chaney Jr.
used yak hair
so did Benicio Del Toro
in the remake

“All the great werewolves
use yak hair.”

and for 60 years
I thought they were real
what a drag
fake werewolves
yak hair

Perpignan, Feb. 18. 2011

PANIC IN THE CROWD-PACKED STREET MARKET

where’s my wife-like person?
where did she go?
no red beret
no red baseball cap
how am I supposed to see
the drawing of a bear
on the back of her sweatshirt
unless she’s walking away?

Cerét, Feb 19, 2011

SCHRRUNCH SCHRRUNCH

schrrunch schrrunch
the sound of my slipper soles
on the tile floor
after walking thru a puddle
of tea laced with honey

schrrunch schrrunch

I kicked a whole mug full
broken handle and all
how do I grieve for a favorite
broken tea mug?
by walking thru its shattered
bones and blood

schrrunch schrrunch

Mas Trilles, Feb. 19, 2011

MURDER MYSTERY

the knife goes up
the knife comes down

according to
a close friend
this is not her favorite part
of the story

Mas Trilles, Feb. 19, 2011

THE BEER-BARREL POLKA-HAUNTED HORSES OF HIGH ALTITUDE

1.
cool oriental cat
on the yellow skunk
into the mountains
you sort of admire his ponytail coolness
until you remember
that cool is next to cold
and cold
is next to dead

2.
not that there’s anything wrong
with being dead
in fact
there are a lot of dead people
in fact
I’ve known a few of them

3.
hillsides covered with molehills
thousands upon thousands
more molehills
than brown grassy ground
they dominate the turf
some so high
they have snow
on their summits

4.
sag belly horses
nibbling sparse grass
in alpine meadows
beer bellies?

5.
inside the stone walls of the town
a large digital clock
hangs outside a pharmacie
its numbers read: 27:48

must be mountain time

6.
waiting for the yellow skunk
down the mountain
I could be disappointed
if I worked at it
I thought we’d be traveling
into remote regions of the world
where people and their wild dogs
would be few and far between
barbarians who couldn’t even read
their own stop signs
who lived in stone huts
and kept their shaggy
prehistoric beasts in caves
where the sight of civilized man
and woman was a rare experience
and cause for drunken celebration

but what was I thinking?
this is France
where even in the most remote
mountain reaches
you can eat croissants
buy a can of Lipton’s Ice Tea
(peach flavor)
and read today’s International
Herald Tribune

7.
six ear pops coming up
only five ear pops going down
what happened to the other pop?
I’ll probably be walking along
someday about six months from now
and people will be surprised
to see my head explode

Ville-Le-Conflent
La Cabanasse
Mont Louis and back, Feb. 21, 2011

AT JORDI’S CAFÉ

when you start thinking about
the five tough French chicks
at the next table
and wondering if you could
beat them up
(I could handle one at a time
but all five would probably
kick the shit out of me
before I could blink twice)
then you know it’s time
to drink up your last drops of rum
pay the bill
and get the hell out of town

Céret, Feb. 29, 2011

THURSDAY NIGHT MOVIE

home from Céret
half drunk
and fully fed
we sit down to watch the new Jim Jarmusch
The “something” of “something”

the ugly man
drinks 2 espressos many times
and eats many slips of paper
from match boxes
we keep waiting for the movie to start

after two hours
he strangles Bill Murray
with the low E string
from an old guitar
we keep waiting for the movie to end

boo to the Jarmusch

Mas Trilles, Feb.24, 2011

SOLITAIRE

hooked on solitaire
sinking deeper and deeper
into numbers and faces
into the cards flashing around
on the laptop screen
oblivious of my obsession
until I float to the surface
on the 23rd day
and start slapping the mouse around
to get my win average up to 15%
1,285 games played
193 wins

on the 24th day
I maintain my 15% average
1,315 games played
199 wins total

on the 25th day
I play 25 games
(for a total of 1,340)
and win 5
(for a total of 204)
and maintain my 15% average

on the 26th and 27th days
I backslide to a 14% average
total games played: 1,441
total games won: 231

I stay steady at 14%
until the 35th day
when I slump to an ignominious 13%
but by the end of the night
I manage to crawl back 14%
1,780 games played
250 games won

on the 36th day
I shut off my laptop
hang up my solitaire shoes
and start packing to go home

I’m finally convinced
that the program is fixed
the computer knows exactly
the outcome of each game
before it deals the cards
this is called computer paranoia

Mas Trilles, Feb. 24, 2011

LOADED

stuffed to the gills
packed to the roof beams
the car sags
under the weight of our stuff
and things
4 computers
CD player & numerous discs
electric heater
blankets
25k of pottery clay
pottery wheel
unpainted canvases
& frames
easel & numerous tubes
of paint
food
flute
guitar
sleeping bag
plants
lamps
papers
notebooks
posters
mugs
Uggs
and 52 books

so much stuff
and so many things
I feel like leaving
the car behind
and setting off for Belgium
on foot

Mas Trilles, Feb. 25, 2011

WALKING LESSON

been riding so long
that when we stop at the hotel
I step out of the car
and fall flat on my face

I forgot how to walk

I’m lucky tho
a guy is walking by
and he shows me how

Labège (Toulouse), Feb. 25, 2011

KNOCK DOWN, DRAG OUT IN THE ALLEY

a disgruntled old French turdbag
at the 2-star hotel breakfast table
is giving the kid behind the counter
a hard time
bread’s toasted wrong
wrong kind of butter
and then it’s the eggs
the kid doesn’t know how to soft boil
an egg

the kid’s nervous
FUMBLES AN EGG
AND BREAKS IT
“Now see what you’ve done!”

I’ve had enough
I tap the turdbag on the shoulder
he looks at me
I’m a couple of years older
and three inches taller
“Leave the kid alone,” I say
(been wanting to say that line
since I saw the movie)
“They call me the Wanderer
– I go round and round and round and round”
I poke the turdbag in the chest
with my fingertip, “You and me, Banana
– we’ll settle this in the alley out back.”
I shove him ahead of me
out the back door
into the parking lot
I’ve never been in a fight like this
I’m running on raw instinct
he attacks first
he sticks out his tongue
I ignore the gesture
and continue cleaning my fingernails
with a toothpick
he raises his middle finger
and flips it up and down
in front of my face
I stick the tip of the toothpick
in the corner of my mouth
and unbutton the front of his shirt
he recoils as if I’ve punched him
in the guts
I move in for the kill
I unzip his pants
and pull them down around his knees
he staggers back
with his reproductive tools
flopping around
on free display
tries to run
trips and lands
face down in a mud puddle
he lays there weeping
for ten minutes
I wait until the sobs
have subsided
into pathetic moans
then turn and walk back
into the hotel
brush off my hands
and finish my breakfast

if I tell this story
often enough
it might become true

Labège (Toulouse), Feb. 26, 2011

L’AUBERGE DU COEURE VOLANT

woman comes into the bar
and says, “I got a female pig in my car
and she doesn’t have a name.
What should I call her?”

a man says, “What’s the name
of the president’s wife?”

another man says, “Carla?”

“That’s her name,” says another
“Carla the pig.”

I disagree
I think “Slapstick”
would be a better name
or “Packy Derm”

but I keep the names
to myself
they’re not interested
in my political opinions
and neither am I

La Porcherie (Pig Sty), Feb. 26, 2011

NORTH INTO L’AQUITAINE

under a ragged line
of a thousand geese
thru a curtain
of black rain spouts
reaching to the sky
one of which
dumps its load on our roof
into bright sunshine
feeble rainbows
and an orange sun
that spreads its dry light
over the horizon as it sets
into a village called Mondesire
and a farm-converted hotel
where people are wandering around
in the dark
and boys in white suits
are carrying trays of food
thru the mud puddles
where we hole up
in one of the small rooms
that used to be in the loft
of a horse stable
where we get a bathroom
so small there’s not enough room
to pet a cat

Mondesire (Hotel), Feb. 26, 2011

NOISES IN THE NIGHT

dog barking in an empty room
down the hall
until midnight
then the singing starts

a quiet moan in the walls
C slides up to F
and drops off in relief
over and over
all night long
a human foghorn
lost in a pocket of fog
where’s there’s not enough room
to swing a trout

Mondesire (Hotel), Feb. 26, 2011

HIGHWAY PARIS TO LIEGE

I fall asleep
at Porte Chapelle
heading north
out of Paris
and wake up in Belgium

“What happened to France?”

“France is gone
– it won’t come back
until next year.”

Feb. 27, 2011

RETURN

and it all looks the same
the cat
the computer
the bottle of rum (less than half full)
the fly swatter on the floor
the bar of soap in the soap dish
the empty bird seed sacks
hanging from the empty cherry tree
the pirate copies of Dave Evan’s “Pig Dance”
and Fauré’s “Requiem”
on top of the CD player
it’s like we’ve never been away

Feb. 27, 2011

JIMBO’S BOP CITY

Jimbo in his winter house
(Bop City)
sleeping on a mat of straw
watching the night
slide past
beyond his small arch
listening to the barking
of the deer
in the forest
the hooting of the owls
the merchandise planes
humming across the sky
coming in for a landing
these things we imagined
while we were away in France

Jimbo in his Bop City
dreaming of trips to far-flung
mouseholes of the galaxy
then waking to the chatter
of twit birds in the lilac
and saying, “You don’t know
the half of it.”

but since we got back
he won’t go near Bop City
he wants to stay inside the house
and listen to my old John Coltrane records

Feb. 28, 2011

Imaginary poets – 1

2011 |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

Part One: HUNTER QUINN

Part Two: TAG ZANDER, JACK LOCKE,
LAURIE PERE-LE-GRIM & ANONYMOUS

Part Three: RYAN ZACK SCOTLANDER

A few remarks about the six fictional poets in this collection

The poems that appear in Parts One and Three of this collection were written by two fictional characters in my Song Poet Cycle—a sequence of nine journals that detail the life of Ryan Zack Scotlander, song writer and performer, from 1966 to 1970.

Hunter Quinn is a companion character in the Song Poet Cycle who first appears in Journal Three (Angel Wasteland), returns in Journal Four (Midnight Prayers), in abstentia as a published poet in Journal Six (Tightrope Walk), and finally re-appears in the fictional flesh in Journal Nine (Ghost Train). He is credited with three published books of poems, some of which appear in the Cycle. His Fool’s Journey, based on the cards of the Tarot, appears in Backdoor Troubadour, a sequel to the Song Poet Cycle.

Ryan Zack Scotlander is the moving force of my fictional autobiography The Song Poet Cycle. After meeting Hunter Quinn in Rome, Zack begins to write his own poetry. A few of these poems are later published in a chapbook in London (Journal Five—Midnight Prayers). Later — in Journal Nine (Ghost Train) — Zack appears at the International Poetry Festival in Rotterdam, Holland where he presents his first published book of poems — Paradise Iced.

Tag Zander, whose poems appear in Part Two of this collection, is the main character of my novel, (Parentheses). He is a middle-aged American poet who has been invited to lecture at an international interdisciplinary conference on art and science in Holland. The story is an account of the four days he spends in and around the conference in Katwijk and the six days following in Amsterdam. Aside from the primary theme that emerges from the story: how a single, seemingly trivial event can profoundly alter the direction of a person’s life in unexpected ways, he also writes and recites a handful of poems that reflect his current tribulations.

Jack Locke appears in “Sharon”, the first part of a collection of short stories that form a loosely-connected novel titled A STONE IN MY HEART ROLLED OVER. Jack is a conniving charlatan, a would-be beat poet who arrives on San Francisco’s North Beach scene in 1958, too late to be a part of the “renaissance.” He concocts his poems with only one purpose in mind: to impress and seduce Sharon. He both succeeds and fails, but that’s in the story, not in the poems.

Laurie Pere-Le-Grim is one of the free-wheeling characters of DOWNEY STREET, a semi-historical novel of life in the Haight-Ashbury of San Francisco in 1965-1966.

The ANONYMOUS poet of the San Francisco Poems was a student when he wrote these lines. If he were to pass me on the street today I would recognize him instantly; however he would not give me a second glance. He did not believe, in those years when he was 18 that he would live past the age of 30. He would be surprised to learn that the old man stumbling past was actually an older version of himself. Tho I knew him well in those early years, I cannot remember his name, and thus he remains ANONYMOUS.

These poets, long seeking to be read, to be heard, hope you enjoy their work and bring to them the recognition they deserve. They have entrusted me, their editor, to deliver their verses to the world at large and I have promised to do my best. Working closely with these poets over the years I have sometimes felt that their work is my own; that I too have helped shaped the creation of their poems.
On their behalf, I thank you.

T. Zimmerman

IMAGINARY POETS 1
edited by T. Zimmerman

HUNTER QUINN

ROMAN POEMS

BUTTERMILK PIES (PARTS ONE & TWO)

give me one good reason
give me one good reason, baby
give me one good reason why a face full of flies
is better than a gut full of buttermilk pies
give me one good reason
give me one good reason, baby
give me one good reason and I’ll give you a can
of glow worm puke and a frying pan

give me one good reason why a squid with wings
is better than a roadrunner’s apron strings
give me one good reason and I’ll give you two dimes
and thousand dumptrucks full of armadillo spines

give me one good reason why I must ride
Godzilla’s lip into the Great Divide
give me one good reason and I’ll give you a ticket
to the atom bomb circus and you’ll know where to stick it

give me one good reason why a dog with rabies
is better than a dream about screaming babies
give me one good reason and I’ll give you a punch
in the jaw that’ll make you late for lunch

give me one good reason why a masked platato
is better than lenny bruce string bass capo
give me one good reason and I’ll give you a lash
from a bullshit whip and a diaper full of cash

give me one good whore moan
give me one good whore moan, baby
give me one good moan and a fifty cent flute
and I’ll show you how a twenty-five buck prosta toots
give me one bad apple
give me one bad apple, baby
give me one bad apple and a plague of applesauce
and I’ll show you how much a real penta costs

give me one good reason
give me one good reason, baby
why a stonehenge chivaree is better
than a stone’s throw from eternity
give me one good reason
give me one good reason, baby
give me one good reason and a salt water shaker
and I’ll give you 40 mules and a tooth acher

give me one good reason why I must squeeze
the coconut bombs from your napalm trees
give me one good reason and I’ll give you a scoop
of belly button clams and toe jam soup

give me one good reason and a bad excuse
and I’ll give you some slingshot soup abuse

BUTTERMILK PIES (TWO)

give me one good reason
give me one good reason, baby
give me one good reason why a bladder full of air
has to be the first step in our love affair

give me one good reason
give me one good reason, baby
give me one good reason why a bladder full of piss
has to get in the way of our first kiss

give me one good reason why the crap in your pants
is better than a dimestore true romance
give me one good reason why a watermelon smile
is better than a wolf-suckled wild child

give me one good reason and a boxing ring
and I’ll show you how to dance the WILD THING!”

give me one good reason
give me one good reason, baby
give me one good reason why jane fonda’s ass
is better than a stack of bibles in the grass
give me one good reason
give me one good reason, barbarella
why jane fonda’s ass shouldn’t win first place
it’s a lot better looking that jane fonda’s face
give me one good reason
give me one good reason, baby blue
give me one good reason why a walk on the moon
is better than surfing to a beach boy’s tune

give me one good reason
give me one good reason, barbara ann
give me one good reason and I’ll give you a shove
that’ll break your heart and make you fall in love

MOTORCYCLE MOUTH

motorcycle mouth
you got a motorcycle mouth
everywhere you go
you got a motorcycle mouth

you got me spitting dixie
you got me turned to stone
double toothpick heaven
I love you like a dog loves a slide trombone

I chew on your wrist
your motorcycle wrist
it’s a quarter to eleven
I lick your motorcycle fist

give me your hand
your motorcycle hand
I love your motorcycle fingers
and their spark plug fire

motorcycle foot
you got a motorcycle foot
kick me when I’m down
like a B flat tire
like a C flat earth
Gee sharp barb wire

motorcycle belly
I love your motorcycle belly
I wanna bury my face
in your bowl of motorcycle jelly

motorcycle ass
you got a motorcycle ass
I wanna lay it down
in motorcycle grass . . .

I wanna lay it down
in a big banana peel
DRIVE IT ALL OVER
THE FUCKING FOOTBALL FIELD

WIGGLEWORM

tonight I went to the circus place
I went but that’s not all
I got myself a funny face
and went down to the mall

I bought myself a rubber mask
a rubber mask and ball
I bounced around the parking lot
then they bounced me off the wall

and then I went to Delaware
Delaware Idaho
but that’s OK, I was well aware
that I’d a row to hoe

today I’m gonna think a lot
think a lot and eat
I think I’ll eat a pickle pot
and burp a baby beet

and then I’ll drink a butterscotch
a butterscotch on rocks
and then I’ll fall asleep again
in a pile of dirty socks

and dream I have a wiggleworm
wiggleworm ’round my toe
and wake up with a gigglesquirm
from Pocatello Idaho

I think I’ll play a jack of hearts
a jack of hearts and soul
then I’ll take a queen of spades
and dig a poke-a-tell-a-hole

and bury all my wiggleworms
gigglesquirms and squirts
and god knows when I’m finished
what I’ll find in all that dirt

WIGGLWWORM POSTSCRIPT

I went down to the Roseanna Barr
the Roseanne Barr and grill
I got my lungs pumped full of ink
and got my brain pan filled

I went down to the Edgar Al
the Edgar Allen Poe
I drank a pint of raven piss
and watched the rodeo

then I went down to the Romeo
the ro-me over lounge
I saw the lizards in their boots
and alligator gowns

then I went down to potato couch
potato couch, Tennessee
they put my car up on a rack
and gave me rides for free

then I went down to the dew drop inn
the dew drop incomplete
I had my footballs pumped and glued
to the bottoms of my feet

then I ran down to the rooster farm
the rooster farm-a-see
got some soup of wiggleworm
it’s an old-time remedy

TRANSATLANTIC NOSTALGIA

it’s one of those days
when the toothless hag behind the bar
spits in your beer
before serving it

you might say
the beer in the Bocca della Verita Cantina has
its own particular
distinctive flavor

transatlantic nostalgia
transatlantic nostalgia

the ice cream vendor
sweats into his pistachio
Mama Tomato sweats into her pasticcio
ah! Italian renaissance spices

transatlantic nostalgia
transatlantic nostalgia

in the morning I shine my teeth
with Aunt Jemima buttermilk
afternoon I read yesterday’s news
in the Hair Old Tribune

the day goes by like a pigeon
with pepperoni sausages
tied to its wings

transatlantic nostalgia
transatlantic nostalgia

brown body against the white sheet
saliva drools from the corners of her mouth
and collects in two soggy lumps
on either side of her face
right there on the clean white sheet

I lift up on one elbow
peek out the window
see a motorized wheelchair
passing by in the empty street below

ambulance sirens
doppler down the empty street
sounding like crows
on their way
to a fresh pile
of frozen asparagus tips

transatlantic nostalgia
transatlantic nostalgia

pin-ups for the bull barn
photographs of cows
in suggestive poses

transatlantic nostalgia
transatlantic nostalgia

MAHMORAH (GODDESS OF WHORES)

oh Mahmorah, you goddess of whores
I’ve given you my best and still you ask for more

you cut me in half
you call me cheap cheese
you make me do it
with hubcaps on my knees

you’re a breast beast
(bulge grudge the lamorious whedge)
from the middle east
(bulge grudge the lamorious whedge)
you’re a babylon
(bulge grudge the lamorious whedge)
with a hard on

oh Mahmorah, you goddess of whores
I’ve given you my best and still you ask for more

I got myself a crewcut
just like you said
I got my black sneakers
stuffed with garlic bread

oh you vapor freak
(pounce pounce garoomf gallee)
you can’t speak
(pounce pounce garoomf gallee)
you’re an Ezra Pound
(pounce pounce garoomf gallee)
you just make sounds

(bulge grudge the lamorious whedge)
(pounce pounce garoomf gallee)
(ETAOIN SHRDLU)
(ETAOIN SHRDLU)

you crawl into my room
when I’m playing on my drums
you run your fingers
around my gums

and now it’s too late
(ETAOIN SHRDLU)
I said to wait
(ETAOIN SHRDLU)
now it’s on the floor
(ETAOIN SHRDLU)
that’s too hard core
for me

oh Mahmorah, you goddess of whores
I’ve given you my best and still you ask for more

you took the grapefruit
right out of my hands
you made me salivate
on your wedding band

you breast beast
(bulge grudge the lamorious whedge)
from back east
(bulge grudge the lamorious whedge)
you’re a budapest
(bulge grudge the lamorious whedge)
from the far west
ETAOIN SHRDLU!

THE DAY THE CHINESE INVADED THE U.S.A.

on the day the Chinese invaded the U.S.A.
the farmers complained
wasn’t good for their crops they said

the Daughters of the American Revolution
ran around waving their bra-flags and exclaiming
`we’ve never seen so many strangers in all our lives’

on the day the Chinese invaded the U.S.A.
housewives were having trouble with their TVs
the news wasn’t coming thru too clear
it sounded something like this:
“` . . . (scratch-scratch-scratch) . . . ”
” . . . unconditional surrender . . . ”

in Hollywood California
retired movie producers were having trouble
keeping the water in their swimming pools
and the sun was much too bright

in New York, New York
a junkie was shooting up
and down the street
on the day the Chinese invaded the U.S.A.

in Mobile, Alabama
a white man was crawling into bed
with a black man’s wife
a black man was taking a leak
in a white man’s toilet

both men
were caught with their pants down
on the day the Chinese invaded the U.S.A.

LOVE POEM (WHEN YOUR SHADOW TURNS TO SHIVERS)

when your shadow turns to shivers
and your belly turns to boil
when gobs of fartwinds blow you down
and valentine snobs break your heart

when your goldfish turn to mermaids
and wear band-aid bikinis
and when everything abnormal
starts working for the night

I’ll be there to hold your hand
I’ll be there to fan your fire
I’ll be there to mend the pieces
and pick you up and lift you higher

when your bubbles turn to gravel
and your babble turns to breeze
when your surplus turns to minus
and your applause turns on the radio

when your fifth little pig
starts saying ‘Ointnment’
and the seventh son of a bitch
lays down in your hair

I’ll be there, I’ll be there
you can count on me
you can start with one
and count right up to three

when your Pig Latin Lover
bends over in the clover
and his face drops off
and masturbats fly out his ass

when your first dreams of green
are the first to turn chicken
and moon glow rapes your doorbell
and departs without worms

when your numb bucket feet
hit the drumhead of the street

I’ll be there, I’ll be there
with my arms full of flowers
I’ll be there to pick you up
and lift you higher than the sun

do you think for one moment
I’d let you stand alone
that I’d let you stand and face
all this music on your own?

all this monster movie music?
all these twelve and thirteen tones?
all these untuned violins?
all these horny slide trombones?

when your gods have gobbled garlic
and gone into gloom
and your lifters test their muscles
on hundred-pound carnation stems

when your chick peas start to cluck
and crow at the mud
and the Apes of April howl
and lay their eggs in spoons

when steam shovels grovel
and ladders full of bladders
start dumping used-car sunsets
on your head and make you madder

when your horse turns to radish
and your mustard turns to mustang
and your doorknob wears a boxing glove
and your punch lines punch you back

when your umbrellas are full of beer
and your scoreboard’s full of goose eggs
when your hammer starts to sledge
and your driver starts to screw you

I’ll be there, I’ll be there
with rainbows in my hair
with my face full of smiles
and laces in my shoes

when your eyeballs turn to bubble gum
and pop like pop art cornies
and all your art link letters
get sent back stripped of stamps

just look over your left earwig, baby
and I’ll be there to pull the straw
thru the needle’s eye
and shove it down the camel’s craw

I’ll be there, I’ll be there
be it night or day
I’ll chop that camel down
and chase the wigs away

I’ll be there to eat
your scrambled breakfast crumbs
and drink the quart of jungle juice
dripping from your thumbs

I’ll be there with all my magic
I’ll be there with all my fever
I’ll be there to hold your hand
and I won’t be breathing ether either

FLAG

an american flag
manufactured in a singapore sweatshop
flaps in the breeze
waves in the sleaze

good, ole sleazy stars and stripes
under the windshield wiper
in the back seat a baby
is using it for a diaper

prostitutes salute it
pea shooters shoot it
rotary rooters club it
tub-o-gutters rub it

hair-splitters chew it
hippo-critters screw it
patriotic neurotics
put it in their deadheads
and view it with a vengeance

kinda purty hanging there
in the window
but kinda hard
to get it to blend in
with the scheme
of your average
cat house decor

josé can you see
all the bed bugs on me?
I do hope you can
in the dawn’s early light
the one’s we so proudly
squeeze out at midnight
like a rocket’s red glare
cooties bursting with blood
give proof thru the house
that our leech is still there
and the crabs on the floor
cockroaches galore
stand up and wave
in the land of the flea
and the home of the termite
bed bugs on me?
They ain’t fried rice
ask me no questions
and I’ll give you no lice.

CREDO

Life is fantastic
and each moment should be a celebration
that surpasses the last
and if you have any doubt about it
just open up your refrigerator door
and watch it turn into an open book
and watch the oranges and lemons
with smiling human faces
go tumbling across the floor.
In other words, when the sardines hit the fan
hang on to your bra strap, buster
cause this could be one helluva ride
into eternity.

CONSIDER THIS
The only contact some people have
with the outside world is when the plumber
drops by to a give a free estimate on a toilet repair.

CONSIDER THIS
The sole survivors of a flash flood in a town
on the Mexican border were three bank robbers
which the cops had just handcuffed
to a parking meter. The cops were swept away
along with everybody else in the town.

CONSIDER THIS
The Magician Butcher’s cleaver flashed in the
neon light as he chopped the beefsteak into
bite-size chunks and at no time did his
fingers leave his hands.

CONSIDER THIS
When Jesus returned from India
he wasn’t walking on water
but gliding across the frozen Dead Sea
on ice skates.

CONSIDER THIS
If re-incarnation is real
I’m going to make a deal with God
or Buddha Boy or Great Balls of Fire
or whoever’s in charge
and come back as a humming bird
or a hedgehog or firefly
any form of life will do even human
just as long as it’s not
one of those white Anglo Saxon
christian son of a bitches
who live so far down the ladder of evolution
that not even a skull full of wasps
can lift him out of the mud
and onto the first rung.

CONSIDER THIS
My tongue has spoken into wolf packs
into mountain streams where tribes of trout
disappeared into rainbows of tears
into canyons where coyotes howled
at the half moon and golden chipmunks
trembled in pine-shadowed sunlight
down into snowfields
from an 11-thousand foot pass
into pure mosquito swarm
and these were the only times
my tongue has ever spoken the truth
these are the times
I couldn’t speak at all.

CONSIDER THIS
A single squirrel bouncing along
the high fence between the house
and the forest is charming.
Two squirrels bouncing along the fence
are amusing. Three are acceptable.
Six are a menace. Twelve is an invasion.
Whenever I take my plate out to the fence
and sit down to eat I must be quick.
A brussel sprout can disappear
from the tip of my fork
before I can get it into my mouth.
But I’m not bitching about hungry squirrels.
My beef is with that god damned fence.
What the hell is it doing between me
and the forest anyway?

CONSIDER THIS
I climbed the highest mountain
in what was then considered the United States
and I looked west into the sun setting
beyond the Coast of California
and I felt the tidal wave coming
and I knew the people down below
were going to get their feet wet.
I stayed and I saw the waves sweep
over the coastal range and flood
the valleys below and when I came down
there were deep sea fishing boats
in Fresno harbor and Bakersfield
had become the largest sea port in the world.

CONSIDER THIS
I once knew a dealer in San Francisco
who lived with a whole tribe of potheads
in a big house. They smoked so much dope
that a permanent cloud of cannabis hung in
every room. It was so thick that even the cats
got stoned.

CONSIDER THIS
When the white man arrived in North America
there were at least eight million Indians
who spoke no less than two thousand languages.
If you traveled from Idaho to Wyoming
you’d need five or six different translators.
In Arizona there were two villages ten miles
apart. If you committed a certain act in one
village you would be instantly promoted to
Head Medicine Man. Commit the same act in the
other village and you would instantly be hung
by your toes and roasted alive. When I was a
boy we used to play cowboys and Indians, while
on the reservation, ten miles away, the real
little Indian boys played poker with pages of
Life magazines.

CONSIDER THIS
Nine out of ten Americans have never been
past their national borders. Eight out of ten
think Belgium is somewhere in Central America
and can be reached by U-Haul. Seven out of ten
believe Russia should be bombed back to the
Stone Age. Six out of ten are assholes. Five
out of ten – fifty percent – don’t even know
the name of the asshole who sits in the White
House and ruins their lives. Four out of ten
is simply the score I got one day on a math
quiz in the ninth grade. Three out of ten
(Americans) salute the flag so compulsively
that if you were wearing stars and stripes
underwear and you dropped your pants in front
of them, they would salute your ass.
Two in ten are idiots who really believe
they are geniuses, and one out of ten is the same guy
who always got picked last in high school when
they were choosing up sides for touch football.

“CONSIDER THIS,”
she said
and punched his earlobe
with a ticket clipper.

THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

T’was the night before Christmas
and three days after the flood
and four years before the Baby-Bostalon Tea Party
and with all that rigamarole about printed bibles
at least a century in the future
when all thru the house came a stirring creature
as big as a moose
and in fact it was a moose
and out on the lawn there came such a clatter
it could only those five other mooses
chained to the bumper
of the burnt-out carcass
of a 1958 VOLKSWAGEN
and inside, with his hands
upon the useless steering wheel
sat a jolly old man
with a twinkling in his eye
and he was dressed in white
from his head to his toe.
from top hat to albino snakeskin boots
and he said you probably don’t know who I am
so let’s say
I COME FROM THE SOUTH POLE.

and by the way
the stockings were NOT hung
by the chimney with care.
They’d been flung carelessly
at the fireplace
and one had landed in the flames.
The others lay dangling
over the mantelpiece
as if the people wearing them
had suddenly shrunk
slid down and become
the lump in the toes of each of the socks.

TWENTY ANTHRO-APOLOGIES

ANTHROPOLOGY ONE

For centuries anthropologists
have been trying to decipher
the deeper meaning and cultural relevance
of the FEAST OF BLIND FOOLS.
It is celebrated annually, in mid-October
upon the beaches the East America.
At low tide the fools bring out their buckets
and gorge their guts with huge amounts
of clam chowder and chili con carne
then they strut up and down the beach
for an hour or two burping and farting.
The ceremony ends when they jump in the ocean
and swim to Europe.

ANTHROPOLOGY TWO

THE JAMBOREE OF THE SURFING PIGS
is another waterside ceremony
that has baffled anthropologists
down the centuries from I thru XX.
It takes place on Swine Lake
high in the Porkbutt Mountains
where every year in the month of May
thousands of surfing pigs gather
to initiate their young
into a society known as “The Young Pigs.”
While the adults surf the waves
of the lake with huge transistor radios
strapped to their backs which blast out
all their favorite surfing anthems
Surfin’ Safari
Ride the Wild Surf
Surfer Girl
Surf City
the young pigs with little transistor radios
strapped to their backs, radios that broadcast
folk tunes by The Mothers of Invention
and The Fugs they learned when they were
piggies, play catch on the beach.
The balls they toss back and forth
are loaded with sensitive high explosives
of extreme intensity.
“DROP A BALL YOU’RE DEAD”
is the name of the game.
Each year many young piggies drop the ball.
The survivors become adults
and they take their places on new surfboards
with bigger radios strapped their backs
which play all only pig songs
“I Wanna Hold Your Ham”
“Pig Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch”
“I Walk the Swine”
“Porky and Bess.”

ANTHROPOLOGY THREE

At THE RAVING MUTANTS FIDDLER CONVENTION
tree stumps are merely verbal furniture
and horsehair bows are merely antennae
that pick up radio signals broadcast
from false teeth bridge work of cowboys
living in distant cities and suffering
the indignities of riding around on bicycles
disguised as horses.
“Treat yourself to some Kentucky Fried
Stephen Foster Fingers,” say the voices
in one signal, “Everything goes better
with Uncle Remus Tar Paper Chewing Gum,”
say the voices in another,
and soon long, long-distance conversations
evolve in which the makers of Firestone tires
are shouting about symphony orchestras
and how great it would be
if several of them got together
and played the theme songs
from the Lone Ranger
and the Green Hornet at the same time,
while an announcer of a Glenn Miller
performance live from the Floating Ballroom
high above the English Channel
urges everyone to give themselves
a break and enjoy the flavor of a Chester Strike.”

ANTHROPOLOGY FOUR

Don’t miss it! A cast of thousands!
THE WEENIE ROAST OF THE PREDICTABLE SLOBS
is coming soon to a movie theater near you!

See counterfeiters hard at work
turning out hundred-dollar billboards
with Marlon Brando’s face upon them!
See hungry housewives rip apart
vacuum cleaners and bite the dust!
Witness dentists drilling for oil
with power tools that barely fit
into the mouths of fat gospel singers!
Hear the wails of needlemaniacs
and the groans of stoned coaster rollers!
Starring Slobs, Floozies and Sluts galore!
Don’t delay, get your ticket today!
Come to the Slobs, you’ll love them!
They’re so predictable!

ANTHROPOLOGY FIVE

Who has not attended the annual
BRUNCH OF THE AGGRESSIVE BEATNIKS
and not come away with a sigh of relief?
I know I did. I knew it could have been worse.
They could have been real back-stabbing Bohemians.
They could have been serious, name-dropping
anarchists in stretch pants and golf caps.
Those pink grapefruit halves
and sliced canteloups were not destined
to remain in Beatnik bowls
nor were they fated to end up in Beatnik bellies.
Once these outlaws started slinging bacon strips
at each other, leaping upon the tables
with spinach dripping from pointed tongues,
self-smashing toast and melted cheese
into their grins,
and sticking radishes up their horses’ asses
I bowed down to them in gratitude
thankful that I had not been invited to
THE COFFEE BREAK OF THE NERVOUS CARNIVORES
THE SNACK OF THE PORTABLE PERUVIANS
or THE LAST SUPPER OF THE DEAF BARF EATERS.

ANTHROPOLOGY SIX

You, like millions of innocent,
unsuspecting travelers
have just found yourself turning a corner
at the edge of the civilized world
and landing smack-dab in the middle of
THE PICNIC OF THE PREGNANT JUNKIES.
And what do you, unfortunate visitor, see?
You see a lot of pregnant junkies
standing around with swollen bellies
and monkeys on their backs
pumping their hearts full of smack crackle and pop
jamming doorstops in their mouths
stuffing buzzard beaks in their ears
to discover the secret of silence

And what fate befalls you, unfortunate visitor?
You could go insane at any moment
between now and midnight.
You could twist again
like you did last summer.
And if you’re lucky
you might get an autograph.

ANTHROPOLOGY SEVEN

THE MASKED BALL OF THE PSYCHOTIC GOODY-TWOSHOES is celebrated deep in America’s heartlands
every year on the day before Thanksgiving.
A Queen of the Ball is elected
and as she steps to the stage to receive her crown
home movies of her life are projected
on a screen behind her. “She was the girl who had all
the Kingston Trio albums. She was girl who had
everything recorded by Lawrence Welk. One day she went
into a record shop and accidentally heard an album by
Peter, Paul and Mary. She was exposed like a naked
rabbit to a Bob Dylan song. She panicked. She passed
out. She spent six months in a psychiatric ward being
treated for severe multiple nervous and personality
disorder breakdowns. When she came out she was adjusted.
She had no desire to chew Dentyne gum.
She was normal. She became a junkie.
Her record collection reflected her life style.
Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground.
Leather became the only material she would allow
to touch her skin. Black leather.
She carried a whip and lived with a German
shepherd but preferred sex
with his dog until a man came along
claiming he was the devil
and he lashed her with his tail into a record shop
where she bought the complete works of Mantovani
and he pitchforked her butt until she jumped
back into her Miss Goody Two-Shoes mask and costume
after which he entered her into every beauty contest
this side and that side of heaven and hell.
Miss Pilgrim’s feet of 1620.”

ANTHROPOLOGY EIGHT

Although I’ve been to the Pow-wow
of the Hysterical Tombstone Polishers,
The Psychotic Lizard Wizards’ Wing-Ding,
and the Mechanical Mermaids Blabber Party,
I was not prepared for the horrors of
THE BANQUET OF THE 90-POUND WEAKLINGS.

They held me face down in the sand
and shined flashlights on my back.
They forced me to read a chapter
of a Hermann Hesse novel.
They took turns wearing my eyeglasses
while prancing around nude
like drunken flamingos.

Only when they discovered
I was an anthropologist
and not a soldier from their rival gang
THE GUTLESS WONDERS
did they release me with profuse apologies
although they did make me chant
“DEATH TO THE GUTLESS WONDERS!”
as they marched me out of camp
and back to the conveyor belt
of the civilized world.

LONG LIVE THE 90-POUND WEAKLINGS
(AND OTHER GUTLESS WONDERS}!

ANTHROPOLOGY NINE

Travel to the most remote corner
of your totem pole and join
THE BAR-B-Q OF THE HYDROPHOBIC CHAINSMOKERS.
Strum upon rattlesnake guitar strings.
Shake the maracas of skunk skulls.
Beat upon the tom-toms of Jefferson and Jones.
Follow the footprints of tax evaders
riding camels into sunsets
and giving middle-finger salutes
to bird watchers with sequined-splattered binoculars.
Lift up your arms and show them your bubble guts.
Lift up your hands, you’re under arrest.

Learn how to show off without being ashamed.
Learn ancient techniques of sanctified scat singing.
Learn how to perform rituals with buffalo bones.
Learn how to sing Phantom of the Opera arias
with shaggy dog punch line crescendos
and overfed underdog cadences.
Learn how to define tragedy.
Learn how to chug-a-lug the Burgie Music Box.
Cast away the useless heads of cabbage
you’ve been taught to grow in rows
and pick a dozen honeysuckles
stuff them up your nostrils
and give yourself a new brain
with the scent of their perfume.

ANTHROPOLOGY TEN

Come, buy the Blue Plate Special
at the PINK ELEPHANT LOBOTOMISTS LUNCHEON
Good food, great conversation
money back guaranteed
if you are not completely satisfied
within 30 days
plus everything you spent
on baby sitters and birth control.
Now isn’t that a good deal?
Isn’t that much better than
running off to Bermugolia
or Guatapueblo
where everything is so unreliable
that you might not come back
with the teeth you started with
or married to some elevator harpsichordist
who hates gravity and loves everybody
but you?

APOLOGY ONE

blind-folded wine-tasterism
is a school of philosophy
that dates back to the Age of Gas
when hot air balloons
hovered on our horizons
and zebras fed upon venetian blinds
when bottled luxury was cheap
and experience went for sixpence a bathtub
and thousands of pilgrims traveled to the feet
of an eskimo named Pie in the Sky
for the latest in hair styles
and piano techniques
when looted zoot toot-a-sweeters
with apples in their eyes hung out
in caves on the Left Bangkok
and learned to speak seagull French
and various tom-tom dialects
while working at the tin-tin factory
making noise and lots of money
making waves of whoopie
and making up for lost time.
You could see them out there
in the fields, the Blindfolded
Wine-tasters, jumping up and down
in puddles of dust
in coats of torn dish rags
raising their hands to the clouds
beseeching the Gods of Grape
to squirt a little juice
into their open mouths
and whisper some grey goose wisdom
into their pierced ears.
How can you not but feel sorry
for people like that?

APOLOGY TWO

tintinabulism is not an illness
you get from eating canned sardine heat
but rather the thrill that comes over you
while brooding on broken chicken bones.
It is a sensation of peace and contentment
satisfaction and joy.
Can life really be this great?
Pinch a tintinabulist.
See if he squeaks.
See if he needs oil.

APOLOGY THREE

Fork and Spoonerism
is not the simple trend of thought
most dilettantes associate with
flatulent academics
and soggy steambath professors.
They have many knives to sharpen too
to say nothing of the Occam razors
they dull while shaving their pigskins
which they then use to kick
game-winning field goals.

APOLOGY FOUR

The Spastic Soliloquists
(who advocate Soliloquistic Spasticism)
are not to be ignored.
See them in their flapping overcoats
see them in their moth-eaten earmuffs
soaked with Vicks Vaporub
see them trotting thru turnstiles
and rushing into Golden Meadow Sports Arena
to place their bets on the marble races
the bulldozer fights
and the greased mule contest
see them in their atavistic agony

APOLOGY FIVE

God bless the Sneaky Peters
and their fiery brand of Mobil
gas station horse sense with wings!
May they debate and defeat
the Pugnacious Pigheads
the Billy Graham Crackers
and the Breakfast of Champion Sparkplug Eaters!
May they flourish and drive
late model Pocahontas convertibles!
May they own vast forests full
of volcanoes, moose turds, totem poles
and four-minute milers!

APOLOGY SIX

Bring back the Mouse Trappist
in his glowing grey robes
and shaven eyebrows.
Glory in Mouse Trappist poverty.
Witness the miracle
of the Mouse Trappist Cheese Cake.
And stick around for the late show
when the rats show up
and start trimming toenails.

APOLOGY SEVEN

Don’t give any more of that
Lenny Bruce Piss-in-the-Sinkism.
The only thing I’m interested in these days
is Aunt Jemimas electric bra
which automatically stirs
the buttermilk pancake mix
while she dishes out beans and tortillas
to the boys in the backroom.

APOLOGY EIGHT

And there they go:
The Cartoon Harpoonists
aboard the Kon Tiki
blasted on sniffed glue
tooting on alpenhorns
caressing dead tuna
worshipping stuffed jaguars
and dried money paws
that dangle from the mast
There they go.
Good luck you fools
you tenderfoot leathernecks.

APOLOGY NINE

And how about those True Believers?
They slither like slugs from under doorways
and go chasing after every dog
and dogma in the street.

They’ll believe anything.
Anybodytimewhere.

They believe the cab driver
when he says he knows a short cut

They believe the goof lips
on the 7 o’clock news.

They believe the ads that say
if you a smoke a pack of chesterlucks
everyday day for 31 years you’ll play basketball
like Wilt the Stilt

They open wide
when the Fuller Brush man
holds up a mop and says, “Say Ah!”

They believe that daylight savings time
really saves time.

They worship Ed Sullivan, Fidel Castro
snow white dwarfs, 6 out of 7 detergents,
the Eiffel Tower, London Bridge,
the Titanic, T.S. Eliot, the Marquis de Sade
Moby Dick, Totem pole vaulters
and the perfect pitchfork.

They believe the fox went out on a chilly night.

They believe in compulsory typing classes,
the accidental distribution of wealth
and death as a cure for the common cold.

APOLOGY TEN

Beware of Apologists bearing geese
they’ll say they have gas leaks to investigate
mine disasters to measure
and quilts to feather.
But don’t believe them.
Don’t settle for anything
less than the best
shake hands with an eagle scalp
hang out with a salvador dali-llama
play baseball in a studebakerfield
go flyswatting with a spitter
take your shut up pills
and stick your head in a halo.

MOP ME UP WITH Q-TIP

A box inside of a box
inside of a box
and so forth right down
to the last tiny box
which contains a wiggle
of worm meat
a squiggle of a sigh
an echo of goodbye
see y’later ventilator
in the breeze of a whisper
or the sneeze of a firefly.
That’s me on days like this
when I miss the sun the piss
of rain has slapped me down
and got me trapped inside a drop.

So mop me up with Q-tip
sip me up with straw
freeze me in an ice cube
set me out to thaw
in the springtime of the summer
upon an olive seed
or wing of butterdove
when love fills up the sky.
And sprinkle me with sun sand
and lash me with a wink
and watch me grow to tallness
in the blinking of an eye.

LEST WE FORGET

Lest we forget
there was a man named John
who baptized the heathen
run out of Babylon
on a rail with a rusted nail
hammered thru a winning poker hand
from the ace of his heart
to the lifeline of his palm
chiseled his testament
gabbled his gospel
drummed his dream
drained his pipes
thumped his thorns
jumped his Jordan.

One day in Jerusalem
beheaded by barbarians
served on a platter
lest we forget.

THE TRIP

“How we doin’ now?”
said the captain to the crew
“Lookin’ good,” said everyone
everyone but you
and me were hiding
in the bottom of the boat
wondering if the god-damned thing
was going to sink or float
around all day and night
or just get to the point
of no return and sail
off the ocean’s edge
into the jawtrap of a whale

“How we doin’ now?”
said the captain to us two.
“Find any thousand-dollar bills
floating by and by?
Keep looking you’ll see water
and fish you’d like to fry.”
We looked and saw a trap
the whale’s mouth agape
we tossed captain in
and sailed off the map

HOT TROTTERS

You see them wearing their newspaper suits
You hear them speaking in ripples of rhymed wine.
You see them dancing with rumps of rumplestiltskin.
You want to join their bubble bath.
You want to join their bone dance.
But you can’t. They won’t let you.
These girls are hot trotters.
They believe in trotting when you’re hot
and squatting when you’re not.
And all you believe in is a buncha bananas.
They know how to let the wind
blow thru the wheatfields of their eardrums
and sway the milky stalks of future bread
in a north-westerly direction.

THE TWO HAND ONE MAN TAP DANCE BAND

His name is Banjo Jimbojangles
Ramjam Bambo Jimjohn Boom
and he lives (oh how he lives)
in a house made of brambles.

He has a hypothetical wife
(Goodnight Irene)
a rhetorical kid
(Chicken Noodle Soup)
and a parenthetical guardian angel
(Indian Summer)
who tiptoes in his shadows
everywhere he goes
(and oh how he goes)
from side to side
and here to there
from back to front
and no to everywhere

His name is Banjo Jimbojangles
Ramjam Bambo Jimjohn Boom
what a man
what a typical hero
what a load of fame bait

THE NEW ECONOMY

Fish become the new money of the land, you can buy
a loaf of bread for 2 trout and 3 minnows,
a new Cadillac convertible with all options
goes for 17 million squid plus clams.
A complete set of teeth from a hammerhead shark
will buy you a burger and a shake
at Ruby’s Truck Stop Cafe.

THE NEST OF UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES

The Bald Head Eagle is a left-wing bird
and must be blown out of the sky
before it spreads too many communist fleas.

And when night has fallen
you follow the blabbermouth baby-face soldiers
as they crawl out of the military mountains
and down to the circle of quest fires in the valley

and you enter their bubble gum tents
where over-weight under dogs
are ripping cotton candy from sleeping bags
and chewing on rumors of empty bullet shells

then you flip on the radio
and hear Howlin’ Wolf give the weather.

THE SEVEN O’CLOCK NEWS ON CHANNEL FOUR

The state of Oregon turns into a huge orange
and Florida is trying to become a banana.
Meanwhile Wyoming is just a slide
looking for a projector.

Flying saucers land in downtown Los Alamos
and tiny men in green rubber suits
jump out and say, “OOPS!”

The Golden Gate Bridge sways in the wind
and tips a dozen lumber trucks into the bay
which allows prisoners with lumberjack skills
to escape from Alcatraz by hopping from log to log
thru shark-infested waters.

The Angels of Los Angeles hitchhike down to Manzanillo
for a refresher course in Spanish and refuse
to return until 20th Century Fox has taken over
the entire city and turned it into a multi-million dollar
movie starring Las Vegas and Miami
with cameo appearances by New Orleans and Nashville.

Oklahoma just parachuted from a plane
and landed in Boise, Idaho.

The Mississippi River is strung out
on an overdose of Minnesota
and Niagara Falls has fallen in love
with all four faces of Mount Rushmore

Entire Nebraska cornfields
have enrolled in Harvard University
to study Law and Advanced Banjo Techniques.
Most of them will seek jobs in the diplomatic service
as ambassadors to Arkansas and North Dakota.

The Statue of Liberty got knocked up
by the Empire State Building, but everybody pretends
she’s just getting fat from eating too many
homeless glazed do-nuts and hungry and weary
Staten Island ice cream cones

Hawaii has declared itself off limits
by blasting volcanoes at passing tourist planes

Once in a while Ohio gets jealous of Arizona
and rents out the Grand Canyon for square dances.

Sick from inhaling the industrial fumes of New Jersey
Delaware moves to North Carolina where lightning strikes
ignite entire tobacco fields and nicotine heads
lay out on their lawns and smoke six packs a day
without lifting a match.

Rhode Island snuck off one night
while Massachusetts was watching TV
and was last seen in Norway
creeping towards Finland.

Let’s send Alabama to Israel.
Let’s steal Cuba and stick it in between
California and Nevada.
Let’s wallpaper Texas to the moon
then drop the moon where Texas used to be.
Let’s roll up Pennsylvania in gun powder
and mail it to China as a firecracker.

Alaska heard Canada singing
and pounded on the wall, shouting:
“Keep it down in there
or I’ll come over and stick
an Aleutian island up your ass.”

UNCLE BUDDY’S IDENTITY CRISIS

We knew he was having problems
when we found him in the backyard
fucking a tree.

NO MAN IS AN ICE CUBE

No man is an ice cube
no woman is a moon
no child is a cakewalk
no dog is a cat
no cat is a shame
no mouse is a dreamer
no bird is a word
no cow, no milk.

No pig is a hustler
no hustler a pimp
no pimp a pumpkin
and no punk a joke.

No juke a boxer
no fox a chopper
nose job a popper
no shit a dwarf.

So don’t pump my looba
arooba gatooba
aslooba bazooka
give me a break.

Give me a slammo
a blammo pajammo
and take all your fancy
and fucked-up mistakes
and lickem and lockem
jockstrap and slapem
til they pop out the top
of your milkshake-a-leg.

LONDON POEMS (WILD ROSES)

HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD
stick it up your butt, bobby browning – or why do so many poets harbor so much hostility for the masters who cannot defend themselves?

too much alcohol, not enough grass
too many people running round with bugs up their ass

too many pretty pictures, too many wedding rings
too many artifacts, just too many things

O to be in England
now that Martin Luther King
has been forgotten by spring
and whoever wakes in England
is sure-as-shit glad he ain’t in America

too many covered wagons, too many gatling guns
too many extra-inning games, too many ultimatums

too many Cherokees, too many Choctaw braves
Comanche, Crow and Cheyenne, all in early graves

O to be in England
now that Otis Reddings’ blood
is spilling into spring
and whoever wakes in England
is sure-as-shit glad he ain’t in America

too many broken-hearted lovers whistling in Chinese
come to California with banjos on their knees

too many whiplash experts, too many branded slaves
too many black-skinned babies lost in unmarked graves

O to be in England
when spring has conquered
the grave of Malcolm X
and whoever wakes in England
is sure-as-shit glad he ain’t in America

too many crooners and tin pan alley hacks
too many strippers with whip marks on their backs

too many marksmen, machine guns and grenades
too many bomber pilots in aviator shades

O to be in England
now that JFK is 6-springs’ gone
and whoever wakes in England
is sure-as-shit glad he ain’t in America

too many tattooed muscles with MOM
spelled upside down
too many elbow benders, too many knee jerk clowns

too many cruel machines with far too many dials
too many rubber faces, too many fish-hook smiles

O to be in England
now that spring has sprung a leak
and Jack Kerouac h’ain’t coming back
and whoever wakes in England
is sure-as-shit glad he ain’t in America

too many Hollywood chucks and chicks
too many soaps and porno flics

too many taxi drivers, too many armored trucks
too many hundred thousand million billion bucks

O to be stuck in England
with Roman Polanski
and whoever wakes in England
is sure-as-shit glad he ain’t in America

too many priests and too many preachers
too many untuned piano teachers

too many lawyers, too much leaky lust
too many mayflower maidens with tattered sails

O to be in England
now that Sharon Tate has bit the dust
and Charlie Manson is sleeping on nails
and whoever wakes in England
is sure-as-shit glad he ain’t in America

GENERAL MOTORS MARCHING BAND

general motors marching band
is coming ’round the bend
(the ides of march, the march of dimes)
strutting for a happy end

they got castanets and broomsticks
they got pearls of wisdom shakers
they got shoehorns and popping corn
and other bass drum breakers
(fakers, makers, bakers, ventilators)

just hit the high note, smile for granny
don’t step on the gator’s toes
don’t block the bottle with a cork
just stuff it up your drunk dad’s nose

these are the guys he picked up one night
driving around with a trunk load of dynamite
War? What war? You must be confused
we eat croissants with mustard and bug juice

so let’s crawl deeper down in the mud
let’s bring our furniture along
let’s get it straight: this is your land
and that over there is General Motors Marching band

LOOK INTO THE MIRROR

when I look at myself in the mirror
I see I’m far from home
I see a cow poke corn pone
I see a hayseed clopper of clods
I see a white trash romeo
I see a drum stick turkey boy

when I look into the mirror
I see I’m far from perfect
I see the lumps of ignorance
I see the bags of crime
I see the lines of mendacity
I see historical cracks of time

when I look into the mirror
I see I’m far from you
I hear your bagpipe voice
I hear my ripe reply
squirted thru a drinking straw
into your blinking eye

look into the mirror, woman
you’re far from perfect too
but nothing to compare
with my blindside stare
with crosses on my eyelids
my lashes sealed with glue

JACK HORNER’S BLUES

1. APOCALYPSE IN LONDON

It’s apocalypse time in London
the Thames is high-tiding
into Piccadilly the ghost
of Will Blake is piddle-paddling
around Hampstead Heath
in a rowboat and the god-children
of Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley
are stirring up a pot of beautiful Soup
for the lame ducks of King’s Road

It’s apocalypse time in London
the tubes are running in circles
Big Ben is on strike
and the Tower Bridge is taking a downfall

It’s apocalypse time in London
Oxford Street is being torn up
to make room for a speed skate track
and the holes of the Albert Hall
are being filled
with beatlemaniac bones
blackbird pies and kidney stones

It’s apocalypse time in London
the statue of Eros
is singing in Elizabethan
the Guards of the Marble Arch
are smoking Ethiopium
and the pendulums of Greenwich
are swinging in reverse
taking us back to the bygone ages
of Albert and Victoria
and their flying time machines

It’s apocalypse time in London
the taxis are going out for free
and the British Museum is sinking
under the weight of too many Egyptians

It’s apocalypse time in London
Buckingham Palace is hosting a rodeo
and the queen is sucking the nose of a race horse

It’s apocalypse time in London
I’m staying at the Grosvenor Arms
I’m going in style out the red carpet door
right into the Grosvenor Farms
they got pigs in the poke
and bats in the belfry
there’s sheep in the horse dip
and horse in the veins
of the big junky monkey
and who can explain
the wild goose chase
and the red rooster race
and the chickens lay eggs
by the dozens
and the cows are munching
at Hyde Park Corner
and no one can see
this wig who is me
no one can see
little jack horner

2. THERE’S NOTHING LIKE A ME AND NOTHING LIKE A YOU.

there’s nothing like a rainbow
there’s nothing like a name
there’s nothing like the stratosphere
there’s nothing like a dame

there’s nothing like a Gershwin tune
or a midnight ride in the afternoon
there’s nothing like the Peppermint Twist
or a turtle parade in a swamp-fever mist

there’s nothing like a toilet seat
there’s nothing like a fart
there’s nothing like a load of crap
that gets turned into art

they’re going apeshit at the gallery
over past Waterloo Bridge
they’re ripping down the Picassos
and slapping an open-door fridge

there’s a riot at the Tate, there goes Rodin
he can’t whip his own atomic weight
in London fog and sewer steam
dere go DaVinch, here come de judge
de judge he never too late

there’s nothing like a good old-fashioned
waltz down lover’s lane
you with your shades and dead-eyed dog
me with my glow-in-the-dark cane

there’s nothing like a medium-size
wink in the face of dice-rolled fate
or a triple blink at the red-eyed sun
or a dust ball fired from a cobweb gun

the dolphins are going belly-up crazy
trying to grow opposable thumbs
they’re playing harps and singing a song
in the key of fiddle-dee-dumb
they’re right out there in the Serpentine
drinking freight train whistles spiked with rum

there’s nothing like an angel’s screams
when she gets her wings caught
in the door of her dreams

they’re going for broke on Carnaby Street
the jugglers are tossing in the towel
the gamblers are flipping their chips to the wind
and the post-Raphaelites are on the prowl

there’s nothing like a bowling ball
there’s nothing like a bikini
there’s nothing like a sniff of Old Spice
or a once-in-a-lifetime guarantee twice
or a shot of ice cold turpentine
way down south where the sun don’t shine

there’s nothing like a twilight stroll
outside the London Zoo
and hearing all the animals
remind me of you

3. ORPHEUS AND FRIEND

there’s nothing like a double date
at the drive-in movie show
me in front with my Orpheus pose
and you in back with your firefly halo

“Don’t turn around! Watch the show!”
you say to the back of my head
but I can’t help but hear
your whispering voice
and it seems so clear, so near

and I can’t help but see
the circle of lights
in the dark of my rear-view mirror

ANONYMOUS

you can hear them crying
out on the end of the line
telephone bones growing from earjaws
barefoot toes stuck in sanitary claws

weep on, you laughing liars
down there on the end of the rope
these are the tears, the long-lost years
this is hope what happens
when you’re fresh out of fears

WALTZ

“It took | courage | to meetcha,”
she said in three quarter time
I took her hand
and waltzed her around
and up and down
the bookstore aisles

I guided her to the back door
we tumbled into rubbish valley
good golly miss molly
and long tall sally
we did it like slaves in the alley

AN ENGLISH MAID
for Ryan Zack Scotlander

Gather round, folks, and listen to this
it’s a tale of lust and an old English miss.
T’is England that’s old, and not the maid.
She’s sweet seventeen and never been laid.

You ask her out on a Friday night date
she brings you home and makes you wait
while she’s out in the garden, running around
in a mortarboard cap and graduation gown
and then she comes back with a handful of prunes
a few apricots and a stuffed raccoon.

She says, “Swallow these down. It’s just like a picnic.”
She serves you a drink and it’s hot milk and arsenic
“Your just desserts,” she says with a face.
“We’ve done this before, but I’m all out of lace.”

“I’m restless, you say. She says, “Let’s take a ride
I’ve a Sagittarian bike with a saddle on the side.”
So she drives you around thru the kitchen and the bath
you end up in the bedroom with a good hearty laugh
“How would like to try this on for size?”
and she winds you up in a devil’s disguise

“Would you like to dance?” you ask her polite
she jumps up and says, “It’s just like the night
when I was between sweet six-seventeen
I went to London and danced for the queen.”
She hops around and flaps her wings
it’s the greatest hits from the Rite of Spring.
You steal a kiss, she giggles and gags
and shows you her collection of American flags.
You give her another, she gives it right back.
She’s a statue of Liberty and Liberty’s stacked
You cop a good feel and she loosens her lip
and tells you about her Hollywood trip
and the day she met the great Orson Welles
how they tangoed and sambaed from Heaven to Hell
and how in Havana they met Hemingway
and his foxtrot from hell, they danced from Bombay
all the way back to old San Francisco
where they joined up with Sancho and his sidekick Frisco
who were Bogart and Bacall in Spanish disguise
who said, “Hey, Baby Doll, try this one on for size.”
And they wrapped her up like Brigitte Bardot
and turned her loose with Godard and Godot

And she fell in the arms of God’s Little Acre
where Peter O’Toole had been hired to forsake her.
And Jimmy Stewart would wander around
and look thru her window while she was in town
and John Wayne would do the same
when she was back home with Baby Jane
Then Marlene Dietrich would rush in like a fool
singing, “I’ll go to church and you’ll go to Sunday school.”

You lay her down on the kitchen table
and she can’t stop yakking about Clark Gable.
You slip in your yang and it’s Tennessee
and the trip she took back in sixty-three
with her mum and her dad down to Arkansas
it’s the damndest thing you ever saw.

And when it’s all over, except for the foam
she cuts the cheese and sends you home
saying, “Thanks a lot, luv. At least I got laid.”
and that was your date with a blind English maid.

TRICK OR TREAT

let’s have some fun
let’s get some radium
smear it on our faces
til we glow in the dark

let’s feel some freedom
let’s drink some rum
toast far away places
and defunct amusement parks

let’s get real loose
sniff cactus juice
til our eyes turn green
and our teeth lose their shape

let’s kick up our heels
cut a dirty deal
eat some meaty beef balls
let’s go milk an ape

let’s go steal
a cathouse wheel
hold up a billboard
blow black bubble gum

let’s laugh our asses off
let’s read some isaac asimov
let’s kiss in the draft
til our lips grown numb

let’s go on a spree
a real chivaree
let’s dance in the ozone
till our faces turn blue

let’s crank up the Beach Boys
let’s surf in the noise
of a thousand jets planes
and ten billion kazoos

let’s rip off a tank
let’s blow up a bank
and pollute all the rivers
with LSD

let’s capture a whale
stuff him with nails
and send him out
to spit in the sea

let’s get a piano
and a bag pipe organo
let’s melt them together
and play all the notes

let’s bust a gut
get out of this rut
let’s go fuck a slut
sow some wild quaker oats

let’s run amok
let’s go for the shock
let’s go for the screams
that will fill up the street

let’s start a riot
at least let’s just try it
we’ll make it a cosmic-size
trick or treat

MOONLIGHT AND THUNDER

the power of love
the ignorance of man
can you explain it?
I don’t think I can

the beasts of the bible
and the fruits of the loom
have gathered in silence
to celebrate doom

the rainbows of grace
are falling upon you
can you explain them?
I don’t think I want to

here I stand
face in hand
with my feet nailed fast to the floor
it’s way past time
for some monkey-type shines
tell you taxi to stop at my door

the dreams of a fool
who just wants to fly
can you explain them?
I won’t even try

the lady in the booth
is on a telephone jag
long distance calls to her daughter

she’s got a fish-skin umbrella
and an alligator bag
and the booth is slowly filling with water

the phantoms of freedom
the wild child’s cry
who can explain it?
maybe you, but not I

“not I, not I,” said big chicken little
“not I,” said the big purple hen
they’re just a pair
of devil may care
dare devils lost in heaven

miracles and wonders
moonlight and thunder
who can explain them?
who can stand under?

RED LIGHT

you got your jaw locked around your cheap cigar
a hitchhiker’s ghost lies in the backseat of your car
the radio’s playing an ad for Brylcreem
“A little dab’ll do it!” you begin to scream

it’s a station from the fifties – 1954
“A little dab’ll do it!” you scream once more

your hands squeeze the wheel
your foot’s jammed on the gas
your nose is shooting snot
your eyes are blinking fast

you’re racing for the grave on the far side of the night
that’s what happens when you run a red light

the hitchhiker wakes up he’s not a ghost at all
he’s a brain-dead junkie you picked up at the mall
he says, “Hey man you’re crying.
Is it something that I said?
you say, “My head is spinning. I thought you were dead.”
“Me too,” he says and then he sticks a needle in his arm
and shoots it full of hot sauce hoping to keep it warm

you’re sweating like a winner
the speed reads ninety-five
you’re praying like a sinner
“Get me out of this alive!”

the hitcher starts to laugh, you close your eyes tight
and that’s what happens when you run a red light

the hitcher keeps on giggling, it’s a joke beyond repair
you look into the rear-view but the hitcher isn’t there
it’s a just a grocery bag full of beer and chips
you spit out your cigar,
it’s turned to mush between your lips

your hands jam the horn
your heel kicks the gas
you’re pissing in your pants
the crosswalk zips past

it’s nothing but a blur, a sudden flash of white
and that’s what happens when you run a red light

Now you’re laughing too, hysteria’s on the rise
you look into the rear view, there’s another pair of eyes
you slip on your shades, the eyeballs disappear
and all you got left is a whisper in your ear
“Let’s see you get this crate up to ninety-nine.”
the needle climbs past 101, you see the warning sign

then it starts to rain
you hit an oil slick
you slam on the brakes
spin around until you’re sick

a truck with air horn blasting comes zooming from the right
and that’s what happens when you run a red light

THE SAINTS

and if the saints come marching in
break out the whiskey rye and gin
lift a glass to the lusty lads
the busty babes and their dusty dads

so line ’em up and knock ’em down
let’s drink this place into the ground
as for you and as for me
we ain’t no saints that’s plain to see

and when you’re drunk I’ll drive you home
we’ll screw around with my saxophone
we’ll play the saints go marching in
we’ll do the cakewalk, do the spin
you’ll be my girl of the mardi gras
dressed up in diapers and a maiden form bra
I’ll show you where I keep my toys
I’ll be your bouncing baby boy

so line ’em up and knock ’em down
let’s drink this place into the ground
as for you and as for me
we ain’t no saints that’s plain to see

MOTHER GOOSE CHASE

1. LITTLE DOG

where o where has my little dog gone?
where o where can he be?

I looked in the barn
I looked past the edge
of the old raven’s nest
on the hill past the hedge
I looked thru the leaves
of the black oak trees
I looked thru the acorns
no dog did I see

I looked in the mirror
I looked at the wall
I saw nothing but footprints
of spiders so small
that I needed a glass
to follow a pair
up into a web
the dog wasn’t there

where o where has my little dog gone?
where o where can he be?

I looked in the piggy bank
I looked at the coins
the heads and the tails
the nickels and dimes
I flipped a few quarters
up in the air
I continued to flip
the dog wasn’t there

I looked at the calendar
I counted the days
from May to October
I had a good gaze
I looked at November
and the pictures behind
of snowdrift and snowfall
no dog did I find

I looked at the pages
of a telephone book
I saw nothing but numbers
wherever I looked
I dialed a number
I talked on the phone
the old lady told me
the dog wasn’t home

where o where has my little dog gone?
where o where can he be?

I looked in the pockets
of my faded blue jeans
I came up with some lint
and seventeen jumping beans
I came up with a candy bar
wrapper between
I looked but the dog
was nowhere to be seen

where o where has my little dog gone?
where o where can he be?

I looked at the clock
it was half-past forever
the hands were shaking
and so was the weather
I looked at the sky
I counted eleven
angelic cows
on their way back to heaven.
They said that the dog
dropped by at dawn
he stayed until dark
and then he was gone.
He stood at the window
looking for me
he was looking inside
but no me did he see.
He saw people fighting
he knew they were doomed
one had a fork
the other a spoon.
The little dog laughed
to see such sport
then the cows jumped over the moon

2. COLE SLAW

Nat King Cole
was a singer with soul
and his daughter was even better
she was living in sin
with a man with skin
when she sent me her last love letter:

Old King Kong
played ping pong
on a team called the Fiddlers Three
they all had pipes
and bowling ball shoes
and two of them looked just like me

3. JACK & JILL

Little Jack Horn
lived in the corn
with a girl called Jill
and a bucket of water
along came a spider
a mouse and a fly
and she sat down and killed
all three with a swatter

4. MISS MUFF

Little Miss Muff
had it too rough
with a step-father looking for fun
she was scared for her life
so she carried a knife
and slept with an Amazon blow gun
she blew off the fat
she blew off the fur
a jaybird could not be more nude
she washed her hair
she washed her spare
tire of digesting food
while he stood around
playing the clown
and juggling his balls like balloons
he never looked back
when the spider attacked
he was gone like a greased baboon

5. CINDERELLA, CINDERELLA

Cinderella, Cinderella
look into the mirror
and tell who’s the fairest of them all
is it Bob with his Jaguar?
or Roger with his six ton
six gun, six feet tall?

Cinderella, Cinderella
look into the sky
and tell who the moon looks like tonight
is it Half-Price Ernie?
or Full-Blast Bill
with his full-tilt, tight fist fight?

Cinderella, Cinderella
look into my eyes
and tell who will get the best of you
Is it Loose-Loving Lennie?
or Back-Stabbing Benny?
Or me with my puddle-jumpin’
oil-pumpin, stump-thumping
three-wheel pumpkin built for two?

6. DAISY, DAISY

Daisy, Daisy
you’re completely crazy
you’re nuts
you’re a psychopath to boot

you’re living in the arms
of so many funny farmers
I didn’t think you had a shot to shoot

now you’re all spruced up
in a straight-jacket suit
Daisy, Daisy
does it have hand warmers?

7. MARY, MARY

Mary, Mary, flipping fairy
I like your garden gloves
your shell-shocked nerves
your bell bottom curves
and your list of long lost loves

Mary, Mary, movie scary
give me your promise true
I look beneath
your ice pick teeth
and I know I can’t live without you

Mary, Mary, call me Jerry
call me the Cat’s Pajamas
with your pockmarked face
with your rats all a-race
and your banjo from Alabama

Mary, Mary, very bewary
how does your garden grow?
with Chuckle Berries
and suck-a-duck cherries
and suck-a-duck luck on death row

so give me a break, give me a bucket
and I’ll take you back to old Nantucket
give me a nickel, give me a dime
I’ll take you back to Palestine
tell your step mother, your father in law
I’ll send you back to Moose Jaw
Mary, Mary, get out of my way
I’m going back home to Moonlight Bay.

8. LONDON BRIDGE

London Bridge has fallen down
and popped back up in Arizona
its next stop might be New Orleans
or maybe Barcelona

9. SHE CUT OFF THEIR TALES WITH A CARVING KNIFE?

three blonde mice, three blonde mice
see how they ruminate, see how they germinate
see how they hate
there’s nothing like a dame
to mess your mouse
and keep your rooster tame

four dog sleds, four dog sleds
see how they raunch, see how they hunch
see how they eat lunch
looking for the prize
in the bottom of the box
of their cracker jack supplies

two mute lutes, two mute lutes
see how they duet, see how they do it
hey, there’s nothing to it
just a baroque state of mind
a couple of bubbles of juicy fruit
and God’s Sistine Chapel concubine

five live chives, five live chives
see how they dive, see how they drive
it’s a 4-wheel pick-up
with a floor-shift box
we haul wet potatoes
we haul organic rocks

ten little eenie meenie, tiny little moes
see how they holler if you catch ’em by the toes
and if their skin turns black, hey
take them out the back way
and if their eyes turn to jewels
give ’em shades and 40 mules

six slide rules, six slide rules
see how they calculate, see how they intimidate
if you need to investigate
a crime or crying shame
stick them in your arm pits
and see if you’re to blame

open up the slide barn door
chase out a slide
stick your fingers in his ass
take it for a ride

take it for a fool
take it on a date
go to slide rule school
go until you graduate

seven baby barbarians, seven baby barbarians
see how they trash, see how they smash
give them a car to crash
give them a round of applause
and if they start to pinch
give them lobster claws

nine thin dimes, nine thin dimes
see how they march, see how they mime
you can never get enough of their spin
it’s all heads and tails and somebody wins
you can never get enough of their flip
this Roosevelt guy is taking a trip

eight shaved slaves. eight shaves slaves
see how they bald, see how they build
wiggled and giggled, appetites fulfilled
there’s nowhere to put them cause they each a-piece
weigh 16 tons and are a covered in grease

a thousand funky junkies, a thousand funkie junkies
see how they smack, see how they crack
with monkeys on their back
they prowl around the zoo
looking for salted peanuts
and gorillas to screw

one wild child, one wild child
she how she dreams, see how she sun beams
she’s a real big shout
she’s a scream, she’s a howl
she’s got them rolling in the aisles
and slapping their jowls

she’s a laugh a minute
she’s a joker, she’s a card
she’s punch-line believer
a tickle from afar

so come home, Madonna
knee caps and all
we need you for the sacrifice
up against the wall

we need you for the photograph
we need your family smile
“We cut off her tail with a carving knife
that was our one wild child.”

10. ST. IVES

On the road to St. Ives
I met a cat with seven lives
how he lost the other two
he told me as we traveled thru
John Bunyan Canyon of Lost Disguise
he used to be a dealer of eyes

On the road to St. Ives
we came to a place that had one name
John Donne Dairy of Hot Milk Hill
we had some cheese and chess, one game
I lost the first, he took my arm
and rushed me back to Hot Milk Farm

On the road to St. Ives
we came to a place unmodernized
Chaucer Caves, the bats fly free
at twilight, folks, from one to three
ticket takers, brickyard layers
biscuit bakers, pool hall players
gather around these Chaucer caves
we’ve got Milton Molehills saved for later

On the road to St. Ives
we came a place with merchandise
Shakespeare Market Place, cavalier leers
cod-piece liverwurst and Danish beer
Al Jolson mirrors and merchants of sleep
from Venezuela and Camelot sheep

On the road to St. Ives
we came to a town called Jumpin’ Jives
The John Cage Inn was full of drunks
we jumped right in and jived like punks
we chugged and lugged a bottle of wine
and back on the road there was no white line

On the road to St. Ives
we came to a place they called the end
it was three-feet wide and littered with knives
it was two-feet deep and closed at ten
we got inside the gate by nine
and upon our hands we had nothing but time
we tossed a couple of hours away
we killed a few minutes by losing a day
he showed me all eight of his last nine lives
I never got back on the road to St. Ives

11. THE OLD GREY MARE

tickle me, tickle me, tock
the mouse ran up the clock
and the old baboon
by the light of the moon
ran off with a fork and spoon
and the old grey mare
with her auburn hair
ran around with the strap of a jock

shake me, shake me, shout
the rats ran off with the loot
the five little pigs
grew up to be bigs
and ran all the way home
to a bucket of bones
and the old grey mare
lost all of her hair
and ran off with a balding brute

12. POP THE WEASEL

you’ve heard about the cobbler’s bench
you’ve heard of the painter’s easel
but have you heard the latest word
of the man they call Pop the Weasel?

Pop the Weasel goes bump in the night
Pop the Weasel goes wild
and if you get hit with some weasel spit
it’s Pop the Weasel, my child

lawn mowers run on gasoline
and dump trucks drive on diesel
some folks say the only way to go
is ape with Pop the Weasel

I once had a girl of my own
I once had the German measles
But I never did buy a pie in the sky
or go shopping with Pop the Weasel

13. POSTSCRIPT

I tell them once, I tell them twice
I tell them all the time
you never can tell how much is enough
with a Mother Goose Me rhyme

I tell them here, I tell them there
I tell them once in a while
I tell them all in a true blue voice
in the Mother Goose Me style

I tell them fast, I tell them slow
I tell them in between
and end them all with a fancy fart
and a Mother Goose Me scream

USED CAR

some people drive a Pontiac
some people spend more cash
and cruise around in an Oldsmobile
while I ramble around in my Ogden Nash

some people drive at fifty-five
others pass by in a flash
I don’t give a fig for a speedball rig
while tooling around in my Ogden Nash

some people go for the distance
others go for the dash
mine’s got a wheel, a clutch and a brake
it’s a second-hand Ogden Nash

some get a thrill cutting corners
others go for the whiplash
but I’m satisfied just taking a ride
in my convertible Ogden Nash

some cars are built for dragging
others are built for the crash
but I wouldn’t trade for money or honey
I love my used Ogden Nash

HUMMING BIRDS WITH BROKEN WINGS

PREFACE

Apes to wild roses bring
Hummingbirds with broken wings
Butterflies with bitter sighs
flitter by & try to sing

William Blake, Incognito

LOW LATERAL THINKING

test tube babies on the tip of the tongue
tumbleweed tom boys, tummy thump young
tickles and tackles and teddy bear tracks
tuba tomfoolery and unticked toe tacks

trumpet taboos and thievery fever
this is the twilight of ladders and lifts

lovelost lifelines, limits and leaps
left with loose ends and loggish laments
lemon lip lust and laplanding luck
lateral thinking and lincoln log trucks

no more lies and liposuck flowers
this is the end of progress and power

gravity, grouch, grumble and grind
who’s got the grouse by the greasy behind?
groans and gulps and ghostly grins
gasping like goons at the grass on her chin

pompous and pimpled, purple and praised
just a pot of puppydog paws on parade
pilgrims with peppers and piglatin poems
ping pong predicted, past and postponed

popeyed, pop weaseled, popcorned and paid
pipsqueaked on pills, too puzzled to pray
too pocketpooled to paddle, push, pull or play
pump up a prelude, a pinnochio pause
this is the last page of those books full of laws

LEWIS CARROLL REVISITED

he thought he saw
some scrambled eggs
lying on the table
he looked again
and saw it was
a picture of Clark Gable

he thought he saw
the eyes of god
blinking over Gent
he looked again
and saw it was
the glasses of Clark Kent

he thought he saw
an event upon
the horizon of his mind
he looked again
and saw it was
an old Venetian blind

he thought he saw
peyote buds
growing from his toes
he looked again
and saw it was
the neighbor’s garden hose

he thought he saw
a mushroom
growing from his pants
he looked again
and saw it was
a reason for romance

he thought he saw
a familiar face
deep inside the looking glass
he looked again
and saw it was
his high school chemistry class

he thought he saw
the chemistry class
blowing up the school
he looked again
and saw it was
a drop of bloody drool

A YOUNG PERSON’S GUIDE TO ROCK ‘N ROLL

go went the green light
race went the rats
run went the treadmill
welcome said the mats

bumble went the bee’s sneeze
grumble went the gravy train
snork went the aqualung
“beef” went the rain

rumble went the schoolyard
slide went the fishnets
“Weird” went the wolf
flush went the jet set

buzz went the crew cut
fuzz went the cops
after went the image
“Wait!” went the bus stop

pop went the weasel
“Cob” went the corn
“Diesel” went the dike
“Hung” went the foghorn

Tang went the dynasty
hang went the rope
Bing went the Crosby
“Dang” went the dope

“Grudge” went the neighbor
“Gnash” went the teeth
Mick went to Jagger
and Richards went to Keith

bubble went the bathmat
double went the dice
“Shoot” went the shit
“loop” went the splice

gulp went the jukebox
“Twang” went the fuse
“Pull,” went the socks
“Full,” went the shoes

“Pock,” went the mark
“Pig,” went the whistle
we all went to pot
“Apostle,” went the epistle

“Boot!” went the leg
“Lick,” went the spittle
leap went the frog
“Chicken,” went the Little

Froggy went a-courtin
“Wrong,” went the riddle
“Fun” went da mental
“Fuck,” went da fiddle

“Me,” went the Tarzan
“You,” went the turn
Jane went to school
“Book,” went the worm

the teachers went, “Learn!”
the preachers went, “Pray!”
the prayers went, “Please!”
the weepers went away

the smilers went, “Cheese,”
the grabbers went “Mine!”
“Honk,” went the baseball
“Grape” went the vine

“Snooze” went the choosers
the sneezers went “Pollute”
“Click” went the clocks
“Toot” went the mute

“Plug,” went the nickel
“Half,” went the moon
“Dandy,” went the lion
“Laugh,” went the loon

“Chip,” went the monk
down went descend
“Chop,” went the sticks
“Stop,” went the end

POSTFACE

Such sights I saw ‘twould make you weep
Such dreams had I ‘twould make you sleep
in peace, such music I have heard
Such thunderous chords & wond’rous words

William Blake, post mortem

RYHMES FOR RYAN ZACK

PRAYER ONE

lord have mercy, lord have fun
hand me down my 12-gauge gun
open wide my 12-page bible school
lord have mercy, don’t be cruel

lord have pity, don’t be shy
hand me down the golden rule
lord don’t mumble mugshot threats
lord B-I-B-L-E cool

WHIRLWIND BLUES

whirlwinded, shadow boxed
turned out to pasture
with a herd of turtle pox

wasted basket, truck dumped
torn of out of life
like the pages of a book
dog-eared, spine-broken
wheel-spoken, cycle clopped
pop top gobble gook
torn out of life
like a trout mouth fish-hooked

whirlwinded, slam dunked
traffic jammed and jelly junked
glass jawed, belly buttoned
gas gutted, candy clawed
briar patched chicken wired
torn out of life
like a ringing telephone a-fire

DAME FAME

she’s a big sloppy kiss around your nose
she’s a rose tattoo and a gold kazoo
she’s a blue 12-bar jew harp string
she’s a swingband rubber boot
kick back flute

she’s a french fry fag with a greasy lip
she’s a tiptoe truck and a lame brain duck
she’s just pure luck in a grab bag game
it’s the same old joke
jump back poke

she’s a hole in wonderland, gimme your face
she’s a rainbow chase on a clam bake scam
she’s glow worm weather, she’s a chain smoke feather
she’s ice cream corn
slam spam porn

she’s an ace high flush with a chance of rain
she does the dance of doom in a drain pipe dream
she has a point of view and a point of port
in a pork barrel polka joint
oink oink oink

so be very careful my fine feathered friend
or be very feathered when you come to the bend
in the road to Hog Heaven where angels do dance
they know how to paddle
row-row-row-mance

WARNING

bomb the buggers
grab the goobers
and stuff the flagpole stars and scars
right up their butter bags

we’ve had enough dip-stick diplomacy
it’s time to get tough and touchy
masculine and muscular

so move over, miaoow
tell ho-boy the news
we’re pissed off and peevish
we got leatherneck balls
and garbanzo bean brains
but that ain’t gonna stop us
from stomping your anus

this ain’t no slow gravy boat to China
this is a Ray Charles Atlas muscle beach
we’ll bust your meat and beat your gums
send you back to Arkham, chums

UNCLE SPAM

it’s the same old webfoot wobble gobble
rabble babble
bubble bath
clap trap
laughter math
myth map
face slap

it’s the same shit and slave
aftershave
spit and shine
tell me bout the woman
hanging on the clothesline

it’s a buster gutter
stutter rut
flutter by
bloody eye
muddy nose
daughter slaughter
some farter got her
with a snot full of water

it’s a looney toon ghost town
and most of all a show down
with clownish thugs
and pimpish plugs
and the snaggle-tooth
horn snoggled
bug-eyed goggled
juggled shruggled
all the way from soup to nuts
from shanghai to shangri-la
come and shake the hand
of BABY UNCLE SPAM

SOMETHING

something came along and came
was it something you could eat
or something you could drop
into the pockets of your brain?

was it rain? was it snow?
did anybody go and take a look
out the window, in a book
they’ve got lists in there, you know
they go from hope to ethiope
from zebra stripes to xylophones
from garden tools to family jewels
side-swiped by love
a swarm of guilt in a velvet glove

did it come from somewhere up above
beyond the pale of Jack and Jill
the moonlight glow, the sleeping pill
did it ring? did it blow?
did it come from somewhere down below?

PILGRIM’S PROMISE

I don’t want no muffin brain
I don’t want no smoggish heart
no marble muscles
bass drum bones
no hair of melting
ice cream cones

I don’t want no thuggish thoughts
I don’t want your muggish mood
your sleeping pile smile
your apple pie slap
your flipjack tongue
your fat lip flap

I don’t want your monkey money
I don’t want your gopher guts
you can keep your pilgrims’ promise
shove it up your greasy butt

no birthday cakes with snorkle candles
no nervous doors with high strung handles

I don’t want no lava bed sheets
with their soapish sleep and soupish dreams
I don’t want your lipstick luck
your face ski lifts
your radio dial genes
your thumbtack touch
your slow track schemes
I don’t want no fast buck fever fuck

AVATAR BABY

it’s springtime in the rubble
it’s high tide on the moon
who said boo? who said bomb?
who said, baby, who said boom?

who said Buddha? who said John
the Baptist won’t be round no more
no more water, no more want
no more dunk the dope, señor

must be a simple slapstick trick
to get those dirty dimes in line
and march them home like April fools
to the jukebox drum beat double time

it’s stars and stripes forever, boys
send it up the pole, salute
what’s this footprint in the cash?
must be my milk-soaked cowboy boot

must be my avatar baby toes
my bare-ass string of oil wells
who said boom? who said bomb?
give me back my jingle bells

WEEPING WILLIES

you can hear them crying
out on the end of the line
telephone bones growing from earjaws
barefoot toes stuck in sanitary claws

weep on, you laughing liars
down there on the end of the rope
these are the tears, the long-lost years
this is hope what happens
when you’re fresh out of fears

PRAYER TWO

lord be nimble, lord be quick
hand me down my candlestick
lord look over yonder wall
toss me down my cannonball

lord be lazy, close your eyes
love me for my breakneck ties
love me for my shotput style
and for my forty-minute mile

lord be loving, love be kind
love me for my messed-up mind

ANTELOPE SHOWDOWN

hung out to dry on the antelope slope
what you need is some antelope dope

antelope fun with an antelope gun
shoot and watch the antelope run

tickle your antelope, give him a poke
go ahead, tell an antelope joke

when in Rome do as antelope
go to the zoo, see the antelope pope

eat a bowl of antelope soup
join a musical antelope group

gag your mouth on antelope hope
fill your gut with antelope cantilope

get dressed up in antelope wigs
cut the rug, do the antelope jig

wash yourself with antelope soap
hang yourself on antelope rope

echo hide and jeckle seek
come on down, it’s antelope week

PRAYER THREE

slum lord be slow
don’t come around
let me sleep late
let me sleep sound

slum lord be kind
don’t ask for cash
the check’s in the mail
and the mail’s in the trash

slum lord be cool
the rent is not due
you skipped a whole week
in fact you skipped two

slum lord be nice
don’t walk down the hall
be even nicer
don’t come at all

SLAP THIS MAN

1.
And who is this freak in the mirror
I’ve never seen him before
face hanging out like a wet paper bag
eye to eye, I can’t look no more

tongue sticking out like old wallpaper
nose turned up like a long-lost pup
ears poking out like gas chamber doors
I can’t look no more, I’m giving up

so give that man a rubber band
give that man a dish
give him a dynamite stick and a match
slap that man with a fish

take that man back to California
give him a bucket and a blackberry patch
give him some dirt and a shout in the face
let him start over from scratch

2.
Put this dog on a leash
I don’t want him eating at my table
I don’t want him looking at my TV
he’s wild, he’s dumb, he’s barely able
to tie his shoes, to zip up his pants
I don’t want him polluting my life
he’s a mess, he’s lecher, a dirty old mutt
I don’t want him messing with my wife

so give that dog a rubber biscuit
give that dog a bone
give him a cigarette and a match to match
dig that dog with a stone

take him back to Baskerville
give him a book and a bag of meat
keep him locked behind a fence
keep that fence away from the street

3.
So who is this freak in the mirror?
I don’t want to know him
I can’t stand his smile
his teeth look like stalactites and mites
his tongue is frozen
around the words of the bible

So give this man a statue of Jesus
give this man a sack of rocks
his eyes look like Winston Churchill’s
give him a pair of Argyle socks
and send him back to the Scottish Highlands
send him back to the kilts and the clans
give him snakeskin boots and matching gloves
slap his grin with a Japanese fan
slap his chin with a watch-strapped wrist
slap him again with a bunched-up fist

I don’t want this man
prowling round my room
slap this man
with a soft neck clam
I don’t want to hear him
howling at the moon
slap this man
with a California tan
I don’t want to see him
licking my spoon
slap this man
with blackberry jam
I don’t want this man
taking my turn
slap this man
with a can of worms

DOPPELGANGER

A twin walks within me
I don’t know his name
is that you, Brother Zack
gazing through my membrane
tasting this spaghetti
these refried chili beans?
are these your tears dripping from
the chimney of my chin?

Is that you, Brother Zack
fucking up my life
sneaking in between the sheets
and fucking with my wife?

ZACK’S ZOO

over there, over there
that’s where we keep the rugs of bear
the jukebox fox, the jampot lamb
2-packs a day of chain-smoked ham

3-eyed tiddley wink, the 4-wheel drive
polecat penguin, aardvark bee hives
the long-lost llama, the tourniquet goose
the monkey wrench and the loose fur moose

over there, over there
that’s where we keep the strawdog hair
the turtle tonsils, the tiger tongues
the bull frog horns, the buffalo dung

over there, over there
that’s where we keep the blowfish air
the alligator shoes, the crocodile tears
the chipmunk robes, the zebrasierres.

the shoe polish kiwi, the spitting iguana
the pet milk piglet, the mule from marijuana
the chevron pony, the jaguar car
the easter seals and the tuna fish star

over here, over here
this is where we keep the human gear
the pot luck bellies, the birth book marks
custard’s last music stand
all those national trailer parks
the pip squeakers, the fast mouth freaks
the duckass holes, the cheese-squeezer cheeks
the aunt and uncle eaters
the armadillo picklers
the rubber band ticklers
the mutants with beaks
the ordinary, voluntary
fools of cooking schools

we’re blind as bats
and pole vault cats
and we hide behind our riddles of rules

we hide inside our forest of fears
lord have mercy on our tears

THE HOMECOMING KING

My friends don’t stay
they spend the night
with sheep dippers
in the Cascades.
I drive in and out
of Portland
looking for yellow page
mechanics to fix my muffler
while an old girlfriend
drops by my motel
to make up for lost time
but I’m not at home
I’m out running around
looking for beer and chips
and she leaves a note on my door:
“I think I’ll spend the night
in the Cascades dipping sheep
I hope you don’t mind
try to get some sleep.”

Is this the homecoming I expected?
T’is not. I wanted open arms
hugs and kisses, hits and misses
maybe a roll in the hay
under the Tum Tum tree
while a big blue jay
does his Jabber walk
up one side and down the other.
Maybe say hello to my mother.
hello, mom, what’s shaking, mater?
see you later, masturbator
drop by and shoot the shit
with Slob at the do-nut shop
go down and bowl another one-twenty
stare at the girl with the French chop
she’s got a friend with a beehive wig
makes her six-foot forty
and one ton big
I think I’ll go for the French chop
or better yet I’ll bring them both back
for a late-night snack
to the motel called The Maniac’s Scream
and we’ll all go to school on busted dreams

Is this homecoming I desired?
T’is not. T’is but a scandal
French Chop’s in the shower
Beehive’s taking off a sandal
I’m pouring the drinks
I’m dumping the ice
my hands are shaking
neither girl is nice.
Their mouths are full of lies
and pink bubble gum
Their fingernails have eyes
their bellies are slums

Beehive works at the Seven-Eleven
French Chop down at Hair-Do Heaven
One’s eighteen the other’s thirty
can’t tell the difference
they’re both hot and dirty.

Is this the homecoming I predicted?
T’is not, t’is but a farce
jump in the car, take off for the hills
dip some sheep, forget about thrills

PARTY TIME PRIME TIME

every night I turn on the tee vee
just in time to see the leap frogs
looping out at me
licking my brows
parting my hair waves
and spitting images into my high balls

who invited these lamb choppers into my room?
these horse feather farmers
these pig whistlers
these goose bumpers
these deerskin jerkers

and who’s going to clean up the mess
they leave on the floor
and who’s going to wipe the walls
and deck the halls
with Buddy Holly autographs

get lost you cocker sucking spaniards
you mother frenching bread and bacons
you gopher hole ranchers
you mole hill gazers
you wonderful, weird and wild dalmatians

A BUCKET FULL OF BURNT OUT CANDLES

I’ll be the last of your Mohicans
I’ll be your Thomas Wolfe
Natty Hawthorn, Erskine Caldwell
Mailer, Miller, Virginia Woolf

I’ll be your Johnny Appleseed
I’ll be your Davy Crockett
I’ll be your bullet-scarred Alamo
I’ll be your pickety pocket

I’ll be your drunken Baudelaire
your punk of lumpen gravy
I’ll be your war of roses
I’ll be your foreign navy

I’ll be your Studebaker
I’ll be your tabasco sauce
I’ll be your popular mechanic
I’ll be your Jack in the Boss

I’ll be your Billy the Kid
I’ll be your Winnie the Pooh
I’ll be your Sam Spade and Mike Hammer
I’ll be your teenage tattooed Jew

I’ll be your hot rod ranger
alone and without Tonto
I’ll drive to Tijuana in my pick-up truck
and learn the English word for pronto

I’ll be your hot potato
I’ll be your spud of dreams
I’ll be too hot to handle
you’ll have to carry me around
in a bucket full of burnt out candles

I’ll be your Yehudi Menuhin
I’ll play your priceless fiddle
I’ll tell you jokes from off the street
and put our life in a riddle

where have all the flowers gone?
where are all the people?
where does Thomas Pynchon live?
am I a church? are you a steeple?

THE GREEDY, THE PEOPLE
(in memory of e.e. cummings)

they’re flooding Glen Canyon
and man is back on the warpath again
stabbing himself in the back
cutting his throat
as he sleepwalks across
mother nature’s backyard
for indeed this canyon
and all its side canyons
and its cottonwood trees
and it’s eagles and its memories
of paradise will soon be under
hundreds of feet of mud
never to be seen by human eyes
for another 40,000 years
how stupid we are, how blind
but you don’t know what this means, do you?
you’ve never been to Glen Canyon
you don’t even care
it was just a sidebar in a renegade newspaper
just one more canyon and we do need
the electricity (as they say)
for what?
to shave our daily beard
(keep those wild hairs down and dead)
to heat the kettle of water
to make another cup of tea
while a campfire by the river
is all you really need
to power the fingers of heat
in an electric blanket
I’ve seen prototypes
of electric toothbrushes, electric
scissors, bottle openers, can openers
and of course we’ve got to keep the juice flowing
cause we’re addicted to TV, we’d just roll up
into a blob of protoplasm without that big
flickering eye to pray to morning
afternoon and night

walking down the streets of a California town
at dusk
TV lights flickering in every window
everyone plugged into their set
like an appliance
they flooded Glen Canyon for this

NONE OF THE ABOVE
(for Bird)

is it slander? is it slime?
is it shadow? is it last night’s
powder puff floating thru the light?
is it fear? is it love?
none of the above

is it ripe? is it right?
do we have half a chance
of dancing in the moonlight?
drinking from a rusted cup?
is it lust? Is it love?
none of the above

is it maybe? is it money?
an avatar baby in the lady bug patch?
bib overalls
and peasant perfect shawls?
is it funny? is it love?
some of the above

MAN MADE CAVES

man made caves
and filled them with children
who grew old
waiting for Christmas
then he made
a wheel of fire
which he sold
as a New Years resolution

when man moved
into his house
he thought
he could move mountains
all he moved was his mind
into the next room
where it lived
making a phone call

WHIZMO GIZMO

whiz went the gizmo
blink went the vagabond
“Whachamacallit,” said Doo Hickey
burp went the blond

bump went the bass drum
snarl went the snare
eek went Albert Einstein
equals m c squared

tickle went the sniper’s tongue
“Pass the salt,” said Stud
“Tough,” said Sawtooth Picks
“and thick as mushroom mud”

west went the wind
and easy went the shipwreck
thingamajig went thingamabob
and gag went Gregory’s peck

whoops went the mousetrap
blank went the censor snips
click went the telescopic
megentropic fingertips

rain went the weather
poof went the powder puff
fizzle went the pizzle
Sawtooth Picks said, “Tough”

bingo went the bishop
the witch waved a wand
burp went Baby Jesus
“Jesus,” wept the blond

BELLYACHE & BLUE

mangled & tangled
nerves all jangled

laughed in, flipped-out
feeling like a drain spout

funny farmed, rubber roomed
looking thru the bars
like a fat old full moon

whole hogged, bull frogged
looking like a straw dog

tom thumbed, dumb blond
beating on a meat drum

bo-peeped, cheap thrilled
cheap tricked, deep drilled

bug stung, liver chopped
waiting for the nose drop

stoned aged, back paged
dunce capped butt slapped

moon shined, boon docked
heat wave two-timed
crime busted, sock hopped
hack & sack & back stopped

shack packed & both sides buttered
exhaust piped, drain guttered

sleeping bagged, shopping carted
sprayed by tar on the edge of the spit pit
slipped on a peel hit
a bingo bonanza banana split
blubber on the fingernail
don’t say shit

white knuckled, bat buckled
fumble toes, crumpled nose
weasel popped, corn poned
all called out on a long-distance sousaphone

spam-crammed, body slammed
slapped on the happy pan
yam jammed, dream damned, technicolor blind
all strung out on the black crow scare line

termite dynamited
chugging on a bug bite
pit stopped, crop dusted
looking for a spit fight

ruffled & shuffled
mug all muffled
snout with a teabag
flea bag nostrils

slobbered & jabbered
blabbered & bungled
send the boy back
to his joy in the jungle

WILLIAM BLAKE IN IMAGINATION

If I were wise
t’would be a sham
I’m not a wisdom-
-type of man

If I were God
I’d build a sky
and fill its rooms
with things that fly
things that cry
I’d save for later
crocodiles and alligators.
I’d take an ax
and hammer a hole
and let out all
the mice. The moles
would be my guide
thru the apple core tunnel
in the Garden of Eden’s
ghost train ride

Did you ever see
a monkey do
what a human could
but never thought to?

If I were free
I’d shout and sing
take off my wig
and flap my wings
Alas I’m chained
I’m gagged and bound
I’m tied down tight
staked to the ground

If I were a Genius
I’d figure out a way
to make the sun
shine Every Day
and Every Night
I’d make it shine
upon the Moon
from Eight to Nine

T’were I to go
among the dwarves
I’d wear foot buckets
and blindfold scarves

T’were I to camp
in the Land of the Lame
I’d hop around town
on a white candy cane

If I were a child
with half a brain
I’d rule the world
with a bucket of rain

I’d need a broom
and a bathtub drain
I’d have a lot
of dirt to explain

If I were rich
I’d spend it all
on spider webs
and crystal balls

They’d toss me back
into the pool
like some old fish
some fishy fool

If I were sagacious
t’would be a lie
I’m not a sagacity-
-sort of guy

METAPHORIC METAPHORS

SITTING STILL LONG ENOUGH

if you sit still long enough
you can see the body
heal itself
the knife cut in my finger
yesterday (no big deal)
is already starting to heal

if you sit still long enough
you can see the sun set
you can see the moon rise
but to see the flesh wound
heal itself
you have to sit longer

about the time
it takes you to notice
the hour hand
creeping around
the face of the clock

they’re all there
the sun, the moon
the clock, the finger
in slow motion
all you have to do
is sit still
for a day and a night

and don’t blink

the flame burns down the candle
the air escapes
from the red balloon
the sun and the moon
revolves
the earth rotates
don’t blink

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
WHILE COOKING A SPAGHETTI DINNER FOR TWO

it’s just an ordinary chore
like watering the whores
and taking the spiders for a walk
and unbending the doors

just a thing or two
I have to do
like filling the holes in the floor
with airplane glue and bubble gum

things like teaching my thumbs to run
and letting my teeth talk to my tongue
and taking out a sack of bones
and planting the garden
with their moans and groans

reading a newspaper
filled with notes
the music they make
sounding like goats
feasting on car horns
and radio static
and the silence that follows
is half-automatic

and half-improvised
with oboes on top
and drums down below
playing a line
of deaf and dumb bop
with reedless oboes
and drums without skins
beating out the rhythm
of a church-drop pin

or going to market
and picking out spice
that heats the throat
then turns it to ice
onions and courage
garlic and hope
the top of the cane
a tug on the rope

and then we are flying
over the trees
picking up fruits
and squeezes of cheese

perfumes of peppers
and wiggles of pickles
tomatoes with bellies
pregnant with tickles

or buying tickets
to a game with no name
played by maniacs
who all look the same

measuring the weather
with soft sonic booms
predicting the future
with smoke and gas fumes

just a thing or two
I have to do
like trimming the hairs
from the noses of roses
and drawing a map
for a blind kangaroo

nothing outrageous
everything subdued
like a game of poker
where the jokers are nude

nothing too fancy
nothing with frills
the last on your list
if you’re looking for thrills

trivial deeds
of everyday life
like cooking spaghetti
for my everyday wife

CLOVE LOVE

the dentist chair
the taste of cloves
he drills
the pain spills
over the taste
of cloves

I chew the carbonara
bacon melts
into the lingering
fingernail of cloves

I brush my teeth
spit the aftertaste
of cloves
down the drain

I wake in the night
who took my cloves away?
I rummage in the drawer
I like the taste
of peppermint

STORY

I’ll tell you a story
what is it about?
it’s about six o’clock

A METAMORPHIC NOD IN THE DIRECTION OF OVID

it starts with a smile
and a sunrise
thru a high window
of the Coliseum
a beam of light
like a spotlight
on the arena
behind my back
where Ovid sits
strumming his harp
I turn around
he’s gone
the last note dangling
in the air like the PONG
of a dopplered ambulance siren

it ends in Piazza Navona
past midnight
I see him standing
knee deep
in the fountain water
peeking out from behind
the hinged joint
of the Nile’s knee
water cascades down over his head
and all I can do
is manage a grim-lip nod

he emerges from the fountain
a 12-year old boy
holding a soccer ball
he kicks the ball
high in the air
it grows wings
and flies away
over my head
he doesn’t even notice me
as he runs past
towards a gang of boys
smoking cigarettes
gathered around
a blonde American
tourist girl in a short dress
and sunglasses
who keeps repeating
in a tiny whispery voice,
“La Dolce Vita . . .
La Dolce Vita,”
while the boys
flick zippo flames
at her lipstick mouth
and chant
in solemn bass tones
like priests before
a sacrificial lamb
“Mari-lon Mon-rowa
Mari-lon Mon-rowa!”

CHAUCER? THUMBS UP!

you go to school
in America
and England too
(probably)
and you get all these names
stuffed down your throat
you’re told over
and over again
that these are the great
writers, it’s a brainwash
a scam perpetuated
for centuries
by hoodwinked goofs
who want to keep their jobs
and maybe go for a PhD

they don’t give you a chance
to go out on your own
to see if it’s true
or not
they just stuff it down
with authority,
“Shakespeare is the greatest
writer of the English language.”
bullshit
Shakespeare (and I hate
to give him the honor
of repeating his name)
was a hack
a sack of flack
a used condom
full of jack
leaked out onto a page
a pop star of his age
that loved his flim-flam
as we love the scam
of prime-time TV
“Let’s go see
a sitcom poet’s
tragic cliché
with no better actors
than you or me.”

ENGLISH

how did I ever
learn this impossible
language?
in one ear
and down to my fingertips
I spell it out
cross my teas
dot my eyes
distinguish between
crow and grow
town and thorn
you and me
how did I ever
learn to speak
these wonder words
that wiggled thru
centuries upon
centuries of mutations
cripples and droolers
rhymers and rulers?

it could have been
“Non lo so, non sono
un medico, io,”
it could have been,
“Il etait une fois,”
it could have been,
“Ich bin ein Berliner,”
instead, the flavor
that runs off my tongue
with only the dim pulse
of a brain cell explosion
is, “What the fuck.”
and, “Got change for a twenty?”
and, “I can recognize
a two-hinge door
from a three, and don’t
tell me Easter
is any less
than the first Sunday
following the first full moon
after the spring equinox.”

ROME

people have died here
millions of people
some by accident
some by determined intent
some by their own volition

can you really know
what it’s like
to live here
without facing
a circle of knives
a circle of fire
or a lion as it leaps
from its cage and trots
towards you
jaws slavering
claws curling
you tied to a post
wrapped in a burlap sack
as a crowd of thousands
all around you belch out
adrenalized cheers
of pure ecstatic delight

can you really know
what it’s like to live here
until you’ve fled
to the sanctuary
of the Spanish Steps
where the soldiers
of the inquisition
can’t touch you
where you rot for days
and nights among beggars
thieves, cut-throats
and prostitutes?

until you lie breathless
on the floor of a cellar
where leaking sewage pipes
spill their puddles of waste
around your trembling body
while Mussolini’s thugs
stomp around on the floor
above you with lead pipes
in their fists, shouting
your name

otherwise
it’s just a postcard
an overnight stop
on a 2-week tour
of famous European cities
a resting place
for a week
for a year
for ten years
before you push on
to Crete
or Alexandria
or Tangiers
or Atlantis
or some other place
where people have died
by accident
by determined intent
by their own volition
by the millions

THE BEAT SHARPENER

he had the beatest up
old shoes you’d ever seen
splitting away at the seams
he came to the door
selling his ability
to sharpen knives
“Scissors too,”
he had a footpedal grindstone
and a flayed rope held up
his pants, his shirt was missing
buttons top and bottom
and a few in between
he was the beatest scene
you’ve ever seen

and as he sharpened
he began to preach
tolerance and respect
divinity and patience
hope and love
compassion and trust
“Be all these things
and be them you must
but one above all:
you must be tough,”

then he stabbed me in the back
I screamed in pain
he said, “Don’t complain
it’s sharp enough.”

MORALITY PLAY

who said we had to be good?
God, misspelling his name?

Santa Claus? it’s all the same
to him, a carload of dope
or a bagful of toys
a child’s innocent prayer
or a noseful of noise

Plato? “Or else
I’m coming to town
and turn your mind upside down
with a few brain-pinched opinions,”

Smokey the Bear? And that’s where
everybody laughs, “These crazy
talking animals
where do they get them
have you ever seen anything
so crazy at the crazy zoo
after they go crazy in their cages?”

The Ancient Mariner? with his
boatload of ghosts
and his bandersnatch bird
with his jabberwack walk
and his tum tum tree of words

Robin Hood? the pride
of the poor, the misfits
the homeless, the whores
the fools, the stool pigeons
the crooks, the kindergarten
dropouts who’ve never seen
the inside of a book?

wait, I know. It’s the Sheriff
of Hanging Rock
with his 2-fisted
gunslingers, they shoot
down every bad boy
in sight, socks
or no socks, losers
or winners, better watch
your step, sinner

GREEN DREAM

then we did it
right there on the dance floor
with the spotlights greening down
thru the dense jungle foliage
palm trees swaying
to saxophone breezes:
I told her I loved her
and she told me
she loved me more
why didn’t someone tell me
I was asleep that I’d have
to wake up in the morning
and go about my daily business
of eating and shitting
while doing my best
to hang onto the wispy memory
of that dream
and losing it
piece by piece
burp by burp
with each yawn
with each ring
of the telephone?

LOVE POEM FOR BIRD

to see you smile, to see your eyes twinkle
my teeth feel funny and then my mouth laughs

and to hear you laugh – Belgian accented laughter?
I get doubled up inside and start talking to myself

and to be alone with you for hours and hours
and to forget you’re there, forget myself too

to wake each morning and hear you walking around
in the kitchen, makes me want to get out of bed

to dance like A dragonfly, to dance like a turtle
I’ll do anything to waltz, foxtrot or shuffle

to know that you know we are bugs in a rug
and if we were smaller we’d crawl into each others’ pockets

to follow the lines you mark out with song
I’d walk to hell and back to be by your side

to love you like I do and be loved in return
is more than I can comprehend

to be with you in eternity?
my heart leaps at the thought

MUSE SLAM

we forge ahead
we can’t turn back
we beat the odds
we please the gods

we trick the muse
she laughs amused
we love the laugh
we talk our half

we flip a coin
it comes up heads
the fine lines fall
we take them all

she flips the coin
it comes up tails
she swallows her laugh
takes back her half

DANCE

nobody said anything
why should they?
they all looked
at each others’ mouths
some were open
breathing hard

then someone said nothing
and everybody’s ears
opened wide to listen
to the sound
of a snapping finger

the finger snapped again
and again
and soon everybody
was snapping their fingers
and tapping their toes

and before the night
was over
they were all up
dancing madly
in the light of the moon
to the music
of total silence

TRAPPED IN AN UNDERGROUND CHAMBER
FOR FOURTEEN HOURS
WITHOUT LIGHT OR COMPANIONSHIP

I had a bag of lollipops
I had a few ideas
about the fate of mankind
I had nothing but doubts
about my own sanity
and eventually I proved
the necessity of a higher
power, call it god
call it a ladder
and climb to the top
stick your head
out of the hole
and fill your eyes
with the darkness
of a million and one nights

I had a good grip
on the knife in my pocket
it had a blade
that could open bottles
but I didn’t have a bottle
it had a corkscrew
so I made holes in the dirt
with the corkscrew
but I didn’t have a golf ball
or a golf club
so I couldn’t play
miniature golf
so I played Stab the Shadows
with the big blade

I had a long conversation
with myself
it was so boring
I fell asleep

and when I woke up
a dozen people stood
around me in a circle
they were smiling
and laughing
their eyes were glowing
and so were the halos
around their heads
“Is this real?” I asked
“Of course it is,” they said
“Can’t you tell the difference
between yesterday
and today?”

MENDELSSOHN

I’ll give you one guess

Beethoven?

wrong
these are butterflies
with strings attached
to their wings
being strummed
by the west wind

and those heavy notes?

Schubert?

wrong again
those are the footsteps
of wild horses
wearing bedroom slippers
climbing from caves
and trotting into
the field where your dreams
are growing

and those voices?
don’t even guess
it’s just the rain
dripping from leaves
onto your head
while you stand
under the oak tree
wondering if you’ll get wetter
if you run as fast
as you can
or just stroll casually
thru the mudpuddles
spread around you
like lakes
all reflecting
the changing faces
of the sky

SACK OF CASH

give me some of that hot money
candleflamed dimes
blow-torched silver dollars
crispy Ben Franklins
scorched around the edges

you know my heart burns
for a Frankfurter Deutschmark
with a splash of mustard
a spicy Spanish peseta
with pickles and peppers
a French-fried franc
with onion rings
and raw garlic
a curried quid
and a dozen glowing guilders
fresh from a double Dutch oven

I’ve got an appetite
for bread
my gut rumbles
for spondoolicks
I’ll swallow a sack of cash
and shit out the change

PROPINQUITY

1.
I didn’t need you
until you drove away
in my car with the backseat
full of my clothes
and a dozen books
that were gluing my life together
and keeping it somewhat
in balance of course
I should mention the woman
in the front seat
who had a knack
of tuning the radio
to a station
that was just about to explode
with the latest hit
from a yodeling cowboy

2.
I didn’t know you
until you sailed away
out onto the ocean
dancing the mambo Italiano
and bumping butts
with Sunday sailors
and getting excited about
all the ways of saying,
“I love you,”
in 19 different languages
including dwarf and deaf mute
some illustrated by gestures
obscene and others
by murmurs obscure
I saw you from the shore
waving flags
that spelled out
“What’s cooking?”

3.
I didn’t want you
until you walked out
into the night and never
came back with a bottle
of booze they said
you shared the whiskey
with the railroad boys
then you took off south
down into the desert
riding the boxcars
like a bum

4.
I didn’t miss you
until you flew off
and left me holding
a gooseneck lamp
a Batman comic book
and the wishbone
of a Kentucky Fried Chicken

by the time I finished
the book and the bone
you were in another costume
climbing a molehill
and driving everybody crazy

5.
I didn’t want you around
until it was too late
those curses in Coptic
had to go, Gnostic
blasphemy is not my cup
of blood, to say nothing
of the little dog
that kept jumping up
and biting off another
fingertip, when I was down
to nine I said,” Take
my toes,” but the critter
ignored the pigs and went back
for my last thumb
that blew it
I boiled the dog
and fed him to the vultures
in the backyard
they liked the dog,
“That’s the last straw,”
you said, packing your pockets
with credit cards and cash
and chasing a fire truck
into the next block
where you climbed the ladder
to a window
and disappeared
into the flames

I can’t believe you’re gone

WOLF GANG

square nickels
and pyramids of pennies
in my pocket picked
down to the threadbare
ticket, toothpick
and change for a twenty
buy your cigar rolls
in packs of thin ice

you said, “I can’t do this
I skate on stilts
I’m a fat hopping copycat
and these are dog’s prices,”

bark me up a wolf gang
growl me down a fang bang
the girls are crying
I smile with a curveball scream
and I’m gone with a wink

CRUCIFIXION

nail on the head

hit it again
knock it down
deep in the heart

tap it on the jaw
Moses said he saw
the parting of the waves
when the loop of his long hair
leaped and the razor
slashed and shaved
and he became a slave
to the man in the mirror
a trip for two
into his vast interior
it shaped his face
and curled his nostrils

nail in the head
hit it again
hammer it thru
the flesh and the wood
and into the world
Jesus said he stood
and watched the nail
puncture the balloon

and that’s when everything
deflated
and swooned and fainted
got dated, de-railed
doomed and failed

and it’ll stay that way
for centuries
until the guy wiggles free
puts on a tie
and goes off to have dinner
with his mom

TIME TO TURN

there is time to turn
always time to turn
from the blindman’s bluff
from the needle’s never enough

from the joker’s rib poke
from the unpractical joke
from the conceited concern
there is always time to turn
from the novel’s last page
from the steps to the stage
from the final chord
of the Hesitation Waltz
from a heartbreak kiss
in a wide-open street
from a dead-end trip
to a lover’s limp lips
from the brassy, bloody beat
of the marching band’s feet
from a string-tripped trap
from a back-folded map
from a clouded concern
there is always time to turn
from the giggles and the grins
of the girls who play with whims
from the door they left unlatched
from their shadows unattached

from a mumbled wedding vow
from a fall beneath the plow
from under the crushing tires
or a net of electric wires
from a shrug of no concern
there is always time to turn
from a ringing telephone
from a clock’s night-locked tick
from where you think you stand alone
behind a wall of bricks

HUMP, THE SCHOLAR-WARRIOR

he came from a long line
of scholar-warriors
“That’s what they say
about the Hump,” he told me
his full name
was Garrison Granville Humpolder the Third
and he went to Harvard
when no one was looking
then he went to Vietnam
to command the troops
and the troops commanded him
and he came out of the jungle
unscathed, unscratched, untouched
of course he never went in
he spent his entire
6-month tour of duty
in Japan, living with
a jazz saxophonist in Kyoto
drinking beer for breakfast
and prowling the whorehouses
at night, “We had a ball,”
he said, while thousands
of American boys
were getting their asses shot off
none of them with a father
with enough money
to buy them out of the jungle
and into a geisha brothel
a thousand miles away
“I picked up some karate too,”
he boasted, “and I spent
a lot of time with the Zen masters
picking up their wisdom.”

he was the biggest buffoon
I’d ever met, crawling around
Florence like a stuffed
and bloated insect looking
for “Eye-talian chicks,”
in every nook and cranny
“Where do they hide ’em?
under those nunnery robes?”

and why did he have
to latch onto me?
I was just minding my own business
floating with Botticelli’s La Primavera
in the Uffizi when he came up
and told me about the long line
of scholar-warriors

what was the long line?
a clothesline perhaps
with dozens of tiny wooden
clothespins sticking up
like he was sticking up
with a clothespin up his ass
trying to hold the wet sheets
of his inheritance in place
while the wind whipped them
around his face

I felt sorry for him
and I paid the price
of my pity
he stuck to me like a dirty
roll of scotch tape
he had to show me
the palazzo in Fiesole
he was renting
he had to introduce me
to his team of servants
the cook, the chauffeur
the gardener, the procurer
who brought him a different girl
each night from the bordellos
of downtown Firenze
“Join me,” he said,
“we’ll get two and have a ball,”
he wouldn’t let me refuse
I took my girl into the library
and read to her from Dante
si lunga tratta
di gente, ch’io non avrei mai creduto
che morte tanta n’avesse distatta
later I lied
and told the Hump
“Yeah, we had a real ball,”
or could it be
that I was thinking
all the time,
“Maybe he’ll slip
a few thousand bucks
into my pocket
for just being nice
and listening to his
idiotic drivel?”

JOUBA JOUBA, THE SUICIDE DOG

wait’ll you hear
about Jouba Jouba
the dancing dog

on second thought
forget it
you don’t want to hear
about a dog
that does the mambo
while her owner
plays a toy xylophone

that whistles
“Bridge Over the River Kwai”
while marching around
in a circle
on her hind legs
saluting a flag
on the back of a child’s wagon
pulled by her owner

that wipes away tears
with a front paw
when her owner tells her
her mother and father
were just killed
in a train wreck
then hops up and down
and does the twist
inside a small hula hoop
while Chubby Checker
sings a song
about last summer

that dog probably has a brain
like a dart
she’d like to plunge it
into her owner’s heart

you don’t want to know
about a dog like that
it would make you so sad
you’d feel like hanging yourself

THE IMAGINARY STORYTELLER

once there was
and once there was not
a storyteller who sat
on a 3-legged stool
milking a cow
and entertaining
a ring of school
children, their first
visit to a farm,
with a tall tale
about a boy
who cried wolf wolf
so many times
that he turned
into a wolf himself
the ending was obvious
his father came out
with a gun and shot
him dead, the children
began to cry, afraid
of the storyteller
who now had 3 legs
just like his stool
and the cow he was milking
was not a cow afterall
but a hideous, prehistoric
beast with fangs and claws
a real monster
a living nightmare
and the children screamed
and ran away

and the monster turned back
into a cow and in the snap
of a finger the storyteller
had only two legs to stand upon
and having finished
his chore he took the bucket
into his house, where he sat
down with his wife and poured
the milk over the Cheerios
in their bowls
“Damn kids showed up today,”
he said, “had to scare them off
with my imagination.”
“Wolf wolf,” said his wife
and the storyteller
lifted his chin
to the moon-lit ceiling
and began to howl

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN HORN
for Bird

1.
from Rome to Venice
and back to Rome
pulling straw from my beard
unlocking my door
and climbing the steps
to the open window
room where a glass
of red wine
glows on a marble
table top reflected
in a flaking mirror
“How was the trip?”
the train was a maze
of luggage and tramps
fever swamp views
and punched tickets
with a flourish
“Did you see the man”
I saw men
I saw women
I saw Pennsylvania
Dutch tourists eating
pistachio ice
but I did not see
the man with the golden horn
I did not hear him play
his golden notes

2.
from Rome to Florence
reading Po Chu-I
writing about Lao Tzu
speaking 5000 words
and saying, “Those who know
do not speak,”
and back to Rome
“Did you see the man
with the golden horn?”
I saw the man
with the golden arm
and 5000 fingers
I saw the man
with the golden jaw
singing 5000 words
a mile a minute
I saw the back
of Lao Tzu
but I did not see
the man with the golden horn
and I did not hear
his golden whispers

3.
from Rome to Paris
and back to Rome
from Marble table top
to sculpted iron balconies
and back to brood
I did not see
the man with the golden horn
the man with the golden skin
played his face
and fingers
I saw the tower
of monkey-climb girders
I saw the church
with the rose flower windows
I saw the river
with its history of perfume
I saw the City of Light
“But you did not see
the man with the golden horn.”
what can I say?
pulling feathers from my beard
sipping from the glass
of red wine
and staring at my speckled
reflection in the dusty mirror
the man with the golden horn
is never where
he says he will be
“You’ll see him someday.”

4.
from ruin to ruin
and back home again
I saw the man
with the golden horn
he was crouched
in a corner
of the Spanish Steps
I heard him play
a song of Spain
a song of sorrow
a song of the rain
I heard him play
from ruin to ruin
from backstreet to doorway
from shadow to noon
I heard him play
from salvation to sin
I heard him stop
I heard him begin
from silence to sigh
and back home again

SLAVE’S SONG

they should have put me in charge of the horses
I knew how to let them run free
I knew how to whistle and make them come back
I knew which locked door needed which key

I knew the mistress of the house
I knew the path into her garden of reeds
I should have been in charge of the breeding
I knew all the seeds, and the seeds she would need

I took out the mail, I mailed the letters
stopped at the market, came back with the fish
I cleaned out the kitchen, cooked the meal
put fried onions and oysters in every dish

I dabbled in science, invented the rod
that holds up your pants while preventing nods
of the head, and if need arise a shake
or a shock of electricity to keep you awake

I dipped into magic, mysterious cards
they told me the fortunes of strangers who came
to sit at my feet and pray to the stars
they were not all perfect, they were not all the same

I moved the stars, I rolled the coins
I read the palms. I cast the charts
I studied the pages of the Ancient Rhymes
I read the Book of the Ancient Signs

I played my harp, the metaphysical chords
they formed like a storm of clouds confused
I stretched the strings, I made them wail
I gave up my heart, my bones to the blues

they should have put me in charge of the country
I would have ruled out politics, war and rage
I could have saved mankind from its heedless fall
but what can a fool do locked in a cage?

THE BOOK OF ANCIENT SIGNS (1)

look! here’s a page
don’t turn it, read it
swallow it, feed it
into your guts
let it simmer
let it bubble
let it twist your eyes
until you see double
two of every thing
two of you, two of nothing
two of two

then turn it
or tear it out, if you please
let it go with the wind
let it ride on a breeze

it’s got a fever
it’s got the blues
it’s only a page
of yesterday’s news

THE BOOK OF ANCIENT SIGNS (2)

welcome back to page twenty-two
you cannot stay here for more than a day
your curls and curves
your maps of confusion
labyrinth directions
they’re all turned away

they’re all turned around
the cups and the coins
the swords and the clubs
five golden rings
three men in a tub

the wheel of fortune
the fool on the hill
you’ve stirred up the forest
the men from their caves
the crocs in the swamp
the stars in the sky
the eyes of the dead
from their organic graves

and right on your heels
on the back of your face
is page twerty-three
and it’s taking your place

THE BOOK OF ANCIENT SIGNS (3)

ecstatic grins
on faces of gnomes
on the spout-open mouths
of the gutters of gargoyles
the legless stone worm
geography of coils
he carries a bucket
from the well to the mouth
of a pontifical orator
up from the south
all will be damned
none will be saved
to run the annual
speed freak marathon
all will be cursed
none will be praised
no one will finish
the marathon race

and when they take off their masks
that hide the faces
that hide the skulls
grinning gnomes
carved teeth gone dull
it just gets worse
more gloom – just more of more
so close tight your eyes
and turn to page twenty-four

THE BOOK OF ANCIENT SIGNS (4)

stonedworked, arched
the ancient cathedrals
the floor plans for worship
rose windows for prayers
the pilgrims’ statues
they catch you, they hold you
they wrap their fingers
in your hatless hair

here’s where you find altars
vaults and domes
virgin mary blowing down
kisses to her baby astro-gnome
joan of arc lighting
a match over straw
see her go down
tangled in law
in blame and no blame
see her rise up
in a pillar of flames
from one pile of molecules
to another, we sneak
out of the shadows
our skulls full of leaks
we’re hungry, we eat
we can’t say our names
but nobody asks
and nobody claims
you signed an agreement
to rent your soul
to the local establishment
it was a two-page ad
for a three by four hole
a kitchen, a toilet
two floating bathtubs
a bed and a half
only one thin dime down
for the first two weeks
then a free day for all
to riot and speak

but then you sign
a lease for life
this is not a good move
you’ll eat up empty
speaking the lines
written by Judge Reason and Rhyme
to which all juries approve
you’ll end up wishing
you never heard
of the Ancient Book of Signs

THE BOOK OF ANCIENT SIGNS (5)

for indeed it came to pass
that sign language flourished
and was passed around
and down to generations
of foul-mouthed creatures
who could not utter a phrase
without injecting an “Ugg!”

and so it came to pass
the lord became genetic
and stuck the UGGs
in with the Fs
who stuttered and procrastinated
every time they encountered
a footprint in the sand
“Where the F are we?”
“On F Street.”
“Oh, oh – here come the UGGs.”

and indeed it came to pass
the UGGs moved in, took over
the city council, voted in
their cigar-slobbering cronies
and they slobbered around
for centuries

but centuries are not forever
for it came to pass, indeed
that new breeds of sound
were breaking ground
down around the lake
planting seeds and ideas
painting their faces
their skins, the walls
of their cavehome halls

and it came to pass, indeed
these new breeds
who were waiting for a sign
were touched by fingers of lightning
and thunder erupted from their mouths
ME – YOU
BLACK – BLUE
GO – STAY
NO – GO
YOU – STAY
YOU – GO AWAY
YOU GO TO HELL
I’LL GO TO POT
I’LL WATCH THE GAME
NO, YOU WILL NOT
and so forth and so on
right down the years
out of our mouths
and filling our ears
with punctuated sounds
and fractured lines
and writing them down
in the Book of New Signs

THE FOOL’S JOURNEY

PROLOGUE

I.
Who can imagine
the solitudes he wrapped his arms about
smiling to beat the bone?
The deep delicate delights
he chinashop-bulled thru
on his way from zero back to one?
The black cat bites his achilles
heel suffered as he tumbled into oblivion
the black cat nibbles
tickles that made him tremble?

Who among us can imagine
the world he’s many times
marathon’d ’round, the multitudes
of mobs he’s surrounded
in his innocences of gullible youth
and the wisdoms and foibles
of his centaurian age
which sputtered and frizzled
like fireworks in the eye
of a beached whale?

The saxophonic songs
he sang to the slippery slap
of foot beats as he stomped
out the sixtuplets
with his triplet feet?

Where hasn’t he been
in this wide world of wild molecules
of tree leaves and meerkat burrows
of chilly winds and sea breezes
of faces friendly and fierce
of roots and clouds?

Can you imagine
his visits to the Mystery Mountain Man
the Harper of the String-Strummed River
the Old Tree House Man and the Desert Rat
in his sand-filled trailer on the edge
of an abandoned Peyote oasis?

Can you imagine the dances
he danced in the twilight of a summer solstice?
the Third Leg Waltz?
the Twentieth Century Foxtrot?
the Gentleman’s Jig?
the Double-Shuffle Hornpipe
and the Pigeon Wing Polka?

What did the Magician say
when he danced into the ring of horseshoes
playing pin knuckle raking Phoenix Parkleaves
whistling Pixieland and dealing iced dice
while his esclavolites performed
the gathering of the hides

What did the Hermit do
when the Fool knocked on his door?
Did he hold up a lantern
and allow it to cast a long shadow
on the cavern floor? Were proclamations
of manifest destinies proclaimed
and un-believingly obeyed?

Did he catch The Wheel of Fortune
rolling thru the Rye? return riding
a dead man’s donkey left high and dry
on a mountain of Touch-Me-Nots
saying “I’m hanging three sheets to the wind
with a starlit crown of jeweled thorns.”?

Did the Hanged Man
tell him stories of sinking ships?
Predict death by water?
Show him the pearls that once were his eyes?

Did he climb the Falling Tower
before it fell as it was falling after
the flood and before the revolution?

Did the Lovers teach him choice?
the Moon, the Sun, the Stars, the World
patience of reflection?
the secret of perpetual motion?
the measure of light-time & space?
mysteries of Mother Earth?

Did he ride the Rocky Road
in the Chariot of Fiery Desire?
The sandy path to the ocean shore?
The cart-rutted lane to the Orchard of Apples?
The stone-paved highway to the City of Towers
the horses foaming as they trace-labored against
the whip in the hand of the leather-clad maiden?

Who can guess the up and down
the above and beyond thoughts of kings and queens?
Who can imagine the rumor murmurs he stirred
when he walked among the Tight Wadders
wearing only a robe of mockingbird feathers?
Who dares compare the lightning
that destroys the Tower with swift swords
of Rogue Rainbows each time he calls out
“That’s a load off my mind,”
with the thunder that rules the mythobiology
of the Doomed Cities?
Who can begin to begin to understand
the power of positive winking when the chips are down
and the Oracles have their backs to the wall?

II.
Sing Fool!
the miracle of rise and shine
the drama of falling light
that shatters darkness at the speed of telepathy
and vaporizes crushed snow and melting ice
upon a meadow of turf ‘n peat
to reveal the frozen remains
of an amusement park wheel upon which
skeletons of lovers are still riding

Sing! Fool! Sing!
the muscular music
of tambourinos and tattle toms
of percolating pianos
and piccalolo hoboes
of flutterflutes
and gypsy fiddle faddles
that pluck flat feathers
and sharp dipsy doodles
from thin straw and dust-moted air
of horn pips and bag o’lanterns
of cello vibes and altosoprano bazookatoons

Sing us a flurry
of Mendelssohn sixteenths
a Monteverdi double whole note rest
a string of Stravinsky balletic grace notes
a trill from a Beethoven cadenza
a J.S. Bach fermata
a Perry Como dotted eighth
a Bartok string quartet pizzicato
a Scarlatti periwinkle
and a Gesualdo whiplash
pluck the rope that rings the bell
and tell us a tale of again and again.

Sing us the staccato
of Shakespherian rags
the Sturmvurm und Drangtang of Teutonic rage
crescendos and vivaces of Etruscan jug bands
and adagios of Venetian glass bubble blowers

Sing! And calm us
with waterfalls of joyous tears
and the laughter of cuckoo clocks
of barnstorming lightning licks
down piston rods of horse-powered
harpstrings into the drive shaft
ground bass of Holy Purcell
the cantocantabiles of beluted Dowland
and the madrigaloons of fig leaf Byrd

Sing in Browning browns
and white caps of Coleridge
in the thirsty thorns of Ambrose Bierce
and the hawkwinds of Jeffers
of Oscar Wildroots
and Walt Whitmankind
Be generous and sing
the Lost Chords of Donne & Chaucer
Sing Blake in memoriam
the Marriage of Heaven and Hell
and the Daughters of Albion
Sing the lure of the limerick
the puzzle of the pun
the riddle of the bards
Sing the shadows of El Greco
the skies of Van Ruisdael
the skins of Vermeer
the landscapes of Bruegel
and the myopia of Monet

Sing of the algebraic perfumes
of vanished Arabia and the tarnished golden
dream boats that sailed to El Dorado
of solid state memories in the stonehinged
megaliths of ancient Albion
and the Gilgamesh Express
that racketed from Babylon to Avalon
thru Aragon and Mogadon
thru Celteberian and Aurignacian
past the Delphic Oracle and into
Joycean blooms in the Land of the Formoreans
Sing news and midnight blues
in the Twice Eleven Cantantostrophes
of your thimblerigged journey
pluck the rope that rings the bell
and tell us a tale of again and again.

Sing Muse Lover! Sing Butterfly!
Sing, Fool, Sing!

THE FOOL

The adventurous fool
the fair maiden seeker, the limitless light squeaker
the piecemeal feaster, the lavabed quencher
the monkey wrencher, the tailbone twister
the cat-bitten legster
comes begging at the heart strings’ door

He shows up
riding in on a truckload
of wetback watermelons
the boys set up him at the bar
with a barrel of beer
prop him on a trestleboard
and tap him on the head
“Take a tip and drink up
– tip that cup with a tongue of fire
– let down your weight rings
and drown ’em in a Tub of Desire”
and so he trims his tail
he glows in the dark
he stops thriving to look beyond
the horizon and keeps his peepholes
plucked and popped in a bucket
of superstitious-flavored candy

The spider lash girl
chases him into her hot wethouse web
and she comes on like
cream of corn and steam
fucking starry-eyed and whistle-slick
she bloats his void pumps
in the blink of a muscle
until his walnuts come unscrewed
and her idea of love equals less
than low tide waves rolling up
on a beach of tired sand prints

He turns in his badge
and his gun he turns on
his cold water tap
he calls to the pigeons
that live under the roof
that flap at the dust
with wings of fleas

He punctures the tires
of the bandwagon
as it rolls past his door
on a breadcrumb trail
he says, “Come take a look
take a big fat look
it’s nothing but a bag of blues
a hook with a gap.”

He lies on his back
and looks into the 5th dimension
into a sky filled with miniature rainbows
he says, “Take a look beyond the clouds
take another look
the clouds are uranium dust
and the sky is on fire.”

He tootles his ALP horn
tuggles a low E from the void
and as it echoes over the valley
feels the vibrations in his toes
it rises tips his toes
out to the edge of a hanging cliff
over which bull-whipping drivers
of ancient covered wagons
sent their pioneers to death far below
piping on bags and thumping drums
as they rock rolled and tumbled
into the Devil’s Orchestra Pit
where Plato’s Ragamuffin Timebound Band
plays nightly from dusk to dawn
and twice on Sundays at high noon
“One step and you’re a goner.”

White rose in hand
he reaches for a butterfly
and is about to step over
into the timeless life of eternity
when Cat clamps its teeth
into his sock holds him in place
“That was close, Cat,” he says.
“This way, not that,” says Cat.

THE MAGICIAN

He opens the door of his house
this Mystery Man bootlegged
from way over when to eternity
this architect of all shapes and sizes
this surprise this transformer
of Mud to Magic of Monday to Sunday
of Water to Wine and Back to Book
“Pick a card,” says this Magus ” – any card.”
The Fool picks the deep down yellow joker
“Your card,” says the Sleight of Hand Man
“Hold it up and let the light shine thru.”

The card turns into a pane of glass
“Look again,” says the Lemniscate Man
jingling his shake bells and the Fool looks again
the card has turned into a mirror
‘Rise above it rise until your meet
the Juggler who says ‘As Above So Below.'”
The Fool wonders at the shy stained-glass sky
beyond the half-moons of his fingernails

Ouroburos-belted Il Bagatto
leads the Fool into his garden red rose roofed
“Pick a flower – any flower.”
The Fool picks a Bouquet of Wands
“That’s you.” He gathers Timeless Talismans
and Opus Magnums

“Pick a number
– any number” The Fool rolls the dice.
The One of Pentacles. “That’s me,”
says the Pentagrammatical Man.
“Roll again and pick yourself.”
The Fool rolls again they come up
Infinity Ribbons with Roses Wild

The Master of Ceremonies
opens the garden gate “Pick a path,”
he says. “The Fire Spirit Flame Loop
The Water Specter Trail
The Demon Air Wave
The Ghosts of Earth Way
– they all lead to the same place.”

The Fool picks
The Fool goes.

THE LOVERS

With his faithful cat following
The Fool paths out and down
into the wilderness of a thousand and one twilights
where vapors of sage and scented bubbles of lavender
loom up from the damp earth at twilight.
“I need one of those,” he lusts
flapping a figged finger
at a loose-hair nextdoor maiden

“This where I belong,” he moo coo’d
sliding down the slicks
with Miss Good Pleasure
living up in the sticks, grinding out the tricks
living in a sweet and sour gamble arena
with a grab bag of static
“Wherein the cycle do we drop like a dish rags?”
and “Why in the clouds do I live to be alone?”

But that was Then and There
and this is here and now he wants to need
a love in other dimensions
a prolonged and framed devotion
in the harmonic style of a blindfolded temptress
who will rate high on a scale from one thumb
to ten fingers from four and twenty blackbirds
to the three of queens
when they gather round the jackpot
to cook a cup of pages
from the Book of Perpetual Hunger
“I’m always heaven sent for an honest low rent starve.”

So They bring in Madameve
the Laughing Lady from the Fun House
who will take him to Jeromarusalem
the Lady of Orange Hair and Fast Lips
who will walk his dog
skin his cat and grease his wheels
who will bake his cake and eat it too
who will promise him a garden of 4-leaf clover
and cultivate a patch of wild and wooly tumble weeds
who will teach him a few fancy slyfoot uptown steps
and save the best of her moves
for private moments with herself
and Casanuba’s Seventh Son
she takes him to the car wash
takes him to the Believers
where they roll out a rug of sanctified blob
and expect him to demonstrate
a couple of advanced foot taps on the way
to the house of Babanova
“Wherin the chapter do I meet my faithful sinner?”
“And why bring an egg to a picnic of blankets?”
She treats him with care, she gloves him around
she fragiles his spots with splashes of glue
no one can tell or practically predict
the path their four-legged body will unfold
he piston pumping in the rhythmic summer
he dragging mopes in the wrinkles of winter
he lethargic loping in the leapfrog spring
then he falls from her eyes
she gathers up their footprints
and puts them in a box with other faded flowers

He turns the corner of a glass brick wall
which fails to keep the high jumpers
and pole vaulters from mingling theme songs
in acts of mule-brooding miscegenation
or maybe even mating with mirrors
and there stands Hermes the Hermitical
the Triad of Trismegistus
the Druid of Grimchildren
“This is no laughing matter,” says the Hermit
“This is no picture to hang on your wall.”

THE HERMIT

To the door of the Hermit’s hut
the Fool in gold comes knocking
filling the doorway with shade
twice he calls
and on the third he stops
to launder the hem
of his dog-turded robe with dew
the rust and the stain
of finger-flipped dimes
the dust and dynamics
of a thousand wandered miles
thru worried wastelands
and sword infested battlefields
along quicksand shores
into and beyond scandal monger cities
and up onto Ragged Rock Mountain

The blind healer of the hut
appears lifting a lighted lantern
above the reach of probing
thought-provoking shadows
fingers itching to touch
feet shuffling to dance
upon the rock a two step
three step (two plus one) waltz
lopsided heart beat waltz
lame foot goat boy extra limp waltz

“Hast thou come on a pagan’s quest?”
Love I’ve squandered in the splintered nest.
“Hast thou traveled the Rocky Road?”
From Ramble to Reptile and back to Toad.
“And hast thou cowered in the dark shroud night?”
Blast your eyes, I speak without spite
without twist-twinkled tongue on fancy spit.
“OK – how many and where (without bulls of shit)
cross-eyed challengers did you meet?”
On each muddy mile of each chaptered street
One was faceless, one had skin
one was faithless, lived in sin.
“Did you see the one with the lipless grin?
with nerves of steam and teeth of gold?”
He held what I could not behold.
“Did you grumble as you grieved
on what you could but not believe?”
My hands were thirsty, no appetite
they would not grasp, they would not bite
“Did you fumble as you did weave
a coat without a tattered sleeve?”
I scratched a match and had to burn it
“I am not the Authentic Hermit.”

The Hermit’s humpchested brother
Twin crawls out of a barrel dog-headed
with a wooden staff between his fangs.
He barks “Put two and two together
and you’ll come up with six of one
half dozen of the other.”
Does that include your pulse mother?
your nom de plume and you lumpback brother?

Twin rips off his doghead
and snarls “That’s all we need – another
manifestation of undisciplined enthusiasm”
His face divested of the leather head with glass eyes.
is familiar: Look – Yes – See- it’s that son of a witch
You step on those you cannot drag
deny the ones you cannot tag
It’s that quarantine shirker, the bustatube lurker
he drinks his tank of crumplehorn daily
and consumes his weight in corn.
“Do as the Hades Gods bids us do – the Gaia Gods too
go to your dream cup and stir up the stew.”
I hate to lay me down to sleep
I stay awake, worry and weep
“Do you lie where sleepers have slept?”
I often remember what I’m s’pposed to forget
“Go to your room and take out dreams!”
Is there no way out of this circular theme?
“I am apt at amnesia when it comes to your smile.”
But wait til you see my door closing style.
“You wouldn’t dare I’m the lip biting dog.”
Get out of my hair go back under your log.

Head of leather back in place
tail between his legs Twin creeps back
into the wine-soaked hogshead.
“Don’t shut the door, I’ll have no light.”
Darkness is suited for those who love night.

The Hermit lifts his lamp
and views the barrel shut-tight with scrutiny
“He wouldn’t have bitten, so throw down the staff.”
Your jolly dead ringer was a barrel of laughs.
“He did his best, he did his worst
considering he was born with a lazy eye curse
a fork in his mouth, a mote in his eye.”
I never got close to knowing the guy.

The Hermit shrugs, shuffles
back into his hut, the Fool follows
the mountain path down to the City of Gold
where folk wander round aimlessly
in unprofound stillness
A maiden carrying a basket of fruit
steps out of a tent and holds out a peach
She doesn’t stay to watch the juice roll down
and drip off his chin.
A drooling fool is not on her agenda
of Queen for a Day deeds.

THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE

The Wheel of Fortune rolled
across the ground, a merry-go-round
tilted on edge, gathering speed
as it spindled over corn fields,
dandelion pastures and buttercup meadows
as kidnapped Quakers held hostage
by Inquisition High Jack Jinxers
hovering in hot air balloons
looked down and sighed to see
the Fool chasing a bulldozer
with a shepherd’s crook, a fisherman’s hook
hoping to catch a ride on the rustic rollercoaster
by hook or crook he hopstepped and jumped
thru a hoopflop and dumped into a mineshaft
to top a menu of Neanderthal Soup
Cro-Magnon Meatballs
and Prime Rib of Slave
only to emerge many Sundays later
as the atavistic drug lord of the Mojo Road Warriors
with their horde of wild boars faithfully following
“Barbarians! Oh the Barbs!”
“Oh the bald tag teams!”
“The anecdotal antediluvians!”
“The No-Neck knob bods!”

The Farmers locked their doors
boarded their windows but could not keep
their love daughters from slip-sliding
up the chimneys and out to the roustabout parade
“Oh the tattoo’d brutes! Oh their horned helmets!”
“Their biceps and triceps and strutsteps!”
“Give me their grits! Give me those bouncing balls!”
“I’ll take the one with the double plumbing
“I’ll take the one with the pitchfork beard!”

It was a torchglow riot in the corncob field
mud in the eyes, war in the wine, psychedelphia
in the smoke, drumbeats in the blood
“Oh my pastry peels! Oh my lavish loops!”
“My hawsome giggles! My lipstake poppertunities!”
The bi-focused maidens turned away
from windowshopping their flesh
to hoot and haw at the hog parade
of rascalish scoundrels and ripe green rapscallions
“And oh those Musclecrats! Those Gladorators!”
“Those Putty Tubers! Those Tustical Mixers!”
Word in edgewise: “Save some knocker grease for me!”

And in the morning
none but the Fool and his flat tool
remained on the seed spilling field
the Brutal Barbs and the Babes in Boyland
were gone with their drama and drums
the kidnap crowd in their hopped-up balloons
had been blown away by nightshift winds
he sat alone by the embers of the campfire
lifted a fistful of ashes to his mouth
and ate a Girl Scout Breakfast

Later he said it never happened
“None of it! Nary a tittle! Not one tottle!
No sharpnose gangbangster am I!
No whipper of po’ girls!
No fandangler of fundamentials!”
Yet archeologists of a future age
digging in the ruins of the drum beaten dust
discover the discarded masks of megashapeshifters
worn and discarded one ancient and violent night
in the popping cornfield of sacrifice
grinspinning faces, fuckfastly faces
roostercrow faces and poker-poke faces
and one, it is said, had all the earmarks
of a foulfool with his eye on the pie
and his mouth in the spice

THE HANGED MAN

Blowgun darts
through his ears nose & throat
brought him to his knees
“Better see the doc at Crossroad Sixty-Six.”
(Believe me the nurse does it better than I)
or take a stroll down New North Pumpkin Road
check out the gurus sleeping on the slopes
of the Ironic Mountain
snoozing in the shade
of the pocaliptus tree.”

“Kind scholar am I
no innocent of knowledge
or full of wisdom do I
pretend to understand
the undertow, the underground
where my feet fail to complete
the connection with that which lies
below as above I’m blind
cannot lift my eyes
if I could beyond the clouds
no insights or outtasights
have I.”

Sidetracked, sideswiped
shot down by a row of dirty looks
that popped up from behind
the window sills in Hit Woman Alley
(“They have faces attached
have eyes of broken glass
their fingers are pointing at me
their nails are dripping with ice.”)

What has the Fool done
to attract this kind of attention?
(“Did somebody mention the Names of the Dead
or the Roll call of the Victims?”)

So yes, there he was
but so were the Visual Vigilantes
with their ropes and belt-dangling knives
they sat astride a prancing line
of coal black stallions and frowned upon
the careless comments from the mouths
of the tideless moon eyed tourists
who had come too late for the hanging
but were just in time for the resurrection.

Hungman rebuked
“Lift up your robe tails
and stop tripping over their fringes
as you walk from me to you
from over there to over where
from A to B and back to C
pull up your trick socks
pick up your glad bag
and plunge into the vast abyss
that lies open to Pandemonium
(Yea, verily, the Palace of All Demons)
beyond the blue horizon
of your thingmote eyes.”

Later they loitered into a swamp
a slobland of fungus-clogged slime
and serpent-climbing vines
Hungman on crutches:
“This is the South.
This is the deep vortex of Essential Time.”
The Fool (digging moldy moss
from between his toes):
“I never take grafts from stranglers.”
Hungman, “This is Essential Time
and only a fool gawks at Essential Time.”
The Fool (replacing lightbulbs in the powder room):
“You hear pairs of small human feet
trotting away when you close your eyes.”
Hungman: “This is where the maps give up
and escalating madness takes over.
Here there be tigers in the choptank
and triggers on the slingshots
with puff-neck ruffians attached
the unkind kind with whistles in their teeth
and rings on their lobes.”

The Fool probed the lumps
of Hungman’s language and found it fearless
found it free of hamprakensteinsters
found it lost in a wilderness of lopsided
top-end-bottom bottle tips.
His words following were ripped apart
in a whirlwind of a tornado
that spun from Hungman’s mouth
and were sucked up into the phonosphere
on a gusto of sine waves and saw tooth ripples
and when they came down shattered and scattered
only screwnose dolphins and hammerheart whales
were close enough to ear-witness their chaotic message
before they sunk and drowned in the deep:
” . . . swimmerish lionlove . . . capitorial aqualibs . . .
monginataurs . . . piscacorn . . . whicherated
whichcenarium . . . hoodoo yoodoo . . ”

Back in the swamp
(back on mostly moist land)
Hungman spit out another cyclone
the black funnel filled with rooftop tripthongs
window popped weasel words
billboard vocords, mailbox vocables
logpile split infinitives, front porch metaphors
and screen door morphemes
as it whirled up to the sky.
The Fool (hanging like a hungman): “Humble Me.”
and thumbing a ride, hooking a fin
caught a lift from a flying tin lizzy
and backlanded sideseated in the middle
of a plop pool of deep blue brine
among the flotsamsara and jetsamspades
of a wrecked manoverboat.

Miles away on drip n’ dry land
Hungman sucked the black funnel back into his mouth
and disappeared forever into a memory collection
titled The Best of the Fool’s Guesses Glottal and Gutteral.

THE TOWER

The King is the King
of Everything and Everywhere

He looks down
from his penthouse garden
on the Strip and sees the Fool
on the street below, bumming
coins and pity. He shouts down
“Fool! Come Up. I have a surprise
for you in my generosity!”
The Fool climbs
and enters the tower of stunning altitude
The King rules the view
he rules it all, the neon lights
and every grain of sand
in the desert beyond
The Fool gapes and gaps
he’s a flatland bumpkin
with wheat in his ears.
The King sits plump
on his alabaster throne
His forty-eight guards
bearing twelve swords,
wands, cups and pentacles
stand against the walls
watching and repeating
their oaths of fealty.
One guards the door.
Knock. It opens to the mug
of a poker face jester.
“Stand back,” says the King.
“Stay where you are
I have no need for you
to watch me rule this Fool.”
The poking joker retires
the Queen steps forth
“Take it easy on the boy,”
she says with a smile.
He begs but a coin
and asks only your pardon.”
Says the King, “This nose-picking gnatwit
is my amusement park ride for the night.”

The Queen quizzes the Fool Boy:
“I see by your outfit
you’re in the traveling trade.”
“I was until I stooped to stop.”
“And where have you been my Blue Nose Drop?’
“I transpassed the Hindustanzabarbarian Ocean
and sailed the Burge-Wa-Zee to stand by your size.”
“I would believe you if it were true.”
The Fool opens his meal mouth:
“I’ve stuck my food in it now.”
“And where will you go my Ultra Athabascan Candle?”
“I will track the field for the source of the hopstepjump
I will trade the winds for a brighter flush of lightning bugs
I will wink the hoods and fake the fog made in Bashobog
I will save my fork for fun
my bellybutton for doorbell
and my gladhand for goodnessshakes.”
“Then go my Baby Boy Bean.
Go until you can’t lower the boom no more.
Go until you’re half-baked to Hell.”

The Bee-mushed Baby goes
and doesn’t come back.

Tho many moons later
the queen receives a hex-a-gram from Hell:

You should have seen me
lifting the lid of the pot
the lid was hot the food was not
the cook was a crook he played by the Book
he said get a name
no blame no blame no blame

THE STAR

He follows it out of exile
into a desert where camel hooves
open breathing holes for the Gnostics
who live in underground tunnels
and saints with burned out eyes
lie on wheeled racks scorching their beards
in the atomic blast of the sun

He follows it across
the Past Atlantis Ocean in a windjammer
three sheets to the wind
rats in the rigging
seagulls in the sails
jammed hands on the tiller

He follows it thru
the twelve signs of the zodiac
from the four corners of the world
to the stomping ground
of the plastered rhinos
and other beaknose perviosities of nature
with elephantasmagorical legs
and hairy cloven-hoof flea pads
“Which are the capricornish centaurs
and which the liberated lions?
Who do you love among the swimmers
in the piscatorial aquariums?”

“Let us not be too frivolous,”
says a voice from that point of light
in a distant galaxy.
“You have many miles yet to go
and not enough boredom hobblers
to keep you supplied with heavy mojo
between phone calls.”

With his faithful Cat following
(“He never gives a bum steer
or looks a toothless horse in the mouth.”)
the Fool climbs (“This is steep”)
the mountain path switchbacks
bellies the narrow gaps
(“This is quaint and much too quiet”)
and crawls off the map into sob-breathing
impressions of abdominal showmen
(“This is rare meat, Mungo”)
Mungo (“Spotlighted by that distant star”)
takes him over to the Crusader’s Crossroad Puzzle
“This is mordant merely quaint, Mango.”
Mango (“Toe-heel-toe”) shows him the steps
of the orangatango in the moondusted light.
The Fool dances: “This is frozen history, Mambo.”

Arumazuma the Aztexican
pulls up behind the wheel of an Inca Passitator
a spudnick of a blunt front tube mobile
(a horseless chariot aka his Aztaxicab)
Mambo: (“One step forward, two steps back
spin on your heels and flap the jack.”)
The Aztexican: “That’s some fancy dangle
footwork, Mumbo.”
Mumbo (flapping flipjacks): “It’s not a question of feet.”
The Fool awake awonder (“How about that?”)
reaches out to tickle the Aztexican’s wrinklefolds
when speakest the Cat. striking a pose
touching his toes, “These – not those.”

Trumpet blast across the landscape
And over the hill they come limping
a troop of savage soldiers armed with bike spokes
and other weapons of mass distraction
(“There is no history in this tale”)
they fall in the dirt at the Aztexican’s feet
some genuflecting to genius
most too beaten to raise a defeated eyebrow to mediocrity.
The Aztexican walks among their collapsed bodies
“Practice war no more?
“No more, Sir! – no – no more”
“Move beyond numb brain patriotism?”
“Yes sir!”
“And into realms of unspeakable joy?”
“Right away sir!”
“Smile when you say that.”
Worm squirming and gasping for oxygen
thru the breathing tubes of their fingers
they grab the hem of the Aztexican’s robe,
“We’re smiling, sir, we’re smiling.”
“Keep practicing, son –
and keep your hands to yourself.”
“We will clutch at straws no more.”
“And praise the illogical.”
“We’re praising sir, we’re praising the illogical.”
“And praise the incon-convenient.”
“We like to look at rabbits.”

And having tamed the troops
(“Thousands of lame jokes will soon be told
about these hostages to random folly,”)
the Aztexican returns to his Aztaxicab
“Want a lift back to town?”
The Fool shakes his head
and most of his hair falls off.
The Aztexican lifts a finger
slices it thru the air like a razor
and his horseless Chariot
rumbles down the double-rutted lane
and into a cloud of volcano smoke.

“Guess who that was, Jimbo.”
Jimbo (soft shoe tap dance): “Smile!
You’re on Double Bind.”

And the star shines down
a distant pinpoint of light with a sharp
shapeless voice: ” – with triple takes
and quadruplegangers.”

THE MOON

He was time on the loose
couldn’t be controlled contained
in the notes of composers with torches

(B) stabbed him in the back again
and again (A) and again (C) and again (H)
he crawled away into dark smoky tunnels
to bleed his body, to still his worries
to sleep with the sheep and heal his wounds
in their soft soapy silences

And when he left their caves
in the moonshine of the night
the Sunken Cathedral was waiting mouth to mouth
it sucked him in and spit him out
in a vibrato of octave dimensions
and he tumbled head over head
again on the Steppes of Central Asia
and again a Night on Bald Mountain
tweaked his tail left him tongue-tied
and trapped in a bassoon ostinato
for dancing pagans in the springtime
of their seed planting rituals
until an oboe obbligato tumbled by
and seized him by the neck nape
twisted him out of shape again and again
while a chorus chanted Oh Cantus Firmus
over and over oh again and again

And counting metrognome beats
Frescovivaldi slapped him on the Listravinsky
until he slumped between Adagio and Lento
slumbering in 3/4 time
and Vivace ran past with a toccatastigmata net
and stuck a magic out-of-tune flute
down his fish bone gullet

He was time on the loose, again
and again he got out of music signed up
for a war with an army of goons
against the evil enemy way over there
they used to have red horns on their heads
now they’re brown and they’re all laying down
in a sandbox and playing Arabian drums
“No more music,” said Again and Again
“I signed up for spilled blood and broken bones
I signed up for attack and retreat
for captured and recaptured
for release and repeat
for mud around my feet.”

They let him go
“He didn’t know a dime from a dove
he wanted too much adventure
too many one-night stands
in secret places of the jungle heart.”

He walked along the shore
the ocean waves washing his feet
again and again he climbed thru the sand
that lay flat across the land

The sun came up (again and again)
and the sun went down (again and again)
he saw the stars and the moon
and its face in phases, wax and wane
he saw marriage and divorce (again and again)

The moon came down

THE SUN

That’s an Eye for every I
a Boot for every Boo
“Says who?”
“Says me. I am the Great Egocentrifugical.”
The cool drool fool bucks back a step
with too much heat and high temperatures
registering on his dashboard
his four-brain headlamp calibrating
the distance between the surface of his eyeballs
and the troop of belly laugh dancers
moving jerking silhouetted
across the flatline horizon
their shapes shimmering and breaking
their boundaries their voices muted
by distance muffled echoing
like wounded chatterbox owls
celebrating the summer solstice
“Yip! Yow! Heese! Heep! ”

A voice from the tumbleweed:
“Who ‘n what are you talking to?”
Bimbum the Sun?
Hot Shot the Jelly Knot?
Pee Wee the Squeegee?
Mister Dimwit’s Slimtit Sister?”

“None of the above
and none of the below.
He calls himself the Great Central Nervous Ego
the Elliptical Fugitive
or just plain Joe.”

Distant Dancers shimmering:
“Hoot! Boot! Hoo! Boo!”

Voice from the Tumbleweed:
“I should have known
t’would be swallow gulps and stork chokes
grasshopper hiccups and bison burps
you should learn the rules of the game.
Mama don’t allow no pussyfoot farts round here
Papa don’t allow no rolling stones
no bigfoot bones, no pearly watergates
no blades, no shades, no Joe-named buzzard baits.”

The voice tumbles away
as a bareback rider on a bronco
gallops thru holding a flaming feather
the Fool on a mule hot on his trail
his faithful cat following
they cross burning bridges
pass between rows of self-blinfolded peasants
uttering shouts of synchronized primitive speech
cheers upon their confetti-powdered lips
blessings upon their tickertape tongues

Horse mule and cat
leap a stone wall into an orange tree orchard
an irrigated meadow of a sunflower plantation
and race around a circular fountain
until up pops a baby boychild
atop the shapeless geyser-mattress of water
and bouncing high on the spout
he announces an intermission.
The oranges in the tree bottle in the breeze.
The sunflowers cycle thru the grin and gurn masks
of their comic tragedies and tragic comedies
“This is the Garden of the Gormless Gods,”
tourists the tumbling tot as he rides the gusher.
“On your right, beyond the wall
observe the cruel wasteland where mirages
shuffle off their mortal coils, bop til they drop
and bite the western bullet dust.”
(several moments of shock)
“On your left do not ignore the whispered intensity
of steelhead trout sporting their rainbows
and frolicking with percheels
bassoproflounders and crabapplelobsters.”
(pause for applause)
“Above please attach all importance
to the faces in the clouds
and below, as above, the feces in the clods.”
The blinded peasants have arrived just in time.
‘Boo to the baby!”
(take two for the hisses and boos)
“Or if you wish to turn your spotlights on me,”
the water-bouncing baby boy declares
hoping no one will notice
that his grotesque gestures are less than accidental
“No one here can dispute the fact
that my temporal fugue is still intact”
“Boo to Baby Blue”
(take three for injections of glee)
“My take on life is fluid and flexible.
I get my kicks on sub-zero decibels”
Hoping no one will notice that his saving graces
are no more than experimental
“On the subject of love:
I am quite philosophical:
it’ll never be real if it ain’t ever optical!”
“Boo to the Bouncing Baby Boy!”
(take four for laughter ignored and ridicule galore)
“But don’t get me started on the expression
of religious extremes – ” (Hoping no will notice
that his gospel truths are total speculation)
“It’ll take more than aloadalitteration
to match my aloominatory observations.”
“Boo to the Waterbaby!”
(take five for a round of jump and jive)
and the bouncing water baby soliloquizes
until the fountain runs dry and he descending
drop by drop, drip by drip lies in the basin
rolling around and drying his sackbutt
by pointing it at the heated heavens
while chanting nursery rhymes
to help his psyche re-locate the latitude
and longitude of his point of departure
and stretching his gaze to beyond the wall
where the wasteland lies cruel and mortal
heatwaves shimmering, mirages appearing
and vanishing in the blink of an eye

By then the rider (bareback on his horse)
and the Fool (astride his mule)
with his faithful cat following
are long gone down the road
past the cactus factories, the hydrogen bomb pumps
to “Fast Food Fred” who sells burgers and shakes
” – in various rude intrusions
into the gastronomic spectrum
of your taste bud bellies.”
(another wind bag and double barrel bore)
“The kind of food you can eat in bed
then lay down to dream of bread”
(chugging caribooze while whipping his troops
thru their humiliating routines)
“Get the full menu – buck ninety-nine
with French-kissed potatoes and a bucket of wine”

The Fool gets the spuds the Mule gets the vino
and the bareback rider takes off into the wasteland
while they’re discussing crucial culinary options
“A pickle here an olive there
– and sliced green onions on the side.”

And there goes the Fool
no mule senza cadenza into the wasteland
into the stark raving desolation
trash-clogged sand dunes
mirage-populated dust bowls
his cat faithfully following

THE WORLD

I.
The world’s in one piece still
at peace with itself and so
apology accepted with a tangled bang jangle
a rusted gutter flow of the Fool’s abuse

Few clothes, few hills
he wanders among the fingers
of the rising fog and the deep-down dead
He climbs the steps into the stone city
how far? how far?
He looks beyond the walls decorated
with thorny vines and sees
the pilgrims approaching

they come from different climes
and different centuries
past present and future

Behold! Behold!

they come in peace
they come in hordes and gangs
in various combinations

they come in all sizes, shapes
and speculations

they come to rejoice
they come to lay down their arms
they come to pray
cascades of thoughts
rippling curtains inside their skulls
platonic hangmen
two-bit vigilantes with their odds and ends
bulging at the seams

Behold! Behold!

cowboys on their one-horse latitudes
pirates with their tromskulls and bones
down and out tricksters
in moth-eaten coyote masks

Behold! Behold
they come to the Fool
they come to be blessed
they come to raise him high
on the storm stroked altar
and he says “Take me back
to the edge of the cliff
I’m just another boy with his boot
in his mouth just another dreamer
on loan from the Big Sleep
just another strummer another bummer
in the sun, another slapdash crasher
a basher of traps a masher of moods.
Take me back to the déjà vu
All bets are off. ”

II.
Over in the arena
the crowd awaits the new season
of LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

The Fruit Maiden enters
(the Homecoming Cherry Queen)
clad in sombrero, duster and scarf.
The Fool rushes in past the Treadmill Angels
his Cat faithfully following
The crowd goes wild
Cherry: Why are the spectaculators hap hap happily
hip hip haplauding?
Cat: Because he brings more height to his hair loom
more wiener weight to his back-paw prints
Apple: What are the condensed averages of his abilities?
Cat: More jump in his Jehovah’s fat
more pump in the plump
more spice in the posture.
Prune: Where’s he coming from? A hole in the ground
on the far side of town? From the tops of the trees
in a flying trapeze?
Cat: He comes from Cartoon, the Seventh Full Moon
beyond the Dark Star in the Milkyway Bar.
Blueberry: Who does he think he is? A glow worm in a jar?
A pop-o-weasel star?
Cat: Twist his arm and he’ll squeak like a pip.
Apricot: A Jack o’Lantern hammer box?
The Red Rubber Fox personified?
Cat: He’s a whopper, my dear, a natural born bopper
A john revelator, a bog motivator
A late-night tripper with a wide-open zipper
The kind of boy who will make your life complete

Strawberry to Fool: “Repeat after me: Quintessential Elite.”
“Tootle lure.”
“Jeunesse Dorée.”
“Just when you think you’re running low on groceries – ”
“Noblesse Oblige.”
” – elk milk, sloth cheese, goat eggs, bumble bee bacon.”

Crowd: “She ain’t one of them 20-dollar horse whores.”
She’s the real obbligato, the true arpeggio”

Peach to Fool: “Repeat after me: Arbiter Elegantine.”
“And just when you think you’ve run out of lick – ”

And there goes her complexion
the humline of her skirt trembles
The Crowd goes wild:
“LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT!”

The Cat curls up in a pile
of discarded scarecrows.

The crowd goes home.
The boy and girl sit facing in the center
of the empty arena and wait
for the rising of the moon.
There was silence when they met.

There is silence still.

Imaginary poets – 2

2011 |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

Part One: HUNTER QUINN

Part Two: TAG ZANDER, JACK LOCKE,
LAURIE PERE-LE-GRIM & ANONYMOUS

Part Three: RYAN ZACK SCOTLANDER

A few remarks about the six fictional poets in this collection

The poems that appear in Parts One and Three of this collection were written by two fictional characters in my Song Poet Cycle—a sequence of nine journals that detail the life of Ryan Zack Scotlander, song writer and performer, from 1966 to 1970.

Hunter Quinn is a companion character in the Song Poet Cycle who first appears in Journal Three (Angel Wasteland), returns in Journal Four (Midnight Prayers), in abstentia as a published poet in Journal Six (Tightrope Walk), and finally re-appears in the fictional flesh in Journal Nine (Ghost Train). He is credited with three published books of poems, some of which appear in the Cycle. His Fool’s Journey, based on the cards of the Tarot, appears in Backdoor Troubadour, a sequel to the Song Poet Cycle.

Ryan Zack Scotlander is the moving force of my fictional autobiography The Song Poet Cycle. After meeting Hunter Quinn in Rome, Zack begins to write his own poetry. A few of these poems are later published in a chapbook in London (Journal Five—Midnight Prayers). Later — in Journal Nine (Ghost Train) — Zack appears at the International Poetry Festival in Rotterdam, Holland where he presents his first published book of poems — Paradise Iced.

Tag Zander, whose poems appear in Part Two of this collection, is the main character of my novel, (Parentheses). He is a middle-aged American poet who has been invited to lecture at an international interdisciplinary conference on art and science in Holland. The story is an account of the four days he spends in and around the conference in Katwijk and the six days following in Amsterdam. Aside from the primary theme that emerges from the story: how a single, seemingly trivial event can profoundly alter the direction of a person’s life in unexpected ways, he also writes and recites a handful of poems that reflect his current tribulations.

Jack Locke appears in “Sharon”, the first part of a collection of short stories that form a loosely-connected novel titled A STONE IN MY HEART ROLLED OVER. Jack is a conniving charlatan, a would-be beat poet who arrives on San Francisco’s North Beach scene in 1958, too late to be a part of the “renaissance.” He concocts his poems with only one purpose in mind: to impress and seduce Sharon. He both succeeds and fails, but that’s in the story, not in the poems.

Laurie Pere-Le-Grim is one of the free-wheeling characters of DOWNEY STREET, a semi-historical novel of life in the Haight-Ashbury of San Francisco in 1965-1966.

The ANONYMOUS poet of the San Francisco Poems was a student when he wrote these lines. If he were to pass me on the street today I would recognize him instantly; however he would not give me a second glance. He did not believe, in those years when he was 18 that he would live past the age of 30. He would be surprised to learn that the old man stumbling past was actually an older version of himself. Tho I knew him well in those early years, I cannot remember his name, and thus he remains ANONYMOUS.

These poets, long seeking to be read, to be heard, hope you enjoy their work and bring to them the recognition they deserve. They have entrusted me, their editor, to deliver their verses to the world at large and I have promised to do my best. Working closely with these poets over the years I have sometimes felt that their work is my own; that I too have helped shaped the creation of their poems.
On their behalf, I thank you.

T. Zimmerman

IMAGINARY POETS 2
edited by T. Zimmerman

TAG ZANDER

HOTEL POEM 1

A jet plane flew over the hotel last night.
“What the hell was that?” shouted someone down the hall.
“Remember what I said,” shouted someone else, “about
the size of the mosquitoes around here?”
“Yeah – so what?”
“I forgot to warn you about the size of the bats.”

HOTEL POEM 2

I watched him check in.
There was nothing wrong with him
that a couple of unpacked suitcases
couldn’t fix.

HOTEL POEM 3

He walked down the hall of the 4th floor
a small suitcase in one hand
his room key in the other.
He kept slapping the key against his leg.
He was on his way to his room
and he was letting everybody know it

HOTEL POEM 4

At breakfast this morning
she ate her food like it was medicine.
Doctors orders:
Take 3 times a day
for the rest of your life.

HOTEL POEM 5

Across from her
her husband sat behind a newspaper.
A wall of silent words.
His hand reached around the wall
groping for his cup of coffee.
After a blind search
he got his finger hooked thru the handle.
His finger stayed there a long time

HOTEL POEM 6

She sat in the telephone booth by the elevator
behind the closed door
shouting into the mouthpiece.
She was obviously calling long distance.

HOTEL POEM 7

He stood in the lobby
in front of the city map,
pointing at it with his finger,
stabbing all the places he wanted to visit,
erasing the ones he’d already seen.

HAMMERCULCIMER POEMS

1.HAMMERDULCIMER

It’s an ordinary steel bolt
6 inches long
½ inch thick
except the threads turn
the opposite way

So it’s not an ordinary
piece of hardware.
What is it?
It’s a zen bolt.
What’s it used for?
For building high-rise zen temples.

2. AMERICA REVISTED

In San Francisco
I put on a plastic, flesh-tone baseball cap
backwards, stood in front of a lawn mower store
and posed in the “before” photo
of an advertisement
for a medicine that claimed to cure baldness.

I won an autographed Lenny Bruce string bass capo
in a bingo contest
and with a toilet plunger tied to each foot
I set off across America
following a wrecked Greyhound bus
pulled by a John Deere tractor.
A tame ape trotted by my side.

Approaching Las Vegas
I received a fax on my laptop computer
from an old girlfriend
who was now working as a one-arm bandit
but by the time I got to her casino
she’d become a two-tit blackjack dealer
a three-wheel roulette
and a four-letter word processor.
“Gimme five,” she said.
My ape gave her ten
and I gave her eleven.

By the time we dragged our tails
into Salt Lake City we were broke.
So I got a job as a short-order cook
in a greasy-spoon, fast-fork franchise
called Bug Burgers.
I pre-heated the oven
with 400 centipedes
added spiced lice
and stirred in a fistful of glow-worms

In Denver I played a game of ping pong
with my tame ape
and tho I fed him a lot of bananas
he refused to speak.

In Omaha we ran into days of humid underwear
and heavy breathing. My ape made a couple of
obscene phone calls to unlisted numbers.
I gave myself a doctoral degree in Acupressure
and established a private practice in our back room.
My first customer was a moose-jawed woman
of tender years and girl-scout ears
who had trouble smelling her feet.
I pushed on a point
just inside her left nostril
and a goober fell out.
I pushed on her belly button
and her ass fell off.
I poked one of her nipples
and her wedding ring fell off.

Outside Kansas City we stopped
to listen to the crows
squacking away
in a cornfield.
They sounded like
a collection of rusted hinges
from a door
of a house
that survived only
in a faded photograph
in a shoebox
in the trunk
of an abandoned ’57 Chevy.

We zigged up to Chicago
where they went ape over my ape
then zagged down to St. Louis
where it was raining cats and dogs.
My ape wanted to go back to Chicago
but instead we sagged down to New Orleans
where I fell in with a gang of terminators
and wrestlemaniacs
heavy-metal rockers
and country and western shitkickers
and a chaotic assortment of
chain-chested
sunken-eyed
gap-toothed
barbarians
who walked in thru the tunnels of my eyes
started swinging sledgehammers
and tore down the house inside my skull.

My ape said he had a headache too
so we wind surfed up the Mississippi
in a bathtub full of gin
with pink flamingo decals pasted on the side
to a Memphis Holiday Inn
where I emptied the cigarette machine in the lobby
and passed out packs of Elvis filter-tips
to a busload of Japanese tourists
who had come to visit Greaseland.

Meanwhile my ape escaped to Nashville
where he fell in love
with the runner-up
in a Miss Vegetable Contest
She had cauliflower ears
a potato nose
a watermelon grin
and onion skin
She was as thin as a string bean
and as cool as a cucumber.
One day he got hungry between meals
and had her for a snack.

By the time I caught up with my ape
he was all skin and bones.
So I fattened him on a plate of tar and feathers
and we jumped a mail train
and railroaded ourselves into Washington D.C.
where we took over the U.S. government.
We passed laws left and right.
We legalized abortion
and we abolished politics.
We painted the White House purple,
discarded the stars and stripes
and flew a tattooed whale hide
from the flag pole on the Purple House lawn.
We issued new dollar bills featuring the faces of
Sigmund Fraud
Albert Eyescream
Jimi Appendrix
Marilyn Monrope
Charles Puke-owski
and Martin Luther Thang
We rewrote the words of the national anthem
and when no one was looking
we left town singing them :
“Monkey see, monkey do
Monkey me, monkey you.”

In Baltimore I won a mail-order digital
wristwatch in a miniature golf game
and saw that I was already late
for my appointment
with the city limit sign.

We hit a low point in Philadelphia
when we became hot media property.
They rolled in their TV cameras
and stuck microphones in our faces.
I was diminished to a soundbite
and my ape was reduced to a buzzword.
“Buzzword is a buzzword,”
said the next morning’s headlines
and by evening we had both
been kidnapped by the Tabloids
whisked away to Illustratus
for a brief dental inspection
and returned to earth
in a turd-shaped comet
which splashed down
in Boston Harbor and caused
an earthquake up and down
the entire eastern seaboard.

In Boston I walked into a 50-star restaurant
and ordered a toilet bowl with a side of baked beans.
The seat was extra.
“In one end and out the other,” I told the waiter
who refused to serve my ape another banana split.

In New York I decided to live in undisguised poverty
and began renting unfurnished apartments
at any cost.

I let my mustache grow
until the ends were so long
they could be used as handlebars.
My tame ape sat on my shoulders
gripped my handlebars
and drove me down Central Park West
like a motorcycle
while I made appropriate sounds
with my lips.

3. ROLLERBLADE GIRLS

The rollerblade girls of Vondelpark
black, ass-tight, thigh-tight jeans
tight tanktops of turquoise,
magenta, chrome yellow, and peppermint green
hair flowing, tall in their boots
fast, decisive, graceful
and silent
weave in and out of the pedestrians
on the paths
at breakneck speed
as if the macadam were ice.
What lovely necks.

I had a pair of roller skates
when I was seven
clumsy
slow
and noisy
(clunk-clunk-clunk
on the concrete sidewalk)
attached to my sneakers by metal clamps
tightened with a key
kept falling off
as I rolled to a stop
against a tree.

But the rollerblade girls of Vondelpark
with their black boots laced with pink
and peppermint
walkmans clipped to their belts
speakers plugged into their ears
walking to the wide beat of music inside their heads
youth flying from their shoulders
like streaming halos
flash thru the trees
and are gone
leaving me with a memory of their feet.
And what lovely feet they were!
Five round, spinning toes on the bottom.

4. ROUND NUMBERS

“40 – 50 – 60 – 70.”
“What are you doing?”
“Counting.”
“What for?”
“Practice. If someone asks me how old I
am I’ll be able to say . . . 50 . . . or 60.”
“What if someone asks you how far it is to
the moon?”
“Then I’ll say 70.”
“Come on, put on your shoes. We’re leaving
in a couple of minutes.”

5. ZZ TOP TUNE-UP

She shuffled across the floor
getting tuned up to ZZ Top
as spastic, doomed moths
battered their bodies against
the tiny lightbulbs
in the shape of candle flames
embedded in the walls
and lesbian cows
outside the window
humped in the moonlight.

6. WILD MOTHS

the little mothers go straight for the eyes.

7. MENU

He looked up from the menu, his eyes getting no higher
than the bust line of the waitress who confronted him
with a pair of knockers barely contained by her see-thru
blouse.
“I’ll take the spare tits!” he blurted.

8. CAT REPAIR

The cat knocked the telephone on the floor.
The phone wouldn’t work.
I called the repairman.
He walked in with his toolbag and said
“What seems to be the problem – exactly?”
I said, “Exactly the cat knocked the telephone
on the floor.”
He took out a leather strap
and whipped the cat for ten minutes.
“There,” he said as he packed up his tools.
“I doubt if he’ll do that again.”

9. THE SEASON OF THE WIMP

OK so maybe the public’s
had enough of
Rambo ethos and Rocky pathos
Terminators and Wrestlemaniacs
Heavy Metal Rockers and
country & Western Shitkickers
and just plain ordinary
Spike Hair
Nipple Ringed
Chain Chested
Sunken Eyed
Gap Toothed
Barbarians who
threaten our civilization’s sanity
and dreams.

But what the hell
do we have to sit around
listening to voices on hit records
that sound like gobs of snot
strained thru flyswatters?
Do we have to look a TV faces
that remind us of recently squeezed pimples?

CONNECTING THE DOTS

Writer’s block (they call it)
sit and stare at the blank page
stare a hole in it.

Happens to the best (they say)
and the worst.

It’s like that game: connect the dots
draw a line between the dots
and you’re rewarded with a complete picture.

I’ve got all the dots.
But I can’t draw the lines

This is one of those dots.

DREAM DREAMS

dreams dreams horrible dreams names faces places screams
words numbers senseless acts numbers names faces facts

dreams dreams terrible dreams vicious vile malicious mean
eyes ears faces feet tongues teeth chunks of meat dreams

dreams miserable dreams numbers names repeating scenes
fingers faces pointless schemes dreams dreams dreadful

dreams dreams horrible dreams names faces places screams

FEAST OF BLIND FOOLS

Come to the table
where the muggers are many
and the forks are not able
to scrape up a penny

Where the grim-lippers glut
and the flesh-rippers dine
on the bust of the gut
and the sweat of the swine

So sit down and feast
from the platters of slaughter
on the bones of the beast
and the fish of dishwater

Horse tooth and nail
and oxen fat figs
mule scalp and tail
and pet milk of pigs

Salad of oil spill
scud missile barbecue

Brochette of roadkill
windshield stew

Pickle-licked pockets
and sperm of nuked whales

Eagle eye-sockets
and nightingale cocktails

Kangaroo knee caps
caterpillar lard

Sweat of co-brastraps
and leopard leotards

Ear lobe of shark
gopher gut casserole

Vomit of aardvark
and dandruff of mole

Hamstring of hamster
legpit of lamb

Armpit of beaver
and porcupine jam

Mustache of walrus
zebra stripe sauce

Steamed brontosaurus
and moisture of moss

Corned beef jerky
orangutan poona

Windpipe of turkey
tonsil of tuna

Pizza of parrot
and black panther poop

Elephant trunk carrot
and squeezed amoeba soup

Omelet of birds
and bumble bee feces

Mascotte tiger turds
and other endangered species

So gather ’round gastronomes
stick your hand in the pot
where the bread and the bones
are bothered and hot.

Shovel the soup
and hammer the meat
paddle the cake
pick it up with your feet

Then belch out a cloud
of gravy-stained air
and pass it around
when you’ve taken your share

Then spit in your spoons
and slurp up the drool
at the luncheon of loons
at the feast of blind fools

FRONT DOOR

I come thru the front door
latch clicking.

She’s got her back to me
watching TV.

She doesn’t turn around.
“I hope that’s you,” she says.

and I reply, “I do too.”

KILLING TIME IN FOUR PARTS

1.
I contemplated suicide once
seriously
when I was 14-15.

Now I’m 42-43
and I wonder what I would have missed.

Not a hell of a lot.

2.
That sounds pretty desperate
until I realize
that what counted all along
was not what I’ve seen and heard
felt and touched
(over all the years I might have missed)
but what I’ve done
with all those sights and sounds
feelings and thoughts
which was to try to make a few
peoples’ lives
a little more bearable
a little less painful.

3.
And that sounds pretty good
until I realize
there have been others around
(poets, painters, composers of music)
doing the same thing
and doing it much better than I.

4.
And that sounds pretty desperate
until I realize
that no matter who’s around
doing their best
to make other people’s lives
a little more worth living
it doesn’t make any difference
in the long run
anyway.

POLARIZED PICTURES

He came around with one of those polaroid cameras
and started taking pictures.
He took a picture of me pretending he wasn’t there
and 15 seconds later the photo rolled out the bottom.
Then he took a picture of his girlfriend in my garden
peeking thru my window, squinting.
Her expression seemed to say: Is anybody home?
Then he took a whole bunch of pictures
and they all rolled out the bottom one at a time.
Then we spread all the photos
out on the table
and talked about something else.

QUIET WEEKEND AT THE WHITE HOUSE

“The President of the United States spent a quiet 4th of July weekend at the White House” (CNN)

He plays miniature golf on the back lawn.
When he tees off at the first hole
the spectators sigh.
They don’t cheer or shout.
They know this is supposed to be
a quiet weekend at the White House.

At fireworks time
he holds up a sparkler.
His wife holds up a sparkler too.
No fire crackers this year.

The only business on his agenda
is the amendment to the constitution
to prohibit flag burning.
“Look at what happened
a few years back
when all them tit-heads
burnt their bras,” a prominent
senator whispers in his ear.
“Now they’re walkin’ around
with their jugs draggin’ the ground
and good, honest, law-abidin’ tax-payers
are tripping over their nipples.”

The president shakes his head.
He definitely doesn’t want
any of those tax-payers
torching the stars and stripes.

Books are o.k. tho.
They’re loading up the furnaces
in North Dakota
and Tennessee.

Everybody smiles.
No laughter
as the flames from Vonnegut’s Slaughter House
Mark Twain’s Huck and Tom
Walt Whitman’s Leaves
and
Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451
reach for the skies.
Even in North Dakota they know
this is supposed to be a quiet 4th of July
weekend at the White House.

ST. FRANCIS

Send for Saint Francis
and Santa Claus.
If I’d had a father
I wouldn’t need this applause.

THE SILENT MAJORITY

The people gathered in the street
like balloons
surface bumping surface

and when they spoke puffs
of smoke came out of their mouths
and floated away

and the people had a good time
forgetting
what each other said.

They were happy there on the street
because they were having experiences.
One experience they had
was forgetting they’d done this before.

One person was learning to walk
in water proof shoes
garden hoses were employed
to provide the water.
Then they all did push-ups.
They pushed for awhile
and then they did some chin-ups.
While doing deep knee bends
someone farted.
That was good for a few smiles.

One came up with the idea
that they’d be happy
eating popcorn.
So they ate some popcorn and soon
everybody was happy.

Photographers clicked off
a few snapshots
of people standing around
in front of his camera.
Someone held out his hand
and caught a drop of rain.

After that
it stopped raining.

THIS IS A FACE

Wheels used to click
now they slide down the rails
forever holding their breath.

A southbound train
smashes past the window
inches away
flower petals inside my brain
scatter.
The last car
rockets past in an eye-blink
metallic curtain pulled away
and the green fields flow back into place.

This is not a poem.
This is a face.

Sitting alone on the inside
of a four-seater slot
riding backwards into Holland.
This is not a poem.
This is not the beginning
of a novel.
This is not a sunrise in paradise
and this is not paradise.

The train rolls in
and out of Eindhoven.
This is a face
that exists only in my imagination
the face of a DreamDutch woman
ice blue eyes
black-shadowed eyes
white lip ice
ice I never kissed
the body of a cold stone statue
breasts of apple-blossom milk
fingers that took away my seed.

I am surrounded by faces
I will never see again.
Girl sits down next to me
plays with her skin
opens a magazine and reads
an article about how
to improve her complexion.
She’s mostly interested in the pictures.

Train pulls into s’Hertogenbosch.
Girl rolls up her magazine
hauls down a handbag from the rack
and waits in the line of standing passengers
to get off.
“How’s the woman with the ice blue eyes?”
I ask her. “How’s she doing?”
The girl looks down at the floor
as the line starts to move.
“This is not face,” she says,
“This is s’Hertogenbosch.”

Save me from the screams
inside my head.
Save me from my dreams.
Last night I grew a new foreskin
transparent
like a condom
I screamed and tried to rip it off
and woke up clutching
a moon-launch rocket
ripping at the elastic of my boxershorts
SNAP!
The elastic broke. I jumped
out of bed. My shorts sagged
down around my knees
I looked down at my nuts
and said,
“Save me from the sperm thieves.”

The younger sister
of my DreamDutch woman
ice blue eyes
black-shadowed eyes
white-iced lips I never kissed
just walked up the aisle pushing
a cart with snacks. Coffee. Beer.
Sandwiches. Potato chips. Tits. Nuts.
Candy bars. Tits. Chewing gum. Milk.
“Got any condoms?” I ask.
“Why?” she says, “Did your boxer
short elastic break again?”
“Last night,” I say.
She pulls a bra-strap out
of her blouse, stretches it
to the limit
and lets it snap back in place
TWANG!
“Low G,” I say, “but
a little flat.”
“I’ll get it in tune,” she says.
“Soon as I lose some weight
around my shoulders.”
“How’s your sister doing?” I ask.
She shrugs her meatloaf shoulders.
“She comes and goes.”
“She still hung up on condoms?”
“Every day and every night,”
the girl replies, gives
her G-cup ostrich eggs
a comfortable nest
inside her bra
and sells a cup of coffee to the man
across the aisle.

Not all fantasies have happy endings.
Ask the man across the aisle.
Is he really sipping a cup of coffee?
No. He’s thinking about shaving.
This morning he looked in his mirror
and saw the electric razor in his hand.
“Has this electric razor
become a part of my body?”
he asked himself.
Yes, it had.
He was not merely gripping the electric razor
in his hand.
It was his hand. A new kind of hand.
An important question began to throb
in his brain:
Am I really a normal human being
when I am shaving?

This may not be a poem
but my words are hanging out
like a face that needs to be loved,
like a face that has lost
its teenage romance and has no chance
of ever finding it again. Like a face
that grows a beard, the hairs of which
curl around its mouth, nose and ears,
wrap around head, neck, shoulders, arms,
chest and belly.
This is not a poem.
This is a cold stone statue face
attached to a warm prehistoric body.

Ask the man across the aisle.
He knows all about prehistoric bodies.
His name is Fred.
His wife is named Carol.
Last night Fred came home
and found Carol in bed
with his best friend, Ralph.
Fred didn’t know why Carol and Ralph
would do such a mean thing to him.
Ralph with his prehistoric body
didn’t know either.
Carol did, but she wasn’t talking.
Don’t tell Fred across the aisle
sipping his coffee
thinking about his cold stone
shaven statue face
in the mirror while
trying to forget
about Carol and Ralph
that fantasies always have happy endings.

Fantasies have faces
That’s all.
This is a face.

I lift my beercan hand.
Foam drips from my lips.
A single spot on the page
spreads and my ball point
slips thru the moisture
smears.
What bubbling baby will be born
from this stagnant sea water?
What moist child can hope
to grow from these ashes?

The younger DreamDutch sister
pushes her cart up the aisle
going the other way.
I lift up my notebook and
show her my spot of beer drool.
“Identify the spot,” I say.
“Easy,” she says. “Some animal
has been ejaculating in your notebook.”
“Amoeba or ape?”
“Human – perhaps a cave man.”
“Cavemen were prodigious,” I say.
“Perhaps it’s yours.” she replies.
I stare at her white ice lips
in amazement.
“Next time use a condom,” she says.
“While writing a face?”
“When you’re writing a face
you should always practice safe sex.”
“No sex is safe.”
“More reason to take precautions.”
“How about poetic sex?”
“This is not a poem,” she replies.

Train pulls into Utrecht.
Men in motion on the station platform.
Withdrawing money from green machines.
Scratching fleas, flies, flippers,
and other seven-thousand-year itches.
Refusing to let the tragic world events
settle into their brains
as they read their newspapers.
Thinking about dinner while eating late lunch.
Wishing they were in bed with the 10-foot tall
Scandinavian beauty with eyes
as blue as an Eric Clapton solo hair
as blond as an atom bomb
explosion
who just walked down the platform outside
my window
thinking of how nice it would be if
she didn’t hallucinate a snail
every time she placed her high-heeled toes
on the concrete in front of her.
Little do the men know that her fishnet bra
and panties
visible thru her silk-screen dress
are actually tattoos.

Train pulls out of Utrecht.
I have never seen a miracle.
I have no memory of re-incarnation
and therefore must remain skeptical.
I have never been to Paradise
and I certainly can’t use that word
to describe the way I feel when
a woman steals my walnuts.

One midnight when I was 22 I sacked out
with a girl, 18, who was afraid
of getting pregnant. “Don’t you dare
take off your clothes,” she said.
So I didn’t. She unfolded a handkerchief
unzipped my fly and went to work
with her hands.
She didn’t have a map. Hours later
she was still jerking away
and the music on her radio was sounding
like the muscles of a slow-moving elevator.
I was sweating like a jungle jim
caught in quicksand.
I was cursing. I was doing everything
but coming and going.
“Am I doing something wrong?” she asked.
“Doing just great,” I lied.
The 3 AM news came on the AM radio. I pushed
her hand away and picked my own pocket.
In the blink of an eye
and the blink of an eye she had spermsquirt
up and down her arm.
She turned on the light, looked
down at her broken arm.
“So that’s what it looks like!”
Don’t tell me maps ain’t useful.
Call it adventure
and use a map.

I use maps. That’s why
I never get lost between
the ceiling and the floor.

Train pulls into A’dam.
I step out on the platform and stand
still in the middle of an evening river
of humanity.
Hundreds of souls with broken arms
and broken hearts.
Where are they all going in such a hurry?
TO DINNER
They are all going to dinner
except those who are going to get laid
and those who are going to get mad
and those who are going to get away.
And those who are not hungry or horny
are going to get nowhere fast
and maybe regret it
and maybe get LOST.

In the A’dam station I find a photobooth
and sit down (4 shots for 6fl).
I stare at my reflection in the window
and fall (nose first) into my face.
I try a smile.
Wipe off the smile.
Slide in 6 coins
and push the red button.

Four small faces slide out of the slot.
WHO IS THIS MAN?
WHAT IS HE DOING?

This man just remembered
that his grandmother used to make
yogurt in something she called
an ice box.

This man just had
a Heineken beer.

This man just
might be thinking about you
as you look into his eyes.

This is a man who has read many books
and some of these books
were about people.

This man is thinking about
having another Heineken.

This man does not believe
in re-incarnation, but he
will listen to anyone
with convincing proof.

This man believes that
music, not politicians,
should rule the world.

This man almost
sat in a pile of dog shit
yesterday.

This man has no idea
of what he might be sitting on
right now
it could be a hot-water jelllyfish
it could be his own saliva
it could be a lunar eclipse.

Maybe this man is not
sitting down at all.
Maybe he is standing up.
Maybe he has his hands in his pockets
or perhaps his arms
are stretched out straight
and he is flexing his fingers
or pointing one finger
at a girl who just walked by
the photobooth and said,
“Show me where the wild goose goes.”

This man is:
breathing air
digesting food
dreaming of wild geese
imagining paradise
fantasizing sex
making plans and
hoping they will come out
OK

This man is wondering what he will
look like in the year 2004.

This man is pissing in his pants.

This man needs a few hours of sleep.

This man used to be a boy.

This man KNOWS
that the beat goes on.

And the beat goes on . . .
After one hundred years of psychotherapy
people are still as crazy as loons in a cage
of canaries and getting
crazier by the minute.
After seventy-five years of free-trade economy
the world is as bankrupt
as a luna tuna fish sandwich.
After fifty years of unrhymed poetry
not one human being can tell the difference
between a sunrise and a sunset.
After forty years of rock ‘n’ roll
not one drummer has learned to play
his drums like Jimi Hendrix
played his guitar.
After twenty-five turbulent years of
black racism
the ugly African is now kicking
the white boy’s ass around
the streets of A’dam.
After ten years of intensive media
brainwash
nobody can tell the difference between
the news
and a rock video.

After 5000 years of lunar eclipses
some people still believe
the earth is flat.
Five years before the Millennium
people started getting nervous.
Some of them started screaming.
Some of them started shouting.
They stood on their chairs and demanded
MORE LOVE
MORE UNDERSTANDING
MORE COMPASSION
MORE TOLERANCE
MORE PEACE AND QUIET
MORE ANGELS
MORE MAPS
MORE POETRY
MORE SLEEP

Then they sat down
and started whispering
for
LESS WORK
LESS MONEY
FEWER LUNA TUNA SANDWICHES
FEWER FACES

I sit alone whispering in a quiet hotel.
Sleeping bodies all around me
in numbered rooms.
Sleeping faces I have never seen
and may
never
see.
Sleeping faces I may see once
or twice
and may never see again.

And we say we sleep because we
must rest to be awake.
But perhaps it’s the other round away.
Perhaps we awake each day
and perform our trivial tasks
our acrobatic acts
our deaf and dumb deeds
so that we can get tired
so that we can lay down
close our eyes and return
to our natural state of grace
and the important work of our lives
which is to sleep
and perhaps to dream.
So many
weird things happen
when we’re awake
it makes me wonder.

WE SPEND A LOT OF TIME WITH THINGS THAT ARE NOT HERE

The man in the seat across from me
has lost all the hair on the top of his head.
He rubs his hand over his skull’s smooth
surface.
I’ll bet he spends a lot of time thinking
about all the hair
that isn’t there.

And as I write this
the guy across the aisle
with a cigarette in his mouth
searches his pockets for a match.
He can’t find one.
He doesn’t spend too much time
before giving up
and asking the bald man for a light,
but still that was a few seconds of his day
spent looking for something that wasn’t there.

We’re all sitting here on this train
going somewhere
not talking to each other
and thinking I’m sure
about things that aren’t here.
I’m pretty sure all of us are doing this.
What isn’t here is more important
than what is.

A woman behind me
complains about the bad weather.
What she’s concerned about
is not the presence of rain
but the absence of sunshine.

This morning I lost my pen,
the pen I would have used to write
these words.
I spent a lot of time searching thru my
pockets but I couldn’t find it.
So I had to borrow this pen to write
these words.
My old pen is lost now
but I spend a lot of time thinking about it
looking for it
wishing it was here in my hand
and even now as I write these words
I find myself patting my pockets
just to be sure.
Even now the absence of that pen
flickers in and out of my consciousness.
I’m not obsessed with that missing pen
but it concerns me.

I’m tired.
I didn’t get enough sleep last night.
The absence of sleep is playing
an important part in my life today.
I’m not alert as I should be.
Rather than being wide awake
I am drifting in and out
of awareness of everything about me.

In my bag I have a cassette tape gift.
It’s a tape I’ve never heard before.
I don’t even know what’s on it.
Now I’m wishing I’d brought my walkman along.
I’m thinking about my walkman that isn’t here.
Its absence is more important right now
than anything else in my life.
I’m really thinking about its absence.

I feel I cannot dwell too long
on these thoughts of absence.
They are liberating thoughts
but they are like most things
that set me free:
the extent or distance to which
they can take my mind
becomes frightening.
As usual, I can take only
so much of this fear.

A girl gets on in Nijmegen,
sits down across, facing me.
The entire compartment is now empty.
We are alone.
She could have chosen any seat.
She is young
maybe 20 / maybe 18
I can’t guess a girl’s age anymore.
As I approach 40 they all seem so much
younger than I.
She has a very sensuous face, sensuous lips.
Black tearful eyes. Long black hair.
White skin. A trace of African blood.
She puts on a walkman
and starts to listen.
I want to know what she’s listening to.
I always want to know
what people are listening to
on their walkmans,
but I’m sure I’d be disappointed if I found
out
say for instance
if she had the same music playing
on a portable radio
obliging me to listen
I’m sure it would annoy me.
So I want to know what she’s listening to
but I don’t feel like interrupting her
to ask.

Maybe she’s watching me write these words
and wondering what it is I’m writing about?

Maybe.

So here we are:
I’m concerned with the absence of music
or at least an absence of knowledge
about that music
and maybe – just maybe –
she’s concerned with the absence of knowledge
about what’s going on over here.

And while I’m thinking this, writing this
the girl stops the tape
opens the walkman to turn the tape over.
I put this notebook aside
and I ask her:
“What are you listening to?”

And she tells me.
And It’s nothing interesting to me
just as I expected
except –
she’s interesting.
She tells me she likes to listen
to this music on her walkman
because she is nervous
and this music makes her feel good.
I don’t want to know why she’s nervous
but I am impressed
that she answered a question I didn’t ask:
why she listens to this music.
I didn’t want to know why
she listens to this music.

And we talk about ordinary things.
I like her voice.
I like her Dutch accent as she translates
her thoughts into English words.
I watch her lips move.
I try to imagine what it would be like
to kiss her lips.
I have no need to make love to her
but I can’t help thinking about it.

And we talk of ordinary things
most of which are not present.
She tells me she has no parents.
This can mean many things
and I choose not to ask her
about the details.
But what comes to mind as important
are the parents she does not have.
They are not part of her life.
Their absence, I’m sure,
is often on her mind.

And as we talk
she becomes very attractive
and now I cannot help but think
about making love to her.
I wonder what it would be like,
but I do not wish to burden her
with this desire of mine.
The important thing here, I believe,
is that I’m thinking about something
that will never happen
or at least not upon the particular line
she and I are moving
at this particular moment.
I’m thinking about an absence in the future:
In my imagination
we have already gone our separate ways.
I’m wondering what she thought of me.
Was I attractive to her?
As attractive as she was to me?
I don’t know and probably never will
yet, this too,
this knowledge is something absent,
and will always be absent
from my life.
Maybe she will become a part of some
sexual fantasy
I’ll have someday.
I’ll make love to her absence
and at the same time her absence
will become as meaningful as her presence
today.

But then again, maybe not.

And then I tell her
I’ve written about her
in this notebook.
I tell her I wrote about wondering
what she was listening to on her walkman
and perhaps she too was wondering about
what I was writing.

And she says, “Yes. I was.
I was wondering about
what you were writing.”

So I tell her.
I pick up this notebook and read to her:
” . . . she puts on a walkman
and starts to listen.
I want to know what she’s listening to.
I always want to know
what people are listening to
on their walkmans . . .
. . . but I don’t feel like
interrupting her
to ask.
Maybe she’s watching me write these words
and wondering what it is I’m
writing about.
Maybe.”

And when she hears this
she laughs.
It is surprised laughter.
She didn’t expect to be laughing.
And I can see from the look in her eyes
and the way she stops laughing abruptly
that what I’ve read to her
is maybe a little bit frightening.
I put this notebook aside again.
This is all I can tell her.
I don’t think she would understand
all these thoughts
about absence.

And we continue talking about ordinary things
all the way to the station
where we have to change trains,
where we both get off
and I wish her luck
and she says goodbye.
She takes one train.
I take another
and our lives drift apart
perhaps forever.

Now I’m sitting in the new train
waiting for it to leave the station
and I’m back to this notebook again.
I’m thinking about her
writing about her
what we talked about
which of course is only a memory now
something that isn’t here
anymore
and I find I’m back to spending time
with what is not present.

And one of the things not present
is the girl I was talking to
and I think perhaps
right now
at this very moment
she too, in her thoughts,
is occupied with something
absent:
me.

JACK LOCKE

ELEVATOR OPERATOR

What happened to the moon?
What happened to the moon?

The moon has gone mad
the moon of our universal weirdness.
It sits on our horizon like NOW!”

It takes a deep breath and it blows out PURE ELEVATORS!

The pure elevators of our deepest souls
wrapped in cellophane brushed teeth
and taxi cab horsepower are screaming!

As foghorns kiss the menthol smoke of pure elevator exhaust
as we shoot past the beautiful eyes of MOON ROOMS
as the moonglow worms of our minds blink and wink and think
as they squeeze through the freeze of MOON DOOM
trapped in LIFE, tied up in TIME, searching for the perfect
combination as lovers leap from the Golden Gates
of their Gardens of Identity into MOON POOLS
where Narcissistic Mirrors ORGANIZE to take over the moon
the mad moon, the dry moon, the new full moon,
the MOON MOON!

Yessss – we guessss and confessss and make a messssss
Yessss – we dream of nutshell hells where bells bong
and bongos go hard-bop bust, yessss – we scream
for ice-age cream puffs and cry for the sky
like lost pioneers in pinball paradise
Yesss – we lick the Seven Seals of Easter, slap their flaps
and clap for the real fish of the sea as they rip the mask
from the MOON FACE!

Yesss – we are riding pure elevators to the moon.
BUT –
BUT I –
I AM THE ELEVATOR OPERATOR!

THIS IS MY AMERICAN BODY

The cars of your vast industries speed
out of my eyes
at ninety-nine m.p.h.
with pulsing politicians
waving from the windows
whipping my eyelashes
with Thanksgiving turkey feathers
This is my American body

The cops of your gas chambers
creep out of my picked pockets
and plant bombshelters in my brain
into which I sink like a sponge bath
while pre-paid prostitutes stand by
like peanut butter and jelly skeletons
and watch me drown in my own wet dream

The garbage collectors of your money
leap out of lost generation gaps in the sky
and slide trombones into my ears
while existential angels
sing thru the mouthpieces
of broken coke bottles
‘Stars and Stripes for Lovers”
This is my American body

I open my mouth
and the desolate night rushes in
with its refrigerators full
of cool juices

I open my mouth and out
pours alarmed clocks
used history mystery books
and birth-control pillows
This is my American body

The Niagara fools of your military
monopoly game
stumble out of blind alleys
dragging chains of centipedes
which crawl into my face
and commit suicide in my nostrils

The crucified cross-hangers of your boxtop churches
crack hotraw eastereggs into my armpits
while horse-faced French teachers
sucking Sunday smoke thru ice cream cones
slouch on a haystack of needles
and wiggle their American bodies
against mine

The housewife of my better home and garden
hangs wet bras on a barbed-wire clothesline
while I snag my fingernails on the open sky
get my lips caught in a mechanical door
step on a grasshopper’s head
emerging from a man hole
and lose my memory

A real live radio crashes into my genitals
while an educated ape
squeals for a feel
as I kneel on my elbows
and beg for its blessing

SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER

Let’s muskrat ramble
right over the tip of the tumble
on our tick tack toes

while proctors gamble
and tiddleys wink
and pings go pong
and pimps go limp
and Bo goes PEEP!
and
kings go kong!
and monkeys go wrench
and Sears go Roebuck!
go buck!
go back!

Let’s do the doodlin’
noodle
poodle
puddle
SQUAT
right over to Columbus and Broadway
where China goes to town
where Mother gets goosed
where Alice eats Wonderbread
bends over
and San Francisco examines her

MOONLIGHT

I reach inside your face
and pull out moonlight
I reach into your warm body
and you bomb me with love!

LAURIE PERE-LE-GRIM

CITY LIGHTS

Here I am in Frisco, Grandpa
corner of Market and 7th
Greyhound Bus Terminal
(make your head swim, Grandpa)

I’m heading up to North Beach
making a bee-line for the paradise of my dreams.
Heard all about it. Read all about it.
Kerouac, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti
City Lights Bookstore. Mikes Pool Hall.
“I lead a quiet life
in Mike’s place everyday
watching the champs of the Dante Billiard Parlor
and the French pinball addicts.”
The Coffee Gallery. The Cellar.
The Co-Existence Bagel Shop
Michael McClure.
Gregory Corso.
Gary Snyder.
My heroes.
I read all their books
I had a street map on my wall
(remember, Grandpa?)
I memorized the map
I knew my footsteps.
Columbus & Broadway
COLUMBUS AND BROADWAY, YEAH!
It’s like a sign inside my head
like a billboard lit up with winking
blinking
clinking lights
a hundred times larger than real life
COLUMBUS AND BROADWAY!

But Grandpa, I am so surprised
when I get to Columbus & Broadway.
It’s a real street sign
and it looks so small
so normal
like the street signs back home.
But I’ve got it down pat, Grandpa
I’ve come prepared
I got on my old jeans. And my sandals.
And this old wool overcoat you gave me
I even let my beard grow out
(against your honest objections)
and I’ve slung my nap-sack
over my shoulder too
like a true Dharma Bum.
This is my dream, Grandpa
since I was 15
I dreamed this
and now the dream is coming true I stand
beneath the Columbus & Broadway sign
with my hands in the pockets of my faded blue
jeans and blue dreams
and my feet upon the sacred ground.

Remember how I used to go down
to Fisher’s News Agency
with all those revolving
revolving
revolving paperback racks?
(a nowhere place, man, strictly nowhere)
From Here to Eternity
Gone with the Wind
Peyton Place
and oh Mrs. Fisher
was so kind and friendly
and she ordered books for me
from City Lights
Grove Press Evergreens
New Direction Paperbooks
and I’d sit in my room of nights
and study the lists they printed
in the back pages and dream
and check off the one’s I’d read
and the ones I wanted to read
someday
when I had the bread.
And so I used to go to Fisher’s
and while some man was picking up
a copy of Sports Illustrated
or Field and Stream
there I was thumbing thru my new copy
just arrived by Parcel Post
of Coney Island of the Mind
or Journal of Albion Moonlight

Weird it was and exciting to behold
I even did my English project, senior year
(I never told you about this, Grandpa
for reasons of shock and shyness)
on Allen Ginsberg
and almost got kicked out of school
(KICKED . . . OUT . . . OF . . . SCHOOL)
for quoting his poem, you know the one
(no you don’t)
that goes
“With mother finally fucked
and the last fantastic book
flung out the tenement window”
and “Cocksucker in Moloch”
and “The nose is holy
the tongue and cock and hand
and asshole holy”
but the teacher let me turn it in
if I cleaned up the language
(CLEANED . . . UP . . . THE . . . LANGUAGE!)
Weird it was and exciting to behold!

So now I’m here, in North Beach, Grandpa
it’s night-time in the Hanging Gardens
of North Beach
at the center of my dream
and I really don’t know what to expect
but this is worse
than my worst nightmare.
Topless bars, they’re called
(this is not for you)
open doors breathing
phony lust and greasy passions
in rituals of futility
tourists trotting around
like packs of horny dogs sniffing
sniffing
snuffing
This is cocksucker in Moloch.
I don’t know, I don’t know
But I hope I shall soon see
Jack K leaning against a lamp post
or bearded Ginsberg shuffling down
the street, notebook in hand, scribbling down
every detail of the present perfect moment
for posterity to peruse
see Greg Corso (SAINT RAPHAEL!)
standing in the doorway
of his Birthplace Revisited
pumping Dirty Ears full of lost watches.
“I cross the street and enter the building
the garbage cans haven’t stopped smelling
I walk up the first flight; Dirty Ears
aims a knife at me . . .
I pump him full of lost watches.”
I know it sounds crazy, Grandpa
but on this first night, first time
I’ve got weird thoughts in my mind of amazement
and I’m downcast in the corners of my smiling mouth
and I say it’s an illusion of the night time beasts
who love to smack their lips
and snack upon the tender morsels
of my sleeping brain.
These topless boxes
they must be propped up
like facades in a Hollywood movie
and THE BEATS—THE REAL BEATS
will step out of the shadows
of true doorways and stride down the street
kicking away the props
and the facades will come tumbling down
like the wailing walls of Jericho
and say it was only a joke.

But it’s not a joke, Grandpa
It’s one of your shaggy dog stories.
It’s not funny
and the punchline
never comes
around.

But I say, “What the heck!
What the hell!”
and go looking for Mikes Place
(The glorious Dante Billiard Parlor
of Ferlinghetti fame)
and I wander around for an hour
before some man with mysterious eyes
behind dark glasses
(no sunshine, remember?)
tells me Dante’s don’t exist
no more.

“And how about City Lights?
Is that gone too?”
And Mystery Eyes
(maybe he’s Dirty Ears brother)
aims a finger at me
and says, “City Lights
is
just
down
the
street.”

And City lights is there, the only place left
from the good old beaten days
but I don’t see it at first
I walk right by it
because right next door
(this is not for you to see, Grandpa)
is a topless shoeshine booth
just a shoeshine stand
you go in behind the curtain
you sit upon a bench
and a girl with big naked breasts
shines your shoes
and you get to sit there and watch her work
watch he big breasts flop back
and so forth
then you pay two dollars fifty
for the show and the shine
but I don’t try
cause I’m wearing sandals
and poor
(and shyness and shame
are bleeding my face red)
It’s real Cocksuck in Moloch!
and it blows my mind
and I walk right past City Lights.

Oh yeah! I’ve landed
like a fish out of water
no water
only concrete
only flashing lights
and big breasts flopping around
as she shines your shoes
and now it’s a dry whirlpool of daily desperation
and a rented room in Chinatown
(mice pellets roll on the dusty floor
and raindrops spike my dim ceiling window
my only source of
sky
light
and Ginsberg’s ghosts howl in the halls)
from whence I pen these lines
of sorrow and heart-ache
thinking of childhood room
and childhood-lined walls
of my homesick home
and weeping for lost childhood
lost dreams
(and you too, Grandpa
I weep for you)
wishing I could be back
in the snuggle of my old bed of warm youth
and sitting down to sup
7 nights a week
on your Irish stew.

Now it’s a Chinese bed of nails
and Chinese beef rice
(25 cents a bowl, 7 nights a week)
spooned into my mouth
in the underground kitchens
of backstreet Chinatown.

Now it’s afternoons of numbskull tears
as I sit on a bench in Washington Square
and watch the pigeons
peck seeds from an old man’s hand
watch children seeing
and sawing
in Jackson Square
knowing these games are gone
for good and forever.

Now it’s evenings of prayers for salvation
as I haunt the basement
of City Lights
like a ship-wrecked sailor
clinging to piece of driftwood
hanging onto the bookshelves
breathing in the dust of old books
thinking: this copy of “Leaves of Grass”
might have been held by the hands
of Big Jack K one night, not long ago
holding onto my dream
feeling like the only survivor
in a bombed city
imagining that everything above ground
in the City of Night
is nothing but blasted ruins
full of radioactive lights
as I bend down in my shelter
hanging onto my dream
hunched over a copy of Eliot’s Wasteland
holding on
“April is the cruelest month
breeding lilacs out of the dead land,”
hanging on
“You! Hypocrit—lecture—mon semblable
– mon frere!”
holding on
DA
DATTA
DAYADHYAN
DA
DAMYATTA
hanging on
“Shantih . . . shantih . . . shantih.”

JULIE

Oh Julie, how did we ever meet?
What a strange path I had to follow
to find myself
at the doorstep of your tunnel.
It wasn’t chance.
It wasn’t fate.
I felt you pulling me from afar
like a Christmas star
that draws lost souls, seeking salvation
across miles of naked desert
to a straw-filled manger
where a new messiah has just been born.

But it was not Christmas
and there was no manger.
It was a hot, summer afternoon
outside a small theater on Columbus Ave.
THE MIME TROUP said the hand-painted sign
PERFORMS HERE EVERY FRI & SAT NITE
I went in on a Thurs afternoon
Peter was sweeping the lobby floor
He wanted to help me.
“I don’t know where I am,” I said
“Come inside,” he said
and I followed him
into the dark theater
and suddenly new faces
astounding and friendly faces
spread out before me
and took my loneliness away.
Chet and Amy and Alan
and Alice (and Peter)
and yes, of course, you too
you too, Julie
standing on the stage
alone
with a single spotlight
beaming down into your face
pouring its light down upon
your beauty
like a Christmas star.

And you raised you hand
to shade your eyes from the spotlight
and you said into the darkness.
“I’m starving would somebody
mind trotting out for pizzas and cokes?”

And I raised my hand
and Chet gave me the dollar bills
from his pocket
and I trotted out for pizzas and cokes
and the next day I trotted out again
for you
and the sun was shining
and my heart was lifting
and my feet were dancing
and soon I was sweeping the floors
and aiming the spotlight on Fri and Sat nites
guiding the spotlight
to illuminate your beauty, Julie
the priceless, precious treasure
of your beautiful face
and your beautiful body
clothed in such garments of silk and lace.
and I would return to my dim room
in Chinatown, my room of deep raven sadness
and I would lie on my bed of hot coals
and whisper, “I love you, Julie
I love you
so much,” and I would stroke
stroke
stroke
until my handkerchief was filled
until your face
went to sleep
inside my mind
and I cried myself to sleep, “I love you,
Julie. I love you.
My heart wants you
so much.”

And then it happened.
After that Sat Nite performance
on the sidewalk outside the theater
you put your hand upon my arm
and said, “I will take you home
and feed you
because you are starving
and I will take you home
because I see the hunger in your eyes
and how badly you need to love.”
And you guided me to your rooms
on Page Street high above the Panhandle
and I tasted the delights of mushrooms
and creamed tuna on toast
and white wine from sunshine vines
and a salad from a secret garden.
Then you took me by the hand
and led me into your tunnel of love.
Into your candle-lit bedroom
you laid me down upon green pastures
of soft woolen blankets
and you lay down beside me
where the quiet river flows
and I feared no evil
and I touched your hair
golden, soft and silken
and I touched your face with my fingertips
and I kissed your eyelids
and I kissed your mouth
and you touched my skin
and I was hard
“And the cock is holy!”
and I exploded all over your belly
soft belly skin
in oceans of seed
with just one touch of your hand
and “I’m sorry, Julie
I’m so sorry.”
And you said, “Never mind
I think this was your first time
in the morning it will be easier
and your seed will flow into my body.”

But in the morning time
one touch from you
I exploded again
into emptiness
and Julie, you said, “You –
oh you sensitive boy.
Please be patient.
Please don’t cry.”
And I lay down beside you
and cried.

A week went by.
You were teaching me
you, who are older than I
were teaching me the secrets
of your soft woman body
and I entered the lips of your belly
and exploded with one stroke
my seed flowed into you
and I smiled with joy
but I saw you were unhappy
I saw in your smile
how sad you were.

A month went by.
How patiently sad you were
I saw it in your smile
three strokes was the best I could do
three strokes only,
How unspeakably sad you were.

When you fell to sleep
I watched you
I watched your thumb creep to your mouth
I watch your fingers seek out
the hard rubber tips of your breasts
and I watched your sleeping face
so unspeakably sad
and your closed eyes said,
“I have chosen the wrong man to love.”

And one day I came home
and found you in bed with Chet.
I stopped in the door
way and watched
as he stroked your body
with his holy cock
over and over hard, solid, deep strokes
dozens upon dozens
and you moaned with the pleasure
I could never give you
and I retreated back thru the tunnel
to the kitchen
and I sat at the table
and I listened to your cries of joy
as Chet stroked you.
I counted one hundred strokes
One hundred and fifty-six strokes
and then you cried out
with exploding
writhing
passion.

And later
Chet asleep
you came into the kitchen
and you shook your head
when I said, “Why can’t it be me?”
and you said, “Just find someplace else
to live, please,”
And I said, “Julie, I love you.”
And you returned to Chet

And now I sit here at this kitchen table
and write this poem of love
this poem of loss
this poem of sorrow and heart-ache
until the night falls down
outside the window
and the streetlights come on
down below on Page Street
and cars are humming by
like heavy shadows casting shadows
and I get up to leave
and I say, “Julie, I love you,”
my words tumbling down the tunnel
but I don’t think you’re listening
I don’t think you can hear me
because
stroke
stroke
stroke.
“I love you, Julie,
but you can’t hear me.”

THE GARDEN

we came into the garden
we drank the wine
we smoked the dope
Todd smoked the dope
we came into the garden
Diana drank the wine
we all drank the wine

Bill and Betty came into the garden
with their smiles
we started to dance
and Aaron and Wendy came down
and joined in the dance
and Don and Janine came into the garden
and joined the dance
(she danced like they do in France)
then Helen and Shep came into the garden
and they were peaceful
tho Shep wanted be-bop
and Helen wanted Bobalero
or one of those aquatic pieces
composed in water by Debussy.

and when Bill and Betty left
to go home next door
Diana said, “They’re going home
to make love next door.”
and everybody laughed
when she said this
everybody in the garden laughed.
And Bill and Betty stopped
on the other side of the fence
and looked over
and laughed too.

Susan danced in the Garden
for Ryan
and while everybody else
was dancing
for everybody else
Ryan took Susan’s hand
and led her deep into the Garden
where they lay down upon a blanket
on a bed of pine needles
under the low branches
of a whippersnapper Douglas Fir
and they made love
like making love
Pookie saw them
Pookie took my hand
and led me deep into the Garden
and I saw them too
(and I wished I could have my own Susan)
and when I came back
I sat with heavy face on knees
under the eucalyptus tree
and Diana came over
and sat down beside me
and she put her hand on my shoulder
and I said, “What kind of snakes
do we have in this Garden?”
and Diana lifted me up
and took my hand
and led me deep into the Garden
until we were surrounded by
wild rose bushes
and submerged in the glow
of golden sunlight
she stood behind me
and wrapped her arms around me
and jacked me off
into the shadows
of the rose bushes
and she said, “No kind of snake
do we have in this Garden.”

we all built a fire
I built a fire
Todd drank the wine
and lit another match
we gathered round the fire
Susan shivered by the tree
we danced around the fire

We came into the Garden
we drank the wine
we smoked the weed
we danced
we laughed
it was the 3rd day of July
and at midnight
Todd dropped a firecracker
into the fire
and when it popped
everybody jumped.

HAIKU

It’s quiet in the room
it’s totally silent on the moon.
Guess what? No air.

Maybe you think I love you
when you bring me a bowl of soup.
But I do!

Here comes Susan
Here comes Lee-Anne
There goes my concentration.

It doesn’t matter
what you call your cat
he’ll come when he feels like it.

ANONYMOUS

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLES
(1958-1961)

the path beneath my feet
wet with jagged stones
and smooth pebbles

overhanging limbs
dry in the summer heat
deserted benches along
the way worn paint
moldy dry drinking
fountain with birds
pecking at nuts
and seeds the path
climbs and over the hill
I hear people talking
thru the stir of motors

voices float across the meadow
create a soft feather in my soul
like a bird pecking at seeds
in an open hand

I viewed the green grass
and the trees alive
thru the curtain of her hair

she confused the whole world

we watched people paddle
boats in the sun
and walked away forgetting
about our past

back at the house
late in the night
of summer heat
we forget that we might
have a future

looking up at the summer night
spasms of wind in the trees
pocked marked moon
a spider is spinning
outside cellar doors
waiting for a dragonfly
to scream

the setting moon gets stuck
warm blood thru pumping
animal hearts
stops

housewives hang wet dresses
on barbed wire clotheslines
while men mill around counters
in Macys and the Emporium
sniffing perfume

fading twilight thru blank window
starved murmurs from the next room
groan of hot water pipes down below
gulls crying for fish above the rooftop

sitting under an oak tree
motionless for hours
my arm becomes
disconnected
from my body

the world off beat
one way streets
two way decisions
round buildings
square people

no parking signs
on small patches of
jungle grass

sandlots full of weeds
and dog turds

bookstore cellars
full of stale paperbacks
an attic full of rocking chairs
a soft ocean whisper
thru an open window

STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO

workers lift potato sacks
on the embarcadero
and in their spare time
watch cable cars
creep up the hills
like fiddler crabs in the spray

a cloud of cigar smoke
drifts along the streetcar tracks
down Market Street
and into Twin Peaks tunnel

the blondes down by the packing houses
are laughing at the night
while a fleet of ferry boats
prowl around the bay
like aquatic dwarves

tourists load twocent postcards
with love and wish you were here
while Coit Tower
leans over in the fog
and touches Chinatown

a taxi sprints me
from the Greyhound depot
across Market
up Grant
thru North Beach
and out to the Marina
just in time to see
fishing boats
guarding
the Golden Gate
at sunset
bobbing up and down in the waves
of a century-old tide
sweeping in
from Japan
their lights blinking
spelling out the haiku
hidden in the white caps

SCREEN WINDOW
(Two Summer Poems)

1.
midsummer heat
the reflections of the town
faraway midsummer haze
the edges dulled, poured, strained
thru a wet blanket
tractor sounds soft
thru the screen window
as it digs up the earth
and the world goes on
cracking its head against sky ceiling

2.
strange drafts curl smoke
in humid daytime air
but at night a chill
settles over the earth
wind thru screen window
night mist over the valley
and the town lights
are so far removed
that even today
seems long ago

[ Healdsburg, Summer 1961 ]

RUSH HOUR DOWNTOWN SAN FRANCISCO

5:30 Post Meridian
it comes pouring out the doors
a massive ocean of human bodies
men’s mental hands
reaching out to grab the curls
of blonde secretarials
with exhausted mouth
in their high heels

6:10 Post Meridian
the sidewalk is quiet, almost empty
an occasional solitary bum
picking thru trash in the gutter
coming up with a nickel a dime
a magazine printed in Spanish

a yellow cab
with a belt head junkie
behind the wheel
with a fake ax
planted in his skull
whizzes by in the street

SAN FRANCISCO HAIKU

strong wind from the bay
seagulls fold their wing and shoot
like bullets from a gun

THE HOLE OF THE MOON

looking down a back street of San Francisco
looking down an alleyway into a room
see a boy of 19 getting ready to go
down
down
down
into the dark hole of the moon

the room is filled with foghorn moans
from the Bay of San Francisco
and the glow of distant street lights
from poles lined up in a ragged row

he takes a sheet of paper
and folds it into a plane
he sails the plane out the window
into the hole of the night

into the fog of San Francisco
with a message printed on each wing
on one it says: here goes nothing
the other says: GO IN PEACE
down
down
down
into the hole of the moon

and it sails
across
the rooftops of San Francisco

Imaginary poets – 3

2011 |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

Part One: HUNTER QUINN

Part Two: TAG ZANDER, JACK LOCKE,
LAURIE PERE-LE-GRIM & ANONYMOUS

Part Three: RYAN ZACK SCOTLANDER

A few remarks about the six fictional poets in this collection

The poems that appear in Parts One and Three of this collection were written by two fictional characters in my Song Poet Cycle—a sequence of nine journals that detail the life of Ryan Zack Scotlander, song writer and performer, from 1966 to 1970.

Hunter Quinn is a companion character in the Song Poet Cycle who first appears in Journal Three (Angel Wasteland), returns in Journal Four (Midnight Prayers), in abstentia as a published poet in Journal Six (Tightrope Walk), and finally re-appears in the fictional flesh in Journal Nine (Ghost Train). He is credited with three published books of poems, some of which appear in the Cycle. His Fool’s Journey, based on the cards of the Tarot, appears in Backdoor Troubadour, a sequel to the Song Poet Cycle.

Ryan Zack Scotlander is the moving force of my fictional autobiography The Song Poet Cycle. After meeting Hunter Quinn in Rome, Zack begins to write his own poetry. A few of these poems are later published in a chapbook in London (Journal Five—Midnight Prayers). Later — in Journal Nine (Ghost Train) — Zack appears at the International Poetry Festival in Rotterdam, Holland where he presents his first published book of poems — Paradise Iced.

Tag Zander, whose poems appear in Part Two of this collection, is the main character of my novel, (Parentheses). He is a middle-aged American poet who has been invited to lecture at an international interdisciplinary conference on art and science in Holland. The story is an account of the four days he spends in and around the conference in Katwijk and the six days following in Amsterdam. Aside from the primary theme that emerges from the story: how a single, seemingly trivial event can profoundly alter the direction of a person’s life in unexpected ways, he also writes and recites a handful of poems that reflect his current tribulations.

Jack Locke appears in “Sharon”, the first part of a collection of short stories that form a loosely-connected novel titled A STONE IN MY HEART ROLLED OVER. Jack is a conniving charlatan, a would-be beat poet who arrives on San Francisco’s North Beach scene in 1958, too late to be a part of the “renaissance.” He concocts his poems with only one purpose in mind: to impress and seduce Sharon. He both succeeds and fails, but that’s in the story, not in the poems.

Laurie Pere-Le-Grim is one of the free-wheeling characters of DOWNEY STREET, a semi-historical novel of life in the Haight-Ashbury of San Francisco in 1965-1966.

The ANONYMOUS poet of the San Francisco Poems was a student when he wrote these lines. If he were to pass me on the street today I would recognize him instantly; however he would not give me a second glance. He did not believe, in those years when he was 18 that he would live past the age of 30. He would be surprised to learn that the old man stumbling past was actually an older version of himself. Tho I knew him well in those early years, I cannot remember his name, and thus he remains ANONYMOUS.

These poets, long seeking to be read, to be heard, hope you enjoy their work and bring to them the recognition they deserve. They have entrusted me, their editor, to deliver their verses to the world at large and I have promised to do my best. Working closely with these poets over the years I have sometimes felt that their work is my own; that I too have helped shaped the creation of their poems.
On their behalf, I thank you.

T. Zimmerman

IMAGINARY POETS 3
edited by T. Zimmerman

RYAN ZACK SCOTLANDER’S “ZACKWALK”

COME TO ME ON A NIGHT LIKE THIS (Part One)

come to me on a night like this
when the moon is a half-shuttered eye
of a slumbering Miss Universe
and the sprinkle of stars
is the shattered shadow
of the love I feel for you

come to me on a night like this
when the muscles of my feet beat
like drums against your sky
and the feathers of my tongue
tap against the clouds
that float thru the thunder of your eye

come to me on a night like this
when your eyelids flutter
and my lips stutter, “Love”
and all my balloons roll around
in your hands like butter balls
and everything’s better than nothing
and nothing is nowhere at all

when the sun flips over and goes to sleep
and specks of darkness float down
like confetti thru the light
til there’s nothing left to see
til there’s nothing left but you and me
and a spark and glow
of a fingertip touch
and a shy, public kiss
come to me on a night like this

LOST LOVE

she lives in a mirror where lostlove hides
but lost love escapes and leaves her inside
with all of her April Fool’s Day fish
a broken mirror and her very last wish:

if love has jaws
if love has a bite
may I be devoured
on this very night

she lives in a dream where lostlove drips
like a lost honey kiss from her love lost lips
there’s a moon in there too and black dog sky
lostlove clouds with a wink in each eye

if love has a tongue
(she silently prays)
may it lick my heart
thru its heartburning haze

she lives in a laugh where lostlove weeps
lostlove tears are the tears she keeps
they flow like a fountain, they fall like rain
lostlove tears and a river of pain

if love has teeth
may they grind and chew
start with my mind
and work down to my shoes

she lies in a bed where lostlove sleeps
until lostlove awakes and lostlove leaps
on her trampoline heart and bounces away
lostlove night follows lostlove day

does she live in a house
with too many ghosts?
no, she lives by an ocean
with too many coasts
she reads too many books
full of lostlove scenes
and lostlove pork
and lostlove beans
where does she live?
can anyone tell?
she lives in a room at the Lost Love Motel

COLD FINGER HOT TAMALE

what am I supposed to do?

pant like a pervert
into the receiver
of a disconnected phone
whilesome
cold finger hot tamale
pulls your trigger
and makes you weep bullets
of bliss?

dip into the pot luck pot
and pray for bullet holes
in pigeon holes
and pray for dynamite and a pin
cushion whilesome
slow motion speed freak
whips your haystack
and makes you squeal
like a pig full of needles?

lick the heat
from the greasy griddle
where tits of sausage
pop and sizzle
whilesome
low down high jumper
paints your town
in zebrastripes
smokes your pipe
and pops your weasel

whip my tongue with poultry claws
and load my lips with thumbtacks
whilesome
small change big dipper
paints your mind
in rainbows of glitter

whilesome
wet blanket dry doctor
chokes his lameduck
and drips his neck drops of spit
into your button of belly jelly?

slap my slider with thorns and thistles
whilesome
old fashioned youngblood
stabs your rose bushes
and sucks all the slugs
from your back garden?

wattam eye sposed tadoo?
wattam eye sposed tadoo?

LOVE LAUGH FOR AMANDA

Let me be your long-lost dove
your gastronomic loogaroo
your bouncing beanie Boston baby
Topanga Canyon Kangaroo

Let me be your desert lizard
Cactus Charlie that’s my name
your baked Alaska, Athabasca
Gitchigoomee, Penny Lane

Let me be your Dearest Abby
your Honest Abe, your Sitting Bull
Let me be your Tarpit Baby
Wolf of Manjack, Lamb of Wool

Let me be your suntan lotion
let me your load of hay
your rocky roadie mountain man
yodel lady, yodel lay

Let me be your Wheel of Fortune
Let me be your face of Spades
your flower shower, your garden glove
let me be your wrap-around shades

Let me be your ancient city
and rise from dust like Macchu Pichu
and bubble from beneath the waves
Atlantis, Memphis, Le Mu Ria

I won’t be late, I won’t be long
I’m all lined up in rows of love
let me be your last line lover
let me be your long-lost dove

MY PLACE IS BY THE WINDOW

I don’t have time tonight
to take you to a movie show
my place is by the window
when the fog horns start to blow

I don’t have time tonight
to stroll you on the promenade
my place is by the window
behind these window shades

I don’t have time tonight
to waltz you cross the floor
my place is by the window
my eyes are on the trapdoor

I don’t have time tonight
to call you on the phone
my place is by the window
by this pile of caveman bones

I don’t have time tonight
to strum your mandolin
my place is by the window
and the window’s getting thin

I don’t have time tonight
to play the Don Juan game
my place is by the window
until the streets are filled with rain

I don’t have time tonight
to take you on a midnight run
I’m tired, it’s late, it’s 3 AM
and what we did is done

I don’t have time tonight
cause the people living up above
have got a brand new double bed
and they won’t stop making love

TAKE ME HOME

You take me out beyond the gate
where we can be alone
I don’t want to be alone tonight
jack me off and take me home

good dog, good dog, you murmur
between your baited lips
sit, roll over, pad my paw
drool upon my whips

it’s in your jaw, between your teeth
your lapping tongue and bite
that ain’t no whip I’m drooling round
it’s a stump of slapstick dynamite

it’s the world’s oldest sidekick game
it’s played with blood and bone
so wipe me off with velvet gloves
jack me off and take me home

IT’S HARD TO KNOW YOUR DESIRE

it’s hard to know your desire
do you wish to stand and look at me
from the other side of the room?
or do you wish to put your hands
in my pockets and wiggle your fingers around?

do you want to die alone in the desert
where the last thing you see
is a scorpion crawling home
thru a trail of tears in the dust?
or do you see yourself dying
in the lap of luxury
surrounded by 14 grandchildren
3 ex-spouses
5 last lovers
and a pack of white Siberian wolves
while above you on the ceiling
the radiant image of Jesus Christ
as painted by Michelangelo
gazes down into your face?

it’s hard to know your desire

do you wish to spend all night
tip-toeing around the subject of sex
testing your teeth with toothpicks
to make sure no chunks of chocolate
or slabs of spinach
are flashing goofy signals
when you smile?
or do you wish to rip off your clothes
and get down to the fast kissing
and the lusty licking right away?

do you wish to spend your days
hanging out with Peter Fonda
holding hands with Jim Morrison
and getting Salvador Dali’s autograph?
or do you wish to spend those days with me
counting sheep and breaking wind?

it’s hard to know your desire

do you wish to dance with a Latin lover
sliding your hands thru his slicked-back hair
tweaking his greasy mustache
and bouncing your belly
off his toreador bib-overalls?
or is a few hours each night of toe-tapping
to some good old rhythm and blues on the radio
with me good enough for you?

do you wish to play in the world famous
razzle-dazzle philspectorharmonic orchestra
where the violins are diamond studded
and the harps are solid gold
and the second bassoonist is a billionaire
who likes to sit in with boys for free?
or would you mind just backing me on kazoo?

it’s hard to know your desire

do you wish I could be a cloud
and fly over your house, waving
blowing kisses, dropping water balloons
that splatter-splat on your doorstep
and splish-splash on your legs?
or is it OK if I just stand over here
waiting for the next drop of rain
which may or may not
contain a message in a bottle from you

it’s hard to know your desire

do you wish I were there
to brush out your hair
to snip your nails
to powder your tail?

or do you wish me right here
with this bottle of beer
this cigarette ash
these trashyard blues?

do you wish to spend your life
with a man who has discovered
the cure for madness caused by
Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty
who wears checkerboard pajamas to breakfast
and drinks hot milk sprinkled with paprika?
or would you be content with me
an ordinary fool
who often wears mis-matched socks
and sometimes forgets to clean his nails
before he goes on stage to play his guitar
and does absolutely as little as possible
about as little as possible?

it’s hard to know your desire

I’M YOUR MAN

I’m your man
I got a bottle neck
I got a glottal stop
I got a double deck
I’m a porkish chop

I’m your man
I’m a lemon drop
I got a lobster pot
I gotta lotta hot
I’m a polka dot

I’m your man
I’m a yo-yo boy
I can’t win at poker
I’m a wind-up toy
I’m wild like a joker

I’m your man
make no mistake
I got voo-doo doo-wop
I sing like a snake
I dance like a mop

I’m your man
I’m a gum drop dealer
I run like a river
I’m a homeplate stealer
I live to deliver

I’m your man
I’m a San Francisco gent
I got fog in one eye
I got attics for rent
I might be a spy

I’m your man
and you’re my kind of chick
you got laughter and grace
you got treats, you got tricks
you got tears on your face

MORE THAN A MINUTE

more than a minute
is how much time I want to spend with you
more than a minute
much more than one or two

we’ll need more than a minute
to set our true love tales aside
romances of our youth
follies of our pride

more than a minute
for the dance of hawk and dove
a minute for the kiss
and the making of the love

more than a minute

more than a minute
to catch up on the latest news
the guy you met on the airplane
his crazy alligator shoes

more than a minute

a minute for the rocking
a minute for the roll
a minute for the mocking bird
the ace of diamonds in the hole

more than a minute

more than a minute
I’ll need to set you free
untie your tongue, unchain your heart
I’ll need eternity.

SAY NO MORE (Part One)

I’m drunk on your perfume
I’m drooling on your floor
what more do you want from me?
please say no more

I’m ready for your feast
we’ll waltz thru the redwoods
we’ll barbecue the beast
on ocean-drifted deadwood

I’m prepared to spend a day or two
trying out your squeeze
but after that I’m down the road
I’m gone, no more, please

I’m a sunshine smiler
barefoot and blind
I’m an 80-minute miler
with a 4-minute mind

I’ve got wind in my hair
I’ve got mud up my leg
I’m breathing your words precious air
say no more, I beg.

SAY NO MORE (Part Two)

I hear you’ve got a brand new turtle
say no more, it’s standing by the door

I hear you got a case of Albert Einsteinitis
say no more, you’re probably sore

I hear you got a new crying machine
say no more if it washes the floor

I hear you got a photographic eye
say no more, just tell me the score

SAY NO MORE (Part Three)

I hear you got a lip that reads
and a sunday school for saturday’s daughters
I hear you’re doing dreams with deeds
and western forms of water

I hear you got a pleasure man
you play him on your radio
you measure him with grains of sand
and yodeled “yodel-lay-dee-hos”

I hear you got that echo down pat
and the sighs of the nine muses too
I hear the cry of your karmic blind bat
I feel the mojo of your Mt. Olympus voodoo

SAY NO MORE (Part Four)

I hear you got a brand new turtle
let it sing, let is explore
let it swing, let it jive
let it surround us, is it alive?
you bet it’s alive
it’s ready to dance
it’s going to do
the turtle advance
later its lecture
will settle the score
if the shell is the inside
or the out, say no more

TONIGHT: PART ONE

I don’t have time for love tonight
my harmonica’s on the blink
there’s a pile of junk inside my head
and dishes in the sink

I don’t have time for love tonight
my socks are planted in the ground
waiting for barefoot paratroopers
to come floating, swooping down

we’ve got this morse code problem
the messages to the front lines
the dots get mixed with the dashes
I’ve just started world war nine

I don’t have time for love tonight
I have traffic to direct
they’re waiting for me at Trafalgar Square
to orchestrate a double-decker wreck

I don’t have time for love tonight
my fishing boat just docked
loaded down with shrimps and chips
bagels, cream cheese and lox

I don’t have time for love tonight
I’ve got cards to shuffle and deal
“Hit me,” he’ll say and I’ll toss down an ace
and peanut gallery will squeak and squeal

I don’t have time for love tonight
the girl across the street
is standing at her window
flapping a big white sheet
like a matador waves his cape
spoiling for a fight
with a blood-engorged bullmaniac
I don’t have time for love tonight

TONIGHT: PART TWO

sleep with me tonight
I’ll let you see my dreams
take a peek beneath my hair
between the scars and seams
and look into the clockwork
of my bee-hive brain
and watch the moths hit the flame
and go spinning down the drain

sleep with me tonight
just you and me and sandman
we’ll turn out all the lights
I’ll let you hold my hand
I’ll tell you ghostly stories
but you won’t be afraid
cause the sandman loves
naked masquerades

sleep with me tonight
it’s not hard to do
just close your eyes and act surprised
if folks come strolling thru
my room is open all the time
I cannot lock the door
you’ll only get a broken arm
from sleeping on the floor

sleep with me tonight
there’s nowhere else to go
the streets are full of refugees
from the after-midnight show
you’ll be Joan of Arc
I’ll be Robin Goodfellow
we’ll do the hit bits
from Hamlet and Othello

sleep with me tonight
the moon is stuck between
the chimneys of Buckingham Palace
and the clouds of a beggar’s dream
it won’t be a stylish marriage
you’ll have to pay your way
find you own reason
for wanting to stay

sleep with me tonight
the dogs are on the prowl
Orion is on the rise
the dogs begin to howl
the beggars gather in the square
the beggars they go down
to the lipstick posters
in the London Underground

sleep with me tonight
the window is filled with rain
the king and queen have fallen
everybody’s got a new name
and the black cats are creeping
across the rooftops
and the backseat drivers
are all headed home

sleep with me tonight
I don’t want to sleep alone

DOG LOVE

slap me, stagger me, tie me to the bedpost
let me stand guard and watch you while you sleep
touch me, tickle me, laugh me into sunshine
fill me full of bones and warm wormish glow

twist me, pretzel me, tie me to the bed springs
bounce me all night long, never let me sleep
pinch me, tremble me, tell me about tomorrow
and when I stretch the leash, never let me go

spin me, dazzle me, watch me lurch and stumble
if you say you love me, I’ll fall down on my face
lick me, slobber me, do it like a wet dream
take forever, sister, do it real slow

I LOVE IT

I love it when your smile
slides into my pants
and sets off a 5-thousand voice
dolphin choir
singing gospel songs

I love it
when you say
“what do you think this is –
a charity organization
called Eyesight for the Blind?
Or some ballroom dancing contest
for crippled children?”

I love it
when you cast your fate
to the wind
and don’t stick around
to see if it comes home for lunch

I love it
when you open my letter
and there’s a moment or two
of suspended time
when you’re not really sure
if it’s from me or someone else

I love it
when I’m 6000 miles away
and you’re setting dinner
and you take an extra beer
out of the fridge for me
just in case

I love it
when you take out the washing
and hang it on the line
and the neighbors can see
that necklace of eucalyptus beads
I gave to you in Rome

I love it
when you say my name
and I’m not there

COME TO ME ON A NIGHT LIKE THIS (Part Two)

come to me on a night like this
when the moon is making faces
in the mirror of the earth
and the oceans are rising
waves crashing on the beaches
and sand blown by the wind
is piling up into small sculpted models
of pyramids, sphinxes
Eiffel towers, Statues of Liberty
and Golden Gate Bridges

come to me on a night like this
when the forests are a-murmur
with rumors of bears and coyotes
and windfalls tumble and crash
as porcupines brush against them
and the footprints of deer
are re-printed over and over
until a track begins to emerge
and down thru the dense foliage
a small expedition of elves
appears in a clearing
and they stand around
with their hands in their pockets
telling elfin jokes

come to me on a night like this
when the cards are on the table
along with the empty wine bottles
and the smoke of snuffed-out cigarettes
hangs in the air
and some tall, skinny gambler
stands, inserts his head
between the beams of the ceiling
and tosses down his hand
and spreads it across the table:
four aces, a joker
and all his elementary school report cards
grades 2 thru 7
which show that he excelled
in math, music, marble sculpting
and making love

come to me on a night like this
in the style of Greta Garbo
hold your breath
choose your words so carefully
that for minutes on end
you cannot speak and when you do
you illuminate the room
from floor to ceiling
with the sparklers of your language
and the radiance of your accent

come to me on a night like this
when lovers hide from stormy showers
under umbrellas and awnings
as the streets fill with rain
and the safest place is a 4th floor attic
full of rocking horses
sewing dummies, boxing gloves, gramophones
all collecting dust instead of rain
while lovers lie a-bed
in canopied four-posters
naked under piles of polar bear skins
and parachute pillows

come to me on a night like this
when the owl has ceased its feasting
upon the rabbit’s heart and the rabbit’s blood
is now lukewarm
and a pair of salamanders
crawl from the leafy mold
to share an after-love snack

POSTSCRIPT

let us be free
see what we see
do what we do
be what we be

Blake got it right
when he held up the light
and married hell
and heaven

that’s hell, not Helen
you beautiful thing
the part you must play
is wait in the wing

I’ll gather some boats
and Blake’s infant joy
and we’ll sail like ducks
to your pup tents in Troy

THE DOPPLEGANGER’S ECHO
(A REPLY TO HUNTER QUINN)

That’s me Brother Quinn
down between the sheets
but I’m not with your wife
nor the girl we know as Sweet
Amanda tho she could
be your wife’s sister
and wouldn’t that be neat?
Of course it would, mister

I’m laying off the chili
and laying off the chills
I’m laying off the beans
but I can’t lay off the rhymes

I’m laying off the thrills
and the teardrops on my chin
someday we’ll get together
again, Brother Quinn

Quinn be cool, Quinn be hot
Quinn jump over the sack of pot

LEWIS CARROLL & HUNTER QUINN REVISITED

he thought he saw a dancing bear
beyond the campfire light
he looked again and saw it was
the ghost of Frank Lloyd Wright

he thought he saw Susan George
down on Oxford Street
he looked again and saw it was
the wife of Big Boy Pete

he thought he saw Badger King
strumming his guitar
he looked again and saw it was
a Wavy Gravy seminar

he thought he saw a werewolf
turn into a lamb
he looked again and saw it was
Robert Zimmerman

he thought he saw an airplane
skywrite a figure eight
he looked again and saw it was
getting really late

he thought he saw a fool
playing Tarot poker
he looked again and saw it was
and man named Black Jack Joker

he thought he saw a UFO
circling overhead
he looked again and saw it was
a loaf of raisin bread

he thought he saw a gravy stain
on his bedroom wall
he looked again and saw it was
a German butterball

he thought he saw a billboard
advertising skin
he looked again and saw it was
a poem by Hunter Quinn

A FEATHER FLIES OUT

and when by a whim
a feather flies out
a smoke ring chimes
a human voice hums
a cloud break sighs
and a feather flies out of the dawn

and when in a wind
a leaf spins by
a firefly winks
a humming bird hovers
a butter cup blinks
and a leaf spins by the circle of your eye

and when by a wave
the fish rise up
a starfish shines
the jelly fish glide
a sea horse whines
and the fish rise up in a watery ball
and you’ll be there to catch them all

ZACKWALK
(THE POEM)

in walks Mason and Dixon
out walks Kenny Burrell
Groucho Marx and Allen Ginsberg
and a guy with a drive-in named Mel

in walks Marks and Spenser
in walks Wesson and Smith
out walks everyone else but me
and Abbott, Costello and other Greek myths

out walks Romeo and Juliet
out walks Anatole France
Babe Ruth bunts and they’re all thrown out
Tinkers to Evers to Chance

Out walks Huck Finn and Tom
in walks Watson and Crick
Wittengenstein and Albert Ein
get hung up on Philip K. Dick

in walks Lewis and Clark
out walks Sonny and Cher
and here come the taps, the soft shoe slaps
of Ginger and Fred Astaire

out walks Sodom and Gomorrah
and that’s me, trotting behind
in walks Aretha and all of her fans
and that’s me at the head of the line

SONETTE 1
THEY LIE (THEY LIE)

we spend a lot of time
making deals
with faces of glass
we steal, we steal

they turn away the heart
they spit into the eye
we fall apart
they lie, they lie

tie me down, tie me down
take me down easy
take me to the ice
freeze me, freeze me

shutter my eyes
breathe me deeply
tip my toes
sleep me, sleep me.

SONETTE 2
SPARE ME THY TEARS

spare me thy tears
sneak it on by me
speak it out of my ears
cry me, cry me

build me a wall
see me shyly
hanging from a tree
cry me, cry me

wrap me in a rag
tag me, try me
roll me in a flag
cry me, cry me

slap me with a flag
don’t deny me
(she lies, she lies)
cry me, cry me

SONETTE 3
PORKY PIG BUTT

porky pig butt
puffylip belly mouth
prehistoric hunch bunch
tunnel vision
punch punch

rock the cradle
rob the cradle
cradle the babe
punch punch

bubble the bag
slide slide
ride the rag
of gander spit
into the wild
blue yonder pit
glide glide

SONETTE 4
A SNIPPET OF A QUOTE

a snippet of quote
I wrote in the mire
a snippet of quote

I quagged thru the mire
of bottomless hope
I wrote her a note
of fathomless love

“Come home, wild child
come home from the deep
come home to sleep
in the waves of my boat

in the nest of my bones
in the waves of my foam
bring me your desire
and ‘a snippet of quote
I wrote in the mire
a snippet of quote.'”

SONETTE 5
BEASLEY EYES & POINTED EARS

beaseley eyes and pointed ears
knock on my door, riddle me with tears
confound me with your supplies
of twisted toe lies
pointed ears and beaseley eyes

knobby nose and sneezy knees
tickle my ribs with your belly button smile
tongue my cheek, you slippery squeeze
laugh my chops, you whispery child

dimple chin and juvenile jaw
I went and busted up the law
I went and kissed your skim milk skin
juvenile jaw and dimple chin

SONETTE 6
FUNKY TURTLE FREAKY TOOT

funky turtle, freaky toot
you filled my feet with bouncing boots
you filled my heart with jovial junk
freaky tootle, turtle funk

peaches and cream, satin and lace
you slopped your slips all over my face
sugar and spit, spice and steam
lace and peaches, satin and cream

drain me dummy, dump me tears
twist me pretzel, strip me gears

SONETTE 7
THE SPOTLIGHT ILLUMINATES

the spotlight illuminates the wicked cards they deal
it’s an innocent game of chance they call it poker strip
it’s all for the giggles and a silly knee bone slap
it’s not for the money, it’s the stage they want to steal

in walks the whip man, with a cigarette on his lip
he flicks his ashes and they feel the burning sting
then he slashes his leather, the players start to sing
the curtain falls and the room is filled with clap

then the curtain rises everything has changed
the actors are gone and the audience is acting strange

SONETTE 8
WOLF BOY & FOX GIRL

Wolf Boy’s eyes into Fox Girl’s gaze
Fox Girl laughs and her eyes go blink
then go blank and start to flutter
Wolf Boy laughs and starts to stare

Fox Girl’s eyes into Wolf Boy’s wink
Wolf Boy laughs and starts to stutter
Fox Girl says, “I do thee dare
to make my heart and mind amaze.”

Wolf Boy unfolds his mouth and grins
Fox Girl’s heart begins to spin

SONETTE 9
SWEET & LOVELY

how sweet and lovely dost thou make me slurp
shall I compare thee to a summer’s burp?
no, time, thou shalt not boast that I do giggle
devouring time blunt thou the lion’s lick

Shakespeare’s not my favorite flavour, oh smear
of chocolate on my mouth, I wiggle
my lips, my tongue doth kick
the crumbs of time doth fly, I cheer

give me a poet’s kiss, make me smile
make my teeth and tongue go wild

SONETTE 10
RIP OFF STREET

I made a deal
down on Rip-Off Street
I traded a slap
for all I could steal
I got a loudpunk’s lip
I got a scorpion sting
it made my teeth sing
I got a dose of clap
I got an I Ching change
Act Five? act strange

SONETTE 11
BEAD HEAD DEAD HEADS

bed heads dead heads
red heads bread heads
who said? you said
mug wump rug bump
stump head bug lump
slug jump plug dump
said who? said you
jug head crud tub
stub stud spud thud
pud mud scud rump
gump dud dud blump
flub club log blub
pog bog slum slog
glum dumb clog numb
gum sog plump scrub
fug hump hog smug
rub fump shrug slump

SONETTE 12
GOODBYE & GOOD RIDDANCE

When his body hit the street they said ‘That must hurt.’
And then they all laughed for this was the fool
who pretended to rule Europa land
Now his brainless skull was just room for rent

His spine was twisted and his legs were bent
his face was like the mouth of a mule
His feet were on backwards and so was his shredded shirt
They waved as he crawled away on just one hand

“Goodbye and good riddance,” said the laughing mob
“Bad Rubbish is your name – not Pigman the Slob!”

SONETTE 13
THE GIRL ON THE COVER

the girl on the cover
is the Queen of Holes
of Hearts, of bones
don’t call her cute

the girl is a lover
of the mandrake root
the goat-foot boy, lame, unknown
he has but one goal

to make the girl call his name
to make the girl love his shame.

SONETTE 14
I WISH I COULD BE ON YOUR COVER

I wish I could be on your cover
I’d wear my sweater with the moth-bitten holes
I’d take you to the tree that I call home
and I wouldn’t mind if you called me cute

for I would be the very last lover
the very last tip of the tree’s deepest root
the tree would be famous but I’d be unknown
I’d live with the truth wrapped in my soul

you don’t have to ask, I’ll tell you my name
it’s Lisa the Lezbo and I’m not ashamed

SONETTE 15
BRUNO, THE ROCK & THE RAIN

listen to the church bells ring
see Bruno standing on his rock
see Bruno standing in the rain
it is the last time you will hear him sing

his feet are turning into dust
darkness falls over the town
say goodbye, say so long
Giordano Bruno is going down

he is riding on the southbound train
his face is turning into rust
his teeth are clicking like a clock
it is the last time you will hear his song

say so long, say goodbye
say no more, close one eye

GOD THE GOON 1
GOING DOWN CRAZY

we’re going down crazy
we’re going down lame
heads in a knot hole
heads hung in shame

we’re going down fast
down like a duck
shot in the ass
by a ten-ton truck

we’re going down deep
damned and be-deviled
where the mindless leap
and the whale bones weep

we’re going down dirty
mud-flapped and smut-
slapped and screwed
in the blue tattooed gut

we’re going down, dear sister
we’ve all sprung a leak
sinking like a stone, sister
with a sniffle and a squeak

we’re going down, honey
get the kids in the car
we’ve got miles and miles
it’s almost as far
to the west of the sun
as the shadow of the moon
is close to our hearts,
love, God the Goon

GOD THE GOON 2
HANGNAIL REDHEAD

Hang Nail Redhead
and Pudlicker Ted
went to the races
and jumped into bed

along came Golly
and Goodbye Miss Molly
they ripped the roof
right off the shed

Redhead and Ted
jumped out of bed
“Where the hell do we dwell?”
the two jumpers said.

“This bucket of nails
this barrel of tears
is not for the meek,”
said Big John Deere
as he wrecked the shed
with his hot air balloon
“Come back next week,”
said God the Goon

GOD THE GOON 3
I LIVED IN THE SHAPE OF A PORCUPINE

I lived in the shape
of a porcupine
I lived inside a cow
I barked like a dog
“Pow, Pow, Chow!”
that’s all I could do
to keep off the fleas
and the Tao of Lao

I’m propped up on rum
I can’t hold the line
of my boat
cut me loose
I don’t have a friend
a come-around chum
who’d lean on my shoulders
as I beat on the drums

I can play the mambo
I can skid the doo twenty-three
the last time I looked
they were cheering for me

ka-pow-pow-chow!
that’s all I’ve got
that’s all I know
and I know that’s a lot

the last time I looked
they were cheering for me
the Children from Mambo
and the Skidoo Twenty-Three

we’ll all get together some afternoon
hugs and kisses, God the Goon

GOD THE GOON 4
SKIDOO 23

Steam Boat Cherry
and Submarine Sam
Hot House Hannah
and Ape Shit Abraham

Pawn Shop Louie
and Chef Boyardee
Dear Lady of Spain
and Ma’am Bovaree

Cripple Hocked Jock
Hop Sock Harry
Larry the Leper
Chop Stick Mary

Goose Bag the Piper
and the Tilt-a-Whirl Girl
Windstorm the Wiper
Mister Swine Before Pearls

The Tobacco Road Twins
Sally-Lou, Sally Lee
and Cotton Head Joe
and his Thistle Head Three

these are the men
and the women who play
in the pocket theater
of my pants every day

Candy-Apple Sue
and John the Carpetbug
Snot Nose McGroovy
and Dangblast the Thug

these are the men
and the women who dwell
in the pockets of my jeans
with their spiderweb spells

they’re smaller than fingers
and molecule balloons
larger than life
love, God the Goon

GOD THE GOON 5
DICE

mixed up maps and messed up moon
do you miss your bouncing baby boy?
your bouncing bundle of jismic joy?
give me a minute I’ll get him in tune
with the radio blasting from the radio room
“Hot time in the Old Town Tonight”
puffing on Luckies and the heavy weight fight
from Madison Square in New York City
“Come on, Rudy, punch out his lights”

and tea with Emily in the late afternoon
you don’t think I’m serious? look at the moon
Einstein was wrong I do like to play
with tumbling dice, God the Goon

GOD THE GOON 6
CHEERS

when do we rise up and take over the moon?
when do we bust up this gang of cocoons?
when do we rescue the cream from the ice?
the beats from the beatniks? the muscles from the mice?

when do we sign our names on balloons?
not anytime soon, cheers, God the Goon

GOD THE GOON 7
LAST WISH

give me a chunk
of your knuckle pie, punk
give me a gob
of your mud-crusted mob
give me a tub
a torpedo-packed sub
and I’ll show you the end
of an ocean, my friend

give me a cheer
for the way I drink beer
give me a chop
a tomahawk pop
and I’ll boomerang back
into the grateful ground

slap me down
on my boomerang back
into the grateful ground
into the wiggle worm track

give me a veil
made from the tail
of an old raccoon
Hail! God the Goon

GOD THE GOON 8
TESTIMONIAL

don’t say I didn’t warn you
my feathers are fake
my father’s a drunk
my mother’s a snake
I’m a snow-white milk shake
and I look pretty good
when I’m driving around
in my old Neighbor Hood
my hands on the wheel
of my Blues Mobile
a chick in my arms
I got plenty of charm

you might think
I’m a palomino steed
a Valentino card
that moves at breakneck speed
a King of Hearts
a Jack of All Trades
who’s got inside connections
to the Queen of All Spades
a shaker, a bouncer
a baby with boom
a belly-flop boy
with a lip-flap broom

they keep me supplied
with stovepipe hats
they give me bow ties
a tux and white spats
but down underneath
I’m still a baboon
I tried to warn you
ciao, God the Goon

GOD THE GOON 9
ANAL BUGLE BLUES

behold the church fathers
consider their sins
one goes out
the other comes in
one jumps up
the other slides down
it’s a Mary-and-Joseph-and Jesus-Go-Round

oh Bloody Mary
hey Joltin’ Joe
they pray with their thumbs
and all of their toes
stuck in a bucket
full of hot tar
until Jude walks in
with his Last Supper Cigar
Vit’s made of rubber
Vit squirts Jesus Juice
he’s got a belly-button mouth
that shouts, “I LOVE LENNY BRUCE!”

they say he’s half Christian
they say he’s half Jew
he runs with the dogs
the Collection Plate Crew

the paymaster’s got them hiding
under the pews
the whipmaster’s got them blowing
the Anal Bugle Blues
and I’ve got them licking
a Hi-Yo Silver spoon
goodbye and good luck, God the Goon

GOD THE GOON 10
PIGS AND FISHES

“Pigs and Fishes,” speaks the I Ching,
“those are the clods who cannot sing.”
they stick out their tongues and make us fall down
they blink their eyes as they kick us around

these fishes are fools, they stand on their snouts
they flip their tales in people’s faces
I’ll grab their tails and throw them out
fishes, beware of strange foreign places

as for the Pigs in their fancy sports cars
I’m sending them down to the abattoir
they’ll soon be singing another tune
Tout a l’heure, au revoir, Tant tôt, God the Goon

GOD THE GOON 11
SINGERS

There stand the singers
with their mouths open wide
you can see their back teeth
where their words try to hide

They’re singing for love
they’re singing for bread
they’re singing for me
I can’t hear what they said

I’ll pick up the words
if you whistle the tune
Good Golly Miss Molly
goodbye, God the Goon

GOD THE GOON 12
S.O.S. JUNE HAVERMOUTH

You gave me your name
and a bucket of glue
you boiled up a pot
of lockjaw stew

Now I’m swamped in a rowboat
off the coast of Dumb Doom
Go tell the queen
I’ll be late with the spoons

just send off the message
to Captain Neptune
he’ll bail me out
cause, hey! I’m God the Goon

DIFFICULT CRITTER
for McCullough

he’s a difficult critter
a flap-doodle scallywag
with a mouthful of unpredictable tongues
they stab, they slant
they sly, as he fumbles with his zipper
he scorns, he sputes
he spooks like thirsty birds
with salt peanut words

BILLY THE KICK & MARY-GO-ROUND

1.
what happened to the last
of the bottomless bop
and the topless twist
and the sleeveless slop?

to the dolls that cried like babies
to the baby bottle boys
with their faces made of leather
and their motorcycle noise?

2.
what happened to the fast
acting Bromo Seltzer gang
with their bugs in a bag
and their bats in a sling?

and the painters down on Art Street
where did they go?
to the Big Show in Big Sky
for the Paint Throwers Ball
or across town to the prostitutes
in bowling ball hell

3.
what happened to the past
three minutes?

and the hour before that?

4.
what happened to the blast
famous hippo critter zoo
the ukulele eucalyptus
yankee lugaroo?

the cappuccino cowboys
in their butter bunyan boots
the hoop-a-lala jump shot shooters
with their rooty-tooty flutes?

the flap and the fuzz
of the feather duster maids
the one leg milking stool
of Heidi Ho with braids?

the mama Madonna mummy
wrapped in silk and honey
who danced with the jukebox
turned pinball tricks for money?

the sonnet-speaking spooks
who rattled the steam iron bars
of their candy wrapper cages
as they licked and turned the pages
of sweet-tooth cooking books?

as they puffed their blue cigars
and smoked their eyes to ashes
as they dropped their pants and sprinted
a yard of hundred-yardish dashes?

5.
so bring back the boys
with bibles in their belts
drag in the girls
with their curls full of feathers
and perfumes from Shangri-La
that make your nostrils melt
take out the trash
and bring in the weather

bring back the dancing bears
the hedge-hopping chestnut mares
the shillies and the shallies
the shanties and the sailors
who live in dreamboat alleys
and drive bumper cars

Billy the Kick and Kick Back Jack
Mary-Go-Round with her wishbone back
and all the muse museum mops
musing up from Thistle-Lee
and don’t forget Miss Bunny Hop
Cruisin’ Susan Gorgeously

WHISPERING STRINGS
(POEM FOR SADIE JO)

there was nothing in the hay rides of her eyes
but moss-a-billy possibilities
there was nothing in the size of her walk
to betray the gap-tooth path
she was treading like a rotten-rung ladder
stretched out over a perilous pit
filled with popping weasels
leaping lizards and squirting skunks

there was nothing I could save
nothing I could shuffle
she was a pack of cards
where each queen I turned up
had her face on it

the kings were dust bowlers
and the jacks were too obvious

there was nothing I could deal
except a few broken heartbeats
a few pumpkin tooth promises
and the thumbnails that tumbled
from her whispering strings

THE SHRIMP

he wanted to sleep
he wanted to dream
a dream of impossible dimensions
so vast he could walk
from one end to the other
and discover he was back
at the beginning of his life
and that his dream was identical
to his life – tho backwards
and not once
did he have to repeat
a single moment

for all this
the shrimp moved heaven
a few inches to the right
if you’re going up
a few inches to the left
if you’re writing down

he wanted to dance
a dance of unexpected emotions
a dance of demonless delight
he had perfected the windmill arms
and the deep knee bends

and for all this
the shrimp moved heaven
right off the map
and into the side pocket
of his lap
along with the keys
the coins and the cards
the fleas and the ladybugs
who tapped out messages
in his loveloins
and told him he’d better
take the bo-demons
and their dancing dust
along with the muses’ mouthful
of verbs and verbal abuse
and bake them all into an encyclopedia pie
or go around for the rest of his days
in a night without light
looking like a misplaced definition
of homesick fever

he wanted his sad little bookmark
to grow up into a tree
he wanted to be found and free
from all the aches and pains
and cold winter rains
and cold winter winds
that haunted him
with their whimsical ghosts
and made him hope
that for just once
they could skip the bullshit
and go directly to the leaves
and the flowers, the grass
and the birds, the trees
and the bees and the way
they jumped out every year
without a springtime doubt
in a sudden sigh of surprise

and for all this
the shrimp moved heaven
and when the angels
popped out the front door
for a night on the town
they found themselves
on another street
in another city

SHRIMP TWO

who let the shrimp out of the bag?
who let the bag out of the book?

big time, sun sign
pig sting, fast fling
picnic trash, cold cash
sweat fever, unbeliever

who let the blood out of the body?
who let the body out of the shop?

ragtag carpetbag
paperback, puppet pocket
bop riff shoplift
eye socket hijack

who let the gun into the movie?
who let the movie into our eyes?

showboat slow motion
hoe down hoot-the-fanny
whistle stop dew drop
whiplash lipstick

who let the air out of your tires?
who let the tires roll down the road?

dumb thumb dad gum
chug-a-lug shotgun
map cap shoot ’em, sun
way off the map

who let the water out of your tub?
who let the water out of your eyes?

snap pop cracker corn
hub cap bum born
jail bait mail box
drum rocks scum floats

who let the steam out of the shrimp?
who let the shrimp out of the bag?

bad ass junk fish
backyard punk bard
time to play
my incognito card

SKID MARKS

snug . . . swig . . . honk . . . sting
dingbat slingshot
hot spit chicken shit
beetle bop mud slide
stud size mop ride

slip . . . slop . . . slobber . . . sweep
toothpick beatnik
slick tit picnic hit
my fault stiff dick
salt lick city

stumble . . . fumble . . . fuck . . . fling
pinball skinhead
drop dead flip flop
electroshock rock ‘n rhyme
clockwork stopsign

whistle . . . whine . . . thump . . . grab
bad ass junk fish
backyard punk bard
wishbone double track
play my incognito card

crack . . . moan . . . motivate . . . pray
masturbate mug shot
plug pot jug band
shuffle off to muffle land

bug
shrug
scuffle
steal

deal
break
suffer
stay
I’m a Quaker-puffed Okie and this is how I play.

ODE TO A DEAD WOODPECKER

moonagaroon and bundle fuss
are the seasons I must love the most
like a gollible ghost I rumdoor down
the tumbular town with sings of swans

and with busterous brawn I snubble a loop
of glockenswoops and lockalot chops
and the ear-tied drops of my sorgumblast
are knocking unvast to my tallwalkcompared

and thus I growglare at the tapical trobes
and the paws of the probes, the chasmenotic
aerobisonic rubspokenspike
in the days that I belike the least

but then the nightfeast comes lunebeaming back
and the loose lightalack supples my eyebulbs
with moonable gulps, I snoozle awake
in a dream boothache of a bugaballoon

THE GIRL ON THE COVER

the girl on the cover
is Little Bo Peep
we’re talking about Tom Cats
we’re not talking about sheep

the girl on the cover
is Little Rat Rotten Hut
I bet you’ve had your hands
all over her little red rotten butt

the girl on the cover
is Lois Lane
she’s hard at work
flying Superman’s brain

the girl on the cover
cannot speak
pinch her nose
and she lets out a squeak

the girl on the cover
is Wonderland’s Alice
right now she’s somewhere between
Death Valley and Dallas

the girl on the cover
is lost in a dream
push her belly button
and she lets out a scream

the girl on the cover
is the Girl Next Door
she’s got indoor plumbing
and wall-to-wall floors

the girl on the cover
is Hester Pryne
is she fine
or is she finn

the girl on the cover
is Buffy St. Marie
if I leave her there long enough
she’ll come back to me

the girl on the cover
is Molly Bloom
she’s just taken over
Jimmy Joyce’s room

the girl on the cover
is Salvador Dali’s
Girl in the Window’s
thin twin tamale

the girl on the cover
belongs to King Kong
she’s a handful of joy
but her size is all wrong
when it comes to love
and fucking for fun
it hurts like hell
by the time he’s done

the girl on the cover
is the tender trap
she counts your balls
before she sits on your lap
she’s Playboy’s Girl of the Year
she has a centerfold spread
her legs open wide
and out pops a head

It’s Marlon Brando!
and a Navy commando
and Pigman the Slob
and the Thing and the Blob
and Jack and Jill
and Buffalo Bill
and Fu Man Chu
and Doctor Who
and Igor Stravinsky
and nock-kneed Nijinsky

and Leadbelly
Jack Kerouac
Agatha Christie
Moondog, Sun Ra
and Miss Publicity

Yehudi Menuhin
and Princess Grace
she’s giving birth
to the whole human race

the girl on the cover
is Marilyn Mon-rue
she learning the stick tricks
from Winnie the Pooh

the girl on the cover
is Mary Magdalene
she’s sitting on Jesus Christ’s
sanctified
magnified
electrified brain

LAST CHAT

you mean that’s it? there ain’t no more?
only as much as you want to see
no intermission? half-time score?
or free rides to nowhere along the tops of the trees

no bent back freaks with their bananas in bunches
no Quasimodos who act on hunches?
and where are the beasts, the wild tusked boars?
they’ll be along later with the wild tusked whores

what happened to Jack and the stalk of the bean?
he’s climbing yet, it’s a long, long way
and how about the giant whose skin was green?
he’s waiting for Jack in a green suck machine

and the spaces between us? are they gonna get fixed?
not very likely, nobody cares
does anybody know we can’t see the sky?
not very likely with these eyes in our hair

drive off and leave me, how could you do it?
you never learned the right way to wave and say ciao
the right way? the right way? why start now?
we started each day, and each day you blew it

how about jealousy, envy and greed?
there’s just no time for window shopping
how about junk, acid and speed?
have you ever heard the sound of popcorn popping?

what about love? Is she coming along?
don’t count on the girls from out of town
what about costumes? masks and facades?
don’t push your luck, on the stairs up or down

what about statues, tombstones and street signs?
how far do you want to go when you’re gone?
just past the door of the pawn shop store
then bring along the relics you don’t want to pawn

take me to the tunnel at the edge of dawn
I’ll take you to the jug full of knots of your own dreams
is it tied in my hair on the back of my head?
it’s a knob that will turn you from giggle to scream

did we really go sailing with Peter Paul and Mary?
that was rum-dumb Dick and rub-a-dub Harry
with a blonde wig mama pumped up on gas
with Big Tom’s thumb stuck up her ass

the bears, the bears, did they get back to their beds?
the bears are asleep and Goldilocks is dead

you must be mistaken, I saw her last night
or maybe it was Cinderella who kicked the bucket
don’t say it, don’t say it, I know what comes next
she took out a gun. she laughed and said “fuck it.”

we spend too much time making deals
with faces of glass we keep trying to steal

MY SIDE OF THE BACON
In Big Sur, Jack Kerouac writes: “There’s my side of bacon
hanging from a hook on the ceiling of the shack.”

there’s my side of the story
hanging from the moon beams
thru the pine trees
at midnight
up the hillside
where the night beasts
scamper to safety
as my bootstomp
cracks a branch
crunches a cone
tromps on graves
of tiny time bones
sinks down in moldy leaf
sinks deeper, knee bending
and dropping into a BOMB crater
where I sink to the damp earth
and curl up in the old death nest
like a baby waiting
to be born with a blast

there’s my side of the dream
you’ve neverseen and neverwill
I don’t talk about my dreams
these brain schemes to keep me sane
to keep my hands out of pockets
not my own, to keep my feet
out of shoes too big to fill
to keep the stones from rolling up
and tripping me down
and making me eat my eyes

there’s my side of the mouth
it’s on the south
the long words flow
the short words grow
their rhymes
sometimes
are confined
to narrow lines
they climb
the tongue and get lost
between clamped teeth

don’t speak to me of poe-tree, man
speak to me of love
and the way it leaps
away from the mirror
and shatters the pod
and scatters its seeds
farandwide
from the south side of your mouth
and nobody knows
which way it’s gonna go
until it blams into the north side
where the cold wind hammers
the words from between your teeth
and they fly out like chips of ice
and take years to unfreeze
so that one day you’re blowing out
the fifty canaries on your blackbird birthday pie
and out shoots a knife of a frozen adjective
and it nails one of the blackbirds
in the throat just as it’s about to sing
and a couple of melted verbs drip down
into the blackbird’s eyes
and he flaps and flutters his wings
but nothing really happens until
you stick the bird’s head
in your open mouth
and clamp your frozen teeth
down on the bird’s neck
and your jaw snaps shut
and your lips are sealed
and the only thing anybody can hear
is the chirping and the tweeting
from inside your mouth
and your cheek bulging
with an occasional twitch
of a tiny wing
gets you humming
a tune that only a raven
would recognize

there’s my side of the street
no houses over here, Jack
no one lives in the branches
of these trees
the sidewalk’s been rolled up
like a carpet of concrete knives
and the stones and the holes
beneath fit only my toes and heels

people cross over, trip, stumble
and stagger back to the other side
with bleeding feet
what do they expect?
warning signs?
private poverty?
no trash pissers?
do not walk on the glass?
I say, “Eat your pork chops
over there
this is my side of the bacon.”

COMMON MAN
(DUSTY RHODES AND SLIM PICKENS)

is it any wonder we’re getting short of smiles?
getting sort of weak running these marathon miles?

is it any wonder we’re cutting these shady deals?
then find ourselves stretched out beneath
a hot Mercedes wheels

is it any wonder the tunnel’s a cul-de-sac?
they give you a place for a u-turn
no place at all to scratch your way back

is it any wonder the cheerleaders have started to scream?
they’re forking up their crotches
for the entire goofball team

is it any wonder they’re on the seven o’clock news?
these girls with their flexible fangs
and their grease-soaked tissues

let’s hear it for the common man
and all his common dreams
as he climbs a ladder to the moon
with corked toes on his feet

as he digs his grave with a fork and spoon
as he curves his nerves up Breakdown Street

he cuts the cheese and his pants catch fire
he drags his ass across cold barbed wire
he burps and his garbage can explodes
he sneezes out a secret code

he’s got nothing left but his peasant pie
a burnt-out cigar full of bulldog fat
a rope necktie, a lead pipe hat
a whip for a lip, a sky for an eye

dusty roads and slim pickin’s
porno movies with headless chickens
two and two is four, sometimes five
he won’t get out of this one alive.

GEEK TEETH

geek! geek!
it’s the girl, it’s the Her
a species of freak
with a mouthful of fur

the girl with the smile
and nothing on underneath
the girl with the razor blades
between her front teeth

she grabs you by the rib cage
she turns you like a page
you tell her a lie, you give her a line
that crumbles to dust, but it’s just enough
to get you thru one more night
away from the shine of her belly mouth dentures
away from the chomp and other adventures

free from the weight of her belly steam hiss
free from the slash of her Sunday morning kiss

THE PARIS QUINTET – 1
GHOST TOAST

let’s hear it for the beer bags
as they drool between their slapped lips
into the pools of their mapped laps
and the gap-tooth ghoul grin
of their puddle pissing poodles

let’s hear it for the bum chums
of Cat Track Alley
Sally the rat tail tamer
Molly the Mutt, Mugface the Namer
of Flame Fart Bart and Dame-Chaser Chuck
of Truck Tire Tommy and the Crash Pad Commies
who drop down their roaches
so Sam Pope can smoke ’em
then down come the girls
so Joe Dope can poke ’em
and up go the pigeons
to goof on the roof
then fly off to heaven
like slow-grieving chunks
of angelfood cake
baked in the shape
of roly-poly monks
so the clouds can’t choke ’em

let’s hear it for the ladies of Lover’s Lane
how they bluff up their cheeks
and blow out their candles
as they come unwrapped from the cellophane

how they suck in their guts
and wiggle their lips
at the stroke of midnight
when the boys come unzipped

how they sigh and moan
when the action gets rough
how they punch their sides
and make their bellies come unpuffed

the Ladies of the Lane are dark
they blend with the shadows of trees
one per night is more than enough
to keep you alive til the ambulance arrives
and the nurses take over
by clocking your sneezes
by knocking your knees
and locking your jaw with skeleton keys

let’s hear it for the Blue Boys out on the end
of the telephone line, tangled in time
dial their numbers, they never pick up
they sing bloody murder, laugh at their crimes

they drink from the barrel, the bottle, the cup
they stand on their hands and never give up
let’s copy their style, let’s do it with green
let’s wind up the spring on the bouncing machine

and kick out the bums with double IDs
gentlemen-farmers and junkies on skis
Indian-Cowboys and German-Greeks
erotic puppet dancers and bulldozer freaks

we don’t need the newspaper poppers either
boiled-egg whippers, chicken bone believers
let’s cancel subscriptions to all magazines
for Weekend Werewolfs and U.S. Marines

there’s no place for astronautical noodles
in the sacred scheme of things
just a pair of loaded dice
and a row of I Ching Things

if they bring in the bones
we’ll look the other way
we’ll close our eyes we’ll say,
“We never saw ’em before,”

even if one fits a music box
over my front-tooth snag
even if they stick my feet
in plastic shopping bags

I refuse to wear bones
in my ears and my nose
you gotta draw a line
or your nuts’ll be exposed

and you’ll be looking like the inside
of an alligator going down
as men make shoes from your hide
and stomp you into the boggy ground

let’s pour a drink and forget it
you’ll get used to the missing shoes
you still have a belt and a watch band
let’s see what happens when they crank up the blues

the intensity’s gone, but the pain perseveres
a couple of boys are hanging from their ears
an hour later a Ching Thing goes whole hog
he ties the rope, jumps off the chair
right out the window and into the bog

suicides follow by the hundreds and the dozens
right thru the window and into the bog
but let’s raise a toast to Ching Thing’s cousin
who lands on the back of the nightwatchman’s dog

they carry out the bodies
but the best of the Boys of the Blues
stand right at the bar
knocking back the booze

let’s hear it for the boys, out on the end
of the fishing line hook who swim with the news
their lips are punctured, their mouths are gagged
they’re valuable slaves to prayers
as long as they’re waving I Ching flags

they might bleed on your floor
they might breed in your chairs
but it’s worth it in the end
when they take the final count
“Thanks for keeping the population
down to the least amount”

they might bring in chicks
that are built like whores
they might give you a scare
when they get these girls
up on the chairs
and they start bopping around
from left to right
from side to side
from morning til night

from front to back
from room to room
from roof to roof
from earth to moon

Thanks for keeping the load below the line
the limit is one of your fingers for mine
but you’re here to escape to the hills of Peru
let’s hear for the Blue Boys in Katmandu

let’s hear for the kids who escape from school
who get stuck with the regulations and the ultimate rules
phone home once a week and see how mom
is getting along, building the bomb
see if dad is ready to fight
for the need to have some decent lights
down in the cellar where he keeps the dynamite

string cobwebs around the house and around his head
tell him you’re the zombie who makes everybody dead
shoot ’em like dolls
shoot ’em in the balls
shoot ’em and shoot ’em and shoot ’em again
til they’re down on the ground and starting to crawl
then you start with the hammer
smash ’em until there’s nothing left
except eyeball stew and finger twitch pie
you’ll say grace and eat them both
at the same time you’ll remember to say goodbye
you’ll lick your fingers and smile at the ghosts
you’ll smile at the cloud of aroma
and say adios

THE PARIS QUINTET – 2
DOWN AT THE END OF THE WORLD

listen! listen
expurgated screams
coming from the poodle room
to fill the void with doom
the flame thrower fizzles
the frying pan sizzles
they’re burning down the dreams
of the virgin girls who floated in
when they opened the bottles of ancient perfume

while further down the street
at the tavern of the mouse
they’re swatting flies and bags of meat
and listening to the giggles
coming from the spanking house
they’re singing the hit parades
they’re greasing up the blades
they’re warming up the mug-shot movies
the whips flip and whistle
you don’t have time to cheer
as another mule goes down
into a bottomless pool of beer

listen to the mermaids singing
and the drumming of the rat face sewer kids
on garbage can lids
drumming in the dark
the Babylonian beat
with stones in their eyes
and bones around their feet

the mermaid slaps her tail
against the crew cut grass
“I’ve had too much of rat love,”
she says, “with bullets up the ass,
and not enough romance
with sharks who love to bite.”
They’re bringing in her mask
she’ll be the Cream of Tuna tonight

(1st CHORUS):
rumble! grumble!
fumble and stumble
chant, chant, chime
chant chant chum

they’re dragging in the chains
they’re hanging up the skulls
they’re nailing up the names
slam slam slum

(2nd CHORUS):
sweep sweep sweat
they’re wringing out the sheets
of the bedwetting sirens
who play Russian roulette

they’re rolling in the jelly
for the Peanut Butter Girls
who wait on the front porch
at the end of the world

while out in the backstreets
it’s a no-ring rodeo
of hijacked cars
and twinkle-mouth chicks
delays in the sunset
and other spare change tricks
while Romeo One Eye
seems to get by
on handfuls of pick-pocketed opium
Dollar Bill and his Boys
are tuning up their bagpipes
for Tumbling, Tumbling Tumbleweed
A telephone starts to ring
Nickel has a voice like a buffalo
Dime sings like a kid crippled on polio
“Tumbling Tumbleweed – oh Tumble Away –
Dixieland!”
Nickel’s on her last legs
Dimes’ on her knees
and the Monophonic Moondogs
are howling in minor keys

meanwhile out on the border
where the 16-wheelers roll
they’re hauling in the wetbacks
they’re using them to fill up the holes
in the road between the grave yard
and the horseless carousel
the natives are sitting around
a campfire and trying to sell
silver spoons
and maps of the moon

(3rd CHORUS)
bang, bang, slap, slap
they’re shooting the shit
and sucking the crap
from Topless Tina
and her plastic flowers
and the Peanut Butter Girls
are weeping in the showers
at the end of the world

meanwhile, down in the steam shovel bath
down at the end of the dotted line
they’re ringing water pipe bells
they’re making the soap bubbles chime

(4th CHORUS)
chime, chime, clang, clang
they’re starting the bath with a bang
ting, ting, ching, ching

they’re tossing Chinese coins
into the wishy-washy well
they’re carving maps of the moon
on giant pumpkin shells

while down at the opera
rented tuxedos drink champagne
and crawl around begging
300 hundred-pound valkuries
to piss an autograph
on the backs of their coats

and nobody has the slightest idea
where this parade is going
bloated buck tooth drivers
in half-track chain saws
rubber neck janitors
waving mops around
“Fuck You” signs
clamped between their jaws
the wheel chair gang, running on fumes
dripping noses and Beatle tunes

some think it’s going to wind up
in a tight woolen ball
toss it to the cat
let him knock it off the wall

others think they’re going to see
the Peanut Butter Girls
waiting on the dance floor
at the end of the world

meanwhile the Gopher Patrol
is moving along the riverside
picking up the broken hearts
of Gopher Grooms and Brides

THE PARIS QUINTET – 3
POT LUCK

1.
chop thru the lamb light
bite the night lock
lift your highbrows
right off your face
and into the space
between the sky
and the thousand eyes
of your last blink

eat your sunbaked
blackbird pie
before the moon-soaked
gravity spies drop
into your room
and sweep you away
with their rainbow brooms

hustle the heavy heart
from under the muscle
slap it out on a two-beat table
tap your stumps
on the jump rope floor
skip the buttermilk waltz
go directly to the tangenital twist
and pump your pope
into a bucket of bolts
while the baby sitter peeks
from the love lost tunnel
with a handful of rifle scopes
clock work triggers
big bullets and hollow thorns

stand with your horns
rammed thru the door
open it, swing, shout, soar
right out into the cloud-carpet storm

2.
and you gentle hombres
of low moods and twisted births
plant your feet in the mud
of the ocean-swamped earth

attach your brain tubes
to the slick side
of the razor-wire fences
of your roller-coaster skull ride

grind and goof, grin and graze
you shoulder-shrug geeks
you flower-shirted flannel mammals
you English Channel freaks

with your Panama Canal hats
and your canned banana heat
you bug-eye giggle goggles
your line-drive, split-crotch feet

with your doubles and your triples
your water rock ripples
your risky rhymes and rusty laughs
your epitaphic autographs

you hog-hugging hippie baiters
you tater-slugging tail gaiters
you frog-lipping egg-wife beaters
go rip your hair, you bald wave heaters

3.
stretch and strive
jive and joke
blow your nose with leftover smoke

clap and sweat
get it wet
cough-up drops of pet milk sweat
poke the pig, choke the choir
with spit-out clumps of chicken wire

you pale and painful lovers
you mules with nailed hides
you man-and-woman hole covers
you plugs, you sockets, you slabs and slides

you coat hangers, you glad hand warmers
you marching bandits with matching socks
remove your tinfoil armor
your wings and wishbone tumbling blocks
your tacky tickers
and clicky clocks
you muggy mentholated
dead-pan weepers
you monday morning roof-top leapers

4
you fornicating fools
you fancy dancing fuckers
you fast-farting ghouls
you nose-picking pluckers
you last minute baptized
you shit creek dunkers
you no thank tankers
you no think thunkers

you loaded dice drunkards
you bottom card dealers
you peering tom creepers
you rotten spud peelers
you toadtail believers
you wild child thievers
you wandering winks
you busted whore cheaters

thrust and thrive
you cold knee sags
with your strap-on saps
and your moldy eye bags

with your scrap iron tongues
and your pot belly famines
with your jelly roll overs
and your free-for-all jam-ins

with your “look ’em in the eye”
and your lip dip curses
that curl around inside your mouth
like dead sea biblical verses

behoove and behave
rave and fan tango
rent a cage
in the Bat Bone Caves
go burp, go ape
get bent out of shape
get your erogenous zone
chromosomes in shape

squeal and steal
look ’em in the eye
trip and tumble
drip and die

look ’em in the love
lock ’em in the loop
dig ’em up to dry
rock ’em, roll ’em lulla-bye

5.
gather around and pick up the pieces
of your vandalized lives
and your epigraphed plates
kneel and worship the sacrificial pig
that’s squealing upon your guillotine gates

THE PARIS QUINTET – 4
PRINCE ALBERT EINSTEIN UNCANNED

PART 1

fuck and get stuck
run out of luck
guardian angel bummed
out to lunch slummed
off to Doubt Street
angel laughs
bitter sweet
slap me on the back
grin and gurn
love and learn

flap and get slapped
buzz and get fuzzed
it’s a Mr. Clean dirty deal
a milk shake clambake
piece of ass cake
and a one prong fork
for a one-tooth mouth
eat it with
a gulp and go golly
chuckle and die

fart and get started
stop and get shopped
blow thru the rumors
chop thru the slop

mumble thru a lip spout
at a cobwebless spot

PART 2

butter, Lump Chumster,
both sides of your bed
dump out the bumps
bring in the bread

tooth up the truth
fang up the yang
tongue flap the slang
nibble on the chin
thin bubble of yin gang

don’t look away
make your eyes stay
on the farside riders
the blade sharp spiders
the brides of bums
the pride of the slums
the hop-along thumbs
and the tool-kit fool
with his belt of keys
his snot rag cheese
and the nun who says, “please
give me back my knees,”
as she crawls the walls
of phonebooth calls
as she dials a smile
into a drone of dimes
a kick of nickels
a spit of pickles
a pan of pennies
a chuckle of chills
a crumble of dollar bills
a grim lip rim
a tummy-tight grin
a rumble of gut strings
a stumble of sin
a sidebird trim
a pukepie hat brim
and a pizzicato violin

PART 3

seedly are the roots
of big greedy baby boots
the flood-pumping flutes
that bubbles the blood
into the heart attack
of darkness

so fig up a newton
dig up a stew pig
and let a few letter dip thongs
drip into the songs
of gong lickers
long nose pickers
and wrong-eyed city slickers

while smoke from a cigaroo
a joke from a jack-a-blue
and a plug from an under-
-rug
bug-
-dog drives up and drawls
“Screw you, Lou,
and your blue tattoo
your radio shack dials
and your phone booth smiles
your crossroad deals

your 6-pack meals
and your stainless-steel knife appeal”

there’s mud in your mel-o-dee
slick-a-chew in your chick-a-doo
there’s history in your mister-ree
hysteria hangovers
and misery metaphors
in your pot luck fat
and your fucked-flat back
and your rat-gnawed feet
your raw-chested drawers
your chaw and cheating laws
your troubled bull ignorers
the paws of poor explorers

so don’t expect me to believe
you had this deck of cards
all set-up, all fancy planned

we’d stand at your window
with our ears gripped hard in hand
and listen to the distant violin
of Prince Albert Einstein uncanned

PART 4

“So what’s the pint,”
she shrieked in Greek
with a snort of port
and a spot of Scot
and the slick brick reply
of horny humble pie
was, “I’ll take cash for my trash
I’ll take diamonds for my doubts
I’ll take the A-Train
and you with your bee brain
will travel in tunnel style
as you dive down a funnel
from Dixie to Damascus
windowing shouts and spats,
“Let me out, let me chat
with the chap in the pile
of reindeer crap.”

“No can do,” say the Eskimoos
“We gotta keep the map
off the road to overlap
we’ve gotta do our best
they’re creeping in from the west,”

who comes so darkly, so soon?
the stars have had no chance
to light up the moon
the boys have had no joy dance
with girls from the world
they sleep across the river deep
into weeps of water
into silvery steeps
these peeping bag daughters

and the foaming French fool
flouting, “ton truc, ton bidule,”
freaks on fumble speak
swims in eyeball leak
eh bien, voila
and the girls unload their lips
“You don’t have to slog me drags
plug me bugs, shag me rag
you don’t have to love me legs
beg for me eggs
scramble me hamlet
or tag me sags
just kiss me kitchen
me knuckles and start hitchin’
out beyond the water spout
out into the trout snout streams
out into the saw blade dreams
and the echo of a scream.”

you’d think they’d stop sending
their little girls
to the corner
grocery store
for a carton of milk
with no more defense
than a squeal
and the centerfold
of a Playdog Mag.
“They got my milk
and my milk teeth too
with a fork and spoon
down on the corner
by the light of the neon moon.”

they bomb their toms
with hairy dick sticks
and fill the chicks
with sticky drum ticks
and snores of snares
and the jangle of bell tangles

“We don’t wish
to go down and dream
with the fish sticks today
we wish to wail
with the high-tide screams
in the sea foam sails
that drag the beach
out to sea
we don’t need these rape-a-ramas
with their salty bandanas
and mouth plugs and eye patches
and burning sermons
from the Book of Dry Matches.”

THE PARIS QUINTET – 5
DOCTORS AND FORTUNE TELLERS

1.
doctors and fortunetellers
keep our secrets hidden
they give us one line
and the other nine
are buried and strictly forbidden

no mention of the plunder men
no mention of the slaves
or the victory feasts in Apache caves
their bootheel stomps Virginia reeling
romp around the Chippewa graves

2.
they came with their religions
ancient and mis-shapen
they came with their murder cycles
stovepipes a-smoking
they had laws, they had Lord-a-Mercies
sweat moppers and skull wipers
they were jerking, not joking
they were mostly mistaken

3.
they’re here to stay
they’re making us pay
they’re poking our butts
we’re puking our guts

no one is clam happy
no one is slap flappy
everyone is green
steamed and obscene

they take out their flames
and flame throwing tubes
they spray us with names
and shave off our pubes

who wouldn’t take exception
to this kind of treatment?
this kind of perfection
of complete meat beatment?

4.
send them back to their card shark schools
in the footprints of turtles
in the bellies of mules
send them back to the ocean’s edge
to get a whiff of wasted water
a flashback of deep
down where the eyes
of electric fish sleep

send them back to their perfections
they won’t have long to wait
“Dark skies and tater wagons,”
say the doctors and fortunetellers
“hurricanes and lots of rain”

and oh by the way
I forgot say
the tribes are lined up at the gate

GHOST TOAST CODA
THE PARIS QUINTET

let’s hear it for the Blue Boys out on the end
of the telephone line where the ground drops away
into frog bog, cotton mouth, alligator swamp
and gravity sucks and the sky bends over the heads
of the bottle neck dobro sliders
foot-flapping fiddlers, blind banjo riders
harmonica hummers, wash tub stompers
these are the babies with the bags of blues
they pack them from Memphis all the way to Toulouse
from St. Tropez right back to Santa Cruz

they’re going down slow with mud in their eyes
let it be said it’s not easy to die

washboard clickers and squeeze box chuggers
mooonshine juggers and soup spoon whackers

let’s hear it for the sailors out on the breeze
as they whip their sails with the skins of slaves
as the suck on their thumbs and swallow their sleeves
let it be said it’s not easy to die

let’s hear it for the lunch pail, coffee thermos mob
with their bang bottle, slap stick, hang dog jobs
with their slam steel, slop bucket, punching bag clocks
they sweeten the steel, they rough up the rocks

let’s hear it for the ladies of lover’s lane
with slick chick wigs and only first names
they walk off their butts, and none are sluts
they come with the thunder and spill out their guts

they don’t stop to wonder if the tracks and the ruts
on their faces were made by tractors or trucks
they pick themselves up, then lie back down
and sing like ducks, “Do any of you pigs
want a ten-buck fuck?” they’ve got tears in their eyes
let it be said it’s not easy to die

let’s hear it for the pale, moonstruck mime
he mambos in his tent on jukebox rhymes
see his shadow dance across the canvas screen
back and forth, up and down, at night it turns green

he drops in another dime and does it one more time
it’s called Mambo Italiano with the ultra-boogie grind
he does the twist Indian style
tourists line up mile upon mile
to watch him do the Himalaya Climb

he reaches all the way back into France
let it be said it’s not easy to dance

MONK SLAM

stumble bum
out on a limb
bubble gum gangster
pop you on a whim

shark tooth dentures
wink eye adventures
take away his smoke
and he’s all out of jokes

take away his chick
he’s a bug-eyed juggler
without a jug
without a wig
he’s a metaphorical pig

take away his metaphors
he’s a swine of bestial snores
take away his vertebrakes
he’ll slump way down
and start to shake

Slam-Damn, Sammy
without a slip
Slick and Slap Maggie
with a purse full of chips
dangling from her shoulder
you think she’d be a lot older

you think they’re going underground
all the way to the end
but there is no end, just a bend
just a couple of gas stations out west
places where they call you “guest”
if they don’t know you
here are the rules, the best
come in low, promise the rest
by the time they get onto your quest
you’ll have them confused
with your jingles and jests
sneak back to your nest
you: thumping your chest
your chick: juggling her breasts
she’s looking sharp
in her Aldous Huxley Brave New Vest

ROAD SLAM

snug swig
honk stink
dingbat slingshot
hotspit chickenshit

beetlebop mudslide
studsize slop ride
funky-slunk joke poke
slickstick pudmud

boot ‘n fanny pop flop
stuff puff diddley dong
spew like a kangaroo
blew the screws off the stew
jug mop mope grope

doublebubble glue blob
slub slot bog slob
slut slime sink swim
sponge gunk jelly junk

TRAIN SLAM

scrape snag dive dream
poke me, smoke me, eyeball freeze
squeezed knees boot cramp
gas the gut, pass the sneeze

shake machine brake steam
bag me, drag me, tag the tracks
rut the rails, lump the bumps
tunnel trap ear-slap scream

rock ‘n rolled balls (ping to pong)
jiggle the piggle, hardong song

TRAIN SLAM TWO

steam heated sleep beat
dream drugged dead feet
chick bugged kicked back
trick track rail jammed

prick jacked demon damned
sign stung sham flattered
time trapped tongue tattered
slap sticked smoke choked

border bound map soaked
rain pounded spit splattered

DREAM SLAM

snap pop crackle corn
hub cap bum born
jail bait mail box
drum sails scum floats

hum crap share crop
roly poly pokey goat
how pow make him stop
slash ‘n dry, wash ‘n wear

drip ‘n die make him stop
I’m scared, I’m scared

MOTEL SLAM

ghost train
ride the drain
to the end of the line
right up the spine
to the end of the night
when they turn out the light

tote that bale
bust that barge
pump that babe
make her large

blow her up
blow her down
thar she blows
into moonshine town

ride the back
of those magazine dreams
sock her sack
full of crud and cream

goodnight ladies
goodnight Irene
t’was just another
ghost train scream

MIRROR SLAM (GOODNIGHT IRENE)

bye bye love
I think I’m-a-gonna cry
I saw the butterball future
in your butterball eyes

so long, guardian angel
there’s nothing left to protect
I’m looking into the mirror again
my face looks like a wreck

goodnight, Irene
may this hot water sink be true
this soapy handjob jerk and cream
is not for me, it’s all for you

VAN SLAM

don’t go crazy
don’t go east
go with the flow
go in peace

more than that
we cannot ask
just me and my shadow
in your twin sister mask

more than you
in my 12-string boat
don’t try to swim
just stay afloat

don’t go crazy
go out west
blow some bubbles
build a nest

buy some bullets
shoot a hole
thru your halo
get a pole

vault right up
into the sky
don’t forget
to say goodbye

AMSTERDAM SLAM

bike bum
slug of rum
jug of gin
thin skinny dike

grin gobbler
spin alive
spit lobber
jump and jive and skin dive

taxidermatologist
first a fist
then a last kiss smash
up against the wall
with your motherfuck cash

crack the glass
stomp the noise
stop the nose
vaporize the voice

put your mug
on a tramtrack map
put your tongue
in a speedmouse trap

put your wig
under the log
let it grow hair
like a long gone dog

dog gone
I’ll be dog gone

then roll your own
scratch a match
catch a flame
unchain your bike
take it for a hike
hump for home

ELIOT SLAM

water death fear
in one ear
and out of nowhere
a water death scare

eerie canals
lakes of tears
rivers of sweat
oceans of graves

buried alive drowned
hanging upside down
those were his eyes
skinny-dip surprise

gurgle and goggle
frogleg wiggle
belch a giggle
swallow a mop

flop and fiddle
choke and chop
drop kick riddle
fiddlle and flop

a mermaid’s kiss
a dramatic breath
unzip and piss
that’s it, Mister Death

NAME SLAM

Bull the Billdog
and Tomhouse the Cat
Demon the Dimfrog
Mousetrap the Rat
they’re all out there in the rain
with mud crawling up their boots
they know this is the closest
they’ll ever come to having roots

Muglouse the Dip
Hubcap the Hug
Hubris the Anus
Upchuck the Plug

they leave in a thunderstorm
seeking fortune and fame
they come back with stuffed up heads
and they all have new names

Porgy the Corgi
Slicknose the Shrew
Sweatpad the Saltlick
and Tim the Buckatoo

Jawbone the Doldrum
Jungle Jim the Jiver
Nude Path the Bittergut
Five & Dime the Diver

they all went out to float
in their beautiful boat
they sailed the soup of the beautiful sea
locked themselves in the Horse Latitudes
and threw away the key

SHAG SLAM

soap dish face
last ditch wish
bear trap fast
crap artist bitch

slap artist brush
big bone blob
“Pig me hard,”
and on and on

and over the hill
I’m loose goose gone
chilled on the rocks
blind date unbaited
hate eye vibrated
junk jaw locked
I’m dunk-the-punk gone
I’m skunk trot gone

MAP SLAM

1.
Spanish whips
gold dust fever
pickpocket lips
utopia believer

great southwest
it’s all in his sack
the slaves and the rest
of the pueblo pack
pound his chest
“Me Great Southwest!”

2.
French tattoo
glue horse wigs
spit curl horns
burn the corn

bang the book
bait the hook
lock the jaw
lay down the law

“je suis le roi
je suis la loi
je ne suis pas toi”

3.
English pomp
stomp and burp
dog ear chomp
chew the fat
rat face slob
just don’t fit

nose job
hatchet chop
hose the mob
“let’s split”

AMSTERDAM SLAM 2

numb bucket
lock stock
umbrella shuffle
gobble gum dumb

nimble stumble
fumble fuck it
suck tongue luck
lick lip mumble

FOUR QUEEN STUD

don’t bet and bluff on less than four queens
it might take five hours and a trip to the moon
but sooner or later you’ll need them to sneak out
and fix up the disconnected wires in the room

you’ll need their diamonds, all of their jewelry
you’ll need them for bluffing
they’ll beat a full house like it’s not even there
and a jack-high straight flush is nothing

they can only be trumped by four kings or four aces
there are treasures in the closet, there is pleasure in the faces

there’s anger in the fist as the cards go down
the best they can do is two pair with a clown
there’s fire in the knife as it flashes in the stub light
belly-button bound, it begs to take a bite

so they take away two queens, the dancer and the bitch
and darkness falls like lightening when Juicy pulls the switch
and you go home with the dancer,
the girl with the earth-bound chart
and the one they call the lover, right next to your open heart

ARROWS
(for Lisa Gianozio)

look along my arm, cher
out into the field of bodies bare
my finger points at you
and comes right back to me
let’s start with Parigi, ami

give me your key, ami
the one that unlocks all your doors
I never know when I might need
a chicken in heat, or a goatskin whore

all that’s left in this city, ma fille
are jungle girls with jaguar names
monkey paws, and juggled-up brains
the city they call Pa-ree

pull out all the arrows, cherie
my back is sore and troubled
their aim was poor, they were seeing double
break the arrows over your knee

seize a pocketful of breeze
and lock me in your sneeze
let me breathe your air
pump it to me, cher

AMERICAN SOUP

1.
the joke’s on me
the joke’s on you
who am I to say
who are you?

jab me in the ribs, honey
say the poke’s on me
slap me on the belly, baby
nothing’s like it seems to be

so boo to you too
keep them rolling in the aisles
punch that clown in the nose
don’t stop until he smiles

keep coming thru the door
keep kicking out the lights
keep sticking up the night
like you’re going out of style

you’re a total laugh riot
and I’m a chuckle junkie
you’ve got me eating crowpie
like a barrel full of monkey

2.
so give me a pump
and a garbage dump
strangle my wings
with bedtime springs
wrap me up
in an airmail stamp
fill my cup
with the champagne of champs

give me a plug
and a ragtime rug
and I’ll cut you a slice
of Paradise Ice

give me a stump
and a joint that jumps
and a blow torch light
and I’ll stay up all night
and tell you the tale
of a big white whale
an eagle turd
and a coo coo bird
how they all got together
with tar and feathers
strained it thru
a basketball hoop
mixed it up fine
got a good good wine
added a thrill
from Blueberry Hill
pulled up a chair
sat down to scoop
got a damned good taste
of American Soup

3.
turn me loose
on cactus juice
and I’ll come back
in a lizard skin sack
with railroad boots
and ballroom gloves
give you a bullhorn kiss
and some atom bomb love

fill me with junk
from the boats you’ve sunk
the complete works
of anonymous jerks

4.
pour it right
out of the pot
fill my mouth
heavy and hot
give me a shot
of your gooiest goop
give me a slop
from your soggiest mop
give me a bucket
of American soup

5.
American soup built the west
it filled the bullet holes
in hats and boots and velvet vests
and mole-filled barber poles

it rode the stage from Omaha
it came to Diggers Bend
the Wells Fargo Soup Patrol
for outlaws and their friends

it rode the rails from Wichita
right to the edge of the world
the Union Pacific Soup Kitchen Special
for hoboes and their glamorous girls

it rode the 16-wheeler rigs
from Reno to Salt Lake
the Speed Merchants Hit and Run
the Hitchhikers Clam Bake

today it’s made from road kill
it’s made from the saw-cut trees
it’s made for just a buck twenty-five
America Soup for Free

so thank the Chamber of Commerce
and thank the Boy Scout Troop
without their deeds and devious needs
there’d be no American Soup

6.
(no more needs to be said after all those boy scouts –
except maybe to spill something about its spirit apart from
its worth on the marketplace)

now long forgotten are its roots
planted about the time the white man came
how it brewed for centuries in the pots
of the prairies and the plains

where buffalo gathered at the wash
to pose for the picture “Pissing in Groups”
then the pioneers got down in the mud and gulped
the Original American Soup

HYMN TO THE HIPPIE IN THE STRING BIKINI

pocketful of air
lock me in your legs
let me bust your eggs
sock it to me, cher

THE LAST LATE SHOW

PART ONE

bring him around
with a whiff and a whack
the old Jabbersnack
he weighs but a pound

prop him up on a pin
the Numb Nomenclature
spin him again and again
make sure his mother
is the one they call Nature

tell me the tale of again and again
how they sneak in the back door
and hide in the smoke of the cigarette store
then find out their mother
is the one they call wind

cast a fast peek
at the expired expatriate
promise him fool bait
then pump up his beak

point him towards home
the old half-a-lunk
he ain’t hugging a punk
he ain’t laughing a saxophone

he ain’t fooling the flow
of the late news juicers
the hop-a-long goosers
and their double-take show

PART TWO

save a sigh
for Time Bomb Beard
bat tamer, hat warmer
hot spy, weird

he might explode
on the first of May
the Fourth of Beethoven
or a fifth of bomb bay

he might start to speak
in the tongues of a shaman
or it might be quick
and something common

he’ll take a quick look
at the list of dead thieves
then decide he’s run-dundant
and full of dead leaves

the radio dial
spins on its own
voices of ventriloquists
lips set in stone
an ad for a San Pablo
Avenue bedroom
faucets and drainpipes
a mousehole with headroom
“just twenty-nine down
and five bucks a week
for the next 50 years
guaranteed spring squeaks
we’ll toss in a carpet
at no extra cost
wall-to-wall colors
from dust, rust to frost
the choice is all yours
a chip, a chunk, a chipmunk
so come on downtown
and buy some of our junk,”

and come lend an ear
to the buck-a-book hack
as he coughs into his pillow
chasing mongoloose tracks

and the room puffs up
on feathers and fat
he’s waving his hands
and filling his hat

but it’s all been decided
he’s run his last rat race
they’ll bring in the boy
with the rabbit tail face

and turn his loose
with the girls of fast taste
shopping for waistlines
with hamburger haste

from first base to third
they’ll dance and they’ll slide
they’ll say they’re enchanted
entranced, sanctified

when they say the meat’s done
“It was all automatic,”
you’ll switch off the music
and they’ll fade back to static

THE TALE OF AGAIN AND AGAIN

tell me the tale of again and again
how he sneaks in the back door
and hides in the smoke of the cigarette store
then finds out his mother is the one they call the wind

bring him around with a whiff and a whack
the old Jabbersnack he weighs but a pound
prop him up with a pin again again
make sure his mother is the one they call the wind

whatever happened to the nomenclature
whatever happened to mother nature
spin him around again and again
see if his mother is the one they call the wind

he’s just a half-punk an old hump-a-lump
he’s no match for a slam dunk
he’s too soon for the purple goose moon
take him down with a motorcycle pump

don’t let him mess around with the flow
or take a quick peek at the double take show
feed him on fool bait, pump up his saxophone
promise him tomorrow and point him on home

tell me the tale of again and again
when he finds out his mother is the one they call the wind

RADIOCEANIC

time to tune your ears
to Radioceanic
it’ll suckle up your fears
button up your panic

save a sigh
for Time Bomb Beard
bat tamer, hat warmer
hot spy, weird

and come lend an ear
to the buck-a-book hack
as he coughs into his pillow
chasing mongoloose tracks

he might explode
on the first of May
or the Fourth of Beethoven
or a fifth of bomb bay

he might start to speak
in tongues of a shaman
or it might be quick
and it might be something common

he’ll take a quick look
at the list of dead thieves
then decide he’s run-dundant
and full of dead leaves

the radio dial
spins on its own
voices of ventriloquists
lips set in stone

an ad for a San Pablo
Avenue dinette
faucets and drainpipes
in a bedroom set

you can lay it all away
on the lay away plan
try to stay away
from the slam hammer man

“just twenty-nine down
and five bucks a week
for the next 50 years
guaranteed spring squeaks

we’ll toss in a carpet
at no extra cost
wall-to-wall colors
from dust, rust to frost

the choice is all yours
so come on down
a chip a chipmunk
buy some of our junk,”

and the room puffs up
on feathers and fat
he’s waving his hands
and filling his hat

but its all been decided
he’s run his last race
they’ll bring in the boy
with the rabbit tail face

and turn him loose
with the girls of Circle Nine
shopping for a chop
in the hamburger line

the ghosts they spit
and sputter like the rain
and their words get washed
like water down the drain

from first base to third
they’ll dance and they’ll slide
they’ll say they’re enchanted
entranced, sanctified

when they say the meat’s done
“It was all automatic,”
you switch off the music
and they fade back to static

welcome to the late show
on Radioceanic
white noise singing about
the inorganic

steam heat hissing
on a mountain of ice
broken bells tolling
as we roll the dice

who can tell
where the night winds blow?
the quantum mechanics
on the radio

FLUTTERNOSE BOUNCE

Butterbum Bustly & Flutternose Bounce
Moggy O’Bottom & Tar Baby Blink
Slop Sided Margin & Slugfarm Snipe
Lazy Daisy Cup & Trumpet Toes Twink

Fast Break Buster & Slob Bucket Blame
Liquid Le Squid & Sniperman Snooze
Rug Bug Baloney & Cool Tooth Mumgum
Bunion Grunion & the Buzzard of Booze

Jungle Pig Junk Food & Blubber Bi-Snoutly
Spitvalve Shrew & Midgettte Manplease
Poodlemump Lagomorph & Flogdump Slut
Whimperlip Rubberbabe & Angel Disease

Steam Skull Lardo & Gesundheit Greedyguts
Pork Fork Feeble & Fundmental Funk
Clipjoint Molegazer & Hippo Kenstucky
Ravish Starknudian & the Hunchback Punk

Yummy Tummy Blob & the Dummy Mummy Mob
Sister Squatalot & Bamboo Bananagoo
Jelly Roll Loophole & Cinderella Bordella
Mugluster Bustajug & Bag Belly Skidoo

the Slam Hammer Man & the Cream of Croon
Yankee Enkidoodle & Noodle Parisfallopian
Cavejuice Placebo & Flipper McFinn
Luigi Lugnuts, the last of the Lustrigonians

APHRODESIA – 1
THE BELLY MOUTH POKE

it ain’t no joke
the belly mouth poke
it’s a spinal tapping hump
it’s a jelly roller pump

it’s a mortal portal sin
beneath the naked skin
beneath the bubble belt
where fisted fingers melt

it’s a holy moly hole-in-one
a winning hand, a twisted tongue
a burning road, a bumpy track
no hope of ever turning back

you’re headed south, into the heat
of a slapstick trick or treat
don’t let the flippy lids of your blinking eyes
cut you down to fantasize size

it’s equatorial stuff
you can never get enough
it’s sink or swim, it’s sweat-and-sweet
gotta keep your mouth discreet

cause everybody knows
when you take off your skinny clothes
you’re going for a ripping ride
on the hustle muscle slide

oh hungry hole-in one
it might be loads of fun
but it ain’t no joke, bloke
the belly mouth poke

APHRODESIA – 2
HANG ON TIGHT

hang on tight we’re going on down
down into the hole where lovers do die
lovers do die a hundred deaths a minute
down in the hole where old lovers lie

among the bones of a thousand dead dreams
we’re going down deep where everything is small
we’re going down slow where lovers do go
where the smallest of the smallest of the smallest do fall

where everything is lost in the blink of an eye
in a moment of thoughtless pinpoint of light
we’ll drip into dewdrops, dangle and dry
then tumble into dust so hang on tight

then I’ll come and carry you away
like an earthquake takes a mountain

APHRODESIA – 3
MONKEY MAN

I can take your heat
I might be leaking sweat
like a jockstrap ath-a-leet
I might be soaking wet

but I can take your heat
I can drive your moving van
up and down your street
I’m your monkey man

monkey see, monkey do
let’s just call it even

I can do the hard-nose bop
I can take the heat
I can do the lollipop
cast your stones upon my feet

and still I’ll dance for you, my love
like a baby-face orangutan
I can push and I can shove
I’m your mighty monkey man

hear no evil, speak no lies
see only what you recognize

so go ahead and throw your stones
I can take your heat
we both know that broken bones
and broken drums cannot be beat

throw your stones, sling your shots
catch me if you can
show me everything you gots
I’m your supermonkey man

one two let me kick off my shoes
I’m your monkey man

three four lock the door
I’m your monkey man

five six let me show you my tricks
I’m your monkey man

seven eight nine get in line
I’m your monkey man

ten fingers look at my hand
I’m your monkey man

APHRODESIA – 4
BELLY BUTTON FOR BETH

flash the flower
fluff the muff
mug up the rug
plug up the puff

mock the rock
mole the hole
sock the pocket
sweet jelly roll

sweet belly button
slam the jam
bang the boomerang
wham the bam

whale harpooner tang
pack the pud
pork the pickle
slug the mud

fumble the fungus
pig the fig
dig up the dream
scream the machine

roll out the rubber
rub up the butter
raunch the paunch
grease the gutter

jump the lump
pump the juice
kick the bucket
suck the goose

hook the nook
whip the slave
dip the dong
cream the cave

sack the jack
junk the jizz
lick the lip
fake the fizz

AFTERLOVE POEMS

afterlove poem 1
MONOLOG

talking to myself
where did she go?
can I take a hint? I know
she’s somewhere in the afterglow

I won a guitar with four queens
her heart was on the top
I even unbuttoned my jeans
she didn’t ask me to stop

but I skidded to a halt
there were voices in the hall
Italian “fa nientes”
and German butterballs

where did she go
did she run away
or is it me who’s trying to hide
talking to myself
I talk into the mike
“Bonjour bon soir merci beaucoup”
and then I take a hike

she’s not in the street or in the windows of light
the red and blue neons or the TV’s flickering white

I look at the moon, I look at the stars
I look at the color of the sky
I look at the distant horizon
with my snap-on telescope eye

I see the horses running
the Riders on the Storm
she waves and blows me a kiss
a blowjob without the porn

and then she’s gone
into the cloud of Orion’s belt
and I’m taking the dog star
for a late-night walk
and talking to myself

where did she go?
where is her twinkle?
where is the rip
for her Pop Van Winkle?

where is her magic Mozart flute?
her ice-skating rink? her ice-skating boots?

I drill a hole in the ice
I look down below
I see her swimming and slumming around
where did she go?

afterlove poem 2
NO MATTER

no matter what I do
it does not change
no matter what I say
it just gets stranger

no matter what I think
the rain keeps pouring
and the girl at the end of the bar
get more and more boring

with each puff of smoke
she slowly disappears
gets smaller and smaller
until only her ears
are sticking from the glass
full of foamy beer
her eyes are magnified
they bulge from deep within
and no matter I drink
I’m still outside

no matter what I sing
it’s the same old thing
no matter how I dance
it’s the same old romance

it’s the same old chain
of smoky rendezvous
under buckets of rain
on Carnival Avenue

it’s the same deja vu
even tho it’s spanking new

no matter how I pray
I still hear a rat
she smiles like a shark
she smells like a cat

and the dogs keep barking
on Carnival Avenue
no matter what I say
no matter what I do

afterlove poem 3
NO MATTER SEQUEL

no matter how I count
it comes out the same
One and Two are fine
by Ten I’ve gone insane

Nine was tough enough
she had a rusted bathtub brain
and who can forget Six and Seven
the twins with identical names

and now I’m going nuts
no matter how loud I scream
Ten is here to stay
with her panther ping-pong team

no matter what I say
she spills her precious guts
no matter how loud I laugh
I’m still going nuts

and what happened to Three
she was nice enough to me
until I tickled her tail
and turned her into a house for sale

Two keeps sneaking round
from time to time
and town to town
I cannot pin her up or down
no matter what I say or do

and One keeps changing faces
in places far away
no matter what I do
no matter what I say

afterlove poem 4
AFTERLOVE CHIVAREE

let’s get drunk
let’s get tanked
let’s go to hell
let’s rob a bank

let’s get twisted
and bent out of shape
shit-faced and flat
let’s go ape

let’s get lost
right off the map
let’s test our tongues
on old mouse traps

let’s go crazy
let’s get fill up the sink
let’s go fishing for compliments
let’s get another drink

let’s go shopping
let’s go on a spree
I’ll buy you
and you buy me

let’s make some noises
like dolphins and whales
let’s dance in the dirt
like turtles and snails

let’s look in the mirror
and see nothing but space
if the moon floats by
we’ll steal her face

if the wind sneaks up
we’ll suck up his air
if the rain drives thru
we’ll rip off his hair

let’s look in the fridge
and haul out the cards
the Ice of Hearts
the Queen of Hards

let’s get nasty
let’s get mean
you throw the rice
I’ll throw the ice cream

let’s go down to the pub
let’s get in a brawl
you bring your boyfriend’s brass knuckles
I’ll bring my voodoo doll

and don’t forget the radios
we’ll keep them turned up loud
we’ll load your bra strap with stones
and slingshot them into the crowd

let’s get out our guns
and get out of town
let’s set up a few scarecrows
then shoot them all down

let’s go bowling
with 12-gauge pumps
blow away the pins
make the bowling balls jump

let’s go to Venus
with our Venetian blinds
I’ll loan you my pecker
you can fuck up their minds

let’s get hysterical
let’s get mad
let’s get hostile
let’s get bad

afterlove poem 5
AFTERLOVE CHIVAREE CODA

don’t feel the least bit nervous
above all don’t be afraid
these are the things that all lovers do
after their after love has been made

afterlove poem 6
AFTER-LOVE LAUGH

splash my face
with after-love spice
teach me the rules
of desperate advice

let me run
in the after-love race
let me look
into your after-love face

blow me the smoke
of your after-love pipe
linger your finger
in the windshield’s wipe

allow me to sing
in your after-love choir
that needs a falsetto
with his front teeth on fire

dial my number
on your rock ‘n roll phone
let me listen
to your after-love dial tone

I’m waiting to hear
your after-love news
how the sun rises into
your afternoon snooze

you slept with the wrong
pot-bellied man
you failed to distinguish
between shampoo and sham

mistakes will be mistakes
come, let’s have a drink
then I’ll send you off
to your after-love shrink

then I’ll tear the bar apart
I’ll scream and I’ll cuss
and I’ll go back to town
on the after-love bus

afterlove poem 7
AFTER-LOVE LAUGH SEQUEL

tie me up
in your after-love ropes
fire up the pipe
of your afterlove dope

I want to hear again
your afterlove laugh
let me splash around
in your after-love bath

give me a heap of after-love flowers
let’s go take an after-love shower

AFTER LOVE IN GERMANY – PART ONE
BROKEN MUFFLER & THE BOTTOM OF THE PILE
(“Du bist toll! Ich fliege!!”)

give me back the sweat I poured
into you, the pint of juice I swore
into you, the skin I banged
into you, the flesh you fanged

give me back my stomp of approval
give me back the ghost bones I pumped
into your slop, I told you I was coming
I told you to get a pair of dry pants
I told you to get a mop

you know I’m a stick in the mud
and I sleep with sheep in the manger
so give me back my name
the one I shouted when you were asleep
and I was in danger

give me back the cash
I spent on whores and wind-up toys
and summertimes of other times
and another time of busted muffler noise

give me back the coins
I threw into your fountain
give me back the cross
I carved upon your mountain

I’m still wearing the nails
they’re stuck between my fingers
give me back my old guitar strings
I want to be a fuck singer

AFTER LOVE IN GERMANY – PART TWO
FOUR HORSEMEN & ONE RUBBER MONKEY
(“Schön – das ist schön”)

let’s go down to the pub
let’s get into a brawl
you bring your boyfriends brass knuckles along
I’ll bring my voodoo doll

don’t forget your radios
we’ll keep them turned up loud
we’ll load your bra cups full of hot marbles
and slingshot them into the crowd

let’s get rid of our memories
let’s put salt on their tails
you plaster their faces with postage stamps
I’ll send them off in the mail

AFTERLOVE IN GERMANY – PART THREE
NEANDERTHALS & MONGSTERS
(“Ach, der Teufel”)

tell me Jesus Christ stopped by the inquisition
tell me the savior left blood in their faces
tell me Yogi Berra drove down to Florida
and he’s batting clean up and stealing second bases

tell me Jim Morrison is still dealing cards
I need a hermit, hanged man, and four new queens
tell me Levi Straus is making more than ball bags
you’ll survive any blast in their new atomic jeans

tell me Germaine Greer is going on a rampage
tell me Badger King is still plucking bra straps
tell me Susan George is still lost in Endless
with Carlos Castaneda and his collection of maps

tell her that summer has come and gone
tell her that winter is closing the gate
and I’m waiting for her over the river
I’ve been waiting forever and but I don’t mind the wait

tell me Vanderloper is riding straight thru hell
scattering sinners and knocking down stop signs
and Herman the German is still stirring the pot
and brewing up beautiful soup for the mind

tell all my friends I’m coming their way
as soon as the tides return to the shores
tell them I’ll be back when I get out of Endless
I’ll tap on their window, knock on their doors

I’ll be older for sure. Wiser? I doubt it
but I’ll know when to duck and I’ll know when to run
from fire and lustlove and electric mice girls
hard to avoid em, but those days are done

ORPHEUS IN THE UNDERGROUND
(THE OTHER SIDE)

I leap rubber fences
I bust thru cardboard gates
the other side keeps changing around
now it’s all instant coffee cups
and fish-soaked newspaper plates

so I jump thru the hoop
I swim thru the tube
the other side has changed again
it’s all hot water wading pools
filled with ice and frozen whiskey cokes

I crack down the bar
I slam thru the door
god damn, they changed the other side
I thought I’d have you in my grasp
I thought you’d be here
and I’d go slamming no more

but the other side has changed again
it’s all rose-tinted glasses and perfumed cigarettes
I promise, Amanda, I’ll get to you yet

I’ll shatter the glass
I’ll punchline the joke
I’ll swarm thru the gas
I’ll stride thru the smoke

I promise you soon I’ll be by your side
I know where to look, I know where you ride
it’s all in the shadows of the gas masker’s minds
I’ll stomp thru the shadows
I won’t leave you behind

VOICES FROM THE WAITING ROOM IN HELL

someone said,
“Oofty Goofty
someone’s dead
furky murky.”

someone screamed,
“Grab a gob
you grape and papal
dogoraters
it’s all a dream
you cheeping sleepers
leapers for the laughteraters.”

someone whined
as the Carve Man slashed
a flash of trash
while the Boogie Woogie Woman
banged and bongoed
and bubbled up
a double cup
said, “It goes down the drain
then up to the brain,”
and the school bells chimed
eleven— twelve— fifteen times

someone wheezed
thru wind pipe cheese
“Bring me Bingabud Wiser
let him sting my back teeth
with his grapefruit geyser.”

someone yelled,
“What the hell?
My bible belt
is elevator bound.”

while the Big Bang Gang
suffered the suckers
while stuffing a stiffer
in a purse snatch zipper
a ring with a-round
a clock bag dipper

they held up signs
writ in rhyme
“Blast a bone”
“Catch a cream cone.”
“Corn porn popper.”

someone banged on the door
shouted, “Let me in
I’m more than poor
I’m growing thin.”

someone opened
the door and pointed,
“You with the skin
let’s get anointed
flip your fin
and get disjointed
take your toes
and touch your nose
then scratch the back
of your chin.”

someone howled.
“I’ve been aborted,”
then threw in the towel
and was abruptly exported
to the dude ranch next door
with the quicksand floor
where dealers disguised
as jacks and jokers
played cold horse poker
with a pack of lies

someone squealed
“My pockets are gone
who would steal
a shadow of a doubt?
the dust of a dirty deal?
the echo of a shout?

someone whispered
“I quit, I quit
I just don’t fit
into the frames
of your coke bottle charm
into the arms
of your damp earth pit
into the box
of your fox trap grave.”

someone sneezed
then crossed their knees
tossed the flowers
up in the breeze
they blew away
they blew across
the line between
lost and found
into the gap
between silence and sound
between the ground
and the cloud-drawn map

THE GRAVY TRAIN GIRL RAINS
ON THE SMITH BROTHERS’ COUGH DROP PARADE

1.
let us have a nice warm day
let us have a peaceful display
of rags and rages
of sunbathing sages
of sons and their bitches
of fair-weather witches
of ten-pint Finnegan’s
and sacrificial Skindians
and a stockpiled Kundalini
with a zipgut blob
in a string bikini

2.
let’s have a race
between a chimp with no face
and a man with his hands
wrapped in rubber bands
let’s have a brawl
a knock-down crawl
where they pull out the plug
and a walrus flops out
and flounders around
and drags them all down
with a seal skin rug

3.
let’s have some weather
with plenty of feathers
and the hangman’s noose
gets loose and flips
around in the sky
like a horse rope eye

and we all go wild goose
and run around like heads
with our chickens chopped off
and the Smother Brothers cough
and their beards drop down
to their knees when they pray
to the Verbal Noun
of Belief and Beyond

“Oh give us a day
of red wine and bread
and please give a damn
when I make a play
for the Girl of the Gravy Train
and for god’s sake don’t say
she’s a bottle-neck blonde
just give me a break
and make her forsake
every promise she’s made
about not kissing strangers
with handfuls of danger
please make her rain
on our cough drop parade
and send us all home
in a fine frame of foam
and give us our day
of joyful trespasses
and we forgive those
who have laid down in vain.”

THE GRAPES

I went to the closet
I opened the door
and I saw where the Grapes
of Wrath were stored

I took one down
gave it some gas
tossed it out the window
it landed in the grass

I watched a small bird
hop over to the grape
he pecked at it once
and turned into an ape

he tore up a tree
he dug up the roots
his claws were like crowbars
his teeth were like flutes

then a man came along
the ape bit off his nose
ripped off his lip
pecked off his toes

the man cried out
but the ape pecked on
there were bones in the bushes
blood on the lawn

so I tossed out another
wrathful grape
which turned into a sword
the man slaughtered the ape

then turned into a cockroach
a human-size bug
while a third soon became
a human-size slug

then soon came the fight
the cockroach and slug
were at each others’ throats
the grapes rolled cross the rug

so I tossed out some more
and started a war
hyenas with hatchets
blood-thirsty boars

gators with guns
weasels with whistles
geese with grenades
mooses with missiles

there were baboons with bombs
and rhinos with knives
bayonets in the jaws
of bug-eyed housewives

they snarled and growled
they rolled on the ground
for hours they smashed
each other around

and long before dawn
they lay on the path
dead and defeated
the Grapes of Wrath

they were bleeding and leaking
they lay in a line
the Grapes of Wrath
had turned into wine

IT’S LIFE, IT’S LOVE

it’s a four-horse jalopy with laughter
it’s a Saturday night with a smile
it’s a bus full of seasick sailors
it’s a triple jump 4-minute mile

it’s a strawberry ice cotillion
it’s a sandwich of mustard on rye
it’s a break in cellblock eleven
it’s a fleabag hotel with a sigh

it’s a hurricane breeze in a beard
it’s a shadow of five o’clock dust
it’s a bucket of burnt-out bra straps
it’s a barrel of monkey gut rust

it’s a sandbank of old dollar bills
it’s a backseat of buttons and belts
it’s a bug in the rug of a jockstrap
it’s life, it’s love, nothing else.

it’s a collective tattoo from Tim to Buck Two
it’s a hand-me-down hoedown with bat claws and fangs
and snotrag pie and cheek plugs of chaw
it’s a peel-off sticker of lemon meringue

it’s a camel race over the rainbow
it’s a Lucky that never strikes back
it’s a chain-smoking contest at 12 packs an hour
the winner’s in no shape to crawl out of the sack

it’s a field of snowball potatoes
it’s a thief moving in for the thrill
it’s a mailbox full of regret cards
it’s the chili beans ultimate chill

it’s a black jumping jack of all trades
it’s a suitcase of silver guitar strings
it’s the ear drummers beating a hic-cup
it’s a blindfold of honeymoon rings

it’s a Listerine saxophone solo
it’s a Lester Young telephone call
it’s sun in Virginia with Scorpio rising
it’s a Son of a Pioneer waltz

it’s three hot meals and four square walls
it’s a movie at half past eight
it’s a ride thru the traffic light’s red, green and yellow
it’s life, it’s love, it’s a date
it’s one for the money and two for the show
it’s three blind mice in a maze
it’s Christ on the cross and Jerry Lee Lewis
in his ocean with permanent waves

it’s a salad of loopholes and armpits
it’s an aftershave lotion with greed
it’s Marilyn Monroe on a merry-go-round
it’s a garbage collector on speed.

it’s a harp and inkblot concerto
it’s a multiple choice type of quiz
it’s a fox trot without evolution
it’s life, it’s love, it’s hers, it’s his

it’s Zeus and his gang of fat geezers
it’s Faust and his pitiful pose
it’s Mona Lisa and her troop of fast breeders
it’s Shakespeare and his suck-a-duck rose

it’s a pile of paperback promises
it’s an all-day sucker of a prayer
it’s a pillow of purple horizons
it’s a wild child covered with hair

it’s a stack of courtroom bibles
it’s a stick of peppermint twist
it’s a river of rage and roads off the map
it’s the last moment of a first date kiss

it’s an aftermath algebra x-ray
it’s a painting signed Rand and McNally
it’s a pickpocket’s paradise glove
it’s a promise of lust in the alley

it’s a quartet of barbershop tenors
it’s a cat and a mouse house on wheels
it’s a tennis match-lit cigarillo
it’s life, it’s love, it’s a deal

it’s a pup tent in the Land of the Canines
it’s a bicycle built for two and a half
it’s 64 questions about dollars
it’s an Abe Lincoln log cabin raft

it’s a ballroom full of blind dancers
it’s a snag in the Mexican dream
it’s an egg in an easter parade
it’s a Pulitzer prize winning scream

it’s a streetcar named Daisy Mae West
it’s much too soon and never too late
it’s a pocketknife, pitchfork and soup spoon
arranged like a psalm on a plate

it’s a crowd of common denominators
it’s a gaggle of Mother Goose rhymes
it’s Little Red Ridinghood’s torn wedding dress
it’s life, it’s love, it’s a mess

it’s a Halloween hoot with wet witches on trial
it’s a French kissing trick and double Dutch treat
beware of the talker, the long-distance walker
and the bum who sleeps in the busted back seat

beware of the angel who lies dead in the aisle
it’s nothing but something you better forget
remember the moonlight sonata’s back street
and the tracks of the fleet-foot gazette

beware of Looey, the 14th of Gooey
don’t hike thru the mud with your pants all unzipped
or ride on his bike over fields of clover
to his campfire where the cream girls are whipped

in less than an hour I want to go home
I want to lie in my bed
“The cider’s the apple, the apple is dead
so drink while you have the chance,” he said.

It’s a cloak and dagger stick up
it’s the hic-cup and baby burp trick
it’s a dog in cat’s pajamas
it’s life, it’s love, take your pick

it’s a tango for lip-reading lusters
it’s a long, unpronounceable name
it’s somewhere between salt and pepper
it’s life, it’s love, they’re the same

ONE ARM ROOM

it’s a one arm room
it’s a do or die day
we sit and darkness
falls around our faces
there’s nothing around the edges
of the eye-blinking night

she pulls the curtain
she touches my eye
with her glowing
velvet fingertip
and I can see again
I didn’t need light

FAMOUS PEOPLE’S FAMOUS LAST WORDS

I am Samuel P. Colt
I drill teeth for a living
I’m a dentist by trade
I sleep in the shade
and wink while autograph giving

I am Lawrence of Arabia
I’ve got to get back to my cattle
I sit on my fence
and ride my saddle
and go to work with a paddle

I am Cleopatra
I got bitten by my own big mouth
I drool in my sleep
I’m cruel, I’m a creep
I’m a white trash bitch from down south

I am Ophelia the frail
I spend all day lying in bed
I’m going nuts
and my brother’s got guts
for screwing around with my head

I am Joan of Arc
I ride a fast horse thru the street
I’m covered with patches
I don’t play with matches
and I don’t eat barbecued meat

I am Isaac “Fig” Newton
I’m the one who invented the earth
I figured it out
when a rainbow trout
popped out when my mother gave birth

I am Jack the Ripper
and my knife tricks are very fulfilling
I play the stock market
and I hit the target
sometimes I make a real killing

I am Pythagoras
I believe in nothing but beans
you can play my bassoon
it’s never in tune
with the gas that blows out of my jeans

I am Adolph Hitler
I breed by candlelight
don’t open the door
it’s always a whore
who keeps me tied up for the night

I am Casanova
I’ve got a gondola with dreams
I skim down the milky
as smooth as raw silky
Venetian blind alleys of cream

I am Esmeralda
don’t tell me no hunchback jokes
enough Quasimodo
at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go
and nightclubs that go up in smoke

I am Robinson Jeffers
I keep my eyes on the moon
my chin to the wheel
my knees like to kneel
I’m fast with a knife, fork and spoon

I am Attila the Hun
that’s “Hun” as in Hungry, my dear
I love human lung,
liver and dung
vitamin-enriched by fear

I am the Prince of Darkness
there’s never enough in my dish
I’ve got oysters, pastrami
mussels, salami
I pray for a Christmas fish

I am Albert Einstein
and these are the trophies I’ve won
antlers of moose
and photos of Zeus
in my backyard shooting a gun

I am the Man in the Moon
I’ve got nothing but good things to say
about low tides and high tides
and October hay rides
and old UFOs from the U S of A.

I am Mao Tse Tung
you’ll have to excuse my lobotomy
I can count up to ten
and have five more to spend
I’m a genius in Asian economy

I am Arthur Rimbaud
I got claws in my crotch down below
I got needles and pins
and fresh pygmy skins
up where my brain-fountain blows

I am the King of the Novel
you may call me Mister Charles Dickens
and up in my hat
is one Persian cat
and 35 species of chicken

I am the Playboy Hugh Heffner
I admit it, I’ve got a bad habit
I live in a house
with a bald fliedermaus
and 35 species of rabbit

I am the ghost of Geronimo
I dance like a wind storm in heat
I’ve got rings in my ears
and seventeen gears
in the dumptrucks tattooed on my feet

I am Henry Thoreau
you’ve heard of my pond down at Walden
I’ve got others in Reno
and San Bernadino
and one in Brazil I see seldom

I am Friar Tucker
don’t cross your eyes at me
I’ll dot your pockmarks
I’ll pay off your loan sharks
but that’s all you’ll get here for free

My name is Salvador Dali
my friends call me Long Tall Sally
I’m a Commie with style
on my pink crocodile
I ride thru the Red River Valley

I like to be called J.F.K.
and pretend I’m DiMaggio Joe
I know Otis Redding
he sang at my wedding
and so did Marilyn Monroe

I am the Werewolf of London
I’m fond of Piccadilly Square
I sit with the girls
they play with my curls
I’m as tame as Smokey the Bear

I am Aretha Franklin
Ben was a distant uncle
I learned how to dance
when I traveled thru France
with a junkie named Art Garfunkle

I am Art Garfunkle
I speak like an un-oiled hinge
I might be funky
but I’m sure not a junkie
I cringe when I see a syringe

I am Brigitte Bardot
I’ve fallen in love with Ringo
on Saturday night
we have a quick bite
then go out and play ten hours of bingo

I am Mickey Spillane
tell me I’m Dashiell Hammett
and I’ll give you a punch
in yesterday’s lunch
I’ll pinch til you say God damn it

I am Ben Hur
don’t ask me what happened to Ben Gay
he was taking a quiz
with a hers and a his
when a multiple choice got in the way

I am the Wizard of Oz
I was born in a blizzardly breeze
some say it’s mucus
and some say it’snot
I say it’s the juice of the sneeze

I am Glenn Gould the pianist
don’t confuse me Wanda Landowska
those harpsichord trills
those fingernail quills
it’s all blackboard music to me

THE BIG ONE

“You gotta stun them with a left and a right
– Ka-Pow! – Ka-pow! –
and then you come back and bomb them
with the big one
– KA-BOOM!”
I didn’t know what she was talking about.
She was standing naked in front
of the bathroom mirror
slapping her tits
and trying to screw her reflection.

When I picked her up after the gig
and brought her back to my hotel room
I was hoping for something a little different.
I was hoping for love
or at least some kind of understanding
“Ka-Pow! Ka-Pow! KA-BOOM!”
What can I do with that kind of sadness?

What can I do with her reflected desires?
the hole she’s opening in her belly
I’d fall all the way in
down into the pit
into a tunnel that goes all the way
thru her body
thru the mattress
thru the bed
thru the floor
into the room blow
room 47 of the old Beat Hotel
in Paris
where Elizabeth lies
30 years from now
looking up at the tip
of my cock dangling
above her head
dripping
tears into her glass of red wine

FUCK SINGER’S LAMENT

give me back the sweat I poured
into you, the pint of juice I swore
into you, the skin I banged
into you, the flesh you fanged

give me back my stomp of approval
give me back the ghost bones
I pumped into your slop
I told you I was coming
I told you to get a pair of dry pants
I told you to get a mop

you know I’m a stick in the mud
and I sleep with sheep in the manger
so give me back my name
the one I shouted when you were asleep
and I was in danger

give me back the cash
I spent on whores and wind-up toys
and summertimes of othertimes
and that time of broken muffler noise

give me back the coins
I threw into your fountain
give me back the cross
I carried up your mountain
I’m still wearing the nails
they’re stuck between my fingers
give me back my old guitar strings
I want to be a fuck singer

you make me want to puke
you make me want to cry
you make we watch the clock go round
you kill the eagles in my eye

you make the words inside my head
turn into shouts and screams
you make the worms down in my gut
turn into shit, into spit, into steam

GRIN AND GURN

fuck and get stuck
run out of luck
guardian angel bummed
out to lunch slummed
off to Doubt Street
angel laughs
bitter sweet
slap me on the back
grin and gurn

ONE BALD POEM

you give her a grin
she gives it right back
and the only thing you can do
is swallow it

and it comes out your cock
in a thick puff of smoke
with the cry of a crippled child
and the odor of crushed apples
on the cellar floor

RECIPE FOR IGNORED SPUDS

warm up a frying pan
toss in a spud
torture it over a low flame
until it screams
then take it out on a bus ride
around town
point out the statues
of famous men
and tell your spud that someday
you will erect
a spud statue in his memory
go back home
and bore the spud to death
by reading aloud
“Wet Dreams of Incestuous Worms”
by Squeamish Headlock
then eat at leisure
ignoring completely
the taste of the spud
while watching a TV sitcom
about an emotionally retarded family
who sit around their house all day
talking of Michelangelo
while the women in the room below
come and go
writing poems about
Shake-a-Stick
Rip-a-Lip
and Break-A-Leg Othello

SLEEP LOOP

and the world goes round with the sky
and the sky goes round and I don’t know why
there’s a cat in there with a welcome mat
and the cat goes round with a puffed-up eye
and my feet spin round on the merry-go-there
and the merry-goes-round and I don’t know where
and my head spins round spins round in the air
and the last thing I need is a merry-go-down
and my feet trot around with a fox trot sound
and the fox trots around with my feet on the floor
trots around on the floor with my face and my feet
and where do I fit in this murky repeat
when I fall to the floor with my face in the door
with my face in my hands and sand in my eyes
and where will I be when in flows the sea
when in flows the sea where will I be
will I be over here will I be over there
or somewhere between the some and the where
when I see with my eyes the eyes of the one
of someone named me
when in flows the sea where will I be
when in flows the sea

YOYO STRING ECHO

yoyo string echo
of plucked and finger
picked wind slapped
foot tap chop time
and whistle stop of deaf ears
it’s lying there
in the bent blades
of grass in the blind eyes
in the deep beat of double feet
of clock dust and tumbling
down dew ice
it’s all in the shape-shifting shadows
in the tip jar
of the tickled moonbelly trick path trap door

DOOM THE DRUM

1.
they’re having trouble
over there in the big black cities
burning down cars
looting the shops
shooting in the night
they call for the cops
and the cops drive by
with their fingers on their triggers
down go a few more jiggers
into the gutter, into their graves
the cops reload
drive off, wave

they got music in the back rooms
saxophones of angry blast
they make the reeds bend
until they break, they make
trumpet brass melt, the piano keys
change color. white to black
black to brown, they play
until your ears are smeared
with black panther growls
and your eyes are telling lies
with black panther prowls
you’re better off being blind

and way in back, keeping time
is Doom the Drum, 12 years old
fast fingers, fast thumbs
he knows all the tunes
and a hundred hundred more
from his own imagination
he knows the score
lie low, keep on the jump
come out at night
feed from the dump

while in the upper strat
angels beat furious wings of fear
Doom the Drum is beating
his garbage can lid
it reaches all the way up here
“that adorable kid,”
they see the fires, they smell the smoke
they’re back in Old Testament years
before Jesus Christ died for our sins
he didn’t die enough, they say
now they need more black skin

2.
the news is not good
his brother went down
with steel rain in his back
Doom the Drum is knocking on wood
he’s kicking down the doors to hell

he’s going down into the cold
into the tunnels, smoke fills his eyes
he’s better off being blind
he’s better off being black

this is the Cool Dust Neighborhood
the last of the muscle-mangling mines
nobody down here is looking for gold
this is where the dead dreams dwell

they call this place Ghost Dance Town
he drums his doom ’til he dies

ANGELS

Angels come in big surprises
different shapes, different sizes
some are small, some are chubby
some are clean and some are grubby
others are bald, blind and bare
some have flowing golden hair
some are virgins, some are whores
some look like the girl next door
some are short and some are tall
some you cannot see at all.

Some are watching over you
and some are watching over me
some are watching football games
some are watching TV.

Some go out on Halloween
dressed as ghosts and demons
others are pixies and elfin-like folk
who do mid-summer night dreamin’s.

Some have wings and play the harp
J.S. Bach and the Rolling Stones
some roll round on rollerskates
playing slide trombones.

Some are up at Red Cloud’s Casino
playing games of guessin’
some are down at Joe’s Cafe
taking mambo lessons

But most of them are right behind you
whispering in your ear
hear the sound of the drop of a pin
listen to the sigh of the northwest wind
and Jim John’s right among ’em
watching over me
he never was a football fan
and he can’t get used to TV
except for when I get a chill
and my whispers all get smoky
I know he’s down at Flo’s and learning
how to do the hokey pokey

Some can fly and some can sing
others have strings tied to their wings

THE FOOL

I done it, I did it, I do like the fool
I drop into sleep, I dream and I drool
I wake with a shake, a drum roll of bones
a hole in my head, a gutful of groans
I pull on my socks, I pick up my locks
my rubberband beard, my eyeball clocks
it’s another big day with water and air
another big deal between over here and over there
in a cat-ripped tuxedo, a moth-eaten cape
boots with no toes, heels with no shape
my cap has a baseball stuck in the top
a curve ball from heaven, a rainy-day drop
my earlobes are pierced with camel eye needles
stained glass windows of gothic cathedrals
slide up my nose and over my eyes
and I’m back with the angels in leapfrog disguise

I step into the light, tumble with the clouds
head over heels into lost love crowds
with their drop-dead laughter, their drip-dry tears
I ride my bike, no brakes, no gears
I’m fast on the road, slow on the hills
I splash thru the puddles, plow thru the spills
of oil and ice and penny whistle trills
goose-up my bumps, tune up my chills
with my foot in my mouth, I hop, skip and jump
pop, trip and hump, stop, flip and pump

I can count from one to five til I run out of thumbs
from nine to nineteen sixty-five til my toes are numb
I know the words of none of the songs
from Amazing Grace to Kingdom Come
but I’ll pick up the beat, twist its tail, make it hum
like wet socks left to dry on high power lines
just whistle the tune, I’ll stick in the rhymes
I’ll sputter, I’ll stammer, I’ll speak like a fool
I’ll swallow the tongues I picked up in school
I’ll stumble, I’ll stagger, I’ll leak like a freak
I’ll dance in a circle, I’ll squeak when I eat

I stuff my face on milk and honey
I chew a path thru a pile of money
I go from two to twelve, then back nine
it all fits together if you’ve had a glass of wine
or a bottle and a half, to lubricate the mind
to push back the wind, to pin up Miss Blind
June’s cover girl on Braille Magazine
sandwiched like salami and cheese in between
a window with a view of a window with a view
and a red-handed shade that shades into blue
a yellow page curtain with phone ads and numbers
soap and soup bathtubs stirred by dumb plumbers
wrenching around in the leaky gas light
boxers with broken glass jaws that bite
thru the meatloaf of midnight and the cold chicken wings
that flip in my mouth and flop as they fling
their pin stripe feathers, then take off and fly
from between my teeth from the first of July
to the last of December, screaming, “Happy New Year,”
and all I’ll remember is a sad puppeteer
with strings on his fingers and both his big toes
jerking and pulling my leg and my nose
yes the joke is on me and the rest can be found
in the bottom of a dream box dug up from the mud ground

so I lay down to sleep on my sheep of woolen weave
the ghosts of last night’s dream pick up and leave
I can’t say goodnight, don’t know how to pray
so let’s blow out the candles and call it a day

Self portraits | Series 1

2011 |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

1. WAITING ON THE MUSE

sitting bleak-eyed
stumped browsed
waiting on the muse
summertime tapped out
tagged by insuckingsomnia
closed included by
closets of clichés
brain crooning
moonstuck
brooding incontestibles

until bemused
he upright stands
and out goes into the flow
upslide into the wide open
unbefudled
mad climber’s mud flood

into the smooth shade
of deathless pines
and imponderables
pondered by flag fingered
whipsplash mechanics

along the punched path
of the flipper feet tiltface
dream pinchers
past the Where-But-Here
drag demons
And the Never-Mind-Me
exbreathlessperts

to dipdive infarewellto
an unmasterpiecemapped
volcanobowl
filled to floating
with innumerables
cospurgulating
(with anybloodybody
with inlaughingtelligence)
from duskiest dawned upon
to the highest noonbeams
of a house
made
of
dust

2. THE LIFETIME OF ANOTHER DAY

he’s just an average
(and nothing is “just”
except average)
finger-twitching
arm dangler
humping along
in a parade
of arm-dangling
finger twitchers
celebrating the lifetime
of another eye-squinting
nose-snorting day
hairs splitting
and standing on end
(some of which have escaped
the war tug of Earth’s gravity
and joined the Intergalactic
Bookmark of the Month Club)
ears flapping teeth eroding
tongue lashing lip smacking
as his mouthbag sputterspurts
a spitwad of nounish verbs
into the goatsnoutish
beardgutters of his chin

3. THE BACKSIDE OF THE MIRROR

he’s not disguised
in foolish names
he’s not to be confused
with famous faces
one snap of his fingers
and absolutely
nothing happens

wait until you see
the backside of his mirror
where all his secret
psychophobes
neuropathetics
and egobums
hang out hiding
from the world

he wishes
he had a hammer

4. THE SUMMER OF ’06

in the summer of ’06
he lost 50 pounds
he lost his pants
and he almost lost his mind

he was down to 120
he was thin as a wire
he biked thru thunderstorms
begging the lightning to strike

in the summer of ’09
he weighs 200 pounds
he’s got a belly
like a Greek Paterfamilias
and he purrs like a cat
when he gets his teeth
around a peanut butter & jelly sandwich

he looks back
on the good old days of ’06
and wonders what happened
to the stirred-up brain soup
to the hot wire madness
to the lightning sparks
and his rain-soaked skeleton

he just finished writing
the story of his life
and now he knows
it’s time to start
writing another

5. THE CHIEF OF SILENCE

he’s a round-about guy
who knows a lot about nothing

he’s a blind-eye prophet
with a highly-exaggerated
sense of the past tense

he was raised with cows
but was never mistaken
for a cowboy

he was educated in trombone
and knew that when he grew up
he would be a child
who could never get over
not being 6 foot 4
when he stopped growing
at 6 foot 3¾ inches

he has been misunderstood
so many times
you would think
he would have learned
to keep his mouth shut

he knows that whatever good
you can say about him
can be folded up
like a page
torn from paperback spy novel
and tossed among the ballots
when they vote for the next
Chief of Communal Silence

6. WAIT UNTIL YOU READ HIS UNCENSORED MIND

wait until you see
his collection of shadows
most are his
but some are the expensive kind
from mail-order catalogs

wait until you hear
his excuses as to why
he doesn’t believe
what most people say

wait until he shows you
that you are god
as he is god
as everybody on the face of the earth
has a reasonable chance
of becoming holy

wait until he drops you off
a mile from home
and you walk the rest of the way
cursing and turning his name
into a foul oath
while permanently printing
his memory in your mind

“unforgettable”
that’s how he wants
to be remembered

7. THE EUROPEAN TRAVELS
OF AN OVER-EDUCATED MISFIT

he came into Italy
thru the front door
and tracked mud
all over the rug

he wiggled around England
like a woodworm
in the neck of a guitar
which can only be put to sleep
by a soft and gently-strummed
E minor chord

he bummed around
the backyards of Germany
like a B-movie poster
flapping in the wind
from a billboard
on the side of an abandoned drugstore
that once upon a time
sold everything from saber tooth tiger paste
to atomic sunscreen
from peyote-flavored laxatives
to anonymous alcoholic dandruff caps

he tumbled down a coal chute
and landed in the Netherland’s basement
and what a collection of bottled water
he found there
water from Eiffel Tower faucets
a flood from the last page
of the Book of Revelations
tears from the eyes of a mummified Viking

nobody told him about Belgium
– the outhouse in the middle
of a beetroot field
he had to wander around
and check it out by himself
it was made out of toilet paper
and owls had built their nests
in the roof
he thought it might be
a nice place to live

“Where are we?”
“What are they talking about?”
“What the fuck is going on?”
these were but three
of the questions he asked himself
as he peeked thru a back window
into France

he climbed out onto Switzerland’s roof
with a leash between his teeth
and a bell around his neck
he peeked over the edge
down below
people were walking their pit bulls
he started to growl
and the pit bulls growled back
off on a far mountain
sheep were being herded
into holes in the ground
he shook his head
and his bell began to ring
everybody down below
thought he was getting ready
to go to church.

have you met the European Travelling
Over-educated Misfit?

they say that once upon a time
he ran out of California’s greenhouse
back-pedaling thru the gate
chased by a platoon of blood-thirsty
leathernecks their faces
covered with jungle war paint
their footsteps echoing
from the greased-stained
concrete floor
of the Pacific Ocean garage

they never caught him
because he learned to run sideways
and his would-be captors
were all top-to-bottom chasers
trained in the old Canadian-Mexican route
while he was running east
they were headed south

8. PRAYERS OF THE PARASITES

holy moly, dim of sight
who’s gonna be our scapegoat tonight?
we’ll eat like a furnace, drink like a flood
and pray to the pig washed in blood

holy guacamole there’s a voice on the landline
coming from a troglobite down in the diamond mine
saying it’s my birthday, come join the fun
we got a thousand fire crackers and a nine-foot speargun

lord have mercy, it’s Skinhead Hannah
she’s got a grudge a half a half-a-mile long
take her to the back room show her the tradition
make her learn to sing a Robert Johnson song

wham bam, ma’am, welcome to the slam dunk
smoke some tumbleweed, get snagged on jungle junk
swift as mud, slick as a chop stick
pay your rent from the bottom of a cheap trick

mumbo jumbo, throw the dog a bone
send Old Black Joe to the funny folk’s home
bring that butterfly back from the ozone
hose him down with spit from a valve trombone

jeepers creepers, go get a bucket
scoop up the confetti left in the street
after the parade turned into a riot
with kids kicking horse turds
with the bareness of their feet

goodness gracious sakes alive
sometimes you can’t tell the good from the bad
a floor from a trapdoor, a duck from a devil
an after-birth mark from a cigarette ad

loki poki, heaven’s on fire
but the smoke’s not holy and neither is desire
there’s a headless horseman riding thru the storm
on a blindfold mule with a unicorn horn

bing! bang! call out the whole gang
let’s get blasted on a gallon of Gallo
lift our arms to the fire-escaping stars, shout:
“One for the road and none for tomorrow.”

SELF PORTRAITS – SERIES 2

1. THE LITTLE RED ROOSTER GETS READY
TO SPILL THE BEANS

Bukowski lit a cigar
and poured himself a glass
of vodka 7
Kerouac dropped a bennie
and prayed to the Madonna
Brautigan loaded his 6-shooter
and blasted off a couple of slugs
thru an open window into an endless
unforgiving sky
and Henry Miller played ping pong
with a couple of naked whores

not me (said the Little Red Rooster)
I’m not falling for any of that crap
just give me a quail quill pen
and a gooseneck lamp
and I’ll be ready to spill
ALL the beans
from my private
can of worms

2. ICON ALLERGY

can’t stand Shakespeare
hesitates to even pronounce the name Elvis
(no less hates writing it down)
thinks Woody Guthrie was a fake
and Moby Dick over-rated
how about Burt Lancaster?
“Out with the garbage,” he declares

and don’t mention Chopin
when he’s around
he might break every piano in the room

3. HE STILL THINKS

he still thinks
OJ was innocent
he still thinks
George Bush and his gang of terrorists
were behind the World Trade Center carnage
he still thinks
George Bush and his gang of terrorists
are war criminals
and should be put on trial
and sentenced to rot in a damp cell
for the rest of their rotten lives
he still thinks
the Arabs want to push
the Jews into the sea
he still thinks
that Michael Jackson’s “death”
was a publicity stunt
(“death” means nothing
to a programmed robot
from the labs of Cal Tech)
he still thinks
that man has never set foot
on the moon or even
sent an unmanned vessel
in orbit around it
(where are the photos
of the dark side?)
he still thinks
he’s been lied to
since the day he was born
by doctors, teachers
misguided authorities
and government-bribed experts

he still thinks

4. THE PISSED-OFF MAN

look at the pissed-off man
and let’s hope he’s not
looking at you

the last time
he looked like this
was the night
smoke started pouring
from holes in his lawn
which was soon followed
by an eruption
of volcanic moles
that covered the trees
with squealing blindness

don’t look
at the pissed-off man
look into the window
and see his reflection in the glass
he’s standing behind you
waiting for you to turn around
so he can frame you
with his eyes
drawing the borders so close
to your face
you will cease to feel
your arms and legs
and all the rest of your fragile flesh
then drawing the borders
even tighter
so that you become only
a helpless pair of eyes
your nose will be gone
forever
no more mouth
and no more chin
you will be frozen
in a block of silence
because you will have
no ears

don’t turn around
whatever you do
don’t turn around

5. MIDNIGHT WINDOW

He stands looking
at his reflection in the window
thru the glass
blue neon bats
fly in and out of his face

he lifts his hand
and microscopic fish
swim between his fingers

he opens the front of his shirt
and a gigantic fist
explodes from his belly
shatters the window
and punches a hole in the night
large enough to let in
all the beasts of psychotic burden
that dwell on the far side
of the storm-darkened horizon

6. 003241753993

Mr. Mugshot
Mr. Side by Side
Slipstream Easy
Eagle Ear Boomerang
Buzzard Bait Sockpocket
Beast the Bastard
Jawbone Hookmouth
Bottleneck Mockrocker
Figpump Orgasmus
Harmonica Grunt the Third
Doctor Tumbleweed
Tendertooth, the Last of the Laughing Loup-Garoups
Beerguzzle Moongazer
Squeezebox Bagman
Geezerguts Bikebum

I’ll give you his number
if you want to hear his voice

7. FROM THE VALLEY OF THE OWL

shrieks of twisted leather

wails of new-born mutant babies
the click and clack of mating mechanical
store window dummies

farts that reproduce
melodically and rhythmically
the first 4 notes
of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony

hour-long chainsaw rips
from the strings
of tortured guitars

the laughter of insane women
who have turned to witchcraft
as a form of entertainment

the slap of flesh against paper
(perhaps books)
(perhaps maps)
probably pages of 20th century calendars

the rustle of spiked hair scraping thru
an elaborate network of cobwebs

the whistle of miniature freight train locomotives
chugging around a circular track
that hovers above the light bulb of a lamp like a halo

The gurgle of liquid being poured
between the dry lips of a smacking thirsty mouth
(could be beer)
(could be rum)
more likely the tears of spoiled children
who didn’t get to ride the playground ponies
into the wild west of their 3-year old minds
at the county fair

the grunt of sumo wrestlers slamming into walls
and their moans as they flop down
into mattress pits filled with rubber squeeze toys

white noise, blue noise, black noise, more squeeze toys

the rattle of coins dropping into a jukebox
which only plays the hit singles of hungry lambs

the brief sputter of a deflating balloon
as it swoops thru the air
to land exhausted in an ashtray
having discovered the mystery of life

the drip of rain into spoons and silver spittoons

the ring of a telephone
connected to a cave
deep in the earth where dwarves
sit around a campfire
playing poker and repeating
oft-told dirty jokes

these are but a few
of the sounds that seep from under
the door of his hut late at night
down in the Valley of the Owl

but none are the sound of his voice, his voice
none are the sound of his voice

8. HE VERBS, HE NOUNS

he runs with the river in the night he flies
lies down with the sunrise and sleeps as he slips
into the songs of a thousand birds

he dances to the music of the Kings of Killers
like a boxer working out in slow-motion
in front of an invisible punching bag

he drives a hard-bargain bike thru muddles of rain
thru fields of wheat teeth between rows of beatish roots

he dreams in screams of muted laughter
and the thudding footsteps of 10-ton wolves

he dresses in rag tag baggy opticals
white trash shrugs and blue genius zipper blooms
his feet are lovingly spoiled by black track bouncemobiles
with or without puddle sacks

he plays a flat-out, doodle neck 24-spring Bozolute
with harp teeth in his mouth and pedals on his feet

he sings in a purple rubber voice
as he slingshots his barbariantone hotrock notes
into the rooms of abandoned motels
& the basements haunted houses

he reads the classifieds from 20th century typewriters
filling out the blank faces and spaces and hand-spelled places
with grindstone inklings as blindfold movies
play on the white bone screen of his drive-in skull

he writes the scraps of left-overs from brown paper bag lunches
into bread crust and apple peel stories
full of jively verbs and ticklish nouns

he rolls with the summer he falls with the leaves
into the tunnel of winter he rises up in the spring
and stands on the moon

he loves
he likes
he looks
he chooses
he refuses to answer the phone

he breathes
he bites
he eats his oats
he keeps his beard
trimmed close to the chin

he walks with a hunch
he talks to himself
to the wind in the trees
to the clouds in the sky

he laughs
he learns
reluctant to smile
he worships the sun from the edge of his eye

9. NUMBER NINE

the silences of his 9th self-portrait
leak into boots
where his feet used to be

SELF PORTRAITS – SERIES 3

1. THE BEVAGGÉD LOVEABOND

he walks into the gallery
and sees the portrait
of Robert Browning hanging on the wall

GRRR!

in the room below
women come and go
without a sound
speaking of Ezra Pound

TWIT TWIT JUG JUG!

while Dylan Thomas
stares from a speeding car window
at a billboard in the night
its lights flashing out the face
of James Joyce

FLEPPETY! FLIPPITY! FLEAPOW!

2. OTHER ROWS TO HOE

he could have been
a ruffle-sleeve 19th century poet
with weak knees and a wart on his neck
who sat before his manuscript
while his portrait was being painted
hissing and making crude remarks
as he penned an Ode to a Toad
in perfect reptilian rhyme

he could have been
a garage mechanic
down in the grease pit
working on a 4-wheel drive Camel
while smoking an Oldsmobile filter tip
and preparing for his next invasion
of Mexico with his vigilante army brothers
by memorizing the shopping list
of essential items they’d need
for their holiday in the Land of Tortillas and Tequila
12 cases of Jack Daniels
14 birthday suits with girls attached
16 rocket launchers
18 machetes
20 sawed-off shotguns (12 gauge)
22 kilos of crystal meth
24 gallons of weed killer
And 26 cans of beans
“Which comes to 152 necessary things total
“to make the proper civilized impression
“on our friendly neighbors south of the border.”

he could have been a university professor
with an American flag tattooed on his ass
who taught monster physics between the cracks
and tire recapping in his spare time
who took his students on shopping sprees
to the Museum of Natural Hysterics
and never came home without a ponytail
attached to the antenna of his car radio

he could have been the last man on the moon
– a renegade astronaut
who landed in the lunar dust
with a pack of dynamite strapped to his back
and a hydrogen bomb under each arm
“This’ll show the bastards back home,”
he could have said as he pulled the plug
and blasted the moon into a million pieces
which would have eventually floated to earth
as tiny burning particles of moonbeams
filled with specks of blood and bone

he could have been a gun-slinging starter
at Olympic track events
all the big races
such as the 100-meter dash
with a 200-voice choir singing an oratorical
transposition of the Brandenburg Concertos in lane 1
300 Cub Scouts dressed as Huckleberry Finn
warming up the crowd from lane 5
with marbles launched from their slingshots
and 400 gooseneck drunks in lane 7
their tractor caps on backwards
the tops of their sole-less rubber boots
up over their knees
who lived in perpetual urination
pouring beer in one end
and letting it leak out the other

“ON YOUR MARKS
“GET SET!
“GO!”

and off they’d thunder
the spikes of their toes digging in the dust
while he’d do a double fast-draw
and see how many escaping athletes
he could shoot in the back
before they crossed the finish line

he could have been
a man of the people
a common domino-denominator
born from the salt of the earth
a self-elected mayor of a hamlet
in Othello with accordions
in his armpits, dustballs in his teeth
who spoke of wandering among the ruins
of his childhood scrapbook
with an orphan in his arms
and prowling around deserted stock car
racetracks on nights after the big races
kicking aside busted muffler pipes
and shaking hands with the ghosts
of dead drivers who could not remember
their own names

he could have been
better than Butt Muddler
bigger than Courtly Wentafroggin
hotter than Pseudo Psychophant
faster than Sitting Bullet

he could have said
“I am the Grape Pretender”
“You are the apple of my pie.”
“Don’t step in my shoe blade ooze.”
“Here comes the man with the Miles Davis eyes.”

he could have been any of these people
he could have done or said any of these things
but that was not his color of meat
that was not his deep-sea destiny
he had other things on his mind
the kinds of things
that don’t turn you into an instant success
with autograph hounds barking up your tree
fans that turn you into a household name
with housewives drooling in your soup
and husbands home from work
slapping the shit out of your back
while a thousand tree-dwellers
clicking their teeth and clapping their testicles
shout embarrassing compliments
as you walk by on your way
to the corner store
to buy a roll of toilet paper
he had other rows to hoe

3. THE SUBCONSCIOUS MADMAN

i.
he did his best
to avoid the spotlights
but they got him in the end
up in a tree
with his pants around his knees
with the wing of a blackbird
clenched between his grilled teeth

ii.
he tried hard
to avoid the headlines
but his muscles miscalculated
and he ended up face first
on the front page:

HOOKED ON BARBIE DOLLS!
THE BARBITURATE IS BACK!
IS THIS HOW GOD SAVES THE QUEEN?

iii.
they caught him
taking down the screen doors
and letting in all the bottle buzzers
and skeeter bumpers
letting in all the eyeball-sucking
maniacs with pop-goes-the-weasel wings
and claw-shaped la cucaracha feet

he had no excuse
“I don’t know what got into me,”
he said. “Maybe it had something
to do with the those flying saucer people
I’ve seen zooming around at night
in my backyard
playing tag with tea bags
and drinking moonshine from potluck spoons.”

4. HE HAD SEASON TICKETS TO ALL
THE GOLGOTHA HAMMERS’ HOME GAMES

there was nothing to stop him
from becoming the big boss man of the world
he had the talent, people liked him
he had charisma and enigma
he could have had hoodlum saints licking from his hand
and hooligan angels tying his shoelaces with their teeth

he would have been easy to crucify
“Bring your own cross,” would have been
the password of the day
“A free cup of nails with every purchase
of a Pomptious Pilatapuss thorny crown.”

he could have turned piss into oil
and the entire world economy would have collapsed

there was nothing to stop him
so who can explain why
he swerved off the road halfway thru the race
and was last seen chasing a pack
of blind-folded and rat-faced scumheads
as the bumper of his Yellow Cab
mowed a clean path thru the corn field
and soon disappeared in a cloud of dust?

nobody, least of all him
who had no great faith
in explanations

5. HIS DOG HAS FLEAS

he stepped on stage
with his bass ukulele
he looked out at the audience
they were munching on memories
and ready to be disturbed

he adjusted the microphone
hundreds of fleas popped out
out the microphone’s grill
and flew away in the spotlight

“Microphobes,” he said
and everybody laughed
they had no idea
what he was talking about
they just felt like laughing

he tuned up his uke
singing. ‘My – dog – has – fleas.”
the audience laughed again
(for no reason)
he played My Dog Has Fleas
and the audience clapped along
it was a rhythmic tune
it had a brisk tempo

after the first verse
everyone knew the words
and began to sing along
MY DOGS HAS FLEAS!
soon the audience
had their eyes closed
they were singing so loud
and clapping so hard
they couldn’t hear the man
or his bass ukulele

he got up and left
and the audience
still laughing
and singing
and clapping
completely forget
that he had ever been there

6. EPONYMOUS ERRORS

his memory is not what it used to be
recently he forgot his name
he thought he was Rod Steiger

that was not the first time

there have been several
eponymous errors in the past:

Tom Hanks
Tom Selleck
Rod Stewart
David Lynch
Fritz the Cat
Count Potacki
Igor Stravinsky
Larry King Live

the list goes on
(it’s a serious problem)

Norman Mailer
Garth from Wayne’s World
Rafael Nadal
John Coltrane
Rodin
Colin Powell
Quagmire

and on and on (it gets worse)

ZZ Top
Krakatoa
The State of California
The Boston Pops Orchestra
The North Pole

one day you could call him “Amazon River!”
and he’d come running
the next day “London Bridge!”
and he wouldn’t even fall down

7. ONLY THE POTATO

he came from a long line
of Scottish vegetables
who immigrated to fresh fields
in the 19th Century
a Puritanical, compulsive
work-your-knuckles-to-the-bone
breed of String Beans

later, during the Great Depression
his ancestors became
Dust Bowl Okies
when they trekked to California
seeking fertile soil and wet water

once his family was established
on the West Coast
they started growing again
as never before
providing entire communities
with nutritious food and rumors

he escaped harvest
by hiding in a pumpkin patch
then running off to the old cotton fields
disguised as a radish

now he is a fully-grown String Bean
and people’s mouths start watering
when he walks by
only the potato can rival his popularity

SELF PORTRAITS – SERIES 4

1. RIVALED BY ONLY THE POTATO

rivaled only by the potato in popularity
he set out to mash the potatoes
and make them the puking stock of the nation
when he got thru nobody could eat a spud
without the word “mashed” creeping
into their appetite

people were throwing down their forks
and choking on their disgust
the potato was nearly ruined

but the spud recovered, it got revenge
soon people were eating
mashed potatoes with delight
and scorning string beans
it was an issue of racial prejudice
“I’m not going to touch
that thing
it’s GREEN!”

2. HE RISES UP

he gets up and up
and by gag and by god
he staggers sufficiently
into the strum and strangle
of the dream-kicking street
he rises
by sting and by suffer
into the whirlwind of minds
hanging on
by hook and by crook
until he slowly goes
insane enough
to speak without stuttering

3. HAMMER-SLAMMED BRAIN

He knew it was too late
but he could pretend it never happened
he kept writing (he knew exactly
which words to write):
BEWARE OF THE HAMMER-SLAMMED BRAIN
and he faded into the background

he was out there in poor America
trudging along a dirt road
beside a broken-down Model-T
loaded with his family’s entire
shabby Oklahoma shack mattresses
chairs boxes of chipped plates
and crack-handle cups thin rugs
a mail-order banjo missing a string
while the fathers and uncles pushed
the empty-tank car
25 MILES TO THE NEAREST PUMP
said the sign he trudged barefoot
alongside the flat tire

he was going to California
a snaggle-tooth dog with coon-ripped fur
trotted behind him as the wind
whipped the girl’s flimsy sun dress
and blew dust in his eyes

But he was so good
at pretending she never existed
that she surprised him by slipping around
behind him at the gate as he punched
the buttons of the secret numbers
and she slid thru the darkness
of the deep tree shadows
and there she was again
one step ahead of him
as they entered the elevator

all eyes turned toward him
as they stepped into the waiting room
someone shouted his name
someone clapped their hands
it was obvious to everyone
except him that he had come
to be baptized into the Holy Church
of the Hammer-Slammed Brain
and from that moment on
time stood still as never before
and until ever since

4. JESUSOGRAPHICAL

just to make sure
he’d have complete control
over the parking lot
he looped and tied a lasso
to the end of a long rope
tossed it high in the air
(“Higher than the rooftops”)
attempting to snag it
on the golden ball of the flagpole

it took him several tries
he pulled on the rope
until it was stretched tight

people gathered around
“What are you doing?”
“What have you done?”

“I now control the flagpole,” he said
“I also control all the space
beneath the rope.”
he ran around the flagpole
to show them that everything inside
also belonged to him

the people fell to their knees
bowed their heads
and slapped their hands on the ground

they chanted in pitched fever
high-fiving the cold tar
“Oh Great Gonzo of the Flagpole Shadow!”
“Oh Bingo Bongo the Fabulous Totempolster!”
“Oh Famous Flamingo, pole vaulter sublime!”
“Oh Devine Savior from Pole Land –
hear our sheepish prayer
deliver us from the Raindrops of Evil Eyes
and bestow upon our humble heads
your Gracious Gift of Shelter!”

they chanted so long and loud
that he finally got the message:
they were being sarcastic

“You think you can do it better?
You think you can keep the world
from falling apart?”
he tossed them the rope
and they were instantly swallowed by the shadow

he walked away whistling a humdrum tune
“When will people ever learn?”

5. AFTER PANDERAMIA

he took out his 5-day wonder
and squandered the first 4
on a woman from Panderamia

the last day he spent
trying to be recognized
on a TV broadcast
of a local baseball game

he sat in the bleachers
holding a sign that read:
Who put the RIP in Euripides?
and flashing a perpetual smile
that featured the left overs
from a moustache picnic

his mouth was a road
full of customized potholes
traveled only by blind mice
using white toothpicks as canes
and whipping their tails
against his tongue
everytime he shouted “Cinderella!”

6. THIS AND THAT

he was wrapped up in silence
and a Navajo blanket
when he came down from the volcano
and said he was in charge

he was in charge of darkness
(he said) in charge of cages
he would blow up wrinkled dreams
turn them to soap bubbles
and fill them with fireflies

he said this and he said that
but nobody believed him
except one goofy giggle
who couldn’t speak Jungle Jive
who’d missed the boat
back to the mainland
and would do anything
to get off the island

he didn’t need a mirror
to know what he looked like
he’d been on the island for years
and wanted to get off too
too many ocean tides
mixing up his boundary lines
too many song-struck birds
crossing over into memoryland
too many phantoms of the opera
who came around when he was asleep
and tried to teach him to fly

then there were all the mute mammals
who wanted his autograph
and were not easily discouraged
from all-night conversations
about this and that
about how many miles
to the next ego pump
how many days
to the nearest attack of blindness
or how much time a trip
to the top of the volcano
would take away from their wristwatches
he smiled and smiled
he would do anything
to get off the island

7. ESCAPE MUSEUM

let him escape
into the vacancies
of unfurnished rooms for rent
with windows that open
like vacuum cleaners
and doors that close
like closet skeletons
with foot-worn rugs that rise
and fall like the bellies
of sleeping sheep
with a picture on the wall
of the Madonna stepping
out of a white bathtub
wearing a white bathrobe
she winks, he thinks
she screams, he dreams
he awakes, she smiles
he pulls on his socks and shoes
she leans out of the frame
and kisses the top of his head
he leaps out the window
and lands on his toes

let him escape
into the back alleys furnished
with rain-damp mattresses
black silk stockings ripped
from the hot bodies
of the greasy spoon girls
a lampshade of water
gone pale waiting for moonlight
and a window high
on a brick wall
where bakers in white coats
and red caps lean out and toss
him the butt ends of their cigarettes
when all he wants
is a few crumbs of bread

they say let him escape
as he runs out into the street
where cars are piled up
bumper to bumper
and faces, driver to driver
shout, “LET HIM ESCAPE.”
as they watch him run
into Paranoid Park
where they keep the loonies
chained up at night
so the cops can come around
and stick needles in their eyes
and make them cry

and he runs past groups
of human statues
breathing like bugs
and up the steps
into the Maniac Museum
where shapes of bones
bend over and whisper,
“WELCOME HOME.”

Thick and thin

Poems 2006-2011 |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

AMSTERDAM POEMS

1. BURIAL AT SEA

take me out to the edge of the sky
fill me with laughter and a lopsided smile
roll down the rugs that cloud my eyes
I want to dance with the whales for a while

turtles are falling on the roof
crabs are fiddling with a low tide shoe string
mermaids are singing as they carry aloof
the last of the sling-shot hot-time kings

they love their load, we all love his queen
who stands in the background strumming a fork
with drinking-straw legs, her skull filled with steam
her face a bottle plugged up with a cork

there’s nothing to see past the first double take
a blur of fur and four fast feet
and skid marks of snake heat when she puts on the brakes
then it’s back to the end of the line for another repeat

there’s a message in a bottle from fourteen hundred
and ninety-two shipwrecked sailors on a rock
a stone’s throw away from the village they plundered
“Our time is up, no more shall we count
the clicks of the clock.”

the hour hand’s on four, the minute’s on ten
the sweepers are going from attic to bathroom
3 big women, 2 little men
5 golden rings, one whiskey broom

it’s nothing to blink at, nothing to praise
just obvious tea cups filled with grins
that take you deeper into the maze
past the point where you’ll survive
by doing tricks with your chin

the sweepers are going from room to room
chances are slim you’ll come back the same
ceaseless if disconnected at last from the tomb
caneless if blind, crutchless if lame

so drain me away to the far flung sea
measure me with mystery, weigh me with wonder
slip me away between the sheets
over the top and all the way under

Amsterdam, Nov. 20, 2006

2. CAFÉ MARCELLA

Café Marcella
off on the east corner
of the Prinzengracht

shot of rum
they know how
to water it down

and if the cute girl
is there in the afternoon
she’ll play cool music

(owner at night
goes for neutral gear
1000 violins in gas masks)
(and maybe some boozer
crooning about the ‘ooze’)

Café Marcella
good place to go
if you want beef stew
(goulash on the menu)

two English gents at the bar
(maybe one’s Irish)
“You sure are a pretty girl.”
the other guy says,
“don’t worry honey,
I’ll defend ye.”

yeah. sure.
get these two gents
alone with the pretty girl
in a hotel room
and one will gag
on his tongue
and the other will piss
in the sink as he shits
in his pants

I pay
I leave
notice the girl
is now sitting between
the two gents at the bar
and one of them is Irish

Amsterdam, Nov. 14, 2006

3. CRIME WAVE

armed, the gunfist
bulges out of his raincoat
“Do exactly what I say,”
backs me into a corner
“I’ll shoot you if I have to,”
I say, “Go for it,”
“Shut up, they’ll hear you,”
“I’m as quiet as a mole,”
“What? you want me to shoot you?”
“You’re holding the bazooka,”
“OK – I’m going for it.”

We’re inside now. “It’s all right here
– and it’s not gonna be enough,”
“What we need is more nerve scraping
tension, passion, spiders in our socks
leaping in the air, screaming,
‘My socks! My socks!'”
“Shut up, sock head,
I buy my socks by the dozen
buck 49 a pair at a drugstore
in downtown Reno,”
“Leave Reno Nevada out of this
they’ve got some fancy
boxer shorts at a mall
in Las Vegas.”

“We didn’t break into
this jewelry store
to talk about underwear,”
“So we’re going for the shoes?”
“We’re going for the jewels, shoe head,”
“You need an extra hand with the bags?”
“I brought you along for the fingerprints.”

he hammers a glass showcase
I reach in and pluck out the diamonds
an alarm goes off
he panics, freezes
hammer raised above
another display case
the cops rush in
handcuff him
he looks at me – baffled surprise
I wave
one of these days he’ll figure it out
I wasn’t there at all

Amsterdam, Oct. 31, 2006

4. STUMPMAN IN OOSTERPARK

give him an “A” for ranting ability
give him a 10 on your charts
give him a scholarship to study
in London, Speakers Corner
Sunday afternoon and he’ll come back
with a stump in his voice
blood on his teeth
his jaw locked in a cigar trap
his mind off the map

give him a chance
and he’ll sing like a swallow
the pigeons are waiting
so are the ducks
give him the gravel, the leaves on the ground
give him the lawns and the lake

he’ll take your ears
he’ll take them home
if you give him a chance
his home beneath the trees
in Oosterpark the sun goes down
at 5 in November
and it’s close to freeze

this is his season
the last of the windbags
one night he’ll lie down
and never awake
but one of his words
will be hanging in the breeze
like the most peculiar
you’ve ever seen snowflake

Amsterdam. Nov. 1, 2006

  

FROM THE LEFT HAND SIDE OF THE PAGE

PUCKATOON

PUCKATOON IN LOVE

he being a man of means
with no obvious wealth
she being the last to leave
the dance, crawling off the wall
with a rope between her teeth
he took her home
she met his dog
he took her up to his room in red
they had breakfast in bed
she had tears for tea
she said, “You and me –
is it more than a day?”
and she heard him say,
“A week, a year who can see
that far ahead? Not you not me
be content with the horse at the window
and there’s something else you should know
you’re never gonna leave this one-room rodeo
there’s no place else to go.”

PUCKATOON LOSES FACE

stymied by pigmy ideas
pickled by radioactive rain
and being a stooge, a prude
and a dumb-ass dude to boot
he stuck his thumb in a hole
in the side of his skull
and out came his brain
on a slice of tongue toast

PUCKATOON NAMED & UN-NAMED

give him a name, call him Puckatoon
he creeps around town in the late hours of doom
sniffing at snoozers and bug-eye boozers
he gathers their odors, spits them at the moon

forget about Puck, let’s call him Steve
Steve the Sleeve, Steve the Salt Shaker
he believes in stork-delivered babies
from the thin-towered baby makers
with full moon high tides
in the bottom of his brain
he knows they’re coming to make
him take a vacation in a forest
with fences he cannot escape
he’ll run around dragging
his nose on the ground

so let’s call him John
John the Conqueroot
has a much nicer sound
but he’s no kind of John
when push comes to shove
when the girls come to town
and want to fuck for love
let’s call him Tom
he’s no better than the average
Dick and Harry let’s call him Joe
send Tom back to the peephole
Joe goes for broke, Joe goes for sure
he’s got a gallon of gas and travel brochure
he’ll take the girls to the Renaissance Fair
in his ten-engine plane
nine are on the blink they all need repair
but he’s got one wing so who needs two?
not Daredevil Joe when he gets off the ground
he loops, he cartwheels
he leaves screams across the sky
maybe if we call him Charlie
fewer will die
good ol’ Chuck the Puck
he had a spell of weird weather
back in pigtail school
toss out the names
let’s call him the Fool

PUCKATOON ON SKID ROW

full of faults and failures
fed on fat lip charm
and the straight arms
from hook and ladder
firetruck trombones
stuck on the style
as they faked a greasy slide
into the mouth
of a ten-ton burger whale
he hits bottom
somewhere down around
the French-fried pickle
and the poached tomato
looking down into the pocket
of damaged dust and woe
he follows the tornado
down into the arroyo
there is no place else to go

DANCING PUCKATOON

Puckatoon gazes with one eye askance
as the band plays a tune-up
his other eye is fixed on the wall
where pictured girls are tacked for all
to see some nude others just plain naked
two steps of mambo, another three of four
of the cha-cha-charlatan and then one more
jitterfox bug trot wrapped in a burst
of terrifying energy far worse than the worst
of head-on collisions between monkey
and machine let’s keep it clean
send Puckatoon back out into the snow
tell him there’s no place else to go

PUCKATOON’S SISTER

see her out there on the beach
kicking sand into castles
running from the mugger
with the bubble gum gun

running from the gun, from
the grim-lip dealer, onion peeler
give her a hole with a lid
and a ladder watch her go down
watch her go slow clutching
her voice-shaped tremolo
there is no place else to go

PUCKATOON ON STAGE

tormented, trembling with anguish
Puckatoon leaps to the Apollo stage
where Zorro & Leonardo
are tuning up to play their theme
“Rock Over Salted Waters”

he squeezes into a seam
between a drumbeat and a dream
with a chick named Pancho
and her boyfriend Cream
there is no place else to go

PUCKATOON’S NEPTOON

needing not the approval
of any higher power
and being well a-tuned
to the full moon and its tides
behold Puckatoon
as he leaps from tree to tree
until he stands in the sand
of a blue and bubbly sea

he takes in hand
a cup of golden sand
and flings it into a flock
of swoopy seagulls
who snap the grains from the air
and begin to glow from within
a golden glow that fills the sky
when night falls
and the only other lights
are the yellow lanterns
of fishing boats far from shore

and when the moon rises
and the golden birds
dive into the sea
Puckatoon gathers his skinfins
and plunges down
into the seaweedy darkness
where dwell the prismatic peels
the puff bladders
and the octoplugs

these gather round and dance
to the beat of a whale tail-slap
against the side
of a sunken sailing ship
while from its mouth escapes
arpeggios and grace notes
more complex than anything
composed by the boys of the Rococo
they sing as they point
to a hole in one glissando
“That’s where we hide
when they bring in the sharks –
there is no place else to go.”

PUCKATOON MAGIC

seeking out every excuse
to travel to low-flung lands
where love has become
so watered-down
it’s identical to a swamp
and being at one with schemes
that make his dreams seemed planned
he rises thru puddles of villages
down mainstreets of flooded towns
to the edge of the ocean
where waves crash
first-floor windows where
corpses float upside down
drowned in acrobatic
traumadramatic swims
floating for applause
too wet to hear it
too dead to fear it
their shark-scarred limbs
spread out to welcome him back

he boats into railway stations
following flooded tracks
that take him to a new beginning
out west where sand dunes
rise in the humps of houses
and hotels castles and cabins
of various sizes shaped by tides
reach for the moon

he crawls thru a sand-packed tunnel
into a sand-packed tomb
where a gypsy waits for him
in the flames of a campfire’s gloom
Woman of the Dunes
is the movie playing on the walls
of her backroom
he takes out his ticket
she tears down the seams
between the one and the five
his seat in the light-flickering dive
he unwraps a pack of smoke-’ems
tubes filled with weed strings
and fills the cave with desire
gets everybody else itching
for a long piece of wire
for telephone lines connected
from brain to brain
he dials a number listens
to the dial tone of pain
he orders a pizza and a puppet show
then disappears into the saw cut box
there is no place else to go

PUCKATOON UNTITLED

you need a woman’s voice
you need a woman’s touch
you need a velvet glove
you need a woman’s body with cubby holes
you need an abyss
you need a tunnel of love

you need a woman’s smile
you need a Mother Mary
to unhook you from your cross
to be your sleeper
to be your tearful weeper
you need Mother Nature to be your boss

a place to hang your head
and let your brainwaves grow
he scratched his head and said,
“She’s right you know –
there’s no place else to go.”

THE AMPUTATED TALE OF LITTLE DID HE KNOW

little did he know
the gates were closing
and his last chance
to escape from the garden
with its traps and pits
before the night closed in
and covered his eyes in darkness
was fading fast
he thought he had plenty of time
Little Did He Know

little did he know
when he followed the woman
into the library where the books
were excuses for rude behavior
that he’d be spending the rest of his life
(what was left of it)
with this woman
her charms
and her migratory nervous breakdowns
“My shoulders are strong,” he said
propping up his shadow
against the Venetian blinds
as she pulled the string and the slats
flashed bars of a moonlit sky
off and on
“My will is no wishful thinking job
and my understanding of human nature
surprises even the most horrific
of newspaper headlines.”
Little Did He Know

little did he know
that contrary to all expectations
promises and past experience
his skin wasn’t waterproof
and that while viewing the sky
where the black clouds
were rolling in
and covering the sun
he had no hope
of surviving the night unless he found shelter
and even then there was always
the possibility
that a lit cigarette
would set off a sprinkler system
and he would find his body
melting into a puddle on the floor
Little Did He Know

the woman led him into
a stormy marriage
of bad bad bed
and not much better breakfast
in a false tooth house
in a row of spooky teeth

and just when he thought
he’d turned
the last of his pages
he came to the cover
at the back of his life
and there he discovered
sandpit slides
and misty little mumblemaids
all in a row

there were murky muscled soccer moms
lusty busty perforated
finger-snapping dykes
there were unplugged
pugnacious thugs
and telepathic lady bugs
all in a row, in a row
in a room full of mirrors
and thousand more
reflections jumping up and down
screaming, shouting, dancing round
the flagpoles in his face
the flags waving in his nostril wind
he thought it was the living end
Little Did He Know

August 2009

YOU ARE HERE

1.
we’ve murdered our history
with lies
strung up Buffalo Bill
with leather tickertape
shaved off Abe Lincoln’s beard
and set him loose among the heathens

Martin Luther King’s been castrated
and JFK’s still alive
living like a vegetable
on a remote mountaintop
in the Himalaways
even Elvis is still on the planet
he was too fat to fit in a Cadillac
so we strapped him to a dog sled
and whipped the huskies off
to an Athabascan igloo

nothing the newspaper says
is true
and who believes the TV?
does anybody really live in Bogalusa?
is Arnold Schwarzenegger really a robot?
where do we go from here?

2.
we’ve got a big map of the area
behind glass at the entrance
of ‘This is Your Life” State Park
there’s a big white dot
that says: YOU ARE HERE
look at all the roads

to the north lie the towns of
MY BABY LEFT ME
CLOSE SHAVE, DAVE
CAN’T COMPLAIN
and
TWO OF A KIND

to the south
the landscape is filled
with junked computers
and microwave ovens
that continue to pollute the atmosphere
with their electronic noises
while ten thousand miles
of electric cables and wires
poison the soil with post-mortem
wiggles and squirmings

there are no roads
to the east or west
here the map is filled
with fungus and mushrooms
past their prime
the white dot can’t help us at all
where do we go from here?

3.
we’ve driven our crashproof cars
to the edge of the earth and back
down every two-lane, no-lane highway
on earth we’ve driven them down
into deep valleys, we’ve driven them up
Bald Mountain and Beyond
we’ve exhausted all the road signs
and we’ve worn off the glass
of our rearview mirrors
trying to wipe away the reflections
of our wrathworthy images

4.
we’ve all been lost
at one time or another
and we’ve always been able
to find our way back
to familiar ground
but not this time
this is different
we’ve never had the experience
of being lost all the time
wake up in the morning:
LOST
sit down to lunch:
WHERE THE HELL AM I ?
lie down to sleep at night:
CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE
TELL ME WHERE WE ARE?

the rug has been pulled from under us
the ground has opened up beneath the rug
for a few minutes you’re walking around
taking pictures of the Eiffel Tower
the next you’re cleaning
the sparkplugs of your car in Minnesota

one minute you’re standing
on a bridge over troubled water
the next you’re in the middle of a dream
dancing and singing on the stage
of a Broadway musical

as the day wears on
it gets weirder and weirder
one moment you’re digging gold
from under your toenails
the next you’re yoked
beside three oxen pulling a cart
loaded with used bath water
along the shore of the Dead Sea

by the time you go to bed at night
it’s way beyond weird
for a flashing instant
you’re a cloud of holy smoke
flash! you’re not very big
flash! you’re a potato
flash! you’re pig

LOST IN THEIR LEGEND AT LAST ALONE

1.
Buster and Feed On
and One for the Dogs
they coughed up their names
they pawn-shopped their eyes
they gathered up the cash
as I lay down the law
one for the laughter, one for the lies
none for the labor, a lapse of the lash
and all hell would break loose
chaos and sighs, hot spit for sore eyes
a whiff of peculiar well-oiled perfume
would whip like a noose round a roomful of noise

2.
but back in Child’s Play where the fumblers freeze
and glad hatters grumble and none but the mad
unbuckle their buttons, the tipsy maids tumble
up thru the mist and down from the trees

Enigma, Hellacious and Round About Midnight
they spell out their names
with bubbling spoons
in the scum of the soup
as the fire below spits up a speech
in cartoon balloons of smoke and steam:
“Cold cream of chicken a dollar a bottle
“Powder of chowder twenty-five cents
“Three for a quarter, four for a nickel
“A free shove and pickle for fifty bucks each.”

Mother Earth whimpers, Mother Earth groans
a hole in her face opens wide, down they tumble
head over heels, the three tipsy maids
Frivolous, Folly & Faster
the pit is deep and down they plop
Devoid, Deleted, Disastered
goodbye to the boys with their rattlesnake toys
goodbye to the fish and the Fosbury Flop

3.
back on the ranch and down on the farm
the flea-bitten smugglers, the three muskrat ramblers
open their mouths with the hands of their arms
and cry out in tongues at the shapes of the stars
“Anglepoise! Bilge Water! O Bolivian Oblivion!
show us the light years between your bright buttons
show us the strings of your electric guitars.”

and the world turned, thick-gated
turned on the back of a turtle a-spin
then the turtle spun round and flew off into space
they were lost in their legend at last alone
last in line they chewed on their bones
so far to go and so close to home

Vallespir, February 2010

DOG DAY FEST

Chipper Freaks they make the news
mugshot fingerprinted milking the muse
Joe the Toad leaping up and down
looking for a goldwig maiden with a crown
The Glissando Man – a pizzicato dude
known for his ratskin tattooed attitude
Chick and Gumbo Gator Rouge
she’s a splurge and he’s a total splooge
Mattenluken Marx and Jiffy Handymutt
one opens the trapeze doors, the other keeps them shut

from Bostoon to Bangadoon
from Mudstock to Waterloon
they come in their motor-chill cycle ka-zooms
and their chauffeur-driven, god-given whipped limoons

they spill their beans, they spoil their games
they spy their faces, they spell their names

Mister Shabby with his endangered feces
the organ grinder monk of the Original Species
Sister Liverthrob paddling her own canook
with a butterfly swapper and a baited fish hook
Cho-Hico-Pin Papa Poco Locoknack
with a blue-chip punk on his hunch and punching back
Phonobabbuluma the bubblegumdabundulum
she’s humming on the opium tweedledummy drum

from Chesterpuke to Buttersea
from Gnashville Tenn to Tennisfree
they gather around the pyre and chant
“OUR ONE DESIRE? — PANTS ON FIRE!”

Slugtoad Tommy Toes strollin’ thru the rye
tip-tupping thru the mud of a top lips pie
Paddywhack Mack with his vast collection
of Rolling Stoves and French Connections
Redneck Nelly the belly of the belt
dancing like a dervishnu in her pelt of pet gazelt
Hark the Harold, angels’ thing
a child of crime, a thug with wings

from Bakersfool to Hollywide
from Heidelbug to Everglide
from Baltimorgue to Hamsterdime
from Santa Twerp to Lumberlean and Dubbleline

they come for a week of Dog Day Fest
they eat the meat of buzzard chest
the drink the best of beer-paw wine
then slowly slip back home
to old Bananaheim

August 8, 2011

THE HEADLESS HORSEMEN

the clatter of the horses’ hoofs
from deep in a cave
a door opens in the mountainside
trees stand back
some try to hide
the earth trembles
the clatter of hoofs
and out into the night
the horses of silver leap
with fire in their eyes
their riders are headless

they ride thru the looking glass
of Alice’s Wonderland
where rabbits and caterpillars
and Mad Hatters dance
the Lobster Quadrille
and the Jabberwock Jig

they dance from here to eternity
and back again
thru Einstein’s definition of infinity
thru the wrong end
of Galileo’s telescope
in the comic relief section
of the Inquisition Museum
thru the wringer of history
according to the survivors
of the Golgotha Egg Hunt
thru a celestial carwash
in god’s parking lot
and into the silver screen
of the Cosmic Drive-in
and into a huge head movie
staring Burp Lungblaster
and Avante-Gardner

Vallespir, February 2010

ICONOCLASTI

1. THE INSOMNIAC

wasted and withered, doomed to damnation
he trod the four corners of the Roosting Room
with stumbling feet and drooping eyes
and there by anything but sleep
he rose up and gathered the ravens
and taught them to sing the lost melodies
of green-gated fields and there
doomed to damnation he held them up
one by one to the flaming face of the sun
then plunged their tails in oil
and cast their feathered bodies away
with a curse he watched them fly
from his sky-bound window
with such scorn he was not surprised
to see them dive and be devoured
by a cleft that opened in the earth
at his cry of ‘Shut up your eyes, don’t look!”
and from which soon and subsequently
tremors emerged, shocks that shook
the planet sending out screaming speeches
unheard since the days of the Prophets
and trembling men’s fumbling feet
“What have you done with the ravens?”
anger-lipped thousands of shake boot
salt lickers who tumbled from their doorways
waving donkey tails which they nailed
with snarling hammers upon the knees
and noses of any bug house head shrink
who got in their way

2. THE ALCHEMIST

he comes in wearing a wasted wig
of raven feathers a smoking shotgun shell
dangling from his lips like a lost
gangster in the last stagger
of a renaissance dance
pointing a revolver at the balloons
clinging to the ceiling and filling them
with lead, then watching them crash
to the floor, thru the floor, leaving
holes into which the dancers trip
and stumble like drunks with shortened legs

knee-deep in the pit he dances
with caterpillars with claws
and prawns with boogie woogie lips
he steps and slides
he hides and seeks he puffs his cheeks
and out come wads of wrinkled road maps

he’s a hum chum child
a horn buck back scratcher
with a lobster bib around his waist
and an earwig glued to each finger nail
a big bopper whopper
a jumpin’ jungle jimbo
bimbo-choppin’ limbo diddley
a bucktooth “bring ’em back alive”
with a horseface courtesan
of his children’s choice

the trapdoors of his bogus innocence
loom large in the History of Houses
when floors were built with astral travel in mind
and footsteps were no more than hysterical frivolities

stigmata cheerleaders leap ‘n frolic
in theological frenzy
god zombies stagger from cryptical confessionals
with lies on their stunken lips
and smiles in their mendacious hearts

I refuse to congregate in this Church of Holy Smoke
climb the ladder to the altar where jaguars and jackals
sharpen their teeth on unbeliever bones
while drinking from bowls of beauty fuel blood

who will follow the chemical meister
back to his afterhours attic shack
where recipes for importamortality
boil on the prismatic burner
while angelic demons hover outside
the sundial window waiting
for the magus with the hourglass
to hold up his fists
and tear down the roof

3. THE WANDERING HARPER

here he comes
slipping in and out of his shadow
with only a sneer
to hang his hat on

there he goes
with his vertical problems
with his backpack stuffed
with family tree leaves

here he comes
with a bar of soap
and a head full
of political opinions

there he goes
with his hands in his pockets
and the front of his face
in a transatlantic twist

here he comes
with his lop-sided eyes
and his Leonardo Da Vinci
cookbook recipes

there he goes
with his crap doctor prescriptions
and a grin the size
of a watermelon rind

here he comes
with bells on his lip rings
and crew cut sandals
on the fur of his feet

there he goes
in psychological postures
all for the sake
of a girl named Glum

here he comes
with his rubber band legs
sniffing salt
from a shark tooth bag

there he goes
with his legs in a limp
with his tiger trap maps
and he’s not coming back

here he comes
with his sleepwalk sweet talk
black jack back pack
poker chip deck stack

there he goes
with his Joker John wrist watch
Jungle Jim hustle muscle
California Crotch

here he comes
with his overlooked movies
and the keys to a room
full of over-priced gravity

there he goes
with his weather report
his puppet string knee jerk
river dance toe tap

here he comes
with his Family Guy pajamas
singing about apocalyptic
do-it-yourself

there he goes
with cobwebs in his nose
his garden hose clothes
and his technicolor shades

here he comes
with heavy wavy gravy
sticking to his ribs
with a pickpocket knife

there he goes
with his anorexic strut
his garbage bag gut
and his rub-a-dubba tubs

here he comes
with his needs in a knot
a comb in his mullet cut
cream in his milk teeth

there he goes
with his hotel souvenirs
a jug of bug juice
and fire crackers in his ears

here he comes
with his schizophrenic rectum
his carbonated footprints
he’s a man of all sizes

there he goes
biting the dust
biting the bullet
chewing on rust

here he comes
looking for love
with a twitch in his eye
and his knees in a pose

there he goes
looking for a fool
to take his place
in the split leg personality parade

where will he go this wandering harper?
will he bring back a treasure
this blues harp boy?

down from the river
he goes to the ocean
where the riptide water
is alive and kickin’

brings back a clock
ticking past midnight
a set of false teeth
clicking like a chicken

he goes to a far off
cock-a-doodle doom
plucking on his superlute
in B flat hum

brings back a cake
brings back a sweet pea
pie a la mode
and a bootleg of rum

he goes to the city
with his crackerbox bow tie
slides thru a trapdoor
into melted candle wax

brings back the password
a C-note riff
that can only be decoded
on a baritonal sax

he goes to the cave
where pontificators pray
plunges into the dark
and comes out numb and dumb

brings back eight point
fifty-five million
tender footprints
of his leftover thumbs

he goes to the beach
where the sand is a-blaze
and stands much a-mazed
with his brain all a-globed

brings back a long line
of sagging bodies
failed faces
from the surgeon’s plastic probe

he goes to college
with a feather in his cap
to learn the art
of fugalistics

brings back the bottom
of a rusted beer can
and a love for the glove
of pugalistics

he goes to the well
where the Dell Comic Zombies
lie sucking up the ooze
of salamander mold

brings back a coin
from the leaf-clogged gutter
one side is butter
the other is gold

he goes with his money
in a goldfish bowl
one silver dollar
and a pair of castanets

brings back a sack
of electrified eels
and a girl named Jingle
with her trapeze nets

he goes to the ends
of the earth-bound world
searching for the center
of the transgalactic spin

brings back nothing
in his stargaze eyes
then he wanders back out
and does it again

4. THE PERSUASIVE PESSIMIST

who defies the demons that drink his blood
upon the rock, knocked his ticks
of clocks and crows into the smoke
of a flaming horse he rides rising
into the space between the rooftops
and the rumbling clouds

who denies the worst of his worries
with infernal dreams and screams
doubles of all his desires
brandishing a radio tuned to the static
of a celestial quagmire
spitting a mouthful of marbles, mocking
the moon, scorning the ozone, insulting
the sun braying: “I shall not have this taken from me!”
flaunting: “Your wishes are the smallest of details
on the rag with which I wash my ass!”

who despises the weekend knee padder
hit by a toothpick, observed by an owl
stunned by a sigh, absorbed by a cottonmouth
tippletoe tagging around the flagpole
flop polkadagio tempopipe dotbags
ears attuned to modalsome creeper crap
that a once monksome enchanted
“Havahavana haganoose day!”
while frisbee spinning a dunce cap
from his tickle pickle to his probox kisser

brimful of ashes, 45 skulls roll
like split coconuts across the 9th hole green
can be heard whirling, grinding
as he strokes again 45 times with the flat edge
of his ax but only half drop in the hole
the other half spin off into the trees
where they gather together and find
they have enough rubber globe brains between them
to stage a revenge attack against the monster magician
but he’s waiting for them with a machete
and the half shell coconuts
get whacked again and go sailing
off into the crowd, eyes blinking
tongues darting words of wisdom
where up they get picked (“cute little things”)
and taken home as souvenirs

5. THE MIME IN THE MIRROR

it wasn’t so much
that he wanted to ride
across the great divide
on the wings of the blackest crow

he only wanted
to make an impression
on the girls who lived
in the back back row

it wasn’t so much
that he needed to repair
the bones in his head
that were slowly coming loose

he only wanted
to show the boys
you didn’t have to be crazy
to stick your neck in a noose

it wasn’t so much
that he was looking for a chance
to prove his intelligence
was far above par

he was only looking
to have a little fun
by closing his eyes
while driving a car

it was no big deal
when he hiked into the woods
with the shirt on his back
and the boots on his feet

and returned a year later
clad in bearskin and beaver
with fresh furcoats
for the girls on Chilly Street

6. THE KLEPTOSOPH

stealeacher or somethink
preludial emeritusk of the humorversity
operaleaper of the clashroom
stoneage chatterbuck of stupidents
gothiclocker of the scenery machinery
stretchthroat of diogaloops

monologger of groundaxis
“Brainmeat not prawnbrawn
built the Trout & Pelicano Humpire
– ask any gladiatarbaby.”
profolesser of patturnability
“Say no more, say no list, say no to rugs, dupe.”
l’experto hamerichano of hands and meats
“I seed you stamping there in your smoke skin.
You can’t fodderol me, chumpchamp.”
pontifigator of axiomatics
“Pay short money and you’ll get fatwitted.”
pedagoogle of pasturetheology
“And on the seventeenth day he witlessed
the acupunctured apocaliposuction
and hastened to the tabernickknackle
judolizing: ‘I now and then joineth the ranks
of the micro anarax'”
dementorrraneum of demonapology
“Step by stop, homlet by gones be and goodbye to evilotion.”
punditto of vivo tivo sportimo
“Buy me some pignuts and hijacker cracks.””
chillwindbag of crossroad catchwords
“Cluesore . . . button lime . . . gutting hedge . . . ”
papafamiliar of cult germs
“A roving stove gathers no moths
– and neither does a heebeejeebeehive.”
goo-rooster of lizerature
“Enter the Cribscribler by Humbugger Poundling.”
“Glass Bellowing in the Mole Station by Hoodunut Dunne.”
“Thieves of Grass by Play Jar Wrist Whitman.”
snipeguide to the wild world of metaphatistocalcosmosis
“Welcome – Vilkommen – Dien Bien Venu, fou!”
“Heed the warmings!”
“Behold the morphings!”
“Spotlight on James Brown!”

thiefer than this he could not be

7. THE PARACLESIASTICS

slug’em slap’em tap’em stun’em
that’s the way they run’em in the eggmills of Utopia
they put’em to bedlam with the handman’s whupabouts
upside the achin’ head and downsize the dreamin’
by the treadmills they die scrabbled and softly boiled
“while over the rampage we washed
with gallons of gleaming soap”

clip’em clap’em chop’em
and no wise welcome these glassblasters
grabhanding and mossing and role gathering
pulsing on their pantaloops 3 legs at a time
with their apparent trance-a-palanted bo gestures

bang’em bong’em chop’em bump’em
(let’s keep the violins to a maximumble)
avoid’em in the afterglow between
the match scratch and the first cigar puffer
and don’t stick around
when they open their cannonballs of worms

thrash’em slash’em trash’em
give’em leatherbent hell
trick ‘n tweet’em to a neck laceration boogaloogaroo

abuse’em abase’em and send them off to workwar
and by vouch they come back abusted
abreacted preblatted and postoracted
up dating the fig maidens downthrusting their St. Pierres

into posture post trees and promosinging
they’ll win 9 out of 6 times at the gag ‘n fisticuff races
and what is leafed over will be laughed under the shrug

dump’em dang’em drag’em
let’em wiggle their anchovies away
this is the barkside of darkness, the tough gut bucket
of musschuff this is the deepdirt nitpack gnatpit
this is where the toadspawn drips
and the slimevine roots grip the corpnerves
with famished muscles

these we don’t need:
1. cleftcliff mud studs
2. huge ‘n hungry nuden nukers
3. megalotropic swatchers seething with soothing
4. seizure blondes in high healer bledroom slappers
5. riverstealers from Southarm Kleptofornia
6. gladitorial glastonburgers with greenpeace thumbs
7. paligamouse farmerlies with their cat o’nine tail lives
8. talismaniacs pulling woolen socks over sheepfeet
9. bone crushing salt hand ‘n pepper shakers
10. backslapping dirge bellowers
11. gambling polkadotters and dashing drag strippers
12. squanders & screwtenivers & spiderriders & diaperspies & wart hoggers & dopplewiders & dopplergangers & hoothonkers & plagerwrites & sleasebrowsers & clapooners & lambastions & moldy oldies & a various assortment of Hoolio Sneezers

these lamplumps with souped up nuts
bickering ‘n cursing in contagious accents
(“No sir, Shitlock”) flaunting ‘n freezeframing
in store window dummy wall to wallflower poses
who can’t keep their wraptures under cantroll

these hillybilly holiday two-wrists
limping from dimple to dangle
from doodle to doom and back to dust
who whimper in pinched language
the shapes of fear hovering on the backside
of the hoaryzone where hex hags
stir pots of boiling fat
eunuchs pump iron and priestly pagans
bang on car doors with sledgehammers

these paranoid pilgrims
hanging from the rafters
wearing moth eater masks
thumb-printing pictionaries
and applauding tweezer teasers
with their bottled tears and canned laughter
with their squeezed letter boxes and unlimited budgets
with their smothering slathering dogmas
of gnashed wisdom teeth

these sleep pillagers plagueing the plugs
and cheating pumpwires with k-zoos
and rashbear snides while french floating
to marsh sails aloft dansune
Jenoah de l’Ark du gout battacaneau
(“no we don’t need ’em don’t feed ’em”)

these cut-rate insulters from the bargain basement
of Uncle Bunk’s Bootleg Bazaar
with their ape-so-lootly slobservations
and their aboutface piles
of chewed lips and lewd gums

these energy vampires brainwave buzzards
alphamale Romeos ‘n Juliettatruscans
betabastards Casanovibration muggers
creeping out of slumtown alleys
flexing their fangs strumming their vocal cords
with forks and tugging on their ear lobes
which snap back into place
with the sickening thuds of a hedgehog
being splattered under the tires
of a 16-wheel semi coasting downhill
at 4 a.m. on an otherwise empty freeway

these smutraggers ripped by hightides
raging rampunctilious smashing
lowspindows trashing tunnels of love
mashing potatoejam into subatomic voids
of common molecules cornered by their own doggers
and hustled into repentance on the lay-away plan
one donkey down and 3 beast ‘n beauty queens a day
for the next thousand yugas

occult’em osculate’em bag’em and obscure’em
those nag ‘n hamadeus egg sangwitches
those bug-ugly chin waggers waving nosebleed sheets
“with lambhearts we poached until we partched
and munched on the lunch and the lurch
of our batallions also screaming”

January 2009 – July 2011

THE IDIOT’S MAZE

dress me up in an automobile
drive me around like a car
take me out to the Bar B Q
smoke me like an old cigar

take me out to the forest fire
nail me to the moon with the beaks of doves
lay me down with the Camptown Ladies
and do da do da Dance of Love

hold me down with a tuba mute
roll me over in the clover
paint me black with an undertaker’s suit
play me flat on a rootbeer flute

ride me like a rocking horse latitude
pump me up with a breathing tube
pick me up and remind me why
I remind you of a bottlenecktie

take me away like a Chinese pizza
take me out to the old ball game
bring me back with a roundhouse slap stick
teach me how to say my name

shake me like a microphone stand
play me like a marching band
show me where the green goose goes
show me where the wild grass grows

dust my broom and cork me a river
milk my cows with a bubble gum machine
brush me down like a strawberry field
paint my face with ice cold cream

deal me a stack of rubber band pancakes
dig me a tunnel to the center of the brain
take me back to where I started crying
poke me a hole in the eye of the hurricane

love me. leave me, go fly a drag flag
mark my words with a tea bag tag
tell me a tale from the treasure of tragic
make me disappear with dip stick magic

hit me with your local anesthetic
tie me down with your licorice whips
spin me around on the tips of your fingers
toss me a kiss from your corn chip lips

turn me on with a shot of Burma Shave
a sniff of Wildroot and a toke of tumbleweed
wake me up when they rob the bank
sneak me out the back before they start to bleed

scratch my back with cracked stained glass
teach me the art of the logophobic rhyme
sing me to sleep with a lullabioprobe
hi yo zorro and a bottle of wine

drop me like a hot shot potato
way down yonder in the purple haze
lift me up until I touch the light
deliver me from the idiot’s maze

MY MOUTH WAS NOT IN THE MOOD FOR FOOD TONIGHT

silence was strangled
by owls and deer
hooting and barking at the moon’s scruffy light
my mouth was not in the mood for food tonight

I scratched and scrambled
keeping my feet flat in the mud
and the rain fell down with a lumpish sound
and shadows crawled around looking for a fight
my mouth was not in the mood for food tonight

arrogance on the airwaves
duplicity in the background
helplessness everywhere
the black skin scorned
as hours of drool raised and praised the white
my mouth was not in the mood for food tonight

books are molding, pages sticking
mice are licking the edges of history
folding a century into their jaws
to build a nest for winter’s rest
while spiders bury their eyes in Blake’s second sight
and my mouth is not in the mood for food tonight

December 14, 2006

PRAYERS OF THE PARASITES

holy moly, dim of sight
who’s gonna be our scapegoat tonight?
we’ll eat like a furnace, drink like a flood
and pray to the pig washed in blood

holy guacamole there’s a voice on the landline
coming from a troglobite down in the diamond mine
saying it’s my birthday, come join the fun
we got a thousand fire crackers and a nine-foot speargun

lord have mercy, it’s Skinhead Hannah
she’s got a grudge a half a half-a-mile long
take her to the back room show her the tradition
make her learn to sing a Robert Johnson song

wham bam, ma’am, welcome to the slam dunk
smoke some tumbleweed, get snagged on jungle junk
swift as mud, slick as a chop stick
pay your rent from the bottom of a cheap trick

mumbo jumbo, throw the dog a bone
send Old Black Joe to the funny folk’s home
bring that butterfly back from the ozone
hose him down with spit from a valve trombone

jeepers creepers, go get a bucket
scoop up the confetti left in the street
after the parade turned into a riot
with kids kicking horse turds
with the bareness of their feet

goodness gracious sakes alive
sometimes you can’t tell the good from the bad
a floor from a trapdoor, a duck from a devil
an after-birth mark from a cigarette ad

loki poki, heaven’s on fire
but the smoke’s not holy and neither is desire
there’s a headless horseman riding thru the storm
on a blindfold mule with a unicorn horn

bing! bang! call out the whole gang
let’s get blasted on a gallon of Gallo
lift our arms to the fire-escaping stars, shout:
“One for the road and none for tomorrow.”

I AM BILLICAL PENTAHAMLETTER

I tombed the treasure from the teeth of thrill
call me Bill, the buster bag of blue
the gamest gobster in the glue of grab
the finest funster in the flab of funk

the juke of junk, the jester of the jug
old rip the rug, the ragster rubberood
the mouth of mood, the myth of Mumble Moo
the zodical zoo, the zero of zip

call me Lip the lobster lover of lust
I’m diamond dust the dope of drooling doubt
the seventeenth snout of snoot, the slob of spoon
the cream of croon, the corncob cowboy cat

a normal, natural, nameless numb
a humble hunchback hog of heaven’s haunt
and what I want is weather weird and wild
and pillowed piles of pictures for my pleasure

I tombed the treasure from the teeth of thrill
call me Bill, the buster bag of blue

DREAM ME

dream me an apple
an acoustic apple
that screams when
you cut it in half

that mumbles when you place
each half over your ears
and tells the stereophonic story
of what really happened
in the Garden of Eden
with Adam and Eve
and old Snake-Eye Jones

we don’t talk about
old Snake-Eye anymore
but he’s been around
doing his deeds
for a long, long time
Adam and Eve
were dumbass teeny boppers
compared to Old Snake-Eye

Old Snake Eye had no trouble
sending Adam off across town
for a 6-pack of beer
and getting young Eve
in a family way

By the time Adam got back
she was Old Eve
(she looked like she
and Jones had been at it
for decades)
“Where did all these kids
come from?” said Adam
Old Eve: “That horse thief
Snake-Eye Jones
took off and left me
holding the bottle.”

and that’s how it goes
out in the wild west of Eden
Adam gets wise
says,” I’ll see you later,”
and takes off down the road
slowly
sipping a beer

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL (THE EARLY YEARS)

I.
it was the first day of April, the last day of Spring
it was the time of year when the foxes popped out
when the busted balloon of a rocket-shot moon
spilled over the face of the earth

it was wedding invitation printed in the blood
of convicted criminals in death row chains
predicting painful future fortunes for peanut brittle brides
and their bruising brute mates with rhino-thick hides

it was the black traffic lights in the cobblestone alleys
black & blue blinking down Rue Avenue
where legless beggars on boards with rollers
plugged along under skies full of glue

it was pink flamingo cotton candy
slowly puffing from the mouths of monks
and turning into alligator-green money
with numbers that zero’d into the millions

it was the open closet door from which dreams crept out
and stirred with eager passion the dust under the bed
jaws snapping with hunger, tails flickering in the dark
their tongues lashing fire, their eyes blinking red

and when they crawled out they raced for miles
and miles across the bedroom floor
all the way to the light switch by the door
it was all this and more

II.
it was “yes sir” and “no sir” and nothing between
a well-oiled machine with memories of rust
it was lust into dust & a broom with no handle
a bull & a tiger by the horn, by the tail

it was train track pennies & sun-stroked mail
stamps from Bohemia and Charles Atlas porn
a sleeping bag flashlight and a Mad Magazine
a hole in the wall where the honey bees were born

it was jukebox & matchbox, the first caught fire
the other coughed up an eyelid of squid
it was one for the money, two for me and you
Shrimp Boats, Sh-Boom & Riders in the Sky

it was Manchurian Candidate & the Silent World
Teenage Werewolves & Creatures from the Black Lagoon
The Pajama Game & High Society
Y.A. Tittle, R.C. Owens & W.P.L.J.

it was high school & no school, bible & burials
it was U.F. Obama & L.S. Deception
logarhythm & blues & a stick in the mud
gaps in the ozone & sneakers in the trees

there was nothing but everything, wins without loses
8 balls with eyes in the cold corner pockets
housewives with knives in a fat apple core
it was all this & all that
it was all this & more

III.
it was a bareback rider his face torn away by the wind
his tangled hair breeze-blown back like a flag
his body waist down fused with hot horse flesh
his family jewels in a wet paper bag

it was a wild boy joke smelling of cowshit
smeared on his naked national geographic body
his autobiographic mouth spitting joyful surprise
dancing around a campfire of ashes

it was muddles & puddles & Leadbelly riddles
fiddle strings and fog horns on a holy ghost cow
a rainbow trout swimming for a distant shore
it was all this and more

IV.
it was basic genetics & common cold sense
a whiff of mathematic, a taste of dramatic
a bar stool wired to an electric fence
a whirlpool of laughter, black radio static

it was a day way ahead of the present tense
a hole for memories waiting to fall
it was a man with a funny cigarette for sale
he had a backsliding face and a thin skin crawl

a telephone call from a long-distance runner
an oboe afloat in a river of Mozart
a million dollars in quarters & dimes
a Halloween hayride into a tunnel of love

it was a mustard moustache on a snaggle tooth whore
it was all this & more

V.
it was clam chowder cans & neon motorcycles
bagpipes & powder & dynamite fights
quagmire tires & wheelchair races
steelwool & barbed wire for babies with faces

it was lesbian neighbors and touch football huddles
the iceman’s wet leather apron cold shoulder
lemonade, kool-ade, white marble trade
the rumors she spread were not what you told her

pinetop hideouts and Zane Grey dreams
slow holes to China in the oak tree backyard
green footbones in the shoestore machine
sexy ladies in Montgomery Wards

it was a dip in the road, a bump in the sky
a pack of wild women shopping for sailors
bums down on Market begging with lies
it was a cry for help spelled out in alphabet soup

anagrams & epigraphs & blackboard chalk
it was a basketball game between Diggers & Dogs
and a tim buck two bribe to the man keeping score
it was all this & more

VI.
it was a crucified cyclops on crutches & ice skates
skunks come alive in the popcorn field
it was a double dose of twilight nightmarhea
werewolves hiding in the ditch by the windmill

it was state fair sulky races ride the loop-the-loop
color drive-in triple bills midnight to dawn
black & white keds and wildroot crew cuts
spin pin the tail on the donkey bottle kids

pinballs & gumballs & pop the fucking clutch
chicken soup measles & Queen for a Day
low rent ukes & battered drinking straws
drug store shades & sugar tooth decay

jukebox romance & bible belt rust
wet dream riots & unrequited lust
8-ball 6-pack free bud church keys
jockstrap athlete’s foot & beeswax knees

chinese checkers & cards in a hat
501 Levis shrinking on the line
Philip Morris, Pall Mall and Chesterfields
a bottle of 50-cent Thunderbird wine

joyful & delightful & this is where
the deer come down to drink from the creek
and the buzzards fly up in the hot summer air
from feasting on the meat of my mind

it was cricket chirp grass & foxtail fields
along the rattlesnake river sand deep shore
myopic gyroscopic river bridge leaps
it was all these things it was so much more

it was firedrill folkdance spitvalve slide
do the hokey pokey boogie woogie power glide
baseball gloves & high jump bars
ghost riders in the sky & mouse trap jars

it was a night in Tunisia & no death in Venice
a Grecian glance & a 3-way romance
with Walt Whitman, John Coltrane & Zsa Zsa Gabor
it was all this & more

VII.
it was a long short silence, a spasm of violence
a drop of blood on each paper plate
it was gob of snot in the beef stronganoff
a galvanized frog in the graveyard stew
anarchists pissing on their grandfather’s graves
outlaws & landlords & a rabbit foot punch
witches & warlocks & B B gun wars
guydolls & chickcats galore
it was thus & therefore
it was all this and more

VIII.
it was a hot wire and siphon tube
a triple Hollywood kiss
it was the tattooed hands of the rambling banjo man
the path of the wandering jew

it was Valentines Day & the Fourth of July
it was six of one, half dozen of the other
it was the letters I -T carved on a door
it was all this & more

IX.
it was maybe & never & “sometime mañana”
a bottle of rum & a ho ho hum
it was hobo & mojo, a Duncan whammo yo yo
a death march of ides for the deaf & the dumb

it was last but not least & no beast of burden
a camel that walked thru needleless eyes
a four-minute mile of sinking & swimming
a log cabin tinker toy drawbridge of sighs

it was a sign of the times no one could ignore
it was all this & more

THE PERPLEXITIES OF A CLOSE FRIEND (MUTEMOLE)

he barely knew who he was
or where he wanted to be
a cross between a double babble bubble
and a monster howl
somewhere east of the haiku tides
(the whale roads of pentatonic love singers)
and west of the Beat Generated juice
that powered the tympanic poems
of tin can alleycats
or smack dab between the ruts
of Miss Fatamorgana’s weighted wagon wheels

his name might have been
Toucher Zipperman over Easy Teazy
which equals who—what—where—why me?
but that helped him not
not one bit of a whit (none)
in his ambition to be a Mutemole

did he see the rise & fall of the iceman?
did he own a ventilated copy
of Blondie’s Greatest Hips?
did he give it away along with
Ripshot Lily Creeper’s
“Come Back to Me, Katrina N’Orleens”

and what became of the Waste Landlubbers?
and the free re-loaders?
and the rictus victims of our postmodernation?
and the metafistalistic spoongoons broadly breeding?
and the chemocollapsable brain boxers?
and the hoboheavians
and the wrapsodypops?
and the broodlings?
and the punch bunch and beard babes
down at Madam Molly’s?
and was there ever a Golden Age of Psychotic Monsters?

and where was his key to the cosmic barn door?
and to where did his pocahaunted ghosthouse go?
and his “Tee Dee Um Tum Day Oom” mythology tune?
and the think blinks of his magic spectrum?
and his warehouse of back burners?
and his collection of nose caps?
and was there ever a distance
between fix and faction?

by the time he’d solved a few of these puzzles
it was too late
he was on his was to Cinderama
with his mojo full of fleas

July 21, 2011

PROFUNDITY

1. THE ROAD TO PROFUNDITY

100 miles from Profundity
the road was littered with dead birds
like phenomenal stones
rooster-beak peakcocks
untightened nightengulls
and feast fowls of owlish perversions
they abandoned their bumper buggy
and toe ‘n tar heeled the rustless rest
of the foreward way
razor-tongued and out-of-tone deaf
dragging their bee-bobbed tails
behind moccasin waves stirring
bowls of dustash in their fundamental faces

2. WELCOME TO PROFUNDITY

the sign sagged and begged
elevation: two harpbeats per cushioned minute
per fumigated hour, per chance day
per verted week per full mouth moon
per leap frog year
population: three hot dogtags
seven samuels
fourteen ice agers
twenty-one two tree thor forks
sixth house and nine signed pepper gators
two windermill sharecrop dusters and a quadrobill
of low fat attention spanichers
laws: do not spin on the spit rugs
do not smack in the smoke garden
do not clam up on the laughter machine
do not do knots in the shootlaces of chill drums

3. THE BACKSTREETS OF PROFUNDITY

grips of tourist wrists and gapes of gaze geezers
outflaws and great cashers
skin deep freezers and voodoo woppers
cult vultures and tomb riders
warpath painters and drunken punchers
wince pinchers and preach pulps
busy pigwhigs and bench boys
rave ladeeyos and rub robbers
twelve tones of two timers
and a smooth dozen of bulldopers

4. DOWN & OUT IN PROFUNDITY

beware the mirroracle whiplashers
and the nudepaper headlight lifelines:

HERE’S A LITTLE SOMETHING
THAT’LL MAKE YOU SIT UP
AND FORGET TO BREATHE

and Harp Along Casseopea
comes huffing a lunk from the blackground
with his sideburns a-fire
and his crude cut a-smoke
takes a blob of clodware from his bag basket
mushes apart the hide crowd
and elevators his body language
to a plataltitudeau where he high declares:

HERE’S A LITTLE SOMETHING
TO HANG YOUR SOCKS ON
WHEN THEY GET KNOCKED OFF
IN A HURRICANE

and swerving his handsomes
at the land of the waterblue skies
the spherical stratocaster clouds gallopcollapse
and a populution of babybugger booms
is very berryed alive and belt bucket kicking
gypsy lemurs mono moan
slugababes beg for bedplans
and Boris the Spastic
defeats Bobby Sox the Blob Box
in the chest mash of the sanctuary

5. THE PROFUNDITY SLUM DWELLERS

Brake Gritten the Cyclop Peeing Idiot
Foh Pah the Foghornet
Gossipfork the Girdle Wench
Lord So Domething (“Looking for sodomthing?”)
Crouch Potato Habi-Tater AKA Croucho Marxsobatical
Shitto Shinola the Sneakbait
Groovy Judeen Lipstuck
Novocain and Cap Able the Transidentical Twins
Alfresco “Quality Time” Acornpone
Scorpia Glamorsnatch the Frootpolooter
Dr. Chazz Jazz Jamlamb Jr.
Funkslut and her sister Flip Flop
Gnash Girl Suckertash (“Hey Gladbags, c’mere!”)
Scott-Yardland (“Inch Pairfict”) McDeaf
Bully Chubber the Thames Choice Literatus
President Hardening of the Arteries
Gizmo-Foo Peeka-Boo
Betty Flop Turpatuder
Big Leak Shambolique the Stagnation Expurt
Haglisp (“Thay no more”) Hustlespeak
Neon Simoleon the Last of the Cheat Scapes

they all hung out at the Ludlumbardo
on the corner of Burlap and Hunch
with its pukebox stuffed with ruff ‘n row sings
‘The Grassroot Streets of Skip Row”
“The Yodel and the Hatrickle”
“Muscat Muskrats”
“Bite My Bullet, Muffer Ducker”
“Lushtush Profunktus”
“I’m in La-huv with a Random Mute”
“Lost Lobo’s Lobotomy”
“Sagskin Blues”
once in a wince they hosilated
they drink pinched and they drunk punched
they brawdlerized, they fast cuffed
they toothclawed and fangnailed
until there was slivers of kit knees
on the falore galore
blub ‘n birdrain on the seelinks
eyebalds in the bucketer heads
and screamworts ever bewary
then they slimped and debragled
with their fried aches
they bullnecked and nope dozed
with their warped knockworsts
and swoondead opinions
until the next fool mood

6. A YEAR IN PROFUNDITY

from Aperule to Marsh
from Bi-Seize to Aqua Remus
they biomessticated and aboded
at the Profundelicious Hotel in a pumpus rum
with flora-to-flora carpboored waltz
and nope runny swatter
they groped and they drawbucked
they quabbled and they curfueded
they jived and they jibed
from visalipability into oblivilivion
then they grumpled and they grueled
and they stunted and they bandoleered
and they bished and they blotched
until their zipcope was hexaustilated
their scorch board was goose egged
their labtobs were complinnected
to the Barney Goggle gnatwork
and their brainstorms were plucked
into fur chew alien divinity

they visited the Cornemeuseum
of decoraptions and caranlax of yore
the local lie buried
where they peroozed ‘n screw ten eyes’d
nozzles and frictionaries
hustle-orgies and epictorial po’hymns
the bushwazoo to feed the pengoons
the buffaloops and the chimpandas
the jugulars and the jeerafters
the hippopotatoes and the walrushers
and other animated mules

they roped the poor to feet the blindly
they pooled and they holed
until they bummed out of lug
and got their pipchers in the nosepauper
the gag was up
the catapult was out of the bog
the elevaytordeal was down
and they had to go global worming
summerwear else

7. LEAVING PROFUNDITY

in the zero summer of the winterfall
they crawl daddied out of Profundity
under the barber wires
over the foxtrot holes
and thru the knots of the yet net
aiming their snootroots towards Propinquintia

they had their handicaps on backwards
so only the poorleech personas working behind
knew they had all prayed for the Pittsburp Pie Ruts

they passed thru Proclivity by knife
Breakfast by daydream
and Atom ‘n Heave by Pure Pluck
they flatfooted and meanderambled
until North Illomenia
was a distangible memory block
and South Fanaticide
was a pingpong on the radiator

they reached their procrastidestination
in a fishy fettle of fine print
on the fifeteenth dame of the seven teeth
of the noon moon in the least year
of the lost century

and they never lurked back

EARTH ANGEL
as an angel I am still talking
into earth’s microphone
Allen Ginsberg, City Midnight Junk Strains

I have seen heard tasted and touched the holy words of the poet who brought the 20th century to its knees begging for absolution from its madness crimes and a reprieve from its symmetrical karmic punishments

who slinging verbs to mixed reception made the stuffed shirts roll over in self-prepared prematuregraves of their nightmare beds

who confronted the punk gangsters of culture and changed the cold steel of their switchblade minds to blunt tinfoil chewing gum wrappers

who touched the conventional wisdom fanatics and turned them on
their sourmouth heads with judo-threnodies and a vast assortment of heartbeat-measured eyeblinks

who rounded up the backstabbing backlashers backslappered in
backroom deals and herded them out to the front porch of the Oracle House where gypsy fortune tellers gave their faces a doldrum-shaking welcome of shaving cream spaghetti and used confetti

who shouted “Enough destruction for one day” when the soldiers of
fortune brought out their hammers and began beating the band as it played on steam whistles piercing the air vents of the hard boppers blowing for resurrection

who attended World Peace symposiums where he listened to
German sermonizers lecture on topics such as flabbergastion pognophobia housewife warming butterfly wrangling eisteddfoderol pedaltonics brixomania winecork disposal pandiculation and gnostic vagrancy then stood at a podium of blinking neon lights and delivered a chalktalk on the intelligence of trees and the migration of botanical tribal ideas from one leaf to another and how they often stop over at Uncle Runt’s for a plate of blueberry pancakes and a cup of mint tea on their way to paradise

who appeared at the Browbeater’s Rodeo astride a panther leaping thru
hoops of horsemouth fire

who levitated above traffic jams of apocalyptic ambulances
ectoplasmic locomotives reptilian limos spitfire trucks shotrods laughing gas station wagons loose-limbed fork lifts plagal flatbeds throbbing garbage trucks flapjack scooters flutter choppers holocaustic bulldozers weird wheelchairs tattooed stage coaches cosmic cement mixers nervous tourist buses and nervous-breakdown tow trucks thankful that he was as detached from the scene as a telescope operator at the Mt. Meru Observatory in a black baseball cap who had once pitched for the Motorcity Caterpillars

who tangled with bus terminal authorities disputing enraged over
the exact times of arrivals and departures when all he wanted was an approximate nod in the direction of compassion

who kicked thru the ashes of a book burning jamboree (some of
the books his own) on the lawn of a public park where white beard cigar blast judges sat sipping refrigerated sody-pops with backseat flappers and heavyweight wirepullers now back on their courtroom benches to ban off-white marriages and look down their bent noses at kids busted for listening to Bo Diddley on concealed radios and imagined the day when these foul brain mutants would be forced to eat their bigwigs and the VIPs to learn that they were really Vulgar Idiot Pimps with nothing in their backbones but thin thread puppetry to keep them erect

who haunted iron pipe factories Greyhound bus terminals and
one-room schoolhouses abandoned to dustbowls wrecking yard rust hunting for subterranean messages scrawled on walls which he could translate into the common speech of dishwashers bellhops bootblacks plumbers hot plate welders backhoe operators roofers longshoremen bricklayers bus truck and taxi drivers hanging out to dry in Friday night bowling alleys and Sunday afternoon cafeterias

who sputtered to speech also for the greasy spoon ladies awaiting
and fleatown usherettes and metermermaids

who measured the distance between the sacredotals and the
secularattles until the war was over and the front lines lay dead or bleeding or both and the back lines were chugging jimfizz beamers ping ponging jungle jailbait and committing suicide by the dumpster load and concluded that there had to be a more rewarding job for a starving punjuggler than this shameful obscenity

who skied an avalanche from snowy high sierra slopes into tenderloin
skidrow streets where pawn shoppers genetic manipulators punchdrunk lotharios cuckooclock bureaucrats greed-contaminated deathwish salesmen neutron bomb mechanics blood tax and wax museum authorities auctioneers of antique crutches and wooden legs infested with termites were gathered to perform a black massive deed upon the helpless bodies of hypnotized virgins drug-stunned spinsters shanghaied viragos kidnapped vixens and lowjacked lesbians (“They’re all the same to us good old boys”) cutting the former to the quick of their sinskins with his oceanic occamic razor while severing the ropes of the latter and bringing them to the edge of disenchantment with bubble bursting shouts of joy and songs of salvation

who interrupted the jowl-engorged politicktocks busy murdering
another Mozart in a vile ceremony of ritual sacrifice deemed to appease the wrath of the two-face three-headed, four fanged monkey beast of burden that rode their backs relentlessly and without mercy and consequently cast them all into a whirlpool of sawdust spiderwebs rooster feathers sunflower seeds wild cherry blossoms yellow pages and white noise

who bummed out at the sight of madhouse windows filled with
blackboard faces slowly being erased by the light of a setting sun that belonged to another galaxy then becoming animated again in the light of a moon that belonged to a planet yet to be discovered

who between agons of anarchist ecstasy and chill tongues of bohemian
cool between demonic blastophemies of spontaneous pandemonium with hair electrified twitching like antennae receiving messages from the great beyond and the chill tongues melting in balloon lump cheeks filled with twisted non-conformist spit and shinola mentations thickdark as memory grease in a gutter beneath a sausagetoast and bacon breakfast griddle JUMPED UP from his hypersomnia bed KNOCKED his clogged noggin against the ganja blanket of stone smoke that clouded the ceiling from view and TRANSFORMED his bag of blue bones into a fountain of jive alive verbs acapellanouns and cracker adjactivities

who majestic and magnificent fingerpainted images of his favorite dharma bums upon the windows of ancient Incan castles while smoking the powdered roots of mescalated manzanita.

who dipped into the clambake pit at the Psychoanalysts
Reunion and pulled out fish of a different feather and fairweather fowl of a similar fin leaving every spectator to this miracle awe-flustered and daze-amazed

who laughed on the steps of the money temple and brushed aside the
junkie barbarians selling t.shirts coffee mugs and bathtowels advertising the faces of our culture’s temporal mythic legends including his own

who, if the letters to the editors of the tongue and gossip machine are
a timely measure of his influence, will not be welcome back at the Lions Club annual Sand Castle Moatboat Picnic where in previous years he upset whole applecarts of selected jars of logic jam and unabridged candywrapper opinions – as if he should give a damn

who displayed a series of grotesque gestures when he learned
that the only thing that kept him from entering the gates of heaven was a pack of dirty playing cards he picked up from a Dutch sailor on skid row when he was 12 which eventually led to his falling in love with the Queen of Spades

who over-comed his natural impulsations langering naked in sleek Pullman
sleeper dreams rolling and rocking across wheatfield America between telephone wire shadows and their buzzing soundproof conversations thereupon plotting his next move into the mystic as psychedelic celebrity or a comic book badass neither because neither had the bones to break the soul barrier and keep an honest bugger off the grid and out of guided missile range

who for dimes jiggled his nickels and almost won back the freedom
he’d enjoyed in the watery wombs of past lives

who danced for crippled children and joined hands with unmated
mothers and blind bums when they marched in the street doing their best to save the world from tobacco-chewing outlaws who had roped entire populations into their corrals and branded them with the sign of the dollar before releasing them to run rampant and naked babbling cowpuncher propaganda from sea to shining sea

who howled in the light-starved night for friends devoured by the ironjaw
machine

who stood before lost multitudes of the underground with flowers
in their hair and never preached but chanted mantras of peaceable kingdoms where the lamb lies down with the feverish deviants and fears no evil

who entered the trophy room where stuffed mammals over the fireplace
looked down into the eyes of unstunned unstung unsung childrenhoods and gave his promise good for a thousand years that he’d be wearing a necklace of batskulls and sidewinder rattles the next time around

who loved into our lives selecting his silences with care to share with us his
ruminatious collection of tagloops each of which if hung around our necks like diamond lace would brighten our life to life days and nights and free our minds from worry grief and despondencies too numerous and tenacious to be captured by routine metaphysical housemouse traps

who rose up against the tax bulls tossed tea leaves in their deathcamp fires
chased the dripheads round the schoolyard backstop and wondered not why they came after him in their bold 3-master buccaneer guiding it over choppy albatross waters, their faces turning from blue to pink in the hour before dawn then sinking without a trace in the soapsuds of their public washtubs

who returned behind the wheel of a beeping jeep with a bagpipe
between his legs and a leapyear girl perched on his armrest smiling in the rearview and lighting his pipe by clicking sparks from her teeth

who blew into noodletown and ignored everyone and everything
everytime a doogood balloonaloop floatedup from a roomtop and scattered its rubber flips of sublimated mess aches to the winds of invisible cloud magicians

who lingered a while at rugged crossroads where clashclumsy goat
worshippers were signing IOUs then thumbed a ride in a tincan lizzy headed nowhere waving farewell to this clan of hoodwinked desperados

who rode his white bicycle into red light districts and felt no compromising passion for the slave girls trapped in their hothouse breeding gardens of sweat and sterile sperm

who premonitions aside invited numerous luminous dignitaries
of the Fourth World to meet with medicine men of the First Nation to discuss the rise and fall of civilizations tho not one word was spoken and only a distant grunt was heard from a warrior named Casino Berry My-Heart-At-Wounded-Knee

who answered to the names Galilee Leo Giardino Broonberg
Grandpappy Moses Sir Walter “Mittman” Whitty and Wild Billy Blake but identified with none

who spoke in italics: Look! See! the speech of a tree! See! the elevated
voices of the ocean! Hear! the spinning wheels of the cosmos! Listen! to the hieroglyphs of ancient genius as they emerge from the transparent curtains of parchment wallpaper

who embraced his enemies and left them hugging the edge of a cliff
rubbing their magic lanterns and taking a fat fancy chance that what followed would be less than hanging by strapulation but certainly more than raw indigesture from sneakeating the burgerjack knock-offs that littered the meanstreak streets of gravicity as they hunched over their thermals

who emerged from the thrill chambers of Manhatto-Momo-Rocco
poked on piltdowns and updowns and upperslams and layered the bed of strawstrewage until his heels were welded then leapered up from his slum bumpbed and scampered out the whyopen door into the whirlygirl gigs in the sleeper wind and woke their time sized eyes to the task of wonderful philament

who struggled with Lady Deep and came out smelling roses

who protected hordes of propaganda plague victims with chemically-
altered perceptions from the storm blows and thunder strikes of the secret military trained and sponsored and paid gravediggers saying “Be not afraid, brothers, I’ve got your back.”

who did not fear the beard; nor did he fear any other type of trivial
distraction such as smoke signals random hallucinations sonic booms appendix scars and backseat driver screams

who grew his hair into ladders of hope rope upon which downtrodden
backbeat flappers climbed seeking the highest floors in the Tower of the Druids where pagan priests were waiting to baptize them in the tears of the owl and anoint them with rainbow water

who tiptoed in black velvet slippers across floors littered with scraps
of the latest news not once stumbling over Bombs in Palestine Earthquake in Armenia Sex Scandal in London Train Wreck in Lisbon Suicides in San Diego Serial Chainsaw Murders in Texas and not once did he trip over the headline ISRAEL INVADES LEBANON the photo caption “Woman rakes lizards from tree in middle of the night” or the want-ad: Man, 31, seeks blue collar work for slave wages, will not sweat will not apologize will not rock the boat so help me God!

who likewise ignored the spate of conspiracy theories bubbling up
from the lower layers of our civilization’s collective psyche which threatened to plunge us into an irreversible state of bamboozlement where anything was possible – even bushwhacked backslider pigeonholers magnetic generous slight-of-hand prestigious fast lane bridges illuminated biblical dream time factory bosses – and wherenothing must be overlooked right down to the suspicious white glove left empty on the steps of the stock exchange

who refused to salute the flag when they draped it around
the shoulders of the Lords of War jogging laps around the Pentagon with packs of bulldogs at their heels prepared to rip off the limbs of any son of a bitch their masters deemed unpatriotic

who lifted the tablet of stone out of the burning bush and held it aloft
so that the peasants peeking from the flaps of their tents could see the message the Mysterious Moving Finger had printed on its smooth surface: THOU SHALL NOT GO TO WAR

who sang the national anthem at Woodstock changing the words to
blend with the strings of the electric guitar “José can you see any bed bugs on me?”

who repeated frequently the stories of Mutemole and Luteloon
acquired at a tender age drawing from their punchlines the power to perform miracles

who blessed muted trumpets sticks and stones banging back the tempo
on thump drums with spotlit skins and the golden strings of Jewish harp strummers raging in the dark midnight of the West

who ate Reality Sandwiches filled with the demonic meat of American
scapegoats and resolved to follow the way of the Vegetarian henceforth

who bopped to the music of the Hydrogen Jukebox that featured
such tunes as “Do You See What I Mean or Do You See L.A.?” by The Gregorian Champs “Jews Don’t Feel Pain” by the Foreskin Clippers “Mucho Cha Cha Cha” by Mrs Muchacha “Pearls Before Swine and Old Spice After Shave” by Oinkle Oink and the Black Panther Pigs and Bird Bagarack’s “What part of VORACIOUS APPETITES AND VISUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES HAVE US DOWN ON OUR KNEES BEGGING TO HAVE OUR HANDS NAILED TO THE FLOOR don’t you understand?”

who held up a single finger to demonstrate the revolving red
light atop the pigwagon that blocked his freeway and held him prisoner to the robots driving it with no revolving eyes but only four bulging bulbs that glowed deep electric pink when their commie detectors were switched on

who moved in and out of Mexican junkyards and Aztec flattops
disappearing in the twinkling of an eye and reappearing on the boulevards of Paris strolling arm in arm with faithful comrades of peaceful evolutions

who appeared consequently on the streets of San Francisco disguised
as a Cowboy of High Desert Solitudes then turned a corner and became a ghost-dancing Paiute visible only to the one good eye of a half-blind mentally-tumbled panhandler who knew he was witnessing a sacred vision and wept for joy

who read the Books of Chilám Palám Hermes Trismegistus Kojiki
and Manyoshu Shih Ching Bardo Thodol the Necronomicon the Tantu Pagelaran and the Protovangelium the Popul Vuh and the Dammapadha the Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean and the Dresden Codex the Fama Fraternitas Manifesto and the Genesis Apocraphon the Drona Parva and the Kebra Nagast the Fifth Gospel According to Thomas and the Essene Gospel of Peace the Am-Tuat the Saragasso Manuscript and the Book of Kells then bowed his head and wept for all the lost libraries of the world

who leapfrogged the rivers of time and space and joined together
the stone-eyed and the starry-eyed into one great heart-to-heart mind-to-mind soul-to-soul moveable feast of friendship good for another thousand years

who by the simple act of breathing liberated millions of microscopic
sentient lifeforms which inhabited the umbrella of his humble body and guided them to the path of enlightenment

who went west as young man and met himself returning old and bent
and photographed beyond recognition carrying a basket of French-flavored poems mixed in with a few of his own

who, when white doves befailed, picked up the fallen and feathered
their wings with arrows (no plastic no paper never no wax) and shotplumbed them back to their angels in waiting

who singing of death while smiling recalled the journeys he made to Ixtlan
El Dorado Angkor Wat Knossos Mt. Athos Mohengo-Daro Eleusis Tarquinia Hierapolis Alhambra the Sacred Grove of Nemi the underground passages of Stonehenge the Prippet Marshes and the Wichita Vortex

who died on the 5th of April 1997 flew up to heaven where he shook hands
with God asked him the way to Nirvana came to a fork in the road then turned around and came right back to hit this vale of tears with another plentiful dash and dose of rogue poetry

KEROUAKIANA

take a Proustian brouhaha
mix in a Wolfean river
stir it up with a Shakespherian rag
pour it into a Blakean gloom
and what have you got?

a Steinbeckish signpost
with Jack Kerouac flashing by
behind the wheel
of a Whitmanesque electric stagecoach
with 2,999 miles to go
before hitting the western horizon
and punching out the eye
of the setting sun
with a highbeam headlight

August 21, 2009

CODY CASSADY WITH HIS ULTERIAL BRAIN WAVES
RETURNS TO BUM A SMOKE
(see Jack Kerouac’s “Visions of Cody” Part Three)

I feel it works
I do cause it don’t
one way or the other
show too much of itself
or get in the way of
whatever the sidetracked
truth of the fact of the matter
might be by anything
that might turn into
a complete what a loss
of misunderstanding back on itself
the kind of conflicting
what you might call situation
where the tail eats
the other way around the mouth
and swallows you mark my words
before you can speak
or spit them out or what have you
whereas anybody with a smidgen
of pigeon and a touch of common
cold sense forget about what they call
the sixth or anything beyond
can easily go with the flow
or any other show they want
to put on the road and say
thru the bottoms of their hats
or buckets or any other
piece of farm equipment
that might be available
that there’s nothing worse
than being caught in
take another look at a bald face
it goes without saying lie
as far as that goes
that everybody knows or should
that he confessed to an ultimate
and ulterior and unprovoked
pack of deceptions
upon the face of what have you
before the gun slingers stepped in
with their blind side in the guise
of a fair and what you might call
an impartial judgment
and had to spell it out for him
as spells were cast
and discarded as easy
as pumpkin pie back in the days
when different ways and means
were the same and some
fools in the depths of their dire
despair you’ll have to admit
had more than their backs
all things considered
and being equal
up against the wall
in a time of great intestinal
or what have you conflict
nevertheless and speaking of which
you wouldn’t happen to have
by any chance or twist of the wrist
that adds up to a rolling dice
destination previous or otherwise
a spare pair of smokes which is to say
and to not ignore the possibility
of other coffin nails on you or not
but I think you catch
among and above all else
the drift and tendencies
and other directions
of the head and shoulder leanings
of my straight-forward
with no strings you’ll notice
or other flexible substances
attached meaning

EROS DENIED

1.
and I remember her
just like that
sitting on the beach
under the pier
looking up at the slices
of my bare feet
thru the gaps in the planks

then the ocean waves
came tumbling in
and washed her away
just like that

2.
and I remember her
sitting on the campus lawn
reading a book
the wind blew across
the grass
and tumbled the leaves
around her
then it caught the pages
and turned them
flipping them fast
to the back of the book
and she kept on reading
just like that

3.
and I remember
walking beside her
in a redwood forest
on a long circular path
for horses
thru the trees
we saw small luminous creatures
dancing in the sunlight
and just as we were coming
back to the camp
and I was reaching
out to hold her hand
her mother drove up
and blew the car horn
and we both jumped
as if we’d been stung
in the heart
by a wasp

4.
when I saw her again
after 40 years
she was still a girl
and I was still a boy
we never grew up

the only time
we ever tried to grow up
was in the high school drama club
when I played an old man
and she played an old woman
then we took off
the costumes and make-up
and went back
to never growing up

5.
does it matter
if they were the same girl
or different girls?

I remember her
on a merry-go-round
her horse leaping
higher than my head

I remember my horse
sinking down so low
that I was looking at
one of her dirty white
toe-scuffed sneakers
while her boyfriend
was over in the arcade
tilting pinball machines

ANOTHER LAST BUT NOT LEAST LADY

indeed if I’m an imbecile not already
leaning from a house collapsing
crumbling walls my fingers clutching
thinking it’s all quite unamazing
& mumbling about my last but not least lady

complaining loud she done me dead wrongly
it’s never for me what you can do
it’s me for you for a day & forever
a lesson learned by cruel regretting
these facts cannot be stressed or stretched too strongly

then beguiled I spy a maid a horse a-riding
I spur my donkey toward her horizon
& choke upon her wake a-dusting
& tumbling from afar & falling
I land upon her path shadows colliding

turns she upon her horse & backward glancing
she scorns her gaze from eyes a-flashing
from red to dead and then a-closing
& from her mouth a curse pronounces
upon the world & me upon it dancing

& what became of the drunken puppet mastered
by guile, by graceless wit seducted?
into her mouth he leapt unobstructed
& disappeared ‘tween teeth a-chewing
while men around him stood a-sighing:
“Oh you lucky bastard.”

April 29, 2009

WHISPERS FROM THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS

S
quare nickels
and a pyramid
of spherical pennies
your pocket picked
to threadbare sorrow

ticket, tooth picked
for a twenty
buy your cigarolls
in packs of very thin ice

petrodactyl piracies
and piratical conspiracies
inevitable contortions
and alcoholic convulsions

take off your bible belt
open up the holes
of your coin-operated pelvis
and let the glass blowers in

B
ark me up a wolfbang
pack me with a wallop
growl me down a fang gang
that’s all I need to keep me humming
keep me running at a gallop

spin me thru a mind mill
sin me with a puritango
skate me on a pair of stilts
let me know when you’re impressed
then I’ll show you my fandango

god me with your hot spit choir
waltz me up a t-bone strauss
walk me down the Isle of Manarchy
tell me you’re my heart’s desire
tell me I’m your cathouse mouse

stir me, sty me, don’t supply me
tie me kangarootabeat
spy me with a sphinx, sport
for less than five and twenty cents
I’ll dig a foxhole with my feet

I’ll trot the fox, I’ll step the quick
walk the cake I’ll pipe the horn
then drive to hell on one flat tire
bake me in a popcorn pie
god me with your hot spit choir

A
woman runs by the house
with her face covered in cobwebs
her fingernails on fire
her feet in plastic sacks filled with glue
and her belly button
pulsing with the fist
of an unborn child

while the news on the radio
is all about an escaped
pregnant woman
who’s going around
punching people in the mouth

L
et’s get goofy
roll up our sleeves
talk like a duck
let’s get a cat
and call him Pastrami

let’s get lopsided
bake an angel foot cake
it won’t take a genius
to make that mistake

let’s go on a spree
let’s pull out the plugs
let’s get fooled
by false flexibility

T
hey didn’t know what he was going to do next
and neither did the guy
he was out in the outhouse, turning up the heat
and baking a goose turd pie

the outhouse exploded with methane gas
it burnt to the ground but the guy
shot up into the clouds where he laughed up a storm
and lived to tell the lie

T
he stiff neck soldiers
are marching back from battle
horseshoe boots with high heel roots
dangle and strangle drag
chains of rusted rattle
they’re hanging up the skulls

S
tuff my ears with wax
tie me to the mast
I’m just trying to get home
to my Penny Arcade

what’s that you say?
looks like I’ll have to shoot
a few suitors first
that’s really a quel que chose

O
nce upon a pawn in a game of checkermate
clicking your nails thru a knick-knack knocker gate
into a ten-ton tide of clocker tick time
bumper sticker bait and pawnshop slime

you happenstanced upon a wooden nickel dimer
a rambling modulation from a low flat minor
to a woebegone early worm bird of paranoia
and a sunken cathedral of bird bitten sequoia

J
ohn the Ecclesiastic
is reading aloud
from the Book of Elastic
deluxe edition illustrated
by door-to-door long-tusk boars
costumes by deep-sleep walking
beatnecks in armadillo shoes
incidental music composed
on the spur of the moment
by whistling d’wharves
by winding up their throats
and throwing alarms
into the side face holes
of beastial biologists

H

e’s a door-to-door long tusk boar
he’s rooting for truffles
in a Shakespeare play
he’s an armadillo shoe

he’s a cruel woman in bat bird boots
he’s a pollywolly doodle in a traffic jelly jam
he’s coming thru the door
with his arms full of love

T
ry me, scrape away the drool
the drunkard stumbles, struggling into
dug up ditches filled with waterbug bags
twice the size of any grave he’s ever seen before

this is where the kids play Doctor in the Rye
Catcher of the Curve Ball, Stretcher
of Concrete, where they take out their wheels
and ride all over god’s damned heaven

w
hy is that eye looking down from the sky?
that’s no eye, that’s a buttermilk pie

BURGER KING AND THE LIP LADY

caught wandering into vagabondage
as time stands still Burger King runs
into the fading light of rooms packed
with meat eaters cutting chunks
of animal muscles with forked knives
chopping fried skin with powerful strokes
stuffing their mouths with bones, grease
dripping from their chins, stopping
to look up thru skim milk eyes
at his busy body jogging down
the middle of the table, knocking over
pepperpicks and toothshakeholders
ceramic elves with sacks of pickles
on their backs, olive-eyed Pinocchio’s
with seeds popping out of their anusholes

skidding on slick pages of recipes torn
from hook-cooked books, thin scraps
of new testament gospels he plunges
head-first into the lap of luxury
where the split-tongue Lip Lady
with tooth-brushed fangs and plenty of room
in the back of her throat for unlovely laughter
with apartments to rent in her cheeks
for kisses the size of walnuts
reaches out with her umbrella-tipped tusks
and takes a rain check

leaping her fingertips soaked in fresh cream
splattering the wall as he hurdles hair
the color of true love bunched in clumps
a-squirm with silkworm ribbons
he rises above the membrane distractions
the entertainment buttons and jumbles out
the back door where the Lip Lady waits

she rolls him up in her tongue
chomps down hard, breaking him
into small neat cubes of edible protein
savoring the taste of his fears
the droplets of his adrenaline
flooding his armpits
licking up the last traces
of absolute terror and filling her mouth
with tasteless fast food

LEAST OF MY WORRIES

1.
I don’t care if he’s been seen running down main street
late at night screaming “Get these handcuffs off my feet”
when everybody could plainly see he was flapping his arms
like a big band conductor trying to teach a flock of pigeons
to sing “Fly me to the Moon”

I don’t care if he was born a metaphor
and quickly grew up to become a stop sign

I don’t care if he can recite Finnegans Wake
from page one to last by heart or by soul
explain the weather vane’s varicosities
down to the last drop of the vampire’s grog
or whisper his whiskey sour whiskers
all over the marble-smooth skin
of a thousand milkish maidens

I don’t care if he’s a composer
of bump and bluster
a sonata formulizer
with a bugle up his ass
and freugalhorn intentions

I don’t care if he’s a fundamental
ballistic statistic with tombstone tonsils
and a grab bag of dollars for change

I don’t care if his appreciation of art
is limited to pictures of blind photographers
and finger paintings by penguins

if the worst that can be said of him
is that he burps when he hurries
he’s the least of my worries

2.
I don’t care if he has a sub-century IQ
and likes to take off his wig
to show that the top of his skull
has been cut away to reveal a skull bowl
full of squirming worms
then laughs as you run away
shouting after you “You’re not much fun!”

I don’t care if he gets his bowels in an uproar
when the nostril police come around and say
“Too much thumbnail – that’ll be a fine
of one hundred pushups.”

I don’t care if he’s startled
by every little sound in the night
and jumps out of bed and runs around
the parking lot in his grave digger dungarees
with a fire extinguisher waving the nozzle
and spraying the most suspicious shadows

I don’t care if women make a mockery
of his mortality by squeezing farts out of his guts
as if his body was a bagpipe

I don’t care if he’s allergic of operatic laughter
(HA! HA! HA!) or hooked on Marsupial Bars
or doubts that the Santa Claus Twins
can be in two places at the same time
or if he cries bloody murder
when some cheepo creepo wants to lower
the prices of his shoeshine lessons
or if he wipes his butt after taking a shit
and comes away with a fistful of toilet paper
covered with lipstick
or if the skin of his face peels off
every time he hears someone mention his name
or if he used to work as a famous pop star’s
official toenail painter
or if he collects caterpillar hair paint brushes
and makes them crawl around on a canvas
and slop out a series of still lifes
depicting loose moose muscles
in a various states of decomposition

he can dance til he’s dirty
he’s the least of my worries

3.
I don’t care if he shears Lambs to the Slaughter
and knits their wool into sweaters
with a turtle-infested turtle necks
and a ball sack and penis tube at the bottom
so he can walk around without pants

I don’t care if he wears dandruff baskets
around his ears
and at cocaine parties bounces around barechested
with a pierced ring thru his belly button
to which are attached
the strings of helium balloons
upon which are printed semi-amusing messages
such as
WHAT’S FOR DINNER?
CLOSED FOR REPAIRS
I DON’T CARE IF THE SUN DON’T SHINE

I don’t care if he believes
that practical jokes really are utilitarian
or if he peels his apples with a chainsaw
or packs a bazooka every time
he visits a Buddhist monastery

I don’t care if the bottom of his dream boat
is made with broken bricks
or if his beard collects fleas
the way an ordinary gardener’s fingernails collect dirt
or if in the bottom half of the midnight hour
his fist fights tend to become laughing stock
among the elite of the duke and juke boxing circles

I couldn’t care less if he bribed his way thru school
by giving the teachers free rides
in his babe-stocked Bimboborghini convertible
and supplying them with all the snow blow
they could hoover up between Friday dusk
and Monday dawn
which translated into a prestigious job
with the central intelligence agency
where he held the rulers of all nations hostage
with bogus but nasty blackmail secrets
created by photographic trickery
and the false testimony of lottery ticket losers

I don’t care if he’s famous
for producing peep show cliff hangers
or for being addicted to unusual drugs
such as Grundge Plunge
Slip Knot-Forget-Me-Not
Sicko Pewko
Sitting Bull’s Revenge
PUP (Pump up the Paranoia)
Body Bag Prelude
and Oh Shit It’s the Wiper Vipers Again
or for inventing a one-way Q & A answering machine
or for cooking up a recipe for Hot Air Balloon Biscuits
secret ingredients of which include
a pinch of Bizqwik Sand
a flick of Miracle Whip
and a whisk of broomdust

I don’t care if he packs around a pocketful
of his girlfriend’s toenail clippings
or if he shows up with a Hunter S. Thompson
alligator tail (autographed by Johnny Depp)
attached to his rump
or if he’s listened to all the recordings
of Leadboy Snakebelly and can imitate their scratches
note by note on his fishgut banjophone

I don’t care if his skin is pock marked
with bullet holes self-inflicted
from which irate hornets swarm
trained and eager to sting

I don’t care if he lives on a lizard skin diet
or pukes a breathing tube every time he eats a curry
he’s the least of my worries

4.
I don’t care if he’s a whipdaddy bruiser
I don’t care if they call him Whizzer Jack
I don’t care if he sweats when he heaves

I don’t care if he’s fast with knives
or nasty with children and lousy with wives
if he can’t control his grin
that’s no skin off my chinny-chin-chin

I don’t care if he eats food from the floor
drinks water from wells run dry
and sucks frozen flamingo legs between meals
or if he masks his hatred with acts of charity
his bad vibrations can be felt for miles
and the snarl of his lips is visible on the sidewalk
40 floors below his open window

I don’t care if he uses words
like atrociously precocious
or grinds his knuckles while he speaks
or picks his nose with sharpened chopsticks
or sticks his hands in buckets of white paint
when the only obvious way out of the coyote trap
is to brew up a cup of hot javelin
add a spoon of cubistic sugar
a drop of petrified cream
and wait for Postman Drake to bring in the keys

I don’t care if he thinks he’s funny
when he spews out lousy jokes
like: “Give me the number
of your sexy podiatrist
– I want to walk all over her.”
or thinks it’s a laughing matter
when he takes out his wallet
and drops a twenty-dollar bill
attached to a rubber band
into a beggar’s hat
only to make it bounce
back up into his hand

I don’t care if he swears on a bible
that his wicked mouth ways
are no sins at all
or that God is his witness
in all things material
including the acts of his blasphemous rage
or that he is the lord of queasy dominions
that sail on the seas of his peckernost squirts
when the tattered battalions of his holy ghost quests
are nothing but phantoms of white trashpit dirt

I don’t care of he’s rewritten
all the great poems of 16th—17th—18th
and 19th Century England
inserting his pseudonyms at inappropriate places
to create such lines as

Hope not for mind in women; at their best
sweetness and wit they’re but Whacker Jack possessed

Go, they call you, Shepherd, from the hill
Go, E Libidinous Cornishag, and undo their wattled cotes

And Giardino Bruno the Bear his hour come round at last
slouches towards Bethlehem

In Xanadu did Phyllis Steinbrenner
a stately Pleasure Dome decree

I don’t care what kind of sonic thrills
his listeners experience
when he gets on his high horse
takes out his Funny Bone Flute-a-Phone
(a huge rack of hollow reindeer horns)
places it on his head
puts the tube in his mouth
and pipes out a full orchestration
of Debussy’s La Mer

nor am I moved by the ecstasy
that sweeps thru a crowd of clappers
when he switches over to Tractor Tire Harp
and gives his audience the complete works
D. Jack Aeoroquack
or when his rendition of
“There’s a Rabbit in Heaven”
hits the top of the charts
causing riots outside butcher shops
where demonstrators with bullhorns
voice their dissatisfaction by chanting:
OKEE DOKE THIS AIN’T NO JOKE
THEY’LL BE COMING BACK TO HAUNT YOU

I don’t care if he’s a Louisville Slugger
if he bruises his thumbs on bottlecaps
and punctures his voice on dartboard anthems

I don’t care if he’s the Landlord of Hell
a pimp of the furies
he’s the least of my worries

5.
even if he pushes the shuttlecock all the way in
to the death of my sister I don’t care
or if he has a PhD in mythobology
and knows every footnote in the “Autobiography of an Ape”
I don’t care if he wears silkworm underwear
and sports a moustache that glows in the dark

I don’t care if he drives a dragonmobile
that breathes smokestack lightning
thru micronite filters
or if he’s chauffeured around
by a baldhead hippocritter
in a 17-wheel Rock ‘n Rolls Royce drum kit
at 5,554 beats a minute

I don’t care if he’s the King of the Swingers
with a ton of bricks in his backyard pockets
I don’t care if he takes a pill
to make his shit smell like honeysuckle

I don’t care if he’s got ten pounds
of Elvis Presley’s pubic hair
framed and fondled and hanging on his wall

I don’t care if he’s a long lost puttergut
who riproars thru the face of fortune
merging and moaning thru shark-shaped jaws

I don’t care if he washes his hair
in salamander snot shampoo
or if he wakes up screaming every time
he dreams about quadrubbles
and goes back to sleep
with bowlegged flamingos on his mind

I don’t care if he has strong convictions
about unwrapped birthday gifts
and unshakeable opinions about
about the artistic value
of cat-scratched furniture

I don’t care if he changes his name
from day to day or from day to night
depending on the amount of light

I don’t care if he flies a pinstripe flag
with a giant bulldog hanging down
snapping off the fingers of his faithful saluters
I don’t care if he owns the whole town

I don’t care if he hires a flunky
to carry around his dirt in their pockets
or if they do it for love and superstition

it’s all the same to me if he jumps overboard
or sticks around and plays with his remote-control
armadillos and puppet string spiders
or if he kicks out his windows
and sets fire to his hair
or takes a knotted rope
and hangs a few people pictures
of faces he used to know
but who have ceased to bring home the baked beacons

I don’t care if he’s found a foolproof life-support system
when he gets hooked up to a hurdy gurdy
he’s the least of my worries

6.
I don’t care if his gums
have relinquished their grip on his teeth
and small chunks of sandpapered bone
tumble from his mouth into his onion soup
whenever he says, “Pass the slop.”

I don’t care if he gets 40 miles a yard
and 20 gallons an hour
in his new imported Japanese rodent mobile
with whisker turn signals and sideburn mufflers

I don’t care if he’s an eyewitness lipreader
who survives by pretending to be blind, deaf and dumb

I don’t care if his brain waves show
that he’s had intimate experiences with angels
or that he’s proud of the fact
that his vocabulary is vertically challenged
and that every person who has had a conversation with him
suffered clinical depression for weeks after
or if his book “Bisonics: The Study of Buffalo Calls”
has been on the non-fiction best seller lists
for 40 years or that it’s sequel
“Jungle Jim the Amazing Him”
(the Bigliography of a Man Who Gave Up
a Successful Career in Used Greeting Cards
and Became a Life Guard on the Amazon
where he Rescued Innocent Fish from Predators
such as Anacondaplurabelle Leemurs
and Crocodile Dungaree Tear Jerkers) which is now
required reading for any student who wishes to graduate
from an American high school
with more than an F minus average

I don’t care if at the age of seven
he organized wild, drug-fueled orgies
with aunts and uncles and then had them arrested
on charges of pedophilia
or came to his senses in the middle of a lecture
on quantum physics by toking on a pipeful
of Custer’s Last stand and shouting
“The Redskins are on the warpath again!”

I don’t care if he put his money on a hob nail hag
at the Miss Universe pageant
and came out smelling like
Skidrow’s Wino of the Week

or if he wrecked his reputation
as the world’s number one Barrel of Monkeys
when the surgeons opened him up
and discovered a chip of fools
a bag of pipes
and a peck of pickled peppers

or if he made a bid for spiritual excellence
when he joined an occult cult
that performed such esoteric acts as
(a) squaring the circle before the cows
came home with the buttermilk
(b) tossing out the tar baby with the birth water
(c) groaning with the tractor pullers, grinning
with the leaf rakers, grinding sleeping teeth
with the dream eaters
and (d) swimming with sharks
while blowing soap bubbles thru hula hoops

I don’t care if he’s had simultaneous careers
as a mambo instructor at the Spastic Academy
as a squatball umpire
a tattoo artist specializing in portraits of anorexic cats
a foodtaster for mob bosses
a Peruvian secret agent (double)
with the ability to speak three languages
at the same time without tying his tongue in a knot
a hooded public executioner
with a large economy size taste for karate chops
a handicap windshield washer at busy stoplight intersections
a bullfrog fighter, a fungus monger
a literary critic for Vampire Magazine
who has a bone to grind with writers who suck
a pool cleaner and happy-go-luck patio gigolo
a logger, a pirate, a garbage collector, a belly dancer
a Tibetan monk at the Thelonius Studio
for mystical pianists with beards
a theme park visitor guide to Toxic Waste Land
a doom’s day prophet in a room full of alarm clocks
an orchestra conductor
with a penchant for waxing poetical when tranquilized
a soap opera extra for scenes that feature everything
from berserker street riots to zombie garden parties
a radio talkshow host that favors opinions
from the extreme right, the angry-evil left
and the catatonic center

I would fail to be impressed
even if he had held down a job as an astronaut
who took ten years to get back from the moon
and refused to tell anyone where he’d been
all that time, tho everybody had a pretty good idea
that for a couple of months he’d been abducted
by aliens and had been seen strolling around
the Palace grounds of the underground city
of Twotonia on Mars

I don’t care if he used to be a She
back in the days when love was free
back in the years when music died
and She had to turn back
into an all-American manifest
a hee-hee manikin
a macho mano-a-man’o war
which inspired him to tie off the tubes
fire up the go-go-gonads and say:
“Let’s go-go gopher some chicks
and turn them into drooling sluts.”

or if he was a pioneer in the gangstafolk movement
transforming traditional favorites into endless rap monologs
that tell us exactly what was so special about the Midnight
and precisely what was blowing in the wind
when Michael rowed the boat ashore

or if he climbed Mt. Shastamanjaro
hoping to establish himself as a prominent
high-altitude guru
by sitting at the feet of Zoozanboo the Malaboo
the Master of Re-incarnation
and the re-incarnation of Mahatma Jong
and absorbing the wisdom of the ages
but found only a bunch of acheheads
sitting around a campfire
under battery-operated hairdryers
drinking near beer and telling dirty jokes

or if he rose to fame in the world of religion
as a preacher of Dynamic Dogmatics
only to fall into humiliating disgrace
when he was caught in the House of Blue Lights
with his pants down around his knees
and his mouth around the nozzle of a fire hose

or if, as a child, he was the hero of a dozen novels
in which he always vanquished the villain
causing each fair maiden to swoon and fall to her knees
when, in the end, he strolled by and whisked her off
to a distant rapacious vacation
at the Marquis de Sade’s summer resort
(lies, lies, nothing but lies
he’s never had a heroic bone
or a drop of blue ribbon blood in his body)
(not that it makes any difference to me)
he’s a cheeze head geezer with watery knees
he’s the least of my worries

7.
I couldn’t care less if I’m not among
his published memoires
when he gets old enough to control his memory
or if he sues the rag sheets and tabloids
every time the gossip columns spell his name wrong
(War Cheso
Scow Hear
Car Showe
How Acres
Who Cares )
or if he weeps buckets of blood each year
when his family tree produces bitter brim stones
rather than edible cherries

I don’t care if he hangs his self-portraits
upside down by mistake
or smears mustard on both sides
of his peanut butter sandwiches
or cheats at hip hop scotch
or advertises his talent for divination
by carting around a bushel of carrot cards
or plays possum when the organ harvesters
come around looking for hamster livers

I don’t care if the sun don’t shine
in his backyard someday
or lawn gnomes wielding swordfish
shaft him where the sun don’t shine

I don’t care if he twists the tails of mucus rats
and gets slapped in the lap by slumcat house breakers
gets popped in the weasel by cornpone coneheads
and poked in the ribs and grits
by the Alcaporno Hockey Team

I don’t care if he breaks out in hive sweat
whenever a strawberry or a tomato walks by
and gives him a wink

I don’t care if his feet are in boothill
his head is in the clouds
and his heart is in his mouth

I don’t care if he rides the Fairytale float
in the Easter parade
dressed as an albino werewolf
salivating over the Little Red Riding Hoods

I don’t care if he cultivates a garden
of thorns and brambles
thistles and nettles
poison oak and ivy in every corner
and a mole in every pot

I don’t care if he owns banks
that are being robbed at the rate
of one per minute
as far as I’m concerned
he’s the original thief
and they can’t steal enough
to make up for his wicked ways

I don’t care if he cuts out his own kidney stones
(lithoctomy being a relic of Gyptian persuasion)
or if he can eye-blink morse code
til his vision is blurry
he’s the least of my worries

8.
I refused to be impressed if he says
“Take it from me”
and “I told you so” in 3 words or less
as far as I’m concerned
he’s a mess of soprano
he’s a beggar at the gates
of his own broken promises
he’s a mumbo jumbo king
of bread and butter romances
he’s a a born-again bulldozer
with caterpillar eyebrows
a permanent open-brain surgery patient
who runs around with wires
spilling from his skull
and a team of doctors running behind
scooping up chunks of his hippothalamus
and tossing them back in the pot

I don’t care if people applaud
his lambswool fetish
or his collection of grade A beef boys
I don’t care if he can tie his shoelaces
with his teeth, button his socks with drumsticks
I don’t care if he’s a god-sick mugwump

I don’t care that with every sip of tequila
another host of demons is released
from the jail of his heart
and his throat explodes
and the cotton fields
for miles around become infested
with rabid bo-weevils
and the mules with wooden legs
are reduced to cripples
by infestations of termites

I don’t care if he calls himself “The Candy Man”
because he strolls around Caribbean beaches
with a call girl on each arm
and a pocketful of melted Hershey Kisses

I don’t care if he’s got a music box
transplanted in the center of his forehead
and that by turning the handle
he releases the melody of Three Blind Mice
directly into his brain
thus causing his lips to twitch and quiver
and emit a peeping melody that sounds like
“See how they roon.”

I don’t care if he’s addicted to the sound of typewriters
or the odor of wet rabbits
or the taste of belched dipthongs (sic)

I don’t care if he’s got a PhD in PJs
an LSD in buck teeth
a NASCAR in hub cap regeneration
and an ASAP in RSVP and PDQ

I don’t care if he plays the stockmarket
with two left hands on a piano
stolen from the Stephen Foster museum

I don’t care if he met
all three Fred MacMurays
he’s a name-dropping shotput
he’s the least of my worries

9.
I don’t care if he predicts the world will end
when the Chinese land a colony
of violent criminals on the moon
and that he’ll be there with his copy of the Wang Chung
to make sure it happens

I don’t care if he’s preparing to die for our sins
by nailing himself to a vertical ping pong table
placed in front of a grandfather clock
so that three psychotic mice
can run up and down his legs
every time the clock strikes one

I don’t care if he declared himself a member
of the First Nation, grew a pony tail
and opened a casino called the Crazy Horse House
where he now spends most of his time
watching holy high rollers give up the ghost
and the rest in front of a mirror
dealing blackjack to his reflection

I don’t care if he has a bedroom closet
full of donkey pins and over-spun milk bottles
leftover from his childhood years
which he charges visitors ten bucks fifty a head
to see and touch as if he’s got some sneaky kind
of hall of fame

I don’t care if he’s the self-appointed censor
of all reading matter published in the western world
an arbiter of morality and good taste
a book burner if needed and a glad-handing
back-slapping chap who know how to leave
a blank space if a particular ad-junctive
vulgar or otherwise might intrude upon
our fragile cultural psyche
and shake its temple to its rooted foundations

I don’t care if he’s a pachydermatologist
a starving fartist
a church mouse trappist
or a tiptoe jammer dot communist

I don’t care if his sharps are flat
his ass is grass
and his middle name is mud

and I don’t care if all his fashion girl mistresses
have eaten themselves into obesity
and have become wrestlemaniacs
or if his x-wives have ganged up
to make his life miserable
by doing all the little things
like calling him up in the middle of the night
and hanging up when he says “Hello.”
like leaving frogs in his mailbox
like having dozens of pizzas
delivered to his door at breakfast time
like putting potatoes in his exhaust pipe
and wasp honey in his gas tank
like signing him up to join various
off-the-wall and suspicious organizations
such as Star Worms International
Jehovahs of Euthanasia
The Church of the Last Will and Testament
of Uncle Funkle
Sons of the Born-Again Pioneers
and The Temple of the Holy Earwig
who have promised to send their fanatics
to his door on a regular daily basis
or if his children refuse to call him “Dad”
preferring the more casual and familiar “Turd Bag”

I don’t care if he rules the world
with witchcraft and goat fur
declares popcorn the new currency of the land
and submarines the seven seas
with a six pack of prophets
(all named Dr. Voodoo Little)
five royal toilet flushers
four bouncing baby beach boys
with faces like blackberry jello
three crow-headed clowns from Shaman Land
two drunken dwarf surgeons
with dirt under their nails
(a paradocs in a poor boy bottle)
and a partridge in an elementree salad
of alligator paranoia

I don’t care if he hangs with the gods
or the guides the guiltless down the road to perdition
(I should care but I don’t)
or with the twisting rope of Billy Boy Yeats
he hangs all his juries
he’s the least of my worries

THE LIFE OF O’REALLY

it’s the curse of the deep frozen logger
it’s the pulse of a streetwalker’s child
it’s the cry of a baby in need of a nipple
it’s a fly-by-night prayer without wings

it’s a boomerang contest of gangsters in exile
it’s a stand-up, fall-down comedy routine
it’s the last laugh from a coffin in a grave
it’s a whirlwind of biblical oil

it’s a solitary rumble in an empty bowling alley
it’s tricking the nettle into being delicious
it’s a hot rain picnic with a broken umbrella
it’s a hat with a tattered sleeve

it’s a Friday afternoon on the 31st of June
it’s a fat chance of beating a rigged slot machine
it’s heartbreaks galore in a black and blue movie
it’s a wheelchair race in the dark

it’s an unrhymed, unsigned happy birthday card
it’s a time bomb ticking in a firecracker factory
it’s a battered jalopy with three flat tires
it’s an ape in human skin boots

it’s a pig in the mud with a bar of soap
it’s a loose board floor above the ceiling
it’s a quiz about the rules of laughing in the street
it’s a bucket of fertilized milk

it’s a telephone book full of nothing but zeros
it’s a zipper on the eyelid of a Frankenstein mask
it’s a fencepost hole waiting for a flood
it’s a sack of sandcastle sand

it’s a cracked rung ladder of fundamentalities
it’s a book of a thousand dimensions
it’s a flashlight battery left out in the rain
it’s a forest of petrified trees

it’s a bouncing baby in the House of Trampolines
it’s a mouse-nibbled chocolate chip cookie
it’s a Spanish guitar with 36 strings
it’s a blindfold backseat drive

it’s all these and more: a life without grace
a life without love, a name or a face

MANBOY

who can tell what Manboy say?
is he feeling better than who knows what
or is he not feeling worse than what knows who
wrecked on the rails, cracked up in the dust

praise be the Lord of Kingdom Come
Manboy pray to the Queen Salvation
Old Mother Flipper Flapper jump out of bed
say “Is that Manboy yakking on the phone?”

down by the river, standing on his head
is that Manboy working on a railroad kill?
Manboy looking like a loose caboose
give him a bucket of alphabet soup

spell out his name in three different colors
Manboy in blue, black, buttercup yellow
Old Mother Flipper Flapper hit the floor running
“Manboy, Manboy! I don’t understand (boy)”

THREE TONGUE PRAYERS

1. FLUTTERTONGUE’S PRAYER

jam my toe with a traffic footlight
stubble my chin with booze
rustle my skin with white tooth pastry
rubber my boots with hamsterooze

lock my jaw with a fife o’click shadow
bagpipe my shoes when I’m alone and away
and lost in a grove of bamboo boozlers
whoever they choose they never do pray

don’t stop to ponder
the wherehouse and whyfours
of witcher my hopeloops
and which are my doors

AMENAMENAMONALOOSER
HALLO LOOYAH TOOYOOTOO

2. DOUBLETONGUE’S PRAYER

shepherd away your flocks of cheap sheep
your flesh is not but a skin-deep pest
your span of hands a wheel of spin
your joke of speech spoken in jest

your tides of vibes a puff of bribe jobbery
your jabs of punch a clockface of mockery
your bibs of lobstop a lip of fast lappery
your ribbon of grits a cast of apastrophe

and now the leaks of your beaks
have become tom-tom foolery
and your tongue is taking over
your cheeks with balloonery

AMENAMOONAMOJOLOCO
AMENAMOOGABOOGAZOO

3. TRIPLETONGUE’S PRAYER

O Pendragon your slay mouth is penching
you grinder you growler you hippeous slave
do a quick something to something I’m stenching
I’m here all alone in this horridious cave

your bohemian cool your spontaneous ice
is melting my child right down to the brain bone
your gladbag utopia is a boogieville slumpjump
shabby repugnant a pain stone dump

O Draconio you black beat heartache
euphoria me with your face lift desire
bless me with religious ricochets
god me with your hot spit choir

iPIGANIGLOOCHOCKABLOCKADOO
uPAGANANNOMACHOHILLIBILLIDUD

DEATH TRAP DREAMS

put a little pill in your mouth
swallow it down
sleep comes eventually
you get 3 or 4 hours
if you’re lucky
no dreams
if you’re lucky

but sometimes you dream
sometimes you kill someone
strangle him to death
sometimes you get killed
bullet thru the head
goes in the back
pops out of your mouth
into your hand

or you get caught on stage
singing your songs
to an empty auditorium
that seats a hundredthousand
if you’ve got any sense
you’ll crawl out of that dream
and take another white pill

and hope you can sink
so far down
inside your devious mind
that those death trap dreams
will never touch you

August 2009

SOUTHPAW

did he die for his country?
for this? for that?
for one of those?
for three of these?

fearstripped
fandangled
fakefrozen
soon forgotten

swindled and sacked
“I Love a Lush”
drunken, despondent
“Ignore me a drink –
snowfun when you’re barely
shockwave born”

saluting the flag
the southpaw dips
into the pool of his pocket
pulls out a coin
with a goat head grinning
flashing golden in the sunlight
and a donkey’s rear end silver tail
slowly glowing
by the light of moon

he flips it high
it gets caught in a tree
where, tickled by wind
and mocked by owls,
the goat swallows his face
and the donkey, tail flicking
at fireflies,
trots forward
into a lunar eclipse

that’s not ironic
that’s just plain dumb luck

June 12, 2011

DEVIOUS DIGGERS

devious diggers
from the mine shafts
of the black earth
prowl thru the night
starved and wretchéd

they leave their collarbone
marks on the barks of trees
their tooth dents
on the wires of fences

they leave no footprints
for their feet are covered
with dirt so thick
the naked eye cannot penetrate
its gloomy boots

where are they going
these creeping creatures?
from hole to hole
from cave to cave
then back to hole
and back to cave
never into a house
with rugs and beds
never into a room
where rolls of toilet paper
and mirror reflections
remind them of their nightmares
except to pick the pocket
of a door or window
then back to creep
back to prowl
from shadow to shade
from dusk to dawn

they shun the sun
and feed upon the pulsations
of the moon

August 21, 2009

RODEO

smell of sawdust, sawed off shotguns
he sweeps the floor of the lantern lit barn
outside the horses are jumping to break free

truth is hard to come by (he says)
out in the crowds
there’s noise and confusion
death and paralysis
broken bones and scars

back in here there’s silence
and pile of regrets
bales of hay
and rocks of ages
outside the horses are jumping to break free

QUESTER AND THE HOUSE OF BELIEF

he suffers off a headache
reaches down the throat of a peacock cry
and pulls out a fistful of finger feathers
who among the believers
can say he is merely showing off?

with rolled-up sleeves and whiplashed eyes
he rides the rails into a redcloud sunset
listening to the crow radio over the wires
telling of last minute changes in the weather
in the waybeyond between
the Farther-Than-Distant Dreams
and the remote-controlled Distant Drums

to the Dreadful Gate he comes
and into the gulp of a garden beyond
gifted with green
he puffs a dandelion fuzz ball

he climbs the salted wall he climbs
into nopepperman’s land
sprinkled with Rackaburt Bach melodistic dramas
and mined with Alley Wooden undermoviegrounds

he tiptoes between rows of Melinda and Melinda
hops over a Vicky Christina Barcelona
brushes his aroused perpendicular
against a Purple Rose of Cairo
and steps into the Great Gullible Garden
filled with the vegetable novels
of 20th Century Americantos
and Anglo-Celtic Saxo-Scops
John Irving Watermelons
Nick Hornby Radishes
¬ Kurt Vonnegut Avocados
Lewis Carroll Carrots
James Joyce Artichokes
Jim Harrison Tomatoes
Jack Kerouac Lettuce
William Blake Beans

beyond a tubular tangle of Edgar Allen’s blackest berryvines
stubbornly stands the House of Belief
—a mere shackly shant
a cabin of wildwood logs and syrup
with its Lutheran roof and Judaic chimney
with its Baptist windows and Buddhist backdoor

he pumps up the balloons of his feet
and enters the Roman Catholic Kitchen
with its breadcrumb tables
and suffering crucifixion stove
where many heretical bodies lost their minds
among the fried onions and roasted chipolatas
the Theosophical refrigerator is packed and stacked
with Dead Sea Scroll fish and Coptic cottage cheese
and the Gospel According to Goatboy Mormon
is pasted to the wall below the Holy Roller calendar

he sleeps deep on the heart beds of Quaker Puffed Okies
rises up with the cackle-crows of the Mithraic Roosters
and sits pouched out on the front porch
his Gnostic chair knocked back against the whispering wall
his side-tracked feet propped on the Unitarian rail
as he eyeball-ganders the dirt road
that rumbles by from rightwest to lefteast
in the early mumbled light

he munches a breakfast harmonica
as he juggles his eye balloons
into the abundance of the fantastalistic landscape
“By Gollywog and Gonzo—what a mazemerism,”
he spitulates as he hoots a toot
into his mealy mouthly harp
and the road splits its side with laughter
as it opens wide to let a pair
of rumble and tumble tractors
hubcap to cup habit
muscle down the miracle mile
of dropstones cobbling from heaven

“I’ll be dangled and doodled,”
he exclapains in a tootled triad of F#
a minor minute later
“That there’s on expandimental
unimaxiverse.
Bring me my pendulum cam
and my fiddlesticklers three
and while you’re at it
toss in a candle cannon
and a missilebox of match prints— ”

but before he can cuss a close
to his redoubled triplequest
a B-flat bedroomtruck flashes past
on a four-lane low down highway
followed by a red dot
with a hondahump at the wheel
and a backshit full of untrained
toiletseated summer high warp and waratoios
a raw row of wheel meanines
on Harlimp Globtrogger Divasoons
mudbirdwagons and whistle machines
whispery whiplashed mumblemobiles
diamondback rustlers in cabs of taxidermy
and gnash rumblers behind the wheels
of Wheaties and Cheery Overs
heating ups ‘n downs in the faster lawless lane
while a crowding growl of electric musical chariots
grope-gang in the other waylanes
with their Gibsoneck Fluttertones
and Telegraphicasters
whammy bar riders in their Cadillac White Liners
Gate Crushers, Fender Benders, Vibrochamps
and a Stratocast of a thousand gashogs
coming around the mercenary bends
in Mock Insomniacs, Jeepo Toronto Pronto Forks
and big bang and bubble bath unbelievers
in Chevroletters with their radioloas
blistering boogie bouncer beats
and dragtime preacher stutters with serious salivations

and out of this messiasmic suck
of tickle tackle traffic
comes a Stucker Bumper Convertible
with good leapyear blimp tires
and tenderfoot pipestem exhaustibles
its radiation sputter blisterstinging singsongs
by the Burpentine Sistertudes
gobblespell rectum rousers by the Ditch Hikers
and salloongate loverlosers ballots
by Cumtree and Webster

the Stuck Bump swerves north by north
by northwest by west and abnormal west
plunger stabs its head ornament and hood lights
thru the stick fence into the front yard
of the House of Belief and stops on a dime
below the porch bringing the whole
fuckalucking freeway with it

the passenger stools inside wait
until the highway soaks into the ground
and disappears, then they pigeon out
and stamp their collected shoeboots
all over and under the gravel grass
the driver is a wheatnik from woodsneck
and his frost and lost name is Dust My Broom
his hiss wife, from the deepest regions
of the Free Smoke Spirit Zone
is a soccer mump with deepest apologetics
cog-named Junkie B. Hive
she waves a yoo-hoo fingernail flag
as her spoused-up hub climbs to the porch
flexing his thump prints
and snapping his gum jaw bubble
as he dead heads for the open odor door
Quester holds up his bankfast hands
“Stop rat there, bible brain – ” he sez
don’t you not or don’t you do believe
or do you behave and behalf
the lord of names in your veins?”
“Hop dangle,” sez the Dust, “I belief!”
“He don’t,” sez Junkie B. Hive
“Dust is a sacrapolygamous liar.”
sez Quester to the Dust
“That door is not for you
if you be not a buddlehest or less.”
“How much less?”
“Roman Cocolith?”
“Nerp.”
“Lutherquake or Baptarian Unit?”
“Norp.”
“Judamorm or Roller Holy Gnostic?”
“Thass me!”
“No t’aint,” squeaks Junkie, “You’re a Titathist.”
(whop?)
“Athis-a-Tit.”
(wherp?)
“Ahisstatitta.”
(wheet?)
‘Atheist!” Junkie cool cries and smooth screams
as Dust My Broom walks his antigonostic dogs
thru the no door and disappears into the House of Belief

something wicked and wild in the house
explodes with real light and blue smoke laughter
and the body parts of Dust My Broom
come flying out one by one by one
legrib and armlip
elthumbow and bellybuttonose
testicalung and hearteeth
necknee and haireye
chinear and penisbrain

“Holy Gulp!” says Junkie B
“These are my late late great great
death dead husband’s particular body parts!”
she picks up his bladdertongue in one hand
his liverectum in the other
“I always knew he was some kind
of pscychopathetic sombrero wrestler,”
she gloat beats in disfunctional slang
“Some kind of nude rattle trapper
a hood who’d come to an anthropokemorph exit.”

then she cometh hats off whistle clear hoop hoppin
into Quester’s lap of luxury
la-la-landing with a sneer and a snort
“Lee-lee-leep!” chuckleflips Quester
with half a lip and a lick of luck
as she slides to a stop
on his gear shirt gift guide
with a smear of laughter tide
and a bowl of mecca raw meat

“Is this what you be quess-quess-questing for?”
Quester sneaks a hairlipstick smile into the upside
downsize loopholes of his scenic scenario
near and far and sooner and later
think-think-thinking of all the spatial faces
and fundamental feet
he’ll be leaving behind the door
when he tosses in the towel
to this collector of stamped men
this much of a twitch
this hardnose soft shoulder mamalama
this tossed salad of tumblewheat and cactusprouts

“Yum,” he saith “Yep Yep” and “Yo Yo.”

“Hum,” she replieth with a short abort snort
“Hummeth ho ho and hoopa la-la loo.”

a one-horse mule trots by
in the dirt track road gloom
heading for his beast home in the east
and nobody knows what to say
or do
or anything

THE RIDDLE OF THE BARDS

and hast thou cowered in the dark-skin night?
blast your eyes and speak without spite
without a tumbled tongue on a twisted spit
did you hear the song of the flamethrow bird
that burned in the night or have you heard
too much hangfire on tongue spit words?

I thought I heard a trumpet
play the music of the spheres
I listened again and heard it was
a dump truck shifting gears

crosseyed challenges did you meet?
each muddy mile of each chaptered street
one was faceless, one had skin?
one was faithless, one lived in sin
did you see the one that was older than old
with nerves of steel and teeth of gold?

I thought I heard a voice
singing a gothic tune
I listened again and heard it was
a crude deflating balloon

Did you hasten to the puzzle parade?
I schmaltzed and schmoozed with the Drip Nose Kid
did you bait and booze with his stopwatch dogs?
I did when he bowed and opened the lid
did you raise your hands and say, “Don’t shoot!”
when he took out a bazooka and played it like a flute?

I thought I heard a dentist drill
destroying teeth at random
I listened again and heard it was
my country’s national anthem

did you hear the mocking baboon on the roof
chattering like a cuckoo clock?
he was out of control and running amok
and did you hear in the room below
the women come and the women go
speaking of the bitch from Tobacco Row?

I thought I heard a gypsy
shuffling a tarot deck
I listened again and heard it was
a moth bouncing off my neck

and where did you run you son of a witch?
did you ride your mule into tunnels of love?
across the border into the hills above
did you tan his hide with a pain bullwhip?
did he go berserk like a shithouse ape?
did he try to apply for Citizen Kaneship?

I thought I heard a jawharp
twanging in three quarter time
I listened again and heard it was
a ballet dancer with a crack in her spine

O drowsy you, you pin-up dude
will you tell me now your deep-dish wish
I will tell ye now my pent-up mood
know ye the sorrows of the tanked-up fish?
I’m aware that the ways a pop top punk
can become the habits of a low ditch drunk

I thought I heard a foghorn
warning the ships and boats
I listened again and heard it was
a frog with a tuba caught in his throat

did ye sink? did ye swallow the baited hook
of the sea chantey’s salted refrain?
avast! I was gone with mermaids a-swimming
we submarined back to the shore in the rain
did ye stand in the storm and take off your fins
before you removed the tattoos on your skin?

I thought I heard a shaman scream
at demons mean and nasty
I turned my head and saw it was
a buzzard buzzing past me

Did you play “name that tune” and “Let’s sing a song”
with lovers of Brahms and Bach?
Did Mozart come down from his perch in the tree tops?
did Mendelssohn stop and bother to knock?

I thought I heard an earthquake
coming from San Francisco
I listened again and heard it was
the drums of a distant disco

who done it then? who dubbed up the knot?
she writ it in code in the clocus she knit
did ye believe the steam of her whistle?
I held in esteem th’epistle she writ
did ye eat with abandon when up she served
tennis ball kabobs from the Bar-B-Q pit?

I thought I heard a boom box
in a car driving by
I listened again and heard it was
the blinking of an elephant’s eye

and where hast thou been my last but not least
child of the fairy begotten feast?
did you wither away or did you speak
with wisdom tooth tongue in cheek?

I dreamed I was a butterfly
that hovered above a lake
I dreamed again and found I was
a wind-spinning bit of cornish flake

July 4, 2011

THE SONG OF JIM JOYICITY

t’was bristol-tamed the sleepy mauves
the ultra fishly carbon coves
when fox-bred Chaucer paved the way
and Jim Joyicity saved the day

t’was writ flesh fettered ‘pon a page
the Book of Breedings Orphan Age
while Jake and Chain slaved away
and Jim Joyicity saved the day

a birdland’s worth of wordly wax
cut by wooden chopper’s ax
the handles of snow-driven sonnets lay
and Jim Joyicity saved the day

omens, ovens and overbite spawn
across the brink of dusted dawn
upon the veldt where the Shell did play
and Jim Joyicity saved the day

water pipe music on Whipsumtide
druids drunk the roosters ride
while Willy shook and speared the way
and Jim Joyicity saved the day

Milcartoon with cowcuff wheels
on Blindman’s Bluff showed the steals
while Evil Sis pelved down to pray
and Jim Joyicity saved the day

scoundrelized and scandalized
the opera beggars damned his eyes
Anna Mule Lee soothed Jay Gay
and Jim Joyicity saved the day

as Farmer Frosty slopped his hogs
the churchyard drummers loft their logs
and played upon a tom tom grey
and Jim Joyicity saved the day

cooler’s star-crossed albatross
blasphemy and bondage tossed
the brims of brutality were brought to bay
and Jim Joyicity saved the day

Blake the Bloke did Albion praise
did squelch the fear that Satan raised
befuddled the dooms of demons at play
and Jim Joyicity took the day off

son of Robins, Jeffers kid
dwelled among the rock and hid
from public taste and moral chaste
while Jim Joyicity shrugged the waste

as Walt “The Salt” waltzed the pave
and Artistic Rainbow shaped the shave
Jim Joyicity jesus-saved
the day by turning wine to word

Bruno and his Portuguese
scraped the rust from armored knees
from Paris-Seine to Paraguay
while Jim Joyicity saved the day

falling star and mandrake root
mermaids singing in cowboy boots
Dapper Donne delved in Breugel’s hay
and Jim dropped back to save the day

Dylan the Thomas connected the dots
shipwrecked on bottled what-me-nots
while back in the good ol’ Useless A
Jim Joyicity saved the day

Hank Lang Fallow of Guildersleeve
whose ableboobied Angel Eve
overbegged her shoe drag stay
and let Jim Joyicity save the day

Bubblebutt Yeast widened the gyre
he coped the cabana with a truck of fire
with Crazy Jane and a burning tire
while Jim Joyicity saved the choir

T.S. Elevate blazed the trail
with J.Al Proofug on his tail
and by the wag along the way
Jim Joyicity saved the day

Ezra pounded Ezra blood
ripped the tide, slide ruled the mud
with swordfish pen and radio wave
but Jim Joyicity had days to save

Byrunner Junior lordly aped
locked in love for lustless rape
the bald soprano maid’s toupee
and Jim Joyicity saved the day

Wally Steve untamed the goat
shipwracked Baudelaire unbunged the boat
and brought on deluge without delay
and Jim Joyicity saved the day

heaven wept at Squeezebox’s birth
both feet planted in Gaia’s earth
one foot of inches, one foot of clay
and Jim Joyicity saved the day

Emily Dicks unwound the binds
of string and twigs re-entered twined
Sir Bobbly burned and broomed the brae
and Jim Joyicity saved the day

thunderclap – and crumbling sand
hush, caution, echoland
Finnegan speak, what that he say?
let Jim Joyicity save the day

while poets deaf shook eucalyptus
Jim amassed the leaves and thus
with a cup of kindness, a pinch of tae
he went right out and saved the day

he footinmouthed our dark disturb
he languaged up our nounish verbs
and more than this he would not say
and that’s how Jim Joy saved the day

September 2011

WALT WHITMAN PSYCHOTICALLY RE-INCARNATED

I am the Coloradios of your Missouri miseries
the tongueless hunger of your Texamestical tribes
the Randomichigan towns and the egg centriangular cities
of your Mysticalifornia rain bones
your Nevada fatigue, your Montana wild hacker sacks
your Oklahomosexuals and your Illinoise makers

I am the Ohio Silver, I’m the Minnesoda Pop
your Kentucky Zimmerman, your West Virginia Wolff
I’m a Floridaddy Longlegs, your last Idahope
play along with me on my Alabamarimba

we’ll paddle down the Mississippi Ripper in a gnomic Alaskanoo
we’ll lick up Mississippi-peanut butter with a Washingtongue
we’ll go Dela-anywhere you want to Chica-go
slow slow into Nude Mezzococo

PISS DOG

“Piss dog piss against the lamp post in passing.”
Gertrude Stein, Everybody’s Autobiography

hang dog hang from the gate
above the path to the Lamp Post Park
hang down hang down
your tail dipped in blood
don’t look don’t look
into my eyes
with your dead dog eyes
don’t look I don’t need
those dead dog eyes
those teeth dripping blood
I don’t need I don’t need
your permission to pass
I pass I pass on the path
into the Lamp Post Park
I stop I stop looking
into your dead dog eyes
as I pass I pass and touch
your dead dog tail
dipped in blood I pass
and I piss against
the lamp post in passing

DOG & CAT (a love story)

he crossed the bridge on the bus
and worked for dog prices
he worked for less than popcorn heat
he was a mugshot gunshyster

she was an artist
of chipper smasmodics
with head to foot skin bags
she was a fat-hop copy cat

he sat astride a saddle stool
in the Dog Eat Doggie diner
she served him a plate
of deeply forked domesticated food

he looked at her thru pale eyelids
from north of the nettle line
she looked back from the south
blinking stop signs of neo-botany

he was long in the tooth
she was short in the rib
he had marbles between his teeth
she flicked the tail of a long pony ride

he was a poker doll belly chaser
she was blessed with bones
he beeswaxed with the best
she was stuffed with gut reactions

he stuck out his global tongue
and sputtered for a chunk of love
she flipped a greasy spoon
into the smashing machine

hand in hand they strolled
up and down a street with a name
to her sub-urban shack
under the aqua ducktruck overpass

“I’ll cry you a bucket
of red gum honey drops”

“I’ll catcall up a whooping troop
of Little Red Riding Hoots”

“You’ll be my operatic bar of soap”

“And you’ll be my live wire chicken fire”

she went to bed and said her prayers
with her large size head
and her small-time heart on tenderhooks
“I don’t die, I dream and divide!”

he drum stuck his fiddle stick
he doggy diddled with his piggy paddle
she doodled in the drool
of his double-jointed chin

“You’re a down home monkey forker!”

“And you’re a dog-eared knuckle thruster!”

“And you’re a triple-take mudder!”

“And you’re a kidglove catnapper”

“And you’re a straight arrow cupidophile!’

“And you’re a cramp in the crook of my canyon tool!”

she closed her cathouse door
and chased 3 blind mice
up and down and around the clock
with a witch blade curving knife

he trotted home to his pup tent
thru a cat & dog rain
he was just in time
to watch a re-run of the Toilet Bowl

July 18, 2011

PREFAB SLUT

he’s not so hot, he’s a one-shot goon
with his rundown heels and his freelance gloom
she’s not got a lot in her doggie bag gut
he could do a lot worse than a prefab slut

yeah! yeah! he’s down in a rut
walking the dog in his prefab slut

he’s a belly poker joker with his dial on wild
she’s a camptown hooker with a wino-born child
she has him moaning as he grinds out a groan:
“I’m working my butt right down to the bone.”

hey! hey! right down to the bone
in the prefab slut’s tow-away zone

she’s got big feet and a flat top wig
she talks like a chicken, she walks like a pig
he’s got a chainsaw dick and a pump action butt
he’s in love with his prefab slut

yeah yeah she’s driving him blind
wait till you see what she does to his mind
he’s dancing to the music of Fats Domino
with his prefab slut on slide piccolo

MURDER MYSTERIOUS

and how diet she did?
by stranglelobotomy?
by bulling hanglet?
by noise and pife?

nay she was whooped
by a burped bi-circlular pumpo

and wore did she expire?
was it in a thwart?
was it in a pestabud?
was it in wax napalm?

nay it was in klatschenook
at halfpassed forty three

and hoot was the murmurdeer?
was it Rip the Jacket?
was it the Stranston Boggler?
was it Killy the Bib?

nay it was Numb De Plump
with his plum de dumb
and his nude de ploomp

LOGGERHEADS AND JAMPACKS

what are loggerheads to be
at loggerheads with?
this goes beyond language look
at the way we get
tongue-tied into silences
look but don’t speak

and don’t talk to me
about jampacks
jampacked this
or jampacked that
and if you think it’s funny
then think again
take away the jampacks
and try to laugh

nobody laughs
at the deadheads
coming back home
big empty square
pockets of air
(don’t laugh)
bumping thru the night
on the rails
a duck feather
floating in the void
migrating south
tho the rest of its body
is surrounded by buns
of white bread and slabs
of cheese and rotten lettuce
as an obese teenager
outside Big Boy Burgers
slides the mummified
sandwich between his fat lips
the feather continues
to float hoping to catch up
with the rest of the flock

jukejoints are funny
that’s where the toe bone
is connected to the neck bone
and the knuckle bone
is connected to the trombone
and the slapdash is connected
to the loggerhead

NO MIRACLE

the reckless they race
against the sucking grip of gravity
across the rooftops
they stumble on drain pipes they trip
on chimneys they tumble
thru sky lights into rooms
where men full of surprises
sit around in woman-shaped chairs
with dust in their hair
and absolutely no faces at all
behind their feeble disguises
while the women stand
up against the walls
holding white umbrellas
which they furl and unfurl
flashing out words
which read together
spell out a newspaper headline:
TREE CALLS FOREST A BULLY

enter The Druid
he’s got wings on his fingers
and his thumbs are on backwards
“Do I fumble? Do I weave
a coat without a tattered sleeve?”
the words escape his mouth
into his fingers
flipping and flapping
pouncing and pointing
at the tears he’s tossing
from the tips of his hair
he might have a card up his sleeve
or no sleeve at all
“Do I tremble? Do I curse
this muddled clod of tear-stained earth?”
he walks to the beat
of the Sleepwalkers’ Serenade
shapes a prayer
with his hot cross bones
into a parade of dust drum echoes
(“amen”)
(“amen”)
(“amen”)
(“amen”)
“Do I grumble? Do I grieve
this tear-stained earth that I must leave?”
his grin reveals teeth
grown inside out

the umbrellas spin:
TREE GIVES FOREST A BAD NAME

lingering in the heartbeat
of a row of ancient oaks
we glide beneath their leaves
our fingers crossed
our eyes shuttered
our shoulders hunched against
the rising of the moon

the umbrellas spin again:
TREE CALLS FOREST A LIAR

we drag a cloud of shadows
gathered from our journey
to a ring of sequoias
at the edge of time
“Talk to me,” one says, “Tell me where you’re going.”
“To the west,” we say, “Toward the setting sun”

“That’s it?”
“Were you expecting a miracle?”

TWISTING THE ROPE (YEATS)

I caught them as they dropped
from the snaggle tooth maw
they fell into my arms
undercomplicated and slumbering docile

I stuffed them on lamb chops
and slipped them a name
they jumped up and danced
down the windows to the floor

I filled them with music
the old Stravinsky beat
the ragtime hustle
of piano meat stew

I took them to the airport
and strapped them into parachutes
watched them jump out
into a cloud of mosquitoes

I caught them as they dropped
thru a sky full of rainbows
they fell into my hands
half their normal size

THE SHAPESHIFTER’S LAMENT

1.
the master of quick disguise
being at one with the world
into the air he tossed his hat
clicked his heels
and down it came: a cat
with nine tails and one
far-flung tongue it lapped
up the milk of kindness
tho misery got tangled in its
whiskers like the drift
of the winter’s first snow

they came in from the fog
chained to their dogs
the Dancing Devils
Sugar-Free Road Show
they puffed up a tent
charged ten bucks a head
and the people flocked
to be baptized in the wine
molten with lead
they crossed the line
into the Land of the Dead
into the tent they went
on slow motion legs
like sheep in a row
they had no place else to go

2.
angels with babies
slingshooting boys
old men with rusty knees
with inner tube gaiters
and balloon-leg cows
worn out women
in hardware store jewelry
shower curtain rings
in their nipples
and nails in their eyebrows

they came in a flood
by foot and by god
they filled up the hall
of the Blind Barber’s Guild
they all carried books
the titles the same
“Salvation or Revenge?”
and the name of the man
who wrote it was Sam
Sam the Shame the sipper of soup
from the Café Undertow
he sat in the smoke
with his face in the fumes
there was no place else to go

3.
the unsung soprano of art and arias
being a tease and a bother to boot
had no idea of the fuzz
she left behind in her wake
as she geared down
for stoplights and crosswalks
and sunsets at half-past nine
out at the drive-in, right thru the screen
it smashed into her eyes, she crawled
up inside her Spanish sombrero
there was no place else to go

4.
the amused digestor of gossip
being a drinker of sweet-tooth booze
sat in the corner by the window
and looked out upon people
with straight legs and dotted eyes
crossed fingers and tickets
to the Exercise Room
full of weights and measures
pulley ropes and muscle machines
displays of courage and spinning
screwdrivers of hope
while tooth grinders and monkey shiners
dead beat dreamers ran by in the street
with snow in their hair and tinsel on their toes
at a break-nose pace with fog in their faces
on their way to the end of the rainbow
there was no place else to go

5.
“You’d be surprised,” he said
“The things I’ve heard, the words
I’ve fed into my brain
some had edges like beaks of birds
some had rakes like the thorns of a rose
some went down smooth
like cremated ashes
with a sniff of the nose, a snip and a snort
a slap of eyelashes
and the punks in the funny pink jump suits
and the moon-gazing goons
were out at the town limit sign
digging holes in the cornfield
and planting seeds of intergalactic
space ships, that’s what I heard
never saw them myself
saucers will be grown and ready to fly
back to Orion when the leaves start to die
when the frost hits the pumpkin
they’ll head for that star hanging below
there will be no place else to go.”

6.
the loose lip translator of bottled notes
being at home in the tricksters’ cave
going to seed, growing weeds
groping for flesh and bone needs
with a clenched fist
called for his cane
changed his first name to Mister
the last to something that rhymes with Joe
born on the loose
a long time ago
his neck in a noose
his pockets full of keys
to the doors of the palace
he waterfalls to his knees
mutters a prayer
that sounds like a deep freeze
warming up slow
there is no place else to go

7.
being a tongue-tied tamer of beasts
at one with four-legged creatures
split-lip and hairy-armed apes
she took it easy, at first like a breeze
then she showed up at the gates
of Geronimo’s Graveyard
where the leopard skin sky
sinks into the trees
joins the grass to the earth
and the eyes to the light

they said she was all hype
a plug for a game she played with a voice
that surfed the waves of an old radio
but she knew better, she went in, had a bite
there was no place else to go

8.
being a tourist with a decent tan
and a hair-oil accent
and being at opposite ends of the room
at the same time
he popped out of his clothes, leaped out of his head
went berserk until half past nine
fingernails in the wallpaper, death kicks
at the clocks, songs on the stereo
about the pleasures of weather, mouth open
lips flapping he’s back in the steady
downpour of snow
he crawls into a bag
sleeps himself into a dream
called I Don’t Know Nothing
but I Know that I Know that I Really Don’t Know
there was no place else to go

9.
being a measureless sort of good natured goof
his clothes never fit, shirt sleeves too short
pants bagged around his bedroom slippers
a grin behind a toothpick, he’d wiggle it
up and down in his mouth, swallow, smile
let it pop back out, tricks for the kids
and slow-witted pigeons on their stools
by the bar, from a bag of candy he’d scatter
peppermints and finger prints
gum drops and animal cracker pork chops
“Used to be a postman,” he spoke
his words boring holes into wooden ears
“Delivered the mail, ran down the streets
with dog jaws attached to the seat of my pants
it’s never what you think it looks like
or what it’s going to be when you get to the end
of the road, to the last mailbox
made from an alligator skull, you slip
in a postcard, it groans, ‘Come on in
take a load off the dogs,’ so you stumble
up the path fumble at the flap
of a teepee full of smoke and shadow
you step into the pool
and you’re trapped from tail to toe
there is no place else to go.”

10.
Jack Knife and Jaw Bone
a pair of bull thugs
with tongue-twisted mugs
and ear-plug sockets
with faces of sand
and hands full of pockets
dived into the belly of the Jellyfish Sea
locked arms with the tide
and floated on foam
saw the smoke-bit sun
sink into the cream
as the moon popped up
from a stone-thrown cloud

and when they came out
they were Jack Pot and Lock Jaw
no razor back blade bone
the sleeves of their shirts filled with straw
hands spinning round on the ends of their wrists
their feet bunched up into soul-punching fists
they sniffed their snouts in buckets of dope
they babbled for survival
they humpbacked for hours
they lumped and they limped
they slashed thru their trash with miles of wet rope
then they picked up their junk
and went down to Skid Row
there was no place else to go

11.
Mr and Mrs Mutt
walking on rugs of roast beef
and ruts of cigarette butts
entered a tubular tunnel
pushing rubber supermarket carts
they loaded up on corned horse
radish rootbeer boots
canned dimples, jammed hognuts
gopher guts and hangdog hearts

and when they came out
the other end
they were Sausage One and Two
no foot zero, skins of blue
they paused before the groaning door
of the Half Moon Saloon
NO DUCKS ALOUD said the mouth of the sign
and KEEP YOUR X-RAYS TO YOURSELF
they waited in line with the damned, the divine
then they picked up their tubes
and rolled into the cave
into a crowd of fundamental foe
of fiddlers, faggots and runaway slaves
of cross-eyed jugglers and big-toed buffalo
there was no place else to go

12.
Dragstrip Deacon and Glasspack Tuck
rolled into town on the edge of a dream
they came to the cages of the machine museum
they came burning rubber, they came moving slow
their hearts were on fire, they had nothing to show
but a handful of dirt and an “I told you so.”
they hop-skip and jumped
they stumbled, they rumbled
they thumped on their drums
with broken-bone thumbs
they came in their cars with Muddy and Bo
they had no place else to go

13.
spoiled by words, wrecked on rhyme
Blackskin Chew Mom and Jungle Jim McNasty
bubbled their bottles down into a hole
where they rolled and rocked in puddles of wine

a week of days later
they were flapping their lips
and shouting goodbye
to a cloudless sky
as they waved hello
to a burping volcano
there was no place else to go

14.
boy, we had fun with that elephant gun
bottles of tomato juice and cans of spam
splattered all over the backyard fence
that’s what you do with traitors and spies
with liars and guys
who dance with your girlfriend
at your big sister’s wedding

you take them down to the Hunchback Dump
and teach them a lesson with various whips
and rifles with flesh-rip bullets
shoot them full of holes
and give them a spanking
they’ll come out thanking you
bowed down and humble
broken and busted like the springs
on a two-dollar hotel bed
half-dead, half-rusted
they’ll whisper, “Forgive me,”
then limp back out
to the road to hell
full of hot flesh intentions
they’ll rumble their guts
with a deadly smell
then paving their graves down they’ll flow
like a shit creek on fire
in a burning forest glow
they’ll say, “Good thing we made it,
good thing we’re here
there was no place else to go.”

15.
two men taking turns
on the big hurdy gurdy
one a genius from the Brooklyn Bridge
the other a slob from Texas or worse
made some last-minute changes
to their feet and their faces
then went back cranking the string box
and thanking the stars in their eyes
and the human-shaped shadows
hanging over Rue Desperado
“Good thing we stayed,”
they sang as they played
The Ballad of Jekyll and Hyde
“There was no place else to go.”

Mas Trilles, March 2009

TATTERDEMALIONS
(MADAME BOVARY PAGE 137)

I’ll be back if it’s too crowded for you today
if you’re too busy whipping traitors and translators
or so worried about going psychobobble up
that you hide your eyes from your brain
by carrying them around in a little black box
with BUBBLE DANCERS printed on the side

stitch up the skin flaps that cover your ears
so you won’t have to listen to the starving yodelers
who gather on your roof after midnight
and go “Oof!” everytime the bells bang them in the balls

pay no mind to the horse-whipped riff raff
marching thru the slapfest of your mud-plugged streets
ignore the thugs in Drugstore Alley
who spend their cash on rubber dogs and oven mitts
who collect thermometers and empty garbage cans
they are not part of your everydaydreams

and don’t mention the Freaks, the off-spring of Shrieks
and Geeks the marriage of whom was cursed in the bowels
of Mother Earth long before we sailed the oceans
deep-sea dived beneath the waves
and made friends with the whales and the dolphins
long before we signed the sharks
to lucrative murder deals
and promised the octopus
that he’d be on the Republican ticket
at the next Democrat convention

as for the kites attached to your eyelids
untie the strings and pull them in
roll them into knots
and stuff them in your pocket
it’s that easy

FURTHERMORE WHISPERS FROM THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS

threnodic shadows, oracular lamentations
they fill the world
with accelerate tempo

rampant pedophilia and smash mouth religions
they poison the light waves
and deafen our ears into silence

voracious appetites and visually-transmitted diseases
have us down on our knees
begging to have our hands
nailed to the floor

obscured by clouds, illuminated by rainbows
we shout to tempt the sky
down into our eyes

  

THE UNBLINKING EYE LOOKS DOWN FROM THE SKY

THE BLACK BIRD TREE

love meet love
and who meet me?
love go round
the blackbird tree

love go who?
love go why?
thick meet thin
and there go I

last but least
but not too fast
love comes out
as I go past

love comes first
then comes thin
thick turns ’round
and goes back in

seems to be
too much for me
so I climb back up
the blackbird tree

I sit and look
at the sky
clouds fall down
as love flies by

Sept. 6, 2009

AMUSED & AMAZED

you’d be surprised
you’d be amazed
if I stood up and waved
and turned the wind to gossip

you’d be amused
you’d probably laugh
but what I choose
to share with her
is not what I choose
to share with him

and what I choose
to keep to myself
keeps me immune
from rainy days

and if the moon
grew wings
and started to fly
I’d be surprised
I’d be amazed

I’d be amused
and probably laugh
if the moon
closed one eye
and started to cry

Le Pont de Reynès Feb. 10, 2008

APOLOGISTIC

I take it back, I take it back
I beg, I pray, apologize
I crawl across your mercy
my gratitude, my lies

you cannot take it back, you fool
the damage has been done
you broke the rule, you brutal fool
blinded by the setting sun

I take it back, the broken strings
the stolen wheel spoke
the insect’s fuzzy feeler
dipping into smoke

you cannot take it back, you fool
you cannot spread your lies
my tears will never flow, you fool
back into my eyes

CASINO (Sister Can You Spare a Dime?)

he said, “Fuck, I’m all out of luck.”
she said, “Look I’ll give you a buck.”
he said, “Fine we’ll call it a loan.”
she said, “You’ll pay me back when we get back home.”

he said, “Better make it ten. I might need more
by the time we get to the liquor store
she said, “Shoot, I’m all out of loot.”
he said, “I think you got some in the bottom of your boot”

she said, “Right, it’s down in my underwear
he said, “I’ll take whatever you can spare.”
She said, “Oh wait, I can spare nine.”
he said, “Great, can you spare a dime?”

ADVICE TO WIVES OF COMPOSERS (AND SONGWRITERS AND SCULPTORS AND PAINTERS AND POETS AND FILM MAKERS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS AND POTTERS AND ALL OF THE ABOVE AND SO MANY MORE)

he’ll never love you
as much as you’d like
he loves someone more
he’s in love with a whore

he calls her his muse
but that’s a disguise
for her and her sisters
there’s a least three or four

when she calls, he drops
everything and runs
it might be midnight
under a high noon sun

he needs her more
than she needs him
but she too has needs
she has devious whims

don’t get in her way
for she can be
a handful of trouble
or a sweet melody

so go back to sleep
there’s nothing you can do
she’ll stay for an hour
or a day or two

then she’ll give him back
to you in one piece
and then she’ll be gone

January 1, 2010

THE GODS ARE NOT RELIABLE

I.
we asked for a Matthew
we asked for a Luke
they sent us Sweet Baby James
we asked for a king
we asked for a duke
they sent us Jolly John Wayne

we asked for a driver
we asked for a guide
they told us an old dirty joke
we asked for a refund
we asked for redemption
they sent us a jumbo size coke

we asked for a menu
we asked for a sign
they sent us a telephone book
we asked for a look
at the end of all time
they sent us a worm-baited hook

we asked for bread
we asked for soup
they sent us a kung fu chop
we asked for a chance
at true romance
they sent us the twist and the bop

we danced for hours
we prayed for rain
they sent us a gargoyle with egg on its face

II.
we asked for Jesus
we asked for a Christ
they sent us a punk named Paul
we asked for relief
from partial belief
they sent us a solid brick wall

we asked for a pair
of one-size-fits-all
they sent us a telescope strap
we asked for some dope
to ease the pain
they sent us a boatload of chimpanzee crap

we asked for a mirror
we asked for a map
they told us a story about bugs in our ears
we begged for laughter
we prayed for a smile
they sent us a cup of elephant tears

we asked for a place
in hardback history
they sent us to California to buy animal hides
we asked for an appointment
with hands-on healers
they sent us free tickets to the bumper car rides

we asked for a Kilroy
they sent us a killjoy
and ruined our lives with a Joe named Blow

III.
we asked for a drink
we asked for tequila
they sent us a cork dipped in tar
we asked for a moment
alone with our thoughts
they sent us a stringless guitar

we asked for a broom
we asked for a fork
they sent us a spoonful of fog
we asked for a moment
of memorial silence
they sent us a farting frog¬¬

we asked for whipped cream
we asked for wild honey
they sent us a bucket of ice
we asked for an anti-
ageing device
they sent us a t-shirt soaked in Old Spice

we asked to be free
from gravity’s rule
they sent us a hole in the ground
we asked for directions
to the mouth of the south
they sent us the long way around

IV.
and when we got back
we asked them what for?
they sent us a wind from the west
we asked for a coat
to protect us from the cold
they sent us a yellow jacket nest

we asked for music
to tickle our toes
they sent us a bird that chirped
we asked for a song
about heroes and monsters
they opened their mouths and burped

we asked for donations
for victims of famine
they sent us a hangman’s rope
we begged forgiveness
for a couple of mistakes
they sent us a stamped self-addressed envelope

we asked for a glimpse
of our future and fate
they sent us a busted TV
we asked for world peace
and the end of all war
they sent us back to ten thousand B.C.

Vallespir (France), 2010-2011

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE
said a sign upon a wall
I climbed up and saw a bunch of men
kicking a rubber ball

THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE
said a sign upon the ground
I picked it up and saw beneath
a tiny merry-go-round

THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE
said a sign across the street
I crossed and saw a footprint
of a wolf in wet concrete

THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE
said a billboard in the night
I looked behind and ran into a man
who asked me for a light

THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE
said a sign on a pack of cigarettes
I looked inside and saw a dozen
microscopic lobster nets

THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE
said a sign on a milk carton
I looked inside and saw a nude
picture of Dolly Parton

THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE
said a book’s title page
I looked inside and read about
a rat in a blue cheese cage

THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE
said the sign on the marquee
I went inside and saw a film
about downtown Tennessee

THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE
said a blinking neon sign
it was pointing to Winston Churchill
who was sniffing turpentine

THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE
said a newspaper headline
I looked inside and read about
Churchill’s turpentine

THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE
was the name on a cereal box
I looked inside and saw a bat
and a Twentieth Century Fox

I came to a wide window
where a woman cried a curse
I looked inside and saw it was
THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE

THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE

THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE
said a sign upon a door
I went inside and found my shadow
nailed to the floor

THREE LINES

what I want to do is think
and what I think I want to do
is look at you

October 10, 2009

RUN ME DOWN

run me down to Dover
toss me in the sea
catch me in a net
drag me til I’m soaking wet

run me down to Chinatown
and make a fool of me
til I forget the alphabet
from A to B to C

run me down to Wonderland
stuff me down a hole
let me abide among the folk
who worship the gopher mole

run me down to Xanadu
where the hell is Xanadu?
halfway between the worst of me
and the better of the best of you

run me up a flagpole
salute my wiggling toes
dot my blinking eyes
underline my twitching nose

run me down to Bohemia
believe me when I say
I’m just a lonesome cowboy
all the way from yesterday

run me down to Vatican
toss me to the pope
I’ll show him how we pray
in the land of Old Bob Hope

run me down your list of names
call me Barn or Baldie
I’ll take my red head violin
and revive your dead Vivaldi

fly me down to Rio
in Frank Sinatra’s shoes
I’ll play the bossa nova
with Barack o’Bam kazoos

run me ragged, run me blind
all the way from A to Z
but don’t forget that I’ll be back
to run the Mississippi

rip me up to heaven
to rest in fat angelic peace
farm fresh eggs and tap dance legs
will be my sacrilegious feast

MOPPING UP WITH A MAP

you watch my back, I’ll watch your cash
I hate your money, it’s disgusting trash
so maybe I’ll watch your wife instead
follow her up, watch her sleep in bed
that suits me fine, I always like fun
but don’t forget I’m packing a gun
so if you knock on the door
and you hear a shot you’ll know the score
don’t come in we’ll be quite wrapped up
in esoteric forms of unmapped tup
can’t be disturbed or you’ll be surprised
with a high-speed bullet between your eyes
you’ll say, “What the hell is going down?”
I’ll say, “The oldest dance – the Mess Around.”
you’ll say, “Where’s my wife? Where’d she go?”
I’ll say, “Hiding in the closet with a guy named Moe.”
it won’t be true, but what the fuck
I’ll improvise and with some luck
you’ll be convinced that everything
is hunky dory and rite as spring
as a matter of fact I told a lie
you watch my back, I’ll watch you cry

DARWIN’S THEORY SIMPLIFIED

I squirt
she jump
I dump
she flinch
we sigh
we cry
we die

RE GENESIS

I turn away from lust and folly
(but folly’s jolly and lust’s a must)
I hang my head in pills of sleep
I’m a bathtub baby if I’m not too deep
I swing from vine to vine to thorn
wake me up when I get born
there you go, here I stand
a smiling childing hand in hand
here I grow, there you droop
sucking up your moustache soup
one last thing before I die
rub the flames from out of my eyes
and put them into those of a new born child
then stand back, man, and watch him go wild

LOST TIME MACHINE

a friend of mine built a time machine
we said we might as well give it a try
so we took it up to the top of a tree
climbed in, shut the door and pretended to fly

we made time stand still, not a moment passed by
when we opened the door and looked at the sky
they were shooting rockets into the clouds
it was either a war or the 4th of July

we closed the door and kept on going
back in time to where we saw a man
with wheels on his feet and face like a fish
and the flag of Atlantis in his web-finger hand

we jumped back inside and headed for home
but we made a mistake and went too far
got stuck in a place where people were crazy
no one could walk, they could only drive cars

but we finally got back to the top of the tree
jumped out of our time machine
climbed down hit the ground and it’s there that we found
we’d lost fifty years, we were now seventeen

HE GOES ROUND

he goes “Hey’
and I go “What?”
and he goes “Wow!”
and I go “Not.”

he goes “When’
and I go “Where?”
and he goes “Here!”
and I go “There.”

he goes “Cool.”
and I go “Hot”
and he goes “Get it?!”
and I go “Got.”

he goes “When.”
and I go “Forever”
and he goes “Now?”
and I go “Never.”

Céret, February 15, 2009

  

RIPPED LIP TRIPS

BED HEADS / DEAD HEADS / RED HEADS / BREAD HEADS

thundering around like half-deflated
rubber ping pong balls inside my head
bouncing off my skull walls
pinball tilting my nerve-wracked tongue

who said?
you said

mug wump
rug bump

stump head
bug lump

slug jump
plug dump

said who?
said you

jug head
crud tub

stub stud
spud thud

fud mud
skud rump

gump dud
dub blump

pog bog
slum slog

flub club
hog smug

fug hump
shrug slump

JAWBONE (THE HISTORY OF AN ARTIST)

1. Bum
2. Slum
3. Plug
4. Jug
5. Mob
6. Snob
7. Fade
8. Burn
9. Ash
10. Trash

CHOPPING LIST

punderance
peasal
lento
porca l’oca
sloop
plinth
pastizanno
le zoons
breeder
mostly
limpeed
l’eau de futé
muscalub (large size)
frizzburl (½)
whammowaste
fleeceberry
jonquilts
andoo
gramish andoo
chuttle andoo
leak of limp
clockus
twankadilly (frozen)
shap naff
quilko (bonkette)
domini (2)
jusqu’à juice
cliff-on booth
tuscaripper
tifkin
firebachs (1 doz.)
rawrunzel
nomite (meridiso nomite)
rath-doodeheever choplocks
unknee
sopa (zo-app)
plainchute trois
outdice
hoberjeans (3 lbs.)
x-raid tedamoans
krokro
yep vesters

Ceret, January 11-12, 2010

BROKEN RAILS

1.
rappervertigoober
bermudavinchicano
canomadrigalileotardenial

2.
wordofmouthwash
washboardinghouseholdname
namedroppingpong

3.
crossroadrunnerup
upsydaisychain
chaingangsterility

4.
townhallmarketopolo
logocartwheelandtoejampackrat
rat-a-tattletale

5.
windbagatellephone
phonecallgirlfriendshipofools
foolsgoldrushhourmaninhavanaheim

6.
pumpernickelandimenovel
noveltyshoparoundrobin
robinhoodlumberjackintheboxershortcutthroat

7.
cloudnineteenthholeinone
onenightstandupcomicbookendemic
demijohnnycomesmarchinghomeopathic

8.
cinnamondaynightclubsandwich
witchhunterraindropkick
kickboxingdaybreakdownrightwing

9.
minotaurushourglass
glassblowerclassified
fidolcevitabasco
copernicustardpieintheskydive

10.
shoehornetwork
workoutsidewindervishnu
nuclearenergeewhizz

11.
dutchtreatise
isoldacapo
polaristanbulletprooftoptengallonhatrick

12.
charmageddon
donationalguardorchestra
translucentrifugaloshes

13.
phenominalleycat
cataloggerheadstart
tartarsausagerollercoaster

14.
stereoklahomasonic
sonicboomeranglepoise
poisoniveenecktieparty

15.
saltydogmazurkarate
teepeepingtombola
latinovenburlesque

16.
snookeradishwaterfront
frontalobeliskinheadlock
lockoutstripoffbeatnik

HEART BROKEN NOSE (BLUESRAIL ONE)

jamboreebochlavatar babybluewhale
magneticnorthodox pyramiddlefingernail
vaporubberbootcamp firecrackerjacurtail
otisreddingjailhouse rockingchairmail
grandslamdunkindonut shellactose
lollipopcornedbeef heartbrokenose

sweetpeaccockatoo lipsticktacodip
obi-wonderfullbright wingdingbattleship
mobscenicrootbeer bellyupperlip
burgerkingdomnibus trip . . . pokerchip
maggiemayflowerpower lunchgardenhose
lollipopcornedbeef heartbrokenose

loosecannonballgame setmatchbookmark
pumpkinpioneerbeer bellylaffinthedark
lumberjaccuzi bathtubbalardvaark
christchurchilipepper mintjuleopardshark
standupcomicstripshow busybodyblows
lollipopcornedbeef heartbrokenose

accidentalflossmosis tericalliflowerpot
tinrooftopofthepop starbuckshottentot
dallasinwonderland filtertipcamelot
tortillaflatbrokenenglish littlebrownjuggerknot
dixielandgrabbitter sweetpotatomatos
lollipopcornedbeef heartbrokenose

condomainstreetlightning strikestaggerlee
mothergoosebumpercar pooltabletennesee
deutschmarketstreetcar washingtondeecee
hitormissguided missiletoejamboree
skindeepfryingpana telegramblin’rose
lollipopcornedbeef heartbrokenose

propaganvinciwa waterloggarhythmandblues
absolutezerozero sevenoclocknews
transatlanticablecar toonacornamuse
looneybirdbraindear johnnycashews
sobbingorillagoon showdownriverbose
lollipopcornedbeef heartbrokenose

quarterbacksliderivatee vocalcorduroyaltee
psychopathfinderskeepers sonatinaturnerlee
clambakingsodapop topofthepoparazzee
passorfailsafetypin upperclassicaligraphee
languedechateaude laquelquechose
lollipopcornedbeef heartbrokenose

greyhoundtoothbrush shamanipulate
camptownladiesfirst snowwhitewatergate
ogalamohair doo-or-dialate
yankeewestvirginiareel dealeradicate
nomadigascar melodeecompose
lollipopcornedbeef heartbrokenose

countryroadhogwild bunchgrasshopparade
boustrophedenihalatelee marvingaytorade
rubicontrollingthunderpar secondhandmade
slamdunkindonoutcracker jacksofalltrade
teapottagoldenbrown sugarfreethrows
lollipopcornedbeef heartbrokenose

powertriograndold opreetendorphin
poolsharkskindeep fryingpanthonyquinn
candybarbaryapricottage cheeseburgerkingpin
sleepingpillwindmillion dollarbabydolphin
burlaptopspin drydoctorno-doze
lollipopcornedbeef heartbrokenose

trashiveareefilter tipcamelbackslide
tuningpeglegoland slidetrombonafide
passthebuckprivateeye contacthightide
quasargassaseasalt’n peppercentralpark ‘nride
wonderfullspeedbumper karmajestictactoes
lollipopcornedbeef heartbrokenose

entropickalamazooloo vigvanbeethoventriloquist
bunkbedpanamared winepresidentist
backlavatarmacarthor robocopappologist
cottonwoodchuckroast porkchopshoppinglist
fastdrawingpinaco ladavinchicanos
lollipopcornedbeef heartbrokenose

birdlandfiltertip cigarettebuttermilkshake
waterloogaroobix cubancigardenrake
bakingsodepoptimyster re-electricguitar break
ontheroadbikebumblebee locoweedheadache
chickenlittlerock’nroll overpassengertrainbows
lollipopcornedbeef heartbrokenose

birdlandfiltertip cigarettebuttermilkshake
waterloogaroobic cubancigardenrake
bakingsodapoptimyster ree-electricguitarbreak
supermantaraydarwin chuckleberryfinneganswake
cakewalkingwoundedknee deepurpleprose
lollipopcornedbeef heartbrokenose

aprilfoolsgoldfish shanghypochrondriac
dailydoubledutcharmo kneehighjumpingjack
seniorpromississip ycleptomaniac
freighttrainbowlingalley catknapsack iconoclastnightwatch dogmachinereepose
lollipopcornedbeef heartbrokenose

alcohollywoodchuck wagonwheelbarrows
steamheatwavygravy trainbowsandarrows
and a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
is a lollipopcornedbeef heartbrokenose

HAIKU RAILS

ONE HAIKU RAIL

haikungfumigate
gatefoldtestamenttholate
latesttuberserk

ANOTHER HAIKU RAIL

omnibuskerplump
quasaranwrapidograph
turbodidleysquat

FIVE MORE HAIKU RAILS

1.
niagaramadan
donkeyboardgamekeepersist
sisterhoodlumpsum

2.
mainlineupperfume
fumigatoradeny
niobegunshot

3.
vocalicorice
ishmaellevatorah
ravioligarch

4.
vocalidascope
diamondbackstability
openhouseboathouse

5.
cheesecakewalkoutbreak
breakoutfieldmousetrapezoid
blowjoblongjumpire

ONE BONUS HAIKU RAIL

dotcompeterpan
panoramadonnachoke
hokeypokeypunch

INTERPOLKADOTCOM (BLUESRAIL TWO)

interpolkadotcom batterseagreen
rubiconubial blisterine
slowmojohand balihaigene
alligatorskinrasho monstermoviescreen

bobwhitetrashcan tatamountainlion
crotchcrabbittersweet peanutbutterflyin’
johnnybegoodbyrobot tommygunshyphen
nomadcappendixieland jazzaztecandmayan

zipgunhochi miniaturpentine
turbantubayoutooth piccolodevine
buddyhollywoodchuck wagonwheelchairline
rockyroadhogwild honeymoonshine

geezeroveractors toodiobordelibraille
doomsdayglobalmess scallywagontrail
applepeelerattick toxicolojesusnail
multiplywoodenlego divanholygrail

sittingbullshitabrick wallpaperdollarbill
talldrinkofwaterbed bugaboothill
subtropicalifornya quimosabeholdstill
tadpoletaxicab cessilbdemille

softspokenosislami crobocoppercent
failsafteyrazorback rubbercircustent
rollingthunderclaptrappist monkeypadolescent
carbuncletomcattle driverstestament

postofficircumstance inyourpanzertankerchief
overdoublechinfared hotspotroastbeef
lavacadogreenland grabbicyclethief
tenderfootprincehal bumblebeeleaf

phoneticalphabetormentor nadobrokenarrow
pillowtakingheadsortails spinningwheelbarrow
zerosummermaidenname dropshotgunpowder
mojotexmexico hogclamchowder

orbitalianswisscheese burgerkinglear
rigolettototempole cataloggerbeer
avatarbabygrandpi anoracketeer
bananasplitpeanut buttermilkshakespear

teetotalrecallingcard sharkskindeepthroat
faroutcrybaby dolphinlandscapegoat
shindignorfolk songbirdbraincoat
matchbookofthedeadpan pipedreamboat

antelopenultima terialisticup-to-date
finneganswakeup-to-the-minute manhattanihaliate
rainforestfireengine redcrosscutrate
drumstick-in-the-mudbath tubbythetubarbituate

stumblebumsteeringwheelof fortunecookielargoatee
mothergoosebumpercar pooltabletennesee
deutschmarketstreetcar washingtondeecee
pinchhitandmissguided missiletoejamboree

bucknakedeyespy glassjawharperlee
orfunkychickenlittle womensliberteepee
burymyheatattack hattrickknee
cherreflexraysin bredwoodtree

cokebottlecapstan democratracetrack
rockbottomhanksnow whitelightningflashback
goldengateparkansaw horseshoeblackjack
gentlemendocino smokingunnysack

saintpeterrabitsfoot rub-a-doublewide
trailblazerosettastone deafanddumbbelowtide
pepperambulaterday breakawayside
bottlenecktiebreak upperclassicollide

mentalivorysoappowder monkeysunclesam
jukeboxershortstop signpostcardiogram
kentuckyfriedeggyolk sacrificial lamb
holysaturdaynightshift triograndslam

RAILOOP

cellardoorknobhillsidekickback
backpackrattrappisttolpackin’mammamia
miafarrowboatloadeductapewormwood
woodwindmilleniumbrellacrossword
wordofmouthwash’ndrycellardoor

SKINFLINT RAIL

skinflintelligentlemantragedefiantelopenultimaterialisticklebackgroundbass

THIN RAIL

pepperambulaterdaybreakawaysidetractorpedomestickinthemudpuddlejumperchancestorsolowbrowserene

TRAILBLAZERAIL

trailblazerosettastonedeafandumbelladonnaapoleoniccodedexteriteetotalrecallingcardsharkskinflintlockjaw-
boneheadphoneticalphabetormentornadominicantusfirmuscatelescopenhagen

JABBERWOCKS

THE OLD LAMPADUSA SHADE
(JABBERWOCK 1)

hey muff it’s very very tuff
it’s the kinda turkey jerky that makes your dander ruff
makes you whine like a chine bitter bang a bummer phone
too far away from the butter bone

man oh man I’m dizz me in me clams
bull dock hock a lee duck take a rigolee
took away my pockets and give me back a jig-a-mee
burp a penta letter of tender yams

lor galore it’s the rice-o-Ricky Mooney
it’s the wife of Princent Vice on a long ago rope
she lard the skivin’ lay dites outta my soap
hold the ravelinos dig the isotope

get it got it made on the old lampadusa shade
pewter fresh tomago no Chicago toke
polo in the dangolo cheap shot chopper jot
goin’ for the joker broke broken joke

popper privatee spawn-a ninnatee
tempo time a creek izza lock pocket jaw
bust house ta many tick-a-lip-a-penny
it’s the one and notely oven law

roll on ponder down in the wander
graze like an amazer down in the bungalow
hope rings a turtle on the dove tail gate keeper
hit me with a glove of jungle snow

jung jung jungle love anapologistic
brain food collectors for the bread and butter mystic
brutal as a feather bucket faster than a go slow
sweeter than a wino sour number nine rhino (no no)

easy on the hard-boiled leg of bardo buttons
beard of monster mutton rainbows and arrows
you be ukelele I be I-B-M who will be the spare pair
of three ring spare-rows (row row)

way way way-o bulluff wuff wuff
we the keeper of the weeper wails slurpin from sleeper pails
once upon a tidal wave along the traino trick track
whacker of the wooden knick knack it’s a chat-ter-a-rack

BUTTERMILK GUTTERFLY
(JABBERWOCK TWO )

bumper flip up humper flop down
the leaks are coming into pop top town
yes yes yes it’s a buttermilk gutterfly mess

who goes grammar who goes king
is it bar belly baby with his fuzzy buzzard wing
no no no / it’s nothing but a gopher man go

you don’t rumble you don’t shy
you are freezin’ in a cheese neck tie
yes yes yes it’s a buttermilk gutterfly mess

who goes overboard who goes knife
is it Mister K-Oss and his extra large wife
no no no it’s nothing but a gopher man go

we don’t meal we don’t moat
we got meat in the down beat boat
yes yes yes it’s a buttermilk gutterfly mess

who goes artichoke who goes toast
is it rabbit puncher roo or the hungry ghost
no no no it’s nothing but a gopher man go

one for the monkey two for the shrew
three for the ladies in the slapstick crew
yes yes yes it’s a buttermilk gutterfly mess

is it Hippie Hambone has his brain gone south
has he gone to pot with his duck quack mouth
no no no it’s nothing but a gopher man go

who goes bogus who goes alert
is it Thermo Mole in his submarine shirt
yes yes yes he’s a buttermilk gutterfly mess

who goes piano who goes alarm
is it Chainsaw China with her leatherneck arm
no no no it’s nothing but a gopher man go

who goes ghostly who goes god
is it Manikin Pin in a piss pea pod
yes yes yes he’s a buttermilk gutterfly mess

who goes moop who goes mope
is it Brainloop Lucky with his stardust dope
no no no it’s nothing but a gopher man go

we got doom we got riddles
we got a cat that plays a lot of fiddles
yes yes yes it’s a buttermilk gutterfly mess

who smells Portugal who’s Mel Rose?
is it Big Boy Urine and his Spanish lettuce nose?
no no no it’s nothing but a gopher man go

yes yes yes it’s a buttermilk gutterfly mess
no no no it’s nothing but a gopher man go

LARGO PENNESANULA
(JABBERWOCK 3)

rider zee writer fun wester in a goo pie rum
la la loo-ta pasta tooda fee fie fo fum
comb detta forda yi dum

arf temper letter chur sooth forker sake eye yam
glassindo quasimojo blinkin’ tunnel tower my lam
dad gummer polder guy zam

tick tock trivial super crita tickle prize um
dermoton-c hype o bum crippa gritta wise um
it’s the same oper capper size um

Pre-cious delicious she’s -about a cream age boon
alphabetaceutical alopecia bama by soon
free belly lady boloon

good good bye to the dalla pickle upper kay zoo
never but intended to heave over baby bay you
who’s the noogle on the google guy roo?

hey Trader Victum you’re a rictus liquor road rail
you’re twistin on your spinach crime on your copper toad whale
we’re hankin under your goad tail

you no touch-a my dirty cud along lye-run
cuppa conga neece clean tagga row ryun
troo lick-a geese buy gun

champs Ellie Sue enna crumble lacka from JaySee
itsa sad witch Millie Baker dum dai doo shaker lee
max no diffadenza me

slim-bo in the rimbo he’s god-a uncle eye leer
heeza jeenie fettuchinee puzzle in the pig pie near
wrong temple type-a high fear

down in Largo Pennsanula seldom by the carbine road
worm polly gottem catch-um in the moon shine abode
tears by the plenty nine road

CHOPSOCKY JABBERWOCKY

here comes a ragaboose, looking thru a googgle noose
he’s got legs on his face
crumble on a football of mud
heavy on the arsenic lace

he’s got the best of a mess of history
he’s got a life of time
who can parlament him? No –
never on a truck stop dime

zodiac maniac reading from the bottom
of the glossolala-lila page
working on the top of the anna-bacterial
photogenetic cage

ogni tanto mela tiro
what means this to you?
it’s a polombella perspecativo
weeble rendez-vous

take a rip ride on a pendulum tide
what say you to me
be a chopsocky jabberwocky talky
ping pong mysteree-peat after me
jabberwocky chopsocky ping pong mystery

he’s got a black belt down in metaphysics
he studied with kung boy foo
dancing on his background bones
down in the tribal zoo

ogni tanto mela tiro
what means this to you?
it’s a polombella perspecativo
weeble rendez-vous

he’s a rag of muffin, pipe dreamin’ puffin
hyper rise type of spine
he’s got pencilitis, leaning on a love verb
over the above boarder line

give him a superspoon, a string of bapaloon
he’ll say no can do
he’s a chopsocky jabberwocky talky
turning on a double-u two can play
this jabberwocky chopsocky game of Rocky the Pooh
chopsocky jabberwocky his name is Rocky the Pooh
chopsocky jabberwocky his name is Rocky the Pooh

DO THE JABBERWOCK

beware beware here comes the pumper snackle
with long mutton legs and buttons on his bags
he’s an ogreschnitzel he’s a wake forest tackle
wait til you see him dangling up the drag

he can do the sag he can milk the silk
his finger bird bendalarmer knows how to chop
wait til you see his fist on the pumpapple
wait til you hear it stop

and do the jabber wock
do the jabberwock
do the jabberwock
(do do do) do the jabberwock

cold king mold is a very old breeze
he lives downtowny on a mountain kind of rack
his earth is a pound of groundround cheese
he keeps his muscles in a six gun pack

pick him up with a digitatal casterix
don’t let him grundgle on the mugplate jack
of the hard core buglemates comin’ thru the pipe
banging on a ripper side track

do the jabberwock
do the jabberwock
do the jabberwock
(one two three) do the jabberwock

here comes one of the Fiddlelacker Sons
the Two Baggalummies and the Fumblebacker Three
give them a puddle paddle duck when they sleeze
look out for the wurvers from the hack pot tree

it’s Tricky Brick Rautigan and Pang Salt
with their miggamerry-go-roon street strut
casting pigs before pearl’s wine girls
with big pappers lurking in the guts

do the jabberwock
do the jabberwock
do the jabberwock
(lord have mercy) do the jabberwock

(this verse from Zack – see Old Poet’s Corner on Book Three)
Hot Pajama Mama with a feverotten commel poddle
takes a tot of bottle breath and lifts upper jotterjaw
wakes up the neighboroons takes a spoonerattle
shakes it with a hungeroot of dominootle jattle

comes back surrounded by a chug of bigger little
in shickatoot boots and a topless leather coo-coo
breaks every rule in the berserker law
when she take a platter chatter and she do

do the jabberwock
do the jabberwock
do the jabberwock (one more time)
do the jabberwock

Terpitory People Tom jokin on the jungle drum
toking on a jumbojerky jeckyl tanned hide
saying home comes the teeny queenzy mezzapine pop
of my eye pole bowler pair string on the snide

she never had a chunk, she never had a choke
nailbait jigger bitten – twice shy
going south with a leap frog bladder in a jug
and a plug from the blabbermouth sky

do the jabberwock
do the jabberwock
do the jabberwock
(come on come on) do the jabberwock

her name was Furpiggy Bog, one of the Blisterines
lived on Rue Da Bagel One Two Ten
with a doc called Swift Sword Fishermanswarp
and a mighatorry catnipper Willie Ampenn

with his flexible tooth from the scar facial dumpistry
big on a thirstig cut-throat clock
smullish of the Yarnosaxo Trilogy
put a block on the old cockle nock

and do the jabber wock
do the jabberwock
do the jabberwock
(who who who) do the jabberwock

Buzz Cut Runkle was a pornocaster mannikin
he never pre-wed on the first of Febbamarchawary
Burpentella Bella come along with her minimoney
she go down in the chubba buckle bubble cherry

Back Foot Groovy went corpin’ with cadivers
Skin Flint Binger had a nostalogic grope
they were looking for treasure in the high sierra moderato
popin’ for the ropa-dopa-lope

they do the jabberwock
do the jabberwock
do the jabberwock
(ropa-dopa-lope) and do the jabberwock

a foolery from Toolery Bomm-a-Lomma Tom
fed from the whistle bags, the Grazy Dunes of Prom
he whippled his wheeds with bungles of cheeds
and hupped them from grom to spom to lom-a-dom

Pebble the Pog was a Pogue of very little brittle
rain on his memolocks were busted on the chain box
he drink champalane in a river rubber bag
does he do the rabber flabber jock? no no

he do the jabberwock
do the jabberwock
walk right down that jiver line of rock and do the jabberwock

CACKATOOSE THE MONGOLOOSE

1.
Cackatoose the Mongoloose
hangin’ rhyme bombs on the danglemoose

he bum rides down to the kick back town
comes back slap happy with a verbalized noun

vapor locked in a paper-scissor-rock
with a sniff of a riff and a whiffen of a shock

down and done and like a gun of a sun
fallen on hard times HEY! HEY! HEY!

2.
Humper Dick the City Dumper Hick
split infinities while lickin’ the slick

flaggin’ on a fogharp, feastin’ from a jar
lippin’ El Cid in a triple lid car

nope mobility mopin’ on a rug
chop-a-logic talk on a backtrack bug

down and done and like punjabbed pun
fallen on hard times HEY! HEY! HEY!

3.
Fish Fish Hook Worm, booker gern pack-a-derm
sticks his gurn in a u-turn butterchurn

Log Jam Flipper, the slipper tripper
got his slim slam caught in a flim flam zipper

Woody Chuck-a-Luck for a nickel dime buck
got run over by a whip lash truck

down and done like a runcipled nun
fallen on hard times HEY! HEY! HEY!

4.
Dig Dog Dig the blog skin pig
played his fiddle in the middle of the big riddle gig

Jackal B. Hide, the satisfied piper
got a job as a dipper and a dry diaper wiper

Robber Rabbit has a slob hobbit habit
when he sees a hopper bopper stop he has to grab it

down and done on a photogap run
fallen on hard times HEY! HEY! HEY!

5.
Rock-a-Lama Bama the African-deed heat
in the jingle jungle with sockbells on his feet

Drivin’ Ho-Joe Rusalem’ s merry-go room
has a pack of pickled peppers in a bogarttoum

Undertow Jud the muddy whipper stud
went and got stuck in a flood of buddy crud

down and done – no more money fun
fallen on hard times HEY! HEY! HEY!

6.
Blues Shot Boozer, the hat brim cruiser
got a high phone five from a fat tone snoozer

Loop Lop Top went hattermad
drawin’ up a map mop for a lap pop matter fad

Saint Manitooshoes snuggled in the news
in the grin of a goat with a spin throat muse

down and done like a pen-joo-lum
fallen on hard times HEY! HEY! HEY!

7.
Sea Shore Salivador lorpin’ up the lore
droogin’ in the beestrap, boggin’ on the moor

Lucifer Fiction in a goose smash mood
had a suckin’ addiction for duckin’ up a drood

Face Time Finnegan no need to ask
down at the rivershop chopping up a mask

down and done – scrapin’ up the scum
fallen on hard times HEY! HEY! HEY!

8.
Stuff O’Maverick huffin’ on a brick
a gopher loaf and a yoyo stick

Pentalinger Fat Boy junkin’ up the trap
grabbed on a statue-lavatory rap

Doc Blindstein works fife to nein
his stock broken wife is a jock on the joke line

down and done spinnin’ and spun
fallen on hard times HEY! HEY! HEY!

9.
Ponchuss Pie Rat the unconscious fat cat
caused a riot in the diet of a cry brat

Doobie Ruby the fantagle juvie
got a stardust particle in a tube mangle movie

Hoppy Niffenegger is a copy of a beggar
waitin’ for the jiffy lubes to come out and peg her

down and done – bugged and bummed
fallen on hard times HEY! HEY! HEY!

10.
Steeple Jack Flat had a people chat
with a fateful dead ringer and a limbocrat

Think Back Staple Head snacked on the Thunder Bread
stuck a label under the ropsang lampa head

Paperbag Frank punch drunk in the drink tank
had a munch of lunch on a bunch of bullet blanks

down and done what a bunch of huns
fallen on hard times HEY! HEY! HEY!

11.
Magpie Sweetpea riffin’ on a frizzbee
whizkidnapped on a dizzy caliope

Cold Train John opened up his golden brain
then poured his non-trauma down the prima sauna drain

Leenee Faleenee was a magical meanee
with his tragic obsceenee string quartet bikini

down and done – doomed and dumbed
fallen on hard times HEY! HEY! HEY!

12.
Jaw Bone Juke the Duke of Ukulele
gets stoned on raw puke every daily

Dolly Deuce Coupe on a melancholy loop
dipped her noose in the excellentil soup

“Chess on the Wing,” by Bullsinger Corn
grabs a uni-king and takes a horn

down and done – like bugs of a hum
fallen on hard times HEY! HEY! HEY!

13.
Mombo Daddio listens to the rad-ee-o
likes his rope-ee-o with a touch of rodeo

Ride-on Renee in her hide away shiver-lay
collides with the hightide on a river day

Lullabye Bye had a tail like a giggle fly
got scruffed up by the neck of her pig tie

down and done to the very last crumb
fallen on hard times HEY! HEY! HEY!

14.
Mona Catalona and Pea-knuckle Liza
lived on arithmatickle pickle pizza

Slam Dunk Sam the pot jam junkie
works as a shaman to a gut shot monkey

the Busker Hill Hound and Pencil Pound
say we will no mo-belly go round

down and done four-three-two-one
fallen on hard times HEY! HEY! HEY!

JABBERWOCK BLUES RAP

it was a whistle tooth rabble gag
a belting bible bulge at the sleazy spoon

it was a whiffenpoof dabble jag
under the bugagboo moon

bard, huck and bubble
been my good-tag-a-roon

goon-tag-a-roon
with some Thor’s tog after news

sing-a-tune- rag of a time bomb
and meet my laughter muse

she slams me in the black ground
gives me the Jabberwock Blues

Jabberwock Blues talk
never heard the raves of slaves

on Slobber Avenue
they beat the waves of my graves

slobbing up my hear tags
from the blabs of pave

on the blabs of pave
they said the ravens were fly gones

poet lorry up
he don’t know breakneck ties from micropythons

but they’re all bio-degrade able
self-risin’ surprisin’ horizons

surprisin’ horizons
rhyme-a-zone and eye rods

been the bacon of many a pork boy
and his sly gods

take me back to Poppa Rica
let me jive with my goblin knobs

goblin knobs
and high fallutin’ flute jobs are many

you can get some random action joys
on a bent franklin penny

just get in touch with your clutch too much
the pocket mouse of the millenny

the pocket mouse of the millenny
rides a pine feathered pony

his rocket house is open
to all that’s fine, funk and phoney

sneakin’ in on the beacon
hey it’s Deacon Dice-a-Roni

Deacon Dice-a-Roni
is reekin’ of bad baloney stew

takin’ a leakin’
he’s bakin’ up some breadly brew

hold me sails, salami
tie me down, dijeree doo

tie me down dijeree doo, sport
there’s no morbid weather in the well

my topanga kangaroot
is spangled up with a taco belle

must we abide in the mist of the hipster?
or go abode in a bat house of hell?

Bathouse of Hell?
or did you say Frat House of Pocatello?

I’ve been down among the penguin pigeons
their feathers are mostly toastly mellow

everywhere I put my finger feet
I’m walkin’ in Jabberwock Jello

Jabberwock Jello
is the jiffy lube of the tuba crew

they all play the Jabberwock Cello
in the rubber neck zoo

I’m fallin’ for the booze ruse
I gots the jabberwock blues

I got the blabber talk blues
in my jabberwock shoes

but the Studebaker dudes
get their kicks at the chicken zoo

and the rude nudes from the latitude
they wear socks and shoes of jabberwock glue

RAZOR BLADE RAP

ware yo goin
wutch dat tow truck towin
watdat lawn mower mowin
alda grass yo been smokin
alda joints yo been jokin

ware yo at
witch yo bustball bat
witch yo possum patchen cat
and dat matchem rat?
yo be wokin fat

THE CRO-MAG HALL OF FAME

Hrothbug the Heathen
Eulojog the Guise
Humpjug the Preacher
Hovermouth the Wise

No syllable lost
on the Big Blast Four
Bug Jog, Jug, Mouth
Jumpaloopalore!

Ava Gildereen
Ova Guiltypoise
Haga Mumpersooth
Googa Mentoboise

They swept into town
on the back of broomstick noise
Ava Ova Haga Googa
Madpersonapoise!

Muskel Carteroo
Jax O’Saxon Pang
Barburg the Martyr
Tusker Zipperbang

They shined and they shivered
they shooped and shoved
Musker Saxon Tusker Burg
Licken low for love!

Chick the Litterbird
Sluck the Passerpie
Winga Portapool
Glub the Besterbuy

Half asleep in no p.j.s
they roamed and roved the poles
Chick Sluck Winga Glub
Save our sinking souls!

Give us back our bearded shaves
snip and whip our tires
gather up our beastly burps
sing our twisted wires!

Bag our mustly do-behaves
choke our neckless choirs
sweep our witless words of waste
splash molasses in our faces

HEE HO MOP-O-MO

HEE HO MOP-O MO

ALLA-GOOPA-YOYO
GASPA-NOONOO-NOVO
PICKEL-PIGGA-JIGGLE-MOJO
HEE HO MOP-O MO

I CHING RIP

ting shock
yin thin
yang bang

wing ding
ping pong
long gong

THIN RIP

he bored
she brood
they blind
they unkind

she blink
he drink
he bait
she bite

he shout
she squeal
they deaf
they dumb

he say, “Hump?”
she say, “Wah?”
he say, “Shot!”
she say, “Shut’emup!”

she pinch
he flinch
he slap
she ouch

he punch
she itch
they bash
they bitch

he drink
she leave
mosquito sting
he scratch

August 7, 2011

THIN GOOF

who trivial?
me trivial
who dumb bore?
me dumb bore

who do voodoo?
you do one
I do two too
you do some
I do more

ignoramus
ignore a muse
wander wonder
me confused

over under
down in the dumps
up the dusty
road of bumps

round and round
we go I do
not know do you?
who goof who?

Jan 25, 2010

BAGMUMP

you’re so bag, you’re so dump
you plug your nose with bubble gump
you paint your face with a water gun filled
with pink champagne and a shot of rump

you’re so small you’ve disappeared
into a crocodile beer bellybutton tear
you live inside a molecule of pun
guys like you give me a bad numb

THE PATHETIC FALLACY

the joke’s on me
the joking jew
who am I?
who are you?

what is what
whatever you do
whatever you say
the joke’s on you

BEOWULF IN BELGIUM

my eyes | are ice | I seem | to be blind

come | over here | step in | to the light

I seem | to be frozen | I’ve been | left behind

step | over here | we’ll thaw you out | to knight

THAT WAY SEQUEL

I go “shrug” that way
I go “plug” that way
I go “tilt” that way
I was built that way

I trombone that way
I megaphone that way
I go alone that way
I go home that way

I might lean that way
I don’t mean THAT way
I can’t play that way
I go away that way

  

THAT’S NO EYE THAT’S A BUTTERMILK PIE

THIN WAIL
for Garrett List

what can I do
to make it new
can I make it fast
tho it may not last

can I make it slow
with a sky full of snow
make it cry
with a poke in the eye

can I make it old
by making it cold
then thawing it out
with a tickle and a shout

I don’t want to make it cold
or cry or slow
I want to make it smile
at least for a while

I want to make it run
make a shadow in the sun
I want to make it slide
when I take it for a ride

can I make it hot
will you like it a lot
will you still love me
if I make it for free

can I make it hum
like a tribal drum
can I make it dance
right out of its pants

can I make it wail
can I twist its tail
can I make it spin
right out of its skin

can I howl like the wind
will you still let me in
will you love me more
if I break down the door

what can I do
to make it come true
can I leave it alone
with my old trombone

can I make it new
by painting it neon blue

can I make it sing
can I make it grow wings
can I make it fly
away
and never
come back again

Liege, December 7, 2009

THIN SONG

I wish I had a dollar
for every time I said
let’s go down to the Avalon
and hear the Grateful Dead

I wish I had a penny
for every time I said
I hear “I Know You Rider”
playing in my head

I wouldn’t be rich
by a long shot not
I’d buy a new shoe lace
and throw away these knots

Jan 27, 2010

ENDANGERED SPECIES

sparing no expenses
you’re out repairing fences
but the bull is a long gone goose
he’s a rooster on the loose

he’s turned into a rare albino
palomino dino rhino
with teeth of ivory piano keys
and ottomata door knob knees

he’s giving free rides
to kids and kidneys
a nickel for a tickle
a dime for a disney

look at the girl on M(oon)-T-V
some say she’s a looney, some say she’s god
nevertheless she’s playing his teeth
with a 10-volt “hot shot” ‘ C sharp cow prod

Aug. 6, 2011

PANTOMIMIC

I read the news, I read the mail
I lay my rags on the dog road rails
give me back my ocean rides
I need my stack of female whales

I get my jollies, I get my chills
by climbing up the Milldew Hills
but that falls flat without a few
pantheistic pandemonic panoramic thrills

August 8, 2011

THE SLEEPWALKER’S SERENADE

the trees are sleeping
the women are weeping
the flowers are dying
the children are crying

I walk thru the valley
in the shadow of ghosts
and what I’ve got less of
is what I miss most

drums are tapping
crowds are clapping
choirs are droning
tubas tromboning

my feet are gliding
across and colliding
with clouds of unknowing
somewhere to the north
the clouds are snowing

angels are watching
as I pick up my feet
and walk thru a wall
of cold concrete

the angels are in complete disarray
“You can’t do that,” they say
they take my smile, they take my arm
and wing me up with a clocked alarm

September 2011

ALMOSTFAMOUS PEOPLE’S ALMOST FAMOUS LAST WORDS

I am Igor Stravinsky
I studied the dance steps of Bach
I slide and I slop
I do the old dirty bop
while you do the Brandenbarrock

I am Sergeant Pepper
I grew up when I was young
I’ve got to move fast
to keep up with my past
with the future on the tip of my tongue

I am Citizen Kane
I drive a white Studebaker
I’m rude and I’m rich
I’m a son of a bitch
I’m the salt in your brown sugar shaker

I am the Duke of Earl
I work at the Seven-Eleven
I speak only Dutch
I don’t know much
and when it come to the rest I’m just guessin’

I am a children’s magician
they call me the Wizard of Oz
but they all put me down
when Christmas rolls around
by demanding a drunk Santa Claus

I am the King of Bologna
I feast on gold macaroni
but when I slice salami
and red-hot pastrami
they call me the King of Baloney

I am Finnegans Wake
a book that should have never been written
I’ll drive you insane
with my linguistic games
when it comes to the puns I ain’t shittin’

I am Wolfman Jack
I know how to spill the beans
I howl and I rap
on Radio KRAP
but nobody knows what I mean

I am the Marquis de Sade
and I’m sick of hearing you complain
about scratches of bats
and rats and cats
why don’t you get used to the pain?

my name is Fred Astaire
I’m cruel and completely insane
I’ve got ten million bucks
and a lake full of ducks
and I dance for only the lame

they call me the last of the beatniks
I am the talk of the town
I pull nastly tricks
on dumb blond chicks
I tell them I’m Ezra Pound

I am Ezra Pound
I live in Italian dreams
I come out at night
with a facial flashlight
and pretend I’m about to scream

I am Sacagawea
I guided the pioneers
across the plains
in wagon trains
then I cut off all of their ears

I am John Philip Sousa
I once had a marching band
bombastic, patriotic
and completely psychotic
we filled up the drums with sand

A PICTURE OF MOJO BLOW

a head of steam, nerves of steel
a helping hand, an Achilles heel

the eye of a cyclone, a nose for business
the shoulder of a road, a diamond back

a neck of the woods, a stiff upper lip
a sweet tooth, a heart of gold

a lame brain, an absent mind
a peg leg, a funny bone

a leg of lamb, a horse’s ass
pig’s knuckles, cauliflower ears

a tongue in cheek, a treasure chest
a handlebar moustache, feet of clay

a straight face, an iron fist
a lily liver, a loose tongue

a big mouth, a bag of bones
bad blood, crocodile tears

a cut throat, the voice of reason
a tub of guts, the memory of an elephant

a slapped wrist, a coastal waistline
a name for himself, a head of hair

sticky fingers, a glass jaw
a trick knee, a tin ear

a scuttle butt, a shit eating grin
thin skin, a chinny-chin chin

a spare rib, a tennis elbow
a green thumb, a tic tac toe
if he hollers let him go
eeinie meenie Mojo Blow

Sept. 10, 2011

PABLOWDOWN PICKASOAP’S LAST REQUEST & FINAL PRAYER

pray for me
pray for you
pray for the lemurs
caged in the zoo

weep for the weeping
willow tree
weep for you
weep for me

sing for me
sing for you
put me down
for a pound of stew

dig a hole
ten feet deep
fill it up
with years of sleep

sprinkle it over
with powdered snow
draw in the words
PABLO PABLO

lay me down
upon my name
PICKASOAP
(of painting fame)

I’ll lay on top
and close my eyes
and sleep a sleep
of a thousand guys

insomniacs all
who lost so much
sleep they lost
all sense of touch

they hung their heads
they wandered ’round
their feet did not
quite touch the ground

when I wake up
sometime next year
you’ll weep for me
a single tear

when I wake up
I’ll stretch and yawn
you’ll be surprised
I won’t be gone

when I wake up
I’ll be brand new
I’ll have new eyes
one red, one blue

I’ll have a new nose
tongue and teeth
put me down
for a side of beef

I’ll have new arms
and a brand-new brain
so hand me down
my walking cane

I’ll walk around
I’ll walk away
put me down
for a bale of hay

pick a number
from one to ten
five you say?
you win again

THE SNUFFLE TREE

climb on up in the snuffle tree
see what you get when it’s all for free
then climb back down and walk around
and crunch the bones into the ground

CARTOON BASED ON A TRUE-LIFE STORY

scratch scratch scratch
the crab-infested street whores
standing in line outside
the butcher shop cinema
waiting to buy tickets
for the early Sunday morning showing
of Lamb Chop Heaven
staring T-Bone Mutton, Frank Furter
and the last of the Red Hot Trotters

THE THINGS I SAW AS A KID

the things I saw as a kid
were sacred and divine
if I saw them now
I’d probably go blind

honey bees in the wall
yellow jackets under the log
rainbows growing from the ground
when I went up to slop the hogs

the things I saw as a kid
were never hazy
now they’d drive me insane
my mind has grown lazy

demons in the thistles
gunslingers in the ruins
voices on the radio
that came from beyond the moon

wind at the windows
shadows on the wall
alligators under the bed
footsteps in the hall

the things I saw as a kid
were simple and pure
now I see with clouded eyes
and everything’s less than sure

A MURMURATION OF STARLINGS
(ANOTHER HERD OF TURTLES)

1. from the cradle . . .

a squeeze of anacondas
a slum of bums
a shrug of immortals
a snare of drums

a binge of drunks
a rug of bedbugs
a grundge of dirt
a wig of earplugs

a box of chatters
a book of worms
a pick of ice
a whale of sperm

a silence of lambs
a windmill of minds
a darkness of hearts
a sign of the times

a side order of professors
a safe of thieves
a bag of pipes
an autumn of leaves

a coffin of nails
a swatter of flies
a belly of beer
a bridge of sighs

a wallop of rhinos
a dangle of bats
a road of toadstools
an amazement of rats

a menace of magpies
a cluster of grapes
a muster of minions
a tangle of tapes

a mystery of pieces
a twist of lime
a tickle of tourists
a nick of time

a reek of roses
a slumber of slums
a pose of pastries
a bubble of gums

2. . . . into the mystic

a lackadaisical of loafers
a smorgasbord of Swedes
a curse of mobs
a shopping list of needs

a mirage of mystics
a lurk of peeping toms
a gobble of turkeys
a motherhood of moms

a showboat of musicals
a hell of spells
an acoustical earshot tintin-
– nabulation of bells

a planetarium of gardners
a flabbergast of surprises
a parade of traffic jams
a masquerade of disguises

a pogonophobia of beards
a murmuration of starlings
a punchline of comedians
a curtain of Happy Endings

THE BARTENDER’S WIFE

they’re standing at the bar, double-dribble drunk
waiting for the weather to change
the sun’s been shining all night long
and the days are filled with rain
the mystery of their memories is lurking in the bottles
of whiskey and gin and champagne
some less than familiar, will never be explained
others are more than strange

“You spread it thin and pray for love,”
said the whiskey drinking fool
speaking thru a lipstick tube
he’d picked up in beauty school
“Fiddle sticks and fish bones.”
said the gin-guzzling ghoul
he’d been to drunken driving school
and he knew the steering wheel rule

his eyes were on fire and hung in his face
there was toothpaste in his hair
“I’ve pumped a thousand women,” he said
“and left them all hanging in the middle of the air.”
he boasted with a brag of immature pride
as if anybody there could care
then he folded up his tongue, stuffed it in his pocket
where it played a game of pocket pool with his pair

said the champagne tippler, dipstick drunk
who’d spiked his drink with rum
“I like my ladies with spiders in their eyes
and mouthfuls of bubble gum
I like ’em round and weak of will
when they speak the slang of slum
I like ’em dull-witted and slightly bull-shitted
I like ’em best when they’re under my thumb

then up popped the sot with his whiskers soaked in whiskey
and a tongue twisted in riddle
with an uncorked bottle of scotch on the rocks
and a mug too big to be little
“The wild and wooly are my breed,” he said
“I need their spark and spittle
I need them dark with a beastly bounce
I need them fit as a fiddle.”

then the boretender down at the end of the bar
looked up from the sporting page
“You buzzards,” he said, “are out of your skulls
your brains are like birds in a cage
there’s been no girls in your eye-gun sights
since the last ice coon age
so give me a break and shut your beaks
before they do real damage.”

the boozers leaned back and laughed and left
they staggered into the street
they danced the stagger-stumble waltz
they tangled up their feet
up the block, to the corner house
they had a habit to meet
they climbed the stairs and got prepared
to pull their nightly cheat

the door it opened and in they went
she was waiting for them on the bed
“About time,” she said, “you took so long
I’ve been going out of my head
so come on you fools make it fast and make it quick
haven’t you heard a word I’ve said?
my husband finds out we’ve been fooling around
we’ll all be good as dead.”

a minute later, give or take a few,
they were all fooling around
above, below and side to side
down and up and down
they bounced, they rolled, they rocked, they bucked
four shaking naked clowns
until the husband came thru the door
and fell on the ground

“Holy shit and holy cow
it’s now too late to cry,”
he said this as a tender tear
ran down from the corner of his eye
“All night I serve you drunkards drink
and listen to your lies
then I come home and stand in line
while you buzzards drain your lizards dry.”

and life goes on and life goes round
and life comes back again
and right behind it, cleaning up the mess
is a street sweeping wind
on the tail of the wind comes a trio of dudes
with tattoos on their skins
rings in their eyebrows, lobes and lips
and iron studs in their chins

they blow into the corner bar, double-dribble drunk
waiting for the weather to change
the sun’s been shining all night long
and the days are filled with rain
the mystery of their memories is lurking in the bottles
of whiskey and gin and champagne
some less than familiar, will never be explained
others are more than strange

by the cigarette machine there’s a whiskey-drinking fool
who’s been to beauty school
and a grinning pool of a gin-guzzling ghoul
recites the steering wheel rule
then the champagne bum, spiked with rum
stands up and fakes his age
and the boretender down at the end of the bar
turns another sporting page

[ May 2009 ]

WHY IS THAT EYE LOOKING DOWN FROM THE SKY?

why is that fox
sitting on the rocks?
that’s no fox
that’s a rusted mail box

why is that thug
standing on a rug?
that’s no thug
that’s a burnt-out toaster plug

why is that piece of meat
running down the street?
that’s no piece of meat
that’s a ghost inside a sheet

why is Charles Ives
sharpening his knives?
that’s not Charles Ives
that’s his first of nine wives

why is the King of Spain
driving that train?
that’s not the King of Spain
that’s the wife of John Wayne

why is the Dalai Lama
shouting at Barack Obama?
that’s not Barack Obama
that’s the Dalai Lama’s mama

OH BUCKAROO

come heaven, high water or harsh intellectuals
heathen bi-sexuals, slow gravy trains
come rainbow eye shiners, shy masqueraders
puckish third graders and goldbrick miners

he’s gonna make ’em all squirm
like a bucket of worms

he’s a harmless homeless punk of a monk
oh buckaroo, you rude multitude
you’ll usher them thru or you’ll run out of luck
the tunnel of true love, you’ll usher them thru

NO PETS ALLOWED

no alligators dancing on the highway
no salamanders in crocodile disguise
no lazy lizards sleeping in the hay
no mock turtles with souped up eyes

no porky pines in the deep red wood
no skunks lying lopsided in the road
no six-pack mules looking like they could
go jump and thump on a razorback toad

no jack rabbits in bullet proof vests
no buffalo with their fur on fire
no coyotes with strange requests
no polar bears singing in the choir

no armadillos learning how to fly
no wild boars with their pumpkins in the air
no warthogs eating pickle pie
no mountain lions sniffing in my hair

no white-snout seals or black and blue raccoons
no pickpocket penguins sneaking thru a crowd
no out-of-tune pianos with their corny rag time tunes
played by fat cat sopranos crying out loud

DREAM ME A DREAM

dream me a song of good advice
far from the scoops of the ice cream man
from the deeps & the drops of the ocean’s delight
from the jingles of the jump rope girls

dream me a movie by Rand & McNally
with highways in blueberry jam
with rivers & lakes in strawberry shades
with numbers from one to too many

dream me a map of biblical dance
of hornpipe jigs & jumps by the dozen
of sabbatical jives & gospel baptism
of the Job Whirligig & the Bethlehem Bounce

dream me a book of infinite pages
with heroes & villains of impossible sizes
with cowboys & gangsters & unfaithful brides
with drumbeats & whalebones & whiskered disguises

dream me a dream of muscular love
of butterfly beauty with a musical theme
dream me a dream of a looking glass maze
dream me a dream of a dream of a dream

Vallespir (France) February 3, 2009

MAN WOMAN LOVE TRILOGY

he hears the thunder, he sees the flash
he licks the box, he swallows the cash

he touches the fire, he feels the rain
he stands outside, he goes insane

he climbs the mountain, he squats on top
he dreams of dirt, he dusts the crop

he chews the fat, he eats the goat
he throws up his hands and sinks the boat

he drives a hard bargain, he grabs at the grass
he screws a soft shoulder and runs out of gas

he measures a mile, he weighs a ton
he shouts his songs and understands none

he dances the dark, sneaks through the night
he swats a fly, he flies a kite

he oils his eggs, he greases his gun
he locks up his daughter, he steals his son

he mumbles his maybes, he reads his lips
he thumbs his nose, he fingers his tips

he buys his love, he sells his skin
he drools his saliva, he sucks in his chin

he flips his coins, he slaps his sluts
he likes his liquor, hates his own guts

he boils his blood, he burps his beer
he scrambles his brain, he tortures his queer

he raises his eyebrows, he watches his wrist
he trumpets his tuba, he bugles his fist

he mixes his metaphors, blows his fuse
he drops his name, abuses his muse

he rakes the trees, he shakes his bed
he waters the weeds, he bakes his bread

he needs his nail, he pins his prize
he wins his race, denies his lies

he builds his bridges, he makes his mark
he walks on his water, he swims with his shark

he butters his burgers, he buckles his knees
he brings home the bacon, he cuts the cheese

he deals in dozens, he salts his spoon
he kills a few minutes, he shoots for the moon

he burns the bushes, he bangs the drum
he bites the bullet, he deafens the dumb

he speaks in tongues, he writes on the walls
he buttons his belly, he bounces his balls

he twitches his tail, he claps his chops
he wiggles his shoulders, he drips his drops

he comes in a hurry, he leaves with a hum
he snuffles his tears, he howls at the sun

he snuggles his dog, he smuggles his drugs
he snaps his dragons, he shocks his plugs

he chooses his choice, he drinks his drunks
he pukes his pearls, he hurls his chunks

he pinches his needles, he punches his clocks
he clutches his gears, he sniffs his socks

he plays the joker, he spins the dice
he doubles his nothings, he breaks the ice

he wipes his windshield, he melts his meat
he chops his logic, he smells his feet

he credits his cards, he puffs his pipe
he scrambles his brain, he hustles his hype

he laughs his jokes, he creams his jeans
he pops his cork, he spills the beans

he whistles his whiskers, he pokes his pig,
he babies his blues, he busts his wig

he walks his camels, he swears at the sky
he picks his nostril, he winks his eye

he pulls his load, he collects his wits
he hedges his bets, he calls it quits

he prays to his statue, he babbles his boast
he rolls his own, he gives up the ghost

   

she’s too short to stand
she’s too sore to sit
she’s too low to land
she’s too high to hit

she’s too drunk to dance
too soon to sing
too raw to romance
too soft to sting

she’s too round to rock
too ready to roll
too shy to shock
too still to stroll

she’s too deep to dangle
too big to bop
too tall to tango
too stupid to stop

she’s too dumb to doodle
too stoned to steal
too young to yodel
too well-known to kneel

she’s too knice to know
too gnarly to gnaw
too thin to throw
too dense to draw

she’s too purple to paint
too passive to peel
too feeble to faint
too funky to feel

she’s too hot to hold
too cool to care
too foolish to fold
too tough to tear

she’s too crazy to cry
too pretty to pray
too lazy to lie
too looney to lay

she’s too steep to stare
too slow to start
too worn to wear
too full to fart

she’s too weird to wiggle
too juiced to jump
too glad to giggle
too dense to dump

she’s too kute to kiss
too kind to kick
too mystical to miss
too long to lick

she’s too chubby to chew
too tough to tease
too slim to stew
too passive to please

she’s too quick to quit
too quiet to quote
too flat to fit
too fat to float

she’s too small to sink
too solid to sail
too thin to think
too fast to fail

she’s too curvy to catch
too bumpy to bend
too perfect to patch
too messy to mend

she’s too heavy to hang
too close to carry
too busy to bang
too many to marry

she’s too cheap to choose
too strong to shove
too loving to lose
too loose to love

   

love is tender
love is sweet
love is a surrender
love is defeat

love is absurd
love is a clown
love is a verb
love is a noun

love is elusive
love is unfair
love is exclusive
love doesn’t care

love is a milkshake
love is a straw
love is an earthquake
love is a chain-saw

love is spaghetti
love is a spoon
love is confetti
love is the moon

love’s suicide
love is a sin
love is a joy ride
love is a drive-in

love is a fiction
love is a drug
love is addiction
love is a plug

love is a mojo
love is a monkey
love is a yoyo
love is so funky

love is so fine
love is “So what?”
love is a swine
love is a lot

love is a bed bug
love is an itch
love is a thug
love is a bitch

love is a beast
love is a bust
love is a feast
love is a must

love’s a gorilla
love’s a machine
love is vanilla
love is ice cream

love is thoughtless
love is blind
love’s relentless
love’s unkind

love is insane
love is unsound
love is in vain
love is unfound

love is final
love is a dream
love is spinal
love is a scream

love is a rabbit
love is a bird
love is a habit
love is a word

love is a whip
love is a map
love is a trip
love is a trap

love is a storm
love is sweat
love is warm
love is wet

love is too fast
love is too calm
love is a blast
love is a bomb

love is a mist
love is a mess
love is a fist
love is a guess

love is alert
love is a sneeze
love is a squirt
love is a squeeze

love is strange
love is sad
love is change
love is a fad

love is a leap
love is a lake
love is asleep
love is awake

love is cool
love is hot
love is cruel
– no it’s not

love is trouble
love is true
love’s a bubble
love is a zoo

love is a crime
love is a nerve
love is a straight line
love is a curve

love is an ocean
love is a tide
love is in motion
love is inside

love’s photogenic
love is a god
love is authentic
love is a fraud

love is a battle-field
love is a headache
love isn’t real
love is fake

love is a trial
love is a cinch
love is a mile
love is an inch

love is above
love is below
love is a shove
love is a blow

love is a limit
love is a way
love is a minute
love is a day

love is forever
love is for kids
love is too clever
love is a lid

love is a cover
love is a dive
love is a lover
love is alive

love is steamheat
love is a bath
love is a heartbeat
love is a path

love is half
love is a poke
love is a laugh
love is a joke

love is for sale
love is for sure
love is a nail
love is a blur

love is a burden
love is a bone
love is a curtain
love is a stone

love is desire
love is intense
love is a fire
love is a fence

love is a cactus
love is technique
love is all practice
love is unique

love is a hit
love is a miss
love is a gift
love is a kiss

love is sadness
love is a shame
love is madness
love is pain

love is friendless
love is grief
love’s endless
love is relief

love is too young
love is too old
love is too hot
love is too cold

love is voracious
love is a glut
love is not gracious
love is a slut

love is slap happy
love is slap stick
love is Dear Abby
love is a lunatic

love is a deaf mute
love is a train track
love is a tap root
love is a smoke stack

love is lonely
love is alone
love is “phone me”
love is unknown

love’ telepathic
love is fantastic
love is pornographic
love is elastic

love is elite
love is organic
love is a treat
love is a panic

love is the center
love is the edge
love’s an inventor
love is a wedge

love is illegal
love is the law
love is an eagle
love is a claw

love’s a balloon
love is a box
love’s a cartoon
love is a fox

love is a rapper
love is a loop
love is a zipper
love is pea soup

love is a late-show
love is prime time
love is skid row
love is a gold mine

love is chrome-yellow
love is brand new
love is mellow
love is blue

love is free
love is who
love is me
love is you

love is terrific
love is an egg
love is specific
love is too vague

love is a candle
love is a flame
love is a handle
love is a game

love is illusion
love is a friend
love is conclusion
love is the end

Snow falls on beowulf from a sky filled with microscopic rainbows

Poems 2011 – Part one |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

THE PULSE OF THE PEOPLE

went up to Brussels today
to see what people looked like
in 2011

I’ve been curious about this
for many years
back in 1959
I was heard to say
“I wonder what people
will look like in 2011?”

(I can’t be sure about the year
it might have been 2005
or even 2025
but the basic idea is the same)

I said something similar
in 1970
and again in 1987
“I wonder what people will look like
in 2011”

perhaps because I got used
to seeing what people looked like
in 2010
I was not surprised by how
they looked in 2011

of course 2009
prepared me for 2010
just as 1970
prepared me for 1971

so it’s easy to see
how I might have overlooked
a few essential details today

but from what I could see
people haven’t changed that much
in the past 50 years

most of them look like
they’d just eaten a bowl
of rubber band soup

others were talking
into their hands
and their words carved ripples
in the skins of their watery faces

the rest looked like
they’d just had a private meeting
with a fat mobster
who’d tossed cigars in their guitars
and told them to get lost

Jan. 3, 2011

THE RULE OF LEAP YEAR

insert an extra day at the end of February every four years,
omit it when years that end a century
but put it back when the year is divisible by four hundred

2011 is divisible by 400
2011 divided by 400 is 5.0275

but I don’t think that’s what they had in mind
when they made up the rule

I don’t think anybody leaped
in February this year

OLD SPICE

bent over breakfast
I scratch my head
and salt my scrambled eggs
with dandruff
Jan. 4, 2011

BEAR TELLS A JOKE

there’s was this Jewish Rabbi
and a Catholic Priest
and a Chinese Sage
and they all went into a bar
and they had a few drinks
then they got in the elevator
and when they got to the top
they all jumped out
except only one of them
had a parachute
it was the Jewish Priest
I think
or wait
it might have been
the Catholic Sage
but anyway
the Chinese Rabbi said,
“It’s a long way down.”

Jan 4, 2011

GRIP

reeling from the impact
of each new day
I spin and stagger
into some stranger’s idea
of how life lines up its bowling pins
deals it jokers
and wraps its birthday gifts
in newspapers that read
permettez-moi parler
permettez-moi s’il vous plait
one of these days
I’ll wake up
and get a grip on myself

March 4, 2011

SNEAKER

guy on a junkyard
rattletrap bike
bouncing down
a rough cobblestone street
along the Herengracht
one foot on the handlebars
tying his sneakerlace
and humming a song
about a love
long lost at sea

A’dam / March 14, 2011

CHINA RISES

Chinatown at midnight
chicken soup
and fried rice with chicken and eggs

the chicken looks and feels
like slabs of rubber
tastes like the shadow
of its long-hatched egg

bounce it off the floor
eat it on the way up

better get used to it
these are the guys
who are going
to take over the world
the Chinese
not the chickens

A’dam / March 15, 2011

HEINEKENS & AMSTEL

the beer’s good tho

wherever you go
it’s Heinekens or Amstel
Chinatown
the Spui
the Flower Market

along the canals

and when you drink enough
you go blabber
blabber blabber
and something about
Mother Earth being accused
of crimes against humanity
blabber blabber
” . . . 300 years of curfew . . . ”
blabber blabber
” . . . she gave me a dirty look . . . ”
blabber blabber
” . . . if it ain’t nailed down . . . ”
blabber blabber blabber
for all the beer in China

A’dam / March 15, 2011

HOPSCOTCH

small numbered squares
in colored chalk
single squares
connected to side by side
doubles
all the way
down the sidewalk
from 1 to 180

must have taken that kid
all day to draw them

at 80 the squares turn
into triangles
(one less line to draw)

at 120
the triangles
becomes circles

the circles get smaller
and smaller
barely enough room
to contain a number

the kids had to be
on their toes
at the end of this game

toes and toenails

A’dam / March 16, 2011

MY FRIEND COOKS HIS DESERT
for Ton Maas

while watching the news
he whips out a blowtorch
and incinerates
the brown sugar on the top
of his bowl of custard

for a moment
I thought was going
to take the blowtorch
to the TV

A’dam / March 16, 2011

NOT YET NEW YEAR

first mosquito
first fly
first tick (Bear)
first hive (me)

and not a single leaf
on a single tree
oh Jehovah, witness
it’s still winter

March 18, 2011

APRIL FOOLS FISH

how are you going to spend
the next 15 minutes of your life?

and look what just happened
you spent 5 seconds
trying to figure out
if it was a trick question
or if I was setting you up
for an April fool’s fish

but I wasn’t (I’m serious)

and look at what happened
you just spent another 5 seconds
wondering if what I said
about trick questions
and April fool’s fish
wasn’t another trick
or a trap for a joke

but it wasn’t
(I’m still serious)

now look at what just happened
you wasted 10 seconds
trying to get my question figured out
and now you’ve got only 5 more seconds
to figure out
how you’re going to spend it

those 10 seconds have vanished
into the black hole of the past

make that 4 seconds
because you just wasted one
thinking about the black hole

correction: 3 seconds
so what are you going to do
with the next 3 seconds
(make that 2) of your life?

make that one
since you wasted the last
trying to figure out
what the hell
an April Fool’s Fish is

sorry, time’s up

and if you keep wasting your time
getting sidetracked
by trivial thoughts
you might end up wasting
the next 15 minutes of your life
on more trivial thoughts
and doing absolutely nothing
with your hands and feet

make that the next 15 days

make that 15 years

but what I REALLY want to know
is what I’M going to do
the next 15 seconds of MY life

April 1, 2011

POISON D’AVRIL

and so I live to fight
another April Fool’s Day
the cruelest day
of the mildest month
I fought it hard
and I fought it tactically
down the street
into a dead-end alley
where with its back against the wall
it bit me with its cruel mouth
and I turned into a fish

but nobody was looking
nobody will ever know
I turned into a fish yesterday

April 2, 2011

CONTAGIOUS DISEASES

in Liege today
I walked past the Center for Contagious Diseases
I wondered what they were selling
so I dropped in and bought
a half pound of cholera
15 gallons of black plague
and a dozen seeds of smallpox
(all for less than 20€
along with a bonus prize:
free injection of AIDS)

that should keep me busy
for the next few days

don’t know what’ll do with the pox
maybe wrap up the seeds
and give them away as a gift
but I’ll get right into the plague
the color scheme is perfect
black sneakers
black jeans
black shirt
black face
soon I’ll have black teeth
and black eyes
next week I drop in for a double dose of leprosy

all the great poets tell us
we can do astounding things with leprosy

there goes my eye
into my pumpkin pie
(Longfellow)

there goes my ear
right into my beer
(Whitman)

there goes my nose
and three of my left toes
(T.S. Eliot)

there goes my lip
take it easy on the whip
(Lord Byron)

April 5, 2011

WOODPECKERS
(THE COYOTES OF THE BIRD FAMILY)

there they are
at opposite ends of the woods
one rapping out a treble paradiddle
the other stutter drumming the bass

I can’t believe their beaks
(with heads attached)
can move that fast

they’re telling a story
and all the other birds are silent
listening:

“I hope they don’t do to to to to you
what they did to to to to me.”

“What’s that that that that?”

“They took me to to to to to
to the dentist
and took took took out
my ton-ton-ton-tonsils

April 10, 2011

ROUND ROUND BUTTER ROUND, I BUTT AROUND

“Urg.”
“Ooog.”
“Jagoof.”
“Niff.”
“Roop.”
“Arooch.”
“Burk.”
“Spaloon.”
don’t listen to me
I’m just making noises
for no reason at all

April 15, 2011

HOMEGROWN BLAB

“Blabber blab”

I’d rather sit down
and get drunk with a zombie

“You can’t imagine –
“blabber blob – ”

“How much did it cost
– to get paid like that –
blabber blip – ”

I’d rather crawl
into a wormhole
and take my chances
on the next eternity

“Blabber blab
blob.”

THE NEWS

“Astronaut freaks out
carries a b-b gun in her purse
and drives across America in diapers.”

“29-year old man
(multiple sex offender)
enrolls in the 7th grade
pretends to be 12-years old
is not discovered
until he rapes an 11-year old girl
and gets her pregnant.”

an ad on Superbowl TV
showed two men
snacking on the same Snickers bar
people got nervous
gays got upset
“Human rights got set back
20 years,” said one queer

“210 billion dollars in cash
(that’s several tons of paper)
was delivered by plane
to Baghdad 4 years ago.
What happened to the money?
Nobody knows.”

this is the news
these are a few of the headline stories
this is what’s happening in the world
who cares?

you can be sure
that some terrible event
is going down somewhere else
right now and they’ll never
talk about it they don’t dare
there would a civil war
if we knew half the crap
that gets flushed down
the pentagon toilet
they speak only lies
nobody listens anymore
they’re getting away
with murder

Sept, 23, 2010
rediscovered July 28, 2011

AN OBSERVED BICYCLE POEM

two boys stand at the crossing
of Pot Hole Road and Rainbow Stub Road
a man pulls up on a bicycle
across from them
the boys have seen him before
he never says hello
they think he might be from outer space
they don’t think he can speak their language
he takes out a notebook
and a pen and he writes
the boys don’t know what he’s writing
maybe a message to his friends
back home on the Planet of Freaks
or maybe he’s making a list
writing down their names
every time he sees them.
“Oh he knows our names!’
the boys whisper
the man gets back on his bike
and pedals off
down Blinking Light Road
they wait until he’s out of earshot
and then they get excited
“Do you think he really saw us?”
asks one
“I hope not,” says the other
“Maybe he’s crazy.”
“Maybe he’s an animal
disguised as a man”

farther down Blinking Light Road
out of sight from the boys
the man pulls over
and pulls his notebook
from his back pocket
he flips open to the last page
to the poem he just wrote
two boys stand at the crossing
of Pot Hole Road and Rainbow Stub Road
he decides he doesn’t want to keep
this poem
he slowly crosses out all the words
and rides on thinking about another

Oct. 2, 2009
re-discovered April 20, 2011

THE THEORY OF THE BIG BAG

I am a bag
full of food and liquids
who’s invented a body
of bone and muscle
and skin and hair
to carry it all around

they call me the Big Bag
the Big Belly Boy
what a glut of a gut I am
junk me a chunk of food
spill me a swill of beer
fill me up to overflowing

rub-a-tuba-dubba guts
hey, gimme a beer
and I’ll show you how we do it
down in Lumpen Land

April 21, 2011

LATE BIRTHDAY GREETING

for one year
I was 65
those were days
when I didn’t know
how old I was

those were days
of sunlight and grace
when I was touched
by the whispers of angels

those were days
when I turned around
and saw myself
trailing behind
trying to match
the steps of my feet
into the footprints
my mind had made
as it rushed forward
into the shadows
that have become these days

NOT PROFLIGATE

no luck with the girls
when I was younger
I put it down
to a lousy sense of humor
now I find out the real reason:
they were just plain, flat out
scared of me
they were running away
squealing
“Let’s get out of here
before he gets inside our eyes!”

BLAME IT ON EMPTY VEE

45 years ago
there were young hippies
and now there are only
old hippies

somewhere along the line
the young hippies
became old hippies

at no point in time
was our culture
graced with middle-age hippies

the abrupt change came
about the time
punk music died
and the visual music machine
took over
that’s when everybody of my generation
hippie or otherwise
suddenly became old

IF BOOKS WERE PEOPLE

unlikely bed fellows
side by side
on my shelves

Lady Chatterley’s Lover
& Madame Bovary
Fanny Hill
& The Third Man
Alice (in Wonderland)
& Giles Goat Boy
Justine
& Robinson Crusoe
Matilda
& the Man with the Golden Arm
Patrick Bateman (American Psycho)
& Offred (Handmaiden’s Take)
Bridget Jones
& The Invisible Man
The Old Man & the Sea
& The French Lieutenant’s Woman
Jason & Medea
& Harold & Maude
Juliet (Naked)
& Uncle Remus
Romeo & Juliet
& Franny & Zooey
Snow White
& Cadillac Jack
Dharma Bums
& Rosemary’s Baby
Shoeless Joe
& the Stepford Wives
Othello
& Lolita
Winnie the Pooh
& The Boys from Brazil
Candy
& The Little Prince
Heidi
& The Great Gatsby
Huckleberry Finn
& The Witches of Eastwick
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
& The Happy Hooker
Cool Hand Luke
& Myra Breckinridge
Mrs. Stone
& Roger Rabbit
Ulysses
& The Sirens of Titan
Maggie Cassidy
& Midnight Cowboy
The Lord of The Flies
& The Lord of The Rings
Mr. Goodbar
& The Imaginary Girlfriend
Beowulf
& Helen of Troy
Mrs. Dalloway
& Louisiana Red
Doctor Faustus
& Faust
Moby Dick
& Gargantua
Gilgamesh
& The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Charles Dexter Ward
& The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
Candide
& The Godfather
Alice B. Toklas
& Don Quixote
Jane Eyre
& Dr. Sax
Moll Flanders
& Our Man in Havana
Titus Groan
& Dolores Clairborn
Daisy Miller
& Zorba the Greek
Silas Marner
& Piggy Sneed
Brunhilde
& Elmer Gantry
Doc (of Cannery Row)
& Maid Marian
Charlotte Simmons
& Sherlock Holmes
Carrie
& The Brothers Karamazov
Steppenwolf
& The Midwich Cuckoos
Hiawatha
& Baron Munchausen
Cujo
& The Hound of the Baskervilles
Hannibal Lecter
& Molly Bloom
Matilda
& A Confederate General from Big Sur
The Prince’s Bride
& The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Doctor Zhivago
& The Wife of Bath
Dorian Gray
& Sei Shonagon
Harlot’s Ghost
& The Woman Lit by Fireflies
Owen Meany
& Anna Karenina
Hester Pryne
& Godot
Lady Macbeth
& Kilgore Trout
Alexander Portnoy
& Scheherazade
Parzival
& Tinker Bell
Philip Marlowe
& Little Red Riding Hood
Nat Tate
& Edna Pontellier
Yossarian
& Ophelia
Cody Pomeroy
& Miss Havisham
Finnegan
& Cinderella
Tom Jones
& Calamity Jane
Hamlet
& Esmeralda
Lemuel Gulliver
& Tess of the d’Urbervilles
Adam & Eve
& Sir Gawain & The Green Knight
Tarzan & Jane
& Hansel & Gretel
Tristan & Isolde
& Dick & Jane
Porgy & Bess
& Joseph & Mary
Lewis & Clark
& Rosencrantz & Guildenstern
Romulus & Remus
& Mrs. Chirk & Miss Tray
Gandalf
& Boo Radley
Atticus Finch
& Evangeline
Hercule Poirot
& Miss Marple
Travis McGee
& Cleopatra
Mike Hammer
& Penelope
Jessica Rabbit
& Oliver Twist
Pocahontas
& Peter Pan
Nancy Drew
& Captain Ahab
Randall McMurphy
& The Daughters of Albion
The Great Santini
& My Last Duchess
Henry Chinaski
& Montana Wildhack
Heathcliff
& The Little Match Girl
Bob Slocum
& Jocasta
Kurtz
& Beatrice
Moses
& Crazy Jane
Garp
& Grendel
Sam Spade
& Annabelle Lee
King Lear
& Scarlet O’Hara

THE POET

practicing his gift
making his persistent bid
for immortality
he stirs thru the night
keeping a sharp ear out
for the first bird call

the moon settles over the hill
the sun glows up
from the end of the valley
and soon all the birds are singing
and there’s nothing left
for him to do
but go to bed
and sit up past dawn
and get a chill reading
the journal of a man
who sailed around Cape Horn
in 1836
and up the coast of California
into the vast solitude
of San Francisco Bay
then returned 24 years later
to a booming city
of over 100,000 inhabitants
none of them aware
that he, the poet, would be
on his way to join them
82 years later

no one saw him coming
none would see him go
so much for immortality

April 24, 2011

BOOK FOUR

reading Larry McMurtry’s
“By Sorrows River”
the 3rd book in a quartet called
“The Berrybender Narratives”
I turn the last page
and read the final paragraphs

facing the last page
is a message in bold
black letters asking me:

NOT SURE
WHAT TO
READ NEXT?

(which is followed by
a few suggestions
none of which is the 4th book of the quartet)

now I don’t know about you
but I find this strange
I already know
what I want to read next
(the 4th book of the Berrybender Narratives)
but I guess the publishers
are not taking a chance these days
on what they consider to be
a marginal writer
so why did they bother
publishing this book
if they had to finish it off
with such a stupid question?

AMERICA’S EMASCULATES

America’s emasculated men
between the ages of 30 and 50
whimpering, self-satisfied victims
of the worst of the so-called
feminist movement

the ball breakers have whipped
the starch out of them
and the only men standing up
to these misguided bitches
have gone to ridiculous extremes
and become foul-mouth
hateful, drunken brutes
who think that chick-beating
is the only way to assert
their macholinity

oh what confusion
what a pack of fools
what total ignorance
and sorrowful useless pain

don’t ask me again
why I haven’t gone back
to live in America

BICYCLE POEM 2011 (1)

back on the bike
after many lonely months
dust off the cobwebs
pump up the tires
and ride off into the sunset
along the tow path
by the river
where the horses
used to tote their barges
and the skies are not cloudy all day

where the goose neck swans
drift and dive
for unsalted fish
where cherry blossoms
carpet the path
where my hand grips don’t slip
because I filled them up
with buffalo glue
and the skies are not cloudy all day

where the sun sparkles on the water
where a half-sunken rowboat
called RIMBAUD refuses
to bob with the backwash
of a passing motor boat
where my back feels like
a cold piece of meat
and the skies are not cloudy all day

where two ducks
a green-headed male
and a female in a plain brown wrapper
paddle into the mainstream
side by side
leaving behind two tiny
identical triangular trails
in their wake
where a dog leaps up
against a chain link fence
and scares the crap out of me
and the skies are not cloudy all day

where a barge
chugging upstream
sends its waves slapping
and splashing against
the wooden pilings
of a wharf
where the dead skin cells of my scalp
fly off in the wind
and the skies are not cloudy all day

Easter Monday, April 25, 2011

THE WOLF

along the bike path
a lady with two dogs

I don’t know about the lady
(she talked too much)
but the dogs were fantastic
two different kinds
of Belgian sheep dogs

I looked into their eyes
and saw the wolf

I saw the wolf
and the wolf saw me

Easter Monday, April 25, 2011

WHAT? CONVERSATIONS

she says:
‘Do you want me to take your moon back?”
and I say:
“What?
“Do you want me to take you down
on my back?”
“Goodbye to the pousette.”
“What?
“I said ‘You buy those at the post office.'”
“That’s what I thought you said.”

this goes on all the time
and it works the other way too
I say, “Should be warm tomorrow.”
and she says, “What?”
“I said ‘ Should be warm tomorrow.'”
and she says “Oh I thought you said
‘ “Shoo be wumma tallum happen.”
“Take it up to the garage for wet.”
“What?”
“That’s what I said: ‘Take it up for what?'”

one of these days
we’ll start skipping the “What?”
and just go with the flow
“Wacker wonsome.”
“Skinsy peedle.”
“They went to the Sahara discus psychic tor.”
“As a dishit must look shurious.”
“Oh well pin.”

and in the end:
“Help!”
“Hell?”
“Hole!”
“Hope?”
“Ho!”

SLEEPING

there’s no joking around
when you’re asleep
take a look at someone sleeping
it’s a dead serious thing
no laughing matter
you don’t hear
any hilarious comments
coming from a sleeping mouth
just snores and snorts
and maybe an occasional mumble
something like:
“Ahm -urdle – hoom.”
if you find that funny
then you don’t want to miss
the next performance
of Graveyard Gus
the famous zombie stand-up comic
coming soon
to a cemetery near you

April 26, 2011

BEWARE WHEN THE LADY SAYS BUT

the lady says
“I’m not a racist . . . but . . . ”

well, I’ve got news for you, lady
everybody’s a racist
me, you, all of them
everybody
black, brown, white, red, yellow

we haven’t been out of the caves
long enough to wise up
we still believe in nations
we’re still true to our schools
cities, towns, clubs
and political parties
we hang onto anything that excludes
it’s us against them
that’s we way we are
we’ve wired ourselves
into that short circuit

“I don’t hate those people . . . but . . . ”
like hell you don’t

April 26, 2011

BOOKS IN THE WOODS

I like it when books
go into the woods
those dark places
sometimes gloomy
always mysterious

you can see Little Red Riding Hood
dashing across a clearing
with the Wolf in hot pursuit
he reaches out and rips off her cloak
hood and all
the Wolf chuckles
he reaches again
and rips off her dress
he goes, “Heh!Heh!”
Little Red screams
and the race is on again

and there goes Thoreau
to his cabin down by the lake
to grow his beans
away from the chatter of man

and here comes a Hobbit
under a canopy of spider webs
looking for the lost ring
and thinking how convenient it would be
to make himself invisible

and you might catch a glimpse
of Dante Alighieri trudging along
in the middle years of his life
drugged and loose with sleep
acorns crunching under his sandals
heading down to the river
to catch a ferry to hell
he won’t be back

the girl who loved Tom Gordon
got lost in the woods
and didn’t get out
until the last page
she’ll be dreaming of trees forever

Tough Guys don’t dance
but they go to the woods
to bury the heads of their victims

and where would Jim Harrison be
without thousands of acres
of aspen, birch and cedar
in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
he’s ain’t no city boy

and way out west
there’s Kerouac in a cabin
in a canyon in Big Sur
surrounded by trees
trees’ll drive you crazy, Jack

autumn leaves fall on the head of Titus Groan

snow falls on Beowulf

HIGH NOON IN PROFUNDITY

not much light or laughter
in the work of the recent poets
you’re into deep profundity
it’s no picnic
when you got your head
up your ass

but don’t get me started
on this
our wedding day

April 26, 2011

Q & A

Q. What does your cat do?
A. She purrsians

THE WANDERING LIGHT SWITCH

I live in a house with a wandering light switch
when I come into the room I never know where I’ll find it
sometimes it’s high sometimes it’s low
– once it was so low I had to get down on my knees
it changes place every time I’m gone from the house
and once it a while it wanders into another room
I’ll find it side by side with another switch
or I’ll find it in an unexpected inconvenient spot
on the floor under the bed
on the bathroom mirror
on the guest room ceiling

nobody believes me they think I’m crazy
“The wandering light switch is only in your head.”
they should come home with me some night
when the house is dark and join me feeling around
on the walls for the switch

but they’re partly right I won’t tell them about the time
I woke up and found the switch on top of my head
I forgot to duck for a low doorway
and all the lights in the house came on
so did the vacuum cleaner
the microwave
and the TV

I stepped outside into the dark night
flipped a switch on the mailbox
and the moon lit up in flashing red neon
you thought it was going to explode
didn’t you?
but no, you were wrong
the moon just blinked off and on
and blinked out the words
“I love you too.”

May 15, 2011

UNDERSHORTS (A PAIR WITH FESTIVE RED STRIPES)

Marie Claire and I standing, looking at
six pairs of my new boxer shorts
she just hung side by side on the line to dry

she says, “They’re holding hands
– and talking to each other
by letting out all the farts they collected
over the past week

that’s an image
I’m going to have a hard time
getting out of my head

TIME OF THE ASSASSINS

they’re letting the mad monsters
out of their cages
fed on raw meat for years
they’re starving for action

they whetted their appetites
in Panama, Nicaragua
Columbia and Bolivia

they sharpened their knives and forks
at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib

now they’re out practicing
their evil acts on everyone
in the entire world

mind control, folks

sounds like a conspiracy?

it’s not
it’s right out in the open
check your e-mail
take a look at your TV guide

June 12, 2011

RETIREMENT HOMES (ASSISTED LIVING)

that’s where they kill
the old man Mozarts

June 16, 2011

STILL LIFE SCULPTED FACE

there’s a still life sculpted face
in the wrinkles of my pants
on the floor by my bed
he doesn’t look too happy
or maybe he doesn’t approve
of the way I’ve been sleeping
“going to bed at all hours –
and getting up god knows when”

I reach out with my toe
give him a nudge
and he collapses back into
an ordinary pile of old clothes

that was a close call

June 18, 2011

WISE TO THE WAYS

was I naïve at the age of 20
when C. Garrigues, age 60
jazz critic from the S.F. Examiner
placed three LPs in front of me
and invited me to choose one
and I chose the Wes Montgomery
and he said, “It shall be yours,”
and I was speechless
at how a person could have
so much control over his mind
to be able to say something like that?

no

he was just older
and wiser to ways of bullshit

June 21, 2011

LIFE SO FAR

so – tell me
what do you think of life?
is it everything you expected?
everything you hoped it would be?
is it better than death?

take a look beyond the mirror
and tell me what you think of life
so far

June 24, 2011

AUTOGRAPH

Rafael Nadal comes off the grass court
of Wimbledon exhausted
and elated from a fiercely battled
half final sweating like a beast
wild-eyed with winning and besieged
by autograph seekers

he signs his names
on gigantic tennis balls
souvenir programs
and numerous scraps of paper
slashing with his marker pen
like a matador with a sword

only later will he find out
that he just bought 3 cars
and a house

July 1, 2011

LAZY VIOLENCE

over and over I’m glad
I don’t live in Southern California
I don’t drive
and over there if you walk
you might get arrested

everybody drives
they drive everywhere
and they don’t get out of their cars

they have drive-in movies
drive-thru fast food burgers and cokes
drive-thru shopping, banking and church

they don’t even get out of their cars
to kill someone
they call it a drive-by shooting
what a bunch of lazy slobs

July 6, 2011

BROTHER PAIN & DRAG

brothers seem to be
as much of a pain in the butt
as the rest of the far-flung family
they might have been fun
when you were kids
but somehow become a drag
after age 60

glad I don’t have one

I don’t know about sisters
Bear doesn’t have one either

so let me know
keep in touch
tell me all about
sister love & joy

July 18, 2011

WOLF CHASERS

who are these women
running with the wolves?

and where are the men?

the men are the wolves
everybody wishes
it could be simplified
everybody wishes
they could leave the wolves
alone and let them go back
to their quiet, solitary lives

but the wolves
are here to stay
the men get inside them
and can’t get out
and the women
must chase them
up the hills
into the mountains
into the forest

‘I want my wolf!”
one shouts, ripping
off her clothes
and another shouts back,
“My wolf dream
is coming true!”

but nothing is coming true
peel back the muzzle fur of the wolf
and see a man
peeking out

what are these men doing
hiding inside wolves?
and where are the women?

Dec. 26, 2006

AND THE SKIES ARE NOT CLOUDY ALL DAY

look at it this way:
sometimes you get
what you want
other times
you get to run
around the block
with your eyes on fire
being chased by madmen
who want to pull
out your hair

July 21, 2011

AMY WINEHOUSE RIP

they say only the good die young
but I’m thinking maybe
they die young
(and I’m thinking of JimJimiJanisJohn)
because they were quick to figure out life
and didn’t feel like messing around
in the sorrow pit any longer

so what does that say
about us old timers?
we’re too stupid to move on

we should listen when Amy says
“They wanted me to go to rehab
and I said: no – no – no!”

July 26, 2011

RIPPED HAIKU

the snap of Dubbel Bubbel against kid’s lips
burned baked beans in the school cafeteria
a turd trout lurks in the shadows of the toilet bowl

ANOTHER RIPPED HAIKU

black flag denotes anarchist
where are the grab bags?
sometimes you gotta cook your own meat

TWO MORE RIPPED HAIKU

don’t take no wooden
Indian head nickels
imagine sky 20 feet high

those clouds could be you and me
I’ll tell it like it is
and then I’ll shut up

POOL DOG

our neighbor dives
into his swimming pool
and the dog on the other side
of the other hedge
who can’t see either
(but can only hear
the plopping splash)
starts barking
and barking
and barking for a long time

this is called
high profile sports

May 9, 2006
rediscovered July 25, 2011

I WILL SURVIVE ON FLOWER DREAMS

I woke up suffering
from bad dreams

what kind of world
am I sleeping in?

children go begging
children starving
children beaten

tonight I’ll stay awake
and look at pictures of flowers
or maybe I’ll go out in the garden
with a flashlight and look at real ones

who knows?
I might stay awake forever

July 31, 2011

FRIENDLY THOUGHTS
for Dan Dan

last year
you rolled new tarpaper on my studio roof
you built me a new porch
and you fixed my computer glasses
so they wouldn’t fall off

I think of you
every time I step on the porch
coming and going
20 times each way each day

I think about you
every time I put on my glasses
to look at the computer screen
let’s say 15 times per day (minimum)

I think about you
everytime I walk down the path
and see my studio roof
average 10 times a day

that comes to a total of 80 times a day
(at least)
don’t you think that’s somewhat excessive?
even for a good friend?

I have other friends, you know
they’re starting to complain

July 31, 2011

THE NETTLE PULLER

my mother was a nettle puller
my father was a secret nettle puller
I come from a long line of nettle pullers

first of all
nettle pulling is easy

and then it’s very satisfying
to see all the little suckers and their roots
come out of the ground
and face the angry light of day

last of all: it’s dangerous
at any moment you can get stung
and be punished for wearing
only a t-shirt

who can resist the temptation?

I am a nettle puller

August 1, 2011

BLACK BLOB EVIL BEAST

a baby cutting teeth
it hurts
but she can’t speak
doesn’t know the word
for tooth
or pain
it’s a black blob evil beast
crawling thru the brain
and scratching holes
in her skull with fiery claws

and so she cries
and cries

we’re not much better off
65 years later
there are things going on
inside us
and we don’t know what they are
sometimes they hurt
and sometimes
the doctor helps
but he doesn’t really know
what’s going on either

so we curl up
under the black blob evil beast
and we cry
and cry

September 25, 2007
rediscovered August 8, 2011

LUDWIG VAN COOVER

pseudo-named authors
are recycling the old masters
stealing names from the past
hitch-hiking on classic reputations
stirring up histories of talent
they do not possess
hoping to elicit subconscious
sympathy and therefore
sell more books

Browning, Blake, Twain
Wharton, Darwin, Fielding
rip-off pen names
pseudonyms
fakes all

I think I’ll write a book
and call myself
Short John Longfellow
Shotgun “Mama” Hemingway
Kilroy Bradbury
Normankind Mailer
Jesus Steinbeck
or Robber Louisa Stevenson

how about: “A Tale of Two Roosters”
by Chicken Pickin’ Dickens
“Imitations of Immorality”
by Weasel Wordsworth
“Thieves of Grass”
by Bookworm Whitman
“The Purloined Letter Sweater”
by Pirate Poe
“Cat Burglar on a Hot Tin Roof”
by Mississippi Williams
“Slobberhouse Fife”
by Klepto Vonnegut
“The Shamlet”
by Wilt “The Stilt” Faulkner
“The Great Gutspeak”
by Effing “Swipe” Fitzgerald
Cash Wednesday
by T(ongue) S(natcher) Eliot

or maybe I’ll write 9 or 10 symphonies
and tell the world:
“Hey – I’m Ludwig Van Couver.”

YOUNG HAZELNUTS
[ BEAR COMMENTS ON THE NATURE OF REALITY ]

“There is a certain innocence in young hazelnuts
– they are totally tasteless.”

August 10, 2011

CALIFORNIA TIME

at 9 pm I’m just starting
to wake up and fit into
the day
at midnight I’m accelerating
I hit my stride at 1
at 3 I hit my peak
running flat out in the fast lane
passing every poet in sight

the birds start chirping at 4
and I’m slowing down tho still
pumping up the oil
and spitting out the exhaust

5-6 a.m. daylight rising
thru the window
running on empty
time to hit the sack
read a good book
and slip into sleep

people here in Belgium
are just cranking up their day
I hear cars starting up
and people breakfasted
going off to work
as I crash into dreams

how do I keep such an infernal clock
after all these 46 years? they ask

it’s easy
it’s natural
I’m still running
on California time

August 15, 2011

THE LAST OF THE HAUSFRAU DESPERADOS
(in praise of Terry Hatcher’s boobs)

at this point
some would say
they’d like to see a good movie

others might say
they’d like to see a good wrestling match

as for myself
I’d like to see
a scarecrow flapping thru a popcorn field
in slow motion
or a crossword puzzle with deceptive clues
or a can marked “beans” with peaches inside
or a pine tree sprouting ice cream cones
or a cat leaping into the sky
and scratching out the eye of a hurricane
or an Iberian Wolf loping across the horizon
with a flaming salamander clinging to his tail

but I wouldn’t mind a good movie either
something by that guy
who said, “The ideal American
woman’s height and weight
in the late 20th century
is 5 feet 6½ inches and 116 pounds.”

August 16, 2011

VARIATIONS ON THE FRUITS OF HUMAN EVOLUTION

1.
imagine a couch potato
with 2 heads
watching 2 ball games
on 2 TVs
drinking a beer with one mouth
and smoking a cigar in the other

2.
imagine a gopher
crawling out of a box
of Rice Krispies
stuffed and bloated
speaking his first words
“Snap! Crackle! Pop!”

3.
imagine an old oak tree
standing in the woods
until a young idiot with a chainsaw
comes along and cuts it down
for no reason at all

all the trees around
begin to weep
then they collapse
falling on the chainsaw boy
and crush him to death

no future for that idiot
he will not propagate the species

4.
imagine if you will
a room full of people
there are 2 dozen of them
they are all strangers
they are the last life forms
on Earth, not even plants
or insects have survived
the wipe out

they have slowly collected themselves
into this group over a period of years
and they are trying to decide
if they want to launch the human race anew

they vote
12 men and 12 women
4 vote for re-launch
the other 20 say what’s the use

they all get drunk
plug in a dusty jukebox
and start dancing to tunes
of an age long gone
the Rolling Stones get them hopping
and Led Zeppelin gets them excited
one of the men jumps on a woman
and rapes her

and just like that
the human race is re-launched

do you think the human race
will have a rosy future
from that grim beginning?

I don’t think so either
you saw what happened the last time

5.
imagine a ladybug
creeping around on an open
newspaper page on a table top
she lingers on the sportspage
checks out the boxscores
she leaves footprints on the crossword
which is the closest she’ll ever come
to solving the puzzle
she takes a nap on the face of a rock star
who’ll soon be in town
for a sell-out one-night stand
she drools into the singer’s mouth
which is photographically frozen
on a phrase from his famous nihilist song
the particular word is “NO!”
she wakes up and wanders
off the edge of the paper
onto the table
this is uncharted territory
uncivilized land
she sloshes thru a puddle of orange juice
and gets her feet stuck in a drop of honey
at least she’ll have something to eat
in her final hours

6.
imagine a bloody handprint
on a stone in the high desert air
the stone is warm
the sun has burned the blood
into the cracks
the shape of the hand
has been imprinted for eternity
give or take a few thousand years
either way

in a later age
a gang of walking tourists
discover the print
gossip spreads the word
soon thousands of rubbernecks
are tromping around
with cameras and sweaty armpits
a visit to the shrine has become a must
only 25 bucks for a 10-minute showing
and a chance to kiss the blood red hand
for celestial blessings and good luck

and year by year
the blood molecules in the handprint
become absorbed
into the molecules of the rock
the drool and slobber of tourist lips
accelerates the vanishment
and eventually the print is gone
lost forever

so much for eternity

7.
imagine a manuscript
rejected by a publisher
who should have known better

IF ONLY I WERE
for my old friend, Steve Syverud

If not for certain fates and phobia
and hallucinations of impossible utopia
I’d be someone kind and cool
perhaps a genius with a swimming pool
educated in far off Caledonia
with a PhD in Sweet Euphonia
an expert in high fashion whims
clothed in only potato skins
and lemur fur
if only I were

If I’d been born with a platinum spoon
a silver pitchfork and a copper spittoon
I’d be someone quiet and nice
I’d own a troop of midnight mice
and teach them how to chase away
the blues that turn your white hair grey
I’d have a toad and crabtree frog
a cautious cat and a vibrant dog
I’d take them walking on a merry-go-round
I’d be the talk of tinfoil town
I’d be the shout of the hoi polloi
a campfire girl’s whisper of joy
a distant rumor
if only I were

If I’d been born with darker skin
nine feet tall and much less thin
I’d be the King of Basketball
snooker, chess and free-for-all
or maybe I’d be racially prone
to pick up a baritone saxophone
and wail with the new birds on the block
or punch a hole in the toe of my sock
to get my body dancing tap
free form boogie with ghetto rap
I’d fall in love with the Hip Hop Girl
be her Prince of Bop, the Duke of Earl
she’d call me Sir
if only I were

If I’d been gifted with a golden ear
and not these tin horn cans of beer
the grand piano I’d’ve played like fire
Brahms and Liszt and the Vienna choir
or an organ with a thousand stops
and a thousand pipes that crackle and pop

or become a composer of jaw harp strums
symphonic burps and moleskin drums
I’d write a string quartet for two
bedsprings of love and laces of shoe
or an opera based on Moby Dick
for a hundred whales and a Dixie Chick
or one of those tales by Mister Poe
about three ravens that prophesy woe
but which might never occur
if only I were

If I’d been blessed with an eagle’s eye
I’d’ve painted birds down from the sky
onto the shoulders of models nude
someone in love with a lousy mood
Sharon Stone and Terri Hatcher
Amy Winehouse and Maggie Thatcher
bluebirds on their shoulders bare
combing beeswax from their hair
I’d twirl my moustache, then declare
I’m a famous painter now
portraits, landscapes, milk-swollen cows
I’m the man who put the smile
on Mona Lisa’s toothless child
I’d make a stir
If only I were

overtures and postaludes
along the primal latitudes
open doors where I can stroll
side by side with totem poles
leap from shot hot air balloons
sleep in shifting quicksand dunes
then drive along the milky way
with its black pot holes in a white Chevrolet
and hook a left into Wonderland
and ponder around with the Thunder Man
then come back to the starting gate
and get fixed up with another blind date

If only I’d been more astute
and taken lessons on the flute
before diving into a flooded street
with bagpipes strapped around my feet
my nostrils plugged with drinking straws
and an airbag locked into my jaws
I’d be a dolphin dude by now
I’d be the cat’s meow
I’d be the panther’s purr
if only I were

If only I’d been more promiscuous
more obscene and less conspicuous
I’d be the father of prodigious pride
with children scattered far and wide
from Tokyo to Labrador
from Santa Fe to Ecuador
I’d have a wife in old Peru
another two in Kalamazoo
three or four in Amsterdam
a dozen more in Vietnam
I’d be a paterfamilias famous
to every sniper, spy and shamus
from the Rubicon to Ancient Rome
and other places lesser known
and more obscure
if only I were

if I’d been picked for the talent show
I’d be a dancer on Foot Tap Row
or a blind magician with tricks galore
a topless hat and a bottomless floor
I’d pull kangaroos from an old jukebox
and get them singing about the Fox
I’d say pick a card like the queen of hearts
and turn it into an astrology chart
I’d finish off my magic show
by picking a volunteer from the second row
and saw her in half, and by my usual blunder
put her back together with her parts asunder
one leg on top, her head below
her feet reversed, her arms akimbo
her bellybutton staring from her left eye socket
and one of her ears with a brand-new pocket
I’d say, “Oopsy Daisy – my mistake –
let’s try it again with a garden rake”
she’d run me out of town on a rail
tar and feathered with a barbwire flail
saying, “If only you’d taken time to rehearse
you’d now be the President of the Universe.”
and I’d say to her
if only I were

Sept. 9, 2011

WALTER DE BUCK & THE PUMPKIN
for Marc & Denise Vandepitte

It was the kind of day
when people came from far away
to listen to my songs
and laugh in all the right places
it was that kind of day

autographing the cast
of a girl’s broken hand
who said she will give it
to a friend for his birthday
it was that kind of day

a hard-drinking woman
finger-licking the sign of the cross
on my forehead
so I would have a safe trip home
it was that kind of day

people walking around in the rain
and not getting wet
it was that kind of day

after taking a picture
of a rainbow climbing the sky
and finding that the rainbow
refused to be photographed
it was that kind of day

coming home
with a book about Walter De Buck
under one arm
a pumpkin under the other
and a vision of exactly
what kind of face
I will carve in its side
for Halloween

sitting down at my table
after driving across Belgium
in no time at all
and looking at the clock on the wall
and realizing that the numbers
were completely meaningless
and had been that way for years
it was that kind of day

stepping back outside late at night
to look at the full harvest moon
and finding the cat
with a harmonica in his mouth
entertaining a row of mice
on the garden wall
with his cat-laughter songs
it was almost that kind of day

Oudenaard (Heurne)-Stockay,
September 11, 2011

NO TEA FOR TUGBOAT TONIGHT

Tugboat was a bad boy
he climbed up in a tree
and couldn’t get down
they had to call the farmer
who came with a forklift on his tractor
the farmer charged them $25
which the father was hoping to spend
on DVD rentals that evening
(movies like “Xena: Warrior Princess”
and “The Incredible Hulk”
were high on his list)
and furthermore the farmer
caught a cold and vowed
he would never speak
to the boy’s father again
or to his mother
or his brothers and sisters
or any of their off-spring
unto the seventh generation
no tea for Tugboat tonight

Pugugly got her fingers dirty
when she stuck them into other people’s
beeswax and dirty laundry
she stirred up their box of onions
and set off rumors that caused
the divorces of a thousand couples
who had been happily married
for 40 years or more
Pugugly needs to be punished
for all the troubles she’s caused
no pie for Pugugly today

Bugaboo messed around with the bees
and taught them to forget
how to fly home after a day
in the field among the flowers and weeds
so they all died in the fields
and there was no more honey
or pollinated fruits and vegetables
and now everybody has a boring diet
of bananas and bread
Bugaboo is to blame
let’s get Bugaboo and show her
how displeased we are
no bananas of Bugaboo tomorrow

Chugalug likes to smoke cigarettes
and he likes to smoke pipes
loaded with tumbleweeds, thistle down
and pig bristles
but best of all he loves to smoke cigars
they smell bad
and make people puke
or provoke the memories
of horrible childhood incidents
which keep them awake at night
and wishing they were someplace else
the smell is so thick
that they have put up signs
all around Chugalug
that say: “BE PREPARED
TO COUGH UP THE BUGS”
Chugalug must be stopped
no cigar for Chugalug no more

Lugwrench is the worst
of them all
nobody can figure out
if Lugwrench is a man
or a woman
and this has been going on
for generations
and that’s just for starters
Lugwrench is a thief
he/she steals harmonicas
from folk singers’ tote bags
when the folk singer
has his back turned
he/she steals ideas
from innocent children
and calls them his/her own
and turns these ideas
into toys and solar-powered mousetraps
and soap opera plots
that will run prime time
for the next two centuries
and makes more money
than any one person
would ever need
in ten lifetimes
but most and worst of all
Lugwrench steals love
he/she steals love from a mother’s eyes
while she is gazing at her new born baby
he/she steals love from lovers
when their eyes are closed
he/she steals loves from the hearts
of pilgrims, prophets and poets
and leaves them with no hope
and a gloomy weather report
in the days to come
that’s it for Lugwrench
a new law of the land
has been slapped on his/her wrist
like a metaphysical handcuff
and people have gathered
to put an end
to his/her reign of terror
before he/she causes the collapse
of our entire civilization
and plunges the world
back into another dark age
where it gets so dark
that you can’t see your hand
in front of your face
or see amber waves of purple grain
from sea to shining sea
or see the coming of the lord
in a chariot of fire
with his/her neon whips
blinking messages of salvation
and unconditional forgiveness:
no love for Lugwrench forever

September 12, 2011

BEES & GODS

they say the honey bees are dying
garden fruits & vegetables
will stop growing
because of no pollination
no more corn, no more chili peppers
or strawberries or blackberries
or pumpkins
we will be eating only
bread & bananas
for breakfast, lunch & dinner
to the end of eternity
or until a team
of scientific geniuses
invents an electronic bee
powered by microchips
and programmed to seek out
distant nectar
by complicated computers

they’ll probably leave a sting
in the design
just for the perverse pleasure
of causing people pain
at unexpected moments
as the gods have a bad habit of doing

September 12, 2011

EYEBLINK OBLIVION

the gentleman stumbled
and fell
and hit his head
on the edge of the bed
and couldn’t wake up in the morning

that could happen to anyone
of any age
it could happen to me
or to you
and to you
and you and you
in the blink of an eye
trip on the edge of a rug
miss a step
and a moment later
you’ll be nothing more
than a few memories
in other peoples’ heads
people who will continue
to believe they will live forever

and won’t they be in
for a big, sudden surprise

September 12, 2011

LIMPING ON EMPTY

and just when I think
I’m out of poetic gas
I sit down on the edge of my bed
and write three more

four

September 12, 2011

By my own river I know

Poems 2011 – Part two |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

THE DOGS OF BELGIUM FEEL BAD
ON CERTAIN WNTER AFTERNOONS

C. Bukowski, “Beaujolais Jardot”
in The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps

this not being a winter day
but rather a hotcross bundle
of a pollinated pool
of a cloud-magnified sun
and a few buckets of rain
on a whiplashslapdash day
at the end of summer,

I cannot say if those Belgian dogs
really feel that way.

In the past 40 years
I have seen them frenzied, angry
mad dogs hurling their bodies
at fences as I pass by on my bike
not only on certain winter afternoons
but on spring mornings
and summer nights too

also I’m pretty sure
they feel hungry
at any time of year
regardless of the season

and feeling lonely
is a year-round condition
for dogs not only Belgian
but Dutch, French and Spanish too

but I’ll take Bukowski’s word for it
he probably knows a lot more
about Belgium than I do
and I know next to nothing
about dogs (Belgian or otherwise)
except that when you call them
they come running
with their teeth grinning
and their tongues hanging out
and for a moment or two
you’re not sure
if they’re begging to be petted
or if they’re getting ready
to rip off your leg

September 13, 2011

BERGER MALINOIS

they put pictures of dogs
on stamps
pictures of birds
and other animals
of feather and fur

they put pictures of people too
(usually the famous)
but that’s not the same thing
as pictures of humans

and just as the picture of a dog
might have an inscription
printed along the edge
– “Berger Malinois” –
the various humanoids
would be described in similar ways:

HOMO-SAPIENS-CAUCASIAN-MALE-MIDDLE AGE

HOMOSEXUAL-FEMALE-NEGROID-CHILD

HOMO ERECTUS-NUDE-DON’T GET OUT
THE MAGNIFYING GLASS IT’S KINDA UGLY

the picture of a fool with drool on his lips:

Known as John Doe, Joe Blow, Kilroy or just plain Who? this man snuck into the world thru the backdoor when nobody was looking and, as might be expected, nobody has been paying much attention to him since. You could cross him off your list without a whimper of guilt, if he’d ever been on your list in the first place.

a skinhead with a swastika tattooed on his brow:

Neanderthal – thought to be extinct for millennia but recently found breeding in obscure corners of deep, dirty city sewers along with Rattus Rattus and Crocodylidae

a rock musician with a guitar and a ponytail:

Getting the band back together after 40 years is not an easy task for this type of grey-haired geezer. Luckily in this picture his mouth is closed. If it were open, what would you see? No teeth. No tongue. Just a moldy banana skin lying across his lower lip, waiting for a lady bug to come along, slide in over the gums and right down into the black hole of his gullet.

a bohemian with a beard and shades:

In recent years, familiarly known as a Beat (Baccus Beatatudinous) or a Hippie (Hippicus Parasitis), this breed of human has more recently reverted to his old habits of writing poetry about laughter and painting pictures of free love. Fortunately there is now a world-wide plot to eradicate this species of human from the earth before it does any more damage to the moral fabric of our computerized society. Send your money to bagthebohemian@garbagemendunited.com

an astronomer with a telescope and a copy of Larry McMurtry’s “Lonesome Dove”:

While waiting for comets. asteroids and quasars to appear on his computer screen (which happens only once or twice in his lifetime) this sub-species of human amuses himself by reading tales of the wild west when cowboys were tough, the outlaws were tougher and the Indians were better dead than fed. This was long before the pesky redskins owned gambling casinos and had football teams named after them

a Saturday Night party animal in a troglodyte mask:

Wishing to return to his roots and join his close relatives of the ancient past, such as werewolves and vampires, he goes around bragging about the cave he lives in – with running water (actually dripping water which turns taking a shower into a week-long marathon) and-wall-to-wall floors of marble (or some kind of hard stone which knocks out his teeth and gives him a black eye when he gets drunk and falls on his face) and a 2-wagon garage – the wagons pulled by pygmy wooly mammoths have become the talk of the town because only last week a good friend of his invented the wheel and so far only the rich and intelligent have the means of owning one (much less eight – four per wagon and with white-walls too). But don’t believe him. He’s just a used-car salesman from the Burbs with a wife walking around and wearing out her 14th facelift (and looking more like a troglodyte than he ever will) and a 28-year old daughter on her 9th repeat of her senior year in high school who turns tricks in the back of the gym while they’re showing propaganda movies that promote the spread of AIDS in Africa (“We estimate that by the year 2020 more than 90% of those boogie woogies will have vanished forever”) and a 33-year old son who lives in an apartment over the garage and spends all his time playing computer games that feature real troglodytes and the terrorized mammals they hunt for food and fun and chatting on-line with women (who say they’re 18 and post pictures they’ve scanned from magazines of classy Swedish pornography but who are really 85 and look a lot worse than his troglodyte mom who unbeknownst to either is one of the chicks he trades dreams with in the chatroom) he hopes to meet someday when he gets rid of his sloppy gut and changes his taco-stained t-shirt for a white tuxedo and black stretch limo.

a would-be terrorist:

He dreams of someday blowing up a bank along with portions of his body, in an attempt to show the world that there is only one God – the God that enslaves woman – and no bastard of a father is going to get away with abusing him on a daily basis while his girlfriend stands around and laughs at the sight of him on his back waving his arms in the air and pumping his legs as if he were riding an invisible bicycle and screaming lines from the holy scripture, such as, “Death to all Infidels and geeks who wear glasses and read books about parallel worlds and love at first sight!” and “When this is over I’m gonna go down town to a McFat and pick up a dozen cheese burgers that contain fecal matter with fries and shakes because all this humiliation is making me hungrier than hell.”

a stand-up comedian with a sprig of locoweed planted in the web of his microphone

He is so stoned that he thinks all of his jokes are fumy, even when his audience sits on their hands and makes blubber noises with their lips, so funny that he can’t stop laughing at his razor-sharp wit which has him slapping his knees, licking that leaf of weed and groaning: “Oh man, hand me down my rolling stones.” Nobody laughs. Some get up and leave. Others go to sleep. He is so stoned that he thinks he’s in heaven bouncing around on a pink cloud of cotton candy while entertaining the troops down below in Hell. Little does he know that he has just taken off his clothes and is about to stick his testicles in a meat grinder. In a minute or two he’ll find out what’s really going on up there on that nightclub stage

a book buyer with a copy of Finnegans Wake under one arm and a smile a mile wide on his narrow, slyfox face

Money is no object to this poor creature whose addiction is soul-consuming and cannot be cured. He used to have discriminating tastes in literature – novels by Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, Cormac McCarthy and Nick Hornby. Then one day he turned a corner. He bought a James Michener at half price. From then on his plunge into the pit of junkiebookdom was quick and irreversible: Harold Robbins, Kate Mosse, Pat Booth, Danielle Steele- right down to the “authors” who don’t have the first clue about writing and depend on their editors to come up with their best-selling goods: Jeffery Archer, Dean Koontz, Sue Grafton, Mary Higgins Clark. Now he comes home from a hard day in the book stores with truck loads of pulp and crap “Litter-a-ture.” He has finally hit rock bottom with the worst of the worst: he now has the complete collection (hard bound, trade paper, paperback and 17 translations of each) of J.K Rowlings’ Harry Potters. All attempts to cure him have failed. His doctors pulled a couple of Stephen Kings on him to ease him back on the path to good taste but they received extreme verbal abuse for their efforts. Subjected to a John Irving he cried continuously, demanding his tattered first edition of “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” for consolation. Finnegans Wake plunged him into a coma from which he almost didn’t awake. He couldn’t sleep for a week after reading a Jim Harrison and his withdrawal pains increased exponentially with William Boyd and Don De Lillo. There is no hope for this species of human. Stick him a room with a stack of Jackie Collins and lock the door.

The Couch Potato – a sub-species of the Slobbus Conventionalis found over all North American lands where he threatens to drive all other sub-species into extinction. His kind have more recently spread to Europe where they have mutated into a creature known as the Pommes De Terres Faux-Toy Immobilus Imbecillus in France and in the southern parts of Belgium. In the Northern parts of Belgium they are known as the Rocking Moostashes. Others of similar ilk have spread to the east – to Russia and India – and in the past few days further mutated versions have been springing up in China and Japan.

With a can of beer clutched in one fist and his beer-belly bulging and sagging over the belt line of his boxer shorts, he sits on a couch sagging to the floor under the weight of his cannonball butt. He slouches all day (and night) with his eyes fixed to a TV screen. On a table next to the couch is a vast array of foodstuffs in plastic sacks the contents of which are too gruesome to mention; an ice cooler chockfull of beer is perched by his side on the couch. And to say that his eyes are fixed on the TV screen, where the tiny figures of football players are running up and down the field, falling down and punching their fists in the air if they think they’ve just made a cool move, is no exaggeration. His eyes are glued. Plastered. They couldn’t be more connected to the activities on the screen if he had wires coming out the set and plugged into his optic nerves thru holes drilled in the side of his skull. He is unable to see anything else. The outside world goes on and on – people blowing up each other with suicide bombs, cutting each other down with knives, smashing each other to small pieces of meat with their speeding cars, declaring war on each other from the most private of marriages to the most planet-pervasive, massive invasions by armies and Radar-defying fighter planes. Yet the Couch Potato’s eyes remained riveted to the TV screen long after the football game is over. Now he is watching a movie and he can’t distinguish it from the ball game he was watching a while ago. One minute he was watching Tom Brady of the New England Patriots guide his team to another victory and a few minutes later he’s looking at Tommy Lee Jones in “No Country for Old Men” and he can’t tell the difference between the two. Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns and Billy Bob Thorton of “Slingblade” look the same. All movies appear identical – “Avatar” and “Shrek” and “Brother Where Art Thou” and “Lost in Translation” – and he has no idea that the actors in these movies might actually be different people – Julia Roberts and Harrison Ford, Woody Allen and Batman, Gene Hackman and Jodie Foster, Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon, Sarah Jessica Parker and George Clooney. The news comes on and he thinks it’s another movie (and for the first time all day, he’s right), then it’s back to another sporting event – a game of basketball which he confuses with another football game. Kobe Bryant scores a touchdown and the fans go wild, which the Potato thinks is a violent peasant revolt in a historical drama. Then the weather report follows with a video clip of Ting Ting’s latest hit tune. Is it any wonder that the entire nation is going down the tubes because 50% of the population is, or soon will be Couch Potatoes? (The other half is a deadly brew of horse racing jockeys, mule skinners, two-bit hookers, drunk mail men, drunk used car salesmen, drunk bartenders, racists, revival preachers in circus tents, card sharks, 5-string banjo pickers, migrant peanut diggers and deaf piano tuners. Is it any wonder? Don’t ask the Couch Potato. He’s too busy absorbing breaking news from Baghdad where Johnny Depp is trying to seduce Sandra Bullock but ends up working as a janitor for Alcoholic Anonymous and millions of fans are going berserk as Derek Jeter blasts a homerun for his 3000th career hit with a 40% chance of light rains tomorrow afternoon.

The Surfer – with his surfboard under one arm and his 12-inch vinyl copy of “The Best of the Beach Boys” under the other.

His life is one of pure joy. Sun-tanned with sun-bleached hair he strolls along the white sandy beaches of Malibu and Waikiki gathering a following of adoring, beautiful California Girls with long blond hair and barely visible bikinis. They sit around campfires at night and roast hotdogs and smoke weed and tell tales of legendary surfers. Then someone turns on a radio and they get up and dance to “Surfin’ Safari. Then he grabs a board, plunges into the dark water and disappears into the night, never to return, never to be seen again on any of the white sandy beaches from Australia to Santa Monica. A new legend is born. Another tale for the hotdog campfire.

A junkie with a spike in his arm:

It all started when he came home from work got a cool drink of milk from the fridge which left a white wet chalky line on his upper lip then he went into the bedroom and found his wife in bed with a Berger Malinois.

September 13, 2011

THE AL TALLEY AUTOGRAPH

I’ve never felt comfortable
signing my name
to record covers, CDs
or even stray slips of paper
I’ll do it
because it seems to please some people
but I won’t be enthusiastic about it

not long ago
I came across an autograph book
I had when I was a kid
it’s full of autographs
of people I don’t remember

here’s one: Al Talley
who was Al Talley?

Yes, now I remember
Al Talley was a running back
from UC Berkeley in 1951
he was no more than a boy
of 21 years at the time
and probably died in the Korean War
a year later
or maybe he’s still alive
slowly decomposing in a rest home
in Tucson Arizona
with only a single memory
left in his head
to keep him alive:
the memory of the day
he scored a touchdown
for the West
in the East-West All-Star game
and then wrote his name
in the autograph book
of a 10-year old kid
with thick glasses
and a stupid grin
and in doing so
signed away his soul to the devil
for time everlasting

September 14, 2011

APOLOGISTICA REDUX

all these TV dramas
not packed with action
but packed with apologies

sorry for this, sorry for that
“I’m sorry I slapped your face, baby
-and then punched you in your baby guts.”

“I’m sorry I screwed up
and got you tossed out of
(a) school, (b) church, (c) your job
(d) the local bingo club
just like the last time
(when I apologized)
and the time before that
(when I apologized)”

“Sorry” seems to be the theme song

a single word that makes up
for the dirty deed
makes the ground level again
turns disappointment, mistrust,
hurt and fear into the glow
of a mellow Xanax addiction
the injury and abuse
locked away
in a ribbon-wrapped box
inside of which angels
dance in the hair
of a pin-head’s wig
to the music of the spheres

tho seldom do you hear
the apology being accepted
the apologizer assumes it must be
because he has humbled himself
by admitting that he is sore

but I don’t think these actors
are sorry for their scripted foibles
and fuck-ups
it gives them something to do

in the past, Humphrey Bogart
had cigarettes to play with
so did Bette Davis and Fred MacMurray
and a host of other nicotine heads

when they took away their cigarettes
they took away the ideal, most plus perfect
stage prop in the history of drama
glasses of booze don’t cut it
will never take the place
of those mysterious clouds of tobacco smoke
that hung above the actors’ head
like halos
booze will never take the place
of little white tubes of smoldering tobacco
for a simple reason:
if a 21st century actor
took a shot of whiskey
the way an actor in the 40s
lit up a Camel
he or she would be too drunk
to finish the scene
to stand up in a mild breeze
much less remember his lines

but I’m sure they’ll come up
with a new toy for actors to play with
that beats the routine apology

maybe they’ll get the actors
to chew gum and blow pink bubbles
like baseball players do when they get on first
after beating out a bunt single

maybe they’ll get actors
to wield buzzing chainsaws
Robin Williams shouting “I am not sorry
and I never will be
for sleeping with your wife,”
after which he’ll cut a hole
in the floor around the husband’s feet
and laugh loudly as the cuckold
drops thru the floor
into the apartment below

or give the actors rubber toys to play with:
elephants, turtles, giant caterpillars
John Travolta with a rubber gorilla under his arm as he struts down Broadway
Clint Eastwood with a rubber anaconda
draped around his neck
Sigourney Weaver strolling around
in an airhorn bra
with flashing red lights
Bruce Willis packing a fire extinguisher
into a local 5-spoon eatery:
“Sorry Mr. Willits – ”
“Willis.”
“Sorry Mr. Willis, but you can’t bring
a fire extinguisher in here.”
“Did you say SORRY?”
“‘Fraid so. Sorry.”

Sorry means
you’ll never do it again
so when you do it again
and again
“sorry” means that you’re
a sorry-ass hypocritter
and no friend of mine

September 14, 2011

BOTTOMLESS BOWL

did you ever try to eat
a bottomless bowl of spaghetti?

the more you ate
the more the bowl kept staying half full

each bite brought you no closer
to the bottom than the bite before

at first you were starving
so you gobbled down the top layers
without a second thought
(and with no premonition
of what was about to happen to you)
then you were full
but you refused to be intimidated
by a stubborn bowl of spaghetti
that refused to become empty
you kept rolling up the pasta strands on your fork and stuffing them in your gullet

now the task has become impossible
you keep dipping and stuffing
but you can’t empty the bowl
you’re so full that you almost gag
with each mouthful
but you keep stuffing your face
thinking that at any moment
your belly will burst wide open

you can see them late at night
down at the Gormless Café
all the bottomless bowl eaters
bellies puffed on pasta
bellies sagging over the edge of their chairs
and slobbing on the floor in a pool of drool
their forks with strands of spaghetti
wrapped around them are poised in mid-air
they sigh
they relent
they stuff the forked balls of spaghetti
into their mouths
they chew – slowly – reluctantly
then they gulp it down
they explode

their bowls are not half full now
they are more than half full
all those explosions
stimulated the spaghetti
like a nest of worms
into a sudden burst
of spontaneous reproduction
and a joyful resurgence
in the pasta populations
the bowls will soon be over flowing

September 16, 2011

JUNGLE VIBES
(also known as Balsamine & Copper Tops)

my son is trying to discourage
my love for jungle vibes
which are growing all around my studio
peeking thru my windows
and tapping on my door

“They’re parasites
they’ll grown anywhere
they’ll spread all over the garden
they’ll knock down your door
push you up against the wall
and laugh in your face
until you stop breathing”

but hey, you’re forgetting something
they’re beautiful
(and bees love ’em too)
come and get me, jungle vibes

September 17, 2011

A PACK OF JOKERS

as a student I never understood
why the 18TH & 19th century
writers of English poetry and novels
like Dickens and Shelly
and Defoe and Fielding
and William Makepeace Thackery
made their writings so convoluted
and difficult to understand

later in life I began to read
and enjoy these writers
tho by then I clearly understood
that they were just showing off

– much like a dog
who’s just dug up a bone
he buried in the garden
last year and forgotten
about and now wants everybody
to come and look
and admire it
and maybe take a lick

September 20, 2011

A STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE

has anybody ever considered
that memory might be the key
that opens the doors
to the multiple parallel worlds
we’re all so excited about?

September 20, 2011

THE MAN IN THE MIRROR

stand before a mirror
what you see is a reverse
reflection of yourself
lift your right hand
and the Man in the Mirror
lifts his left

this is not how people see you
for that you need a corner mirror
two plates of reflecting glass
joined edge to edge at a 90º angle
stand with yourself placed in the split
lift your right hand
the Man in the Mirror does the same

this is how people see you
tho you must remember
that the Man in Mirror
exists nowhere in the real world

only on the other side
of the two glass plates
somewhere in the tiny gap
between them

September 21, 2011

THE FINE LINE

it’s a fine art
distinguishing
between the off-beat
(the eccentric, the goofy, the crackpot)
and the helplessly insane
it’s a fine line

I’ve long thought
that if you think you’re crazy
you can’t be

but now I’m not so sure

how can you know
if you’ve stepped over the line?

is it when you stop being an odd ball
and become a basketball?

is it when you stop being funny
and become hysterical?
when your friends’ smiles
turn to grins
then to grimaces
and finally their faces
into frozen masks of horror?

when you find yourself
outside half-darkened windows
at night, watching movies
on other peoples’ TVs
and supplying the dialogue
by whispering verses
from the Nag Hamadi Library?

is that going too far?

how about this:
riding a bicycle around the house
when you don’t have a bicycle?

is that helplessly insane?
or is that just slightly off-beat?

for me that’s normal
but what do I know?
I’m just a loon
from the far side of the moon
stopped over for a few beers and belly laughs
while my dump truck
gets refueled and fixed up
with fresh balloons

September 23, 2011

BIKE POEM 2011 (2)

late getting started this year
the farmers have already put the earth
to bed for the winter
only the corn standing
and the beetroots squatting

touch the earth

and picture a hundred other roads
I’d like to ride right now

must remember to do this again
some day

Lost Haiku Road, September 23, 2011

BIKE POEM 2011 (3)

chill in the air
still air

steam from the reactors in Tihange
spouting straight up from the horizon
into a blob cloud
two long skinny legs
of a fat, deformed
monster chicken
with its beak reaching out
to touch the setting sun

Rainbow Stub Road, September 23, 2011

BIKE POEM 2011 (4)

The steam cloud chicken monster
hovering over the horizon
is slowly turning
my way
good thing I’m headed for home
I just might make it

Rage Road, September 23, 2011

“FALLING SATELLITE TO HIT EARTH’S SURFACE
SOMETIME LATE FRIDAY OR EARLY SATURDAY”

it’s not enough that our planet
has to brave the potential disasters
of comets and meteors

we had to go out
and toss a 6-ton pile of junk in the air
so that it could someday
(like right now)
come plummeting down
thru our roof
and nail us in bed
while asleep
and dreaming
of far-off solar systems

September 23, 2011

SYLLOGISM & SEVEN PROOFS

SYLLOGISM

if all sensory perceptions become memories which
in turn become unreliable and inaccurate due to various manipulations of the brain

and if a person is no more or less than a collection of his or her memories (for without them we would not be able to identify ourselves)

then we are each of us fictional characters
of our own invention

PROOF 1

Buffalo Bill. Bo Diddley. Bob Dylan. Madonna.
Raoul Duke. Mark Twain. Voltaire.
John Wayne. Rock Hudson. Hulk Hogan.
Mata Hari. Wavy Gravy. The Big Bopper. Iggy Pop.

Marilyn Monroe. James Dean. Wolfman Jack.
Mother Teresa. Ethel Merman. Woody Allen.
Liberace. Le Corbusier. Freddy Mercury. Malcolm X.
Captain Beefheart. Bono. Sting.

PROOF 2

who taught me to sing “The Fox’?
Pete claims it was him when we were 17
in our first year in college
my memory tells me it was my grandmother
when I was 4 as a bedtime lullaby.
which of us is living a fiction?
probably both

PROOF 3

“Where were you last night?”

“Right here.”

“That’s what you say.”

“Where do you think I was?”

“Not here.”

“Can you prove that?”

“Yes I can. You have not left
a single footprint outside in the hall
where the dust is an inch thick.”

“And where are your footprints?”

“I wasn’t here either.”

“Can you prove that?”

“Why should I? You and I
were in a plane
on our way to Europe.”

“So where are we now?”

“Not here.”

PROOF 4

when I look at Salvador Dali’s paintings
for a long time
I get a certain feeling
that the world outside his frames
is a lot less reliable
than the one I’m staring into

then as I look deeper
the world I’m standing in
disappears
and I am left with only one place to be –
inside Dali’s mind

that he has been dead
for some years
does not help my state of mind
at all
what if Dali should disappear?
where would I be?

his body is buried in a coffin
on display in a room
of a museum
in Figures, Spain
but I’m pretty sure his mind
has flown the coop
long ago

now I know why
the nut houses
are packed to the rafters
with sane people

PROOF 5

let me tell you about a man
who put all his eggs
in one basket
and by the time he got hungry
the eggs had hatched
and the birds had all
flown away

no one believed him
when he said
he’d really been looking forward
to another taste of stork steak

PROOF 6

we are hanging by a thread here
simple syllogisms have been left
far behind
we are in the realm
of anything goes
anytime
anywhere
everywhere

this is where you take a book
off the shelves of an old, dusty
bookstore in Amsterdam
and read about yourself
as a famous painter
tho you know nothing
about painting
and have certainly
never been famous
then look down
and notice
that your feet
have made no prints
in the dust on the floor

PROOF 7

with absolutely no extra effort at all
I can remember things that never happened

September 28, 2011

NO CHANGE OF SEASONS

the season is turning
a breeze sends a few leaves
whispering to the ground

and spiders are weaving webs
and stocking up
on winter supplies

and apples are thumping
to the turf and rolling
downhill past the magnolia tree

yet the honey bees are still
gangbanging the jungle vibe blossoms
and the sun is begging me
to take another long bike ride

September 28, 2011

HALFWAY HOUSE

halfway home
on a drive
from the far side of Belgium
we pass thru a village
and see a house
with a “for sale” sign in the window

Bear says:
“If we bought that house
we’d be home now.”

September 29, 2011

THUMBNAILS

1.
she looked like a detective
on the trail of a dangerous lover
who’d left behind a string of broken hearts

2.
she took to love like a duck takes to oil

3.
the stadium crowd sounded like
a gang of motorcycles
at an intersection’s red light
where bums wander around
with buckets of water and wipers
begging to wash your windshield for tips
the moment the light turns green

4.
“All you have to do
is put your mind to it,”
he thinks to himself
as he puts his mind to it
– and his mind
keeps giving it back

5.
she walks down the street
clicking her tongue against her teeth
she stops to look at dresses in a window
of a fashion shop where a window dresser
is changing clothes on the store window dummies
she sees the reflection of her head
imposed on a nude dummy
half her height and twice as thin
and she stops clicking her tongue
against her teeth

6.
tho he has no intention
of going up in a plane and jumping out
he sits, night after night, at the bar piano
with a parachute strapped to his back
and entertains the lounge lizards
with Richard Twardzik tunes.

7.
after 90 seasons
as a tight end in the NFL
he retired with 19 broken marriages
and 226 broken bones
saying he was tired of sitting on the bench

8.
“Lepidopterology is the study
of butterflies,” says the biology teacher
looking out the classroom window
and watching a strong wind
rip the flag from the top of the pole
and send it flapping into the sky
over the football field
on its way south
perhaps to Brazil

9.
she serves peanut butter sandwich
and peach-flavored ice tea lunches
to recovering alcoholics
in the bingo room
of St. Dominics
she doesn’t mind when the ex-drunks
don’t give her a second look
she feels lucky they gave her a first

10.
prosaically
and by other manners less esoteric
he worms his way
into the books of our hearts
only to get tripped up
by all the dog-eared pages
and tangled
in the underlined passages

11.
she married for love
but she settled for the money

12.
his daily routine
was as predictable
as wallpaper

13.
she was a black tooth fairy
in the mouth of a blue river

14.
she was an empty noose
dangling over
a parking lot packed
with stretch-neck geese

15.
she was minus one
on the earthquake scare
and way below zero
on the volcano charts

16.
she was nothing to brag about
nothing to be proud of

17.
she was an out-of-tune piano
but the music she made
made everybody get up and dance

18
he couldn’t find anybody
to recommend him
so he recommended himself:
I will surprise you
I will make you smile
you will dream deep
because the Man in the Moon
is watching over you
as you sleep

but he still couldn’t get a job
as a free-lance sleepwatcher
everybody felt
he was far too creepy
when they woke up
in the middle of the night
and found him peeking
thru their windows

19.
she was far more nimble
than the butterflies
of her bootstraps

20.
he wished he had the charisma
of her eyebrows
she admired the way his fist
shattered the window
without punching a hole
in the curtain

21.
he sat in a television studio
looking into the camera
and told lie after lie
everyone could see
he was lying
he was so transparent
that his facial features
(eyes, nose, ears, mouth)
had become almost invisible
by the end of his speech

yet he kept on lying
unaware that he was in danger
of disappearing
unaware that the votes
had already been counted

22.
she sits staring into space
lost in thought
biting on her thumbnail
so far, so good
now get out your box
of colored crayons
and give her some yellow hair
straight hair, up and down
she’s got eyes
blue eyes
now I don’t think
you’re going to like
this next part
but you have no choice
there’s a man standing
behind her
a red man
he has a red face
and red eyes
and a red mouth
and red hair
and he has two huge
red arms
and he’s reaching around the girl
and rubbing his red hands
all over her face
up and down
her face is turning red
side to side
her face is totally red
it could be blood
but it’s probably something else
and it’s dripping down
all over her
and it squirting up
all over the picture
until everything
is just one huge red blob
bet you never thought
this was going to happen to the girl
when you first saw her
neither did she

23.
in the red light district
of New Orleans
he was famous for playing
scorchhouse trumpet

ALPHABET BLOCK SOUP

A is a good letter
it really works a lot
it appears in a lot of words
(like “appear”)
it doesn’t complain
and it doesn’t apologize
What more can you ask?

O is a zero. Omega. Oh my.
No amount of persuasion
will ever get it to lie down on its side
It just rolls away
and comes back again
It connects the Irish.

I sings.
What a burden.
What confusion.
If it gets in the way.
take it out
hang it on a line
see if it’s wet.
Does it still get in the way?
You know what to do.

W
Don’t talk to me about the double U.
Double me. Don’t get me started.

Y is an old hippie trucking along
thinking about thinking
and taking it easy does it, man
not bothering to bother
to explain why or what
and where are we anyway?
someplace between
here and there
yesterday and everywhere.
Give him space.
He’s just trying to make one end meat
and maybe cop a vegetable
for a two o’clock lunch.

Z
oh what a snooze.

P
don’t piss me off
don’t pull my daisy
don’t put all your eggs in my basket
I’ll mind my Qs but not all the others
they’re green and they roll off my fork

V
from the tip of a pitchfork
the victory sign
from the end of an arm
dona nobis pacem
But what’s in the crotch
in the split of the fingers?
traces of feces and sperms all a-glow
bacteria and unwashed juices of love
crabs and lice and everything nice
that’s what little girls are made of

K
is for Kafka
he made it his own

OK
is ours
but we have to share
half with Citizen Kane

T
take a T to dinner
give him some meat
a T-bone steak
grilled mean streaks

take him for a drive
let him sit behind the wheel
in the fur-pink ticklish
catbird seat of a T-Bird
and watch him turn the corner
at the end of T-Square Street

get him all dressed up
in a whopping white t-shirt
and take him out behind the backstop
and flush him with toilet jokes
stomp him with stupidity
punch him down with pokes
and waves of steaming heat

but no matter what you do
he’ll pop back up again
flexibility?
it’s printed in concrete

trees that bend with the wind
he grows them in his backyard
he takes them for a spin
see them cluster like pinpoints
around the foot of his feet

T’s a treat
he can’t be beat
don’t cross him out
just cross him indiscrete

G
gut smoke
rolls right over into gas
its goes whiz
its goes gash and god
and gobble around the gooseberry gush

J
Jerry Lee Lewis sat on this fish hook
and it’s never been the same since.
Elvis never influenced language like Lee
he flopped around in it
slopped around
shopped around
but he never bent a C
not like Jerry Lee
Jerry Lee sat on a C
and kicked it around
he limped from Tennessee
with a C wrapped around his knee
Oh Suzannah, don’t cry for me
just bless the soul of Jerry Lee

C
as explained above
C has had a hard life
road torn and ripped with strife
rolled out of rock
and rocked out of love

after all the shock and sewers
when the people shouted for a middle C
they were shouting into an empty sky
some of them settled for less
some of them settled for an S

S
it’s obvious

E
Rimbaud said it’s white
blanc
he wanted the translation rights
but he and everything else he wanted
got lost in translation
E’s just an excuse
a nudge of the tub
in a 3-point earthquake

L
is going to fall over
if J doesn’t move in
next door
soon

F
hovers above you
like something bad
you might do
heavy and heartbroken
shivers over you
like a sinbad fingersnap

H
trembles the pocket of air
in which your head is trapped

when you get back from Europe
tell me about H
how do the Germans exploit it?
how do the French explain it?
how do the Italians skip it?
Spanish sweep with it?
Greeks sleep with it?

M
entire book shelves have been written
with the help of M
You might need a B
once in awhile
and a D will do just nicely
in a pinch when you come
to the last paragraph
but you can rely on M
it’ll always be there
when you need to hum

U
is it something you want to keep?
find it in a battered cigar box
40 years later in your bottom drawer
with a dried-up tube of brylcreme
and an empty bottle of wildroot
smear it in your hair
right now
get it over with
bust the bubble
let its grease pour down
over your ears
and drip from your lobes
onto your padded shoulders

Q
I said I’ll mind them
I’ll give them a U
I’ll give them an answer
from the tip of the poolstick.

But I won’t answer those questions
if I hear Q’s wheels
crunching in the gravel
trying to trick me into thinking
it’s got a flat tire
I’ll sneak out the back door
and hook up with a B

B
You will need years of study
to get ready before letting B
into your life. He can turn
into a B plus in which case
you’ll be only a nudge away
from an A minus
on the other hand
he could slide into a B minus
and from there the freefall
into obscurity will be is endless,
all the way thru D to an F.
If it hasn’t already been said
be careful when you approach an F
People have been known to get lost
beyond its city limits

D is derivative
dependent
depressive
it’s a half of a B
it’s a P without tail
(and Bs are bees
without a buzz
they’re bubbles
and buttons
did you notice their beer bellies?)
but D is dumpy
desperate and dumb
D doesn’t have to be here
we can do just fine without him
and so can ‘avid and ‘anny
and ‘ouglas and ‘enny
and ‘usty and ‘oc
and ‘onald and ‘uck

R
if R were a D
it would be dapper
dynamic
a dancer
a dog
but it’s not
it’s an R
and Rs are red
radiant
relaxed
robust
risible
rumbustuous
and becoming scarce

N is gregarious
when an N meets
another N
they smile and shake hands
and if it’s raining
they don’t care

they have been living
out on the street
so long they’ve forgotten
how to make themselves at home
when they appear
in the middle of a word
(dinner – thinner – winner – sinner)
when they’re on the front end
of a word or the back
(noon – ¬¬¬¬neon – neuron – nun)
they sometimes wander off
and go begging for money
don’t give them your money
they’ll just buy wine
get drunk and come around
your back door singing
out-of-tune ballads
like “Ninety-Nine Nuggets of Nails in the Nuts”
and “Noses are Numb when Nostrils are New”

X is nothing
it’s so much of a nothing
that it’s hard to talk about it
in the same breath
as a something
if it were an animal
it would be an amoeba
if it were a celestial object
it would be a black hole
if it were a flower
it wouldn’t even be a weed
if it were a philosopher
it would be a mutual
annihilation by x-ray
between Mr. Jones
and Dr. No
X marks the spot
what spot?

OLD AGE & THE CALL OF THE WILD

the stag down in the woods
barks so loud and long
that his calls
turn into whining wheezes

he’s saying:
“Come over here and be with me”
but there is not one Jane Doe in the woods
who would want to stand
next to that wheezing geezer

October 2, 2011

MONOPOLY MONEY

I hate money

they say that money
is the root of all evil

that’s not true
it’s only a means
by which people can
express their evil nature

people are the root of all evil

and it’s no accident
that monopoly
is the most popular board game
in the world

remember the guys
who were really good at it?
they are to be avoided
at all costs
especially these days

they are no friends of mine

Stockay/St. Georges (on the steps of Marte’s closed shop, October 6, 2011

“HOODLUM RUNS AMOK IN THE STREETS
OF A SLEEPY BELGIAN TOWN”

memory:
cruising along a narrow
cobblestone street in Andennes
Ditch at the wheel
I’m telling him
how the driver of a car
ran me off the road
the day before on my bike
I’m gesturing with my hands
and getting angrier and angrier
as I relive the story

“And,” I say, “the only thing
I could think of doing
was to flip him the bird.”
and I demonstrate
by jabbing my middle finger
up and down violently
against the windshield

and just on the other side
of the windshield
less than ten feet away
are two old ladies
standing on the sidewalk
staring at me
with their mouths
and eyes wide open

not one of my finest moments

highway between S’Hertongenbosch
and Amsterdam, October 8, 2011

“SAILORS PULL THE PLUG AND CARS SWIM LIKE FISH”

there’s a stretch of road
between Utrecht and A’dam
that runs alongside a canal
built higher than the road

sail boats and barges
float by in the sky
like weird aircraft
in their own world

they look down on us
wretched motorists
and say to themselves
“Wonder what would happen
if we pulled the plug on the canal
and let the cars
swim around like fish?”

I can answer that question
without hesitation

we would be surprised, sailors
and we would get wet

any more questions, sailors?

highway between Utrecht
and Amsterdam October 8, 2011

“THEY LOWERED THE AVERAGE HUMAN IQ
AND STAYED UP ALL NIGHT BLEATING LIKE SHEEP”

a horde of bestial British
in the lobby of Zaandam’s
tourist class hotel
shouting at each other
learning to count up to 4
and cluttering up the world
with their sheepfold turdbagness

I just hope they are not
the 60 people who’ll be
showing up on the boat
tomorrow to celebrate
Ton’s 65th birthday

Zaandam, October 8, 2011

“CHICKEN JHAL FRIAZI & NEPALESE FRIED RICE”

Bear and I
have acquired a taste
for empty restaurants

tonight it’s Mount Everest
Indian & Nepalese cooking

it’s so hot
we’re looking at each other
cross-eyed
and if the place were filled
with a horde of babbling British beasts
we wouldn’t notice

North Amsterdam, October 8, 2011

“THE HOTEL GUEST WAS BAFFLED
BY THE PROCLAMATION
TAPED TO THE BACK OF THE DOOR
THAT SAID NO SMOKING IN THE ROOM
AND ANOTHER WHICH SAID
NO SMOKING IN BED
AS IF THE BED WAS NOT
CONSIDERED A PART OF THE ROOM”

other rules and instructions
on the back of the door:

WET A TOWEL
AND PLACE IT ON THE FLOOR
AGAINST THE DOOR

and

SHOW YOU (sic) IN FRONT
OF A WINDOW AND TRY TO ATTRACT
ATTENTION AND WAIT
FOR THE FIREBRIGADE (sic)

I tried but did not attract attention
I screamed and waved my hands
but the people walking by outside
only smiled and waved back

at this point it became clear
that the purpose of the list
of rules and instructions
was to get the Dutch people smiling
and waving back

but what was I going to do
with the wet towel
rolled up by the door?

was I supposed to make friends
with strangers that way?

Zaandam, October 8, 2011

“THE MYSTIC TEMPORARILY LOSES
HIS METAPHYSICAL PERSPECTIVE
AND TEASES THE ANIMALS”

and so – in the middle of the night
I lean out into the hallway
and bellow:

BAA!
BAAA!
BAAAAAAAAAH!

then I close the door part way
and soon I hear footsteps
and voices outside

“Did you hear a sheep?”
“I definitely heard a sheep.”
“Where did it go?”

they don’t get it

so – I lean back out and say
“Maybe it was one of you.”

they look back at me
thru blank eyes
they still don’t get it

but what can you expect
from a bunch of sheep?

not much

Zaandam, October 9, 2011

“THE TRAVELING SEEKER OF BUDDHA NATURE
FINDS GOOD FOOD ON MT. EVEREST”

last night
at the restaurant
the Nepalese boy
did not try to hide his Buddha nature
it glowed in his eyes
and the food was delicious

tho from another perspective
it wasn’t all that great

Zaandam, October 9, 2011

HEAR PLUGGED

ear plugs are great
I love ear plugs
have an ear plug
you won’t hear anything
you’ll hear something else

Zaandam, October 10, 2011

WEATHER THIEF

back from three days
in Amsterdam
no sun
yes rain
only a small whisper
of a whisker
of warmth on the wind
every ten minutes or so
at the most

while we were away
somebody stole the weather
took the Indian Summer
along with it

now he’s hiding
with all his treasures
at an unlisted address
in a remote corner
of the world
sitting on his couch
in his underwear
drinking beer
watching the American league
and National League playoffs
while the sun pours down
from all four corners
of his sky ceiling

I’d like to get my hands
on that guy

October 11, 2011

BAD MEDICINE

if it doesn’t taste bad
we don’t believe in its healing powers
I’m prepared to change that mis-perception

rum-flavored headache tablets
they fizz and foam in the glass of water
out of which leap tiny facsimiles
of famous cartoon characters
like Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner
who dance around in front of your eyes
while the rum has a chance
to settle into your hypothalamus
and sedate you into a blissful stupor

LOOK ME UP AT THE SWEET-TOOTH PHARMACY

cough syrup that not only tastes like sambuca
but contains substantial amounts
of opium as in laudanum days of old
not only will you look forward to
and welcome each new sore throat
but you will be so stoned
you won’t even notice when it goes away

THAT’S THE SWEET-TOOTH PHARMACY
ON THE CORNER OF XANADU AVENUE
AND SHANGRI-LA DRIVE

nasal sprays are rough on the nostrils
but they can be softened
with aromatic perfumes
Channel 5 & 9, Old Spice & Bay Rum
(depending on your orientation)
you will smell so delicious
no one will complain
when you go around dribbling snot
on their waxed and polished kitchen floors

CHECK OUT OUR BARGAINS
ON LICORICE LAXATIVES
AND COTTON CANDY DEODORANTS
HALF PRICE THIS MONTH ONLY

we are all intimately familiar
with the exquisite taste of chocolate
if it’s that’s good on the tongue
imagine how much better it would be
inside your body
as it rumbles around in your blood stream
making friends with all the red and white globules
and treating them to the fruits of the Hershey Bar trees
of distant lands

SO CHECK OUT THOSE CHOCOLATE-FLAVORED INJECTIONS AGAINST TETANUS, FLU AND RABIES
10% OFF WITH EACH PURCHASE OF 10 GALLONS OR MORE

citronella-spiked mosquito repellant
is already copiously agreeable
to the olfactors
but it could be improved
imagine one that not only chases away
the little flying vampires
but also with liberal doses of pheneromes
attracts (if you are of the male persuasion)
hordes of the most beautiful bikini-clad beach babes
in California who would stick to your skin
like glue and give you no reason to complain
what you might do with them later
following your multiple skin adhesions
is limited only by your imagination
those blonde beach bunnies are yours
to do with as you wish the sky’s the limit

as for the ladies we would have special
masculine-loaded molecules
that would make you forget
all those rigid rules about anti-stud behavior
and make your heart strings snap
and send you spinning down
to the primitive level as girls have done
since time immemorial
(and if they hadn’t let go
we wouldn’t be here today)
there’ll be a certain level
of next-morning hangover involved
and regret over last night’s
indiscriminate lewd actions
but those will quickly be healed
with liberal doses of honey-flavored placebos
laced with cannabis tincture
which soon after ingestion
will show you the true path
to true love from which you would never
be tempted to stray

COMING SOON!
TO A SWEET-TOOTH PHARMACY NEAR YOU

and how about those pills
that soothe your sore muscles
they’ll come in a variety of flavors
and there’ll always be one
to match your most nostalgic
childhood memory:
tollhouse cookies
butterscotch pudding
strawberries and cream
cherry pie
angelfood cake
rootbeer floats
vanilla milkshakes
Eskimo Pies
but they would also contain
certain chemical substances
like amphetamines and cocaine
that would soon have you out in the street
doing back flips
tumbling somersaults
spinning cartwheels
and dancing the boogaloo with the dogs

THE DAYS OF VILE TASTING POTIONS AND NOSTRUMS
WILL SOON BE OVER WHEN YOU SHOP
AT YOUR LOCAL SWEET-TOOTH PHARMACY
ASK FOR SNAKE OILBOY
THE HYPOGLYCEMIC HUCKSTER

October 16, 2011

THE SPIDER & THE MOUSE

it’s that time of year
when spiders and mice
sneak into our house
and try to make themselves at home
for the cold weather ahead

it starts with one spider
and one mouse
and the next thing you know
you’re down on your hands and knees
eating out of the cat dish

October 17, 2011

SPIDERS & MICE & BIRDS & BATS

a spider falls asleep
by the light switch in the kitchen
I capture him in a towel
take him outside
and shake him loose

I lie in bed reading
and hear a mouse
chewing on papers in the corner
I toss a sock in his direction
and listen to him scamper away
as he makes his escape

and that’s it

that’s the end of my Buddhist tendencies
the Onward Christian Soldier
raises its ugly head inside me
and declares war

“Stay away,” I tell the spider and the mouse
“Go find another country to invade
– come back in here and you will feel the might
of my terrible swift sword

I have to draw the line
the spider & the mouse
are only a preview
of Armageddon

soon there would be more spiders and mice
thousands of them
black ants & red ants
birds & bats
raccoons & porcupines
lizards & snakes
alligators & crocodiles
jackals & hyenas
you get the picture

they’d eat up all out food
they’d have endless poker games
in the kitchen
with rock & roll bandicoots in the bathroom
and dancing deer on the roof
and caterpillars in our bed
and butterflies coming out our ears
we would get little
or no sleep

it would be too late
to move out
the beasts wouldn’t let us
“No escape for you,”
the original spider would say
“Stay right where you are.”
the original mouse would say
“We’ll be here until spring
so you better get used to us, Watson.”

beware all sanity-loving citizens
of the world

it all starts with one spider
and one mouse
and the next thing you know
you’re down on your hands and knees
eating out the cat dish
and wishing you’d never heard
of Buddha & his teachings

October 17, 2011

WONDERBOY

as you grow older
you begin to wonder:
am I becoming a bore?

and they say
“Not any more than usual”
which makes you really
wonder

October 20, 2011

LITTLE GREEN MEN DESCENDING FROM A UFO
WITH IRISH LICENSE PLATES

don’t look too closely
at the way their mouths move
when they talk
they might be saying something
in an alien language
that will leave you confused
for the rest of your life

don’t look too closely
when they lift their hands
and wiggle their fingers
at the sun
it could be a sign
of pagan tendencies
or just plain extra-terrestrial
patriotism

don’t look too closely
when they slap each other
on the back
while making snide remarks
in the style of Finnegans Wake
about the way you breathe

in fact
when you bump into these guys
play it safe
and close your eyes
because everybody knows
(even those oxygen-breathing freaks
from the far side of the universe)
that if you don’t see them
they will cease to exist
and be gone in the morning
when you wake up
with a fresh set of fears

October 20, 2011

WORLD SERIES GAME ONE:
“TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME”

I come up to bed
after watching the first game
of the World Series
Bear wakes up
and asks me:
“Who won?”

I say: “For the first time
in the history of baseball
both teams won
and everybody went home happy.”

I can hardly wait
for Game Two
tomorrow night
when each team will have
three pitchers on the mound
all throwing at two batters
at the same time
and an extra base will be added
to the diamond
turning it into a pentagon
and it’s anybody’s guess
which five players will be playing
5th base which will be the size
of a boxing ring (with ropes)
and nobody will have any idea
what will happen when
(according to a new rule)
the home plate umpire
comes to bat in the top of the 9th
and the managers of both teams
(also according to a new rule)
will be lying on their backs
by the outfield fences
staring up at the stars
sipping from obligatory
bottles of tequila
thru rubber tubes
and rapping
“Take Me Out to the Ball Game”
to a drum track
thundering from the stadium speakers

October 20, 2011 (Cards 3, Rangers 2)

WORLD SERIES GAME TWO:
“TAKE ME OUT TO THE CROWD”

tonight’s game was remarkable
tho none of the players showed up
they were out on the Mississippi
playing blackjack and the slot machines
on Sacagawea”s Floating Casino

they lost thousands of dollars each
and went home broke

meanwhile back at the ball park
the spot lights continued to shine brightly
all night on the green grass
the crowd in the stands
was silent, tho they continued
to eat hotdogs and drink beer
while waiting for a rabbit
to scamper around the base paths

after 3 hours
the crowd grew bored
(all 65 thousand of them)
and they went home
to watch the replay on TV

October 20, 2011 (Ranger 2, Cards 1)

WORLD SERIES GAME THREE:
“BUY ME SOME PEANUTS AND CRACKER JACKS”

tonight’s game was unique
somebody got out a football
and there was no way to stop the players
from kicking it around
and catching forward passes

and before anybody could stop them
they’d scored three touchdowns
three extra points
and a safety

October 22, 2011 (Cards 16, Rangers 7)

WORLD SERIES GAME FOUR:
“I DON’T CARE IF I EVER COME BACK”

tonight’s game was called
on account of too much weather
(a combination of sunshine, moonshine
shoe shine and monkeyshines)
but the players snuck across the border
into Mexico and played a game anyway
they were wearing desert camouflage
uniforms, desert boots and mirror shades

the locals who caught the action
said that the game was played
in a heavy dust storm
and the players ended up
dancing to distant mariachi music

October 23, 2011 (Rangers 4, Cards 0)

WORLD SERIES GAME FIVE:
“AND IT’S ROOT ROOT ROOT FOR THE HOME TEAM”

everybody knew that tonight’s game
was headed for disaster
when swarms of moles
popped out of holes in the ground
and attacked the outfielders

the infielders had their troubles too
fending off squirrels
with their feet while trying to turn
double plays

while the batters were swatting
at clouds of pigeons
that dived from the sky
and tried to shit on their heads

chaos was the law of the land
and confusion was the theme of the night
but they kept on playing
tho who can blame them for chalking up
a record-breaking 483 errors
in the first inning alone

after a while it got so messy
that the score keeper
who was having his own problems
with his ex-wife and her lover
who had just entered the booth
with a knife in one hand
and a pack of pit bulls at her heels
threw up his hands
and gave everybody (even his ex-wife
her lover and his pit bulls)
four homeruns each

October 24, 2011 (Rangers 4, Cards 2)

WORLD SERIES GAME SIX:
“IF THEY DON’T WIN IT’S A SHAME”

because yesterday’s game was rained out
the league officials introduced a new rule
for tonight’s game:
all the players had to carry umbrellas at all times
this made hitting difficult
and fielding all but impossible

with no runs scored at the end of 9 innings
and faced with hours of extra innings
the players threw down their umbrellas
and refused to pick them up
the umpire ejected them all from the game
and new players had to be recruited
from fans in the stands

but all the new players demanded
40 million-dollar contracts
and both teams had to call up Saudi Arabia
for a quick loan of a billion dollars
Saudi Arabia agreed but insisted
they put their own players on the field
the score boards and advertising
had to be changed to Arabic
the umpires were replaced by whirling dervishes
and the statistics had to be calculated
using complicated algebraic operations

when the men in white robes and burnooses
(who knew nothing about the game)
started running the bases backwards
and the pitchers rolled the ball to the plate
and the hitters picked up golf clubs
waited for the balls to stop rolling
then putted the balls into post holes
which had just been dug around the infield
each worth points
from ten to one thousand
the game soon became such a chaotic mess
that the spectators closed their eyes
and refused to open them
the TV and radio stations from coast to coast
shut down (“Not for all the oil in China
will we go back on the air”)
and the people of America voted
and declared basketball
the new national pastime

October 27, 2011 (Cards 10, Rangers 9)

WORLD SERIES GAME SEVEN:
“AND IT’S ONE —TWO—THREE STRIKES YOU’RE OUT AT THE OLD BALL GAME”

after last night’s fiasco
(some said it had been a mass hallucination)
baseball matters were restored to normal for game 7

the Arabs went home
the umpires chased the whirling dervishes
back to Ancient Persia
and the America people got together
and voted baseball the true national pastime
(no matter that most of the players on the field
spoke fluent Spanish)

the pitcher threw the first pitch
the first batter swung at it
and hit a home run
and just like that
the game was over

everybody was amazed
nobody had ever seen
a homerun like that
it was hit so hard & high & deep
and the ball stayed in the air
for so long that the batter
had time to run around the bases
228 times
before it was tracked down
by the centerfielder who had taken off
in a helicopter and (45 miles away)
reached out of the chopper
and attempted a backhand catch

however the chopper lurched
at the crucial moment
the ball bounced out of the center fielder’s glove
and dropped down onto the roof
of a Mississippi river steam boat
where tourists had stopped gambling
to watch the game on TV

the ball landed in the lap
of a little old lady from Pasadena
she let out a loud “WHOOP!”
and held up the ball for all to see
and just like that
the game was over
one swing of the bat
and the 2011World Series
was history

October 28, 2011 (Cards 6, Rangers 2)

CLIP FROM AN OLD MOVIE: TWO RODE TOGETHER
directed by John Ford, starring James Stewart & Richard Widmark (1961)

Jimmy Stewart dismounts his horse
approaches the Indian
lifts his hand
“How, Quanah Parker
. . . you know me . . . ”

sounds as phoney as a $17 bill
looks like another page
from the Book of Racial Crap
and just one more cheap take
on humanity in general
as was most of the acting
of that era
actors pretending to be people
actors faking it
actors creating caricatures
rather than characters

coming out of the movie show
small town Saturday afternoon
blinking against blinding sunlight
feeling cheated
they’d promised me so much
and (once again) did not deliver

Hollywood didn’t start delivering
until they came out with
“I Was a Teenage Werewolf”

now that was a point of view
I could identify with

October 22, 2011

T. ZIMMERMAN: MOVIE CRITIC

MELANIE & MELANIE
this one is about
girls jumping out of windows
this is a good movie
you should watch it

MOZART & THE WHALE
whoever made this movie
didn’t know what a whale
looks like
as for Mozart
I didn’t know
he was a woman
three stars

WHATEVER WORKS
In the last one
Woody Allen had girls
trying to jump out of windows
in this one a man
really jumps
(this is no stunt man trick
Larry David really jumps)
We also learn to wash our hands
by singing Happy Birthday
to ourselves (twice to get them
properly clean)
But I’ll never learn trick
I can’t get thru the first verse
and I’m already wiping my hands
on the dirty towel by the time
I get to my Dear Name.
Maximum stars.

THE DAY JOHN LENNON DIED (documentary)
This one starts with a pompous surgeon
declaring that when they brought the pop star
into the hospital after having been shot,
and they opened him up for radical resuscitation,
“I actually held John Lennon’s heart in my hands.”
(he’s been dining out on that line for 30 years)
He doesn’t say if it was still beating or not.
He doesn’t say if he took a bite out of it.
I would.
If I were dining out, I would say that I ATE John Lennon’s heart
and I would have free breakfasts, lunches and dinners
from here to eternity (and beyond)
After that I walked out.
You’ll have to tell me how it ends.
(I think John Lennon dies)
No stars.

LIMITS OF CONTROL
Jim Jarmusch made
great movies
until he came to this one
What happened, Jim?
You didn’t have to shoot
ALL of Ghost Dog’s dreams
you keep us waiting for the movie to start
and after two hours
Bill Pullman gets strangled
by a guitar string
and then you keep us waiting
for the movie to end

ROBOCOP
the bad guy goes out the window
at the end
(a definite collective cinematic
theme developing here)
he goes out backwards
and keeps falling
forever
bad guys should not
live in tall buildings
or if tall buildings
can’t be avoided
live in rooms without windows
(but either way
Murphy will get you)

THE LOST HIGHWAY
Bill Pullman
turns into Balthazar Getty
and at first you think
Balthazar might be Charlie Sheen
but in 1997 Charlie was off shooting
“Shadow Conspiracy” with Georges S. Cosmatos,
Linda Hamilton, Sam Waterson,
Donald Sutherland and Ben Gazarra
but all that incidental information
is a waste of time
because Balthazar Getty
turns into Bill Pullman
and by then nobody knows
who anybody is
not even Bill
and David Lynch
has turned into Roman Polanski
(who is busy working on
“The Ninth Gate” with Johnny Depp
Lena Olin and Emmanuelle Seigneur)
you must see this movie
twice
before you realize
it’s not worth seeing
once

DISTRICT 9
The prawn people
drop into Johannesburg
from a distant galaxy.
Nobody likes them
because they are ugly
and seven feet tall
and walk on their hind legs
and talk like they’re chewing on garbage
and look like gigantic prawns.
The human people
put the prawn people
in detention camps
and they are here to stay.
Then one of the human people
gets bit and turns
into a prawn person.
It would have a different ending
if he turned into Charlie Sheen
or Balthazar Getty
or David Lynch.
But no. He becomes seven feet tall
and talks like he has a mouth full of garbage.
Based on a true story.
Visit Johannesburg
and see the Prawn People Camps.

BANDITS
by Barry Levinson
starring Bruce Willis
Billy Bob Thornton & Cate Blanchett
they are known as “The Sleep-Over Bandits”
I’ve already said too much
go see it NOW!
don’t delay
161½ stars

FROM PARIS WITH LOVE
The TV Guide said
it was the latest flick
of Woody Allen
John Travolta blows into town
shoots a hole in the ceiling
of a Chinese restaurant
and catches the cocaine
pouring down
in fake Ming vase
then he shoots all the waiters
this is where I start to think
that this one was not made
by Woody Allen
then John goes into a cocaine
packing plant
and shoots about 50 more
disposable Orientals
now I’m having serious doubts
about this being Woody
after several more scenes
which all end with a lot
of dead people lying around
John blows up a terrorist
on the ring road
with a grenade launcher
and this saves the western world
from another bunch of mid-east bad guys
it’s time to say
that this ain’t Woody
yet we’ll give it 4⅔ stars
and let psychiatric introspectors
have a two-hour vacation

AVATAR
I made a 2-DVD copy of this one
and by accident looked at the 2nd half first
and even so I thought it was much too long
not only too long but boring too
and no only boring but stupid
and dumb and when you think
of all the money they spent to make it
those clowns should be arrested
and taken out and made to stand on their heads
until their faces turn blue
needless to say: no stars

THE BIG CHILL (1983)
a group of university revolutionaries
ten years later
lost in middle class misery
(mortgages & insurance premiums
unfaithful spouses & divorces)
meet to re-examine their crisis
their solution:
have more kids
yeah, right
that’ll solve EVERYTHING
two stars for being so narrow-minded
and take away one for being really old
and oh yeah, take away
half of that star
because Kevin Costner is the main man
and he’s dead
and we never get to see him
and his name is not even in the credits
tho it was his first movie and now
he’s making more big bucks
than any of the other jokers
in the flic some of whom
have turned into worthless
drunken tea bags.
Some movies need to be talked about.
This one doesn’t.

EARTHQUAKE STRIKES POOR EASTERN TURKEY
CNN BREAKING NEWS

and just when we were licking our chops
and getting ready to eat the poor thing for Thanksgiving

October 23, 2011

HALLOWEEN PREVIEW

the wind is wild
leaves are swirling
and the pumpkin glows
in the flashlight night

more than exciting than this
it cannot be

unless the temperature
keeps dropping
in which case
I’m going to find this scene
a whole lot less
than exciting

I will find it
monotonous
or I might not find it
at all

October 29, 2011

SORRY AGAIN

we hop from sorry to sorry
on an endless chain of sorries
what kind of world are we pretending
to live in?

step on somebody’s toes
sorry
say something that suggests
that maybe you shouldn’t have said sorry
sorry
oops politically incorrect
sorry

switch on your TV in the evening
you’ll hear a thousand sorries
everybody’s sorry
the kid leaves his bike in the driveway
the mom runs over it with her car
the husband comes home
and slaps his wife
because she ran over the kid’s bike
sorry
then he slaps her again
because she’s having an affair
with the next-door neighbor’s dog
sorry

the next door neighbor
runs over your dog
sorry
your new dog
eats the neighbor’s cat
sorry
your daughter gets knocked up
by the neighbor’s son
sorry
your son gets hooked on meth
sorry
robs a 7-11
sorry
and goes to jail for armed robbery
sorry

it’s all meaningless, all lies
nobody’s really sorry
the only way you can be honestly
sorry
is to not do it a second time

after that
let’s be honest
you don’t give a fuck

November 11, 2011

BAD FOOD

Americans can’t take a bite
of tasty food
without saying
how bad it is for the body
can’t take a bite
without feeling guilty
if it tastes good

that’s because
they have stopped tasting
long ago

next up:
the air

“That’s bad air.” (they’ll say)
“You don’t want to breathe that.
You might get fat
and have a heart attack.”

“Fog causes blindness.”

they banned smoking
now they’re going to ban breathing
so close your mouth
hold your nose
and good luck
at high altitudes

Nov. 12, 2011

FIGHTING FOR YOUR LIFE

why did Bukowski
have so many bar room brawls
and back alley fights?

because his friends
who were feeding him drinks
were not his friends at all
they were trying to kill him

wouldn’t you fight back?

Nov. 15, 2011

THE GEEZER PREPARES HIS HIT LIST

the great thing about living
into your 7th decade
is that you can do anything
and nobody will say a word

stop brushing your hair
your teeth, changing
your underwear, start
walking around
with an ostrich feather
taped to the bill
of your baseball cap

“Don’t pay any attention to him
he’s just a loony geezer
you know how they are
half-crazy most of the time
what can you do?”

go around selling subscriptions
to Werewolf Magazine

pretend to swim down mainstreet
like an underwater frog
with your cheeks puffed out
and your mouth blowing invisible bubbles

dash around a cow pasture
with a football under your arm
dodging cowpies
as if they were tacklers

run for Chief Butterfly Wrangler
then refuse to vote for yourself
saying caterpillars are disturbing enough
but the cocoons they turn into
are really raccoons

unzip and piss
into any convenient garden
along the way
and hear people say
“At least he’s not doing it
on my front porch.”

you could even get away with murder
literally.

Nov. 15, 2011

THE B MINOR MASS
PERFORMED BY JOHAN SEBASTIAN BOB

the frustrating thing
about humming a Bach tune
is to not be able
to sing all the other voices
that go along with it

if I could develop
that vocal technique
I could go on stage
and become
the Morgen Knabbertackle Choir

Nov. 16, 2011

ANDRE’S ASHES

a little bit of funeral
15 minutes of silence
and a couple of tunes
by Bach

and then the cremation
waiting around for the ashes

they come in an urn
inside a cardboard box

the box is hot
and the urn is hotter
it keeps my feet warm
all the way home

November 16, 2011

LAUGHTER TEETH

Lou Holtz used to be
a decent football coach
now he’s a media clown

O J Simpson used to be
a great running back
now he’s in Media Prison
life sentence without chance
of parole

Michael Jackson used to be
a rich bullshit artist
now he’s just dead
(murdered by the media)

Joe Paterno used to be
another decent football coach
now he’s raping boys
and giving them cancer
(they’re “boys” when the media
promotes sex crimes
but they’re “men” when they send them
off to war)

the media’s in control
they’re writing the script
even sending out hit men
when they need a dead body
to spike their juice

the gods have stopped laughing
they’ve stopped watching the news
and the sports channels
they’re tuned into the nature programs
they like the part where the jaguar
drags down the antelope
they applaud when the jag
rips out the lope’s throat
now that’s something
they can really sink
their laughter teeth into

November 20, 2011

VIVA LA CUCARACHA

molecules of fecal matter
are running thru our veins

hold that thought
and consider this:

the expression on the face
of a blind man
when he turns on the tap
reaches for the soap dish
and washes his hands
with a cockroach

Nov. 22, 2011

SLEEPWATCHER

he couldn’t find anybody
to recommend him
so he recommended himself:

I WILL SURPRISE YOU
I WILL MAKE YOU SMILE
YOU WILL DREAM DEEP
AND HAVE NO FEAR
BECAUSE THE MAN IN THE MOON
IS WATCHING OVER YOU
AS YOU SLEEP

but he still couldn’t get a job
everybody freaked out
he gave them the creeps
when they woke up
in the middle of the night
and saw him
standing at the end
of their beds
spinning a glow-in-the-dark yoyo
from the middle finger of each hand
and chanting softly:
“There’s no business like mojo business.”

November 23, 2011

MEMORY LOOPS

“All but not quite most.”
and
“Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself.”

at the age of 18
I had no idea
I was collecting
a brainful of responses
to the various snipes and snides
that life would throw in my path

“O O O that Shakespherian Rag!”
and
“I saw the best minds of my generation . . . ”

they were just great sounding lines
that were waiting to be joined
to the next great-sounding line

“Do not go gentle into that good night.’
and
“I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.”

presumably to be forgotten
in the next wave of colorful clothespins

” . . . slouches towards Bethlehem to be reborn”
and
“Come to my arms my beamish boy.”

and (wink) they were all poets
who provided the logjams and jellies
for my loaves of bread and jugs of wine?

“The moving finger writes – and having writ . . .”
and
“The dog trots feely in the street.”

“The fox went out on a chilly night.”
and
“There goes Bill.”

“Mrs. Chirk seldom played the flute and Miss Trey
had no large knowledge of the sennet.”
and
“That reminds me of a story”

they filled my head
with their cultivated chatter
they charmed my mind
with uncharted possibilities

“He was a man of infinite-resource-and-sagacity”
and
” . . . with his faithful dog following.”

“Why don’t we pass the time by playing a little solitaire?”
and
that was the end of the monk
the monk
the monk
the monk

November 23, 2011

LATER LIFE LOOPS

picked up along the way
from age 20 to 70
mostly useless
do not improve my orientation
do not provide friendly companionship
in moments of solitude

“Pick a card – any card”
“Goodness gracious sakes alive!”
“Far out!”
“Are you kidding me?”

yet they circulate

“Sweet dreams are made of this
who am I to disagree?”
“Doodley squat.”
“Can you dig it?”
“Right on!”

I ignore most of them

“La la la lala-la puce hog.”
“Istigkeit.”
“Oofty Goofty!”

but a few get thru in moments of weakness

“Ghastly!”
“Tiddley pom.”
“Rageous Gratoon.”

some, sadly, are of my own invention

‘Infernoschmerz.”
“Nee node goo toe hack bone.”
“Okie dokie fuck-a-nokie”

and others are so irritating
so crude and atavistic
that they will be relegated
to the invisible list
that follows

FREE WATER

check it out
all those hotels
who advertise “Free Wi-Fi”

it’s no gift at all
costs them nothing
you’re depriving them
of absolutely NOTHING

they might as well
put up a sign that says
“Free Toilets”
except they don’t have to hire
a maid to come in
and mop out the Wi-Fi
once a week

November 23, 2011

NOTHANKSGIVINGTURKEY TREE
(advice to hotel guests)

the FREE WI-FI sign in the window
is a subtle, desperate message
from a man they’re holding prisoner
somewhere inside
down on the basement probably

he has a name
Wilburt Finlandcaster
Winston Furchill (Brit. sp.)
Wino Filibuster
William Fakespeare (Brit. sp.)
Wittengenstein the First
Wild Oscar Fido
Walt Fizznee
Wolfboy Foxman

or maybe it’s a woman
Winnie the Fou (Fr. Sp.)
Wife Flatfoot
Widow Foomanchoo
Wednesday Flamingo
Woman Fliberation
Walla Walla Flanders
Waloona French
Wreatha Franklin

and what did he (or she) do
to piss off the management?
It will forever remain a mystery
until you get down to the basement
and rip the place apart.

November 24, 2011

POST HALLOWEEN APPLE TREE

the tree is empty
first the apples fell down
then all the leaves fell off
and now only the branches remain

if this keeps up
the tree will disappear
branches, trunk, roots
and all that will be left
is a hole in the ground
wherein dwell strange creatures
of microscopic size
who speak no translatable language
and will probably take you for all you’ve got
when your back is turned

do not wave goodbye
to the turkeys being led to the slaughter

November 24, 2011

THE POSTMAN DOESN’T NEED TO RING ONCE

Marie-Claire asks me:
“Is the post office open on Saturday morning?”
so I lean my head out the door
and shout uphill towards the village

“ARE YOU OPEN THIS MORNING?”

and the reply comes back
a distant voice floating down
the valley

“Until noooooooooooooooon.”

November 26, 2011

‘MY LITTLE FINGER IS BIGGER
THAN YOUR LITTLE FINGER”

“Yeah but your left ear lobe is fat
and mine is really obese.”

“Yeah but you have three teeth
and I don’t have any.”

“Yeah but you wear stupid clothes
and my clothes are really ugly.”

“Yeah but you are just sort of stupid
and I am really dumb.”

“Yeah but you smell bad
and I smell rotten.”

“Yeah but you believe in alien space ships
and I don’t believe in anything.”

“Yeah but you have the worst friends in the world
and I have worster friends.”

“Yeah but you have monster fences
and I have fasted flutes.”

“Yeah but you have busted bullet blogs
and I have broken bumper rugs.”

“Yeah but you have poster powder
and I have purple pumpers.”

“Yeah but you have muggled mackers
and I have zootle moops.”

“Yeah but . . . yoogle digbag poogles
and eye furnibble crooda.”

“Yabba lubba dugga bugga
and nyver jugga lugga moo.”

December 3, 2011

THE BEAR TRILOGY

1 MARIE-CLAIRE’S FACE

when Marie-Claire comes thru the door
I feel the same happiness I felt
the first time I saw her face
44 years ago
my heart hops
and my head gets joyful
I’m so glad to see her
that I wonder if I have ever
seen her before
I hope she’s planning to stay for a while

2. MARIE-CLAIRE’S HANDS

I looked at our hands
under a bright light last night
they’re getting old
hers more worn-out than mine
I think I have Icelandic hands
hers are Portuguese

3. MARIE-CLAIRE’S VOICE

I’ve been listening
to Marie-Claire’s voice
for many years
I’m glad it’s soft
and sweet
and I really like
the subtle taste of French
spice in her English accent
I’d like to learn
how she does that
tho I have heard it said
that I’ve been sounding like her
without even trying
for a long time
these things happen

December 3, 2011

ANIMALS IN THE DARK

weird little sheep
in the pasture next door

he’s got horns

that’s because he’s a goat

December 4, 2011

TRICKED CAT

found a trick
to get the cat out of the house
when we’re ready to leave

bring his bowl of food
outside
and he scoots out after it

he falls for it every time

boy is that cat stupid
boy am I really smart

December 4, 2011

SACRIFICE SUNDAY

the one day of the week
when we phone up our friends
and relatives
dead and dying
and listen to them complain
about their lives
(or lack thereof)

you bring the hammer
I’ve got the nails

December 4, 2011

CAT FOOD

cat gets hungry
so I dip my hands into the sack of pellets
and dump them into his dish

then I try to imagine
what it would be like
to see a huge hand
coming out of the ceiling
and dumping a bunch of dried food
on my plate
its fingers reeking
with any of the following

lemon juice
raisin bread
butter
soap
urine
fecal matter
toe jam
cream cheese
fish
corn chips
cannabis
pop corn
peanut butter
spaghetti sauce
vinegar

or ALL of the above
in which case
I’d run away
and find another human
with a glad hand
to feed me

Dec. 7, 2011

NEW MOON (WANDERING MOON)

think about it:

the earth spins around
on it axis
once every sunset
and the moon circles
the earth everyday
tho sometimes we can’t see it

it’s like that falling tree
in the forest
that doesn’t make a sound
because there’s nobody there
to hear it we just have to assume
the new moon is there
tho it might be somewhere else
like out cruising around
the solar system
having sex with Venus
(who has no moons of her own)
or dancing with the moons of Mars
having been replaced in earth’s orbit
by any number of possible
celestial bodies such as
a dark star larger than the night
tho semi-transparent
so we can still see the stars
(we call it a foggy night)
or a neutron star no larger
than a green pea
but with tremendous density
and the perfect amount
of gravity pull to keep
the ocean tides
rising and falling
and to keep our scientists happy
who like the gravitationexplantion
tho we shouldn’t believe everything
they tell us because
the ocean tides are really controlled
by a special species of fish
known to all mystics, prophets
and shamans as the Fun-Da-Mental Fish
which regulate the tides
by swimming around
in massive populations
and sucking in water
(which causes the low tides)
then spitting it back
(which cases the tides to rise)
tho fishermen have been
unknowingly plundering
the population of the Funfish
(and what you have been eating
in your salads and sandwiches
is not tuna)
with such a critical impact
that the tides will soon cease
to come and go
and all that water will just lie there
motionless and limp
and not even strong winds
will be able to whip up
enough waves to give the surfers
a thrill

on second thought:
don’t think about it.

December 7, 2011

STUMBLEBUM

at the age of 70
you can safely say
that whatever it was
you lost
it ain’t coming back

acrobatic flexibility
equilibrium
teeth
hair
personality
sense of humor

so keep dropping those coins
bumping into furniture
tripping over rugs
and don’t forget to smile
you stupid, clumsy bastard

December 8, 2011

CAT BEATERS ANONYMOUS

1. DOWN AT THE TRASHPILE CAFÉ

last night I tumbled into the pit
where the grapes of wrath
lay fermenting
I was totally cranked up
I told the computer to go get fucked
and then I threw the cat out the door

what happened?
how did I get into this tangle
of twisted emotions?
why did I lose control?

1. stiff & aching neck
2. all day pain to the top
of my skull
3. woman kept calling up
trying to sell me some crap
4. went on line
to download iTunes
5. forgot my password
6. didn’t known my Apple ID
7. spent three hours
circling around in virtual space
and coming up empty
8. then the cat mee-yowed

he wanted food
“Get your own food,
you son-of-a bitch!”
and out he went
to hunt for a mouse
or maybe get drunk
drinking stray drops of beer
from discarded cans
along the road in the woods
and telling all the other animals
he encountered down
at the Trashpile Café
how his owner was a cat beater
and that he was thinking
of calling the cops
and getting a good lawyer
“I’m gonna teach that son-of-a-bitch
a lesson he’ll never forget!”

December 7, 2011

2. THE RETURN OF THE BEATEN CAT

today I hoped all would be forgiven
I opened the door
and he trotted in
I spooned out some pellets
into his dish
and he gobbled them down
“So—” I said “—All is forgiven?”

“All is NOT forgiven,” he said.
“Not until you get help
starting with weekly sessions
at Cat Beaters Anonymous.”

“But I didn’t beat you.
“I tossed you out the door.”

“You could have strangled me.
You could have picked me up
by the tail and swung me around
and smashed my head against a wall
and it would have been the same.
Face it, Big Boy. You need help.

“And while you’re at it
you might want to check out
a good psychiatrist.
Anybody who talks to his cat
and hears the cat talking back
is so deeply disturbed
he is capable of doing anything
even becoming so paranoid
that he believes his cat
has a lawyer.

December 8, 2011

RIVER SONGS

1.
come along now
to my river run deep
river run dry
in the deepest of sleep

in love with love
river run deep
run to the ocean
run over the edge

run until you run
out of things to say
then fall in love
let love stay

2.
by my own river I know
these words are handed down
by my own river I know

by my own river I know
I never looked down

words handed down
under the weather
thru the rain on the river
these are words handed down
by my own river I know

December 31, 2011

Altarwise by owl light in the halfway house

Canigou Poems – Series Five  |  January – February 2012 |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

NIKE GOODBYE SONG

two rubber bands
looped around
the Nike shoebox
I put our DVDs in
we start plucking them
mine’s a G#
hers is a C#
strum strum
we start singing
“Goodbye Ni-kee”
hum hum
strum strum
we don’t leave until morning
but we’re already singing
the Nike Goodbye Song

Jan. 5, 2012

STOPPING AT THE PIG

we stopped here
on the way down
last year
sign says:
BIGGEST WILD BOAR IN THE WORLD

this year we know what to expect:
just a huge sculpted statue
on a hill slowly revolving

inside the snack bar
they’ve got small replicas
of the boar for 7€

today the Big Pig’s not turning
and they expect me to pay
7€ for a small wooden pig?

come on, man

Sanglier Stop, Jan. 6, 2012

CANASTA? CAGOUL?

driving along
trying to remember
the name of Quanah’s bear
33 years ago
Crystal?
Chubby?
Chipolata?
we’re going crazy
because we can’t remember
Cassiopeia?
Chatanooga?
Quasar?
we have to text message him
his reply comes right back
CACTUS!

what a waste
of three adult brains
that was

Highway Charleville-Mezzier to Reims
Jan. 6, 2012

WELCOME TO WINOLAND

these people are juiced to the gills
and they speak only Wino
even the kids stagger around
with their faces hanging out
and their canines dripping
with the blood of fermented
red grapes

Nuits St. Georges, Jan. 6, 2012

AND THEN WE COME TO THE FIRST NIGHT HOTEL

the sound of a freight train
rolling thru town
wheels clicking
on the rails
as dawn gets ready to break
thru the open window

(there’s a couple of bummers
I’m tempted to mention
such as this room being so small
we’ve been tripping over our shadows
like the temptation I had last night
in the restaurant
to tell the waitress
that I was really a food critic
for TransAmerican Cuisine Magazine
and that next month’s issue
96 million avid readers
will learn about the dirty knives
and forks they serve
with their fish)

but the sound of the train
makes up for it all

Nuits St. Georges, Jan. 6, 2012

THE NOTEBOOK

I must have given the impression
to a few people here and there
of being a variety of characters
as I sit in these many restaurants
waiting for food to be delivered
and scribbling in this notebook

• Food Critic
• International Spy
• A concerned citizen taking down license plate numbers of the cars in the parking lot in case some dude gets rude and I have to report him to the police
• An amnesiac who has forgotten his name and must suddenly write down every new possibility as it pops into his head
o Bob the Monster
o Wiggy Wigloaf
o Wasteland Watson
o Rudolph Rainbow
o Jug
o Dig Dog
o Duckbill Gates
o President Al Abama
o Gaspot Geezeroid
o Stormin’ Enormous
o Jumpy Greaser
o Meester Zeemermon
• An amateur chef copying down items from the menu so when he gets back home he can serve his friends toasted bread crusts wrapped in tangles of over-cooked spinach and tell them they’re eating Giboulet de Marzinpanées aux Marrons cremes.
“A little delicacy I picked up on my recent trip thru France, chers amis.”
o Gristle of Bacon Buried in Cold Baked Potato
(Remoulade de Rongeur au Sauce Safranée )
o Teabag Stew
(Médaillon de Gembloux au Sauce Ravigote)
o Cream of Wheat Sprinkled with Straw
(Trompette de la Morte Gratinées Façon du Chef)
o Instant Rice with Chewed Tobacco Sauce
(Tartalette en Couquilles et Magret Rôti et Ses Condiments)
o Corn Chip Jello
(Pavé de Amuse Bouche Flambee au Cognac)
o Eggshells with Mayonnaise
(Epaule de Flan au Couteau avec Saveurs du moment Mariné ou Naturel)
o Pickles Soaked in Honey
(Durade Suprême de Brandade Grillé Selon Votre Choix)
o Fried Coffee Grounds with Orange Peels
(Ragoût de Boucher aux Confiture Maison a la Crème Girolfe Savarin)
o Cottage Cheese Rootbeer Float
(Epoisses et ses Gésiers Croûtons Campagnes Persillé au Couteau en Sauce Gribiche)

• A stand-up comic preparing for his next gig by transcribing bits of conversation overheard from the next table intending to turn them into side-splitting jokes.
• Or a compulsive neurotic who must write down every banal thought that enters his busted brain, hoping that nobody mistakes him for a poet.
Nuit St. Georges, Jan. 6, 2012

CROCODILE FARMERS

we pass a sign
roadside attraction
CROCODILE FARM

I know exactly
what goes on
in places like that:
crocodiles driving tractors
and milking cows

can’t fool me

Autoroute de Soleil, Jan 7, 2012

THE ROAD TO HEAVEN

how many thousands
upon thousands
of miles have Bear and I
sat side by side in a car
she behind the wheel
guiding us faultlessly
to hundreds upon hundreds
of destinations
me in the passenger seat
reading a book
writing a poem
sleeping
waking up
exclaiming
shouting
screaming
slapping the dashboard
stomping the floorboard
where there is no brake pedal
while the scenery rolls by
Bear with her hands on the wheel
humming an ancient tune
as the sun goes down in the west
and she switches on the headlights
and says, “If it wasn’t so dark
we’d be able to see.”

Sernhac, Jan. 8, 2012

BLACKBIRD HAIRCUT

my hair has grown long
I don’t know how
it happened
when I wasn’t looking

today I saw my shadow
on the ground
the wind was blowing
and the shadow of my hair
was flying straight back
like the wings of a blackbird

I don’t dare look in the mirror
because I might have to go out and buy
a pair of RayBan Aviators
and a red Lamborghini
to complete the image

Autoroute beyond Montpellier Jan. 8, 2012

CONCERNING THE HOTEL’S WINTER SITTERS (NAMELY US)

Laszlo says
he’s turning over the hotel
to his son next year
“But that changes nothing for you –
you will be invited back.”

so he must have said
something good about us

too bad we weren’t there
for that discussion:

“wonderful people
scrupulously clean
totally reliable”

we deserve to know

Mas Trilles, Jan. 9. 2012

FALSE FISHMONGER

supermarket fish section
I’m standing there bent over
checking out the halibut
old lady comes up
4 feet tall
missing a couple of teeth
asks “Are they any good.” (in French)
and I answer (in French)
“They’re excellent.”
I figure she’s just making friendly
crazy conversation
she says, “I will take one.”
I say, “Good idea –
excellent idea.”

I bend back over the fish
and continue inspecting it
she looks around
then looks at me again
I smile back
and she looks like
she stepped thru a door
into a world where nothing
is quite like it was
a few moments ago

there is no interesting end
to this tale

the real fish monger
comes back from a smoke break
wraps up her fish
weighs it and pastes on a price tag

we all make mistakes
it wasn’t a halibut
it was a pike

Céret, Jan. 9, 2012

SUPERMARKET 360

as she passes me
she spins her loaded shopping cart around
(and I mean it’s loaded
to the rooftop
must weigh 150 lbs.)
360°
missing the bakery counter window
by inches

as she pushes past me
going the other way
I say softly:
“Nice move, lady.”

she sticks her nose in the air
and pushes on to another horizon

in her world of speed
and trick driving
compliments from the bleacher bums
must be ignored
and above all
don’t stop for autographs

Céret, Jan. 9. 2012

BEAR OPERATES THE OPTICALS

stopped at Village Catalan
magnificent view of Mt. Canigou
to the west
Bear takes out her camera
and snaps a shot of it
with our car in the frame

I say:
“Take a close up.”

and she walks towards the car

Village Catalan, Jan. 10, 2012

SUPERMARKET ADVENTURE #2

woman
rich, old & ugly
cuts in ahead of me
in the checkout line
saying, “I waited over there
but a cashier didn’t come
so now it’s my turn over here
and besides
I don’t have much stuff to buy.”

and I say, “Good to know
I’m invisible.”

and she’s got twice
as much stuff as me
and my back’s hurting like hell
but I keep my mouth shut
cause I know
if I open it
it will stay open
a long time
and a ton of wrath
will pour down
from my personal heaven
starting with, “Oink! Oink!”
and ending up somewhere
between, “May you suffer
the hunger of the worms
that infest your brain,”
and
“DIE BITCH, DIE!”

I’m just doing my best
to let the world keep turning
cause there’s still too many
blind, rich & ugly
idiots who want it to stop
get down on its knees
and offer up its best
to those who least deserve it

Argeles-sur-Mer, Jan. 11, 2012

THE GRAND CANYON GREASERS

I continue to be amazed
by the persistence
of the football team
from Washington D.C.
(our nation’s capitol)
to perpetuate a racial insult
by calling themselves Redskins

would anybody be alarmed
if we added more teams
with such-named mascots?

how about
The Nashville Niggers
The San Antonio Spics
The New York Kikes
The San Francisco Slopes
The Chicago Chinks

new leagues could be established
with only racial insult team mascots
The Richmond Ragheads
The Salem Spearchuckers
The Springfield Spooks
The Chesapeake Coons
The Indianapolis Injuns

Hear the sports report
on ESPN:
“Tonight The Waco Wetbacks
beat the Jersey City Jigaboos
21 to 3
while over in Goose Bay
the hometown Gooks
kicked the stuffing
out of The Toronto Teepee Creepers.”

great headlines of the future:
THE JUNGLE BUNNIES WIN THE WORLD SERIES
THE CAMEL JOCKEYS TAKE THE NBA TITLE
NEW SUPER BOWL CHAMPS:
THE PHILADELPHIA PORCH MONKEYS

Mas Trilles, Jan 12, 2012

(Rip a Lip) I HAVE TO TELL THE TRUTH

driving back from the coast
we explore the village
of St. Genis des Fontaines

we stop at a small news agent
also selling jigsaw puzzles
postcards and quartz alarm clocks

I buy one

a black and silver square one
for 10€

get home, set it up
and deep in the night
when all hearts have stopped beating
I hear its tick
like pinching a nerve
like the grinding of bones
like the eyeblink of a rhino
with garbage can eyelids

turn on the light
to see what kind
of middle-of-the-night time
I can’t go to sleep in
and I can’t read its numbers
and its hands are silver
and reflect every color in the room

take out the battery
and hide the clock
in the back of the closet
hoping Marie Claire won’t notice
and remind me that I have
(once again) allowed myself
to get ripped off

and the first thing she says
in the morning is
“Where’s the clock?”

Mas Trilles, Jan 12, 2012

THE BOO HOO BOOGALOO

we’ve been working forever
to get to where we are

and now we’re nowhere at all

Mas Trilles, Jan. 12, 2012

SHORT DISTANCE

two guys
walking side by side
cell phones pressed
to their ears

they’re probably talking
to each other

Perpignan, Jan. 13, 2012

MONEY SCREAMS

standing at an ATM
waiting for the machine to deliver
my 300 €
young woman walks up
behind me
with a screaming baby
right behind me
really screaming

and for a moment
I think it’s the machine
finding it painful
to let go of all that cash

Perpignan, Jan. 13, 2012

JIMBO FROM LIMBO
(or seven days of human time equals seventy days of cat time
—or not)

we thought he was a long-gone cat
of nine lives minus nine

he wasn’t around the morning
a week ago
when we loaded up the car
and headed south

3rd day down
we got a phone call
sad news
Jimbo hadn’t been seen
since we left

4th day same news

5th & 6th day
he still hadn’t shown up
to eat the crunch junk from his bowl

goodbye Jimbo
I petted the dog here (Roxie)
and told her I used to have
a good friend – a cat named Jimbo
“Now he’s taken all of his 12 years
packed them in a sack
and set off for Catamount
—the Cat Mountain Heaven
beyond the horizon.”

Roxie licked my hand
and said she was sorry
she understands these kinds of things

on the 7th day
we got a photo in an e-mail
picture of Jimbo
eating crunch junk from his bowl
taken only an hour earlier

hello Jimbo
looking good
looking better
than ever before

story:
he snuck into Quanah’s studio
the night before we left
got locked in
and was sound asleep
when we took off
next morning

I tell Roxie the good news
she grunts and lies down
at my feet to sleep
she understands things like this
—or not

how does a cat survive
for seventy-three cat days
and nights
without food or water?

if Roxie knows
she not saying

as usual with Jimbo
(and other cats)
it’s a mystery

no food or water
but there were other diversions
in the studio to pass the time
a stack of CDs & a CD player
a couple of electric guitars
& dozens of books on the shelves

who knows?
when we get back
Jimbo might be wailing
like Stevie Ray Vaughn
& bending strings like B.B. King
more likely he’s read
the complete works of Jean Paul Sartre
and will engage me
in a debate about the finer points
of existentialism

B.B. Jimbo
J.P. Jimbo
Jimbo from Limbo
the cat with ten lives

Mas Trilles, Jan. 13, 2012

DRESSED BY THE STREET MERCHANTS OF CATALONIA

strolling thru the open street market
on our first Saturday morning
down south
I realize that all the clothes I’m wearing
I bought right here in years past

that’s the guy who sold me
this black wool sweater
he’s wearing a new one
just like mine
“Looking good,” he says
“You too,” I reply

and there’s the sour face man
I bought these black pants from last year
he waves as I walk on by

at the stall across
is the woman who is still selling
blue flannel shirts
exactly like the one I’ve got on

and farther down the line
I search for the merchant
who sold me this wool-lined plaid jacket
he’s gone however
I pass three other roving customers
wearing the same as mine
we exchange smiles
and warm greetings
and I show them the black wool
nightwatch cap Marie-Claire
knitted for me last year
they want to know
where they can get one
“One of a kind,” I say
they offer me huge amounts
of loot for mine
“Not for sale,” I say

I turn away
and go looking
for a pair of boots
these silver slippers
with rabbit fur lining
are a perfect fit.

Céret, Jan. 14, 2012

DEAFER & EVER MORE INARTICULATE
(a combination of hearing loss & mumbled speech)

“Slugging up?”

“A knocks.”

“Onasee.”

“A sign that says BEE-YON.”

“Cups on butts.”

“That’s a highway to say.”

“A place for my spaced buildings.”

“Vay-gotts.”

“Cessant burk.”

“I’m a rum a somalena.”

“Call fizzit.”

“This is for the wheat.”

“Spinach my foot.”

and this is just one day’s harvest

think of what surreal misunderstandings
our wounded vocabularies
gather in a year

Mas Trilles, Jan. 14, 2012

STICKS & STONES

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Albert Einstein

was there ever a time
when planet earth was at peace
and was not witness to a war between
tribes of its parasitic scum
known as humans?

let’s check

1898 Spanish–American War
1899 1901 Boxer Rebellion
1899 1902 Second Boer War
1899 1913 Philippine–American War
1904 1905 Russo-Japanese War
1905 Russian Revolution
1910 1921 Mexican Revolution
1914 1918 World War I
1917 1923 Russian Civil War
1919 1923 Turkish War of Independence
1919 1921 Irish War of Independence
1922 1923 Irish Civil War
1927 1949 Chinese Civil War
1936 1939 Spanish Civil War
1939 1945 World War II
1946 1954 First Indochina War
1946 1949 Greek Civil War
1948 1949 Arab–Israeli War
1950 1953 Korean War
1950 1951 Chinese invasion of Tibet
1953 1959 Cuban Revolution
1953 1975 Laotian Civil War
1954 1962 Algerian War
1955 1975 Vietnam War
1956 Hungarian Revolution
1956 Suez Crisis
1959 2011 Basque conflict
1960 1966 Congo Crisis
1960 1996 Guatemalan Civil War
1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion
1961 1970 First Kurdish Iraqi War
1964 to present Colombian armed conflict
1967 Six-Day War Israel
1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia
1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus
1974 1991 Ethiopian Civil War
1979 1989 Soviet war in Afghanistan
1982 Falklands War
1980 1988 Iran–Iraq War
1990 1991 Gulf War
1991 1995 Croatian War of Independence
1992 1995 Bosnian War
1998 1999 Kosovo War
2001 ongoing War in Afghanistan
2003 2011 Iraq War
2006 ongoing Mexican Drug War

and that’s a scant few of the bloody conflicts
in the past one hundred years

at one time in our dusty historic past
there was a 30-year war
an 80-year war between England and Spain 1568-1648
and another of 136 years (The Hundred Year War)
not to forget the Spanish conquest of the Yucatán
that lasted 170 years (1527-1697)

but the bloodiest and most prolonged conflict
of all time
was the 10,000 Year War
between the inhabitants of Cave #114
and their cross-valley enemies
the bastards in Cave #286

Mas Trilles, Jan. 15, 2012

NAMENCLATURE

the girl up in the village
who sells fresh fruit
& vegetables
says her name is
Sabrina

I don’t know about that
that’s not a very good name

Pont de Reynes, Jan. 16, 2012

MOVEABLE MONDEGREEN

“Money can kill”
or
“Monkey can’t kiss”
one or the other
coming from the tin can radio
across the aisle

on the bus to Perpignan, Jan 16, 2012

MYSELF AWARENESS

I’m well-protected
shaggy hair
craggy beard
baggy pants
6 foot 3 inches
of squinting eyes
menacing mouth
growling voice
no one would ever
suspect me of being
a fragile
sensitive
little boy
of a wimp

Perpignan, Jan. 16, 2012

(SORT OF LIKE) THE BEST MINDS OF MY GENERATION

slight drizzle over the city
lasts 15 minutes
car wipers slash visciously
people go scurrying
door to door
heads ducked stuck
under umbrellas
as if they might melt

one day in Belgium
and these people would be
screaming raving
starving hysterical naked

Perpignan, Jan. 16, 2012

NO REGULARLY SCHEDULED WIND BLOWS THRU BELGIUM

and while we house-sit
this hotel
who house-sits
our house?

no one

the cat runs wild
stirring up dust devils
and torn corners
of playing cards
diamonds
clubs
spades
hearts
like an accidental wind
blowing thru
the eye sockets
of an empty
owl skull

Mas Trilles, Jan. 18, 2012

FOOTSTEPS & FOOTPRINTS

we don’t think of city streets
as footpaths
but that’s what they are
gathering footsteps & footprints
from past ages

I’ve walked on some the same streets
walked by illustrious men & women
occasionally my footsteps matching
their invisible footprints

Julius Caesar
Charles Dickens
Hermann Hesse
Werner Heisenberg
Brigitte Bardot
Janis Joplin
Jimi Hendrix
Jack Kerouac
Jack London
Robert Mitchum

some streets were headed
into the open future
other were cul-de-sac
where footsteps & footprints
met a dead end
against a chain link fence
that allowed only ghosts
to pass thru

Jan 19, 2012

DREAMING IN FRENCH

I shake my head
and continue to shake it
when I realize again
and again
that in high school
following the college prep program
that required two years of foreign language
I opted for French
first class of the day
every morning for two years
had absolutely no talent
or interest in its goofy verbs & nouns
and barely passed with a C –
each year saying to myself
“I will never in a million years
ever need or want to speak
these goofy verbs & nouns.”

less than a million years later
(12 to be exact)
I found myself living
in the French-speaking
region of Belgium where
for the past 40 years
I have continued to live
surrounded by people
speaking only French
myself speaking French
with friends
and foes alike

and for the past 5 years
taking my 2-month winter retreat
deep in the heart
of the French nation
(the foothills of the Pyrenees)
where I continue to be surrounded
by French-speaking people
not only understanding all remarks
directed at me
but also dishing out replies
whether they be of a practical nature
or philosophical bent

now, on this night,
I sit up in bed reading
I lower the French newspaper
and listen to Marie-Claire
in the next room watching
a movie on TV
a French movie (dialog
turned down) I hear her
softly chuckle
at something funny
(of course she understands
all the fine points
of humor in her native language)
and I lie back on the pillow
enchanted, amazed
I shake my head again
and again
and get ready to close my eyes
and dream in French

Mas Trilles, Jan. 20, 2012

A LIFETIME SUPPLY OF JINGLES

I don’t know but I’ve been told
the streets of Hell are God-damned cold

it all starts
when we’re very small with
“Row Row Row Your Boat”
we go around humming that
for a while (hum hum)
then we move on
to more complicated melodic structures
“Mary Had a Little Lamb”
& “The Fox Went out on a Chilly Night”

and so it goes
up thru the years
as we grow older
and more sophisticated
“Tubby the Tuba”
& “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”

and beyond

Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring”
Alban Berg’s “Lyric Suite for String Quartet”
& Bach’s “Art of the Fugue”
(hum hum)

and then begins the long
pleasurable drug-induced decline
into the Airplane & the Dead
Willie & Waylon
(hum hum)
Dire Straits & Z Z Top
Chumbawamba & the Ting Tings
Focal Gooz and Dig Dog Dig

until in the end
old & decrepit
feeble of speech & dim of eye-sight
we’re back to where we started
to a state of musical mind
that was planted in our brains
before we were born
(hum hum)
“Three Blind Mice”
(hum hum hum)

Mas Trilles, Jan. 21, 2012

FULL BLAST DRAG

woman on the bus
in the seat in front of me
talking into her cell phone
from the moment she gets on
in Céret (loudly)
all the way
to the suburbs of Perpignan
(one hour)
then she disconnects
and continues talking
to herself (less loudly)

glad I don’t live with her

and she too would be glad
(if she knew my thoughts)
not to be living with me

but how about this?
the bus gets into a violent
head-on collision
with a loaded cement mixer
and as I am hurtled forward
I witness in the last moment
of my life
my face smashing into hers

that’s what you’d call
a full blast drag

on the bus to Perpignan, Jan. 21, 2012

FAST FOOD & STUFF

franchises on the strip
into the city
Buffalo Grill
McDonald’s
Intermarche
E. Leclerc
Colonel Sanders Kentucky Fried
Quick
Carrefour
side by side
an endless string
Decathlon
Midas Mufflers
Firestone
Courtpaille
Comfort Inn
Rent-A-Truck
Motel 6
mile upon mile
upon mile
Marathon
Macrosift
Chubby Ted’s
Punk Apples
Doctor Hiss
Massive Motors
iHip
Hovercraft Cheese
Goldbrick Loggers
Leghorn Blowers
Istantbull & Cowboy
Holy Smokes (The Pope’s Cigars)
Shop-A-Hol-Lickspittle
Al’s Kite-A-Collidascope
Hoople Head Hard Ware
Pugna City
The Crutch Hut
Skull Music
Armpit Stoppers
Boogalooper Laughter
Junk Skunks
Slug Plugs
Muscle Tusk
Focal Gooz
Dig Dog Dig
& as the string stretches farther into the future
The House of Dead Dolls
Boogalooper Laughter Merchants
Logarhytmic Blasters
Gustronomy
I say: let me out
now
I want to buy everything
Spurt Muggers
Lump Assumptions
Warmoose Megathrobs
Clopsters
a dozen of everything
twice
I need their blunt edges
I need the way they fit
into corners of my life
I didn’t know existed

in the back of the bus
from Perpignan to Pont Reynes,
Jan 21, 2012

ONCE UPON A TI . . .

if the earth was spinning
400 times faster than usual
(ie. 2 million, 934 thousand, 624.44 mph)
then the sun would appear
flashing across the sky
every 3½ minutes
which is to say
a day would last for 1¾ minutes
and the night would also be
1¾ minutes long

which is to say
breakfasts would tend to be short
and dinner parties rushed affairs

which is to say
children’s bedtime stories
(like this one)
would be very brief

Mas Trilles, Jan. 22, 2012

THE SAND DOES NOT CHOKE IN THE HOUR GLASS

as long as we’re messing around
and changing the speed
of the earth’s rotation
we could toss in a few more tricks
to keep people on their toes

let’s have the earth tilt
from side to side
at sudden unpredictable moments
like a car swerving to avoid
a dead dog in the road

or maybe hit the brakes
and come to a screeching halt
at which time gravity
would lose its grip
and everybody would suddenly
float into space
then quickly jam it into reverse
sending everybody slamming back
to the surface
to watch the sun go wheeling
across the sky

keep it in reverse
for a few days (and nights)
to let the people settle
into new routines
and just as they are sitting down
to breakfast
suddenly stop
and jump to fast forward
tilting from side to side
with an occasional abrupt stop
to get the people’s feet
off the ground
before resuming speed
then accelerating
and letting the people
experience the effects
of extreme gravity
as their bodies are pressed flat
to the ground
and they start squeaking
like squeezed fish

(to be continued)

Jan. 23, 2012

RISE & SHINE

jump out of bed
toss on a few clothes
grab an orange
and head down to the river

sit on a bench
in the hot sunshine
above the river
and eat the orange

climb down to the river
and dip my hands
in the cold tumbling water

wonderful way
to wake up

Pont Reynes, Jan. 25, 2012

VONDERFUEL

ain’t afraid to use
the word “wonderful”

a touch on the female side
but it’s still
ANGLOFUCKINGSAXON
ain’t it?

Pont Reynes, Jan. 25, 2012

TOO LATE

feeble geezer
shuffling along the street
mumbling gibberish
that no one not even himself
can understand

throw me in the river
if I ever start to
grunge grunge purple plunge
meeble muctus nah cha nah cha
forkle mundo loukaduck
algurstomps
gurf
heesh hursh hurgog
moatzart gut

Mas Trilles, Jan. 25, 2012

YOU’RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE

according to the display
on my cellphone
I woke up today
in the 11th minute
of the 12th hour
of the 13th day
of the 14th month

there could be something wrong
with the little doodad

or else
I’m having such a good time
that a few major alterations
in our basic realities
have escaped my attention

the second is a strong
possibility
plus
the little doodads are seldom wrong

Jan 26, 2012

MANICURED

when I was very small
I was afraid to have
my toenails cut
I thought it would hurt
(like so many other things)

I didn’t know about nerves
I still don’t know
or believe they really exist
but back then
I was sure I could hear
an apple scream
when I plucked it from a tree
a leaf from a branch
a blade of grass
when I stepped on it
all that screaming

next time I got a nail cut
I listened carefully
no pain
but man, those nails
were screaming so loud
it hurt my ears

Mas Trilles, Jan; 27, 2012

CLASSIC WOOD PIGEON

Bear opens the door
and I (lying in bed)
hear the first sounds of the day
from the outside world

coo-coo cooo

wood pigeons
in the tree in front
of our apartment
coo-coo cooo

it goes on all day
coocoo coo
two shorts, one long
coo-coo cooo

never just coo-coo
or cooo
always
coo-coo cooo

what kind of evolutionary
program are these critters
plugged into?

you’d think they might get curious
or experimental
and try a variation or two:
coo-coo CAW!
coo-coo COW!
clack-clack YOW!
CLICK CLACK CLUCK ZIPPER BOOGALOO!

but no
these are not
avant-garde wood pigeons
they belong to the old school

Mas Trilles, Jan. 29, 2012

WOOD PIGEON FOOTBALL

always in pairs
never one
or three
or four
only two
never enough for a huddle

you’d think they might get curious
or experimental and try
a variation or two
ten
twenty
a gang
a football team
“OK, guys, huddle up
– screen pass
– on three
coo-coo cooo!”

Mas Trilles, Jan. 29, 2012

WOOD PIGEON RAP

coo-coo ca-cooo coo-coo coo-ka
coo-coo ca-choo booboo-galoo
goo-goo-ga-roobadoo
moo-moo-gaboo!

if only
see them dancing in the tree
too-too-ta-tat-too
see me dancing on the ground
loo-goo-ga-roo-goo

Mas Trilles, Jan. 29, 2012

HOUR GLASS SAND CONTINUED

the last time we were messing around
with the speed of the earth’s rotation
(on Jan. 23)
we left its unfortunate inhabitants
flat on the ground squeaking
like squeezed fish
now the time has come
to lighten their load

slow the planet down
to one-tenth its normal speed
(ie. 73.3 mph)
and now the people
are walking around
on their tiptoes
struggling to keep in touch
with the earth’s reduced gravity
bouncing here and there
like balloons occasionally
jumping too vigorously
and escaping the earth’s pull

soon you can see their lifeless bodies
revolving in orbit around the earth
like small moons
holding their flashlights
(they were required to carry
flashlights
when they started bouncing)
so that at night
the sky is filled
with tiny blinking lights

Jan. 31, 2012

501 BUTTON FRONT LEVIS

can you imagine
wearing a pair of Levis
until they get so stiff
with dirt and grease
you can stand them up
in a corner at night

I can
I did
I used to wake up
in the middle of the night
and see them standing there

only gradually did I realize
that a man was standing
in them and that man
was me, 60 years in the future
watching himself sleep

Mas Trilles, Jan. 31, 2012

CLIMATE CHANGE FOR A DOLLAR

glovish weather
descends on the Valespir
& Mt. Canigou
is wrapped
in a masked mist
of snowplate avalanche
while down in the river
ice cubes tumble by
tapping out a jumble
of coded messages
warning of a massive
planetary freeze-out
which will take years
to decipher
into turtle talk
& by then the freeze-out
will have come & gone
& we won’t have time
to contemplate anything
other than the evaporation
of the river
& the melt-down
of the mountain

Feb. 1, 2012

MISCHIEVOUS LITTLE BOYS ARE STILL AFOOT ON MOONLESS NIGHTS

man (7 decades old)
to a woman (6½):

“What would happen
if I hid behind that tree tonight
and jumped out at you?”

“I’d scream.”

“But sometimes I can’t help myself.”

“I know – but don’t.”

‘I’ll try not to be tempted.”

what am I thinking?
I bump into her at noon
coming around the hedge
with the sun beating down
on the shadowless path
I’m loudly singing
a military marching tune
and yet she looks up
jumps a foot in the air
and says, “Don’t do that to me!”

but I didn’t do anything
except walk along
humming an ancient tune
and thinking about a man
who recently tossed
100 issues of National Geographics
in the trash – some of them
featuring articles
on dolphins & whales
& others about the rain forests
of Brazil & the Indian canoes
of the Canadian rivers
then I look up
and she’s about a foot
and half off the ground
her mouth popped open
with a silent scream
stuck to her tongue

she’s known me for 44 years
& I’m anything but a total stranger
so the only conclusion I can draw
is that she likes to turn me
into a total, threatening stranger
she loves to be frightened

there’s another moonless night
tonight
and we all know about
that perfectly placed tree
in the shadows next to the house

Mas Trilles, Ground Hog Day, 2012

IMAGINARY COMPANIONS

midpoint in our winter retreat
I’ve shared my night-time solitude
with such illustrious
& dubious characters
of fictional imagination as

Patrick O’Brien’s Captain Jack Aubrey
Lawrence Block’s Bernie Rhodenbarr
Homer’s Achilles & Agamemnon
John Sand ford’s Virgil Flowers
Robert B. Parker’s Virgil Cole
Quanah Parker as seen by S.C. Gwinne
Jerry Garcia as seen by Robert Hunter
& Bob Weir
& Peter Albin
& Sonny Barger
& Ken Kesey
& Mountain Girl
& Bill Graham
& David Grisman
& Owsley Stanley
& Grace Slick
& Rock Skully
& Wavy Gravy
Phil Lesh as seen by himself
& Gary Snyder & Jim Harrison
as seen by themselves

not forgetting to mention
sharing our dinner table
with DVD visits by John Goodman
& Johnny Depp
& Anthony Hopkins (sent by Woody Allen)
& Ian McShane (Deadwood)
& Timothy Olyphant (ditto)
& Brad Dourif (ditto)
& Collin Farrell
& Angelina Jolie
& Sissy Spacek
& Jody Foster
quite a curious crowd
to have over after dinner

who says I’m anti-social?
what part of window
don’t you understand?

Mas Trilles, Feb. 2, 2012

TO GRACE, WHOEVER
& WHEREVER YOU MAY BE

I wake up chanting
“Gdorm Gdorm Gdorm”

what kind of dreams
was I having
that are now erased
by the Gdorms?

& what kind of brains
are twisting & turning
inside my skull
to the bare bone beat
of “Gdorm Gdorm Gdorm” ?

& what kind of book
was I reading last night
as I fell to sleep
that moved me this morning
to continue with
“Gdorm Gdorm Gdorm” ?

Searching for the Sound
was the title of the book
by Phil Lesh (bass player
with the Grateful Dead)
Gdorm Gdorm Gdorm
a used hardbound
sent to me by mail last year
thru Amazon.com
from Green Earth Books
in Portland, Oregon

two strange gifts
came with this used book:
an inscription on the flyleaf
“Happy Birthday, Grace
(signed) Jerry Garcia.”

certainly a joke
since Jerry died in 1995
& the book was published
ten years later
(unless Gaspar De Lago
had a ten million-light year reach
from the vast beyond)
Gdorm Gdorm Gdorm
(and still remembered how to use
a ball point pen with blue ink)

the other gift
is a square piece
of chocolate brown soft cloth
with pinking-sheared edges
left as a bookmark
(by “Grace?”)
between pages 24 & 25
the kind of scrap
of cotton optometrists
stick in your glass case
when you buy a new pair

on it is printed”
“Park Opticians, Inc.
Fairmont Circle
Cleveland, Ohio.”

who was wearing dirty glasses
when he or she was reading
pages 24 & 25?
Gdorm Gdorm Gdorm
was it Grace?
Jerry wore glasses
Phil wore glasses
I wear glasses

I take the cloth
out of the book
and place it carefully folded
in the case for my reading glasses

what a strange trip
this eyeglass wiper
has been on since “Grace”
gave up the book

or left it behind
after some terrible tragedy
that she didn’t want
to be reminded of
or sold to a used book store
(perhaps in Cleveland Ohio)
(or Portland Oregon)
because she got bored
between pages 24 & 25
because it was taking up
too much space
on her bookshelf
because she needed the money
because she went blind
Gdorm Gdorm Gdorm

Mas Trilles, Feb. 4, 2012

MIND OVER MATTERHORNS

Bear reports from the TV
“I just saw a program
about people our age
climbing Mt. Everest.”

our age?

for a moment
I thought I was 25

Mas Trilles, Feb. 4, 2012

SUPERBOWL SUNDAY HAIKU

frozen waterfall
ice on pond
snow on black dog

Mas Trilles, Feb. 5, 2012

MADONNA AT HALFTIME

superbowl Sunday
they’ve got it on a French
station this year
a pair of announcers
who don’t know a hell of a lot
about the rules
or the history of the game

they seem to be more interested
in seeing Madonna
at the halftime show

“Madonna at halftime,”
they keep saying (in French)
all thru the first half

in the second half
they don’t have Madonna
to look forward to
so they just sit around
trying on different
sizes and colors
of fake beards
& rapping about
the weather, the price
of artichokes on the moon
& telephone turtle talk

but since my grasp of French
is not all that great
beyond the ordinary
philosophical run of mills
they might be blabbing about
something completely different
– or not

one thing is certain
they don’t have much to say
about how the N.Y. Giants (21)
& the New England Patriots (17)
stomp the shit out of each other

for all they seem to care
they could be above the stadium
perched on a rainbow
with sand bags
tied to their eyelids
& smoldering locust cocoons
stuck between their lips
as they puff insect smoke
into clouds of old cartoon faces
that slowly solidify
into masks
then tumble from the sky
to cover the faces
of the players
& protect them
from further scrutiny
of alien TV cameras
which are broadcasting the game
not only to 140 million people
on earth
but to the multiple quadrillions
of extra-terrestrials
who have drifted in
from the far corners
of the galaxy
& having suffered thru
the Madonna halftime show
are now hovering in orbit
delighted to see the helmets
and padded uniforms
mistaking the players inside them
for another race
of semi-sentient beings
much like themselves
thinking, “Given enough
time & space
we could become
good friends with these guys.”

Mas Trilles, Feb. 5, 2012

WHIRLWIND

the wind whips clouds
across the full moon
then comes screaming down
to earth
uproots trees
& slams them to the ground

in the morning it dies
& goes to wind heaven

Mas Trilles, Feb. 6, 2012

AN UNDERGROUND CITY THE SIZE OF PARIS IN MY HEAD

I am a man who sleeps with books
last night I slept with Virgil Flowers
Jerry Garcia (“Dark Star”), Achilles,
Agamemnon, Nestor, Odysseus
& other Greeks & Trojans
and they gave me a wild
& weirdish dream:

I entered the vertical
& horizontal labyrinth
of my unconscious
narrow staircases
of old wooden steps
narrow walkways
& small chambers
paneled in age-dusted wood
& littered with trash & scraps
of newspapers & magazines
hundreds upon hundreds
of wooden doors
to wooden steps
& squeeze-thru passages
leading to the left, to the right
up & down
& down
& down

the people were friendly
but none could tell me
how to get out
of this underground city
none could draw a map

I was a spectator
to impromptu poetry readings
lectures on psychology
& folk song performances
all in front of audiences
of a dozen or less
(no room for more)

I had a great time
until I found myself outside
having stepped from a door
in the side of a hill
overlooking a strange city
it was getting dark
& I knew I had to get home

I have little or no patience
for descriptions of other peoples’
dreams
I hope this one
has not bored you

I am sure you will be
satisfied & rewarded
when I tell you
that when I woke up
I realized I had learned
the secret name of the man
who controls all life
on earth
his name is
Pablo Garbaggio

Mas Trilles, Feb. 7, 2012

SPEED READING SHOULD BE OUTLAWED
(SPEED BREEDING TOO)

by the time you have finished
reading this sentence
19 babies will have been born
into the world

how do you stop
the population explosion?

read . . . more . . . slow . . . leeeeeee

Mas Trilles, Feb. 8, 2012

GARBAGGIO’S GUIDE TO SAINTHOOD

eat with one hand
wipe your ass with the other
shake with one
blow snot with the other
press your hands together
in fervent prayer
and watch the angels & demons
of all dimensions
trip over each other
to be first in line
to take a sniff

Mas Trilles, Feb. 10, 20112

SAINT GARBAGGIO ON BASS TURDS

Garbaggio has no respect
for musicians who put other things
before music

politics
money
fame and other ego spotlights

“You know who you are
you bass turds”
he writes
in his celestial journals
describing events he experienced
on the terrestrial plane
“And you will be cast down
into the eternal ice of Hades
for your blasphemous crimes.”

there are not too many
musicians who have been inducted
into St. Garbaggio’s Hall of Fame
Jerry Garcia
Paul Butterfield
Mark Knopfler
Emmy Lou Harris
J.J. Cale
Tim Buckley
Tim Hardin
Richie Havens
Neil Young
Alison Krause
Waylon Jennings
Luther “Snakeboy” Johnson
and others you know who they are

and not one of them
stuck around long enough
to be pinned to the wall

Mas Trilles, Feb 12, 2012

“SERVER NOT FOUND”

these words come up so often
on my laptop screen
I’m starting to take it pers0nally

footnote:
and who is this “Wi-Fi” anyway?
Wig Fig?
Wild Fiddle?
Wasteland Fungus?
Whatchamacallit Flibbertigibbit?

don’t tell me
they can’t find
an extra whatchamacallit flibbertigibbit
to handle my world wide web needs
at 4 o’clock in the morning
when all I want to do
is check my mail
& Google Earth an old dirt road
that climbs out of Dry Creek Valley
where I used to wander
in my childhood years
with my faithful dog following
& my mind dancing lost
in a vast mystical forest
with no desire to ever be found
don’t tell me
they don’t have an extra nit wit
to plug me in

Mas Trilles, Feb. 13, 2012

THE NAPSTER

I wake up
join the human race
run a couple of laps
to make a good impression
and quash the rumors
that I might be becoming
a hermetic sloth

then I drop out
sleep for a few more rounds
and rejoin the race
when the other runners
are starting to get tired

at the last moment
I speed ahead
at the twilight finish line
and get crowned the winner
for the 25, 915th day in a row

Feb. 14, 2012

71 VALENTINES

71 trips around the sun
71 Springs
71 Summers
71 Christmases
71 New Years
71 April Fools
71 Halloweens
no wonder I’m exhausted
no wonder I’m full of gravity
no wonder I think
more & more
that I better grow wings
day by day
and get ready to fly away
the next time a warm breeze
blows by
and gives me a free ride
to somewhere
tho I know nothing
is really for free
and that somewhere
might really be everywhere

Mas Trilles, Feb. 14, 2012

DARWIN’S LAW
IN ANIMAL- GOD HEAVEN

bird gods
snake gods (including
lizard gods & alligator gods)
turtle gods
dog gods
cat gods
deer gods (moose, antelope
elk, llama & camel)

and what do they do
when they’re not at home in heaven?

they’re out in the garden
trying to survive
bird god eats worm god
fox god eats chicken god
cat god eats mouse god
wolf god eats sheep god
coyote god jumps
over the fence
& bites off the middle finger
of a human god
“Hai! Hai” says Coyote God

this has never happened before
the human gods declare war
they climb the fence
& kill the animal gods
elephant gods
horse gods
pigeon gods
lemur gods

then the virus gods
creep under
the human gods’
fingernails
and it’s goodbye human gods.

Mas Trilles, Feb. 15, 2012

EULOGY

across the watershed
from French-speaking mountains
to Spanish-speaking mountains
stop for vast panoramas
of red rocks & warm sunshine
pine needles & silent memories
of Andre

a small stream
called the Riu Arnera
near Maçaret
surrounded by glacier-carved mountain
sun slanting thru trees
wind shifting branch shadows
swift running water
over rocks

I open the urn
with a screwdriver
and a round water-polished stone
and Bear sprinkles the ashes
into the tumbling water

& soon, Andre
you go tumbling away
in your molecular canoes
over rapids
thru pools of swirling foam
and over rocky falls

listen to the birds singing
with the river, Andre
so next time around
your ears won’t confuse
true speech
with noise

Riu Arnera, Gorga Les Dones, Feb. 15, 2012

IN THIS DAY & AGE (AT OUR AGE)

“See you later”
it’s a ritual prayer
since our parting words
could be our last
we have to be careful
how we stack them up

she says, “See you in jail.”
I say, “No good.
Think of something else.”
“See you I heaven.”
“That’s worse.”

we must choose our words
with eternity in mind

“I think I’ll walk down
this dark alley
where that pair
of wicked villains
are sharpening knives
on their front teeth,”
is not a good choice

“Maybe next time
you’ll remember my birthday,”
is not epitaph that I (or you)
want to be remembered by

“The doc says I’ll live
to be a hundred,”
is the worst goodbye joke
in the book

& “I’ll catch up with you
as soon as I finish
the last pages
of the Tibetan Book of the Dead,”
is a memorable
but no convivial way
way to say toot-a-loo forever

superstition runs deep
that’s why we invented religions
that’s why we started praying

“I’ll be back around
seventeen minutes past six.”
these are good words of farewell

“Forget it. I’ll stay home
and shoot the breeze with you
for a couple of years.”
is an excellent parting line

Mas Trilles, Feb. 17, 2012

GIVE IT A NAME

a troop of Scottish bagpipers
riding past at 60 mph
doppler effect included

no, wait – hold the phone
make that 3 French ambulances
with ping pong sirens
pursued by a pack
of screaming banshees
on their way to a rendez-vous
with death

Perpignan, Feb. 17, 2012

CAMEOS OF THE GREAT LONG HAIR COMPOSERS

with my hair
ever growing longer
I’m starting to look
like Johannes Brahms
– all except for the face

Perpignan, Feb. 17, 2012

CAMEOS OF THE GREAT BLIND POETS

with my slowly failing eyesight
I’m starting to look exactly like
John Milton
– except for the teeth

Mas Trilles, Feb. 18, 2012

MORE FEEBLE GEEZER SOUND BITES
(HERE COMES THE FEEBLE GEEZER AGAIN)

“Trickle toask.” (repeat 120 times)

“Garbaciousfest” (12 times)

“Fackletease fackletoes.”
(repeat until somebody screams)

“Furbalittle fister.”
(repeat until your companion
driven insane by your blabber
picks up an ice pick
and tries to stick it in your ear)

if she misses, go to

“Collostal crooms.”
&
“Bartangle! Bartangle! Bartangle!” *

* see volumes I to MMMLLXXIII
of The Complete Feeble Geezer
which contains all possible permutations
of 5-syllable words from “Aba-Ga-Toomba”
to “Wang Wang Doodle Pop.” *

* see Volumes. MMMLLXXIIXX
to MMMMLLLXXXIIIVVCIII
for all 2- syllable words
from “Aargoo” to “Zurk Zurk.”

MORE EAR STOPPERS

the conversation between man & woman
becomes even more deafer & inarticulate

“My jelly used to make that for larsing into winter.”

“We’ll come back and pedal with the key.”

“News on the noose”

“Bwata Gateau”

“I said you’re selling shoot.”

“Gnabby Possters.”

“Shoosen puckets.”

“My kettle this morning.”

“Hadda hadda fulla coys – menay metanick.”

“The best thing about it is ready chamma nunnel.”
“It’s already Dunneth Mead.”
“Who’s Dunneth Mead?”
“Who stunneth heed?”
“It’s lady rack now.”

” Juke ’em moi.”
“Huh?”

“I think they were two of four of five.”
“Yeah – slur.”

MORE MONDEGREENS

Ye highlands and ye lowlands
oh, where have ye been?
they hae slain the Earl o’Moray
and Lady Mondegreen
17th Century Scot Ballad

Brad Paisley on line with his Mac:
“I’m so much cooler on wine.”

Linda Ronstadt
driving a truck in Willin’
“Driven every kind of rig that’s ever been made
driven the backroads so I wouldn’t get laid.”

Bill Haley & his Comets
over-stepping the bounds of decent taste in the 50s:
“Shake, Marilyn Monroe.”

Dan Tyminski
cranking up his throat
punching up his mouth
for his hillbilly shout
on the first word:
“PAIN! please go away – ”

Vanessa Paradis chanting about
Joe Le Taxi and Joe’s love
for music by Xavier Cugat:
“Vas-y cool cat.”

“The Sound of Music”
starring Drooling Andrews

“Hold On I’m Comin'”
by Salmon Dave

Tanita Tikaram
twisting in her sobriety
“. . . my eyes are hollow grams.”

& that old church chestnut
“Bringing in the sheep.”

INSPIRATION
for Patrick Ferryn

breathing in
inspiration
breathing out
expiration
breathe in
breathe out
inspire
expire
one cycle
every 5 heart beats
let’s call it
participation

Arles-sur-Tech, Feb, 23, 2012

IN THE MOUNTAINS – 1

no water
high in the mountains
thorny bushes
& sun slanting off
hillsides of wild forest

Montalba, Feb. 22, 2012

IN THE MOUNTAINS – 2

one horse
in the mountains
standing below
the drop off
head level
with the ground
peeking over
the stone border

Montalba, Feb. 22, 2012

IN THE MOUNTAINS – 3

horse licking
my shoes
my pants leg
seeking salt
many new birds
never seen before
still unseen
singing in the mountains

Montalba, Feb. 22, 2012

IN THE MOUNTAINS – 4

fall to sleep
on a patch of grouch grass
sun soaking
thru the back of my shirt

wake up to Maltese Cross
painted faded
on the chapel door

paths leading deeper
into the mountains

Montalba, Feb. 22, 2012

IN THE MOUNTAINS – 5

while I’m turned
to look at the gravestones
in the ancient boneyard
the horse
tries to bite off
my knee cap

Montalba, Feb. 22, 2012

BLONKERS
‘Blonkers” from “Blanc” (white)

Michael Moore
in Here Comes Trouble
tells a story
about a convention
of white supremacists
and other racists
in Michigan

one hater of Jews
& dark skin people
declared, “The cut-off line
is the French-Spanish border.”

close call
a mile or two south
& we’d all be jungle bunnies

Collioure, Feb. 23, 2012

WATER CLOSET

climb the steep stairs
to a blockhouse
built into the stone wall
above the bay
& over the water

urinal installed
just below a slit in the wall
so an archer
shooting arrows down
on the attacking boats
could take a leak
at the same time

Collioure, Feb. 23, 2012

THE BEAST UNBURDENED

for two months
I have been the beast
from the mountain
come down to the valley
to menace the men
mesmerize the women
and scare the crap out of the kids

today
Bear caught me
with pointed scissors
and snipped off my powerful
Enkidu locks

now I am a dog
and I’ll be lucky
if someone gives me
a pat on the head
or a scrap of food

Mas Trilles, Feb. 24, 2012

DARK MACHINE RIDER

follows us up
the valley of the Cathars
from Lavagnac Lapradelle
to Lavalanet & the turn off
to Montsegur
silver helmet
single burning eye
headlight thru the bright
sunshine
he hangs in our rearview mirror
200 yards, 100 yards, 50 yards
closing & falling back
sticks with us faithfully
like an old friend
I think I know him
dark machine rider

he drops back
& we lose sight of him
he must have stopped
for a snack of bread
or a sip of wine
he’s not in our rearview now
& we feel the weight
of our loss

then suddenly
a few miles later
climbing out of a valley
here he comes again
bright tiger eye blazing
he passes us with a zip
& a zoom
jacket puffing out
like a balloon
and then he’s gone ahead
out of our life forever
dark, machine rider

Foix, Feb. 28, 2012

SIGNTOLOGY

many mysterious picture signs
along the mountain roadside

side view of a man
with one foot in front of the other:
“Walking in Memphis”

two children, hand in hand
running & screaming:
“Beware of Beowulf”

rocks dripping like rain
from a cliff:
“Self Lapidation”

deer jumping in the air:
“Don’t be surprised
if you see animals with horns
leaping over your car”

cow standing:
“Hit the cow
– win a free milk shake”

Quillan, Feb. 28, 2012

KYRIAD ELEISON

kryiad eleison
give me a room for the night
kryiad eleison
a room with a bed
a pillow & a blanket
kryiad eleison
a room with two lamps
& a window with curtains
kryiad eleison
give me carpet
that shocks my fingers with sparks
when I touch the door handle
& a TV
with 118 channels
all showing the same
basketball game
between two teams
nobody’s ever heard of
kryiad eleison
give me a plate of shrimps
& potato salad
& noodles & olives
& two scoops of chocolate
with whipped scream
kryiad eleison
give me a tilting floor
with 3 kinds of gravity
give me a door
with snap locks & secrets
give me a shower
with hot ice drops
& nose blows
a towel in the shape
of an elephant’s ear
give me a poster
of Vincent Van’s outdoor café
with fat stars in the sky
& UFO bubbles
on their way north
to capture the pole
and bend the earth
into a cataliptical orbit

give me a mirror
that makes me look skinny
the kind they have
in clothing stores
to fool the customers
into believing in miracles

give me a good night’s sleep
and don’t start fooling around
with my dreams
or I might wake up
and give you a Kyrie Eleison
thru the top
of your stove pipe hat

Cahors, Feb. 25, 2012

BREAKFAST IN CAHORS

at Kyriad Eleison
you pay $10 an egg
with dollar signs
printed on the shell

or you go across the street
to La Panetierre
& score 10¢ bagatelles
with jelly that will fill
every empty pocket
in your belly
with warm intentions

Cahors, Feb. 26, 2012

FRENCH DRIVERS

France has the best roads
in Europe, large & small

only two things wrong:

they’re careless
about posting signs

& the drivers of the cars
are emotional retards
the worst, most dangerous
drivers in the world

& quick to road rage
honking horns, shouting
obscenities from the protective
shell of their vehicles

all of which tells you a lot
about the automotive
character of the country:
chickenshits at heart
weasels with a death wish
take away their cars
& they become
puffed up worms
squeaking at the sound
of a footstep

Cahors, Feb 26, 2012

LONGBOARD SHADES

the eyes of the beast
are back in action
his hair has been sheared
& sacrificed
but his eyes burn on
brightly in the light
darkly in the night
anonymously in the world
he prowls
seeking out the scent
of wolves & wild dogs
which are the only creatures
he can communicate with

which is a complicated way
of saying
I just bought a pair
of cheap sun glasses
that look just like Patrick’s
& thru which the world
looks like a slice
of purple toast

rest stop Pech Montat
(Brive-la-Gaillard)
Feb. 26, 2012

LADY BEESWAX

Lady Beeswax
is the name of the woman
who speaks to us
on our GPS
she tells us where to go
how far, when to turn
& when to stop

thousands upon thousands
of very lonely men
have fallen in love
with Lady Beeswax

you can see them late at night
riding around in their cars
hunched over their wheels
drooling listening to her voice

the streets are crowded
with lonely man cars
crossroads are blocked
traffic jams everywhere
millions of Lady Beeswax lovers

Châteauroux, Feb. 26, 2011

DOG LICK

riding in the backseat
of the car
going to the market
Pinot licks my hand
licks my beard

ten minutes later
strolling thru the open market
I brush my beard
with my fingertips

it’s still dog lick wet

Lignières, Feb. 27, 2012

BOHEMIAN HUT

in Josef & Ellen’s
bohemian hut
there are 36 electric wires
hanging loose
17 dangling sockets
and 11 other sockets empty

this is a house
where electricity
enjoys great freedom

it runs around naked
dances up & down the walls
in the night
singing praises of itself
& whispering of life
beyond the thresholds
of the local moles holes

St. Hillaire-en-Lignières, Feb. 27, 2012

THE WIND FARM AMUSEMENT PARK

Aeolians
turning slowly slowly
their tubes full of wind

pump in more air
& they’ll explode
blades shooting off
& spinning thru the sky
in all directions
& creating a new amusement park

tourists from around the world
will travel & gather
to watch this month’s blow out
as the Fruit Tree Moon
dips into the western horizon
& applaud a spectacle
that rivals
the hot-air-harpoon races
over the nuclear testing grounds
of New Mexico
& the nose-blowing festival
of Mt. Rushmore

highway to Paris, Feb. 28, 2012

RIM LIGHT

circle Paris
heading home
to re-connect
with friends old & young
two months forgotten
Ton
Dan Dan
Ditch
Piet
Nico
Airwig
DJ Beat Gary
Mark T
Job
Jon
Lonesome Gamblers
Patrick & Brigitte
Mark & Denise
Danny
Karina
Pamela
Jason
Jef
Brother Dave
& Quanaroo
show them
my brown sun face
tell them the stories
of my adventures
& misadventures
escapes & escapades
high tides & low rides
side trips & back flips
grains of truth
mixed with heaps
of buffalo shit
scarecrow straws of facts
dipped in
fabulous fictions

Feb. 28, 2012

CANIGOU SNOWMELT

unpacking my stuff
from the trip south
I take out the small blue
rubber bulb
I use to wash out my ears

I accidentally squeeze
the bulb
& a few drops of water
from 900 miles away
squirts onto my pillow

Feb. 29, 2012

Rimbaud’s neighbors

Poems 2012  |  Part 1  |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

for Christine Pagnoulle

MEANWHILE

we hear a lot about the Wild West
the so-called cowboys
and outlaws
and Indians
and all the crazy stuff
they did to each other

meanwhile
there was a lot of really weird shit
going down on the high seas
sailors shanghaied
out of Frisco & Boston
sailors tied to the mast
and whipped
for being shanghaied-stupid
sailors shot from the yard-arms
by captains improving their skills
with their new repeating rifles
sailors starving with missing
frost-bit fingers & toes

Custer went down
in Little Big Horn
thanking his sweet lord
he had solid ground
under his feet

while out west
out on the Pacific deeps
nobody was walking on water

Jan. 1, 2012

THREE WAYS OF LOOKING AT ILLUSIONS

1.
and here we are
all trotting down
our different paths
seeking perfection

or some goofy notion
of perfection
(like a blind man lucking out
because he saves money
on light bulbs
& flashlight batteries)

or having given up
suspecting that perfection
is just another
hype

2.
enlightenment
satori

3.
about the stories
there is only one
with thousands
upon thousands of ways
of telling it

coming home
is the name of the story

from the moment
we are squeezed out
into the world
we are coming home

sometimes it takes
a lifetime of stories
to get back
to where we started
sometimes more

Jan. 2, 2012

“NOT” INSULTS

not the brightest light on the christmas tree
not playing with a full deck

where do they come up with
all these “not” insults?

not the sharpest knife in the drawer
not the quickest bunny in the woods

who spends their time
thinking up these stupid remarks?

somebody
a few screws short of a hardware store
a few cards short of a full deck
nine dimes short of a dollar
one burger short of a picnic
5 beers short of a 6-pack

somebody who
who doesn’t have all his dogs on one leash
who is as smart as a bag of rocks
who is missing a few buttons on the remote control
whose wheel is spinning tho the hamster is dead
who is knitting with only one needle
who is skating on the wrong side of the ice

and they don’t stop with hamsters
and knitting needles

so narrow minded he can look thru a keyhole
with both eyes at the same time
so weak he couldn’t drive a nail into a snowbank
so clumsy he trips over a cordless phone

but why do they stop there?
why don’t they cut loose
with a pinch of imagination?
how about:

he has an IQ equal to
the latitude of Iceland
divided by the year
they drove Ol’ Dixie down
subtracted from
the circumference
of a basketball hoop

none of which
makes any sense at all
but at least are better than
“a kangaroo in a pigpen
four miles short of a yard
in a 15-minute race”

Jan. 3, 2012

LEAP YEAR SONGS

1.
Leap Year leap year
where you been?
down in the south pole’s
penguin den

Leap Year Leap Year
what happened to your face?
I looked at the moon
and some got erased

Leap Year Leap Year
where’re your feet?
they got lost in the mud
while I was walking down the street

Leap Year Leap Year
leap frog around
I’ll leap frog down
into leap frog town

Leap Year Leap Year
stay for a while
stickin’ around
just ain’t my style

Leap Year Leap Year
dry your tears
give me a leap
and a few more years

2.
dog inside the house
dog inside the house
lord lord lord lord
dog inside the house

man inside the house
man inside the house
lord lord lord lord
man inside the house

death is knocking on the door
death is knocking on the door
knock knock kock death
is knocking on the door

3.
I am
very cold
freeze to death
inside this house

why don’t
you help me
light a fire
and cook a mouse

4.
in this downsloping world
we slide into the pit
mile after mile
we laugh when we hit

then we laugh louder
when we see the blushing baby booms
standing on their heads
in the gun-shy locker rooms

all the gods are there too
mixing up the fun
with big blobs of beard
and shooting star dust brooms

5.
Jimbo Diddley
Jimbo Dad
Jim be good
Jim Bo bad

6.
bring on the trees
sing on the songs
sing song sing

rise with the sun
fall with the leaves
sing song sing

sing in the rain
sing song sing
sing with the bells
ring rung ring

DOGS & CATS & SMALL CHILDREN

you’ve probably heard it
or read it somewhere before
but (even so)
it’s worth repeating:

it’s great when dogs
& cats & small children
like you
they make you feel
better than you really are

March 1, 2012

FLASHLIGHT

looking for my flashlight
with the flashlight
in my hand

couldn’t find it
because I had the flashlight
in my hand
looking for my flashlight

March 3, 2012

I, THE INCOMPLETELY-EDUCATED ANIMAL

first I was a Wildcat
(elementary school thru 8th grade)
then I was a Greyhound
(high school)
for two years I was a Ram
(S.F. City College)
and I was an Alligator
when I got my BA and MA
(S.F. State)

then I came to Europe
hoping to complete my education
as a species of animal
but in Rome
the cage was empty

deprived of Lion, Lemur
Wolf & Bull
I sunk to a level
below that of a worm
no primate
no vertebrate
not even a lousy arthropod

they could at least
have made me a Mosquito
Moth or Lady Bug

The Academia di Santa Cecilia
di Roma Rabbits

small wonder I never got
my PhD and pursued
a career as a university
professor

I was all set to become
an Eagle, a Bear
a Buffalo or a Gorilla
and look what happened
– Trilobite

March 6, 2012

LANDSCAPE PAINTING

ancient Chinese rain again
without the steep
mountain hillsides
covered with ferns
dotted with pines
and brushed by wisps
of mist

instead
flat brown land
truck tires whipping up water
& windshield wipers
slapping our view of the world
with rude awakenings

March 7, 2012

JUNKIES

we filled up the attic
with junk
then we filled up
the guest room
and the studio

all that’s left
is the back of the car

today we started
driving around
with our crap

when the trunk gets full
we’ll buy a trailer

March 9, 2012

INSIDE OUTSIDE

outside
I was seven times sneezing
unrestrained, eyes closed
nose-tickled, waist-bending
hands-behind-the-back
sneezing

inside
thru the window
Bear saw me
and thought I was
bowing
to the trees

March 10, 2012

FACING A CHOICE OF DISMAL HORIZONS
WHILE SITTING ON THE EDGE OF MY BED
WITH MY EYES FULL OF SLEEP

it’s much less depressing
to walk around all day
in my comfortable, warm
easy to drop for the 6
or 7 daily leaks
black sweatpants pajamas
than to cram my legs
into a pair of stiff pants
too tight or too loose
that lets cold air creep
down the back
and are a struggle
to unzip or unbutton

but it’s still depressing

March 11, 2012

DRAWING A LINE IN THE CIRCLE OF DUST
THAT GATHERS AROUND MY SLEEP-STUNNED
BARE FEET ON THE RUG

OK – I’ll go with the black
sweatpant pajamas
today
but that’s it
no bedroom slippers
that’s where I draw the line
no soft-felt slippers
with cool-smooth
Japanese monk soles
– tho they’re far more comfortable
than my thick-soled, clumsy
Nike Plugs
with air-conditioned sides
and trampoline heels

OK – maybe the slippers

but no more than an hour or two
that’s the limit

March 12, 2012

WORLD PEACE

there is now
a player in the NBA
who calls himself
World Peace

“World Peace is knocked
out of bounds.”

“World Peace
at the free throw line.”

“World Peace
fouls out.”

World Peace
could be the first
of many refreshing
name changes
in the world of sports:

how about a point guard
named Ozone Layer?

or a coach
named Times Square?

or a couple of pro footballers:
“Global Warming
back to pass
– fires down field
– and it’s caught by Screw You
for a touchdown!”

how about a heavyweight
boxing match
between Toxic Waste
and Raw Sewage?

or a tennis match
– mixed doubles:
Laughing Gas & Hop Scotch
vs Male Chauvinist Pig
& Information Technology?

or a pitching duel between
curveballer Ham’n Eggs
and knuckleballer Country Radio?

& let’s take a closer look
at the rest of the line up:
Border Patrol at Shortstop
Pledge of Allegiance in Centerfield
Lord’s Prayer at 1st Base
Amnesty International at 3rd
Manifest Destiny – DH
Event Horizon in Left Field
No Shirt No Shoes No Service in Right
Daylight Savings Time at 2nd base
& Carbon Footprint Catching

& let’s not forget the umpire:
Blue Plate Special

March 14, 2012

BLACKBIRD SWIMMER
with a nod in the direction of Sir Paul

man wants to swim
dives in the river
doesn’t know it’s polluted
water gets in his eyes
in his mouth
he goes blind
his tongue falls out
can’t see where he’s going
can’t shout for help
swims downstream
thinking about
blackbird farmers
singing in the dead of night

March 22, 2012

BLANKET LAND

to get up
and walk around
wrapped in a blanket
is natural

after all
we spend a third
of our life
sleeping under them
wrapped in them

as a kid I was told
“Get rid of that blanket
and put on some clothes.”

I liked the blanket better
clothes were not so comfortable
and shoes hurt my feet

someday when I’m old
I will get up
with a blanket wrapped
around me
and I will walk
barefoot
into the sunset

I will follow the sun
around the curve
of the earth
until I come to Blanket Land

I will meet
the Blanket Maniacs
and the Blanket Gods

no one will tell me
“Put on your shoes
or I’ll come over there
and tan your hide.”

March 28, 2012

A TWO DONKEY POEM

the full moon rises
and floats across the sky
until it’s shining down
into the eyes
of two donkeys
with black furry backs
and white bellies
munching mountain berries
and talking about the kids
at the Sardane festival
this afternoon
who fed them
clumps of green
grass roots and all

(memory poem from past winter retreat in Vallespir)
April 23, 2012

WHILE YOUNG EINSTEINS DREAM OF BLACK HOLE MOLES

if you have any illusions
about the supremacy of the white race
turn on your TV
and watch a sports program
baseball
football
basketball
boxing
track & field
pay close attention to the 100-meter dash
you’ll change your mind
in about ten seconds flat

April 25, 2012

UPS’N DOWNS

Ghosts from the Basement
Part Two
Bristol Folk Festival

we’re all half-circled
at the front of the stage
taking turns
with our folkish songs
old’n new

high point?
my chunky one chord
funky broadway
when everybody jumps in
guitars’n accordions
and we all go staggering
down that funky street
at the same time

low point?
when I look out
past the spotlight
and see the room
is empty

Bristol, May 6, 2012

SLOP TONGUES

riding the coach
back to London
a couple of young
toastheads
cheapmouth loudsacks
in the seat behind us
babbling, polluting
the air
with their verbal noise
for the first 25 miles
then suddenly
they shut up

back in London
I turn in my seat
to see why so quiet
for so long
eyes wide open
they both have socks
stuffed in their mouths

alternate ending 1
eyes wide open
placed neatly
in their foreheads
between their eyes
small round bullet holes

alternate ending 2
eyes closed
their mouths
have been erased

alternate ending 3
no eyes
no mouth

Bristol to London, May 7, 2012

“CRUMMY” SHE SAID

this hotel room
is so cramped
there’s not enough room
to swing a mouse

Argyle Square (London) May 7, 2012

FOOD & MOUSE MOOD

coming around Greys Inn Road
onto Euston at Kings Cross
the taxi driver points out
“That McDonalds
has been there for over 30 years.”

I can see 130 years
into the future
it’s an historic landmark
“That McDonalds there
is the original
– since 1980.”

I can see it
but I can’t see
the rest of London

London, May 7, 2012

A LOUD, SUCK-MOUTH FELLOW
(OR LIVING ON THE EDGE OF THE FICTIONAL KNIFE)

south-east Asian man
(I’m guessing Thailand)
sits down next to us
in an Italian restaurant
on Marchmount Street

he can’t speak English
points to the menu
gets served a plate
of noodles
takes out a small camera
snaps a picture
of his food
then dives in head first
to devour it
mouth only inches
from the plate
he scoops noodles
into his loud-sucking mouth
eats like an animal
in a rat cage
sucks the plate clean
in less than two minutes
then lifts his head
turns his head
and stares at the piece
of fried fish
on Marie-Claire’s plate

he’s a surly fellow
won’t smile
he shakes his head
when the waitress
asks if he’d like
some “pudding”
he flashes me the briefest
quirt of a smile
then gets up, pays
and leaves

so who was that
surly, loud-suck-mouth Asian fellow?
no doubt about it: he was a hit man
he could speak fluent English
and understood every word
Marie-Claire spoke to me
including her whispers

when he shot a picture
of his noodles
he sneaked a photo of me
his camera was also a gun
he hesitated at the last moment
and did not push
the button-trigger
word had come thru his ear plug
that his true target
had just been spotted
over on Portobello Road

his true target:
an international poet
a powerful word-terrorist
named Trucker Zipperman

it would have been a case
of mistaken identity

close call
we were lucky
to get out of there alive

London, May 7, 2012

UNDERGROUND

metallic monotone
female voice bouncing off the walls
of the tube stop tunnels
and rat passages
keeping us informed
with various messages
“Mind the gap.”
“The next stop is Baker Street
change here for the Bakerloo line.”
“Keep to the right.”
“For security reasons keep personal items
and baggage with you at all times
if you notice any suspicious behavior
please report it immediately
to a member of the staff
or the British Police.”

her voice carries over
into a dream her messages
less obvious slide between
the chatter of the crowd
“Anybody fancy a pint?”
“Beware the jaws that bite.”
“Keep your hands out of my pockets.”
“Old people should be trod upon
until they’re totally invisible
push them to their knees
and walk on their backs.”

London, May 8, 2012

FORWARD BACK

looking forward
to this trip for 6 months
London
Chippenham
London
Bristol
London
book stores
7 days total
now it’s all over
we’re home
and looking back

May 8, 2012

PLASTIC CUPS & PAPER PLATES

blind as a mole
in a room full of rocking chairs

we have to make special
shopping trips each week
to replace
the things I drop
bump into & break

May 28, 2012

BEAR’S SOUP

Bear’s lentil soup
is so good
that even when she tries
to ruin it with carrots
it’s still very tasty

June 4, 2012

RETIREMENT HOMES
(ASSISTED LIVING)

that’s where they kill
the old man Mozarts

June 18, 2012

FAREWELL ROXIE

some might say
the dog is dead
but I say
hey hold on a minute
the dog was alive
for 12 years
and that’s got to count
for something
12 years
of bouncing around, in fact
the dog is still alive
bouncing around
in my dreams
you can’t take that away
even if you take her down
to the end of the field
next to the woods
and bury her under
the tumtum tree
where she used to hang out
with the wild boars
up from the river
at night

now in my dreams
I see the wild boars
coming up from the river
and kneeling before her grave
“She was a wise dog,” they pray.
“She was a beautiful dog
with powerful shoulders.
She was the best friend
a wild boar could ever hope to have.”

on the Meuse by boat to Dinant, June 22, 2012

AT THE TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN POETS

Mme F. VIELLARD
neé SIDONIE THIERY
1845 – 1906

FLORIMOND VIELLARD
1841 – 1915

PAULINE VIELLARD
1869 – 1950

who were these people?
I don’t know
ignored, forgotten
that’s what they are

and buried
in the Charleville-Meziérs cemetery
right next to
(a mere arm’s length way from)

ARTHUR RIMBAUD
1854 – 1891

hundred and thousands
of idolizers
of Le Bateau Ivre
and Une Saison en Enfer
flock on pilgrimages
to his tomb
stand next to his tomb
murmuring rumors
and praises with weird angles

while Sidonie
Florimond
and Pauline
have to lie there
listening to all the noise
going on next door
the famous poet
rattling around in his coffin
clapping his bones
and chattering his jaw
with pleasure and pride

roll over, Rimbaud
this is for Sidonie
Florimond
and Pauline
the Unknown Poets

the Unknown Poets are dead
long live the Unknown Poets

Charleville-Meziére, June 22, 2012

POETRY FESTIVAL IN NAMUR 2012

they came from all over
poets and poetesses
24 in all
all strangers to me
I’d never read their poems
never heard their voices

when I arrived at the Maison de la Poésie
on Thursday afternoon
it was all exploratory head nods
and shy smiles

who could have predicted
that 3 days later
on Saturday night
we’d all be hugging each other
goodbye?

June 24, 2012, Namur

to CHERYL SAVAGEAU

keep speaking out
I am listening
even if I am far away
I will hear you

not because
I’ve got good ears
but because your voice
is so strong

June 24, 2012, Namur

to MAURICE KENNY

1.
when we met
you asked me my age
I said 71
and you said guess mine

I’m not good
at that kind of thing
to me all people
are ageless
I can’t tell how many years
they’ve suffered
or not

I said 74? 75?
I knew that you knew
I was being diplomatic
erring on the side of youth

you said I’m 83
and you knew that I knew
you had been busting at the seams
to tell me this from the first

2.
before I met you
my vision of time
was a line running
thru my brain
left to right

the past coming into
my left ear crossing
the interior of my skull
to exit my right ear
into the future

in the middle of my head
in the middle of the line
was the present
I could adjust my view
microscopically
or telescopically
taking in and squeezing short
or expanding vastly long segments
of the line

but for 71 years
the vertical line
ran from left to right

after I met you
my vision of time
shifted
turned me 90º
now I’m standing
in the middle
with the past at my back
and my face to the future

3.
later you said
that I was a good person
I’m not used to hearing
such things
I’ve always thought
of myself
as the Achuwami’s
Little Fox Boy
who walks down the path
in the forest
in his moccasins
tras-tras-tras
wiping the tears
from his eyes
with the tip of his tail

June 24, 2012, Namur

PATER NOSTER, ALPHA & OMEGA
to Maxime

and there you are
like a young pagan priest
slashing the air in front 0f your face
with a single finger
vertically
horizontally
as if you are
absolving the sins
of a bunch
of backsliding atheists
who refuse to stay in line
and receive
the gods’ blessings

SATOR
AREPO
TENET
OPERA
ROTAS

Namur, June 24, 2012

IN OTHER WORDS
also for Maxime

the Cafe de Flore
is where you priestly posed
and blessed the heathen gathering
with a magical square
cubed upon the air

in back
two deaf drunks
babbled at each other
across a small table
I leaned my head down
between theirs
I put a finger to my lips
I said, “Shhhhhhhhh.”
I looked left and right
into their eyes
left and right
bulging—bustituded
puzzled—paddywhacked
disarmed—discombobulated
frightened—freaked

I looked down at the table
and touched my forehead to the wood
between their two glasses of beer

they got up and left
and silence became
the new background
to your prayer

outside
the band played on

July 6, 2012

JIM HARRISON’S POEMS

I sit up in bed
reading Jim Harrison’s
small god poems
then I switch off the light
lay my head on the pillow
and experience a profound
peace of mind
a total serenity
that has not visited my head
since I was 10-years old
when on summer night
I used to take my sleeping bag
up the hill behind the ranch
and sleep under the black oaks
and lie there looking at the stars
poking down thru the leaves
and listening to the click
of a freight train
riding the rails
five miles away
on the other side of the valley

July 4, 2012

SLEEPING BAG PEACE OF MIND

as said previously
on summer night
I lay in my sleeping bag
on the hill above the ranch
looking at the sky
and listening to the sounds
of the night

and wondering what I would do
if a rattlesnake
slithered into my sack
while I was asleep
and curled up around my feet
to keep warm

that never happened
now I wonder
about other animals
who visited me while I was sleeping
bobcats
skunks
deer
mountain lions
there were all there
in the forest

I can see them now
approaching the face
of a ten-year old boy
tiptoeing close on silent claws
and paws
and one by one
brushing their noses
against mine

it’s something we’ll never know
what goes on around you
when you’re deep asleep
and loved by all the wild
animals of creation

July 6, 2012

SWEET DREAMS

lately I’ve been falling to sleep
(but only once in a while)
sitting up in bed
reading a book

twice I’ve fallen to sleep
reading a book
and holding a cup of tea

with the books I wake up
and hour or two later
and sometimes they’ve tumbled
to the floor
sometimes open to the page
I was reading

with the cups of tea
I’ve always managed
to keep my thumbs
hooked thru the handle

last night I fell to sleep
eating a Milky Way candy bar
and what followed was a dream
that must be called “Sweet.”

a gathering of sympathetic souls
all new to me
the host said to me
“Would you like to take
some LSD?”
and
“Would you like some female
companionship?”

I shook my head
I was very decisive
I was wise

yet a few dream moments later
I was tripping on acid
high and flying
in a phenomenal world
of brilliant colors
and mutable shapes
delightful, dazzling
wonderful

as for what followed
I cannot repeat
because my tongue would tie
and my lips would stutter
because my wife
would get jealous
and wring my neck
and kick me out in the cold
let’s just say
it was interesting
filled with brilliant colors
and mutable shapes
but I can’t say if the experience
was really delightful
and dazzling wonderful

when I awoke I discovered
I had eaten some of the candy bar
– the outer chocolate covering
most of the bar – the soft caramel
interior – had crumbled
onto the sheet
I had rolled around in it
in my sleep, transforming it
into little soft balls of putty
some of them sticking to the blanket
some sticking to the insides
of my thighs

I peeled off the little balls
sniffed at them
and smelled the end
of a long-standing dream
sweet and sour
that has been running around
inside my skull
since I was 13, out of control
juiced up like a cougar
stalking a juicy deer
now at last I could say goodbye
to the cougars
as they leaped out of my frames
and into the mind of a dreaming
13-year old boy
who will have to suffer
their reproductive enthusiams
for the next 60 years

this poem has been brought to you
by Mars, Incorporated
makers of Milky Way candy bars
“Good for you and filled
with delicious vitamins and sweet dreams”

July 5, 2012

SLUG MURDER

coming down the steep path
last night in the rain
slick with moss and leaves
I slipped on a slug
skidded a couple of feet
almost lost my balance
almost crashed

for a fleeting moment
I saw the headlines
in the Limace Herald Tribune:
MAN KILLED BY SLUG! HA!

July 6, 2012

PERFECT PITCH (BUFFALO HARMONY)

go back 10,000 years
and imagine the first person
to hear a perfect fifth

the folks in the valley below
have been humming solo
bottom drones for centuries
and here comes this goofy genius
with a buffalo head (horns and all)
over his own humming
a perfect fifth to the drone

the two tones blend
and hang over the valley for a day and a night
Tears-in-her-Ears is the first
to hear the new sound
she’s at the river
beating sheep scrotums against a rock
to knock out the fleas
she lifts her head
and hears the two tones
and immediately goes out
and buys a pair of two-tone moccasins
(black bear skin on the bottom
albino rhino on the top

200 years later
the Canoe Face Brothers
(Little Canoe Face, Big Canoe Face
and Fast Canoe Face – a trio of pelt smugglers)
come riding into town on the back
of a buffalo
singing a major triad: D – F# – A
the buffalo hits a bump in the road
and the brothers pop into the air
their voices leaping too
in perfect synchronization
to an G major chord
then quickly slide back
and settle into the original D major triad

moments later
down the street
in front of the barbershop
five Cro-Magnon elders clear their throats
and sing “Good Vibrations.”

July 15, 2012

PROXIMUS

I get a message
on my cell phone
once every 3 or 4 weeks

it’s always from my server
PROXIMUS

I think they do that
for all the lonely people in the world
who would never get a message
otherwise

these solitary people
praying over their buttons
for 21 days and nights
waiting to be connected
just one more time
to the great god PROXIMUS

July 15, 2012

THE MATING RITUAL

the frame breaks down
the rules break
and get forgotten
girls swear at boys
and boys run in circles
naked, sex organs flopping
faces sweating, eyes beaded
with points of dull light
like rain drops filtered thru
a fish tank filled with oil
with dead fish floating on top

the girls scream
“Breed our bodies to babies!”
The boys shout back
“Breed yourselves to death!”

and the boys breed the babies
and the girls scream in surprised pain
“It was not supposed to be like this
it was supposed to be funny
like clowns in banana peel boots
skidding across ice
like a bird on a pole
ignoring the wires thru which
strangulated voices from distant cities
are singing Amazing Grace
then flapping their wings once
they leave the wired conversations behind
and fly up into a cloud of telepathy

while back on trimmed-frame earth
the dictators of pandemonium
lift their arms and pray
to the steam rising
from holes in the ground
boiling around their feet
around their heads swirling
as thousands of Torso Town slaves
crawl on bleeding knees
towards the towers where the boys
are breeding girls
the boys bellowing
the girls bleeding
and babies flop
from the tower windows
into the wonderfingers
and sagging rubber arms
of witherface astrognomes

RITUALS

claws to the skull
tooth to the nail
til nothing is left
but a spiderweb of hair
and a black cloud of anal dust
while high-hatted priests
and priestesses in velvet robes
break vows of chastity
in the underground caves
with masked iguanas
and zebra-skin-clad gorillas

July 16, 2012

HIPPIES IN AMERICA

there were hippies in America
there were hippies in its dreams
there were hippies on its land
there were hippies on the mountain
that rose above the painted desert

where have all the hippies gone?
to seed
to the icy breeding grounds
where they produce pups and cubs
and dress them in seal skins

they have gone over the mountain
to see what they could see

hippies in Death Valley
hippies in Visalia
hippies on Mt. Whitney
hippies on welfare

hippies along the border
pretending to be Mexican
hippies along the water
praying to whales

hippies in the cities
barefeet on concrete
up to Coit Tower
and back to Panhandle
panhandle dimes and schemes

hippies on bridges
hippies on bikes
hippies in movies
about hippies in life

hippies in grocery stores
hippies in the laundromat
hippies on the radio
putting hippies on the map

hippies on the minds
of people everywhere
the great-grandsons
of Walt Whitman
and Joe DiMaggio
the little boys of Chinatown
the daughters of the American Revolution
the fathers of the Church of Bedlam
the Godmothers of Grimm
Cinderella Pigtail
Hippie Goldilocks

hippies chasing butterflies
hippies riding hippos
hippies flicking Zippos
and lighting hippie joints

hippie babies
with long hippie hair
hippie music
and goofy hippie truth

hippies crucified
hippies in communes
hippies on the moon
bye bye hippies

July 17, 2012

EAR PLUGS

the world out there
seems determined to make
a lot of noise today

the nuclear reactor testing
their sirens, wailing
up and down the octaves
(totally useless
if the power plant
should ever blow up)

the weed whacker
plowing thru the tall grass
mangling horse flies and ticks
as it takes down the vegetation

lucky for me
I’ve got a pair
of foam rubber ear plugs
I stick ’em in my ear holes
count the pulses
of my foot-stomp blood beat
and listen to the high hum
of brain electricity
stirring around in the edges
of my skull
like high tension wires
over a canyon
filled with tiny fishermen
trying to hook
idea fish from a river
which is running wild and crowded
with tiny boatmen pushing
their canoes upstream
with dangling participaddles

July 19, 2012

INTESTINAL FORTITUDE

I hate shitting
I just don’t like it
feels like a waste of time

I resent that I must do it
everyday or suffer
the consequences
I hate being blackmailed
by my body

I think we should be able
to save up our crap
for times and places
most convenient

once a week
(like the garbage collector)
or once a month (full moon))

better yet
set aside one day a year
International Shit Day
everybody sits on toilets
for 24 hours and dumps
their annual load

I’d approve of that
after all
we’ve got Valentines Day
what use is that?
April Fools?
Thanksgiving?

4th of July?
We still celebrate
a corrupt political system
we salute the liars and cheaters
who have been crapping on us
for 230 years

that’s it!
from this day forward
July 4th shall be known
as Shit Day

July 23, 2012

OUR 45th ANNIVERSARY (I THINK)

a couple comes on a late night
TV talk show
and the host says
“Welcome Harry and Edna
they’ve been married
for TWENTY FIVE YEARS!”

and the audience goes wild
clapping their hands
stomping their feet
and shouting, “YEAH!”

what for?

I know that most marriages
in America seldom last a week
but what’s so special
about Harry and Edna?

nothing

except
Edna has had to suffer
Harry’s endless string
of infidelities
and Harry has had to suffer
Edna’s endless string
of putrid, over-cooked
pork and bean dinners

Edna has had to endure
Harry’s slaps, punches
and cruel insults
while Harry has had to endure
Edna’s incessant babbling

so what’s the big deal?
they should be shamed
not applauded

Marie-Claire and I
got together in 1967
and enjoyed it so much
that we just sort of accidentally
kept on enjoying being together
and counting the years
is not something you do
when you’re having a good time

so there
fuck you, Harry and Edna
may your next 25 years
be filled with many more
porkish beans

July 29, 2012

BLIND DATE

they came in
and stood in front of me
a short woman
and two tall guardians
one on either side of her

I bent down and looked into
her masked and painted face
I peered into the eyeholes
of her mask and saw corruption
and deadly disturbances
evil beyond measure

I said, “I know who you are
– you can’t fool me
even if you release
the snakes from your eyes
I will grab them
and rip them from your sockets
and stuff them up your ass.”

but it didn’t come to that
we went into a bar
I bought her a Pepsi
and a shot of rum for myself

the jukebox was playing
golden oldies only
and we danced the night away
carefree, happy beyond measure
with no thought
of the morrow

July 30, 2012

JO NESBO

“Nemesis” is the title
of a Jo Nesbo thriller
translated from the Norwegian

on the front cover it says
“Jo Nesbo is the next
Stig Larsson.”
which begs the question:
who is the next Jo Nesbo?

it can’t be me
I’m the next
Bob Dylan

July 31, 2012

HOT TOWN, SUMMER IN THE CITY

hot day on the city’s
main shopping boulevard
I sit down on a bench
next to an old guy
bottle of wine in his belly
a thousand bottles in his face
he says, “Good day for looking
at young women.”
(which boils down to undressing
and raping the chicks with his eyes)

I say, “Aren’t you a little old
for that kind of shit?”
he says, “Can’t touch ’em
– but we’re never too old
for looking.”

I decide not to tell him
that I woke up this morning
screaming

Liege, August 4, 2012

DREAM SCREAMING

about those screams:

they came from a dream
last night

I realized I was dreaming
and further realized
I was in control
and could do anything I wanted

the day before I’d read in a book
about sleep that we don’t move around
or talk in our sleep
is due to some chemical
our brain injects into itself
to prevent accidents

same goes for shouting and screaming

thinking back (in my dream)
I remembered that every time
I tried to scream
nothing ever came out
just choked silences
almost whispered
that left me helpless

now, armed with this knowledge,
I thought I would try screaming
nothing to be frightened of
– I was just curious
so I opened my mouth
and screamed

it worked
I woke myself up

Bear was sitting straight up in bed
wondering what kind of disaster
had come thru the roof.
“I was just screaming,” I said

back asleep
back in a dream
I remembered
and tried again

I SCREAMED

woke myself up
Bear said, “You’ll have to stop
this nonsense – nobody’s
getting any sleep.”

August 5, 2012

THE SHORTEST POINT BETWEEN TWO LINES
IS A STRAIGHT DISTANCE

it used to be easy
to drop into
a U.S. consulate
in London, Brussels
or Amsterdam
and get a 10-year renewal
on your passport

now they make it difficult
and somewhat painful
you show up at the door
and they tell you
“By appointment only.”
“How?”
“On your computer.”
“don’t have a computer.”
“Go to a cybercafé.”

so you prowl around the innards
of a cybercafé gloom
with all the gangsters
drug dealers and suicide bombers

you make an appointment
for sometime next year
get a couple of photos taken
and show up at their front door

that’s where the fun begins
after sitting in a jail cell
for 12½ hours
with the thermostat cranked up
to 40° centigrade
you have to fill out 2,000 pages
of a questionnaire demanding
the most intimate details
of your life since birth

then they waterboard you
for six hours
until you promise
to vote for Mitt Romney
in the up-coming election

after which they strip off
your shirt and whip your back
with live rattlesnakes
(with their jaws snapping
and their fangs sinking deep)
until you’re bleeding
and infected

at which point
they kick you out the back door
with your shirt in one hand
and your passport in the other

you stand half naked
shivering in the cold wind
open your passport
and discover
they gave you the wrong one

“Hey wait! There’s been a mistake!”

“Tough shit, peasant
– make another appointment.”

well, what the hell
I can be Matt Rodney
for the next 10 years
how bad can that be?

August 6, 2012

LEAF FEATHERS

some leaves
look like feathers

only noticed
when lying
on the grass

but I’m ready now

the next time I see
a flying tree
I won’t be surprised

August 6, 2012

HOPE SPRINGS INFERNAL

he says,
“Hopefully I can go.”
I say,
“And why would you go hopefully?
and he says
“Huh?”

“What do you hope to find
when you get there?”

“I don’t understand.”

“If you go, you will be full of hope.”

“Hopefully.”

“The word is ‘Hope.'”

“I don’t understand.”

“I was hoping you would.”

“Hoping for what?”

“Hoping you could tell me
where all these stupid hopefullys
are coming from?

August 7, 2012

STANDING, KNEELING, PRONE
(IT’S ALL THE SAME)

you know you’re too old
to carpenter
when you don’t have enough breath
in your lungs
to blow away the sawdust
from the pencil line
you’re erasing with a saw

August 9, 2012

CHOMSKY

it’s a lot worse than I thought
Howard Zinn popped out
and set the record straight
on U.S. history

now Noam Chomsky comes along
and tells us HOW THE WORLD WORKS
including what the U.S. power elite
wants and takes anyway
and the rest of the world be damned

turns out we’re all skating
on the thin skin of frozen lies
over a vast cesspool of corruption

and the ice is melting

and no one is safe
from choke-drowning in the muck
not even the bastard power elite

don’t make me laugh
my lips have been slapped

August 10, 2012

CHOMSKY REVISITED

They say that Noam Chomsky is the most quoted living writer in the English language. Here are a few moist morsels of The Chomp you might want to stick up your nose and sniff:

The major thing that stood in the way of the restoration of the traditional right-wing order [after World War Two] was the antifascist resistance. So we suppressed it all over the world, often installing fascists and Nazi collaborators in its place. Sometimes that required extreme violence, but other times it was done by softer measures, like subverting elections and withholding desperately needed food.

In 1954 the CIA engineered a coup that turned Guatemala into a hell on earth. It’s been kept that way ever since, with regular US intervention and supports, particularly under Kennedy and Johnson.

US policies in the Third World are easy to understand. We’ve consistently opposed democracy if its results can’t be controlled. The problem with real democracies is that they’re likely to fall prey to the heresy that governments should respond to the needs of their own population, instead of those US investors.

Internationally, “the war on drugs” provides a cover for intervention. Domestically it has little to do with drugs but a lot to do with distracting the population, increasing repression in inner cities, and building support for the attack on civil liberties

That’s not to say that “substance abuse” isn’t a serious problem. At the time the drug war was launched, deaths from tobacco were estimated at about 300,000 a year, with perhaps another 100,000 from alcohol. But these aren’t the drugs the Bush administration targeted. It went after illegal drugs, which had caused many fewer deaths – 3,500+ a year – according to official figures. One reason for going after these drugs was that their use had been declining for some years, so the Bush administration could safely predict that its drug war would “succeed” in lowering drug use.

The administration also targeted marijuana, which hadn’t caused any known deaths among some 60 million users. In fact, that crackdown has exacerbated the drug problem – many marijuana users have turned from this relatively harmless drug to more dangerous drugs like cocaine, which are easier to conceal.

There are sectors of the American society that profit from the hard drug trade, like the big international banks that do the money laundering or the corporations that provide the chemicals for the industrial production of hard drugs.

In my view, corporations are illegitimate institutions of tyrannical power, with intellectual roots not unlike those of fascism and Bolshevism

Business wants the popular aspects of government, the ones that actually serve the population, beaten down, but it also wants a very powerful state, one that works for it and is removed from public control.

Although there’s no such thing as a purely capitalist society (nor could there be), the US is towards the capitalist end, It tends to be more business-run, and spends huge amounts on marketing (which is basically an organized form of deceit). A large part of that is advertising., which is tax-deductible, so we all pay for the privilege of being manipulated and controlled.

In general, the mainstream media all make certain basic assumptions, like the necessity of maintaining a welfare state for the rich. Within that framework, there’s some room for differences of opinion, and it’s entirely possible that the major media are toward the liberal end of that range. In fact, in a well-designed propaganda system, that’s exactly where they should be.

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow a very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives the people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.

It’s a little thin to blame TV itself. It isn’t a force of nature – it’s the core of the marketing culture, and it’s designed to have certain effects. It’s not trying to empower you. You don’t find messages on TV about how to join a union and do something about the conditions of your life. Over and over again, it rams into your head messages designed to destroy your mind and separate you from other people.

When you get to cultural patterns, belief systems and the like, the guess of the next guy you meet at the bus stop is about as good as that of the best scientist. Nobody knows anything. People can rant about it if they like, but they basically know almost nothing.

Noam Chomsky, How the World Works

LONDON OLYMPICS 2012
(in Praise of David Rudisha)

more than just a little something
missing
it’s mostly shout and shove
slapped skin and hullabalonie

a monkeyshine
from a clown tree in Jamaica
grabs the headlines
while a humble, soft-spoken
proud Massai warrior from Kenya
crushes and crumbles
the world record in the 800 meters

and goes un-noticed
by the media

more than just a little something
missing

August 11, 2012

DARK AGE STORYTELLERS

the stories that come into
our global village
are no longer reliable

the line has been corrupted

too many lies
too many distortions
multiplications and subtractions
from the truth to make
anything useful
except propaganda

we can no longer trust
our appointed, official
storytellers
and the fantastic tales
we used to spin off
from these bedrocks
now dangle helpless
hopelessly no longer
connected to a healthy
fundamental root

yes, we are gradually returning
to less enlightened times
they’re closing the door
turning out the lights
and we will dwell
in the Dark Ages
once again (and just
when we thought
a host of angels
was going to flutter down
and shower us with stardust)

August 15, 2012

THE PRO-AND-POSTVISIONALS

would’ve
could’ve
should’ve

take these words
out of your vocabulary
if you want to speak to me

I don’t want to hear them
not even if you chop off the ends
and turn them into
would
could
should

you would but you won’t
you could but you can’t
you should
but you’ll always find reasons
not to

August 17, 2012

NOTRE DAME LONG DISTANCE

standing at the closed gates
of Notre Dame Cathedral
I get tired of leaning back
and rubber-necking the vertical
so I lay down on the pavement
head cushioned by my knapsack
and gaze straight up at the façade
spot lit in the night
over the depths and decorations
an intricate flow of illumination
and shadow
unaware that as I roll my head
from side to side
on top of my knapsack
I am clicking out random numbers
on my cell phone

when I get back to the hotel
I take out the phone and find
I’ve called Ernest Hemingway
we talk for hours
about this and that
Victor Hugo
James Joyce
Silvia Beach
the way it used to be
in the old days
when we had ice boxes
typewriters with ribbons
and Burma Shave road signs

Ernest says, “”Don’t forget Dimaggio.”
I say,” Don’t forget Quasimodo.”

Ernest says, “Up here in heaven
I’m a fuckin’ DJ.
– do you have a problem with that?”

“None at all.”

“They call me Jay Roo Salem.”

Paris, August 22, 2012

TWO BUMS UNDER THE SUN

passing thru the backstreets
of the Left Bank
from, Rue Jacob
thru the tiny square
in the middle of Rue Furstenberg
on my way to Rue de L’Abbaye
an old wooly-hair bum
under leaf-blocked sun
dancing shadows at our feet
asks me if I’ve got some money
for him
I say (in French)
“I was hoping you’d have some
for me
I’d like it much better
that way.”

and son-of-a-beach
I make him smile

Paris, Aug. 23, 2012

CANADIAN BOOKSTORE CHARM

drop by Abbey Books in Paris
buy a copy of Raymond Chandler’s
The Big Sleep
the foxy young woman
behind the counter and I
exchange frivolous banter
engage in impotent flirting

“But I’m wise to the ways
of woman,” I tell Bear
as we leave the shop
“They’ve got only one thing in mind
– getting their hands into a man’s pockets’

“And that’s exactly what she did,”
Bear says

and she’s right
I got the book
and the girl got the money

Paris, Aug. 23, 2012

BRIDGE OF LOCKS

Paris is always
full of surprises
the latest:
lovers printing their names
on locks, hooking them thru
the wire fences that enclose
both sides
of the Pont Des Arts
locking them and throwing
the keys in the river

and it’s a glorious sight
all those golden locks
glittering in the sunlight
thousands upon thousands

and right in the middle
of this amazing display
is an old silver
combination lock
(the classic “clockwise to 10,
back to 46 and forward to 21” kind)
those lovers either had
a fine sense of humor
or did not have much faith
in their future as a couple

Paris, Aug. 23, 2012

SHAKESPEARE & COMPANY
in memory of George Whitman

standing, surrounded by the magic
of books you have created here
in these rooms of twist and turn
where thousands of angels
in disguise
not the least among them,
you, George Whitman

I think of you, old man
and I thank you
for your generosity and wisdom
and I pray that those who follow
in your footsteps
will keep this shop open
after midnight
and all the lamps burning
forever

Paris August 24, 2012

THEIR FOOTPRINTS ARE STILL VISIBLE

acting in a film in Paris
reaps great rewards
you get to study scenes
far longer then you otherwise might
or even be tempted to
spotting my place
where I must stand
while waiting for the camera to roll
I memorize the pattern of tiles
on the floor
in front of the cashier
at Shakespeare & Co.
and I begin to wonder
if they were here back in 1951
these tiles
when George Whitman
turned the place
into a bookstore
or are they even older
going back hundreds of years
to when young sinful monks
knelt upon these patterns
to confess their lustful transgressions
harvested in the brothels of the city
before being whipped
and sent to bed
without breakfast

in more recent memory
upon these tiles
have stood a host of souls
some lost, some found
some conflicted, some bearing gifts
most forgotten, a few famous
Silvia Beach
Anais Nin
Ernest Hemingway
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Woody Allen
Allen Ginsberg
Jack Kerouac
William Burroughs
Gregory Corso
Richard Brautigan
Philip Glass
Jerry Garcia
Ryan Zack Scotlander

illustrious and talented
footprints all
if it were night
I’d see the outlines
of their footprints
glowing in the dark

Paris August 24, 2012

Rimbaud et ses voisins

translations by Christine Pagnoulle  |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

SUR LA TOMBE DES POÈTES INCONNUS

Mme F. VIELLARD
neé SIDONIE THIERY
1845 – 1906

FLORIMOND VIELLARD
1841 – 1915

PAULINE VIELLARD
1869 – 1950

qui étaient-ils, ces gens-là ?
je n’en sais rien
ignorés, oubliés
voilà ce qu’ils sont

et enterrés
au cimetière de Charleville-Mezières
juste à côté
(à un pas à peine) d’

ARTHUR RIMBAUD
1854 – 1891

des centaines des milliers
de fanatiques
du Bateau Ivre
et d’Une Saison en Enfer
se pressent en pèlerinage
vers sa tombe
se tiennent là à côté
à marmonner des rumeurs
et des louanges déjantées

alors que Sidonie
Florimond
et Pauline
doivent rester là
à écouter tout le raffut
chez le voisin
le poète célèbre
qui se trémousse dans son cercueil
entrechoque ses os
claque ses mâchoires
de plaisir et d’orgueil

dégage, Rimbaud
ceci c’est pour Sidonie
Florimond
et Pauline
les Poètes Inconnus

les Poètes Inconnus sont morts
vivent les Poètes Inconnus

Charleville-Mezières, 22 juin 2012

FESTIVAL DE POÉSIE À NAMUR 2012

ils venaient de partout
poètes et poétesses
24 en tout
je n’en connaissais aucun
je n’avais pas lu leurs poèmes
ni entendu leur voix

à mon arrivée à la Maison de la Poésie
le jeudi après-midi
nous nous saluions prudemment
hochements de tête
sourires gênés

qui aurait pu prévoir
que 3 jours plus tard
le samedi soir
nous nous embrasserions
comme du bon pain ?

24 juin 2012, Namur

FOOD & MOUSE MOOD

en débouchant de Greys Inn Road
sur Euston à Kings Cross
le chauffeur nous explique
‘Ce McDonalds
ça fait plus de trente ans qu’il est là.”

j’imagine l’avenir
dans 130 ans
c’est un monument historique
‘Ce McDonalds
c’est celui d’origine
– depuis 1980.”

je le vois clairement
mais je ne vois rien
du reste de Londres

London, 7 mai 2012

LANGUES À L’EAU DE VAISSELLE

dans le bus
qui nous ramenait à Londres
deux jeunes
crétins
grandes gueules
assis derrière nous
à polluer
l’air
de leur bruit de mots
pendant les 40 premiers kilomètres
et puis soudain
ils la ferment

arrivé à Londres
je me retourne
pour voir pourquoi
ce silence
pendant si longtemps
les yeux écarquillés
ils ont des chaussettes
enfoncées dans la bouche

variante n° 1
les yeux écarquillés
soigneusement logé
dans leur front
entre les yeux
un petit trou rond

variante n° 2
les yeux fermés
leur bouche
a été effacée

variante n° 3
plus d’yeux
plus de bouche

de Bristol à London, 7 mai 2012

AU PAYS DE LA COUVERTURE

se lever
et se balader
enveloppé dans une couverture
c’est naturel

après tout
nous passons un tiers
de notre vie
à dormir dessous
enveloppés dedans

enfant on me disait
“Laisse cette couverture
et va t’habiller.”

Je préférais la couverture
les habits n’étaient pas aussi confortables
et les souliers faisaient mal aux pieds

un jour quand je serai vieux
je me lèverai
enveloppé dans
une couverture
et partirai
pieds nus
dans le couchant

je suivrai le soleil
sur la courbe
de la terre
jusqu’au Pays de la Couverture

je rencontrerai
les Dingues de la Couverture
et les Dieux de la Couverture

personne ne me dira
“Mets tes souliers
sinon gare à tes fesses.”

28 mars 2012

DEVANT UN CHOIX D’HORIZONS GLAUQUES
ASSIS AU BORD DE MON LIT
LES YEUX PLEINS DE SOMMEIL

c’est bien moins déprimant
de me balader toute la journée
en pantalon de pyjama,
noir et distendu
bien chaud et confortable,
facile à laisser tomber pour les 6
ou 7 nécessités quotidiennes
que de fourrer mes jambes
dans un pantalon raide
trop étroit ou trop large
qui laisse l’air froid
s’insinuer dans le dos
tirette ou bouton
récalcitrant

mais c’est quand même déprimant

11 mars 2012

TRACER UNE LIMITE DANS LE CERCLE DE POUSSIÈRE QUI SE FORME AUTOUR DE MES PIEDS NUS ASSOMMÉS DE SOMMEIL SUR LA CARPETTE

bon – aujourd’hui
je garderai le pantalon
de pyjama noir
mais pas plus
pas de pantoufles
pas question
pas de pantoufles en feutre souple
à semelles
de moine japonais
lisses-fraiches
– même si elles sont bien plus confortables
que mes baskets Nike
à grosses semelles
empoignes climatisés
talons rebondissants

bon – peut-être les pantoufles

mais pas plus d’une heure ou deux
c’est la limite

12 mars 2012

DEDANS DEHORS

dehors
j’ai éternué sept fois
sans retenue, les yeux fermés
éternuements
qui chatouillent le nez,
cassent le corps,
les mains derrière le dos

dedans
par la fenêtre
Ours m’a vu
et a cru que je
saluais
les arbres

10 mars 2012

JUNKIES

nous avons rempli le grenier
de camelote
puis la chambre d’amis
et le studio

tout ce qui reste
c’est l’arrière de l’auto

là nous nous sommes mis
à rouler
avec notre fatras

quand le coffre sera plein
nous achetons une remorque

9 mars 2012

LAMPE TORCHE

je cherchais ma lampe torche
en tenant ma lampe torche
à la main

je ne la trouvais pas
parce que j’avais la lampe torche
à la main
en cherchant ma lampe torche

3 mars 2012

TROIS FAÇONS DE REGARDER LES ILLUSIONS

1.
et tous ici nous
trottinons sur
nos différents chemins
en quête de perfection

ou une notion tordue
de la perfection
(comme un aveugle a la chance
d’économiser
sur les ampoules
& les piles de lampe torche)

ou nous avons renoncé
nous doutant que la perfection
ce n’est jamais qu’une autre
faribole
2 janvier 2012

2.
illumination
satori
(les plus cruelles des illusions)

3.
ah les histoires
il n’y en a jamais qu’une
avec des milliers et
des milliers de façons
de la raconter

rentrer chez soi
c’est ainsi qu’elle s’appelle

dès l’instant
où nous sommes éjectés
dans le monde
nous rentrons chez nous

parfois il faut
une vie d’histoires
pour retourner
d’où nous venons
parfois plus

12 février 2012

The mouse & the pear tree

Poems 2012 – Part 2  |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

THUNDER OVER AMSTERDAM
for Ton

the flash of white light
from horizon to horizon
the crack and rolling boom
from the center of the sky

then the rain

down below in the park
the drunken bums continue
to slouch on the benches
one’s up, weaving around
in front of them, waving his arms
explaining the patterns of culture
and the inescapability
of the double bind

Amsterdam, August 29, 2012

CLOUDS OVER AMSTERDAM

while the pigeons gather
by the dozens around the statue
in the park below
a cop car
containing two bald cops
creeps into the lot behind
and parks behind the trees
hiding, waiting for some criminal
to come along
and feed the pigeons

or maybe they’re just eating lunch
or maybe they’re making love

a brisk breeze
scatters the pigeons
and they clap-flap
up into the clouds

Amsterdam, August 30, 2012

FASHION BALD COPS

and where did all these bald cops
come from?
shaven heads everywhere
security guards, military
brutes, nightclub bouncers
making themselves look like
robots with attitudes
of pumped muscles
undisputable authority
and the menacing promise
of extreme violence

the tide will turn someday
and they will become cream puffs
crying: “Mama, mama –
why didn’t you let me suck
the milk from your tits
when I was a little baby boy?”

Amsterdam, August 30, 2012

TRAVEL AMONG THE LEASH WOMEN
(while thinking of Gregory Bateson)

I choose an unpopulated compartment
21 empty seats
3 people

one of them kicks
the back of my seat
repeatedly
and munches on potato chips
with her mouth wide open

another coughs loudly
repeatedly, hacks
of death, racks of disease

the third has to talk
on her cell phone
loud conversations
she thinks that everywhere
she goes she’s in an open door
telephone booth

and I thought I was going to
settle down read a few
Ezra Pound poems
and contemplate
the spaces between my fingers

on a train from Amsterdam to Maastricht, Aug. 31, 2012

DITCH POEMS

to Didier Bourguignon, friend, musician and kindred spirit

1.
I hear that you
at the age of 50
are getting ready to go out
to look for a 9-to-5 job
and earn an honest buck

I only hope you don’t get lost
among the suckers
in their parallel worlds

please don’t get lost, Ditch
come home at night
and on weekends
so we can continue
our ramble chants
and make music
like two old dogs

Aug. 24, 2012
2.
jobs you might want
to check out

JUNGLE VIBE OBSERVER
this is a job you can do
in the comfort of your own garden
you just sit in a lawn chair
look up from the book you’re reading
and make sure the vibes are still there

SPIDER WEB INSPECTOR
this is a tougher job
you’re always in danger
of falling into a web
and getting stuck
but you get to meet
a lot of interesting spiders

BOOK SELLER ALONG THE QUAYS IN PARIS
this is where you can make sure
readers are getting in touch
with the more important titles
of forgotten literature, such as
“Balzac – was he really Bartok’s father?”
“Advanced Telepsychosis
– or how to throw your TV set
out the window and become totally crazy”
“Entropy and Me
– a close look into the mind of Oofty Goofty”
“Allez Hop
– the unauthorized biography
of Plastic Bertrand: The King of the Vivant”

GLOW WORM CIRCUS OPERATOR
ah, the traveling Glow Worm Circus
people will come from miles around
to see your little worms perform in total darkness
glow worms on the trampoline
glow worms on the tight rope
glow worm lion tamers
glow worm clowns
but it won’t be all fun and laughter
from time to time the worms
will refuse to obey
and you’ll have to whip
those little suckers into line

POET
It’s hard to find work as a poet
and it’s hard work when you find it
but there are always a few openings
in the clouds
and you just may luck out

poets are needed to sell many things
like poetic washing machines
poetic used cars
poetic animal bones (poetic jawbones
are popular these days)
and the shadows of fingerprints

if you can’t get work as a poet
you might get a job
with the Poetic Sanitation Department
and go around sweeping up
discarded poems from the street

DANCE INSTRUCTOR
open up a dance studio
and teach everybody
how to mambo
you will be even more popular
if you introduce a few new dance steps
such as
The Blues Harp and Banjo Hop
The Salopard Slouch
The Mutemole
The Checkoslobobian Monk March
The Snake Boy Slide
The Casablangolo
The Cornomeuse
The Benglawatamala
The Taicheep Mojopan
The Boliverpool
The Swisserbia Bop
The Nomandagastronomee

A SECRET CIGARETTE HANDROLLER
many people walk around
boasting that they can roll their own
but never admit that they hire
someone else to do it in private
you can make big bucks, receive large benefits
keep it under the table (no tax declarations)
and smoke a few of your specimens
when the customer isn’t looking
or how about

TOURIST GUIDE
to wonderful locations off the map
so far off the map they might exist
only in someone else’s imagination?
this is a good job
you can take your clients
to the Notre Dame Blanche Cathedral
The Surfing Pig Beaches of Boar Town
or the Tycho Brahe Museum
(where visitors must wear
Tycho Brahe masks
with golden noses)
they will thank you profusely
and give you big tips

TROUT FISHERMAN IN BELGIUM
since there are no trout in Belgium
this is a fairly easy job
you might have to go out
once or twice a year
and cast a ceremonial line
into the l’Ourthe or Sambre
and who knows
you might catch a Belgian Trout

A TROPICAL MUSIC CRITIC
this is a demanding job
on your nerves and mental equilibrium
but you don’t really have to look at
or listen to all the sense-stagnating clips
they all sound the same
they all sound like crap
except those
of Elvis Presbo

PRESIDENT OF THE ELVIS PRESBO FAN CLUB
this one is easy
you will receive e-mails
from all the Elvis Presbo fans
ignore them
they won’t know the difference
plus Elvis Presbo won’t be around
much longer
a month or two and he’ll be old news
at which time you can start drawing
the retirement benefits that came with the job

OUTLAW LAWYER
it’s a dangerous gig
but well worth the satisfaction
if you’re successful

wearing a Lone Ranger mask
you sneak into the mansion
of a famous judge at 3 a.m.
sit down on the edge of his bed
and wake him
by clamping one hand around his neck
and the other over his mouth
and tell him:
“No more bullshit
and special judgments
in a favor of the ruling elite
stop rolling the loaded dice
OR ELSE!

wait until he shits in his pajamas
then depart knowing
you got your message across

Aug 25, 2012

3.
if none of the above work out
try this one
– it’s a great way to meet people
and put a few bucks in your pocket

LONG-DISTANCE NIGHTTIME
HOT-AIR BALLOON OPERATOR
in your customized gondola
in the shape of a banana
you will ferry selected customers
across borders from dusk
to dawn
into territories unexplored
such as Capenhagen Cod
and Roadhog Island

while above your head
the bulging sides of your balloon
decorated with blinking blue lights
that spell out:
THE SILVER LEMON IS BACK AGAIN
will float silently
on waves of the wind

August 26, 2012

FRAUDULENT VIBES ON BBC

Seasick Steve
sitting in the front row
bopping his head
and smiling like a loopy garoupie
as Tom Jones
humbugs the blues
makes me sick

not seasick
just plain nauseous

September 2012

THE MILL & THE CROSS

Christ was crucified in Flanders
in the 16th century

it’s a fact

check out the painting
by Breughel

now they’ve made a movie
about the painting

check it out

2000 years from now:
“Christ crucified in Flanders
in the 16th century
– it’s a fact.”

Amsterdam, August 30, 2012

PC (POLITE CONVERSATION)

after years of hard work
at my computer
I finally understand its arcane
alphabetic language

it has a memory capacity
of ten million MBs (mega brutes)
which are grouped
into GBs (garbage balloons)
it saves documents
in PDF (pretty damn fast)
and photos
in JPG (joyful pig gardens)

music can be recorded in formats
know as WVA (wild vodka administration)
and MP3 (three monster penguins)

it all makes sense
if you take time
to think about it

TT (turtle tongue)
IT (indian touchdown)
http (hot tonsil trick pipe)
usb (umbrella stabbed bones)
.com (dotted cream of meat)
www (wicked whale wheels)

I’m now so good at understanding
the complexities of these acronyms
and jumbled letters
I will get to work on my CV (college victims)
ASAP (after several acrobatic procrastinations)

September 2, 2012

BALL STATS

baseball and stats
go together
like peanuts and cracker jacks

they used to count
the important stuff
like homeruns in a season
stolen bases
runs bated in
earned run averages

now with all their
super computers
they’re giving us data
that not even Steve Jobs
would understand

for example:
Emile Gorgonzola
is hitting .402
in night games
since July 17
against left-handed pitchers
who are distant cousins
of ex-president Bill Clinton

or
Albert Kurkee
is the first Czechoslovakian rookie
since Piggin Higgins (in 1863)
to have been hit by a pitch
13 times
and stolen 24 bases
in the first 21½ days
after his 22nd birthday

or
Lawrence La Wrench
has pitched 18 innings
of scoreless ball
in his last 10 starts
with runners in scoring position
with less than 2 outs
and a 3 ball, 2 strike count
against a pinch hitter
with a tattoo of a hot air balloon
on his left bicep
when the wind is blowing
in from left field

and how about the spectator
from Des Moines, Iowa
who has just been the first
to eat 35 hotdogs
and drink 17 beers
while wearing his cap backwards
in the centerfield bleachers
when the temperature has dropped
below 45 Fahrenheit
and his wife and daughter
seated on either side of him
are talking on cell phones
to people in different cities

or how about
the crippled taxidermist
(Porgy Boatswain)
from Tucson Arizona
who has just set a world record
by catching 67 consecutive
foul balls off attempted bunts
by a switch hitting third baseman
age 42 or over who has played
for no less that 11 other teams
in his professional career
when the sun is directly overhead
in the final three innings
of a second game
of a double header

and, oh yeah, don’t forget
about the quarterback
over in the other stadium
who has just set a new NFL record
for touchdowns on screen passes
of more than 10 yards
but less than 15
in the first 10 minutes
of the 3rd quarter
in his last 20 games
after being sacked
on 76 consecutive plays
and suffering two broken thumbs
while is wife is out shopping
at Wal-Mart for a new hair dryer
during their clearance sale days
where they’ve got a 25% discount
on lawn furniture
and snow tires are going at half price
(“Buy one and get a free 6-pack
of multi-colored drinking straws.”)

wait until these maniacs
get tired of baseball
and football
and start measuring music
accumulating stats
on how man times Weasel Pop
says “Mo-fucker” and “Ho bitch!”
in the final minute fade out
of his latest 7½ minute rap single

and stacking those numbers up against
how many fluted grace notes
Belugo Pastravinsky notated
in a ballet score composed
no later than 1912
for a troupe from Outer Bordelphia
whose dancers were dying of starvation
until they found a pizza take away
on the corner and were able to escape to
Inner Shanghaijump after running
up a bill of 13 million rubber bubbles

September 4, 2012

E. HEMINGWAY

reading Hemingway
simply because the way
he puts words together
pleases and delights me

I try to ignore the context
however there must be
something vital in there
that resonates
in my blood and guts
the war stories
the boxing
bullfights, big game hunts
and deep sea fishing
something down deep beyond
my conscious piggy-back mind
something in the macho stance
arms crossed, legs spread

I’m not the only boy
who had the misfortune
of being born into the west
where men were men
and boys were girls
unless they acted like men

I just thought
I was the only one
who escaped
its mortal boundaries
and the range
of its highest powered guns

Sept. 4, 2012

IN A CERTAIN DREAM-BLURRED OBSERVATION- MEMBRANE STRETCHED ACROSS OUR FACES FROM EARS OVER MOUTH ONTO CHIN WE RETURN TO THE FIRST ULTIMATUM

dream-slurred
we flow along
like creepo slobs
in last gear

you selected me
how could I refuse?
you lifting your hands
from the water
lifting your body
from the deep green hole
onto a rock, pointing
your finger at me
how could I refuse
when those dream-slummers
with a half-life
of organic cosmic dust
perched on my shoulders
dropped right down
into my kick boots?

Sept. 9, 2012

WORDS & MUSIC

I have an open mind
about music
but it closes tight
when it gets too near poetry

too many abusers
of word play
I won’t let them in the door
until they’ve wiped their feet
on the Wasteland mat
bowed down to the Virgin Mary
and spent the next 3 months
working in the woods

a musician flips in and out
with an untuned guitar
and I won’t bat an eyelash

but a poet is ponderous
as he ponders us

he must want me
to praise his acrobatics
as he flops around the room
in front of a mirror
and recites a litany of lumps
like a toothless lion
with a sore throat

or she could be a stuffed chicken
with a shirt full of feathers
and a card that ranks me
far below the jacks and aces

who would want to deal a hand
full of topless queens
with dry-mouth smiles?

lets’ face it
poets scare me

Sept. 11, 2012

ROLL CALL FROM THE HEAVENS

Bear driving along the highway
at sunset past the airport
where her brother Andre
(died last year)
used to work

looks over
and sees a gigantic A
in the sky
(the vapor trails
of 3 planes
in perfect synch
maybe)

she goes wow
stops to look long
and contemplate the wonderful
co-incidentals of our lives

at the same moment
over on the other side
of the highway
an Italian Mama
steps out onto her back porch
looks over into the sky
and exclaims
“ANGELO!”

September 11, 2012

GROWING UP WITH UNSPICED CUISINE
(NO OREGANO)

we never had spices on the table
at the ranch
some salt and pepper
(and “Don’t spend it all in one place.”)

no sage, no thyme, no basilico
not even chili
and what the hell is curry?

there was not even a decent conversation
to spice up our appetites

a few grunts (never figured out
if they signified pain or pleasure)

we did have silence
plenty of silence
(“Do not speak unless spoken to.”)

I had to wait 15 years
to release the puritan pressure
screams in the night
screams down narrow streets
that rattled the overhanging rooftops

then came the spices
hash brownies
tincture of cannabis tea
and “Things Go Better with Coke.”

MUSIC BARN POEMS
for Marc and Denise

1. The Day Before

people with misery in their eyes
slouchback slump
across the rest stop
parking lot
thru a grey drizzle afternoon
on their way to a place
where their shadows
will be swallowed
by the mouth
of a deep, dark pit
while the bones they leave behind
will be filmed for a bio-documentary
and their thumping hearts
still beating like bass drums
will be recorded for mp3 downloads

September 14, 2012

2. The Day Between

a year ago
at the music Barn
I played my songs
to a small gathering
of wonderful people
and I discovered
it was that kind of day

this morning
when I woke up and heard
a bull bellowing
from across the river
I knew it was going to be
another one of those days

and it was
one of those days
when my French vocabulary
failed me
and I had to invent words
to keep a conversation going
“Ah, vous êtes l’homme
qui habite en France avec
les arbussiers des poires”
(You are the Frenchman
who lives in an orchard of pear trees)

“Oui, J’étais dans le sud de la France
l’hiver dernier et j’ai entendu
la musique de le cataloon.”
(Yes, I was in the south of France
last winter and I heard the music
of the Mountain Goat Saxophone)

” . . . ils s’appellent les flouperaux
– je crois – les grands oiseaux
qui ont peur du ciel
et laissent tomber des tas de bricabrume
sur nos têtes quand ils font
une bussabard.”
(they are called storm swallows
– I think – the big birds
that fear the sky and drop
huge amounts of crap on our heads
when they swarm.)

the stage of the Music Barn
is about 3 feet off the floor
my old bones
and aching joints
make it impossible
to get up there with ease
I have to be helped up and down
like an old lady on a bus
in San Francisco 1958
during the sound check
as I stand looking at the stage
I study the height
and say to Patrick
“Once upon a time
– back when I was 17 –
I could high jump
twice that height
– imagine that.”
and Patrick replies
“No one is expecting you
to do that tonight.”

and so we sing the songs
and the boundary between myself
and the audience fuzzes over
and vanishes
and Nicolas plays his guitar
with fine fingers
and I find myself phrasing lines
and using my voice in ways
I’ve never heard before
Jef strums his bass
the thumps vibrating
thru the stage floor
into my feet
and up my legs and spine
into my head and his pulse connects
my boxcar fingers clicking
on the 12-string railroad tracks
and Remi tickles his clarinet
in memory of distant Memphis riffs
and I hike the Oregon Trail
with the Lonesome Gamblers
thru dust and danger
from St. Louis to Portland Town
and Ditch honks his harp
from deep in the blue
as we invent new words
for future English dictionaries
Whatdog! Whatdog!
and Porchoutside!
and the night stretches out
past midnight and beyond
as time stands still
and we climb down
thru the Circle
into the Raven Black Deep
to dance the Deep Raven Waltz

later, when all my wonderful friends
have taken my music and gone home
and all is finally quiet
I sit up with Marc
from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m.
with a bottle of rum on the table
between us and we ramble
across graveyards
minefields of mind
nails in the human jukebox
and Woodstock Festivals in Hungary

now I sit alone
at a window upstairs
and watch the eastern sky
grow light and I know
it’s going to be yet another
one of those days

Heurne, September 15, 2012

3. The Day After (Goose Parade)

I walk out
into a brilliant Flanders morning
and see 16 wild geese
in pairs, side by side
high-stepping up the hill
thru the grass
with their noses in the air
dressed in their Sunday finest
on their way
to church

Heurne, September 16, 2012

MAIL ORDER BRIDES

9 – 10 years old
growing up on the ranch
I was a lone wolf

until the day I discovered
in a Popular Mechanics magazine
a cut-out coupon in the back pages
it said if I sent in $5.00
they would send me an authentic
switch blade knife
“Used by experts to arrest criminals.”

five bucks was too expensive

then there was an ad for Charles Atlas
two cartoon pictures
in the first a 90-pound weakling
was on the beach with his beautiful
girlfriend and 3 muscular bullies
were kicking sand in his face
in the second drawing
the 90-pound weakling had become
tall and strong with lost of muscles
he punched the bullies in the mouth
while the beautiful girl
touched his biceps and smiles
“Do not be a 90-pound weakling,”
said the ad. “Send in the coupon
and receive (absolutely free)
for a 10-day trial period
my exciting muscle- building program
Dynamic Tension

that was for me

and a few days later
I received my first package
in the mail
inside was a small booklet
about his muscle building system
there were also a few photographs
of Charles Atlas
naked with drooping chest muscles
flabby arms and belly
wearing a pair of sagging white shorts
that contained a pair
of bulging genitals

I was so embarrassed
that I ripped up this cheap
pitiful porn
and burnt it in the fireplace
before anybody could see it

I worried for days that some strange
men in drooping white short
might come around
and exposed my shame

I went back to the pulp magazine
I liked receiving packages
in the mail
with my name on them
more than ever

that’s when I found
ads for stamp collectors
Goya nudes
were triangular stamps
from Monaco
that sounded like an exciting
adventure
but they wanted a dollar for each
which I didn’t have

so I settled for a 10¢ pack of stamps
from all over the world

a few days later
a package with my name on it
was waiting for me
in the box

100 stamps
all from Bohemia-Moravia
(a country in Eastern Europe
previously occupied
by the Third Reich
now defunct, gone into the pages
of history, erased from the earth)

100 identical stamps
featuring the head of Hitler
(a man I had never heard of)

I glued them all in a spiral notebook
and sat down to study
my first stamp collection

and that’s how it began
now 60 years later
I am an addicted book reader
I buy books
I have thousands of them
for many years
I haunted the bookstores
of Amsterdam and Paris
searching for American books

recently I discovered
a new book shop
amazon.com
and the books have been pouring in
sometimes one, sometimes two
sometimes a dozen

I have the largest bookstore
in the world
right outside my door
in my mailbox

September 16, 2012

THE GREAT SPIRITUAL MIGRATION OF 1965

we were turned loose
like wild horses

and ended up
running around
like chickens
with our heads cut off

September 17, 2012

TRAVELING LUNATIC

the train speeds east
from Liege to Brussels
and a guy comes walking
down the aisle
going the other way
with a cell phone
pressed to his ear
saying loudly:
“Je suis dans un train.”

“Yes, you are,” I say
as he dashes past

take away the cell
and he’s nothing but
a simple-minded lunatic
wandering around
speaking the obvious
“I am on a train’

yes indeed.

Sept. 20, 2012

RAT RACE

the sign at the entrance
to the park says
NO JOGGING

I take ten steps
and a pack of joggers
cross my path
I have to stop
and wait for them to pass

ten steps later
another pack sweeps past me
from behind

I look up
joggers are everywhere
packs of a dozen
trios
pairs
solo runners

they’ve let the rats
out of their cages
turned them loose in the park

and her come the cops
mounted on horseback
they don’t look to friendly

they are the Jogger Police
they’re waving wooden batons
and grunting like
bounty hunters
they’re chasing the jogging rats

now I understand
I’d be running too
scared shitless
if those helmeted
Biblical Book of Revelation
Apocalyptic Swordsmen
were kicking up dust
behind me
if I had a tail
like a rat
and they were preparing
to chop it off

Brussels, Sept. 20, 2012

THE WANDERING JERKS

twice now at the U.S.
consulate this time
two weeks later
to pick up my new passport

and once again the clan
of Hassidic Jews
falls into line behind me
outside

inside
I take a number
they take a number
and make a bee-line
for a window

and once again
they talk the lady
into giving them
preferential treatment

which means I have to wait
an hour
to take my turn
at the window

maybe I should be a Jew
shave my head
let my side burns dangle down
to my shoulders
wear a black monkey suit
and a goofball black hat
and, speaking with a Yiddish accent,
demonstrating that I refuse to be boiled
in the Great American Melting Pot
say loudly
“Fuck all the rest of you
I am one of the Chosen People!”

Brussels, Sept. 20, 2012

A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE MUSIC BARN GIG

looking back
at the Music Barn evening
I realize I managed to escape
two potentially serious
but minor catastrophic events

my teeth didn’t fall out
and my glass frames didn’t fall apart

September 20, 2012

STEAMPUNK GOGGLES
& TIP-TONGUING ACROSS THE BRIDGE

someday those teeth will get me
catch me flatfooted with both eyeballs
in the cookie jar

no joke
I bought me a pair of thin rim
round frames
a few months ago
two weeks later
they split apart
and the lenses fell out
they slipped my old lenses
into cheap black frames
and I went around looking like
a steampunk for a month
so I have no confidence
in the identical replacement frames
if they go while singing
I’d have to slip back
into the steampunk goggles
and pretend I’m someone else
(someone a lot less kind
and prone to nerd worm attacks)

no joke
the tooth bridge on the top
from grin-end to grin-end
has been in place since 1973
Doc said it would last 20 years

it’s gone twice that now
and it’s been loose for the last
ten years
I expect the worst
on transatlantic flights
when the gums shrink
(altitude? cabin pressure?
or just plain foul air?)

they fall out
when I’m singing
and I’d be lithping
like a thithy
in a thuking conteth

but now
(since the Music Barn night)
I’m starting to think
I’ll take this bridge
to my grave

it might be
the only surviving part
of my body

archaeologists 2000 years from now
dig up my remains by accident
and agree they have found
the Original Leatherneck Harp
– an ancient musical instrument
not unlike the ancient harmonica

September 20, 2012

RAIN-IN-THE-FACE

a few days after
our music & film conjunction
at the music barn
I learn that the day
September 15
marked the death
of Rain-in-the-Face
in 1905

Patrick tells me
“Rain-in-the-Face
was the Lakotah Indian
who killed George Armstrong Cluster
cut out his heart
and ate it raw.”

and what do I think about
this tale of barbaric insanity?

I hope it’s true

I also think they should make
September 15 a national holiday
and celebrate it
by selecting the greediest
most rapacious CEO
from the various corporations
which are draining the world
of its humanity
stake him out naked
on home plate of Yankee Stadium
and select a volunteer
(one of the many pissed-off
candidates who has lost his job
because of this fat greed-monger’s
policies which put him out on the street
with his family to beg for food)
whose execution of the fat monger
will be enthusiastic

stick a knife in his hands
and send him into the arena
to cut out the Greed Monger’s heart
and eat it while it continues
to beat and drip blood

50,000 pissed off citizens
will witness this sacrifice
in person
another 150 million on TV

the other 500 top CEOs
of plundering corporations
will be trembling in their boots
quickly thinking up ways
to become less greedy, less
rapacious, less plunderous
and avoid being the chosen one
next year

on September 15 the following year
and in the years to follow
many more psychopathic CEO
will bite the dust
and disappear into bloody graves

and slowly
over the decades
the world will become
a place worth living in
the rich less rich
the poor less poor
corporations will fail
and go bankrupt
(nobody will want to be a CEO)

then we’ll drag out
the presidents of banks
and give them the ripped heart treatment
(tho some will claim
they have no hearts)
and conditions in the world
will continue to improve

you wait and see
it just might happen

so don’t forget
you heard it here first

T. Zimmerman: Oracle, Humanist
Social Reformer
and the first person to celebrate
International Rain-in-the-Face Day.

September 21, 2012

BREAKING NEWS

everytime I turn on
my laptop
and switch over to Google
I get a choice of video clips
called “Breaking News.”

today the headline is
SEE LADY GAGA
SMOKING POT ON STAGE

I hesitate to say this
but for one horrible moment
I longed for the old-fashioned
type of news
you know:

128 DIE IN IRAQI SUICIDE BOMB ATTACK
AND ONE WOMAN BEHEADED FOR ALLOWING
A DOZEN POLICEMEN TO RAPE HER

Sept. 22, 2012

BEAR SUGGESTS EAR PLUGS
(BECAUSE SHE’LL BE MAKING NOISE
WITH THE VACUUM CLEANER WHILE I SLEEP)

“I might make some mistakes
so you might want
to put some garbage in your ears.”

Sept. 23, 2012

PEAR-SHAPED

Dave remarks
“You’re starting to look
like a pear”

by this he means
(I suppose)
that I have a pin head
with a stem sticking out the top
while the rest of my body
is sagging down
below my waist

I make the mistake
of looking at a recent photo

he’s right

but it could be worse
I could look like a raspberry
or a grape
or prune
or a pickle

I really didn’t want
to mention this
but Dave, too,
is starting to look
like a pear

Sept. 24, 2012

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

on the other hand
some people look
like pigs
when I twist their curly tails
I expect them
to go “OINK!”

others look like machines
bull dozers
water pumps
vacuum cleaners
used cars

yet still others
look like
electric toothbrushes
toilet plungers
fly swatters
magnifying glasses

but most of humanity
most of the time
retains a human shape
which is to say
men look like Jesus Christ
the women look like the Mona Lisa
and the children look like Woody Allen

Sept. 23, 2012

(sometimes I try too hard but sometimes times are hard
and you take what you get)

RADIO OUT-TAKES

1.
the Lone Ranger
is back in the saddle
he shoots silver apples
into peace meal molehills
none has better command
of the Texican-Mexican language
not even his sidekick
Tonto Bob Hope Eye

when ice cubes are added
to their basic vocabulary
everybody relaxes
and they ride off
into the sunset
waving flags of persuasion
and inviting the world
to fill in the blanks

2.
the Shadow knows
a lot less than we first supposed
he bad jokes his way
into our hearts
and leaves the room
humming a verse of Old Man River
and rubbing the bald spot
on the back of his wig

3.
the Green Hornet
plays his fiddle
as a swarm of honeydew
melon bees
orbit his head
and Omar the belt-maker
wearing suspenders
made from tent flaps
slaps down on his chaps
and orders up
a new season of wasps

4.
there is no devil
where Straight Arrow
comes from
“Where I come from
the end of yesterday
is not necessarily
the beginning of today.”
He does his best
to capture laughter
in a web of used
ukulele strings
but today, as usual
not even the 17th century
theatrical slaves
released from their cages
encouraged to tap dance
and play the Amos ‘n Andy blues
are smiling

5.
The Cisco Kid robin-hoods
around in the woods
until Rambo Pancho pops up
blows his nose
until it’s raw
and weasels his whiskers
into a jug of moonshine

from then on
it’s anybody’s guess
which of their lovers
will be crowned
Queen for a Day

6.
Red Ryder & Little Beaver
on a bicycle built for two
take us out to the 7th inning
of a game between
the Ruthless Babes
and the New Doodles from York

“Do we have to go thru this
again?” asks the Beave
the Ryde doesn’t reply
his face has turned to cast iron
“It’s the fallout
of extra-sensory atoms,”
he explains as they pedal
thru a desert
painted with radioactive dust

7.
Clark Kent & Lois Lane
settle down in Campfire Town
where he has several fingers
in the flames

when he pinches them off
and serves them as hotdogs
with generous amounts
of mustard gas
everyone proclaims:
“Delicious – but garbage.”
and he has to take a job
as a part-time salt shaker
she changes her name
to Husky the 2nd
and gets a job
modeling bowling balls

8.
Fibber Magee and Molly
rip off their clothes
and head for the Hope Free Hills
she with tears
to puddle her own canoodle
he with an open mouthful
of crickets
all chirping chaotic pulses
as they dance to the music
of Elvis the Pelvis
and his brother Enis

9.
it’s all over now
I switch off the radio
someone in the next room
is watching TV
I sit for hours
in the darkness
listening to
the corned beef laughter
of sit-coms
while smoked salmon
rush to die
in the flames of water wheels
and the watch tower canons
fire blanks
to celebrate the alligators
and elephants between
the clicks of the clock

October 7, 2012

in response to “World Peace” we now have:
THE NFL ALL STAR SECOND STRING 2012

coached by “Bench Mark”

Offense
“Bottom Line” – center
“X Factor” – right guard
“Lactose Intolerant” – left guard
“High Maintenance” – right tackle
“Lights Out” – left tackle
“No Pain No Gain” – tight end
“Window of Opportunity” – wide receiver
“User Friendly” – blocking back
“Pushing the Envelope” – running back
“Quality Time” – quarterback

Defense
“Bottom Feeder” – nose tackle
“Blow Back” – defensive right guard
“Off the Wall” – defensive left guard
“Slam Dunk” – left linebacker
“Negative Feedback” – right linebacker
“All Things Considered” – middle line backer
“ASAP” – middle line backer
“Closure” – right corner
“Up To Speed” – left corner
“Wake Up Call”- strong safety
“Twenty-Four Seven” – free safety

October 14, 2012

SHOULD WOULD COULD

and if you think
I should, would, or could
you’re scraping the bark
off the wrong tree

I do what I do
(done what I did)
(wrote what I wrote)
and I don’t think
about the other rocky roads
garden paths or unblazed trails
I might have walked
if the weather had been warmer
the people had been fewer
and the pigeons
had stopped crapping
on my head
from the lower branches

October 10, 2012

THE GHOST IN THE ROCKING CHAIR

I leave the rocking chair
in front of the TV
and walk into the kitchen
look back
and the rocking chair
is rocking
still?
impossible

and it keeps rocking
back and forth
the sheepskin flopping
gently against the back

impossible
a ghost?

I hate to break the spell
but I have to go and look

it’s Jimbo
the cat
he hopped in the chair
the moment my back was turned
hid himself behind the arms
and started licking

and rocking
back and forth

I go back to the kitchen
and pretend he’s not there
rocking
back and forth

October 13, 2012

BOARS IN THE CITY

they come in the night
and up-root
backyard lawns

lawn lovers
buys guns
and shoot the boars

sometimes they accidentally
hit a cat
and the cat lovers
shoot back

soon everybody
is shooting
at everybody else

and later
everybody is dead

no boars
no cats
no people

it all started
with the boars

I knew before
it all started
that those boars
were up to no good

Oct. 21, 2012

THE BIGGEST SLICE OF BULLCRAP PIE EVER DISHED OUT

“The Greatest Game Ever”
that’s what the sign says on the screen
describing a baseball game
from ages ago

on American sports TV
the announcers are addicted
to the superlative
“He’s the greatest quarterback
to ever play the game”

“He throws the hardest
breaking ball
in the history of baseball”

“The strongest”
“The fastest”
“A player with the most
athletic ability – bar none”

they rattle on and on
each new programmed event
becomes a hot bed
of greatest, fastest and best

second best
is not allowed
no such thing
you can’t even see
the second best

the bestest best
takes over your mind
and all the rest
fades into the background

October 23, 2012

THREE-DIMENSIONAL ROCKING CHAIR

I prefer
the old style 3-D

sit in a rocking chair
in front of a TV
and tilt back and forth

if you squint your eyes
and rock really fast
the faces on the screen
jump right out at you

Barack Obama
almost landed in my lap
last night

October 24, 2012

ROCKING CHAIR 3-D WORLD SERIES

the Panda (Pablo Sandoval)
foul-tips a curve ball
into the screen
and I duck

Hunter Pence swings
and shatters his bat
into three pieces
his eyes pop out of his head
I blink

Prince Fielder blows a pink bubble
of gum right at the camera
into my face
it pops
I jump

Tim Lincecum
throws a fastball
right thru the screen
into my heart

Buster Posey slides home
and the dirt scatters
all over my room

ten minutes later dust
is still hanging
in the far corners

October 28, 2012

I PIT MY WITS AGAINST POSSIBLY THE FASTEST, LOUDEST AND UGLIEST HOUSEFLY IN WESTERN EUROPE

sitting up in bed
at 4 a.m.
reading a book
a fly comes zooming
out of the shadows
and attacks my face
I grab a swatter
and stalk him
he refuses to land
he keeps buzzing around
the room
fast
loud
ugly
a lethal combination

I switch off the light
open the door
turn on the hallway light
he follows me into the hall
I shut the bedroom door
go down stairs
turn on the bathroom light
turn off the hall light
he follows me into the bathroom
then the kitchen
doors closed
I creep back upstairs in the dark
switch on the light
and continue reading

the book is about
evolution and the supremacy
of the human race
the survival of the fittest

I turn a page
a mouse scampers
across the floor

I close the book
toss it aside
switch off the light
and pull the blanket
over my head

I can’t pit my wits
against possibly the cleverest
most persistent
and ravenous rodent
in Western Europe
not tonight

fuck evolution
screw the survival of the fittest

October 29, 2012

THE GARGANTUAN SHAMPOO DECEPTION

went into a drugstore
to buy some shampoo

they had about 450 bottles
to choose from
glass, plastic
transparent, opaque
blue, green, purple
yellow, olive, orange
for men, for women
for babies
some had “Anti-Dandruff”
printed on them

others said:
Caviar Anti Ageing Seasilk
Citrus Mini Active
Pure Detox
Pure Curl
Fresh Nectar
Soft Vanilla
Curve Wave
Hello Hydration
Intense De-Glue
Hydrolicious Self-Targeting
Advanced Color Therapy
Cucumber & Green Tea
Dead Sea Spa Magik Mineral
Ocean Lift
Body Envy
Totally Twisted Mousse
Long Term Relationship
Root-Awakening Hydrate
Happy Medium
Blue Island Breeze
Cowabunga Coconut
Deep Cleaning Peppermint
Baby Bee Tear Free
Soothing Tea Tree
Smooth Down Heat Glide

(curiously, none said “Normal”)

on the outside of each bottle
I had a vast variety
of tempting treasures
to choose from

inside it was the same goop

a sign of the times
outside:
capitalism at its mendacious best
inside: pure socialism

October 30, 2012

PALAVER THAT CAME OUT OF MY MOUTH THE MOMENT I AWOKE AND SAT UP ON THE EDGE OF THE BED 12 DAYS IN A ROW

‘Lurchgurch”
can this be a language

“Chuckitintherubbish”
from a parallel world

“Askwetic”
which I inhabit in my dreams

“Gursh!”
where a tribe of creatures

“Galubafecto”
actually makes these sounds

“Figurteeze”
and communicate insightful

“Pulversnack”
truthful messages

“Pree-zoom”
or are they merely

“Hibur-thug”
aberrational vibrations

“Nippy Rippy”
from a skull over-loaded

“Pew-jo!”
with junk?

“Ping-a-lingo”

October 27, 2012

FREUDIAN SLIP

shopping at the supermarket
loading my foods
from the basket
onto the treadmill
a bottle of Louisiana Hot Sauce
slips out of my hand
hits the floor
and busts off the cap

must’ve been one of those
messages from the dumbconscious
“Hey, Hot Shot
– enough spice in the gut!
You’ve been farting fire for a week!”

but I don’t listen
I go back and get another bottle

back home
putting the bottle on the shelf
it slips out of my hand
and hits the floor
but doesn’t break

what kind of stupid message is that?

October 31, 2012

THE MOUSE THAT BROKE THE PEAR TREE’S BACK

Halloween
4 a.m.
the huge pear tree in the meadow
dead these many years
no edible fruit for decades
gives in to a slap of north wind
and gives up
up rooted down
towards a rising Orion
on the horizon

I hear the crash
go down with flashlight
to look
maybe it wasn’t the wind
maybe it was a mouse
jumped up on its trunk
and knocked it over
a 3-ounce mouse
and a 3000-pound tree

or maybe it was the tree
all by itself
had enough of losing
a branch here
a limb there
decided to take death
in its own hands
and pulled the plug

October 31, 2012

PEAR TREE BIRD HOUSE

the bird house
wired to the trunk
was untouched
when the giant pear tree
crashed to the ground
tho the sparrows inside
are now suffering
post-traumatic stress
and will spend years
and thousands of dollars
in intense therapy before
they will be able
to fly again

November 1, 2012

ATM (AUTOMATIC TIDDLEYWINKS MACHINE)

free money
great invention
just walk up to the machine
punch a couple of buttons
and out come as much loot
as you want

some people become rich
playing the free money machines
not me
I only take what I need
for essentials
food, books, CDs, DVDs
CD players. DVD players
Mac laptops, iPhones, iPads,
shoes, boots, sunglasses
umbrellas, 5000-piece jigsaw puzzles
bottles of Old Monk Rum
Bacardi Gold, Bacardi Oakheart
Captain Morgan, Jose Cuervo
Patron, Grey Goose Vodka
Absolut, Buffalo Trace White Dog
Glenlivet, Glenfiddich
never more than I can carry
in my knapsack
come back the next day
if I need more stuff

November 2, 2012

MONDAY NIGHT OIL

watching along with America
Monday Night Football
the games have everything

a 55 million-dollar rookie
with one leg
trolls under the bleachers
a couple of goal posts
a picture of a bird of prey
painted into the grass at midfield
teams with wild animal names
players with numbers from 1 to 99
thousands of spectators
drunk on beer
with painted faces
wearing weird hats
and plastic Roman armor
commentators that sound-bite things
like “C’mon, Man!
and “Not so fast, my friend!”
referees in jail house suits
blowing police whistles
and a half time special
with the two presidential candidates
giving speeches about how great America is

then a close-up shot
of the owners
from Islamic oil fields
giving all Americans
the confidence
that they will sleep safely tonight
with their lives in the loving arms
of the Arabs

November 5, 2012

4 MORE YEARS

the American people re-elected Obama
tonight
4 more years
and after that there will be
4 more years
and then 4 more
and 4 more
and 4 more
and 4 more
then 3 more years
then 6 more years
then 17 years
and 51 years
and 172 years
then 1 year
then 6 months
then 4 more years

then a small peasant
waving a Brazilian flag
will arrive at the White House
and take over

he will lie down
in Abraham Lincoln’s presidential bed
pull a blanket up around his nose
and stare at the ceiling
he will say, “Now what?”

November 8, 2012

THE SHAPES & SIZES OF SNEEZES

some sneezes are bullet shaped
and extend the length of a subway car

others are gigantic ping pong balls
that refuse to float on the top
of a goldfish bowl

small leaves from a huge tree

a crushed sports page from a back issue
of the International Herald Tribune

an anorexic banana

a peeled tangerine
in a wind tunnel

a microscopic powder puff

a cartoon balloon
filled with exclamations marks
pointed at the mouth
of the Vetruvian man

a fat penguin sliding on its belly
across a vast iceberg

the blond bee-hive wig
of a country-western singer
who hasn’t had a hit since the 60s
seen on public-access cable TV
pumping laughing gas
into her last Cadillac
while her collection of jukeboxes
each playing a different punk rock tune
surround her with inhospitable
hostility

a glass elevator
escaped from the shaft of a skyscraper
at the apex of its flight
about to be blown to bits
by an angry tourist bomb

a cheeseburger with onions & pickles
squeezed thru a funnel
into the mouthpiece of a trombone
where it will be slush-pumped
thru the Best of Glenn Miller
before being spit-valved out
onto a recording studio floor

a rolling, disintegrating snowball
on a pool table
that doesn’t quite reach
the corner pocket
before it melts into the felt

a wet airmail envelope
packed full of weed seeds
tossed in a garbage can
where it pops open
and elicits sighs of praise
from a cartel of Trash Leprechauns

a smoke ring
that has so little substance
that you never hear anybody say
“Gesundheit.”

many things go thru your mind
while you’re sneezing
and they are far more complicated
than a single decomposing green pea
lodged in the nostril of a wild boar
which is about to be launched
into orbit around the earth

November 9, 2012

BOOK

always have a book in my hand
it seems
on the table by my scrambled eggs
by my bed
in my knapsack
in my pockets
doesn’t matter which one (or two)
it seems
just as long as it’s got words
and they’re lined up in rows
which are stacked up on pages
which can be turned
and tell a story
of wonder & fascination
it seems

it can be a poem
from which fireflies of words
leap out when you open a page
or a novel of schooled fish
swimming in sentences
as you turn a page
or an ocean of folk tales
with stories too large
to fit into the mailboxes
of my brainbox which deliver
only postcards
to be continued
or so it seems

give me stories
of thrilling suspense
and murderous intentions
stories of journeys
so far from home
that everyone (including me)
gets lost

stories of speculation
and surrealistic hi-jinx

stories that laugh at themselves
so long and hard that their laughter
becomes contagious

that open windows
onto gardens of thistles and roses
rivers where rainwater mixes with the tears
of children who have just seen
their rubber ducks float away
fields where cows graze on buttercups
and foxes feast on live rabbits
valleys in which barbarian armies
with their tents and fires
are camped at one end
while at the other
a coven of virgin teenage witches
dance around a totem pole at full moon
mountains upon which hermits meditate
and Indian shamans hide in caves
waiting for the return of the turtle

stories that open doors
into other rooms
where the floor is covered
with feathers and broken glass
where the walls are papered
with past years calendars
and pages from today’s
fashion magazines
hung with oil portraits
of self-confessed criminals
and mirrors that reflect
only beeswax candlelight
where a table is set
with silver platters and rusted knives
watermelons and rotten peaches
jugs of wine and mugs of beer
jars of pickled pig’s ears
and urns of cremated lizard dust
where musicians play tunes
of yesterlore and tomorrow rap
upon harps and vibraphones
and a mountain donkey sleeps by the fireplace

November 8, 2012

MRS. CANIGOU & THE VITRUVIAN MAN TRADE LINES

she’s at the kitchen counter
slicing a carrot
and dreaming about their trip
to the south of France this winter

he’s at the fridge
about to dip inside
for a cool drink of juice
thinking about Da Vinci’s Notebooks

He: You left the fridge door ajar — again

She: Hmm.

He: I mention this only because
you get all over me
when I leaver it ajar

She: I get all over you
when you forget to turn down
the central heating
before you come to bed

He: Did I forget to turn down
the central heating last night?

She: Yep

and she goes back to dreaming
about Mt. Canigou in the distance
and he goes back to thinking
about the Vitruvian Man

November 10, 2012

JULIETTE POEMS

JULIETTE

so that’s what a grandchild
looks like

she sure is going to be
a beautiful girl

November 12, 2012

JULIETTE’S WAVELENGTH

Juliette has her eyes
open now
this is the day
she was supposed to be born

she’s looking at me
I’m looking at her
I say to her
“Don’t get your hopes up
– you can wait around
for 71 years
and the world out here
won’t make much more sense
– maybe even less.”

she burps
she farts
she’s got the idea
we’re already tuned
to the same wavelength

Nov. 22, 2012

JULIETTE’S DREAM CLOUD

I didn’t know
it was going to be this exciting
having a baby Juliette
join our small circle
of arms
we call a family

tonight she is ours
no one can break into the circle
I even hesitate
to talk about her
with friends
(and not only because
I can’t find the words)

tonight she is asleep
one arm waving lazily
in the air
fist clenched
as if she were fighting off
a dream cloud
in the shape of a snail

later she will go
out into the world and take on
the monster-face clouds
but tonight she is ours
and we are hers

November 27, 2012

JULIETTE IN THE SHADE

I see you’ve already perfected
the two basic actions
of life
put food in one end
let it come out the other

it doesn’t get much more
complicated than that

later you might want to add
a couple extra routines
to your repertoire
like watching TV
and checking your e-mail
but I can tell you now
those are mostly
entertaining distractions

get your food
and shit under control
and you got it made
in the shades
December 3, 2012

JULIETTE STORY

here’s my story tonight, Juliette:

we grow older, we forget more
and more

December 12, 2012

JULIETTE, UPSIDE DOWN

you spend most of your waking hours
on your back, looking up
at the ceiling

tonight I tilted back my head
to see what you were looking at

one huge expanse of white
with a small hole in the center
with a bunch of electric wires
dangling down
(light fixture yet to be fixed up)

then my mind flipped over
when I realized that you too
saw the world upside down
that you were hovering in the air
looking down on this huge field
of pure white
with a small hole in the center
out of which wires were sprouting

now I understand why you’re so fascinated:
you’re waiting to see
what kind of plant it is
and how fast it will grow
and what will pop out of the stems
flowers? fruit? cabbages? zucchini?

from time to time
faces in from below
mom and dad
grandpas and grandmas
friends and relatives
then it’s back
to that strange garden
you’re hovering above]
waiting for something to grow

December 12, 2012

JULIETTE, CHIN SUCKER

tonight is Juliette’s first visit
to our house

for a while
she sits in my lap
in my rocking chair
and sleeps peacefully
I sleep peacefully too

then she wakes up
and sucks on her mother’s chin
until the chin is blue

so busy snoozing
and sucking chin
we don’t have much of a chat
and what conversation
we do enjoy
are short sentences
that have orange peels
sticking to the verbs
and creamy peanut butter
leaking from the nouns

December 24, 2012

SONGS FOR JULIETTE

WALKIN’ ‘ROUND THE ZOO

who really cares how I spend my time
I know I don’t as long as I’m feelin’ fine
I like to walk around places that are new
one day I found myself down at the zoo

one day I found myself lookin’ at a ga-noo
and I discovered what I like best to do

when I got nothin’ else to do
I like walkin’ ’round the zoo

they got cages of monkeys and go-rillas too
polar bears and leopards and kangaroos
I don’t know what kind of animal I might be
if I had to choose I probably say a lemur or a tree

I like the bears and the penguins that smile
but I wouldn’t want to be a crocodile

when I got nothin’ else to do
I like walkin’ ’round the zoo

I like to gaze upon the coyote
he’s always got trick up his sleeve for me
I know he’s lonely, I know I would be
someday I’ll come down here at night and set him free

and maybe the flamingos would like to fly away
they say flamingos cannot fly
but who can say

when I got nothin’ else to do
I like walkin’ ’round the zoo

THE GARDEN WALL

who are you
who am I
who are we
and where is the sky

where is the moon
does she like the sun
are they good friends
do they have someone

to teach them about
the shadow and the light
about the day and night
all the things we cannot see
they’re a mystery

but this I know
we’re so small
we’re almost
not here at all

then again
we’re so tall
we can see
over the garden wall

DRUNK AS A SKUNK & MAD AS A HATTER

Mrs. Black and Mr. Blue
went down to the lumber yard
got some tape, got some glue
and built themselves a house of cards

they had a pot of wild spuds
and a bag of thistles
they put them on their breakfast plates
and swallowed them down – slick as a whistle

Brother Brown and Sister Green
liked to go to crazy places
like Hollywood and Yosemite
with crazy smiles on their faces

they always tried to pit their wits
against the fools but it never mattered
cause all the fools were much too cool
drunk as a skunk and mad as a hatter

Aunt Red and Uncle White
lived far away – down the street
in a house that late at night
got up and walked around on a pair of feet

now Aunt Red and Uncle White
looked out the window one night
and saw some trees passing by
as fast as greased lightning

Grandma Purple and Grandpa Yellow
they liked to take it slow
their lives were so mellow
it took them years for their ears to grow

they didn’t eat meat or ve-ja-ta-bulls
so they lived on juice
when they walked around their legs looked like
they were falling off – they were loose as a goose

ONE IS FOR THE TURTLE

one is for the turtle
who likes to live alone
and he sleeps in the sand (in the sand)
he’s the oldest creature in the whole wide world
he’s a real old man

two is for the pair of doves
who believe in love
they stay together all the time (all the time)
thru all kinds of weather
they never lose a feather
they go coo-coo – they’re feeling fine

three is for the bears
who live in the woods
mama, papa, little bear – they all lend a hand
they look for honey
in the tops of the trees
they are the family of the land

four is for the buffalo
I don’t know where they are
they seemed to have vanished in the haze (in the haze)
but someday they’ll return
and we will say welcome back
hey – hey these are happy days

ONE LESS KANGAROO IN THE ZOO

41 penguins in the snow
one said to the others – I gotta go
somewhere south where the popcorns grow
one less penguin in the snow

13 blackbirds in the tree
one said to the others – hey look at me
he flew around upside down
one less blackbird in the tree

23 turkeys dancing in the straw
one said to the others as he played a singing saw
I think I’ll take my hat down to Panama
one less turkey in the straw

one hundred hedgehogs rolling in the hay
one said to the others – I cannot stay
you all say I’m old and in the way
one less hedgehog in the hay

2 kangaroos in the Zoo
one said to the other – I don’t know ’bout you
but I think I’ll hop over to Timbucktoo
one less kangaroo in the zoo

DID YOU EVER SEE A CAT

did you ever see a cat
that looked like a bat
that flew around in the sky
like a big butterfly?
well, I can tell you that
it was probably not a cat

did you ever see a dog
that looked like a frog
did he talk like a hog
did he roll like a log?
I can safely say
it was probably not a dog

did you ever see a sheep
driving a jeep
speeding down the road
with a load of toads ?
just between you and me
it was probably not a sheep

did you ever see a cow
with heavy eyebrows
who drank a lot of milk
did she have boots of silk ?
I can tell you now
it was probably not a cow

did you ever see a goat
floating in a boat
blowing on the sails
as he delivered the mail?
you might want to make a note
it was probably not a goat

FINN THE FISH

this is the story of Finn the Fish
she went swimming in the creek one day
that’s where she was born in
and that’s where she wanted to stay

but as she grew longer
and she grew stronger
the creek was too small to play in
so Finn the Fish floated away

Finn the Fish was a-mazed
swimming into a stream
so many new things – oh happy days
she was swimming in a dream

but her eyes grew larger as the days went by
she dreamed about a place that was larger than an eye
the stream was too small to play in
so Finn the Fish floated away

she came to a rushing river
the water was fast and wide
fishermen with their fishing poles
standing on the river side

the poles had lines and the lines had hooks
the hooks had worms and she didn’t like their looks
the river was too dangerous to play in
so Finn the Fish floated away

she came to a blue blue ocean
larger than the green green land
wide and deep it had no end
she said maybe I will find a friend

she found a friend and what is more
soon there were two and three and four
they all got together and made a wish
that’s the story of Finn the Fish

THE MOON AND THE MERMAID

what happened to the moon
of the drunk baboon
who fell down on his knees?
oh it’s right where it’s supposed to be
there’s nobody here but me (and the moon)
nobody here but me

what happened to the crow
from the medicine show
is he still hanging out in the tree?
oh he’s right where he’s supposed to be
there’s nobody here but me (and the crow)
nobody here but me

where is the bat
who lives in my hat
and sleeps from four to three?
oh he’s right where he’s supposed to be
there’s nobody here but me (and the bat)
nobody here but me

where’s that lady bug who lives in the rug?
she’s gone, she’s a mystery
oh she’s right where she’s supposed to be
there’s nobody here but me (and the bug)
nobody here but me

where’s that mouse who lives in the house
and stays all year for free?
oh he’s right where he’s supposed to be
there’s nobody here but me (and the mouse)
nobody here but me

what happened to the ghost of the burnt toast
who hides in the chim-ma-knee?
oh he’s right where he’s supposed to be
there’s nobody here but me (and the ghost)
nobody here but me

what happened to the dog
was he swallowed by the fog
and became a coy-o-tee?
no he’s right where he’s supposed to be
there’s nobody here but me (and the dog)
nobody here but me

what happened to the sheep
who walked in his sleep
and danced the old tai chi?
oh he’s right where he’s supposed to be
there’s nobody here but me (and the sheep)
nobody here but me

what happened to the cat
who sang a low B-flat
when we saw him on MTV?
oh she’s right where she’s supposed to be
there’s nobody here but me (and the cat)
nobody here but me

where’s that pair
of mermaid underwear
I fished out of the sea?
oh it’s right where it’s supposed to be
there’s nobody here but me (and the mermaid)
nobody here but me

RED RUBBER BALL

I had a red rubber ball
I bounced it against the wall
it came back to me, it came back to me
I was glad I could see

IMPOSSIBLE CREATURES

1. The Pumaloweena

pad pad poom poom
here’s the Pumaloweena
he comes from the faraway land
of Halloweena

his feet are floating
they don’t touch the ground
it’s with his mouth
he makes this sound
pad pad poom poom

the Pumaloweena

2. The Humpback Bumble Beef

bump bump thump thump
the Humpback Bumble Beef
he comes from the Forest
of the Muddy Maple Leaf

he had leaky faucets
in the middle of his eyes
they drip wild honey
whenever he cries
bump bump thump thump
the Humpback Bumble Beef

3. The Dope-A-Lope

trip trip mope mope
it’s the Dope-a-Lope
he comes from the Mountains
of the Slippery Slope

he’d like to be a bird
a real high flyer
a Seagulleagle
that’s his one desire

trip trip mope mope
the Dope-a-Lope

4. The Pandallama

flim flam pim pam
Pandallama
she comes from the Island
of Roma-Rama

for bamboo shoots
and funky fruits
she gets dressed up
in a monkey suit

flim flam pim pam
Pandallama

5. The Kangarooster

hip hop rock-a-doodle-doo
it’s the Kangarooster
he comes from the Desert
of Timbucktoo, sir

he drives to the oasis
in an Alabamobile
he’s a noodle
a real slow wheel

hip hop rock-a-doodle-doo
it’s the Kangarooster

6. The Elephantowhale

oh hail! – the Elephantowhale
he comes from the big ocean
the Bordeaux and Beaujolais Sea
even pepperoni sausages will agree
oh hail! – the Elephantowhale

7. The Leoparmadillo

hey-oh, hey-oh bar bar
the Leoparmadillo
he comes from the Dusty Hills
of Chill-a-Pillow

you don’t mess with him
he’s got a chimney on his chin
coat hanger glasses
and a gobble gobble grin

hey-oh, hey-oh bar bar
the Leoparmadillo

8. The Chimpanzeebra

ooh woh ooh wah wah
make way for the Chimpanzeebra
he comes from the Jungle
of Jimbolah

he’s up to no good
with his tom tom drums
he’s a total dumb mumble
when it comes to chewing gums

whim wham ooomp-pah pah
the Chimpanzeebra
whim wham ooomp-pah pah
the Chim-Chim-Chim-Chim-Chim
Chimpanzeebra

9. The Hippocritter

flip flop bip bop
this is the Hippocritter
he comes from the Whispering Cave
of the Gossip Pinch Hitter

he’s a laughing gas balloon
he’s moondog spit
he’s a useless goon, he’s a baby boom
don’t lit him be you baby sitter

flip flop bip bop
stay away from the Hippocritter
10. The Piguana

ho ho here we go
say hello to the Piguana
he comes from the city
of the Big Priga-a-Donna

he’s a merry, merry mischief maker
he’s a quasar quaker
sleep awaker, salt shaker
prone to the swoon
when he gazes upon the moon
so give that little shaver
a buffalo bassoon

ho ho say hello
to the Piguana

11. The Alligatorpedo

wait wait go slow
here comes the Alligatorpedo
he lives in the river
called the Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho-Holy Toledo

he used to have a friend
– a Grizzley Squid
but that was long ago
you don’t want to know
what the squid did

it was so ghastly
in the greased pig parade
oh no – there he goes
the Alligatorpedo

12. The Salamandergander

zoom zoom nom de plume
it’s the Salamandergander
he comes from the lake
called the Ruff-Ruff Dander

he makes good eating
if you catch him while he’s a-snooze
you’ll like the underarmageddon
perfume he uses

zoom zoom nom de plume
it’s the Salamandergander

13. The Buffaloon

here he comes – the Buffaloon
playing on his harp
a Ragin Cajun tune
playing on his harp
and singing at the moon

he comes from the Bayou
where the Chapatoolas dance
to the old Cherobeekeeper chants
he don’t know if it’s midnight or noon
Buffaloon

there he goes
down the road
nibblin’ on a wheel
of cheese a-la-mode
there he goes
I hope he comes back soon
the Buffaloon

December 10-25, 2012

HE MIGHT BE A POET AND HE DON’T KNOW IT

“. . . and tho I stepped inside
no dreams worth remembering”

who wrote that?
could it have been me?
if so, it was a long time ago
50 years at least
could have been a poet
the kind I like to read

now the lines have come
full circle
and it doesn’t matter
who wrote them

I like that
I could be
a famous poet

November 29, 2012

THE END OF THE WORLD

oracles, crackpots, sages, prophets and
tortured heretics have predicted the end
of the world 120 times in the past 100 years.
December 21st is the latest.

2 a.m.
I step out my door
a cargo plane rumbles
overhead
could that be the end of the world?
even tho there are no specialists here tonight?

of course in Australia
it’s been today
for the past 10 hours, for them
the day is half over
no asteroids have collided
no tidal waves or at least
they’re not saying

in America it’s still yesterday
doomsday has yet to arrive
on their shores
over there the goofballs
are making a big deal
out of it
it’s a media rampage
everybody wants to be famous
before they evaporate

2:40 a.m. another step
outside, hear a night bird
chirping down in the woods
an omen? if so,
I’ve been hearing that omen
for the past 30 years
and birds getting eaten by cats
were the worst things
that ever happened
but the woods
has a big supply of night birds
I’m getting tired of waiting
I’m going to bed

can’t sleep
so I sit up in bed
with The White Pony
translations of old Chinese poems
I read the 9 Declarations
of Chu Yuan (332-296 B.C.)
in which he says
“Why do I complain
that men are blind today?
I shall follow the straight path
without hesitation, bearing up
against chaos until my last breath.”

indeed

then I skip ahead to the Han Dynasty
(206B.C. – A.D 201)
I read “Southeast the Peacock Flies”
an anonymous ballad
in which a girl
removes her silk shoes
plunges into the Blue Lake
while the boy hangs himself
from a branch of the courtyard tree
for those two
it was lights out
7,800 years ago.

here the lights are still on

then I go for the tough guys
“Perchance to Dream”
Robert B. Parker’s sequel
to Raymond Chandler’s Big Sleep
“I’m sick of you, Marlowe
I’m sick of your face.
I’m sick of your preaching at me,
and moralizing,
and acting like you were something
better than I am,
when all you are
is a second-rate shoofly
with a lousy office
in a crummy section of town
and two suits of clothes.
I could buy fifty of you
and use you around the house
for book-ends.”

harsh words
shoofly
bookends
this dame clearly doesn’t love Marlowe
but she doesn’t mention anything
about the end of the world

4:30 a.m. back downstairs
and out the door
to check on the progress
of our total annihilation
nothing shakin’
no thunder, no lightning
not even an atomic bomb blast
lighting up the horizon

beyond the horizon
humankind is begging
for the Big Sleep
but so far their prayers
have not been answered.

back to bed
the sleeping pill
is starting to kick in
I lay my head on the pillow
and think about everything

6:55 a.m. wake up
from a dream
I was playing a 6-striung guitar
and singing traditional cowboy blues
to a few world-wise folks
I sang the first two lines
to set the scene

the prairie is wide and long
the horizon is my home
I ride into the purple twilight
I hear the buffalo moan

and then I delivered the punch line

oh shit am I ever alone!

the audience applauded
and I continued to punch the line

oh shit am I ever alone!

after each punch
someone shouted, “YEAH!”

oh shit am I ever alone!

YEAH!

oh shit am I ever alone!

YEAH!

awake, I open my eyes
I’m still here
the guy in my dream
who shouted “YEAH!
was me
grunting to the pain
in my knees
as I turned over

sitting on the edge of the bed
thinking about the end of the world
singing

you can take it all away, mister
but don’t take my girl
I’m sitting on the edge of the bed. mister
I’m sitting on the edge of the world

my girl is sound asleep
she’s sleeping right by my side
talking in her sleep, “If they come and get us
baby, we better hide.”

7:00 a.m. back downstairs
for a leak and to check out
the destruction of the world
The house is still
the woods have not been blasted
from the face of the earth
the guys in charge of extinction
are building the tension
keeping us all on the edge of our beds
singing the blues

of course down in Australia
it’s 5 o’clock in the afternoon
and our today
is almost their yesterday

longest night if the year
the longest tunnel
7:30 a.m. and still no trace
of dawn light

we sit, coasting along
on our surf boards
14 hours of tunnel behind us
tomorrow the tunnel
will be 3½ minutes shorter

I stand on the edge
of the hill, leaking
I hear a rooster crow
up at the end of the valley
faintly far away
like a soft whistle
or maybe it’s close by
they’ve already dropped
the Rooster Bombs
and turned them into
mutated tea kettles

back inside
I turn on the TV
and learn that a long yacht
once owned by Steve Jobs
has been captured by the Dutch
and is now under arrest
in Amsterdam harbor

that doesn’t sound like news
pertaining to the end of the world
not even to Steve Jobs
who had his own personal
end of the world last year

11:55 a.m. awake again
just took a shower
and that’s a load off my mind
now if I get wiped out
along with everybody else
I can appear at heaven’s gates
in clean underwear

1:50 p.m.
riding the train to Brussels
look out the window
cows munching on grass
in a field
the grass is still green
the cows are still wearing
plenty of meat on their bones
(no skeletons)

3:15
many people walking around
in Brussels and I’m quoting
T.S. Eliot
“I had not thought death
had undone so many”
(or something like that)

4:18 pm.
I buy a new cell phone
this might be the moment
everybody has been waiting for
I press the call button
and the world doesn’t explode
people keep walking by
in Place de la Monnaie
it starts to rain
but I’m not going to take
the blame for that

5:45 p.m.
I enter a book shop
notice a few titles
on the thriller shelves
that might be the key
to our coming destruction

The Bodies Left Behind
The Day of the Jackal
Headhunters
Death in Paradise
The Naming of the Dead
The Big Sleep
The Long Goodbye

or maybe it’ll happen
when I pay for the books
I slip my card into the slot
punch out the 4-digit code
hold my breath
tap ‘”OK”
and nothing exciting happens
just a few more bucks
are drained from my bank account
very few people will be affected
by this transaction

20:23 riding the train
back to Waremme
lady across the aisle
is trying to sleep
a baby cries
an English couple
over for the tourist season
bitch at each other
snarl, grunt
complain about everything

10:00 p.m. back home
switch on the TV
for the end of the world news
drop into a sports show
where I am reliably informed
that Rob Gronkowski
(known as ‘The Gronk”)
tight end for the New England Patriots
can leap and catch
a football over the back
of an African elephant
that’s the kind of information
that’s really useful
since many elephants
will be seen tomorrow
trotting around in the end zone
football fans everywhere
will be excited to see that stunt
if they have not already been wiped out
by ten thousand flaming meteors
in the next two hours

6:40 a.m. (December 22)
I call it quits
on the apocalypse watch
disappointed that humanity
has not met its whimpering end
as advertised

the only really interesting thing
to come out of this hyped up
Armageddon fiasco
is the discovery that a single day
is actually longer
than 24 hours

at 0:00 hours tonight GMT
December 21st ended
but over in America
it was still yesterday
6 p.m. to be exact
still plenty of time for things
to go haywire

however now as Belgian clocks
strike 9 a.m.
December 21st is finally over
it’s a new day
on the American west coast
and we’re all, deep asleep
dreaming of Aztecs
delighted by the knowledge
that a day actually lasts
for at least 33 hours.

December 21-22, 2012

AFTERMATH

now it’s a new day
in Maya Land
(10:45 GMT)
and the only priest awake
in Aztec Land
is sweeping up the confetti
but we should not relax
too much
next year it will be
the Inca Apocalypse
the earth sucked into space
in a ball o fire
or maybe a moon
of Jupiter crashing down
in Topeka, Kansas
and splitting the earth
into small pieces
one way or the other
it’ll be the end of the world
so start preparing now
get your End-Of-The-World
T-shirts, order on-line
from Calamity.doom
we also stock End-Of-The-World
coffee cups, bedspreads
curtains and car doors
special discount prices
for senior citizens
or join the End-Of-The-World Book Club
and keep yourself informed
about each and every step
we will be taking
toward our complete global destruction
free with every order over $1,000:
an authentic Stonehenge – 2014
“End-Of-The-World” warm up jacket.

December 22, 2013

STORIES LONG & SHORT

I love words
love to hear them spoken
love to write them

the best groups of words
get themselves in line
and turn into stories
long & short
all on their own

but down under them all
in a dark, mysterious corner
of my mind
I feel an anarchistic
destructive urge

I’d like to turn them all
into jabberwock
better: into total gibberish
this, I think
would be the ultimate
true message
of these stories
long & short

December 23, 2012

“STORIES LONG & SHORT”
(THE GIBBERIZED TRANSLATION)

to be mumbled incoherently
in the lowest voice possible
– a mere glimpse this side of inaudibility)

har loaf wursh
loarf hurda dem saboggen
lumpf ta rye-dem

ita burst grood wursh
geddadeem surp-a-worp
endurna shordeez
lungen jort

badoon unterdem all
inna durkmizzderee-uz gorker
huff mug mang
eye-full argarissdick
duzz drunk deeve hurge

hide lak doodurn em-hall
inder jibberquack
besser: inder chipper rush
dissa tink
wordbee de elemunt
troo mazzage
arp deez schorties
long & short

December 23, 2012

FRENCH BOOK TITLES

I know this is an old argument
where there should be none

but the French
have got it all wrong
when they print titles
on the spines of their books
they put ’em upside down

it’s not just a matter
of which direction you tilt your head
when browsing books on a shelf
to the left
or the right
makes no difference

but consider this:
when you lay a book flat down
on it’s back cover
(and why would you want
to lay it down on its front?)
the title printed on the spine
– well, it’s stubbornly perverse
is what it is

needlesstosay
standing on your head
to read it
is just plain dumb

end of argument
and I don’t want to hear another word
about the stupid ideas
the French try to defend

December 24, 2012

COLOR BLIND

for Christmas
I gave Bear a Mexican blanket
“Blue,” she says, “My favorite blue.”
“Brown,” I say. “Chocolate brown.”

next morning
in the light of day
we both see
deep purple

good thing I didn’t get her
a chameleon poncho

December 26, 2012

VISITORS NOT TOURISTS

by innocent coincidence
Bear and I managed to touch down
in the three major capitals of Europe
this year

London (to sing)
Paris (to film)
Rome (our only planned trip)

I made a side trip to Amsterdam
where I witnessed a storm over the city
the likes I have never seen before
(see “Thunder Over Amsterdam”
for details and adjectives)

and my son and his companion
visited New York
and San Francisco
and came back with a jar
of peanut butter for me

December 28, 2012

WOODEN TEETH

they say George Washington
had wooden teeth
did he brush them
with sandpaper?
did he take them out
and paint them different colors
depending on his mood?
red bullfight matador for revolutionary rage
blue for John Lee Hooker melancholy
yellow for anti-pepsodent anxiety
black for ironic abolitionist amusement

if I had wooden teeth
I’d be worried about termites

Dec. 29, 2012

BOOK WORM

tonight, for the first time in 5 years
I checked out the holes
made by a book worm
in the pages of my thick, 40-year old
paperback copy of Colin Wilson’s “The Occult”

he’s been busy

a single tunnel the size of a pin head
thru the first 300 pages
(this is recent)
after which he tunnels off
to the bottom of the page
perhaps hoping to escape

other back pages are like delicate lace
like cut-outs of small butterfly wings
no larger than a whisper
nearly identical, page after page

last time I looked
he’d confined his munchings
to the margins
now he’s starting to intrude
on the text
I think he’s learning how to read
swallowing lies and truth with equal
creeping slow-motion gusto

Dec. 29, 2012

GUN CONTROL

they say guns don’t kill people
people do
yeah, but guns make it a whole lot easier
especially those machines that spray
3000 rounds per second

here’s this guy
walks into a school
with a automatic assault rifle
intent on mass manslaughter

now take away the weapon
and replace it with a bag of rocks
and a slingshot

he’s still nuts
and he might shoot a kid or two
but he would get very deep
into a massacre
and he sure wouldn’t be able
to bail out on a suicide ride

see him down there at the end of the hall
with the slingshot turned around
and pointed at a spot
between his eyes
his arms aren’t long enough
to stretch the rubber back
to supply sufficient force
to the launched rock

it pops out of the sling
bounces off his forehead
and tumbles to the floor
at his feet

kids peek out of a classroom door
they giggle
they laugh
the day has become
more entertaining than most

Dec.29, 2012

LOVE IS WHAT HAPPENS

love is what happens
when you stop thinking about it
and walk on down the road
doing nothing in particular

cat wants to have
a mouse in his mouth
so he goes outside
and soon he has
a mouse in his mouth
the head sticking out
one side of his smile
the tail dangling out the other

love is what happens
when you hold the other’s gaze
a few moments too long
without speaking

dog was always looking
for something to eat
she watched me take
a Milky Way candybar
from my jacket pocket
and place it next to me
on the bench
she watched me eat an orange
then watched me accidentally
knock the Milky Way
off the bench to the ground
and with one snap of her jaws
she ate the candy bar
wrapper and all

love is what happens
when strolling down a maze
of narrow, cobblestone streets
in an old southern European town
singing an ancient song
after midnight
and you stop at a corner
stick your head out
into the dark cross-alley
and a woman, standing there
two feet away,
finishes the song for you

they laughed at Moose Woman
in her wonder-underwear
with her buck teeth punctured
into a tractor’s inner tube
and a flag of the North Pole
Liberation Army
flapping from one horn
they laughed, then cried
from shame and sorrow
because she was trying
to climb a steep hill
without feet

love is what happens
when you walk into a room
and you’re alone
except for a voice
from a round radio speaker
in the mouth of a painted portrait
who says, “Don’t look at me
– your eyes are button holes
and the last think I need
is a bunch of buttons
coming around and catching me
with my eyeballs open.”

you never could predict
what Weasel Man would be wearing
when he came to your house
maybe brand new clothes
or rags beyond repair
or a combination of the two
a coonskin cap
with live butterflies
attached by threads
to the dangling tail
a coat of underarm spray
and rhino snout boots
with the horns still attached

love is what happens
when it happens
and at no other time

THINGS THAT MAKE LIFE WORTH LIVING
(a recent survey)

1. FRIENDS
all of them
near and far
close and distant
you know who you are

2.
BOOK SHOPS
of all kinds
but mostly American-English
and especially
City Lights in S.F.
Shakespeare & Co. in Paris
The Book Exchange in Amsterdam
Almost Corner in Rome

these are sanctuaries
I’ve never found a bad bookshop
just as I’ve never encountered
a bad person who likes to read
(confused maybe, conflicted possibly
but aren’t we all?)

3.
MAPS
we all know
that maps are not the territory
and that’s because they exist
in another world
once you’ve found your way
into the intricicated passages
of alleys, streets and boulevards
of an other landscape
you are tracking in another dimension
a place that has no real name
or substance
rejoice!
if you don’t like the name
of a road or a street
give it another
the countryside around my home
is honeycombed with inventions
Rum Road
Two Trees Road
Lost Haiku Road
Kerouac Forest
This Road
That Road
none of these names
(and dozens of others)
appear on ordinary maps
Jean-Baptiste Boulevard
Onderdonk Drive
Speed Road
Three Bulls Corner

if you’re trying to find your way
to Chain Guard Road
Powerline Road
or Road Rage Road
just ask me
I’m the only one who knows
I can tell you where to go
but don’t expect me to take you there
you have to do that kind of thing
by yourself

4.
PLASTIC BERTRAND’S RECORDING OF
“CA PLANE POUR MOI”

Allez hop! la nana quel panard!
Quelle vibration!
de s’envoyer sur le paillasson
Limee, ruinee, videe, comblee
I am the King of the Vivant!
Qu’elle me dit en passant
Oooo-ooo-ooo-ooo!
I am the King of the Vivant

allez-hop, Plastique

5.
OTHER RECORDINGS OF 20TH AND 21ST CENTURY FOLK MUSIC THAT PLEASE MY SOUL

1. Tub Thumping – Chumbawamba
2. Viva La Vida – Cold Play
3. Twist in My Sobriety – Tanita Takaram
4. Book of Love – Peter Gabriel
5. Take a Chance – Magic Numbers
6. Read My Mind – The Killers
7. Sex on Fire – Kings of Leon
8. That’s Not My Name – Ting Tings
9. The A Team – Ed Sheenan
10. The Eels – Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues

6.
KEROUAC’S WRITING
which, after reading, always sends me to my notebook with riotous wordplays bursting from the boundaries of my brain

7.
EGGHEADS
you can see them on BBC
every weekday at 7 o’clock (p.m.)
‘Welcome to Eggheads
the show where a team of five
pit their wits
against arguably the best
quiz team in Britain . . .
they are the Eggheads!”

“And taking on the awesome might
of our quiz goliaths today are . . . ”

8.
& THREE OTHER BBC QUIZ SHOWS

MASTERMIND
UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE
ONLY CONNECT
“Please choose a hieroglyph
– two reeds, lion, twisted flax
horned viper, water or eye of Horus.”

8.
GROLSCH BEER
and if Grolsche isn’t available
I’ll take an Amstel
or a Gulpener or a Dommelsch
or a Lindeboom or an Orajeboom
or a Hertog Jan or a Flensburger
or a Herforder or a Warsteiner
or a Bitburger or a Veltins
or a Tuborg Green Label
or a Carslberg Elephant
or a Mikkeller Czechet Pils
and you won’t hear me complaining

9.
RUM
Make it Zacapa Centenario or Plantation XO—but I’ll take Bacardi ocho años in a pinch—or Havana Club tres años will do . . .

10.
BASEBALL
in all of the game’s shapes and sizes
from Little League
to Major League
softball and amateur
high school, college
sandlot and stick ball
it’s double plays & homeruns
it’s stolen bases
& bad calls by the ump
it’s peanuts & cracker jacks
it’s hot dogs & beer
it’s centerfield bleachers in the sun
it’s World Series in the rain
it’s Dustin Pedroia
and Tim Lincecum
it’s the Brooklyn Dodgers
and Chavez Ravine
it’s the N.Y. Giants
and Candlestick Park
and a whole lot more

11. AND A WHOLE LOT MORE
Peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, pop corn, corn chips, root beer floats, tomates crevettes, salted cashews, special fried rice, sweet & sour pork, tacos & refried beans, chili, avocados, Belgian chocolate, Belgian frites with sauce tartare, Danish pastry . . .

APPENDIX
Deserted Island Top 100

Ry Cooder – Third Base Dodger Stadium
Iris Dement – Let the Mystery Be
Neil Young – Trans
Neil Young – Falling Off the Face of the Earth
Neil Young – Helpless
Buffalo Springfield – Expecting to Fly
The Corrs – Old Town
Emmy Lou Harris & Mark Knopfler – This is Us
Dixie Chicks – Ready to Run
Waylon – Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?
J.S. Bach – The Art of the Fugue
Beach Boys – How She Boogalooed It To Me
Beach Boys – This Whole World (plus at least 40 other hits)
Mendelssohn’s Octet, Opus 21
Brahms – Cello Sonata N° 2
Dylan – Bringing It All Back Home (album)
Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited (album)
Dylan – Blonde on Blonde (album)
Dylan – Basement Tapes
Beatles – Revolver (album)
Beatles – Rubber Soul (album)
Beatles – Strawberry Fields
Rolling Stones – Aftermath (album)
Rolling Stones – I’m Free
Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil
Sir Douglas Quintet – Mendocino (album)
Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch – Good Vibrations
Van Morrison – Astral Weeks
Bob Lind – Elusive Butterfly
Moondog – On the Streets of New York
Borodin – On the Steppes of Central Asia
Samuel Barber – Adagio for Strings
J.J. Cale – Really
Z.Z. Top – Eliminator & Recycler
The Ronettes – Greatest Hits
Alan Hovhannes – The Mysterious Mountain
Miles Davis – Kind of Blue
John Coltrane – Blue Train
Grateful Dead – Europe ^72
Charles Ives – The Unanswered Question
Love – Forever Changes
Love – 7 & 7 Is
George Harrison – My Sweet Lord
The Pogues – Fairytale in New York City
Todd Rundgren – Bang on My Drum
The Burns Unit – Send Them Kids to War
Cyndi Lauper & Sarah MacLachlan – Time After Time
Beethoven – 5th Piano Concerto
Corner Shop – Brimful of Asha
The Hansons – MMM Bop
Green Day – Time of Your Life
Dire Straits – Making Movies (album)
Mark Knopfler – Way Aye Man
Crash Test Dummies – God Shuffled His Feet
US3 – Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)
Mylene Farmer – Disenchantee
Gold – Plus Pres Des Etoiles
Vanessa Paradis – Joe le Taxi
Blondie – Denis
Randy & the Rainbows – Denise
J.S. Bach – Magnificat
Cher – Believe
The Pretenders – Night in my Veins
Marc Cohn – Walking in Memphis
Sade – Smooth Operator
The Buggles – Video Killed the Radio Star
UB40 – Red Red Wine (rap version)
Criss Cross -Between the Moon & New York City
Tom Jones – What’s New Pussycat
Pet Shop Boys -Always on my Mind
Kirsty McColl – Chip Shop
Candy Dulfer – Lily Was Here
Freuer – Doot Doot
Rodriguez – I Wonder
Los Lobos – Down on the Riverbed
Tom Petty – Free Falling
The Cars – Heartbeat City
Chris Rea – Josephine
The Olympics – Big Boy Pete
Junior Walker – I’m a Road Runner
Camille Saint-Saens – Symphonie No.3
Bo Diddley – Bo Diddley
Thelonius Monk – Blue Monk & Rhythm-a-Ning
Ralph Vaughan-Williams – Serenade to Music
Dan Tyminski – Man of Constant Sorrow
Brooks and Dunn – How Long Gone
Lorrie Morgan – Don’t Worry Baby
Roseanne Cash – Seven Year Ache
Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights
Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill (2010)
Four Tops – Same Old Song
Jackie De Shannon – What the World Needs Now
Joan Jett – I Love Rock n’ Roll
Stone the Crows – Love 7
Bob Marley – Stir it Up
Marvin Gaye – Inner City Blues
The Four Deuces – WPLJ
Ray Charles – What’d I Say
Linda Ronstadt – When Will I Be Loved / Willin’
Dion & the Belmonts – I Wonder Why
Katrina Train – Dream on Me
The Gentrys – Keep On Dancin’
Canned Heat – Goin’ Up Country
Fauré – Requiem & Pavane

but of course
since I’ve been living
on this deserted Island
for 70 years
all these songs
plus thousands more
are close to my ears
at all times

most importantly
on this island planet
on which I live
this wonderful ball of earth
floating thru
limitless, empty space
so vast it is beyond
anyone’s comprehension
right by my side is my Bear companion
my guitars
and my Deserted Island Top 100 Books
(in no specific order)

Leslie Marmon Silko – Ceremony
Michael Herr – Dispatches
Kenneth Patchen – Albion Moonlight
Jim Harrison – The Road Home
Jack Kerouac – Desolation Angels
Jack Kerouac – Dharma Bums
Jack Kerouac – Big Sur
Jack Kerouac – On the Road (Scroll Manuscript)
Kurt Vonnegut – Galapagos
Kurt Vonnegut – Breakfast of Champions
Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse Five
Richard Brautigan – So the Wind Won’t Blow it All Away
Richard Brautigan – Trout Fishing in America
Richard Farina – Been Down So Long It Seems Like Up To Me
John Irving – A Widow for a Year
John Irving – Garp
John Irving – Last Night in Twisted River
Charles Bukowski – You Get So Alone at Times It Just Makes Sense
R.D. Blythe translations of Haiku
The White Pony (ed. Robert Payne)
Bob Dylan – Tarantula
Greil Marcus – The Old, Weird America
Lawrence Ferlinghetti – These are my Rivers
Wayland Young – Eros Denied
Christopher Dewdney – Acquainted with the Night
T.S. Eliot – collected poems
e.e. cummings – collected poems
Lewis Carroll – Alice in Wonderland
Joyce Cary – The Horse’s Mouth
Dante – The Divine Comedy
James Joyce – Finnegans Wake
A.A. Milne – Winnie the Pooh & The House at Pooh Corner
Lao Tzu – Tao Te Ching
Walt Whitman – Leaves of Grass
Mervyn Peake – Titus Groan trilogy
J.D. Salinger – Catcher in the Rye
John Steinbeck – Cannery Row
Dylan Thomas – Selected Poems
Alexander Heidel (Trans) – The Epic of Gilgamesh
Henry Miller – The Tropics & Quiet Days in Clichy
Theodora Kroeber – Ishi
Lawrence Durrell – Alexandria Quartet
Joseph Heller – Catch 22
Hunter S. Thompson – Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
Edward Abbey – Desert Solitaire
David Mitchell – Cloud Atlas
Allen Ginsberg – Howl & Other Poems
Douglas Adams – Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Alexie Sherman – Reservation Blues
Jaime De Angulo – Indian Tales + Indians in Overalls
Joseph Boyden – Through the Black Spruce
Roald Dahl – The Twits & The Witches
Leonard Cohen – Beautiful Losers
Leonard Cohen – Book of Longing
Thomas Berger – Neighbors
Ray Bradbury – Dandelion Wine
Lindsay Clarke – The Chymical Wedding
Michael Ventura – Shadow Dancing in the USA
China Miéville – Perdido Street Station
Don De Lillo – Underground
T.C. Boyle – The Tortilla Curtain
John Gardner – Jason and Medea
Vikram Seth – The Golden Gate
Cormac McCarthy – The Border Trilogy
Larry McMurtry – Texasville & Duane’s Depressed
Larry McMurtry – The Berrybender Narratives
John O’Brien – Leaving Las Vegas
Philip Pullman – His Dark Materials
Sam Shepard – Motel Chronicles
Sam Shepard – Cruising Paradise
Dan Simmons – Drood
Ernest Hemingway – A Moveable Feast
Nick Hornby – Juliet, Naked
W.P. Kinsella – Box Socials
William Kotzwinkle – The Fan Man
James Michener – The Drifters
P.J.Petersen – The Boll Weevil Express
Carson McCullers – The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Chaucer – The Canterbury Tales
Thomas Pynchon – Gravity’s Rainbow
Thomas Pynchon – Vineland
Thomas Pynchon – Inherent Vice
Philip Jose Farmer – The Riverworld Series
Tom Robbins – Another Roadside Attraction / Even Cowgirls Get the Blues / Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas
Philip Roth – The Plot Against America
Homer – The Odyssey
Stieg Larsson – The Millennium Trilogy
Zeese Papanikolas – Trickster in the Land of Dreams
C.J. Jung – Memories, Dreams, and Reflections
Gregory Bateson – Steps to an Ecology of Mind
Gregory Bateson – Mind and Nature
James Lee Burke – The Lost Get-Back Boogie
Michael Dibdin – The Aurelio Zen Series
Bill Bryson – A Short History of Almost Everything
Irving Wallace – The Fan Cub
Lawrence Block – The Burglar Series
Stephen King – Under the Dome
Omar Khayyam – The Rubaiyat
The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Norton Anthology of Poetry
Richard Wilhelm and Cary F. Baynes – I Ching

(plus dozens more)

Jeanette Winterson – Art Objects
Connie Willis – To Say Nothing of the Dog
Maurice Sendak – Where the Wild Things Are
William Boyd – Nat Tate
Samuel L. Delany -Dahlgren
Gurney Norman -Divine Right’s Trip
Basho – The Narrow Road to the North
Marisha Pessl – Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Richard Henry Dana – Two Years Before the Mast
etc . . . etc . . . etc . . .

and don’t forget about the BEAR
who is much more precious to me
than all the songs and books
in the world

Rome – Faenza poems

Poems 2012  |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

for Phil Hoffman

SONG & DANCE

I write songs
sometimes I record them
and send them out
into the world

they’re out there
on their own
and I will never know
the places they go
and the way they mix
into people’s lives

people I will never know
might listen to one
while eating breakfast
or while driving to work
or while making love
(I was amused to hear
that one couple liked to play
LOVE IS A RED RUBBER BALL
while they did the mating dance

these are things
I’d like to know about:
where do my songs go?
and what do they do
when they get there?

let’s imagine a scene
let’s make up a song
let’s call it
LOVE IS A BLUE BALLOON

the first verse tells the story
of a barefoot boy
hopping around in a forest
he bounces off
a fallen tree
and suddenly his feet & ankles
are covered with burning
stabbing pains

he doesn’t know it
but the rotten log
he bounced off
is home to a nest of wasps

the boy doesn’t know
what’s going on
he only knows that his feet
& ankles are hurting like hell
with pinpoints of pain

maybe it’s something he ate?
maybe it’s coming from inside
his skin
he shouts (this is the chorus):

WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH ME?
WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH ME?
WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH ME?
WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH ME?

it’s a whimsical song
and we’ll put it near the end
of the running order
on the album
as a sort of comic relief

WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH ME?
WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH ME?
WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH ME?
WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH ME?

then LOVE IS A BLUE BALLOON
goes out into the world
it goes to places
I can never imagine
it shares secrets with people
I will never meet
it’s heard by people
whose names I will never know
faces I will never see

a girl named Laura Watson
likes my song
she downloads it on her iPod
she’s plugged into it
when she takes her seat
on a jet liner
that will take her
from Brussels to Rome

halfway
(over the alps)
the plane’s engines fail
both wings fall off
and the plane plunges
towards the mountains
the plane spins
Laura is tossed around
like an old rag
in a washing machine

my song is still plugged
into her ears
and I’m shouting:
WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH ME?
WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH ME?
WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH ME?
WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH ME?
as Laura does a rag doll dance

as the plane is about to crash
there is only one question
in Laura’s mind
and she’s screaming it

WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH ME?
WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH ME?
WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH ME?
WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH ME?

see what I mean?
that could really happen
think too much about it
and I’d have to hang up
my guitar and take up
whistling in the dark
when nobody’s around

Alitalia flight AZ159
Brussels to Rome
September 27, 2012

BELLS OF ROME

S.Maria in Trastevere
she’s a solo banger
with dirt under her fingernails

they say there are 365
churches in Rome
and they’ve all got bells

I’ll leave it up to you
to imagine what the other 364
sound like

start with the image
of rusted buckets
and work inward from there

Rome, September 27, 2012

SOUNDS OF ROME (NOISES AND VOICES)

1.
it’s a noisy city
but its noise
is unobtrusive
unapologetic
anything but a hypocritical
noise

2.
the jovial shouts
from a rooftop cabana
at one a.m.
over on Via Matonato
no problem
you can hear how much
they enjoy being together
and, man, they ain’t watching TV
“Oh baby I’m having
a good time tonight!”

3.
the hearty, deep-chested
smoke-throated bellows
of the old woman
on the street below
– Via Panieri –
as she goes about her business
parking cars
in her vast garage
and watering
the bucket-potted plants
and olive trees
at the Madonna shrine
down on the corner

September 27, 2012

SNAPSHOTS OF ROME

1.
a forest of TV antennas
cover the rooftops
of Trastevere
been there since 1952
rain and shine
you should see the TV sets

2.
an old Rimsky-Korsokovian
in the alley whistling
“flight of the bumblebee”
as darkness settles
over the city
and the street lights come on

3.
a drunk English tourist
outside a bar
in Piazza S. Egidio
“Don’t get your tightwads
in a twist.”

4.
“non riesci a domenticarla’
says the sad man
into his cellphone
as he trudges past us
(no more than a shadow)
in the narrow Trastevere street

5.
worker in the doorway
of a bar e tabacchi
talking on a cellphone
gesturing elaborately
as he speaks
then he stops and listens
while the guy on the other end
makes his elaborate gestures

Roma – September 28, 2012

LADRO DI SOGNI

Lou Reed’s
“Walk on the Wild Side”
plays from a cheezy boom box
in the middle of the piazza
of S. Maria in Trastevere
and the Ladro di Sogni
scoops up soap water
from a bucket
and sweeps his butterfly net
across the sky

enormous bubbles
bulge out
and float away
while small children
leap in the air
and fail to touch them

Roma, September 27, 2012

STRONZA DI TORO

I like the way
the Romans try to figure out
what extraneous language
a stranger might be speaking

toss in an English word
bend the accent
could it be French?

“Sono Io – Pasquino.”
“Bool sheet.”

Roma, September 27, 2012

A TIME-TRIPPING DIOGENES

a location maniac
from a parallel world
flashlight in one hand
map in the other
darts out in front of us
in a dark alley
in Trastevere

I say to him,
“This ain’t the 23rd
Century, buster
– if you look closely
you’ll see you’ve landed
in Rome – 3rd Century BC.”

he nods his head
and darts on
boy, is he lost

Roma, September 27, 2012

BASIC ITALIAN – LESSON ONE

farmacia

I ask the girl
for some eye drops
and she hands me
a cold potato

eyes : gli ochi
potato : gnocci

Roma – September 28, 2012

ETERNAL CITY SUMMER

Rome is such
a wonderful place
that even the cold water
comes out slightly warm

Roma – September 28, 2012

BLINDED BY BEAUTY

strolling along the Gianicolo
feeling the day
turn to night
filled with wonder
as the lights below
flicker on
like stars in the sky

she says,
“How can we experience this
without exploding?”

she turns
and looks at me
and I explode

Roma – September 28, 2012

PROFOUND CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

crossing against a red light
she says, “Good thing
we’re not in Germany.”

we’re not
we’re in Italy
and Italy is the opposite
of Germany

Roma – September 29, 2012

GREGORY CORSO
(1930 – 2001)

his ashes are buried
at the foot of Shelly’s grave
(or so I’ve heard
– secretly buried by friends)
in the Old Protestant
Cemetery in Rome
(who broke into the graveyard at night
dug out a small hole
at the foot of Shelly’s plot
and planted his ashes)

I celebrate his life
with a fistful
of cooked spinachi
(I dig out a small hole
and plant it
where his ashes should be)

Gregory likes it
but now he’s thirsty

so I give him a drink
of Coca Cola
a shot for him
a sip for me

he likes that too
but he still seems
to be thirsty

so I pour out
a bottle of Birra Pironi

he likes it a lot
‘Grazie.”

the beer boils up
in a big bubble

“Ciao, Gregory
I didn’t know you
and now I love you.”

Roma – September 29, 2012

PYRAMID GAZING

sitting on a lawn
under a cypress tree
gazing at the pyramid
and eating grapes

it’s not a very big
pyramid

two grapes

Rome – September 29, 2012

MENELAUS OF THE GRAVEYARD

he comes around
and catches me sitting
leaning up against
a burial slab with my shoes
and socks off, feet soaking
up the energy of the grass

I just gobbled a couple
of grapes and spit out
the seeds

no grape-eating here
(he says)
no barefeet
no laughter aloud
allowed
this is not Mexico

good thing he didn’t catch me
naked, belly down
on the slab
trying to fuck
the faded epitaph

Rome – September 29, 2012

OOOPS

on the way out
of the Old Presbyterian Cemetery
I stop at the Visitor’s Center
and speak with Menelaus

“Gregory Corso!” I say
in my complete mischievous
Italian accent

“Si,” he replies
“Mi seguite.”

surprised
I follow him up the hill
to Shelley’s grave
and I say to myself
he’s going to point
to the small scratch of earth
at the foot of Shelly’s tomb
where I poured
the coke and beer
and say, “His ashes
are secretly down there.”

but no
we stop short of Shelly
and there on the row below
is the marble plaque
that marks Gregory’s
earthly remains
beautiful white marble
with Trajan carved letters

GREGORY CORSO
poeta
26· 3· 1930 – 17· 1· 2001
spirit
is life
it flows thru
the death of me
endlessly
like a river
unafraid
of becoming
the sea

“Sorry, old man,” I say to Shelly
“You’re gonna have to share
some of that spinach
and coke with this guy
down here.”

and Gregory whispers up
from the marble
“‘Tis cool, man
the beer done soaked down
and I’m already loaded.”

Rome – September 29, 2012

MOUTH & MOUSTACHE FLIES

the mouth & moustache flies
are everywhere
mostly in my mouth
and moustache
where they’re feasting
on the stiff hairs soaked
with dried apricot juice

they’re everywhere
mostly in the mouths of dogs
and the moustaches of milk
on babies’ faces

they’re everywhere
in front, in back
above and below

they’re in the mouths of tourists
at Trastevere sidewalk trattorias
as they clamp their teeth
into roasted chicken legs
and fried spuds

they’re in the moustaches
of beggars
in the piazza
as they shake their money baskets
and try to sound
like old women

Rome – September 29, 2012

BASIC ITALIAN: LESSON TWO

how to get around with ease
on the Roman public
transport system

for example:
how to get from Piazza Trilussa
to Piazza Cavour
– take a taxi

taxi : taxi

Rome – September 29, 2012

PARALLEL PEE BEE

despite yesterday’s ooops
my thoughts return
to Shelly’s belly
a poet whose work
I have never enjoyed
And probably never will
and now I know why

and it’s not his fault

at the moment of his death
he muttered a single word:
“Mystery’

but what his disciples heard
was “Misery”

and thus he became
the ultra-romantic poet
whose every written word
would be misunderstood,
distorted and warped
into sentimental rubbish

he slipped thru a gap
in the door
and disappeared
into a parallel world
where his new crowd
of disciples
share his wit and wisdom

“Mystery,” he says
and they all clap their hands
and scream with laughter

“Misery!” he shouts
and they all die laughing

Rome – September 30, 2012

MENELAUS REVISITED

woke up thinking
about Menelaus too
and what a despicable
degenerate boor
I must have seemed to him

lying on a gravestone
eating grapes, spitting
seeds, barefoot
and laughing at the sun

I trudge down
a familiar path of regrets
– the path marked by signs
which say
fool
turd brain
bumpkin
mugwump

until I realize
that this morning Menelaus
woke up with a few regrets
of his own
“What a fine lad he was
a lover of life, a chap
who looked death in face
and smiled at the sun
– man, was I ever stupid
what an uptight armpit I was
to deprive him of his joy
boy, I wish I could go back
in time and do that foolish
moment of my life over again
I would laugh with him
and slap him on the back
and congratulate him
for his wit and wisdom
man, I sure fucked up

Rome – September 30, 2012

THE BEAR COOKBOOK
observation 1

cooking without pepper
is like walking around
without underwear

Rome – September 30, 2012

MASS ROMAN HANGOVER

last night
(hot night, summer night)
thousands upon thousands
of Roman youth
(more than I could count
in a night)
hanging out in Trastevere
lounging on the fountain steps
of Trilucca like seals
on the rocks
lifting their heads
from time to time
to go “ARF!”
to go “ARF!”

packed into the streets
shifting around
in tight places
like penguins on the beach
lifting their beaks
from time to time
to let out a puff
of cigarette smoke
and go “SQUAWK!”
pounding, rabbling
rousting, rumbling
toking, junking
ARFING and SQUAWKING

now on Sunday
Trastevere is quiet
even occasional passing cars
have velvet gloves on their feet

as for the youth
they’re exhausted at home
staring at the floor
lifting their heads
from time to time
to murmur “arf”
at the ceiling

Rome – September 30, 2012

WEATHER REPORT FROM AN OPEN WINDOW
ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON

for Bear (especially)

many raindrops
most of them wet
no birds
a few distant voices
a flash of lightning
across the southern sky
no thunder
a clang of bells
a wisp of steam
from an open window

thunder

Rome – September 30, 2012

TOURISTS A LA CARTE

“let’s wait,” she says
“we don’t want to follow
that crowd of tourists.”
but if we look at
the situation closely
or from far away
in time
or in distance
by a minute
by a year
by ten feet
or by ten miles
we’ve always been following
a crowd of tourists

S. Marie in Trastevere
– September 30, 2012

MAXIMUM ALTITUDE IN THE SHORTEST DISTANCE FROM THE STREET TO OUR SECOND-FLOOR APARTMENT ON VIA PANIERI

the risers on the first flight of stairs
are so high
you can’t help remembering
what it was like as an 8-year old
to climb normal steps

second flight varies
from age 4 to age 10

Rome – September 30, 2012

ROMA – JUNE 4, 1943

I peel off my sweat-soaked
t-shirt
and the cool breeze
from the open window
goosebumps my back

the rain stops
the full moon comes out
floats thru the clouds
and the German army
retreats from Rome

Rome – September 30, 2012

SUB PLUGGED

I thought the ticking of the clock
was loud
until the dog started barking

in go the ear plugs
and out comes nothing

now my vacuum-packed brain
is anxious that it won’t hear
a thief in the night
prowling around the room
with his arms loaded
with stolen violins

Rome – September 30, 2012

BASIC ITALIAN – LESSON THREE

alla teatro

“Please show me the way
to the heart of the 4-act play
by Aligore Scheisstakovich.”

‘Si, fratello mio
andiamo subito
a Testaccio
dove Il Giocondo
della Catensione Sacra
stands on his head
and walks around
on protruding eyeballs.”

Rome – September 30, 2012

CLOCK CLICKS

the clock clicks
towards midnight
and the 1st of October

and I lay down the burden
of summer heatwaves
into the fallen leaves
of a falling season

I still have one or two
hot streaks to carry
into Indian Summer
but for the most part
my shoulders are free

they can take the weight
of a cold moonbeam or two
should the need arise

Rome – September 30, 2012

“ONE AFTERNOON OF RAIN IN ROME
I DECIDED TO SURRENDER”

reading L. Cohen
I see my words fuse with his
then refuse to re-fuse
then pull apart leaving
fragments of myself behind
fragments of his printed page
stuck in the cage of my ribs
the gnarled stick of my spine

this is how it goes
down in Love Letter Land
a pinch of prose
a metaphorgotten
phrase of praise
a spoof of underlined
furlined rhyme
and poof!
you disappear
into a puff
of blue baby buttock powder
into other rib cages
and spinal tangles

our fate is anonymity

BEWARE THE FELONIUS MONK

there are viruses
in L. Cohen’s words
getting mixed with mine
breeding, mutating
we’re both lost
momentarily
the lines pop out of context
and mark the worst
of our rehearsals
in the Valley of No Hope
beyond the Vast Sandy Mounds
of Trembling Things

and so we back off
into our unmuted mutual
hermetic solo silences
L. Cohen said
what he wanted to say
I said what I wanted to say
and my readers, confused
for a few moments, are now
happy and lost again
in the flow of my points
of perspective

“Avoid that little L. Cohen
at all costs,” they tell me
“When you were up there
fighting fist to fist
we didn’t understand a word
you were saying
Fitzgerald and Faulkner did it
and the results were not pretty
Hemingway and Heller really
got into the virus crossroads
and nearly lost their minds”

“Please stay away from L. Cohen”
they tell me
“He will lead you astray
and ruin your appetite.”

Rome – October 1, 2012

FLATULATORS & PEDOPHILES

she told me about it later
a perverted priest
farting around after her
inside S. Maria in Trastevere

he got her outside the shrine
of the Virgin Mary
snuck up behind her
a ripped off a cloud
of poison gas that blew a hole
in the seat of his priestly robe

then he got her
in front of the main altar
blasted off a real
old testamental ass-ripper

she moved away
and he followed
he still had plenty
of gas bubbles in his guts

I don’t like men farting
after my woman
I don’t draw a line
between the holy and unholy
when they start farting
after my woman
I feel like wrecking rectums

is that crystal clear?

Rome – October 1, 2012

THE ETRUSCAN GIRL

the menu last night
said “Polenta con salcicce”
that’s what I wanted
Polenta con salcicce
I told the girl
she said, “Polenta non c’è.”
and that set me off
“Polenta non c’è?
Polenta non c’è?
Polenta non c’è più?”
expecting her to pick up
and say “Oh yes,
– the great Bertolucci Film.”

but instead she gave me
a blank look
“Nove Cento,” I said
naming the film (1900)
but she looked at me
like I was a pin head
from Todd Browning’s Freaks

not at all like the girl
at the sidewalk tratorria
on Medaglio D’Oro
the night before

she knew everything
she said she was 20
but she couldn’t fool me

she was Etruscan
she was 3000 years old

Rome – October 1, 2012

BEFORE & AFTER

nothing like getting bombed
on beer on Via Vite
in the heart of Rome’s elite
streets
the snuffy posh chicks
strutting by with a beauty
that only a lot of money
can buy

followed moments later
by the older generations
dusty moth faces
hiding their wrinkles
holding on to a dear life
that no amount of money
can save

don’t ask me why
I don’t feel empathy
for these snuff turkey buzzard hens
plumage faded
eyes in the slits in their masks
turned to stone

they’ve had their day
under the sun lamp

Rome – October 1, 2012

COSMETIC CHOICES

when you get old
and have a grey shaggy beard
and glasses
you have two choices
you can either look like
Derroll Adams
or Jerry Garcia
(unless you have white hair
a trimmed beard
and no glasses
in which case you’re E. Hemingway)

that’s for the men
as for the women
you don’t have any choices at all
you have to close your eyes
and pretend you’re Stella Artois

along the Tevere
Rome – October 1, 2012

PSYCHEDELIC VOICES

Beedle-dee Dumdum
goes the ambulance

Chicken Fat! Chicken Fat!
goes the slabshack of seagulls

Tap! Tap!
goes the hammer against
the wall of pinkish floyd marble

Roll! Roll!
goes the bell stones
of S. Maria in Trastevere

Sing! Sing!
go the cello strings
of Eliza Krastanowitch
as she dreams of the untuned strings
of Eric the Simply Red

Who! Who!
go the pigeons
standing on Bruno’s head
in Campo di Fiori
while pretending to be Byrds

Squid! Squid!
go the invisible fish
of the Trilussa fountain
where on hot summer Saturday nights
the Proculs gather to celebrate
with their Harems

Blue Blue Blue
go the first storni
of the season as they
flap and float against
loving spoonfuls of sky

Drinnnng & Thump Thump
& Toot Cute & Wheedle & Wheeze
go the cellphones
all over the city
behind locked doors of perception

Slurp! Slurp!
go the terrible infants
of the Spanish Steps
as they devour
Leonard Ice Cream Cohens

Clack! Clack!
go the wooden plates
in the arms of a black
boy hustler of African carvings
made from Bleached Boy surfboards

Putter! Pow! Pack!
go the motor scooters
by the dozens along
the rough surface of Corso Vitt
on their way to Bop Dipland

Slick! Slick!
go the hot tuna sandwiches
of Via Guibinara
as they slide down
my Jefferson Hairplane throat

Beepo! & Burpo!
go the cars
road-raging down Via Garbaldi
like Buffalo in Fields of Spring

Splash & Splash
go the fountains of Piazza Navona
like a flood of blood
spears of sweat
and smears of tears

“Mute”
goes Pasquino

“Dead Head”
go the human eyes
of ungrateful tourists

Rome – October 1, 2012

THE BEAR COOKBOOK
observation 2

serving noodles
in an aluminum dog dish
is like asking a lady bug
to dance with a bowling ball

Rome – October 1, 2012

VECCI’UOMO

old man on a broken wooden chair
where there used to be a bench
(last time two years ago)
same old dog
with white curly fur

I say “Giorno.”

and his face lights up
and he babbles on
and on about the bench
(I think)
in his toothless Roman dialect
until I say, “Tanti auguri”
and he shakes my hand
and I leave

I didn’t understand a word
but it was a great conversation

Rome – October 2, 2012

ODYSSEUS AMONG THE PRAETORIAN GUARDS

standing in Piazza s. Egidio
waiting for the Bear
a solider-cop comes over
and tells me to move along
no loitering on this spot

not enough Italian
to understand his reply
to my “Perchè?”

I’d like to believe
it’s because
I look like a desperado
a reckless outlaw
with a moustache drooping
down to my knees
or maybe a real
bedless bum

but it’s probably
because I remind him
of Homer Simpson’s version
of Odysseus

Rome – October 2, 2012

NO SHIT OFF MY BACK

I offer her
the socks off my feet
and she says
“no no no no – no-no-no.”

she likes to be ankle-bitten
by the baby beasts of Rome

Rome – October 1, 2012

NO URINALS IN ROME

none in Trastevere
on the streets
or in the bars

none by the fountains
or near the statues
of naked men
who have been taking
24-hour leaks
since antiquity

none on Via Corso
none in Piazza del Popolo
none at Stazione Termini

and now we’re headed to Firenze
to see if they have
any public piss pots there

train Rome to Firenze
October 3, 2012

DIZZY GILLESPIE IN FIRENZE

Dizzy Gillespie on stage
circa 1958
scatting his bop classic
“Salt Peanuts! Salt Peanuts!”

T. Zimmerman in Rome
circa October 2, 2012
“Sal-cicce! Sal-cicce!”

two teenage girls scampering
out of a men’s room in Firenze
circa October 4, 2012
giggling and singing
“Saw Penis! Saw Penis!”

Firenze, October 3, 2012

ON SHARING A SEAT WITH AN OLD MAN
WHO THINKS HE NEEDS ALL THE ARM SPACE
TO MAKE HIM FEEL IMPORTANT

I am big
(I am actually very small)

I am VERY big
my shoulders occupy
all the space available
there is none to spare
my arms fill all possible
elbow locations
(I am actually very VERY small)

so don’t mess around with me, Jack
my mere shadow has made
lesser men tremble
and leave major portions
of themselves behind

one glance from my eyes
a single frown from my brow
and you will know
I AM HUGE
I AM GIGANTIC
my muscles
are of monstrous proportions

I am actually quite humble
and generous
when you get to know me better
you can call me Mosquito

train Firenze to Faenza
October 3, 2012

FAENZA TRAIN STATION

there may (or may not) be
public pisspots in Faenza

that is yet to be determined
but there’s plenty of other stuff:
flies
magazines
maps
train schedules
rumors of buses headed elsewhere

after a very brief sojourn
it has been determined:
no pots in Faenza train station
but white marble walls
that would have Mighty Mike Angelo
pissing in his pantaloons

Faenza, October 4, 2012

LOCANDA PARADISO

here we have the usual comforts

a vine-covered patio
a wood blade fan
spinning over the bed
at three different speeds
and a huge wardrobe
with a door that swings open
on a rusted hinge
because an old man
of skin and bones
is trapped in there
and wants to get out

further comforts
and pleasures
to follow (I am sure)

Faenza, October 3, 2012

footnote:
it’s not a rusted hinge
it’s the old man
moaning

FAENZA TRATTORIA

put a little vino
in these Italian bellies
and they sing
like barbaric canaries

Faenza, October 3, 2012

THE BEAR COOKBOOK
observation 3

to whip up a mess
of mashed potatoes
you don’t have to go to Mexico

Faenza, October 3, 2012

THE BEAR COOKBOOK
observation 4

never take a multi-purpose
vitamin pill after supper
or you will spend the night
sweating like a mule in heat

Faenza, October 3, 2012

THE BEAR COOKBOOK
observation 5

if you eat unshelled peanuts
when you have no teeth
you risk turning into
a molecule of yogurt

Faenza, October 3, 2012

THE BEAR COOKBOOK
observation 6

if you fast all day
and start burping
you’re digesting a meal
you haven’t eaten yet

Faenza, October 3, 2012

THE NEW ITALIAN LEXICON

farmagusta
a war dance

lobosquato
a fat man

lobasquata
a fat woman

lobasquatino
a fat child

sportovicolobo
a person who pretends he or she is riding a bicycle while eating a pickle

ecostradavarico
a biocycle

lungopicarlo
lung of pickle

gregory speck
ham-on-the-pope

i bubonice
the nice fleas (a classic rock group noted for their song “Life is a Green, Green Bubble Machine”

rambo partire
to ramble

mambobastere
to flop on your back whenever you hear the word “bastard”

“mambobasteriamo”
“Let’s flop on our backs . . . ”

zingaró
(slang) describes a man whose teeth dissolve every time he hears Bing Crosby crooning “The Man I Love” to Ella Fitzgerald while Rock “Rocky” Hudson looks on and smiles

gli sbigli
the particular parts of the universe that make you look bad

snack
everywhere else

piaceremotabolo-coco
a place in a wall where there should be a window but isn’t

esquivosubitaliano
(from the Spanish) a poke in the ribs while a crowd of people who are sensitive to that sort of thing look on and jump up and down

hopohopohapahapa
(from the Navajo) laughter

gustonobolo
a peace drobe that comes from an invisible place

gustonibli
a Greek warrior in search of an Egyptian slave girl to share an apartment in ancient downtown Rome (circa 250-150 BC) now out of use except in special circumstances that have to do with men in bow ties

ch’enturkaij –
(from a Turkish dialect whose linguistic roots have been buried in a petrified forest) an egg timer used by experts who are training eggs to run in the Kenturkey Fried Chicken Derby

arabiasta
a common swear word

succa ma prego
another swear word not so common but it will be someday soon

fatawaggio!
a curse adopted from the Arabic (and the only word in the Italian language, outside of proper names, to contain the letter W)

psykotattoo!
a curse against werewolves when ordinary swear words don’t work

virulenza
a violent disruption in the fabric of werewolf society when one is shot by a silver arrow from an archer wielding an elastic bow tie

bo-tea
camomile-flavored honey water

homophobo
this word has two distinct meanings depending on what area of Italy you are visiting): in Naples (Napoli) it is the name given to a used kidney kidnapper; in Venice (Venezia) it denotes a man who having his shoulders rubbed, his back stroked and his ass patted by another man, turns on the fag and chops off his hand with a machete. If the fag’s fingers are still clutched in the homophobo’s back pocket, this man is known as a hemosanguino

pescatoni
literally “Peach Tony” or “Peach Anthony”) a man with a fair complexion, an agreeable attitude and a taste for the finer things in life. Pescatoni.

brunccio magalo
(after the 17th Century explorer, Brunccio Magalo who discovered an island in the Pacific inhabited by blue skin frogmen who could speak and write poetry but which since has never been re-discovered) a person who can never find what he is looking for

nostrilostruffato
(literally: “stuffed nostril”) used to describe a person who acts like a fool, a jerk, an asswipe, a turd brain or a mugwump; also a snob, a dork, a twerp, or a tonsil-infected bottom feeder; popular in the saying: “Give a me a nostrilostruffato and a rubber 5-dollar bill and I’ll have you laughing your butts off all night long.”

pastalini
a kind of western movie shot on spaghetti

bassomania
a country in the lower regions of Italy where the people don’t know how to pronounce their own names but get by just fine with their telepathic powers that reach not only the brains of other humans but the souls of birds, dogs, cats and horses too

uno Leonardo Da Vinci
a grumpy old man who thinks that an artist must spend his entire life painting pictures and avoiding the companionship of women because it would cut his creativity in half. Also refers to a woman who doesn’t like to be reminded of love and will start foaming at the mouth everytime she sees a macho man in a bull mask walk by

il Suppo da Christo da Sisto
nickname for the painting by Leopardo da Vino more formally known as “The Last Pizza”

ciao!
(pronounced “Chow”) used in daily conversations when you come to a word you can’t pronounce (also the only other word in Italian with a W in it)

FAENZA BIKE POEM

it’s a bicycle town
and we’ve got ours
a pair of baby blue toys
with LOCANDA PARADISO
printed in white letters
on the mainframe bar
half flat tires
one gear
next to no brakes at all
and a basket in front
in case we want
to gather berries
on our way
to grandma’s house
in the woods

but we’re only going downtown
where our blue bikes
stand out like neon signs
where riders of cool black bikes
say, “Ah – you’re the ones
renting the room
at the Locanda Paradiso
– and how’s the old man
of skin and bones?
is he still in the wardrobe?
or have you let him escape?”

others riding by
just laugh
“Here comes Locanda Paradiso.”

and yet others
are more familiar
“Hey, Locanda Paradiso
– I see you’re going
to the Galleria>”

it’s a small town

Faenza, October 4, 2012

STRANGERS IN FAENZA

thinking Phil is still back
in the Galleria
I push my bike ahead
and pass a man looking at a map
I ease over next to him
and he says, “Where are we?”
I point to his map and say, “Right here
– Piazza Del Popolo
and that over there is Corso Mazzini.”

the stranger says, “Oh yeah.”

I walk on
lift my bike down into the piazza
look over
the stranger’s still there
looking at his map

my brain flips over

it’s Phil

I tell him about my brain flip
and he says, “Better get used to it
– we’re gonna be doing a lot of that
in the future.”

Faenza, October 4, 2012

MORE STRANGE PHIL

drinking beer
in the trattoria
I stare into his face
and he turns into
Gene Hackman

I know we haven’t
seen each other
for six years
but this is ridiculous

Faenza, October 4, 2012

I RAGAZZI DI FAENZA

yes it’s a bicycle town
so all the wild young boys
have bikes
they terrorize the elders
with reckless races
and sharp corners
sliding and dreaming
that their bikes
are weapons of mass destruction

Faenza, October 4, 2012

LOW FASHION

walking the streets of Rome
and now Faenza
I notice many young maidens
are wearing thin jerseys
with wide gaping necks
one side slung low
down one arm or the other
to expose their bare skin
of neck and shoulder
to the rays of the sun
and the gaze of savage boys

this disturbs me
because these flopsie daisies
lack symmetry
in a world where our psyches
are profoundly out of balance
they seem to be flaunting
their tipped scales
gleefully, voluntarily
self-destructing

so what’s next?

high heel shoes
with one heel broken off?
single ear-rings?
one shaved eyebrow?
the revival of one cheek
a-bulge with chewing tobacco?
black eye patches?
monocles?

hell, I should know
I’ve been walking around
with a limp for ten years
and lately the finger of fate
has been pointing out
that I have started to part my hair
on the right
and my left eye
is slowly disappearing

Faenza, October 4, 2012

YET ANOTHER STRANGE PHIL

sitting in the art gallery
waiting for Phil to arrive
man walks in wearing
a suit and tie
Bear says; “There’s Phil.”
I say; “No way – that’s
an art critic
from the local paper.”

she goes over and speaks
to the critic
grabs his arm
and brings him back

he approaches smiling
slowly coming into focus
the suit disappears
no tie

it’s Phil
– again

this blurred vision
is going to turn me
into a stranger

Faenza, October 4, 2012

HOME ABOUT

Bologna from a bus window
½-hour ride from train station
to airport
your eyes take in
what they give you

nothing to write home about

a thug with a knife scar
down one side of his face

dozens of people
all with phones
pressed to their ears
and only vague visions
of an unfocused future
in their eyes

a dog on a leash
a woman who should be

like I said (or didn’t say)
nothing to write home about

Bologna, October 5, 2012

BEAR IN THE COPENHAGEN AIRPORT

she likes the Viking attitudes
of the women in the WC

Copenhagen, October 5, 2012

DOG IN A BAG

dog in a bag
on SAS flight 1593

dog in a bag
on the floor
under the feet
of the man sitting
next to me

dog in a bag
at 36,000 feet

dog peeks out of the bag
at me

who is this man
with a dog?
this man who makes a dog
fly around in a bag?

he’s a notorious underworld
hitman and the dog
is his weapon of choice

Copenhagen-Brussels, October 5, 2012

A THOUSAND MILES AND MEMORIES LATER

the day began in a bed
in a locanda in Faenza
followed by a ride in a taxi
two jet planes, three trains
and a private car

now I’m back in my own bed
no bells ringing out the window
no cars rumbling up and down the street
just the ticking of the same clock
that ticked me to sleep in Rome
and a head packed full of movie images

– a movie about a hitman on an airplane
with a dog in a bag
Viking women in an airport WC
leaping around and plotting
a barbaric invasion
of the American Empire
and Gregory Corso rising from his ashes
with a mouthful of spinach
whispering,”‘Tis cool, man.”

– a movie directed by Phil Hoffman
who keeps disappearing
into the gap of a corner mirror
and reminding me I’m no better
than the next nostrilostuffato

Stockay / St. Georges, October 5, 2012

A STRANGE GIFT

Phil brought a cold
to Faenza
the next day
I took it away with my nose

as we have seen
Phil is a strange
shape-shifting creature

this time
he became microscopic
and got inside me

now at home
everytime I sneeze
sniffle
blow my nose
or cough
I think of Phil
and the wonderful 12 hours
we spent together
in Faenza

October 6, 2012

The idiot’s frightful laughter

2012  |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

et le printemps m’a apporté l’affreux rire de l’idiot
and spring brought me the idiot’s frightful laughter
from A Season in Hell, translated by Louise Varèse

The lost poems of Arthur Rimbaud, written in the final weeks of his life, first discovered and translated by Charles Campbell, Ph.D, professor of French Literature, University of California, Berkeley, visiting scholar at the Institute of French Literature, Charleville-Meziers, France in 1927.

INTRODUCTION

It is a widely accepted fact that Arthur Rimbaud, born October 20, 1854 – died November 10, 1891 stopped writing at the age of 21, never to compose another line. A curious series of discoveries reveals that this most impressive ‘fact” about the precocious poet and his work is not true.

A collection of the poet’s true last works was first discovered by Professor Charles Campbell in 1927 in the garret of a house in Charleville-Mezier, Rimbaud’s place of birth and where he lived the first 18 years of his life. These poems were buried in the depths of a dust-covered steamer trunk believed to contain postcards and other trivia, gathered over the years by members of the family on their travels about the world. Dr. Campbell immediately set about translating these poems into English in preparation of a bi-lingual edition of the poet’s complete work. Evidently Campbell’s work was halted and suspended by private concerns that took him away from France in 1929 after which time he died of an unspecified disease in the jungles of the Amazon in 1932. His work lay untouched for ten years and then suffered a fatal blow. During the bombing of Charelville-Mezier in 1944 the original manuscript of the poems, in Rimbaud’s handwriting, was destroyed. Only the English-American translations of his work by Dr. Campbell survived the bombing. In the care of a concierge and his descendants, the collection of poems, known as “The Idiot’s Frightful Laughter” slept a dreamless sleep for another 70 years. Now, thanks to the unflagging efforts of my editors at the U.C Berkeley Press, and the generous support from the Rimbaud Foundation of Essalen, we are able to finally bring Campbell’s translations of these poems into public light, believing that they must take their place among Rimbaud’s earlier immortal works.
Dr. Buckley Trane-Carpenter
professor of French Literature,
University of California, Santa Cruz, 2008

  

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL

you who have never let your eyesight droop
beyond the light of the lost cities, the Mesopotamias
of the soul, the Londons of the drab Drury Lanes
the cobblestoned streets of an Empirical Rome
the pavements of a Hypothetical Paris
I laugh in your face
the streets I have walked in pain and agony
rise up and mock you

at the age of 6 I returned from the dead
who can dispute that (least of all myself)
vibrating upon wires of nerves
that covered my body like a fisherman’s net
of the deepest seas, electrified
by lightning strikes into cups of iron skull caps

I walked out into the gloom of gloaming
never to return to sunlight
until the age of 18
when I ripped open the flaps of my oxenhide tent
with fingernails sharpened on blackboards

until then fleeting shadows were my shelter and refuge
in corners of alley darkness I hid
never revealing my face
to the hums of the drummers
who paraded endlessly
upon strutting rooster legs
down cross-avenues of trampled flowers

I was a child of obscurity
suckled on the milk of the sacrificial lamb
I grew to enormous proportions
of mental maturity and infallible wisdom

I peeked out from the trash bins
and saw flooded waves of humans
tumbling along boulevards
spilling down stone steps
crushing crowds of loud groan
and sullen complaint
doom-laden they wailed and woofed
and I loomed from my hiding places
and walked invisible
among the human throng

  

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL

when I gazed upon the water again
none of the boats were drunken
they stood at attention, their sails
pointed at clouds, the sea slapped
their sides as they bobbed up and down
like a pack of trained seals
I fed upon fish
I fed upon weeds
I fed upon you

Now I smoke the weeds of western twilights
and the sunrises of the Cimmerian east
I see there is not much of this world
left to plunder
I have taken the gold, the arms, the slaves
I have prayed over their bullet-riddled bodies
not for the cozy comforts of utopian subtraction
and the division of lives into bird cages
lions’ dens, sheep folds and dog houses
not to join the generation gangs
flocking to sidewalk cafes and bistros
to flog their egos of foot-worn carpets
against the bare thighs of kicking can-can ladies
but to possess the corpse of the devil himself
to play with his eyelids, tweak his nose
and stretch the corners of his mouth with my thumbs
to give his face a wickéd smile

go back home you paltry poets
you lechless painters of pickles and placenta
go back home and take up lust weaving
take up cookie baking and chocolate bar love
make yourselves useless elsewhere
the world has no need of you here
under the stars and moons
under the ever-expanding skies

give me the rugged cross
let me leap up and spit
into the face of baby Jesus
all modern crucifixions are null and void
oh baby Jesus, you who thought
that overturning the money changer’s tables
would change the course of history
the unhesitant juggernaut of steam locomotives
raging down upon civilization like enraged beasts

from the mountains of the world
would alter one speck of dust
on the spectrum of human activity
what a pathetic fact of the fingers
you performed that day in Farmagusta
take you clues from me, water boy
watch as I plunge my stiletto
into the backs of tortoise-shaped clouds
and kick the dictation of desires
into infinite deep space

I have died so many times and in so many forms
these past fleeting years
you would not recognize me as a man
who has another cheek to turn
watch me, sweet baby Jesus, and learn.
I know better than you
how to handle the hoi polloi, the scavengers
the sewer divers and the ragpickers
the rhyming songcatchers don’t have a clue
and neither do you

watch this space
it will soon be empty
and my rolled stones will soon
be coming to a cave near you
buy tickets, front row balcony
or peanut pit, I give not a shit
I will stand upon the stage
and show you exactly how life
will be lived in future ages
beyond the repeating twitches of your habits
observe as I lift the veil from the face
of a statue named Virtual Virtue
you will expect her to be beautiful
and seductive somewhere along the lines
of Aphrodite and the Whore of Babylon

look again. She is hairy and huge
ugly and asymmetrical beyond proportion
see how her womb sags
and her teeth protrude in jagged points
from her ruined mouth, step up, sucker
and kiss her flopping lips
tickle your tongue against her rotting teeth
bring her to life, lick her hairy armpits
she’s waiting for you, to lead you
up the mountain of pure love
to the most glorious of days and nights
beyond devious mortality
when you and her, she and you
will be transformed into pagan angels
you know there is no hope
if you remain here clotted to the muck
feet glued to the stones, eyes pointed
like iron bolts into black blankets
of tar and feathers

there is no reason to go, to climb
no one will applaud you
not even me
I couldn’t give a fancy flip
of a two-turd crap
for what you do or don’t do
with your Charlie Darwinables
down on the bottom rungs of the ladder
with the lizards and leeches
with the longback bites of marriage bedbugs
go or stay; it makes no difference to me
but if you stay, stay out of my way
crouch down, cringe when I pass
lay out flat on the operating tables
of the avenues when I dance by
and utter not one screech of a stuffed nostril
if I should perform a fandangled tarantella
upon your potbelly, not one raised finger
if I trod and tango upon your throat

just observe
I am what you could have become
what you never had the courage to become
I will aim a pointed finger at your clucking slutness
I will say, “Chick chick” and you will cringe
I will rip out your meager plumage
and you will go stumbling into the road
to get caught in the under-carriage
of a sportive automobile
you will emerge completely plucked
JE SUIS COMPLETEMENT DEPLUMMEE
you will cackle and I will laugh
and moments later a band of barbarians
detoured from northern explorations
will smell your sweating blood
and will devour you, cooked or raw
(it doesn’t matter)
with sharpened teeth and saliva-soaked tongues
you will be just another
mouthful of meat to them

I will say I warned you
you should have climbed that mountain
to the slopes high above the barbarian hordes
you should have followed the ugly woman

  

APHORISMS

we are everyone
we are saints
we are sinners

I am you and you are me
and I am a murderer
waiting on death row
for a bouquet of roses
to clog the bars of my cell window

You are me and I am you
and you are nothing but everything

we are Aquarians; we are Rams
we are Centaurs with bow and arrow
Scorpions with poison tails
we are all the signs of the Zodiac
mixed without measure in a pot of boiling soup

we are Fools; we are Lovers
the Hanged Man and the Moon
we are all the cards of the major
and minor arcana shuffled into a pile
and left to dampen on the lip of a garden fountain

I am a mad man, I am the multiple personae
of poets driven insane by their sexual desires
I am Walt Whitman; I contain multitudes

we are vampires, we are werewolves
we are the zombies of Walpurgis Nacht

you are every shape shifter who has ever lived
I am a skeleton

we are teachers, we are guides to the unknown
we are trous de culs and cul de sacs

you are Rimbaud
you are me
do not be deceived
you are everyone

  

I AM RIMBAUD

I am a creator of chaos
a farmer of anarchy
I plow your flesh with my fingernails
and plant seeds of whirlwind insanity
who sane? you sane?
me unsane, unsafe, unlocked
not bound, not masked
not limited to the rules of baboon dancing
monkey minuets, gorilla gavottes
ordinary ape burlesques

I am a skater on thin ice
join me at the edge of the pond
we shall feel for frozen fish
with our nose tips ablaze and our smoldering eyes
planted deep in the steaming water
smoked herring will rise into our open mouths
and we will chew the bones of ancient fossils

I am a backstreet organ grinder
my drug is the aroma of horse manure
when I stop grinding I must endure
the stench of human sewers
Lord of Flies, have mercy on my simple soul

I am a smuggler and dealer of drugs
I sell guns to the Arabs
and ammunition to the Jews
I sell opium to the mystified
and ragweed to the mystic
I buy hashish from the Assassins
and sell it to the hunchbacked slaves
in the mines of Morbidia
no one refuses my expensive generosity

I am a binder of books
the Complete Works of Aztec Poets
the Banned Bibles of the Coptic Priests
the Sun-Scorched Scrolls of Simeon Stylites
the Psalms of Adam and Eve
and the epics of blind troubadours
these are my books; they bear my imprint
I sign their back pages when the authors are not present

I am a deaf luthier
my wormwood viols hang from the arms
of muscular musicians in need of love
worn as ornaments to dazzle the eyes
of enthusiastic audiences who come to listen
to their string quartets of dubious talent
play the death marches and funereal bagatelles
of composers who flourished in the cathedrals
of sunken Atlantis

I am a soldier of fortune
I gather my shekels, rubies and rands
my pounds and thalers from in-bred off-spring
banished from their kingdoms who will pay any price
for the foundation of a new tyrannical dictatorship
call for me when you need to start a revolution
I know the strange arts of torture and relentless torment

I am hambone humbuggery
I hold your human hand
come along with me into the Garden of the Abyss
I will show you the mysteries of breathless death
we will dance the devil’s hoof step to the music
of tree frogs and the laughter of jackals
we will compare chilled scalps
we will display our vulgarities
we will celebrate our grotesqueries

I am a doctor of madness
I design mazes with high stone walls
that collapse behind you as you strive in pain
for the center
I delight in children’s uncontrollable tantrums
I encourage the promotion of village idiots
to high places
I turn loose packs of wild dogs at night
they spread out over the city and eventually
find their ways into your sleeping beds
to terrorize your sweetest dreams

please don’t envy me. picture me lying
on the damp floor of an underground prison in Abyssinia
drinking water from a can filled with rusted nails
and watching cannibal slugs from the Amazon
feed upon my amputated feet

  

ORPHEUS INSANE

life-wasted, life-devoured by worms of worry
reckless choices, destructive decisions
wind-storm wracked, wrecked in sinking boats
left afloat on oily waters with only turbulence
to cling to
mind-slapped by sponge-breasted whores
from the lower floors of the bordello
cheated by faceless dealers of faceless cards
hooked on opium, hung on the hook of morphine
plucking the strings of the same stone lute
that drove Orpheus insane when he tried
with futile fingers to keep the knobs in tune

  

ACHILLES DOWN

Achilles down
Odysseus back home
what’s left but the echo
of a Delphic priestess
climbing the hill at sundown
and weeping into the twilight?

Dante exiled and Ovid wanted
dead or alive

what’s left but the blind eyes of prophets
served steaming hot on silver platters
to accidental kings and queens
and the cries of kleptomaniac rabble
on their way back to their caves
waving flags and punching the air
with fists wrapped in snake skins?

  

STUMPS OF MEMORY

stumps of memory come to me when my back is turned
tap me on the shoulder, remember me
when I no longer wish to be remembered

there was a day when the sun beat down
upon the parasols of white-skin ladies
who opened the curtains of their robes
to fresh air and allowed thirsty birds
to suckle milk from their tiny breasts

there was a night when the stars had eyes
and the moon was merely a Japanese lantern
hanging over the heads of dark-skinned women
who open their mouths to the drum beaters’ bodies
and allowed them to pound their skulls
with flashing fists of cracked leather
as they died in seizures of orgasmic panic

  

SARGASSO

romance breeds confusion
love builds cloud castles in the sky
while desire continues to stir the pot
of lust soup with its huge wooden spoon
that could paddle canoes from beneath
the Bridge of Sighs into the vortex of the Sargasso Sea
leaving behind a trail of tears that float like lily pads
upon the re-calmed water and refuse to sink

  

LOVE AMONG THE SAVAGES

I point my finger at the sky
and down falls a rain forest of frogs
I speak into the ear of a camel
and smoke drifts from its opposite ear
as tears explode from its eyes

I dip my tongue into an oasis pool
and electric eels rise to kiss my mouth

sexless virgins bounce coconuts
from my bruised skull and sing to me
their songs of unrequited love among the savages

  

to ST. RITA

with each letter I write to you
I feel I have crossed a line into forbidden territory
is there a way of reaching your heart
without destroying it?

  

ANCESTORS

I dig deep down into Gallic middenheaps
and discover my ancestor’s bones
their names and dates are engraved on their skulls
by the tips of iron daggers

XANTHIBBE OF KÁLAMOS—714 BC
Sailed with Odysseus to the Trojan War, returning was swept past the Pillars of Hercules into the Hesperides and blown north along the coast of Galicia to Carnax where he established the first Greek settlement in Druidic lands.

NABOPOLASSAR—605 BC
Neo-Babylonian. Royal guard to the Hanging Gardens of Nebuchadnezzar II.

MASANISSA OF THE NUMIDIANS—3rd century BC warrior, author of Ιστρία (Istoriai)

PYTHOCLES—310 BC-270 BC
Philosopher. Student of Epicurus. Established the School of Transcendental Logic in Lampadusa. Leading exponent of Aesthetic Metaphysics.

NAUCRATIOUS—4th century AD
Chaldean priest of the Temple of Mithras in Rome; the metroon of Ostia.

ISHMAEL THE INNOCENT—721-768
Carolingian scholar, poet, patriarch of Aquileia.

ANDRUCHE, SON OF TIBOST—816-844
Peasant, toiled for 20 years without recompense in the fields of Prince Fenellosa III of Aquitaine in exchange for a single midsummer night in the arms of his daughter, Princess Jehanette.

GUERIN DE MONTAIGU OF AUVERGNE—1183-1223
Crusader. Religious fanatic who in 1200 AD led 14,000 foot soldiers—men, women and children alike—on a march into the Holy Land where he raised the siege of Acre, then led the remnants of his army to the capture of Damietta, barely escaping with his life, only to die a year later in Toulouse at the hands of Bertrand, Visconte of Bruquel, Duc of Narbonne, the jealous husband of Lady Demona Matilda FitzRoy of Montvilliers who stabbed both Guerin and his unfaithful wife in their sleep.

GUILLAUME GUIMBARD—1198-1240
Poet, troubadour, lover of Burgavine Petronella van Kortrijk of Gent, Dame Ermassenda de Castellbó of Andorra, Countess Blanche de Navarre, Countess Isabella Taillefer of Angoulême, Princess Burgundia of Cyprus, Margavine Yolanda de Flanders of Namur, Margavine Adelesia di Monferrato of Saluzzo, Baroness Eudocia Angelos of Argos, Princess Berenguela of Castilla, Countess Jezebel of Karystos, Lady Nicola de la Hay of Lincolnshire, Duchess Alice de Vergy of Bourgogne, Princess Mathilde von Landsberg der Lausitz of Brandenburg, Margavine Jutta von Thüringen, Duchess Guillemots de Neuchatel of Montpellier, and Queen Helena Pedersdotter-Strange of Sweden.

GERARD LAGARDE OF MAZEROLLES— 1212-1262
Cathar. Charged with heresy by the Inquisition in 1234, took refuge in Carcasson from where, unlike this father Jourdain Lagarde of Moissac, who died at the stake in 1239, avoided excommunication and escaped to Catalonia where he lived out his life in exile.

PAULUS DE CASSAGNAC—1301-1352
Monk. Master Abbot of Fontfroid. Witnessed the Blood Miracle of beheaded San Gennario, the Kerkenrode Miracle of 1317, the Miracle of Avignon in 1320, and the Miracle of the Eucharist in Blanot in 1331.

INGRID RAGNVOLDSDATTER OF NORWAY—explorer 1472- 1510
The first woman to circumnavigate the globe in a 3-masted schooner, as captain of a crew of castrated criminals condemned to perpetual exile. She discovered the source of the Mississippi River and was made an honorary member of an Ojibwa tribe. She returned home to controversy and accusations of witchcraft and avoided prison by escaping to French-speaking North America where she lived in exile until her death in the Republic of Madawaska.

LÉONARD QUEZNEL THE ELDER—1512-1590
Painter. Oil portraits of the poor, the indigent and the scathed, some of whom went on to produce greater canvases than their master. Remembered best for his portrait of the child Artemesia Gentileschi.

ETIENNE GASSINI—1581-1604
Noted astrologer and mystic, burned at the stake for blasphemy—MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON HIS SOUL.

RAMBULADE THE ROTTEN—1657-1714
Pirate shipmaster. Barbary Coast. Owner of 200 slaves, 50 wives, 100,000 pounds of gold and 200,000 pounds of silver

CHARLES-MAURICE DE CHATEAUBRIAND—1754-1821
Doctor of Medicine to the court of Louis XVIII during the Bourbon restoration. Fought a duel with pistols at 12 paces against Brid’oison the Duke of Malta defending the honor of Thimothina Labinette, crippled his foe with a shot thru the left eye, seized the Labinette and rode off into the shortest night of the year 1776 never to return to Versailles until old age and death brought his legend creeping back attached to his bones

  

PRAYER

I have tried to understand as much of the world
as I am able; believe me, I’ve tried
but who can comprehend the twists and turns
of a road-weary heart? the senseless babble
of a throatless voice? the spoonless mouth
and tied tongue of a dead-end soul?

you, with your troubled teeth,
what say you?

  

PRAYER

I never pray
yet now I pray to end this ceaseless wandering
the motion of feet I can no longer see
but feel as if they were still attached to my mental body

I pray to the tilting gyroscopes in my eyes
urging them to drop to the floor
and take this spinning vision of the world with them

I pray to the owl: sweep down and pluck
the hairs from my head and build a useful nest

I pray to the demons to retreat and leave me
with whatever gifts they have brought
– but no more, no more gifts

  

BLAME STONES

I take full responsibility
for everything I do
and everything that happens in the world

can you say the same for yourself?

or do you look to the Old Man of the Mountain
and wait until his back is turned
before shifting the sack of blame stones
from your shoulders to his?

  

BATS OF HELL

when shadows merge with twilight
only then can you make a deep commitment
to the day and call a cease fire
to the suffering

across the landscape birds take flight
and wild city dogs set out across wheat fields
with feathers in their teeth, their jaws
dripping with pigeon blood

a mouth in the earth opens gaping wide
and from it flies a massive cloud
of Bats from Hell, a swarming, shapeless mass
of wing-flapping bodies

the Bats of Hell rise higher and circle
in the cool air above the city against
the sky of a settled sun

on flights into darkness
when the night is wide
they look down upon the continental drift
and tell their favorite joke about two men
who spoke different languages
and could only fight because “yes’
in the language of one was ‘no’
in the language of the other

who hide in soft comfortable places
between the fallen leaves of trees
they say: where is the pleasure in that?

  

QUESTION & ANSWER

QUESTION:
why do we clutter our lives
with quickly-regretted copulations
and sneaking skin-slippery slipping
tortured muscle tightening
sperm release into the void?

is it because we are made of meat
that we have bodies that make genetic demands
that are we animals that need the promise
of life beyond death?

ANSWER:
we pray for the fleeting chance
that unconditional love will be waiting for us
beyond the far rim of the void

  

LOVE

man and dog sit on the floor
of an empty room face to face

the dog wears a muzzle of leather
the man wears a mask of leather and iron,
their heads are locked in a perpetual mutual gaze

the man is bound by rope to a chair
the dog strains at the end of a chain
they face each other from a distance
of less than two feet
both are drooling, their eyes are wild with passion

the dog’s only desire is to rip out the man’s throat
and chew him to pieces
the man feels the same about the dog
all they can do is howl at each other
high, whining wails
of grief and frustration
that last for hour upon hour

this is what it is like
for a man and woman to be in love

  

LOVE AFFAIR

look how her parasol flexes
and performs Kama Sutra acrobatics
on a Sunday afternoon stroll
in the Park of Far Horizons

look how he lifts his lid
and apologizes for the mess he made
on her Persian carpet

she calculates how many
brain loads of fireworks
it will take to push a moderately desperate man
over the edge into suicide

he, a violently desperate man,
clings to the edge and fights back
with every knife his tongue can produce

  

THE HEN-PECKED HUSBAND

damn you, she says, your eyes, your mouth
the way you look at yourself
sideways when you pass the window
of a rag and bone shop
the worm-clouds you speak when you say
“I hope I can get down these up stairs.”

the way you sneak up on mirrors
and catch them before they are prepared to reflect

the way you rooster-strut upon the stage
when the giggle girls with gifts
come around and tickle your fancy

  

THE WIFE BEATER

“Behind me Satan,” she says
and Satan replies with a grunt
and a slapped carp to the face

This is not the first time a fish
has come between them,
nor will it be the last

To come will also be a few dead rats
a dozen sleeping moles
and a burning fist of fire
that will scorch the air
and leave a skull and cross bones tattoo
on side of her face of a faceless beautiful

  

THE WHIPPING STICK (SONG)

under the blows of the whipping stick
I came to life, I flourished

they dipped my head in boiling oil
and pain became my companion
I stripped and stood before the sun
and smiled as it burned its shadow into my skin

under the blows of the whipping stick
I came to life, I flourished

I stood before the firing squad
and stopped the bullets with my chest
I dangled from the end of a rope
and laughter choked my throat

under the blows of the whipping stick
I came to life, I flourished

buried alive, I rose from the earth
brushed away the dirt from my eyes
the weeping women, grave-gathered
mourned my false death by raping my mouth

under the blows of the whipping stick
I came to life, I flourished

crucified, I sang the song
of sailors lost at sea
tied to masts of sailing ships
flogged for fun and revelry

under the blows of the whipping stick
I came to life, I flourished

tortured by inquisition tongs
for neither rhyme nor reason
my mind soared high above the clouds
and I chanted hymns with damaged angels

under the blows of the whipping stick
I came to life, I flourished

wounded in war, I crawled thru the mud
the battle raged on, my trail of blood
left a path to be followed
by all crippled soldiers
under the blows of the whipping stick
I came to life, I flourished

left behind by the wagons
I marched thru mirages
I opened a door into an oasis
I opened my mouth and drank the sand

under the blows of the whipping stick
I came to life, I flourished

  

ASTROLOGUE

Born under the sign of the Unicorn
I roamed the fields with penis erect
I played upon the Pipes of Pandemonium
virgins wrecked their boats against my shore

Born under the sign of the Peacock
I flew deep into the south and mingled
with the species of other animals both mythic
and preposterous
the Phoenix taught me to fight fire with fire
Chimerae became my dream lovers
Centaurs were my companions
the Hippogriff became a trusted friend

Under the sign of the Wild Boar
I tramped the dusty roads of Tankardland
I got drunk in every Inn along the way
I fought three men with my fists
one died

Under the sign of Janus
I wore a mask on the back of my head
I walked backwards and spoke into a tube
that bent under my crotch so that my voice
seemed to be coming from my anus.
I said; “Saperlipotte de saperlopette.”

Under the sign of the alphabet
I invented new sounds to animate the drab
the tedious bore of people’s discourse
conversations were improved with my invention
of the letter Ю
 brought excitement to jaded newspaper readers
the letter  brought happiness to small children
‡ stood for chaos and revolution
and the letter ∞ gave the long-winded a chance
to complete their gossip

Under the sign of the Rose
I fell in love with a woman twice my age
measured in soul-years
tho she was a girl half my age
by years of the calendar
but she moved too fast for me
I could not keep up, she left me behind
in the dust, I ran down the road after her
crying out, “I shall but love thee better after death”
but she did not reply, she was gone
over the horizon into another life

Under the sign of the Cannon
I was mustered into the army and defected
the same day. I refused to march I hated
obeying orders, I only wanted to kill
the smug officers who told me to march and obey
I escaped to the enemy lines, I told them
the troops of my army were waiting
in the woods to kill them in the morning
they attacked the woods at night and killed
every soldier and officer in my troop
the enemy praised my courage
and sent me home a traitor, I painted
bullet holes on my arms and legs
and I was welcomed as a hero
the only surviving soldier of a defeated army
whose fighters had died defending their country
they gave me a flag, a medal, a veteran’s pension
and a free seat on the tram
reservé de mutilés des guerres

The sign of the Blacksmith
hovered over my shoulder
as I baked the loaves of bread
in ovens where horseshoes had melted
where barrel rims and wheel rims
were remembered for their perfect circularity
and children gathered at the windows
peering thru the bars and demonstrating
the pools of their salivating mouths.
now I stand, hovering over the shoulder
of a black-haired youth with strapping muscles
his bare chest smoldering in the heat of the forge
and I am tempted to forget melted iron
and instead lick the drops of sweat
from the back of his neck

Born under the sign of the Feather
I grew wings and learned to fly from tree-top
to tree-top at first, mountain to mountain
at last, across borders impotently guarded
by excaliburted knights, I glided into Albion
I sacked the castles of St. Mawes and Tintagel
returning to Bretagne with tapestries, carpets,
jewels, illuminated manuscripts I crashed
into the low-tide shoreline of Mont. St. Michel
and distributed the spoils of my raid
to the chieftains of familiar tribes

Under the sign of the Bagpipe
I played my fiddle at village feasts
I watched peasants dance in a circle
I wept for a lost lover
and laughed when I found a new one
waiting for me upon the leaves of an oak tree

Under the sign of the Whip
I became a celebrated composer
of concertos and cantatas
prima donnas came from Italy
to sing my operas, pianists from Russia
came to perform my sonatas
my string quartets evolved in precision
and emotion; I commanded the players
to remove the strings from the viols and cellos
and whip each other’s faces
my best-known work instructed the players
to beat each other over the head with their bows
then I began experimenting with the whip
to conduct my symphonies, the string section
complained, but a after a few rehearsals
they begged for more, they enjoyed my discipline
the female flute players loved the taste
of my whip’s tip
the tuba player was delighted when one of my lashes
directed at him went astray and slapped
against his instrument and rang it like a bell
audiences loved my audacity when I took the whip
from rehearsals into public performance arenas
they loved me even more when I turned
at unexpected moments
and lashed out at ladies in the front row
they begged for encores, my concerts were sold out
ten years in advance
soon I spent more time whipping the crowd
than the musicians
and eventually I was whipping the crowd full time
and letting the orchestra fend for itself.
cultured music lovers could not get enough
of my violence
I was hailed as the greatest conductor of all time

Under the sign of the Inkpot
I watched a foreign-born poet
of minimal talent
butcher the sacred cow
I stood up in rageous anger
shouting, “That cow was mine to kill”
then I created a new sacred cow
and butchered it myself

Under the Signs of the Zodiac
I wept, I trembled, I failed
I begged forgiveness
and brushed away favors
I loved, I betrayed, I cheated
I laughed at my mistakes
and encouraged errors in others
I robbed, I lied, I blasphemed
I coveted my neighbor’s wife
and got away with murder

  

UNDER THE SIGN OF THE MOON

under the sign of the moon
I enjoyed the naked body of my first love
I was 14 she was 27
almost twice my age, almost twice as tall
she took me in her white arms
under the sign of the moon
I cried out and caressed her white hair
under the sign of the moon
she was pale, with red eyes
it was albino love
under the sign of the moon
she stayed: her husband and children ran away

  

HAUNTED HOUSE

the police entered our house without invitation
they gave each of us a small slip of paper
mine was yellow, on it was printed:
you are hereby ordered to report
to the Holy Camp of Crucified Christians
for a 6-week period of intense re-education
after which you will become an accomplished
and fully-qualified racist

  

RECANTATION

The buggery of science
The void of progress
Erase those words from my vocabulary
SCIENCE
PROGRESS

Carve them away from the dictionaries with sharp
knives
And with pitchforks toss them into piles of old clothes
and broken boots
Cast them into Hades’ deepest pit where demonic ear-
snatchers play out-of-tune accordions
And crippled dance masters limp thru routines of a
leg-tangled tango
They pollute the barren grounds of Charity
They decorate Chastity with slopes of trash heaps of
pig iron garbage gardens and orchards of red brick dust
I have seen beyond the last moon walker’s footprints
I have seen beyond the staggering steps of crippled
humanity as it ruts a path
Into a cess pit of Cruelty beyond the extreme barriers
of the wasteland

I have seen the mess old men make when nurses with
exotic tastes
With tender hands and uncontrollable compassion go
to work on their love wounds and teach them to say “AH . . . . ”
I have sunk my teeth into breathing cadavers and
sucked the blood of vampires

Forget that I ever embraced the buried bodies of logic
and arithmetic
I was mistaken; I was taken by mindnappers
Became a missing person
And was never returned to those who once owned me

Slavery!
Gold diggers!
Hum buggery!

  

THE HISTORY OF RELIGION

I align my face with the body in the mirror
then step thru into hot water
the waves recede into their ocean
and my feet sink into burning sand

I run thru the sand to a road of melting tar
I am naked; I have left my clothes behind

a coach pulled by four horses stops and I step inside
seated across from me is the Virgin Mary
she is covered from head to toe in soft purple velvet
she lifts her veil, smiles and winks
my sex rises erect and ejects a gob of green snot
which lands in her lap and rolls into the shape of a frog
Mary takes the wooden crucifix from around her neck
and nails the frog to the cross she smiles at me again
she says, “You are God.”

  

SONG OF APHINAR

remember me when the turbulence of the wind
spins the apples on the tree and worms fly out
to wither in the sun

the egg of a thrush spins on the beak of a woodpecker
cracks open, shell shredding, scattering
and the infant bird drops down
into the pecker’s open mouth

now I am awake
and I weep as I return to sleep

  

BRAT, BAD BOY, BOLD PARIAH

1.
they call me The Brat

2.
they call me Bad Boy
the best of the bad
bad blood flows in my veins
pulses thru my corrupted heart
surges thru my unfumigated brain

turn me away from the feast?
walk me the other way
slap me on the butt
and trust me to run into an exploding setting sun?

trust me to never return to the fog you create
with the foul breath of your factories and spindle shops
and promise to leave the feast behind me forever?

what fools you are
I will walk around the world
and attack the feast from the east
I will be bringing hooks and machetes

no matter where you send me
to the gates of hell, to the backdoors of your castles
to the holes in the earth where you live like moles
and rodents I will always be wherever you are,
unavoidable, uncensored
I will chop off the tips of your wigs with my razor-sharp teeth
I will row your leaky boat
to the center of the lake and pull the plug
I will break your locks; knock down your doors
and rape the minds of maidens inside
with my polished razor-sharp wit
leaving them speechless and weeping
shatter your windows; rip back the blankets
of your procrustean procreation bed
and peek into your sleeping bodies
I will lick your nipples and set your pitiful bodies ablaze
I will make raging love to the shadows
of your sleepwalking bodies on the wall
penetrating the porous surface of the moonlightscapes
upon which they are cast
I’m warning you! I am now sitting naked
in a dark corner of your room, biding my time
I’m warning you: I will be back
and I will make you regret that you didn’t strangle me
the day I was born

3.
I am a messenger
from the Out-at-the-Elbows Gang
close your eyes and pretend I am not here
that’s the best you can do
I will steal your mind nevertheless
I will drown it in my private Lethe
I will watch it float away, screaming for salvation
uttering obscene prayers to a God long ignored
but suddenly needed, screaming, mindless, maudlin

4.
I am Ragamuffin Rimbaud the Bold
I am coming down with the Fever of Seven Sins
I have come down with paralysis of the virtue nerve
open your arms to me, take these lice, these fleas
these ticks, these leeches, give them a better home
that I ever could; take the blankets of my disease

close your eyes and pretend I’ve never been here
that’s the least you can do

  

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL

I am at odds with odds and ends
I am a goat licking dust from moonbeams

I am a child tricking insane old ladies
into thinking that the rug is the floor’s skin

I am a shepherd herding buffalo
into caves lit by the glow of wolf eyes
as they move in to make their dinner reservations

I am a fragile and nervous dream machine
with my lips stuck on a frozen door knob

I am a fishmonger
pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with lemons
I am a bottle washer in a bug house

dim-witted and dumb founded
I pit my wits against possibly
the greatest riddle monster of Black Monday

I stepped out of the most significant
epoch in half history not knowing
that I had been right in the middle
of a plot to overthrow heaven
and that all the girls with screams in their hair
were not for me.

remember me when the carnival backdrops
are unrolled and the last waterflower
is washed out to sea by huge rubber hoses
disguised as elephants’ trunks

the evils of the world boil up around my knees
I scratch until I bleed, until the holy mother
speaks thru a crack in the wall telling me
“If you want to get to the source of your evils
apply both hands to the root and join
the boys on the bridge at midnight
who chant the Song of the Vulva Boatmen
and masturbate into the void.”

Holy Mother, hover and hide
rip out these nails
and hammer them into the neck of your lute

  

THE ORIGINAL SOUL’S SPIRITUAL QUEST

He chases his grubby soul from low tide to the highlands
he reaches back with a broom and erases his footprints
he can’t face forward until it’s too late
he bares his chest; the Prince of Darkness
plunges a knife into his heart; he gasps and steps back;
he shows his scars to his wife; he bares his heart,
knife wounds in the ribs this is the honest truth,
unlike the dishonest truth all is forgiven;
the grubby soul trudges on; tattoos appear on the palimpsest
of his back: algebraic formulae brushed over by shopping lists
all smeared in erasure, a dirty canvas skin
on which are painted the Queen of Hearts
and the Jack of Diamonds, head to head, face to face
disputing, spitting, their voices loud and bitter
driving the man to his knees with the weight of their words
face down in the mud; the Prince steps forward
and tosses a blanket over the man’s back
until the voices cease to argue.
Shy mumbled invective leaks from beneath the blanket;
when it ceases the man chasing his grubby soul
kisses the mud and sets off thru the desert, into the heart
of lifeless, burning emptiness; the void closes around him
he stumbles again, falls face forward in the sand
the Prince of Darkness lifts him up until the man is standing
on the Prince’s feet, the Prince operating the man like a puppet
shouting ‘Here is your grubby soul!” walks him into the night
and throws him into a pit filled with the voice of his mother
from which there is no escape

  

THE VENOM OF LA DAROMPHE

Batwing ears emerge from the shadow’s mouth
The city trembles, the streets shrink
Down in the sub-room men sulk single file
With thievery fever, gnashing their teeth against
sewer pipes
Praying the rats will deliver them from evil
Will lead them out of the sunken land into the arms of
the shadow’s mouth
Into the sharpened teeth of the mother of all abortions
The Lady without Mercy who wraps her victims in
her broken arms
All her sons and kisses them until her poison seeps
from her lips
Into their mouths and they drown in catatonic stupor.
But one son is missing: the seventh son, the son from
the dark side of the moon,
The stoical son whose duty it is to obey
He’s not coming today, mother, he’s out beyond the
reach of your venomous salivated speech
He’s is dancing in the hedgerows laughing at your
helpless need to control
Mocking your loss of authority, he’s flapping his arms
And shaking his legs, he’s laughing like a maniac
Dangling by strings from tree branches; see the black
birds flock up
From the tree, escaping his insane laughter, escaping
the sight of his rude gestures
And the declaration of his salvation

  

CHEF D’ORCHESTRE

With a mouthful of thunder
he stepped onto the platform
in front of the symphony orchestra
and surprised everybody (himself included)
by opening his mouth
and breathing a fountain of fire
all over the music

  

LOST INNOCENCE RECOVERED

these are the people you must inhabit
to recover the innocence you lost
when you were born

1.
prosperously decadent M. Syntax
who dissolved and disappeared
into his reflection
in his tea-dipped spoon

2.
Rocifer Rinçors
railroad predator
who with his oriental rug
crystal chandelier
and sofas stuffed
with the black curly hair
of the slaves he burned
in his ornamental garden
hears their voices whisper
from the topiary at night
whistle from the fountains

3.
Ragout et Fils
the sign says it all
“Let our gentle light
shine down upon you
and those you love
let the wind from our heavens
blow fortune into your lives.”

4.
Oscar Le Ponce
who watches his pet orangutan run around the room
adjusting the thermostat to hotter temperatures
emptying ashtrays into flower vases
and punching out a few random notes on the grand piano

5.
Madam Putanesca
an adept of sanctimonosity
who waters her Parisian potted plants
on the windowsill
above the heads of behatted pedestrians
she pours out a few drops
to receive the blessing of the gods
but all she gets are insults from below

6.
Pedro le Boeuf, the concierge
who rattles his teeth
up and down the stairs
jingling the coins in his pockets
everytime he suspects
one of his tenants
has brought home a lover

7.
Le Roi De Sade, bogus Marquis
fake pervert with his face
decorated with lipstick kiss marks
and his fingers drooping under the weight
of iron dragon claws attached
to six of his ten fingertips
he invites you join him
in a lusty round of croquet
and intentionally slams his mallet
into the back of your knees
when your back is turned,
exclaiming, “Ah, there is no chance
for a honeymoon when your father-in-law
is Jesus Christ.”

8.
Raoul Nou Nou, clochard
indispensable spice, necessary scenery
take a river walk with him from bridge
to bridge and memorize the faces of his friends
those that bulge and pout
those that never smile from the waist down
those that scream thru lips sewn shut with wire

9.
Basil Crapeaux, painter of nudes
master of ruined canvas and brush smoke

10.
Alphonse Pamplemouse, the vice merchant
purveyor of venom, upholder of Salopardism
he savors the suffering of panther victims
and with each bite he delights in strangled screams

toasted toes of orphans are his daily diet

bite, Pamplemouse, bite!
then go away and corrupt the children
in yonder cities

11.
Little Ramponeau, the youngest of the orphans
the one they call Small Fellow
he can shine your boots in less time
than it takes you to spit
pick your pocket faster
than a ring sliding off the finger
of a married man approaching a pretty girl
with a red mouth
“Motherless Fast Fingers”
that’s little Ramponeau

12.
Vagabond Django, the last of the Parnassians
his 13 guitars are for sale, they’re up for grabs
solo guitars, they hang on the wall
and play themselves when nobody is listening

13.
O Brother Millepéde, unforgettable
and unrepentant, beard choked
with chopped garlic
and onion peels
moleskin cloak soiled with venison gravy
petite pois up your nostrils
potato eyes lined up between the bars
of your cell
to keep watch on the weather
leaving you free to explore
the nasty parts of your body
you are a cad, Brother Millepéde
let the children go
that fat cherub cannot be more than
seven years old
shame on you, Brother Millepéde
send that cherub home

14.
Preud-Homme Monogamme
one leg, one eye
one look, one roof
he has one of everything

one tooth, one god
one heart, one sleeve
he plays a one string violin

one direction one mind
his name is “One of a Kind”

one bullet, one gun
one moon, one sun
he takes it one day at a time

one tone, one phone
one pole, one syllable
only one way to cook a goose

one bird, one stone
one arrow, one string
one last wish before he goes

one faith, one death
one life, one path
he believes in one thing only

one button, one horse
one uncle, one wheel
he only needs one number

15.
Adolphe Borringe the 6th of Sax
there’s nothing like it
when he gets up on his hind legs
and re-iterates the orations of Caesar
in an Amazonian accent
with hand gestures borrowed from
Apache sign language
the crowds go crazy, millions flock
to his tomb years before he is buried in it
he is elected and re-elected
to rule over the nation
from a throne made from Monarch Butterfly wings
animated by hummingbird heart beats

not even Napoleon, marching across Europe
and dazzling audiences with his readings
from The Iliad in the original
with a Flemish accent
to the music of Jews harps and jingle bells
can compare

not even C. Baudelaire with his recitations
from the Book of the Damned
delivered in Faustian jargon
with Falstaffian overtones
can bring the mob to their feet
get them dancing like tarantulas
chanting: “Long Live the Spider Web!
Long Love the Pirates of Poetry!
the Spinner of the Grotesque
and the Painted Primitive Priests
with chunks of virgin heart impaled
on their pointed, sharpened teeth!”

16.
Césarine Riflandouille, voluptuous syphilitic
monstrous whore, pot-bellied and knob-kneed
bloated on private moonlights
bitter muse to mongrel poets
slayer of the mute swans of Khartoum
and temptress of rump art

17.
Mœbus Tracassin, collector of castles
Hottentots and Bohemians
Bacchantes and Molochs
Sodomites and Siberian Dancers
reconditioned voices and astonishing harmonic leaps
incomplete educations and metaphysical facades
ferocious sacrifices and atrocious superstitions
esoteric terminologies and enigmatic platitudes
impossible shipwrecks and eloquent migrations
mathematical infinities and unlimited devotions

18.
Lulu Baldachino, the Duchess of Adagio
the patron saint of gaslight
priceless corpses and ghastly deaths
she farts and takes away the flowers

19.
Circe to the rescue
loves her sailors
loves her pigpen and its inhabitants
can be persuaded to take in a wooden horse
but will not touch the beggar
with the hoofprint of a goat on the forehead

  

POETS

some of them are erudite
some of them suffer from love bites
some of them are lost in a wilderness of words
some of them will never stop dying

some of them try to whistle but find
their notes get lost in the smoke of a nose flute
and bagpipe marching band stomping off
to war in waltz time dressed as circus clowns
some are blind to light and some
are speechless in the face of death

some of them are bald, too poor
to grow a single hair; others shave every day
and still cannot stop their beards
from growing wild, plugging their mouths
with balls of hair, starving them
from the essential foods

some are lazy and die
because they never learn the names
of their demons

some of them are old and too slow to sing
some stand on tiptoes and reach for fruit
in the tops of pine trees, unaware that
they are not reaching for apples
but for the nests of contagious caterpillars
which will rip off their flesh and march
away wrapped in cloaks of freckled skin

some are not Caucasian
their tongues are black and blue
their mouths speak the rhythms
of caverns and nostalgic ice ages

some are made of tar and feathers
some are made of wire
some are wild and woolly-headed
some have eyes of fire

some are ungrateful to praise, numb to applause
I know these poets; they are my brothers
we sip from the same bucket of blood
we share the same nightmares of beauty
the same nerve-twisting, brain-damaging visions
we have been damned, damaged by the same echo
by the same stroke of lightning in our spines
we have been denied the same women

  

THE BOHEMIAN

The Bohemian rages
in his attic
as owls fly thru
his open window
bringing him messages
from the cemetery below
news of life
from beyond the grave
he hoots, he screeches
words spouting, screaming
from between his teeth
as he waves his arms
and slaps the owls
sending them back
to the bone yard
with his replies:

no I will not lean from my window
and entertain you with a troubadour’s tune
no I will not come down
and mingle with your misery
you are on your own, dead bones
I will not praise your poverty
I will not become your grieving ghost
no more invitations to your skeleton dances
no more transfusions of bloodless spit
these are my days, these are my hours
take you intonations, your insinuations
your prayers for resurrection
and die a thousand silent deaths
die and rap no more upon my door

The Bohemian turns back to his table
cluttered with gyroscopes, prisms, pendulums
and astrological charts that prophesy
Venus colliding with Mars
and the moon melted, dripping tears
into the sun’s mouth

  

THE HORSE

1.
The horse in the meadow lifts his head
stretches his neck opens its jaws
and rips leaves from an apple tree
chomps and grinds, squeezing meager moisture
into his thirsty mouth

Sometimes he gets an apple
sometimes he gets a worm
today he gets a lady bug but he doesn’t know it
the bug is so small against the planet of the apple
she is no more than a tickle on the horse’s back teeth

2.
The horse steps out from the shade of the tree
into bright sunlight, yesterday the sky
was full of clouds in the shape of sheep
today the sheep are lying on their backs
feet in the air, beheaded by the setting sun

3.
The horse trots towards the setting sun
but he cannot run fast enough, the sun sinks
into the horizon and the horse returns into the night

you look around and realize there will never be
enough horses to bring back the day

these are things we talked about

  

THE ISLAND

He came to the island with a boatload of guns
the dark-skin natives had never seen guns before
he passed the guns around and soon the natives
were smiling and laughing and shooting and killing
each other

This was his plan

While the natives performed their spontaneous massacre
he sailed his boat out into the bay
and waited until the guns stopped booming

He sailed back to shore everyone was dead
he hiked into the hills behind the village
and began to dig gold from the ground

Everything was going according to plan

He loaded his boat with gold
and got ready to sail home
to return to civilization and become a rich man

Everything was going according to plan
until he raised his sails

A dwarf stepped out of the jungle behind him
and with a bow and arrow he shot the man in the back
the arrow went thru his heart

As the man lay dying along the edge of the water
he watched the dwarf native take all the gold from the boat
and carry it back into the hills then he came back
and built a tower in the village

The marauding visitor understood
at last the errors of his ways

As the last drop of blood dripped from his heart
he understood that all of his desires had been illusions,
useless, he had deceived himself
into believing these illusions

He was now ready to discover a deeper truth

  

THE WAIF

the waif stands on a corner
under a dim street lamp, ragged clothes
holes in his boots, holds out his hands
pedestrians pass by
thinking of golden opportunities squandered
and hushed-voice rendez-vous behind
locked hotel doors tonight
tossing orange peels, apple cores
snot-clogged rags
burning cigar butts
dog turds wrapped in newspaper
bacon rinds in coffee cups
a dead pigeon

the child sags under the weight of the gifts
he curls around their generosity
this is much better than in days past
(he reflects) when they flooded him
with pity and he drowned
in the reflection of their faces

  

THE CHILD

it is vexatious to my soul
that I was once a child
it was vexatious when I was a child

stand back, poor cretin
short wool pants
pale bruised knees
knobby shoes
pull up your socks, banane
stop staring at me
thru those bleached beady eyes
nostrils sniffing breezes
on which hang the odors of your piss

take a hike, enfant puéril
go play
with your marbles and bullies
plot your revenges

keep your distance
you small bastard
do not remind me
that I was once
as vulnerable and volatile
as you

  

IMMORTAL

born on the floor of the earth
as the clock hands swept from Friday the 13th
to Saturday the 14th in the month of February
or perhaps it was October

I stood erect and faced
the starry starry sky
with a pitiless gaze
my rageous mouth opening
to utter a scream of protest

“Are you worth your reputation?”

how dare you ask that
you worms of starlight and moon
you impertinent wombs of solar dust

with every handful of dirt
I have scooped from the earth
I have established beyond doubt
your need of me in the universe
a need you have created
from string and saliva

with every sigh I uttered
every whisper of ‘Je suis une autre ”
I have joined the immortals
and become their prize pony

ride me, mortals
I will take you places
your impoverished imaginations
have never dared to entertain

  

THE RIMBAUD MUSEUM IN CHARLEVILLE

do I deserve this punishment?
did I earn it with my dreams of exhausted galaxies
and the tracks of horse teeth which I left in the arms
of my mother?

was I too much peasant to tempt the wrath
of the self-satisfied blimps?
of the hodge-podge social stumps?
blotted by screams from my tumescent brain
cultivated by fever and crude curse ploddings
as I crutch stumbled returning
from my miscreant ways?

don’t answer that
don’t open your mouth
and bathe my face with your spittle
one word from your gap-tooth tongue
and I’ll open the windows of this museum
and throw this memory junk in the river
these scraps of dead papermeat
these corrupted photographs of raving nostalgia

dip my memory in candle wax
chew my words with your jaw prongs
cast my face into cartoon strips
and punish my monster mind
with pagan prayers of suffering angels

but for the sake of an exanimate god
tear down these walls
and throw these stones back onto the mountain
from whence they came

  

DO NOT EXPECT

Do you expect me to arrange the stars
into constellations that correspond
to the patterns of your footprints
in the dust of ancient ruins?

Do not expect

Do you really expect me to run to the horizon at dawn
and lift the sun into darkness?
and at day’s end to stand on the western horizon
with the sun on my shoulders
and slowly lower it out of sight until you are surrounded
by darkness again?

Do not expect

Do you expect me to remind you of the bodies
you leave behind everytime you go plunging
into the darkness with a knife between your teeth
and the rim of your bald skull on fire?

Do not expect

Do you expect me to be at home by the fireplace
knitting a blanket for the wolf’s off-spring
when you return wearing a woman’s red wool cape
its hem clotted with mud gathered from the river’s edge
speaking of adventures among the wild beasts
that can only be understood by those
who have experienced love at first sight?

Do not expect

Do you expect thousands of faithful followers
to kneel down and dip their lips
in the bowl of soap soup you hold out
as you dance thru the marketplace
to the music of glass harmonicas?

Do you expect me to follow?

Do not expect.

  

JANUARY DOCUMENT
(“LE DÉCADENT”)

hoof prints of goat on my forehead
my eyes explode and blow up the landscape
ribs rubbing against my stomach walls
from excessive walking bring me to my knees

now you tell me that the hair growing from my skull
produces headaches

  

JEALOUSY

jealousy is born from my belly unbuttoned
jealousy crawls out from between the sheets
I eat the crumbs of jealousy bread
drink sour milk from its breasts called love and hate
I sing songs in praise of love and hate
while my friend, Greed Sonata
plays a black-key jealousy piano

who gave jealousy the gift of destruction?
who gave jealousy a bad name?

I wore a ring of jealousy diamond for ten years
I kept it in the bottom of my throat
I brought it out on All Saint’s Day
and let it proclaim death to those
who crossed my path to the moon

ghost bubbles haunt my attic
they stretch high and wide, they explode
I hear the explosions even tho I sit crouched
in a corner of my room, trembling with my hands
covering my ears
they pop and never stop

from my window I watch jealousy horses
race by in the street
they have jealousy hides of jaundice yellow
their riders are jealousy perfect
one of them is school friend of mine
he is Jealousy Pink

once when I was a child
I spoke with Jealousy Pink
we were trapped between the lips
of a titanic lizard, it slapped us
with its tongue. I said I knew
it would come to this

how many roads has Jealousy Lizard erased?

Jealousy the Poet and Jealousy the Painter
jealousy odes and jealousy landscapes
jealousy probes and passive feelers
in our hair with the passive voices
in our feet to keep us balanced between
hubris and wrath
Hate Jealousy hides in the cracks of our skulls

Butcher Jealousy returns my necklace of savage teeth
to the Museum of the Seven Deadly Sins

let them chew upon the pages of your bibles
until not a word remains
hide their faces in the folds of the blankets
when Family Jealousy comes to visit.

jealousy will be swallowed
when jealousy comes to dinner

jealousy wheels spin in the sky
around montgolfiers filled with hot jealousy air

it’s raining jealousy
I am wet with tears of rage
I am the curséd son of a jealousy god

the sharp blade of run-away guillotines
chase unloving lusters into jealousy alleys
and down down into damp prisons

pickpockets plucking jealousy coins
from my pantaloons
I punch their broken swine noses
with my jealousy fist, I wave away
the smoke of a gasoline fire
with my jealousy fingers

I am lean from too much greed
I will never reclaim jealousy fat
with my bones

poets beaten down to the ground
beaten into a pulp, down where
the owl gives not a hoot
nor does the mocking bird gather
the hummingbird’s soul but rather
dips its beak in hummingbird blood
and writes a mocking epitaph:

O speak no more of jealousy
give me back my legs and let me walk
across the road and leap into the river

greed dead, envy extinguished
jealousy rages on

jealousy cloak and dagger
suspicious jealousy, clock work jealousy
you jealous, me jealous
to the end of jealous time
and the beginning of the Age of the Assassins

  

MERCENARIES

What have I done to make The Rat Soldiers angry?
I stole back the guns they stole from me

Why is The Mule out for my blood?
His land is worthless, as for the hash
I stole from his fingers this evening
I’ll bring in a fresh supply in the morning
Does he not know this? Does he not know
I live by the heat of the damned sun

  

OUT OF THE WOLVES’ LAIR

All of the tedium, none of the pleasure
The sound of wet hands slapping wet skin
The sound of hard fists punching soft flesh
The cries of pain that follow each blow
the crunch of a broken bone
the fall of a broken tooth

His hands and skin are soaked in blood
it gathers round his broken bare feet

He screams: I don’t know what you want
They don’t want anything
They merely enjoy slapping and punching
making him scream, it’s better than boredom

  

CATAPLASM

this dismal city
rich with rogues
this damned city
with the faces of fattened sheep
with their by-the-grace-of-God smiles

this stinking city
that begs potent perfume
to cloak the stench
of fish-gut markets
blood-washed gutters

behold the faces of the nouveau riche
bloated as the intestines
of pigs that slither down the walls
of the slaughterhouse
that creep under our doors at night
to remind us that we are no better
than vermin, leeches
upon the skin of the earth

inhabitants of the wretched city
I shall never love you
I shall always spit into your footprints.

  

LAUGHTER

feel my ugly brain throb; feel it; massage it
feed it breadcrumbs thru the slits of my eyes
touch my jocular madness

I will make you laugh if it’s the last thing I do
over my dead body you will not refuse to laugh
I will make you giggle and lose your religion

this is where the horsemen come in
riding high stallions, brandishing swords
kicking horse flesh with spurs, digging hard iron
into the skin of their sides. “Laugh!” they shout

lift up your heads, stretch your necks
watch them eagerly seek the blade of my guillotine

my thumbs, fingertips, nails are marching to war
follow the serpent that unwraps its feathered body
from around my waist and slithers out of the garden
into the fossilized streets of the fogbound city

we have only minutes to live
only moments to find harmony between my fist
and the laughing serpent

what are you waiting for?

  

ETC.

born on the floor of the earth
as the clock hands swept from Friday the 13th
to Saturday the 14th in the month of February
or perhaps it was October

I stood erect and faced
the starry starry sky
with a pitiless gaze
my rageous mouth opening
to utter a scream of protest
“Ask you if I am worth my reputation?”

how dare you ask
you worms of starlight and moon
you impertinent wombs of solar dust
I give you silence, I give you ETC.

this is the end of the line ETC.

this is the last scream ETC.

this is where you get off and vanish ETC.

this is where I punish you with SILENCE ETC.

  

to THE BLIND ORGAN GRINDERS

To the blind organ grinders of heroic ecstasy
To the pugnacious Comprachicos and their spawn
To the voracious meat eaters gnawing on the bones
of grammarians
To conquerors double-crossed by double-entendres
To exalted penitents who creep the path to heaven
on bloody knees
To soul trappers who live on the edge of graveyards
To fugitives from blind justice who pluck out their eyes
to better see where they’re going

To the martyred youths who died alone crucified face-
forward to the trees
The idol worshippers who never had a chance to grow out
of their Æsop masks
Who stand stripped naked and baptized in the piss of the
lamb before a pack
Of snarling mastiffs waiting for the command to attack

To the goblin charmers, the last-dance-with-eternity jokers
The magicians of exploding mushrooms,
the executioners of the firing squad
Who stand in line and shoot the clouds full of holes

To the oratorical hide flayers and barn burners who shout
When whispers are in order
Who weep when laughter opens its epileptic mouth

To the navigator of the ark who brought two of everything
to our barren shores
and repopulated our swan ponds with fork-tongued
salamanders
And our plantations with multi-lingual slaves

  

THE HEADHUNTERS

I see you, cavemen. Cover your eyes
with shards of colored glass; do not stray
from dark corners

the head hunters,
the hut-dwelling skull seekers
they will slice out your soul
with stone age knives of flint
beat the light from your brains
with stone hammers

beware the head hunters
they hide their heads in jungles
under shaded leaves

where are the invalids back from cold climates?
crawling on bloody knees to pools of clear water
and competing with serpents for survival

  

ORACULAR

foul weather; it suits my mood perfectly
sunlight would be an insult; dark skies with thunderclouds
looming
the guillotined in cambrils rolling across the cobblestones
of Place de la Bastille
to be dumped into open pits of lime

SQUANDERED VISIONS, SHATTERED TREASURES

destitute alchemists polishing their gold teeth preparing
their gums for painful extractions

SQUANDERED VISIONS, SHATTERED TREASURES

masters and slaves; judges and criminals
rebels and conformists chained together in illusion
writhing in the pits of hell

SQUANDERED VISIONS, SHATTERED TREASURES

word victims crawling across landscapes of splintered logic
comparing chilled scalps addicted to their inner voids

SQUANDERED VISIONS, SHATTERED TREASURES

  

PHILOMATHIC

I have delivered a waterfall of tears
into the eyes of crustaceans and nematodes
to those of you who can read between the lines
know that your servant amid barbaric absurdities
has been very busy and very bored

  

THE RESURRECTION OF THE BI-LINGUAL SERPENTS

messages from the heartland come rolling in
on the hoofbeats of horses
I understand none of them, they are not for me
or in any language I understand, this is a new language,
it borrows from primordial discomforts
it contains no despised antecedents
they’re rounding up the children
hiding them under locked cellar doors
the whisper of the children seep up thru the cracks
“You’re helpless; no one can save you –
it’s all been pre-arranged. when you came down
from the mountain you were shot from under
now you will be seized and locked in chains
and thrust into a damp abyss that promises
a dark diet of starvation and ceaseless slavery

  

SWINE

O my lovely pigs, how you grunt and grumble
how you trample the grass and root up the worms
how you romp in the field
that lies between your walls of stone

you squeal with delight when the ragmen toss you
a bone

“Gobble Gobble'” you say with your little hoof beats
pattering on the dead earth

“Slurp slurp,” you say as you open your bloody gullets and belch out a cloud of poisonous gas

lift your snouts from the cadaver, pigs
I will be by later to help you devour your evening
feast of corpses

  

UNPLUMED (DEPLUMÉ)

A flurry of clipped wings, stripped of feathers
the rooster lies helpless by the side of the road
his claws scratching out a message in the dirt
that no one can decipher, not even the priest
of the Holy Avians knows what this disfigured
creature is trying to say

I can tell you:
it is testimony that would bring down the empire
if the emperor’s treacherous liaisons
with enemy courtesans were revealed

  

PRAYER

this is a cry for help
this is a sly wink from a squinted, cynical eye

these are sobs of boundless grief
these are giggles from deep in the throat
of an endless ocean of laughter

these are tears, I swear these are tears
these are drops of holy water flung into my face
by rude-gesturing fingers

bring down the walls. bring down the roof
bury me in the dust with silent curses

  

FUNERAL PROCESSION

The treachery of the scalp
I stumble at every stone
Lost Abyssinia
I am but a motionless stump

  

LAUDANUM

I lived for laudanum

in the gaps between the bricks
that trembled beneath my feet, I lived

in the silences between the clicks of clocks
from the far side of the wall, I lived

in the puffs of steam between my spoken words
on a cold winter morning, I lived

in the vast distances between the visible stars
and the invisible galaxies, I lived

atop the Eiffel Tower, floating free
clinging to the surface of a red balloon, I lived

on the wings of seagulls that swept the air
between London bridges, I lived

on the backs of dolphins that emerged momentarily
from the Gulf of Aden and then dipped back
into their watery darkness, I lived

now I ache for the blessing of morphine
I ache to die

  

THE TIDE

the voices say: have patience
the tide is going out

the fool can see it
with his own eyes
he doesn’t need to be told

the tide is going out
exposing ocean’s genitals to the sky
all its moist rocks
all its clumps of wet seaweed
all its clawed creatures
and pock-marked burrows
where fingertip beasts hide
as birds swoop down
to feast upon them

the tide is receding
the fool knows he should wait
for the ocean to come pouring back
and filling its valley
with warm salt saliva
but he doesn’t have the patience
he takes off his shoes
“I must!”
he runs thru the wet sand
“I must!”
crushing shells underfoot
“I must!”
leaving wide sinking sucking
footprints behind him
as he dances to the water’s edge

the fool looks back
he is beyond the sight of land
the voices say: you must return
but his feet speak for themselves
they speak for his complete body
they say:
we are not going back

  

PHANTASMAGORIA

it comes in with the night
floating out of the dark fog
whispering: no use to get excited
we’re all made of mud and grass
tree leaves and sticks of wood
stop the clock
life starts NOW
you missed it
it started back then

  

DISCONNECTED

broken once, broken twice, broken in two
by the sound of church bells, by the song of the leper
by the drum beat of horses’ hoofs on the cobblestones
when the cavalry of the invading army parades thru town
followed by the marching footsteps of soldiers crossing
the bridge, vibrating its foundations
with the pulse of a gargantuan heart beat
(yes, and by the song of the leper)

broken and never repaired, never reconnected
to the lines that connect the earth and the sky
the garden and the clouds, hell and heaven
the Machiavellian machinations of the corrupted spirit
and the purified soul of second-born angels
without these lines I am half-beauty, half beast
half Bird of Paradise, half Wolf of the Steppes
a complete human fool

  

FRAGMENTS, FIGMENTS & FIGURES OF SPEECH

ETERNAL CITY SLICKERS

screaming all the way to hell
in loud cadences of harsh hoof beats

IBERIAN WOLF

run wolf run
your tail is on fire
the forest is quickly
going haywire
the flames are leaping out of your anus
they’re climbing your back, they’re out of control

run wolf run
smoke in your eyes
fear in your throat

run wolf run
they’re coming with guns
they’re coming with doom

he crossed the land
to the steep-stepped hills
the staircase to the mountain
he climbed

born into captivity
released into freedom
with my first breath
I broke the chains
crumbled the stone walls
and soared into heaven
hovered over barren landscapes
where leaden laws of social conventions
demanded obedience
and voices of reason ruled over the forests
the fields, the rolling hills of grass
cursed the waters of a winding river
thru narrow gorges and canyons
of unimpeachable beauty
until they flowed into the sea
where they could merge with the salt again
untouched by crucifixion nails

I flowed above the river
over the boundless sea
and saw with eyes washed with rain
a new world rising from the waves

a parade of dogs
trotting down the street single file
nose to tail

when I take your hands
and tie them to the bedposts
think you I’m being unfair?
Ungenerous? Unkind?
think again, Brother Pitou
I’m giving you the benefit of Doubt

the snarl of the beast, the warning

shallops in the bay
wind tipping their masts
leaning them into the sun

in sleep we dream our unchained freedom
our salvation, our heart-shaped love
sculpted from shadow and light

  

MERCIFUL SISTER
to Isabelle

do you really think
you can teach me new tricks, Isabelle
many have tried and felt
the whiplash of my tongue wrath

I am not your pet weasel, Isabelle
who combs his hair before every meal
I am not your hedgehog who snuffles at your palm
for a morsel reward for good posture

take a close look, Isabella; look again
what you see is a manchild stripped
of excess innocence and unrequited dreams
pain is his companion, suffering his fate

take away his blind eyes and thorny side
too much crucifixion makes a man mean

  

THE LIGHT

I am filled with light
amputate my legs, blind doctor
and my stumps will glow
I clench my jaw
grit my teeth
and my stumps become spotlights
on an approaching locomotive
behind me on the tracks
is a train
a thousand cars long
each car is filled with bodies
dead and dying

cover your mouths, enlightened ones
you sitting Buddhas
you strolling Samadhis
you lotus eaters
you spinning dervishes

come with me
abide close to my heart
and you will see the light

  

THE WORD

In the beginning was the word
and the word was light
and John the Baptist
was a seasonal sensual
with a headful of dreams

The barbers cut off his head
took out the dreams
and filled it with light

light glowed from his closed eyelids
seeped from the corners of his mouth

O holy ghosts
porters of light
unburdened by torches
illuminated in the night
glowing hair
fingertips, genitals
eyes flashing beacons
laughing in the dark

O illuminated monkey
burning in the night
like a Blakean tiger
take us back along the turtle trails
to the center of the world
to the origin of the species
to where it all began with a puff of wind

Take us seriously
into the unmapped territories
where pools of moonlight
fill the hollow rocks
of the wasteland

Press our faces into the pools
of light thicker than water
drown us in the light
hear us gasp for breath
then see us join the light
when breathing fails
giving over to life
before death
light beyond life

  

ANGEL

I sleep alone
with you
I sleep
wrapped in your arms
I sleep with your mouth
breathing kisses into my hair
I sleep with your lips
whispering caresses
into my ears
I sleep and dream

can this be the fulfillment?
of all I ever hoped to find
when I stretched my nerves
across wasted landscapes?

can this be the reward
I never received for all
my sweated labor, all the nights
I lay awake in muscle bound terror
as the bombs dropped from the sky
and shook my bones
as their blasts destroyed
the ground around my tent?

can this be anything but love?

I sleep with you
wrapped in my arms

awake I refuse to let you go
but you kiss my eyelids
and escape
when my vision turns inward

  

THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE

it was before the beginning
and after the end
about the time
the world rolled by

he had muscles like a mob
she a mouth like a moth

there is a hole
where my heart
used to be

we became lovers
and I lost a friend

L’affreux rire de l’idiot

2012  |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

et le printemps m’a apporté l’affreux rire de l’idiot
Une saison en enfer

Poèmes perdus d’Arthur Rimbaud, écrits dans les dernières semaines de sa vie, découverts et traduits en 1927 par Charles Campbell, professeur à l’Institut de littérature française à Charleville-Mézières.

INTRODUCTION

Il est généralement admis qu’Arthur Rimbaud, né le 20 octobre 1854 et mort le 10 novembre 1891, avait complètement arrêté d’écrire à 21 ans. Une singulière succession de découvertes nous apprend qu’il n’en est rien.

Un recueil de ce qui constitue véritablement ses dernières œuvres fut découvert en 1927 par le professeur Charles Campbell dans le grenier de la maison natale de Rimbaud, là où il a passé ses 18 premières années. Ces poèmes étaient enfouis dans les profondeurs d’une malle empoussiérée dont on pensait qu’elle ne contenait que des cartes postales et autres papiers sans valeur accumulés au fil des années et des voyages par des membres de sa famille. Le professeur Campbell se mit immédiatement à les traduire en anglais en vue d’une édition bilingue des œuvres complètes. Mais son travail fut interrompu par des soucis familiaux qui lui firent quitter la France en 1929 ; il mourut en 1932 dans la jungle amazonienne, d’une maladie non identifiée. Son travail sur Rimbaud resta lettre morte pendant une dizaine d’années puis subit un coup fatal : pendant le bombardement de Charleville-Mézières en 1944 le manuscrit original des poèmes de la plume de Rimbaud fut détruit. Seule la traduction anglaise survécut. Conservé par un concierge et ses descendants, le recueil qui porte le titre anglais The Idiot’s Frightful Laughter (citation tirée d’Une saison en enfer) a dormi d’un sommeil sans rêve pendant 70 ans. Aujourd’hui, grâce aux efforts de mes éditeurs à U.C. Berkeley Press et au généreux soutien de la fondation Rimbaud à Essalen, nous pouvons enfin livrer aux yeux du public les traductions anglaises de ces poèmes, qui méritent pleinement leur place parmi les vers immortels du jeune poète, ainsi qu’une retraduction française qui ne pourra qu’être inférieure aux originaux rimbaldiens mais où résonne, nous semble-t-il, l’écho transmuté de la voix du jeune poète.

signé Alcide Bava
PhD, professeur de littérature française,
University of California, Santa Cruz, 2008

AUTOBIOGRAPHIQUE

vous qui jamais n’avez laissé errer le regard
au-delà de la lumière des cités perdues, les Mésopotamies
de l’âme, les Londres de minables Drury Lanes
les rues pavées d’une Rome Empirique
les trottoirs d’un Paris Hypothétique
je vous ris au nez
les rues que j’ai arpentées dans la peine et la douleur
se dressent pour vous ridiculiser

à 6 ans je revins d’entre les morts
qui peut me contredire (moi moins que quiconque)
vibrant sur des câbles de nerfs
qui me couvraient le corps tels un filet de pêche
des mers les plus profondes, électrisé
par la foudre frappant la coupe de hauberts

je m’éloignais dans l’ombre de la pénombre
pour ne jamais retourner au soleil
avant l’âge de dix-huit ans
quand j’ai déchiré ma tente en peau de bœuf
d’ongles aiguisés sur des tableaux noirs

jusqu’alors des ombres fugaces m’étaient abri et refuge
dans des recoins d’allée je me cachais
sans jamais révéler mon visage
au roulement des tambourineurs
qui paradaient sans fin
sur des jambes de poulet qui se rengorge
le long d’avenues croisées en fleurs piétinées

J’étais un enfant de l’obscurité
nourri au lait de l’agneau du sacrifice
j’ai grandi à d’infinies proportions
de maturité mentale et de sagesse infaillible

j’émergeais des poubelles
pour voir des vagues d’humains
dévaler les boulevards
dégringoler des marches de pierre
bousculades de gémissements sonores
et de mornes plaintes
accablées elles geignaient et grondaient
et je m’avançais quittant mes repaires
et marchais invisible
au milieu de la masse humaine

AUTOBIOGRAPHIQUE

quand mon regard se reporta sur l’eau
aucun des bateaux n’était ivre
ils étaient au garde à vous, voiles
pointées vers les nuages, la mer giflait
leurs flancs et ils dansaient sur l’eau
comme une troupe de phoques dressés
je me nourrissais de poissons
je me nourrissais d’algues
je me nourrissais de vous

là je fume l’herbe des crépuscules couchants
et des levers de soleil de l’est cimmérien
je vois que de ce monde il ne reste pas
grand chose à piller
j’ai pris l’or, les armes, les esclaves
j’ai prié sur leurs corps criblés de balles
non pour le confort douillet d’utopique soustraction
et la division des vies entre cages à oiseaux,
antres de lions, enclos de moutons et niches à chiens
non pour rejoindre les hordes de générations
envahissant terrasses de cafés et bistrots
pour y battre leur ego de carpette usée
aux cuisses nues de danseuses de cancan
mais pour posséder le cadavre du diable en personne,
jouer avec ses paupières, lui tordre le nez
et étirer les coins de sa bouche avec mes pouces
pour lui faire un sourire coquin

rentrez chez vous, poètes de quatre sous
peintres asexués de pickles et de placenta
rentrez chez vous et mettez-vous au tissage de luxure
à la confection de petits gâteaux, à l’amour du chocolat
rendez-vous inutiles ailleurs
le monde n’a que faire de vous ici
sous les étoiles et les lunes
sous les cieux en expansion

donnez-moi la croix rugueuse
laissez-moi bondir et cracher
au visage de bébé Jésus
toutes les crucifixions modernes sont nulles
oh bébé Jésus, toi qui pensais
que renverser les tables des marchands
changerait le cours de l’histoire
la course implacable de locomotives à vapeur
fonçant sur la civilisation comme bêtes enragées

venues des montagnes du monde
changerait un atome de poussière
au spectre de l’activité humaine
quel acte pathétique des doigts
tu as accompli ce jour-là à Famagusta
prends exemple sur moi, porteur d’eau
regarde comme je plonge mon stylet
dans le dos de nuages en forme de tortue
et d’un coup de pied envoie la dictée
de désirs dans l’espace infini

je suis mort tant de fois et sous tant de formes
ces dernières fuyantes années
tu ne verrais pas en moi un homme
qui a une autre joue à tendre
regarde-moi, doux bébé Jésus, et apprends
je sais mieux que toi
comment traiter le hoi polloi, les nécrophages,
les plongeurs d’égouts et les cliquotiers,
les rimailleurs n’y pigent que dalle
et toi non plus

vois cet espace
il sera bientôt vide
et mes pierres roulées atteindront
bientôt une grotte près de toi
achète des billets, premier rang de balcon
ou parterre à cacahuètes, je m’en fous
je serai sur scène
et te montrerai exactement comment
on vivra aux temps à venir,
au-delà du manège des habitudes
observe comme je soulève le voile
d’une statue nommée Vertu Virtuelle
tu t’attendras à la voir belle
et séduisante genre Aphrodite
ou Prostituée de Babylone

regarde mieux. Elle est poilue et énorme
laide et démesurément asymétrique
vois comme son ventre pendouille
comme ses dents pointent en pics irréguliers
sur son visage en ruine, avance, va
sucer ses lèvres branlantes
chatouiller de ta langue ses dents pourries
éveille-la à la vie, lèche ses aisselles poilues
elle t’attend pour te mener
sur la montagne du pur amour
vers les plus glorieux des jours et des nuits
au-delà de la menteuse mortalité
quand toi et elle, elle et toi
serez changés en anges païens
tu sais qu’il n’y a pas d’espoir
si tu restes ici englué dans les ordures
pieds collés aux pierres yeux fixés
comme boulons de pierre
dans de noires couvertures
de goudron et de plumes

il n’y a pas de raison de partir, de grimper
nul ne t’applaudira
même pas moi
je ne donnerais pas une pichenette
à un étron à double merde
pour ce que tu fais ou ne fais pas
avec tes Charles Darwinables
aux degrés les plus bas de l’échelle
avec les lézards et les sangsues
avec les morsures de punaises de lits conjugaux ;
pars ou reste, cela m’indiffère
mais si tu restes, dégage
aplatis-toi quand je passe ;
étends-toi sur les tables d’opération
des avenues quand j’y danse
et n’émets pas un sifflement de narine bouchée
si par hasard je me livre à une tarantelle fandangée
sur ta bedaine, pas un doigt levé
si je fais un pas de tango sur ta gorge

observe sans plus
je suis ce que tu aurais pu devenir
ce que tu n’as jamais eu le courage de devenir
je pointerai du doigt ta débauche caquetante
je dirai ‘tchic tchic’ et tu reculeras
j’arracherai ton maigre plumage
et tu tituberas jusqu’à la chaussée
pour te faire prendre dans le bas de caisse
d’une voiture de sport
tu en sortiras tout déplummé
tu jaboteras et je rirai
et peu après une bande de barbares
dévoyés d’explorations nordiques
sentira ta sueur de sang
et te dévorera cuit ou cru
(peu importe)
avec des dents acérées et des langues salivantes
pour eux tu ne seras jamais
qu’une bouchée de viande

je dirai que je t’avais prévenu
tu aurais du grimper sur cette montagne
jusqu’aux pentes loin au-dessus des hordes barbares
tu aurais du suivre la femme hideuse

APHORISMES

nous sommes chacun
nous sommes des saints
nous sommes des pécheurs
je suis toi et tu es moi
et je suis un assassin
attendant dans le couloir de la mort
un bouquet de roses
pour obstruer les barreaux de ma cellule

tu es moi et je suis toi
et vous n’êtes rien sinon tout

nous sommes Aquariens, nous sommes Béliers
nous sommes Centaures avec arc et flèche
Scorpions à la queue vénéneuse
nous sommes tous les signes du Zodiaque
mêlés sans mesure dans une marmite de soupe bouillante

nous sommes les Fous, nous sommes les Amants,
le Pendu et la Lune
nous sommes toutes les cartes des arcanes
majeures et mineures battues en un tas
et laissées se mouiller sur la lèvre d’une fontaine

je suis un fou, je suis les multiples versions
de poètes rendus déments par leurs désirs sexuels
Je suis Walt Whitman, je contiens des multitudes

nous sommes des vampires, des loups-garous
nous sommes les zombies de la nuit de Walpurgis

tu es tous les transformistes au monde
je suis squelette

nous enseignons, nous guidons vers l’inconnu
nous sommes trous de cul et culs de sac

tu es Rimbaud
tu es moi
ne t’y trompe pas
tu es tous et chacun
JE SUIS RIMBAUD
je suis créateur de chaos
fermier d’anarchie
de mes ongles je laboure votre chair
et plante des graines de démence en tornade
qui sain d’esprit ? vous ?
moi dément, dangereux, déchainé
pas lié, pas masqué
pas borné aux règles de danses de babouins
de menuets de singes, de gavottes de gorilles,
de burlesques ordinaires de chimpanzés

je patine sur une fine couche de glace
rejoignez-moi au bord de l’étang
nous chercherons des poissons gelés
de notre nez en feu et nos yeux rougeoyants
plantés profond dans l’eau fumante
des harengs fumés monteront dans nos bouches ouvertes
et nous mâcherons les os d’antiques fossiles

je mous un orgue de Barbarie dans les ruelles
ma drogue est l’arôme de fumier de cheval
quand je cesse de jouer je dois supporter
la puanteur d’égouts humains
Seigneur des Mouches, ayez pitié de mon âme simple
je suis contrebandier et trafiquant
je vends des fusils aux Arabes
et des munitions aux Juifs
je vends de l’opium aux mystifiés
et des herbes aux mystiques
j’achète du haschich aux Assassins
et le vends aux esclaves bossus
des mines de Morbidia
nul ne refuse ma coûteuse générosité

je suis relieur de livres
les Œuvres complètes de Poètes aztèques
les Bibles interdites de Prêtres coptes
les Rouleaux brûlés par le soleil de Siméon Stylite
les Psaumes d’Adam et Eve
et les poèmes épiques de troubadours aveugles
voilà mes livres, ils portent ma marque
je les signe quand les auteurs ne sont pas là

je suis un luthier sourd
mes violes en armoise pendent au bras
de musiciens musclés en mal d’amour
portés comme ornement pour éblouir les yeux
d’auditoires enthousiastes qui viennent écouter
des quatuors à cordes au talent douteux
jouer les marches de mort et bagatelles funèbres
de compositeurs célébrés dans les cathédrales
de l’Atlantis engloutie

je suis un soldat de fortune
je ramasse mes shekels, roupies et rands,
mes livres et thalers de rejetons incestueux
bannis de leur royaume prêts à payer n’importe quel prix
pour la fondation d’une nouvelle dictature tyrannique
appelez-moi quand il vous faut fomenter une révolution
je connais les arts étranges de la torture
et de l’implacable tourment

je suis calembredaines carabistouilleuses
je tiens ta main humaine
viens avec moi au Jardin de l’Abîme
je te montrerai les mystères de la mort par étouffement
nous danserons le fox trot du Diable sur la musique
de grenouilles et le rire les chacals
nous comparerons des scalps refroidis
nous déploierons notre vulgarité
nous célébrerons nos grotesqueries

je suis docteur de démence
je conçois des labyrinthes à hauts murs
qui s’écroulent au passage tandis que vous cherchez
le centre
j’adore les colères incontrôlables des gosses
j’encourage la promotion des idiots du village
à de hautes fonctions
la nuit je lâche des meutes de chiens sauvages
ils se dispersent dans la ville et finissent
par trouver le chemin de votre lit
pour terroriser vos rêves les plus doux

ne m’enviez pas, imaginez-moi étendu
sur le sol humide d’une geôle abyssinienne
à boire l’eau d’un seau plein de clous rouillés
et observer des limaces cannibales d’Amazonie
se repaître de mes pieds amputés

LA FOLIE D’ORPHÉE
épuisé dévoré vivant par les vers du chagrin
de choix inconsidérés, de décisions destructrices
tourmenté de tornade, abandonné à des bateaux en détresse,
laissé sur des eaux huileuses un tourbillon comme seul repère
l’esprit fouetté par des putes aux seins spongieux
montées des sous-sols du bordel
trompé par des batteurs sans visage de cartes sans visage,
accro à l’opium, pendu au crochet de la morphine,
pinçant les cordes du même luth de pierre
qui rendit Orphée fou quand il essayait
de ses doigts dérisoires d’en accorder les clés

ACHILLE ABATTU
Achille abattu
Ulysse rentré chez lui
que reste-t-il sinon l’écho
d’une prêtresse de Delphes
montant la colline au soleil couchant
et pleurant dans le crépuscule ?

Dante exilé et Ovide recherché
mort ou vif

que reste-t-il sinon les yeux aveugles de prophètes
servis fumants sur des plateaux d’argent
à des rois et des reines de hasard
et les cris d’une populace cleptomane
en route pour retourner à ses cavernes
agitant ses drapeaux et battant l’air
de poings bandés de peaux de serpent ?

MOIGNONS DE SOUVENIR
des moignons de souvenir me viennent quand j’ai le dos tourné
me tapent sur l’épaule, se souviennent de moi
quand je ne souhaite plus laisser de souvenir

il y eut un jour où le soleil tapait
sur les ombrelles de dames à la peau blanche
qui ouvrirent les rideaux de leur robe
à l’air frais et permirent à des oiseaux assoiffés
de téter le lait de leurs seins mignons

il y eut une nuit où les étoiles avaient des yeux
et où la lune était simplement une lanterne japonaise
suspendue au-dessus des têtes de femmes à peau sombre
qui ouvrent leur bouche au corps des batteurs de tambour
et leur permirent de pilonner leur crâne
de leurs poings de cuir fendu
tandis qu’elles mouraient dans des spasmes orgasmique

SARGASSE
le romanesque engendre la confusion
l’amour construit des châteaux de nuages dans le ciel
tandis que le désir continue à touiller dans la marmite
de soupe de lubricité avec son énorme cuillère de bois
qui pourrait pagayer des canots d’en dessous
du Pont des Soupirs jusqu’au vortex de la Mer des Sargasses
en laissant un sillage de larmes qui flottent comme nénuphars
sur l’eau de nouveau calme et refusent de sombrer

L’AMOUR CHEZ LES SAUVAGES
je pointe le doigt vers le ciel
et il tombe une forêt tropicale de grenouilles
je parle à l’oreille d’un chameau
et de la fumée s’échappe de l’autre oreille
tandis que des larmes explosent de ses yeux

je trempe la langue dans le bassin d’une oasis
et des anguilles électriques se dressent pour me baiser la bouche

des vierges asexuées font rebondir des noix de coco
sur mon crâne meurtri et me chantent
leurs chants d’amour non partagé chez les sauvages

À SAINTE RITA
à chaque lettre que je t’écris
je sens que je franchis une ligne dans un territoire interdit
y a-t-il un moyen d’atteindre ton cœur
sans le détruire ?

ANCÊTRES
je creuse profond dans les cimetières gaulois
et découvre les os de mes ancêtres
leurs noms et dates sont gravés sur leur crâne
avec la pointe de poignards de fer

XANTHIPPE DE KÁLAMOS—714 avant JC
qui fit voile avec Ulysse pour la Guerre de Troie et
au retour fut balayé par delà les Colonnes d’Hercule jusqu’aux Hespérides et emporté vers le nord le long de la côte de Galice jusqu’à Carnac où il établit la première colonie grecque en terre druidique.

NABOPOLASSAR—605 avant JC
Garde royal néo-babylonien des Jardins
suspendus de Nabuchodonosor II.

MASANISSA DE NUMIDIE—3e siècle avant JC
guerrier, auteur de Ιστρία (Istoriai)

PYTHOCLÈS—310-270 avant JC
Philosophe, disciple d’Épicure. Fonda
l’École de logique transcendantale de Lampedusa
Principal représentant de la métaphysique esthétique.

NAUCRATIOUS—4e siècle de notre ère
prêtre chaldéen du Temple de Mithra à
Rome ; au métrôon d’Ostie.

ISMAËL L’INNOCENT—721-768
Érudit carolingien, poète, patriarche d’Aquilée

ANDRUCHE, FILS DE TIBOST—816-844
Paysan, trima pendant vingt ans sans salaire
dans les champs du Prince Fenellosa III d’Aquitaine en échange d’une seule nuit du solstice d’été dans les bras de sa fille, la Princesse Jehanette.

GUÉRIN DE MONTAIGU D’AUVERGNE—1183-1223
Croisé. Croyant fanatique qui en l’an de grâce 1200 mena 14 000 fantassins – hommes, femmes, enfants – à pied vers la Terre Sainte où il fit lever le siège d’Acre puis conduisit les restes de son armée à la prise de Damiette, échappant de justesse à la mort, pour mourir un an plus tard à Toulouse des mains de Bertrand, comte de Toulouse et de Tripoli, Duc de Narbonne, l’époux jaloux de Dame Demona Mathilde FitzRoy de Montivilliers, qui poignarda Guérin et son épouse infidèle pendant leur sommeil.

GUILLAUME GUIMBARD—1198-1240
Poète, troubadour, amant de la Burgravine Petronella de Courtrai de Gand, de Dame Ermassenda de Castelbó d’Andorre, de la Comtesse Blanche de Navarre, de la Comtesse Isabelle Taillefer d’Angoulême, de la Princesse Bourgondie de Chypre, de la Margravine Yolanda de Flandres de Namur, de la Margravine Adelesia di Monferrato de Saluzzo, de la Baronesse Eudocia Angelos d’Argos, de la Princesse Berenguela de Castilla, de la Comtesse Jézabel de Karystos, de Lady Nicola de la Hay of Lincolnshire, de la Duchesse Alice de Vergy de Bourgogne, de la Princesse Mathilde von Landsberg du Marche de Brandebourg, de la Margravine Jutta de Thuringe, de la Duchesse Guillemots de Neuchâtel de Montpellier, et de la Reine Helena Pedersdotter Strangesson de Suède.

GERARD LAGARDE DE MAZEROLLES— 1212-1262
Cathare, accusé d’hérésie par l’Inquisition en 1234, se réfugia à Carcassonne, d’où, contrairement à son père Jourdain Lagarde de Moissac qui mourut sur le bûcher en 1239, il évita l’excommunication et s’échappa en Catalogne où il vécut en exil jusqu’à sa mort.

PAULUS DE CASSAGNAC—1301-1352
Moine, père abbé de Fontfroide. Fut témoin du Miracle du Sang de Saint Janvier décapité, du Miracle de Kerkenrode de 1317, du Miracle d’Avignon en 1320 et du Miracle de l’Eucharistie à Blanot en 1331.

INGRID RAGNVOLDSDATTER DE NORVÈGE—
exploratrice 1472- 1510
La première femme à réaliser la circum-navigation du globe dans une goélette en tant que capitaine d’un équipage de criminels châtrés condamnés à l’exil perpétuel. Elle découvrit la source du Mississippi et fut faite membre d’honneur d’une tribu ojibwé. Elle rentra dans son pays où elle fut l’objet de controverses et d’accusations de sorcellerie, et échappa à la prison en se réfugiant en Amérique du Nord francophone où elle vécut en exil jusqu’à sa mort dans la République de Madawaska.

LÉONARD QUEZNEL L’AINÉ—1512-1590
Peintre. Portraits à l’huile de pauvres, d’indigents et de réprouvés, dont certains en vinrent à produire de plus grandes toiles que leur maître. Surtout connu pour son portrait d’Artemesia Gentileschi enfant.

ETIENNE GASSINI—1581-1604
Astrologue et mystique réputé, brûlé sur le bûcher pour blasphème – Dieu aie pitié de son âme.

RAMBULADE LE POURRI—1657-1714
Capitaine de vaisseau pirate, Côte de Barbarie. Propriétaire de 200 esclaves, 50 épouses, 100 000 livres d’or et 200 000 livres d’argent.

CHARLES-MAURICE DE CHATEAUBRIAND—1754-1821
Médecin de la Cour de Louis XVIII durant la Restauration. Se battit en duel au pistolet à 12 pas avec Brid’Oison Duc de Malte pour défendre l’honneur de Timothina Labinette, éborgna son adversaire d’une balle dans l’œil gauche, emporta la Labinette en croupe par la nuit la plus courte de l’an 1776 pour ne jamais revenir à Versailles que lorsque la vieillesse et la mort ramenèrent en catimini sa légende attachée à ses os.

PRIÈRE
J’ai essayé de comprendre ce que je pouvais
du monde ; croyez-moi, j’ai essayé,
mais qui peut pénétrer les circonvolutions
d’un cœur las du voyage ? le babil inepte
d’une voix sourde, la bouche vide
et la langue liée d’une âme sans avenir ?

Toi, avec ton mal de dents,
tu dis quoi ?

PRIÈRE
je ne prie jamais
pourtant là je prie que cesse cette errance sans fin
le mouvement de pieds que je ne vois plus
mais sens comme s’ils étaient encore attachés à mon corps

je prie les gyroscopes obliques de mes yeux
leur demande de tomber au sol
et de prendre avec eux cette vision tournoyante du monde

je prie le hibou : plonge en piqué et arrache
les cheveux de ma tête et construis-toi un nid

je prie les démons qu’ils se retirent et me laissent
avec les dons qu’ils ont apportés quels qu’ils soient
– mais plus de dons, je n’en veux plus

PIERRES DE BLÂME
je prends l’entière responsabilité
de tout ce que je fais
et de tout ce qui se passe dans le monde

pouvez-vous en dire de même pour vous-même ?

Ou tenez-vous à l’œil le Vieillard de la Montagne
attendant qu’il tourne le dos
pour faire passer le sac de pierres de blâme
de vos épaules aux siennes ?

CHAUVES-SOURIS DE L’ENFER
quand les ombres se fondent au crépuscule
vous pouvez seulement alors vous engager
profondément envers le jour et décider un cessez-le feu
de la souffrance

vol d’oiseaux à travers le paysage
et chiens de rue lâchés par les champs de blé
plumes aux dents, mâchoire
dégoulinant de sang de pigeon

une bouche dans la terre s’ouvre béante
et d’elle s’envole un nuage massif
de Chauves-souris d’Enfer, grouillante masse
informe de corps battant des ailes

les Chauves-souris d’Enfer montent en cercle
dans l’air frais au-dessus de la ville contre
le ciel d’un soleil bien installé

en vol vers l’obscurité
quand la nuit est vaste
elles regardent la dérive du continent
et racontent leur blague favorite de deux hommes
qui parlaient des langues différentes
et ne pouvaient que se disputer parce que ‘oui’
dans la langue de l’un était ‘non’
dans la langue de l’autre

qui se cachent dans des repaires moelleux
entre les feuilles tombées des arbres
elles disent : où donc est le plaisir ?

QUESTION & RÉPONSE
QUESTION :
pourquoi encombrons-nous notre vie
de copulations aussitôt regrettées
et de glissements furtifs de peau
de contraction torturée de muscle
et de décharge de sperme dans le vide ?

Est-ce parce que nous sommes faits de chair
que nous avons des corps qui ont des exigences génétiques
que nous sommes des animaux à qui il faut promettre
une vie après la mort ?

RÉPONSE :
nous prions pour la chance fugace
qu’un amour inconditionnel nous attendra
au-delà de l’autre bord du vide

AMOUR
homme et chien sont assis sur le sol
d’une pièce vide face à face

le chien porte une muselière de cuir
l’homme porte un masque de cuir et de fer
leurs têtes sont bloquées dans la réciprocité du regard

l’homme est attaché à une chaise par une corde
le chien tire au bout d’une chaîne
ils se font face à une distance
de moins de deux pieds
tous deux bavent, les yeux mangés de passion

le seul désir du chien est d’arracher la gorge de l’homme
et de le déchiqueter

l’homme ressent la même chose pour le chien
tout ce qu’ils peuvent faire c’est hurler l’un sur l’autre
des gémissements déchirés
de chagrin et de frustration
qui durent heure après heure

c’est à cela que ça ressemble
un homme et une femme amoureux

LIAISON
voyez comme son ombrelle se penche
et exécute des acrobaties de Kama Sutra
quand elle se promène le dimanche après-midi
au Parc des Horizons Lointains

voyez comme il lève la paupière
avec des excuses pour les crasses
sur son tapis persan

elle calcule combien
de charges intellectuelles en feux d’artifice
il faudra pour pousser un homme modérément désespéré
au-delà du bord du suicide

lui, un homme violemment désespéré,
s’accroche au bord et riposte
de tous les couteaux que peut produire sa langue

LE MARI HARCELÉ
va au diable, dit-elle, toi, tes yeux, ta bouche
ta façon de te regarder
de côté en passant devant la vitrine
d’une boutique de chiffonnier
les nuages-vermisseaux quand tu dis
‘j’espère pouvoir descendre cet escalier qui monte’

ta façon de surprendre les miroirs
avant qu’ils ne soient prêts à refléter

la façon dont tu rengorges en avançant sur scène
quand les filles gloussantes avec des cadeaux
t’entourent et chatouillent ton imagination

CELUI QUI BAT SA FEMME
‘Vade retro, Satan’, dit-elle
et Satan répond par un grognement
et une carpe lancée au visage

Ce n’est pas la première fois
qu’un poisson s’interpose
et ce ne sera pas la dernière

Encore à venir quelques rats morts
une douzaine de taupes endormies
et un poing de feu incandescent
qui laissera une tête de mort et deux tibias
sur le côté d’un visage moins beau

LE BÂTON POUR ME BATTRE (chanson)
sous les coups du bâton pour me battre
je vins à la vie, je m’épanouis

ils trempèrent ma tête dans l’huile bouillante
et la douleur devint ma compagne
je me dénudai et me tins devant le soleil
et souris tandis qu’il brûlait son ombre dans ma peau

debout devant le peloton d’exécution
j’arrêtais les balles avec ma poitrine
je me balançais au bout d’une corde
et le rire m’étouffait la gorge

sous les coups de bâton
je vins à la vie, je m’épanouis

enterré vif je sortis de terre
m’essuyai la poussière des yeux
les femmes en larmes rassemblées autour du trou
pleurèrent ma fausse mort en me violant la bouche

sous les coups de bâton
je vins à la vie, je m’épanouis

crucifié je chantai le chant
de marins perdus en mer
liés au mât de leur voilier
fouettés pour la gaudriole

sous les coups de bâton
je vins à la vie, je m’épanouis

torturé par l’Inquisiteurs
sans rime ni raison
mon esprit planait au-dessus des nuages
et je chantais des cantiques des anges mal en point

sous les coups de bâton
je vins à la vie, je m’épanouis

blessé à la guerre, je me traînai dans la boue
la bataille faisait rage, ma traînée de sang
laissait un chemin à suivre
par tous les soldats mutilés

sous les coups de bâton
je vins à la vie, je m’épanouis

abandonné par les wagons
je marchai à travers les mirages
j’ouvris une porte dans une oasis
j’ouvris la bouche et bus le sable

sous les coups de bâton
je vins à la vie, je m’épanouis

ASTROLOGUE
Né sous le signe de la Licorne
je courais les champs pénis dressé
je jouais sur les pipeaux du Pandémonium
des vierges brisaient leur bateau sur mon rivage

Né sous le signe du Paon
je volai loin vers le sud et me mêlai
à d’autres espèces d’animaux à la fois mythiques
et invraisemblables
le Phoenix m’enseigna à combattre le feu par le feu
les Chimères devinrent mes amantes de rêve
les Centaures furent mes compagnons
l’Hippogriffe devint mon meilleur ami

Sous le signe du Sanglier Sauvage
j’arpentai les routes poussiéreuses au Pays de la Chope
je m’enivrai dans toutes les auberges du chemin
je combattis trois hommes avec mes poings
l’un mourut

Sous le signe de Janus
je portais un masque derrière la tête
je marchais à reculons et parlais dans un tube
qui se recourbait entre mes jambes si bien
que ma voix semblait venir de l’anus.
Je disais ‘Saperlipotte de saperlopette’

Sous le signe de l’alphabet
j’inventai de nouveaux sons pour animer le fade
le lassant ennui des paroles des gens
les conversations s’améliorèrent grâce à mon invention
de la lettre Ю
 fournit excitation aux lecteurs de journaux blasés
la lettre  apporta du bonheur aux petits enfants
‡ signifiait chaos et révolution
et la lettre ∞ donna à ceux qui l’avaient longue une chance
de terminer leurs potins

Sous le signe de la Rose
je tombai amoureux d’une femme de deux fois mon âge
compté en années de l’âme
bien qu’elle fût une fille de la moitié de mon âge
en années de calendrier
mais elle avançait trop vite pour moi
je ne suivais pas ; elle me laissait en arrière
dans la poussière, je courais derrière elle
en criant ‘je ne t’aimerai que mieux après la mort !’
mais elle ne répondit pas, elle était partie
par-delà l’horizon dans une autre vie

Sous le signe du Canon
j’ai été incorporé à l’armée et ai déserté
le jour même. J’ai refusé de marcher je détestais
obéir aux ordres, je n’avais qu’une envie, tuer
les officiers suffisants qui me donnaient des ordres
je me suis échappé dans les lignes ennemies, je leur ai dit
que les troupes de mon armée attendaient
dans les bois pour les tuer au matin
ils ont attaqué les bois la nuit et tué
tous les soldats et officiers de ma troupe
l’ennemi a loué mon courage
et m’a renvoyé chez moi un traître, j’ai peint
des trous de balles sur mes bras et mes jambes
et j’ai été accueilli en héros
le seul survivant d’une armée vaincue
dont les combattants étaient morts en défendant leur pays
on m’a donné un drapeau, une médaille, une pension de vétéran
et la gratuité dans les trams
réservé aux invalides de guerre

Le signe du Forgeron
voltigeait sur mon épaule
quand je cuisais les miches de pain
dans des fours où des fers à cheval avaient fondu
où l’on se souvenait de cercles de tonneaux
et de cercles de roues pour leur parfaite circularité
où les enfants s’assemblaient aux fenêtres
regardant à travers les barreaux et étalant
les marres de leurs bouches salivantes.
Maintenant je suis là au-dessus de l’épaule
d’un jeune aux cheveux noirs et muscles bandés
poitrine nue mijotant dans la chaleur de la forge
et je suis tenté d’oublier le fer en fusion
et de lécher les gouttes de sueur
qui perlent dans sa nuque

Né sous le signe de la Plume
il me poussa des ailes et j’appris à voler d’arbre
en arbre d’abord, de montagne en montagne
enfin, au-dessus de frontières inutilement gardées
par des chevaliers excaliburtés, je me glissai dans Albion
je pillai les châteaux de Saint Mawes et de Tintagel,
retournai en Bretagne chargé de tapis, de tapisseries
de bijoux de manuscrits enluminés je m’écrasai
sur la plage à marée basse du Mont Saint-Michel
et distribuai le butin de mon expédition
aux chefs de tribus connues

Sous le signe de la Cornemuse
je jouais de mon crincrin aux fêtes de village
je regardais les paysans danser en rond
je pleurai un amour perdu
et ris quand j’en trouvai un nouveau
qui m’attendait sur les feuilles d’un chêne

Sous le signe du Fouet
je devins un compositeur célèbre
de concertos et de cantates
des prima donna venaient d’Italie
pour chanter mes opéras, des pianistes de Russie
venaient exécuter mes sonates
mes quatuors à cordes mariaient précision
et émotion, j’ordonnais aux musiciens
d’enlever les cordes des pianos et violoncelles
et de s’en fouetter mutuellement le visage
mon œuvre la plus connue prescrivait aux musiciens
de se taper mutuellement sur la tête avec leur archet
puis j’ai commencé à expérimenter avec mon fouet
pour diriger mes symphonies, les cordes
se sont plaintes mais après quelques répétitions
ils en redemandaient, ils prenaient plaisir à ma discipline
les femmes flûtistes adoraient le goût du bout de mon fouet
le joueur de tuba était ravi quand un de mes coups
dirigé vers lui déviait et frappait son instrument
qui sonnait comme une cloche
les auditeurs aimaient mon audace quand le fouet passa
des répétitions aux concerts publics
ils m’aimaient encore plus quand je me tournais
à l’improviste
et cinglais des dames au premier rang
ils réclamaient des bis, mes concerts étaient complets
dix ans à l’avance
bientôt je passais plus de temps à fouetter la foule
que les musiciens
et finalement je fouettais la foule à temps plein
et laissais mon orchestre se débrouiller
les amateurs de musique ne se lassaient pas
de ma violence
j’étais acclamé comme le plus grand chef de tous les temps

Sous le signe de l’Encrier
j’observais un poète d’origine étrangère
et de talent médiocre
massacrer la vache sacrée
je me dressai dans la rage de ma colère
en criant ‘C’était à moi de tuer cette vache’
alors je créai une nouvelle vache sacrée
et la massacrai moi-même

Sous les Signes du Zodiaque
j’ai pleuré, j’ai tremblé, j’ai échoué
j’ai demandé pardon
et balayé des faveurs
j’ai aimé, j’ai trahi, j’ai trompé
j’ai ri de mes erreurs
et encouragé celles des autres
j’ai volé, j’ai menti, j’ai blasphémé
j’ai convoité la femme de mon voisin
impunément assassiné

SOUS LE SIGNE DE LA LUNE
sous le signe de la lune
j’ai joui du corps nu de mon premier amour
j’avais 14 ans, elle en avait 27
près de deux fois mon âge, près de deux fois ma taille
elle m’a pris dans ses bras blancs
sous le signe de la lune
j’ai poussé un cri et caressé ses cheveux blancs
sous le signe de la lune
elle était pâle, avait les yeux rouges
c’était un amour albino
sous le signe de la lune
elle est restée, son mari et ses enfants se sont enfuis

MAISON HANTÉE
la police est entrée chez nous sans invitation
ils nous ont donné à chacun un bout de papier
le mien était jaune il était imprimé dessus
vous êtes invité par la présente à vous rendre
au Saint Camp des Chrétiens Crucifiés
pour six semaines de rééducation intense
après quoi vous deviendrez un raciste accompli
et pleinement qualifié

ABJURATION
Les fumisteries de la science
Le vide du progrès
Rayez ces mots de mon vocabulaire
SCIENCE
PROGRÈS
découpez-les des dictionnaires avec des couteaux aiguisés
et avec des fourches lancez-les sur des tas de vieux vêtements et de bottes
déchirées
Jetez-les dans le gouffre le plus profond de l’Hadès où des attrapeurs d’oreille démoniques
jouent des accordéons désaccordés
et des maîtres de danse estropiés boitillent à travers les routines des pieds emmêlés
d’un tango

Ils polluent les terres stériles de la Charité
Ils décorent la Chasteté de pentes de terrils de fonte brute,
de jardins d’ordures et de vergers en poussière de brique rouge

J’ai vu au-delà des traces du dernier marcheur sur la lune
j’ai vu au-delà des pas vacillants de l’humanité infirme quand elle
creuse une voie
vers une fosse à purin de Cruauté au-delà des limites extrêmes
de la terre gaste
J’ai vu le gâchis que font les vieux quand des infirmières aux goûts exotiques
se mettent à travailler
de leurs mains tendres et compassion incontrôlable
leurs blessures d’amour et leur apprennent à dire ‘AH’

J’ai enfoncé les dents dans des cadavres qui respiraient et sucé le sang
de vampires

Oubliez que j’ai jamais enlacé les corps enterrés de la
logique et de l’arithmétique
j’ai été induit en erreur ; j’ai été pris par des spiritnappeurs
suis devenu une personne disparue
et n’ai jamais été rendu à ceux qui jadis me possédaient

Esclavage !
Chercheurs d’or !
Fumisterage !

L’HISTOIRE DE LA RELIGION
j’aligne mon visage
avec le corps dans le miroir
puis traverse
et entre dans l’eau chaude
les vagues se retirent dans leur océan
et mes pieds s’enfoncent dans le sable brûlant

je cours dans le sable
jusqu’à une route de goudron fondu
je suis nu, j’ai abandonné mes vêtements

une voiture tirée par quatre chevaux
s’arrête et j’y monte
assise en face de moi
c’est la Vierge Marie
elle est couverte des pieds à la tête
de doux velours pourpre
elle lève son voile, sourit
et fait un clin d’œil
mon sexe se dresse
et éjecte une boule de morve verte
qui atterrit sur ses genoux
et prend la forme d’une grenouille
Marie prend le crucifix de bois
qui lui pend autour du cou
et cloue la grenouille à la croix

elle me sourit de nouveau
et dit : ‘Vous êtes Dieu.’

CHANSON D’APHINAR
souviens-toi de moi quand la turbulence du vent
fait tournoyer les pommes et que des vers en sortent
pour se ratatiner au soleil

l’œuf d’une grive tournoie sur le bec d’un pivert
se casse, la coquille, en morceaux,
s’éparpille et l’oiselet tombe
dans la bouche ouverte du pivert
maintenant je suis éveillé
et je pleure en me rendormant

MOUTARD, MÉCHANT MÔME, MALAPPRIS DE PARIAH
1.
on m’appelle Le Moutard

2.
on m’appelle Méchant Môme
le meilleur des mauvais
du mauvais sang coule dans mes veines
bat dans mon cœur corrompu
déferle dans mon cerveau non fumigé

me mettre à la porte de la fête ?
me faire aller dans l’autre sens
me donner une tape sur le derrière
et croire que je vais courir me jeter
dans l’explosion d’un soleil couchant
que jamais je ne retournerai à vos brouillards
la mauvaise haleine de vos usines et filatures
et la promesse de laisser la fête derrière moi pour toujours ?

Quel fous vous êtes
je ferai le tour de la terre
et attaquerai la fête par l’est
j’apporterai des crochets et des machettes
peu importe où vous m’envoyez
aux grilles de l’enfer, à l’entrée de service de vos châteaux
aux trous dans la terre où vous vivez comme des taupes
et des rongeurs je serai toujours là où que vous soyez,
inévitable, non censuré
je trancherai le bout de vos perruques de mes dents acérées
je conduirai votre barque qui prend eau
au centre du lac et retirerai la bonde
je briserai vos serrures, abattrai vos portes
et violerai l’esprit des vierges à l’intérieur
avec mon esprit aiguise comme un rasoir
les laissant sans voix et en pleurs
briserai vos fenêtres arracherai les couvertures
de vos lits de Procuste de procréation
et jetterai un œil dans vos corps endormis
je lécherai vos tétons et mettrai vos corps pitoyables en feu
je ferai un amour rageur aux ombres
de vos corps somnambules sur le mur
pénétrant la surface poreuse des jeux de clair de lune
sur laquelle elles sont projetées
je te préviens ! je suis maintenant assis nu
dans un coin sombre de ta chambre attendant mon heure
je te préviens : je reviendrai
et te ferai regretter de ne pas m’avoir étranglé
le jour où je suis né

3. Je suis un messager
du Gang Hors-des-Coudes
ferme les yeux et prétends
que je ne suis pas là
c’est ce que tu as de mieux à faire
je volerai quand même ton esprit
je le noierai dans mon Léthé privé
je le regarderai s’en aller sur l’eau, criant au secours
prononçant d’obscènes prières à un Dieu longtemps ignoré
mais dont il a soudain besoin ; hurlant, hébété, éploré

4.Je suis Galopin, Rimbaud le Malappris ,
j’ai attrapé la Fièvre des Sept Péchés
j’ai attrapé la paralysie du nerf de la vertu,
ouvrez-moi les bras, prenez ces poux, ces puces,
ces tiques, ces sangsues, faites-leur meilleur accueil
que je n’ai jamais pu, prenez les couvertures de mon mal

fermez les yeux et faites comme si je n’avais jamais été ici
c’est le moins que vous puissiez faire

AUTOBIOGRAPHIQUE
je suis en brouille avec des broutilles
je suis une chèvre qui lèche la poussière de rayons de lune

je suis un enfant qui fait croire à de vieilles folles
que le tapis est la peau du plancher

je suis un berger qui conduit les buffles
dans des grottes éclairées par le reflet des yeux des loups
quand ils entrent commander leur dîner

je suis une machine à rêves fragile et nerveuse
les lèvres collées sur un bouton de porte gelé

je suis marchand de poissons
qui pousse une charrette pleine de citrons
je suis laveur de bouteilles dans un nid de coucous

niais et foncièrement nigaud
j’oppose ma jugeote à ce qui est peut-être
la plus grande énigme du Lundi Noir

je suis sorti de l’époque la plus importante
de la moitié de l’histoire sans savoir
que j’avais été au beau milieu
d’un complot pour renverser les cieux
et que les filles avec des hurlements dans les cheveux
n’étaient pas pour moi
souvenez-vous de moi quand les dernières toiles du carnaval
seront déroulées et que le dernier nénuphar
sera emporté à la mer par d’énormes tuyaux de caoutchouc
déguisés en trompes d’éléphant

les maux du monde bouillent autour de mes genoux
je me gratte à sang, que la sainte mère
me dise par une fente du mur
‘Si tu veux atteindre la source de tes maux
applique les deux mains à la racine et rejoins
les garçons sur le pont à minuit
qui chantent la Mélopée des Bateliers de la Vulve
et éjaculent dans le vide.’

Sainte Mère, dérive décampe
arrache ces clous et
et enfonce-les dans le manche de ton luth

LA QUÊTE SPIRITUELLE DE L’ÂME ORIGINELLE
Il pourchasse son âme crasseuse
de la basse mer aux hautes terres,
il se retourne et du balai
efface ses empreintes
il ne regarde pas devant lui
avant qu’il soit trop tard
il met sa poitrine à nu ;
le Prince des Ténèbres
lui plonge un couteau dans le cœur
il hoquète et recule ;
il montre ses blessures
à sa femme : son cœur à nu,
entailles dans les côtes
telle est l’honnête vérité,
à la différence de la malhonnête
tout est pardonné ;
l’âme crasseuse poursuit péniblement
des tatouages apparaissent sur le palimpseste
de son dos : formules d’algèbre
couvertes par des listes de courses,
tout effacées brouillées,
un fond de peau sale
sur lequel sont peints
la Reine de Cœur
et le Valet de Carreau
tête à tête face à face
qui crachent s’enguirlandent,
leurs voix criardes et amères
mettent l’homme à genoux
sous le poids de leurs paroles
visage dans la boue ;
le Prince s’avance
et jette une couverture
sur le dos de l’homme
que les voix cessent de se disputer.
Des invectives timidement marmonnées
percent de sous la couverture ;
quand elles cessent
l’homme qui pourchasse son âme crasseuse
donne un baiser à la boue et s’en va
par le désert jusqu’au cœur
du vide brûlant sans vie
le vide se referme autour de lui
il trébuche à nouveau
face en avant dans le sable
le Prince des Ténèbres le relève
et le remet debout

LE VENIN DE LA DAROMPHE
Des oreilles en ailes de chauves-souris
émergent de la bouche de l’ombre
La ville tremble, les rues rétrécissent
Dans la sous-pièce des hommes boudent en file
indienne
dans une fièvre de voleur, grincent des dents contre
les tuyaux d’égout
prient pour que les rats les délivrent du mal
les conduisent hors du pays englouti
dans les bras de la bouche de l’ombre
dans les dents aiguisées de la mère de tous les
avortements
la Dame sans Merci qui enveloppe ses victimes dans
ses bras cassés
tous ses fils et les embrasse jusqu’à ce que son poison
suinte de ses lèvres
dans leur bouche et qu’ils se noient dans une stupeur
catatonique.
Mais un fils manque, le septième, le fils venu du côté
sombre de la lune,
le fils stoïque dont le devoir est d’obéir
Il ne vient pas aujourd’hui, mère, il est loin hors de
portée de ta salive envenimée
Il dance dans les haies et rit de ton besoin impuissant
de contrôle
Il se moque de ta perte d’autorité, il bat des bras
et secoue les jambes, il rit comme un maniaque,
se balance à des cordes pendant des branches,
vois les oiseaux noirs s’envoler,
échapper à son rire insensé, échapper à la vue de ses
gestes grossiers
et à la déclaration de son salut

CHEF D’ORCHESTRE
Avec une bouchée de tonnerre
il s’avança sur l’estrade
face à l’orchestre symphonique
et surprit tout le monde (lui-même compris)
en ouvrant la bouche
et en exhalant une fontaine de feu
sur toute la musique

RETROUVER L’INNOCENCE PERDUE
voici les gens que vous devez habiter
pour retrouver l’innocence perdue
à la naissance

1. dans une décadence prospère M. Syntaxe
qui disparut en se dissolvant
dans son reflet
dans la cuiller trempée dans le thé

2. Rocifer Rinçors
prédateur de chemins de fer
qui avec son tapis d’Orient
son lustre de cristal
et ses sofas rembourrés
des cheveux noirs crépus
des esclaves qu’il brûlait
dans ses jardins d’ornement
entend leurs chuchotements
monter des buis le soir
leur sifflement dans les fontaines

2. Ragout et Fils
l’enseigne dit tout
“Let our gentle light
‘Que notre douce lumière
descende sur vous
et ceux que vous aimez
que le vent de nos cieux
souffle la chance dans votre vie.’

4.Oscar Le Ponce
qui regarde son orang outang familier courir autour de la pièce
réglant le thermostat sur des températures plus élevées
vidant les cendriers dans les vases de fleurs
et tapant quelques notes au hasard sur le piano à queue

5. Madame Putanesca
adepte de la sanctimonosité
qui arrose ses plantes en pot parisiennes
sur l’appui de fenêtre
au-dessus des têtes de piétons chapeautés
elle verse quelques gouttes
pour recevoir la bénédiction des dieux
mais ne reçoit que des insultes d’en bas

6. Pedro le Bœuf le concierge
qui entrechoque ses dents
du haut en bas de l’escalier
et fait sonner la monnaie dans ses poches
chaque fois qu’il suppose
qu’un de ses locataires
a ramené une amoureuse

7. Le roi de Sade, marquis bidon,
faux pervers au visage
décoré de marques de baisers au rouge à lèvres
et aux doigts affaissés sous le poids
de griffes de dragon en fer fixées
au bout de six de ses dix doigts
vous invite à partager
une vigoureuse partie de criquet
et flanque exprès son maillet
dans l’arrière de votre genou
quand vous avez le dos tourné
s’exclamant, ‘Ah, il n’y a aucune chance
d’une lune de miel quand votre beau-père
est Jésus-Christ.’

8. Raoul Nou Nou, clochard
accompagnement indispensable, décor nécessaire
faites une balade le long du fleuve avec lui d’un pont
à l’autre et mémorisez le visage de ses amis
ceux qui briochent et font la moue
ceux qui ne sourient jamais sous la ceinture
ceux qui hurlent à travers des lèvres cousues de fil de fer

9.Basil Crapeaux, peintre de nus
maître de toiles gâchées et de fumée de pinceau

10. Alphonse Missouris, marchand de vice
pourvoyeur de venin, partisan du Salopardisme
il savoure la souffrance de victimes de panthères
et à chaque morsure se délecte de cris étranglés
il mange tous les jours des orteils rôtis d’orphelins
mors Missouris, mors
puis va-t-en corrompre les enfants
dans des villes lointaines

11. Petit Ramponeau, le plus jeune des orphelins,
celui qu’on appelle Petit Gars
il fait briller vos chaussures en moins de temps
qu’il n’en faut pour cracher
vous fait les poches plus vite
qu’une alliance glisse du doigt
d’un homme marié approchant une jolie fille
à la bouche rougeoyante
‘Doigts prestes sans mère’
c’est le petit Ramponneau

12. Vagabond Django, le dernier des Parnassiens
ses 13 guitares sont à vendre ; elles sont à qui les veut,
guitare solo, elles pendent au mur
et se jouent elles-mêmes quand personne n’écoute

13. O frère Millepède, inoubliable
et sans remords ; la barbe bourrée
d’ail émincé
et de pelures d’oignon
manteau de molesquine souillé de sauce de gibier,
petits pois dans les narines
yeux de pommes de terre alignés entre les barreaux
de votre cellule
pour veiller sur le temps qu’il fait
en vous laissant libre d’explorer
les parties sales de votre corps,
vous êtes un goujat, Frère Millepèdes
laissez les enfants tranquilles
ce chérubin dodu ne peut avoir plus de
sept ans
honte sur vous, Frère Millepèdes
renvoyez ce chérubin chez lui

14. Preud-Homme Monogamme
une jambe, un œil
une allure, un toit
un exemplaire de chaque chose
une dent, un dieu,
un cœur, une manche,
il joue d’un violon à une corde
une direction, une intention,
son nom est ‘Un de chaque Sorte’
une balle, un fusil,
une lune, un soleil,
il le prend un jour à la fois
un don, un phonème,
un pôle, une syllabe
une seule façon de cuire une oie
un oiseau, une pierre
une flèche, une corde
un dernier souhait avant de partir
une foi, une mort
une vie, une voie
il ne croit qu’à une seule chose
un bouton, un cheval
un oncle, une roue
il ne compte que par un

15. Adolphe Borringe le 6e de Sax
il n’y a rien qui le vaille
quand il se dresse sur ses pattes de derrière
et reproduit les discours de César
avec l’accent de l’Amazone
et des gestes de la main empruntés à
la langue des signes Apache
les foules en sont folles, des millions affluent
à sa tombe des années avant qu’il y soit enterré
il est élu et réélu
pour régner sur la nation
d’un trône fait d’ailes de Papillons Monarques
animé par les battements de cœur de colibris
pas même Napoléon, traversant l’Europe
et éblouissant les auditoires par ses lectures
de l’Iliade dans l’original
avec un accent flamand
sur une musique de harpes juives et de clochettes
ne peut s’y comparer
même pas C. Baudelaire avec ses récitations
du Livre des Damnés
données en jargon faustien
avec des harmoniques falstaffiens
ne peut faire se lever la foule
la faire danser comme des tarentules
en psalmodiant ‘Longue vie à la Toile d’araignée !
Long vit aux Pirates de poésie !
Le Fileur du Grotesque
et les Prêtres peints primitifs
avec des quignons de cœurs vierges empalés
sur leurs dents affûtées !’

16. Césarine Riflandouille, syphilitique voluptueuse
putain monstrueuse, bedonnante et cagneuse
enflée de clairs de lune privés
muse amère de poètes bâtards
tueuse des cygnes muets de Khartoum
et tentatrice de l’art croupion

17. Moebius Tracassin, collectionneur de châteaux
de Hottentots et Bohémiens
de Bacchantes et Molochs
de Sodomites et Danseurs sibériens,
de voix reconditionnées et de surprenants sauts harmoniques,
d’éducations incomplètes et de façades métaphysiques
de féroces sacrifices et d’atroces superstitions
de terminologies ésotériques et d’énigmatiques platitudes
d’impossibles naufrages et d’éloquentes migrations
d’infinités mathématiques et d’illimitées dévotions

18. Lulu Baldachino, duchesse d’Adagio,
sainte patronne de l’éclairage au gaz
des cadavres sans prix et des morts sinistres
elle pète et emporte les fleurs

19. Circe la salvatrice
adore ses marins
adore sa porcherie et ses habitants
elle veut bien accueillir un cheval de bois
mais elle ne touchera pas le mendiant
qui a le sabot d’une chèvre imprimé sur le front

POÈTES
certains sont érudits
certains souffrent de morsures d’amour
certains sont perdus dans un désert de mots
certains ne cesseront jamais de mourir
certains essayent de siffler mais s’aperçoivent
que leurs notes se perdent dans la fumée d’une flûte nasale
et d’un groupe de cornemuses allant d’un pas lourd
à la guerre sur un rythme de valse vêtus en clowns de cirque
certains sont aveugles à la lumière
et certains sont sans voix face à la mort

certains sont chauves, trop pauvres
pour faire pousser un seul cheveu, d’autres se rasent
tous les jours et ne peuvent empêcher leur barbe
de foisonner et de bloquer leur bouche
de boules de poils, les privant
de nourritures essentielles

certains sont paresseux et meurent
parce qu’ils n’apprennent jamais le nom
de leurs démons
certains sont vieux et trop ralentis pour chanter
certains se dressent sur la pointe des pieds pour atteindre
des fruits au sommet de pins sans réaliser
qu’ils ne tendent pas la main vers des pommes
mais vers les nids de chenilles contagieuses
qui arracheront leur peau et s’en iront
revêtues de manteaux de peau à taches de rousseur

certains ne sont pas caucasiens
leur langue est noire et bleue,
leur langue parle le rythme
des cavernes et de nostalgiques périodes glaciaires

certains sont faits de goudron et de plumes
certains sont en fil de fer
certains sont des sauvages à tête laineuse
certains ont des yeux de feu

certains sont ingrats aux éloges, sourds aux applaudissements
je connais ces poètes, ce sont mes frères
nous buvons au même seau de sang
nous partageons les mêmes cauchemars de beauté
les mêmes visions qui tordent les nerfs, brûlent le cerveau
nous avons été damnés, abimés par le même écho
par le même éclair dans nos épines dorsales
on nous a refusé les mêmes femmes

LE BOHÉMIEN
Le Bohémien rage
dans sa mansarde
tandis que des hiboux volent
par la fenêtre ouverte
et lui apportent des messages
du cimetière en bas
des nouvelles de la vie
au-delà du tombeau
il hulule, il grince
des mots qui jaillissent, hurlent
d’entre ses dents
il agite les bras
et tape sur les hiboux
les renvoyant
au champs d’ossements
avec ses réponses :

non je ne vais pas me pencher à la fenêtre
et vous distraire avec un air de troubadour
non je ne vais pas descendre
me mêler à votre misère
vous êtes tout seuls, os morts
je ne vais pas louer votre pauvreté
je ne vais pas devenir votre fantôme chagrin
plus d’invitations à vos danses macabres
plus de transfusions de salive exsangue
ce sont mes jours, ce sont mes heures
prenez vos donations, vos insinuations
vos prières implorant la résurrection
et mourez mille morts silencieuses
mourez et ne raclez plus ma porte
Le Bohémien retourne à sa table
encombrée de gyroscopes, de prismes, de pendules
et de cartes astrologiques qui prophétisent
une collision entre Venus et Mars
et la fusion de la lune qui laisse tomber des larmes
dans la bouche du soleil

LE CHEVAL
1. Le cheval dans la prairie lève la tête
tend le cou ouvre les mâchoires
et arrache des feuilles d’un pommier
mâchonne et broie, presse un maigre liquide
dans sa bouche assoiffée

Parfois il a une pomme
parfois il a un ver
aujourd’hui il a une coccinelle mais il ne le sait pas
elle est si petite sur la planète de la pomme
elle n’est pas plus qu’un chatouillis sur les molaires d’un cheval

2. Le cheval marche hors de l’ombre de l’arbre
dans l’éclat du soleil, hier le ciel
était plein de nuages en forme de moutons
aujourd’hui les moutons sont couchés sur le dos
pattes en l’air décapités par le soleil couchant

3. Le cheval trotte vers le soleil couchant
mais il ne peut courir assez vite, le soleil s’enfonce
dans l’horizon et le cheval retourne dans la nuit

vous regardez autour de vous et constatez qu’il n’y aura
jamais assez de chevaux pour ramener le jour

c’est de cela que nous parlions

L’ÎLE
Il vint dans l’île avec une cargaison de fusils
les indigènes à peau sombre n’avaient jamais vu de fusils
il distribua les fusils et bientôt les indigènes
souriaient et riaient et tiraient et s’entretuaient

C’était son plan

Pendant que les indigènes exécutaient leur massacre spontané
il manœuvra son bateau dans la baie
et attendit que les fusils cessent de claquer

Il revint vers le rivage tous étaient morts
il monta dans les collines derrière le village
et se mit à creuser pour trouver de l’or

Tout se passait conformément au plan

Il chargea l’or sur son bateau
et se prépara au voyage de retour
pour revenir à la civilisation et être riche

Tout se passait conformément au plan
jusqu’à ce qu’il hisse les voiles

Un nain sortit de la jungle derrière lui
et avec un arc et une flèche atteignit l’homme dans le dos
la flèche lui traversa le cœur

L’homme était étendu mourant au bord de l’eau
!l regarda le nain indigène prendre tout l’or hors du bateau
et le reporter dans les collines puis il revint
et construisit une tour dans le village

Le visiteur maraudeur comprit
enfin les erreurs de ses agissements

Comme la dernière goutte de sang quittait son cœur
il comprit que tous ses désirs avaient été des illusions,
c’était inutile, il s’était trompé lui-même
s’en était fait accroire

Il était maintenant prêt à découvrir une vérité plus profonde

LE GAMIN DES RUES
le gamin des rues se tient à un coin de rue,
à la faible lueur d’un réverbère, vêtu de loques
trous dans les chaussures, tend les mains
des piétons passent
pensant à des occasions en or gaspillées
et à des rendez-vous pris à voix basse derrière
des portes d’hôtel verrouillées ce soir
jettent des pelures d’orange, des trognons de pomme
des chiffons collants de morve
des mégots de cigare brûlants
des crottes de chien dans un journal
des couennes de lard dans un gobelet à café
un pigeon mort

l’enfant ploie sous le poids des cadeaux
il s’enroule autour de leur générosité
c’es beaucoup mieux que dans le passé
(pense-t-il) quand on l’inondait
de pitié et qu’il se noyait
dans la réflexion de leurs visages

L’ENFANT
c’est vexant pour mon âme
d’avoir été jadis un enfant
c’était vexant quand j’étais un enfant

recule, pauvre crétin
culotte courte en laine
pâles genoux écorchés
souliers bosselés
remonte tes chaussettes, banane
arrête de me fixer
de ces yeux en bouton de bottine
narines reniflant des brises
où traîne l’odeur de pisse

va te balader, enfant puéril
va jouer
avec tes billes et tes brutes
rumine tes vengeances

reste à distance
petit voyou
ne me rappelle pas
que j’ai été
aussi vulnérable et volatile
que toi

IMMORTEL
né sur le sol de la terre
quand les aiguilles des horloges passaient de vendredi 13
à samedi 14 au mois de février
ou peut-être était-ce octobre

je me tenais bien droit
et faisais face au ciel étoilé
en le fixant sans pitié
ma bouche rageuse ouverte
pour pousser un cri de protestation

‘Méritez-vous votre réputation ?’

comment osez-vous demander cela
vermisseaux de lumière d’étoiles et de lune
vagins impertinents de poussière solaire

avec chaque poignée de boue
que j’ai tirée de la terre
j’ai établi sans aucun doute
que vous avez besoin de moi dans l’univers
un besoin que vous avez créé
à partir de ficelle et de salive
à chaque soupir qui m’échappait
chaque murmure ‘je suis un autre’
j’ai rejoint les immortels
et suis devenu leur poney primé

enfourchez-moi, mortels
je vous emmènerai en des lieux
dont votre imagination appauvrie
n’a jamais osé rêver

LE MUSÉE RIMBAUD À CHARLEVILLE
est-ce que je mérite ce châtiment ?
l’ai-je gagné par mes rêves de galaxies épuisées
et les pistes de dents de cheval que j’ai laissées dans les bras
de ma mère ?

avais-je trop d’un paysan pour tenter la colère
des vieux briscards contents d’eux-mêmes ?
du fatras de ratés sociaux ?
effacés par les cris de mon cerveau tumescent
cultivés par la fièvre et les lourdeurs de jurons
quand je revenais béquillard
de mes virées mécréantes ?

ne répondez pas
n’ouvrez pas la bouche
et baignez mon visage de votre salive
un mot de votre langue édentée
et j’ouvre les fenêtres de ce musée
et lance ce fatras de souvenir dans le fleuve
ces bouts de matière de papier morte
ces photos corrompues de rageuse nostalgie

trempez mon souvenir dans la cire de bougie
mâchez mes paroles avec les crocs de votre mâchoire
jetez mon visage dans des bandes dessinées
et punissez mon esprit monstrueux
avec les prières païennes d’anges tourmentés

mais pour l’amour d’un dieu exanimé
abattez ces murs
et rejetez ces pierres à la montagne
d’où elles sont venues

N’Y COMPTEZ PAS
Comptez-vous sur moi pour disposer les étoiles
en constellations qui correspondent
au modèle des empreintes de vos pas
dans la poussière de ruines antiques ?

N’y comptez pas

Comptez-vous vraiment sur moi
pour courir à l’aube jusqu’à l’horizon
et hisser le soleil dans les ténèbres ?
et pour me poster à la fin du jour à l’horizon occidental
avec le soleil sur les épaules
et le descendre lentement hors de vue jusqu’à ce que vous soyez entourés à nouveau par les ténèbres ?

N’y comptez pas

Comptez-vous sur moi pour vous rappeler les corps
que vous laissez derrière chaque fois que vous plongez
dans les ténèbres un couteau entre les dents
et le bord de votre crâne chauve en feu

N’y comptez pas

Comptez-vous sur moi pour me tenir au coin du feu
à tricoter une couverture pour les rejetons du loup
quand vous reviendrez vêtu d’une cape de femme en laine rouge
son ourlet lourd de boue venant du bord du fleuve
et parlerez d’aventures parmi les bêtes sauvages
que seuls peuvent comprendre
ceux qui ont eu le coup de foudre ?

N’y comptez pas

Comptez-vous que des milliers de disciples fidèles
vont s’agenouiller et tremper les lèvres
dans le bol de soupe au savon que vous leur tendez
en dansant sur la place du marché
sur la musique de verre ?

N’y comptez pas

DOCUMENT DE JANVIER (LE DÉCADENT)
marques de sabot de chèvre sur mon front
mes yeux explosent et font éclater le paysage
côtes frottant contre les parois de mon estomac
d’avoir trop marché me mettent à genoux

maintenant vous dites que les cheveux qui me poussent sur le crâne
donnent mal à la tête

JALOUSIE
la jalousie naît de mon ventre déboutonné
la jalousie se faufile d’entre les draps de lit
je mange les miettes du pain de jalousie
bois du lait aigre de ses seins appelés amour et haine
je chante l’éloge de l’amour et de la haine
pendant que mon amie, Sonate Avidité
joue sur un piano de jalousie aux touches noires

qui a fait à la jalousie le don de destruction ?
qui a donné à la jalousie mauvaise réputation ?

j’ai porté dix ans un anneau en diamant de jalousie
je le gardais au fond de la gorge
je le sortais à la Toussaint
et lui faisais annoncer la mort à ceux
qui croisaient ma route vers la lune

des bulles fantômes hantent ma mansarde
elles s’étirent haut et large, elles explosent
j’entends les explosions bien que je me recroqueville
dans un coin de ma chambre, tremblant, les mains
pressant mes oreilles
elles éclatent sans arrêt

de ma fenêtre je regarde les chevaux de jalousie
passer à toute allure dans la rue
ils ont des peaux de jalousie d’un jaune maladif
leurs cavaliers sont parfaits en jalousie
l’un d’eux est un camarade d’école
il est Rose Jalousie

une fois quand j’étais enfant
j’ai parlé à Rose Jalousie
nous étions pris entre les lèvres
d’un lézard gigantesque, il nous tapait
avec sa langue. Je disais que je savais
qu’on en arriverait là

combien de routes a effacées Lézard Jalousie?

Jalousie le Poète et Jalousie le Peintre
odes de jalousie et paysages de jalousie
enquêtes et antennes passives de jalousie
dans nos cheveux avec les voix passives
dans nos pieds pour nous garder en équilibre
entre orgueil et colère

MERCENAIRES
Qu’ai-je fait pour mettre en colère les Soldats Rats ?
je leur ai repris les fusils qu’ils m’avaient volés

Pourquoi Le Mulet veut-il me tuer ?
Sa terre est sans valeur, quand au haschich
que je lui ai pris des doigts ce soir
je lui apporterai une dose fraîche au matin
Ne le sait-il pas ? Ne sait-il pas
que je vis de la chaleur du maudit soleil ?

DE L’ANTRE DES LOUPS
le plein d’ennui, le néant de plaisir
le bruit de mains humides frappant la peau humide
le bruit de poings durs boxant la chair tendre
les cris de douleur qui suivent chaque coup
le craquement d’un os cassé
la chute d’une dent cassée

ses mains et sa peau baignent dans le sang
il s’accumule autour de son pied cassé

Il hurle : je ne sais pas ce que vous voulez
Ils ne veulent rien
ils prennent juste plaisir aux gifles et coups de poing
à le faire hurler, c’est mieux que l’ennui

CATAPLASME
cette ville lugubre
riche en gredins
cette maudite ville
pleine de visages de mouton engraissé
au sourire en bénitier

cette ville puante
qui implore un parfum puissant
pour masquer l’odeur
de marchés aux poissons
de rigoles lavées de sang

voyez les visages des nouveaux riches
enflés comme les intestins
de porcs qui glissent sur les murs
des abattoirs
qui rampent sous nos portes la nuit
pour nous rappeler que nous ne sommes
que vermine, sangsues
sur la peau de la terre

habitants de la ville minable
je ne vous aimerai jamais
je cracherai toujours dans vos empreintes

RIRE
sentez battre mon vilain cerveau, touchez-le, massez-le
nourrissez-le de miettes par les fentes de mes yeux
touchez ma folie rigolote

je vous ferai rire si c’est la dernière chose que je fais
sur mon corps mort vous ne refuserez pas de rire
je vous ferai pouffer et perdre votre religion

c’est ici que les cavaliers entrent
ils montent de hauts étalons, brandissent des épées,
piquent la chair des chevaux de leurs éperons, enfoncent le fer dur
dans la peau de leurs flancs. ‘Riez !’ crient-ils

levez la tête ; tendez le cou,
regardez-les chercher avidement la lame de guillotine

mes pouces, pointes de doigts, ongles marchent à la guerre
suivent le serpent qui déroule son corps emplumé
d’autour de ma taille et se faufile hors du jardin
dans les rues fossilisées de la ville embrouillardée

nous n’avons que des minutes à vivre
que des secondes pour trouver l’harmonie entre mon poing
et le serpent qui rit

qu’attendez-vous ?

ETC.
Né sur le sol de la terre
comme les aiguilles de l’horloge passaient du vendredi 13
au samedi 14 au mois de février
ou peut-être était-ce octobre

je me dressai face
au ciel plein d’étoiles
le fixant sans pitié
ma bouche rageuse ouverte
pour hurler une protestation
‘Demandez-vous si je mérite ma réputation ?’

comment osez-vous demander
vermine de lumière d’étoiles et de lune
vagins impertinents de poussière solaire
je vous donne le silence, je vous donne ETC.

c’est la fin du vers ETC.
c’est le dernier hurlement ETC.

c’est ici que vous vous en allez et disparaissez ETC.
c’est ici que je vous impose SILENCE ETC.

AUX JOUEURS AVEUGLES D’ORGUES DE BARBARIE
Aux joueurs aveugles d’orgues de Barbarie d’extase héroïque
Aux Comprachicos pugnaces et leur progéniture
Aux mangeurs de viande voraces rongeant les os de
grammairiens
Aux conquérants doublés par la duplicité
Aux pénitents exaltés qui grimpent au ciel sur des
genoux en sang
Aux piégeurs d’âmes qui vivent aux abords des cimetières
Aux fugitifs d’une justice aveugle qui s’arrachent les yeux
pour mieux voir où ils vont

Aux jeunes martyrisés qui sont morts seuls crucifiés
le visage contre un arbre
Aux adorateurs d’idoles qui n’ont jamais eu une chance
d’émerger de leur masque d’Esope
Debout tout nus et baptisés dans la pisse de l’ agneau
devant une meute
De molosses grondants attendant l’ordre d’attaquer

Aux lutins charmeurs, les blagueurs de la dernière-danse-
avant-l’éternité
Aux magiciens d’explosions de champignons ;
membres du peloton d’exécution
Debout en rang qui tirent des trous dans les nuages

Aux écorcheurs beaux-parleurs brûleurs de granges qui crient
Quand il faudrait chuchoter
Qui pleurent quand le rire ouvre une bouche épileptique

Au navigateur de l’arche qui amena deux de chaque espèce
à nos rives désertes
et repeupla nos lacs à cygnes de salamandres
à la langue fourchue
Et nos plantations d’esclaves multilingues

LES CHASSEURS DE TÊTES
Je vous vois, hommes des cavernes. Couvrez-vous les yeux
de tessons de verres de couleur, ne vous écartez pas
des coins sombres

les chasseurs de têtes
les habitants des huttes chercheurs de crânes
ils couperont votre âme en tranches
avec des couteaux de silex
extrairont la lumière de vos cerveaux
avec des marteaux en pierre

méfiez-vous des chasseurs de têtes
ils cachent leurs têtes dans des jungles
sous des feuilles ombragées

quand les invalides seront-ils de retour des climats froids ?
rampant sur des genoux en sang vers des points d’eau claire
et disputant leur survie à des serpents

ORACULAIRE
sale temps, il convient parfaitement à mon humeur
la lumière du soleil serait une insulte, des cieux sombres avec
des nuages d’orage menaçants
les guillotinés en batiste qui roulent sur les pavés
de la Place de la Bastille
pour être jetés dans des fosses de chaux

VISIONS GASPILLÉES TRESORS FRACASSÉS
alchimistes indigents qui polissent leurs dents en or
préparant leurs gencives à de douloureuses extractions

VISIONS GASPILLÉES TRESORS FRACASSÉS
maîtres et esclaves, juges et criminels
rebelles et conformistes enchaînés dans l’illusion
se tordant dans les fosses de l’enfer

VISIONS GASPILLÉES TRESORS FRACASSÉS
victimes du mot qui se trainent dans des paysages
de logique en échardes
à comparer des scalps réfrigérés accros à leur vide
intérieur

VISIONS GASPILLÉES TRESORS FRACASSÉS

PHILOMATHIQUE
j’ai lâché une chute de larmes
dans les yeux de crustacés et de nématodes
pour que ceux d’entre vous qui savent lire entre les lignes
sachent que votre serviteur au milieu d’absurdités barbares
a été très occupé et s’est bien ennuyé

LA RÉSURRECTION DES SERPENTS À DEUX LANGUES
des messages affluent du pays du cœur
dans le martèlement des chevaux
je n’en comprends aucun ils ne sont pas pour moi
ni dans aucune langue que je comprenne, c’est une nouvelle elle emprunte à des inconforts primordiaux
elle ne contient aucun antécédent méprisé
ils rassemblent les enfants
et les cachent derrière des portes de cave verrouillées
le chuchotement des enfants suinte par les fentes
‘Tu ne peux rien faire, personne ne peut te sauver –
tout était arrangé quand tu es descendu
de la montagne d’où on t’a délogé à coups de feu
maintenant on va te charger de chaînes
et te jeter dans un sombre abime qui promet
un sombre régime de faim et d’esclavage incessant

PORCS
O mes charmants cochons, comme vous grognez et
grondez
comme vous piétinez l’herbe et déterrez des vers comme vous gambadez dans le champ
entre vos murs de pierre
vous poussez de petits cris ravis quand
les chiffonniers vous lancent un os

‘Glouglou’ dites-vous avec vos petits coups de sabot
qui tapotent la terre morte
‘Gloup gloup’ dites-vous en ouvrant votre gosier
saignant et en rotant un nuage de gaz empoisonné

levez votre gueule du cadavre, porcs
je reviendrai vous aider à dévorer votre
festin du soir de cadavres

DÉPLUMÉ
Agitation d’ailes estropiées, plumes arrachées,
le coq gît sans force au bord de la route
ses griffes grattent un message dans le sol
que nul ne peut déchiffrer, pas même le prêtre
des Saints Aviaires ne sait ce que tente de dire
cette créature défigurée

Je vous le dis:
ce témoignage ferait tomber l’empire
si étaient révélées les liaisons traîtresses
de l’empereur avec des courtisanes ennemies

PRIÈRE
c’est un appel à l’aide
c’est un cynique clin d’œil en coin

ce sont les sanglots d’un chagrin sans fond
ce sont les rires étouffés du fond de la gorge d’un
océan de rire infini

ce sont des larmes, je jure que ce sont des larmes
ce sont des gouttes d’eau bénite que me lancent
au visage des doigts insultants

abattez les murs, abattez le toit
enterrez-moi dans la poussières
avec des malédictions silencieuses

CORTÈGE FUNÉRAIRE
La traîtrise du scalp
Je trébuche à chaque pierre
Abyssinie perdue
Je ne suis qu’une souche immobile

LAUDANUM
Je vivais pour le laudanum

dans les fentes entre les briques
qui tremblaient sous mes pieds, je vivais

dans les silences entre les tics des horloges
venant de l’autre côté du mur, je vivais

dans les bouffées de vapeur entre les mots prononcés
par un froid matin d’hiver, je vivais

dans les vastes distances entre les étoiles visibles
et les galaxies invisibles, je vivais

au-dessus de la Tour Eiffel, flottant librement
accroché à la surface d’un ballon rouge, je vivais

sur les ailes de mouettes qui fendaient l’air
entre les ponts de Londres, je vivais

sur le dos de dauphins qui émergeaient un instant
du Golfe d’Aden et replongeaient
dans leur obscurité aqueuse, je vivais

maintenant je me languis de la douceur de la morphine
je me languis de la mort

LA MARÉE
les voix disent : prends patience
la mer se retire

le fou le voit
de ses yeux
pas besoin de lui dire

la mer se retire,
expose au ciel les organes génitaux de la mer
tous ses rochers humides
tous ses amas d’algues trempées
toutes ses créatures griffues
et terriers pustuleux
où se cachent des bêtes comme un ongle
pendant que des oiseaux
piquent sur elles
pour s’en régaler

la mer se retire
le fou sait qu’il devrait attendre
que l’océan revienne se déverser
et emplir sa vallée
de chaude salive salée
mais il n’a pas la patience
il enlève ses souliers
‘Je n’ai pas le choix !’
il court sur le sable humide
‘Je n’ai pas le choix !’
écrase des coquillages sous ses pieds
‘ Je n’ai pas le choix !’
laissant de larges empreintes
où les pieds se sont enfoncés
en dansant vers le bord de l’eau

le fou regarde derrière lui
il est hors de vue de la terre
les voix disent : tu dois revenir
mais ses pieds parlent pour eux-mêmes
ils parlent pour son corps entier
ils disent :
nous ne revenons pas

PHANTASMAGORIE
ça entre avec la nuit
montant du brouillard épais
chuchotant : inutile de s’exciter
nous somme tous faits de boue et d’herbe
de feuilles d’arbre et de bouts de bois
arrête l’horloge
la vie commence MAINTENANT
tu l’as ratée
elle est repartie

DÉCONNECTÉ
cassé une fois, deux fois, cassé en deux
par le son de cloches d’église par le chant du lépreux
par le claquement de sabots sur les pavés
quand la cavalerie de l’envahisseur parade dans la ville
suivie du piétinement de soldats qui traversent
le pont, font vibrer ses fondations
sur la pulsation d’un battement de cœur gargantuesque
(oui et par le chant du lépreux)

brisé et jamais réparé, jamais reconnecté
aux lignes qui relient la terre et le ciel
le jardin et les nuages, l’enfer et les cieux
les machinations machiavéliques de l’esprit corrompu
et l’âme purifiée d’anges re-nés
sans ces vers je suis mi beauté mi bête
à moitié Oiseau de Paradis, à moitié Loup des Steppes
un fou humain total

FRAGMENTS, FIGMENTS & FIGURES DE STYLE

ETERNELS COMBINARDS URBAINS
hurlant toute la route vers l’enfer
en cadences sonores
de brutaux battements de sabots

LOUP IBÉRIQUE
cours loup cours
ta queue est en feu
la forêt est en train de
de perdre la tête
les flammes bondissent de ton anus
elles grimpent sur ton dos, elles sont hors de
contrôle

cours loup cours
fumée dans tes yeux
peur dans ta gorge

cours loup cours
ils viennent avec des fusils
ils viennent avec ta perte


il a traversé le pays
jusqu’aux steppes abruptes des collines

l’escalier de la montagne
qu’il a escaladée


né en captivité
relâché en liberté
avec mon premier souffle
j’ai brisé les chaînes
mis en miettes les murs de pierre
et décollé vers les cieux
plané au-dessus de terres stériles
où des lois de plomb de conventions sociales
exigeaient obéissance
et les voix de la raison gouvernaient les forêts
les champs les collines herbues
maudissaient les eaux d’un fleuve qui sinue
par gorges étroites et canyons
d’une beauté irréprochable
jusqu’à ce qu’elles coulent dans la mer
jusqu’à ce qu’elles se fondent avec le sel
non touchées par des ongles de crucifixion

je coulais au dessus du fleuve
au delà de la mer sans limites
et voyais de mes yeux lavés par la pluie
un monde nouveau se dresser des vagues


une parade de chiens
trottent en file indienne
museau à queue


quand je prends vos mains
et les attache au montant du lit
pensez-vous que je suis incorrect ?
Peu généreux ? Méchant ?
Réfléchissez, Frère Pitou
je vous donne le bénéfice du Doute

le rugissement de la bête la mise en garde


barques dans la baie
vent penchant leurs mats
les inclinant vers le soleil

en dormant nous rêvons notre liberté délivrée
notre salut notre amour en forme de cœur
sculpté d’ombre et de lumière

SŒUR COMPATISSANTE
à Isabelle
penses-tu vraiment
pouvoir m’enseigner de nouveaux tours, Isabelle
beaucoup ont essayé et senti
le coup de fouet de la colère de ma langue

Je ne suis pas ta belette apprivoisée, Isabelle
qui se peigne les cheveux avant chaque repas
je ne suis pas ton hérisson qui renifle ta paume
pour recevoir un chenille pour bonne conduite

regarde de près Isabelle, regarde encore
ce que tu vois est un enfant mâle débarrassé
d’excessive innocence et de rêves non partagés
la douleur est sa compagne, la souffrance son destin

enlève ses yeux aveugles et son côté épineux
trop de crucifixion rend un homme méchant

LA LUMIÈRE
Je suis empli de lumière
amputez mes jambes, docteur aveugle
et mes moignons seront lumineux
je serre les mâchoires
grince des dents
et mes moignons deviennent des phares
sur une locomotive qui approche
derrière moi sur les rails
est un train long de mille voitures
chaque voiture est emplie de corps
morts et mourants

couvrez-vous la bouche, esprits éclairés,
Bouddhas assis,
Samadhis en balade
mangeurs de lotus
derviches tourneurs

venez avec moi
tenez-vous près de mon cœur
et vous verrez la lumière
LE VERBE
Au commencement était le verbe
et le verbe était lumière
et Jean Baptiste
était un sensuel saisonnier
la tête pleine de rêves

Les barbiers lui coupèrent la tête
enlevèrent les rêves
et l’emplirent de lumière

la lumière rayonnait de ses paupières fermées
suintait des coins de sa bouche

O esprits saints
porteurs de lumière
déchargés de torches
illuminées dans la nuit
cheveux, bouts des doigts
génitaux rayonnants
yeux lançant des signaux lumineux
riant dans le noir

O singe illuminé brûlant dans la nuit
comme un tigre de Blake
ramène-nous par des pistes de tortues
au centre du monde
à l’origine des espèces
là où tout commença dans un souffle de vent

Emmène-nous pour du vrai
sur des terres sans charme
où des flaques de lumière de lune
emplissent les creux de rochers
de la terre gaste

Presse nos visages dans les flaques
de lumière plus dense que l’eau
noie-nous dans la lumière
entends-nous hoqueter
puis vois-nous rejoindre la lumière
quand le souffle nous manque
remettant à la vie
avant la mort
la lumière au-delà de la vie

ANGE
je dors seul
avec toi
je dors
enveloppé dans tes bras
je dors avec ta bouche
insufflant des baisers dans mes cheveux
je dors avec tes lèvres
chuchotant des caresses
dans mes oreilles
je dors et rêve

ceci serait-il l’accomplissement
de tout ce que j’ai jamais espéré trouver
quand j’étirais mes nerfs
à travers des paysages ravagés ?

ceci serait-il la récompense
que je n’ai jamais reçue pour tout
mon labeur épuisant, toutes les nuits
où je gisais éveillé les muscles noués de terreur
quand les bombes tombaient du ciel
et secouaient mes os
tandis que leur souffle détruisait
le sol autour de ma tente ?

ceci peut-il être autre chose que l’amour ?

je dors avec toi
enveloppé dans mes bras

éveillé je refuse de te laisser partir
mais tu baises mes paupières
et t’échappes
quand ma vision plonge en moi

L’ESCALIER EN COLIMAÇON
c’était avant le début
et après la fin
vers le moment
où le monde passait

ses muscles à lui comme une foule
sa bouche à elle comme une houle
il y a un trou
là où se trouvait
mon cœur

nous devinrent amants
je perdis un ami

Southwest the wild geese fly

Canigou Poems – Series Six – January – February 2013  |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

is my take on the title and opening lines of an anonymous poem from the Han Dynasty (206 B.C. – A.D. 221):

Southeast the peacock flies
Every five Li he whirls around

THE GUITAR

as we drive south
I dream of a guitar

but not just any old guitar

a guitar with a sound
as soft as wild goose feathers
with strings so friendly
they reach out
before the fingertips
have a chance to press down

a guitar made from wood
perhaps from a gypsy’s coffin
who, the moment he was about
to be buried, split open the lid
and sparked to heaven
in a flash of flamenco delight

or perhaps from the wood
of a floor that’s been stomped on
for years by flamenco dancers
so tight and smooth
that musical notes will pop up
at the mere tap of a finger
(or a toe)

or perhaps the cedar
of a Pacific Northwest
Indian totem pole
struck by lightning
and still resonating
with the memory of fire

I will find this guitar
somewhere in the south
tho I’ve already started looking
and we’re only 15 miles
into our 900-mile journey

Jan. 4, 2013

THE PIG

voices of imaginary children
from the back of the buggy:
“We want the pig!
– We want the pig!
– We want the pig!
– We want the pig!”

they want the pig
and I’m peering out
the rain-splattered windshield
looking for the pig
and thinking about the guitar

Jan. 4 2013

RELAXING AT THE PIG

found the pig
a gigantic sculpture
of a brown humpback wild boar
on a rotating stand
at a rest stop
on the road to Reims

parked in the lot
making sandwiches
eating sandwiches
having some lunch
ignoring the pig
looking for the guitar

feasting at the pig
no guitar at the pig

Jan. 4, 2013

THE RAMBLIN’ GEEZER

watch out for the geezer
with a shaggy grey beard
soiled baseball cap
and packing a battered guitar
he might be packing around
a lot of history
you don’t want to know about

he’s done more
than become his own grandfather

he now contains
the entire populations
of a city he imagined
at the age of ten
when he had his ear stuck
in a tin-can-button-stretched string
walk talky
and a 12-year old ruffian
shouted obscenities
from the other end

ignore the grey beards
with baseball cap only
they’re a harmless dime a dozen

but the geez with the guitar
will pluck silver dollars
from your eyes
and sing you a song of sixpence
before you can blink twice
and say it’s alright

Jan. 4, 2013

ADORABLE SATORI

they say a newborn baby
is in a perfect state of enlightenment

spiritual men spend years
lifetimes even seeking that state
of perfect mind

Zen Buddhists
tantric Buddhists
Taoists
perfect mind
perfect innocence
purity

but having seen a newborn
up close recently I’m starting
to have my doubts

here’s this 40-year-old galoot
just back from 35 years in India
he’s finally reached the ultimate
in awareness
satori
he’s wearing a diaper
bulging with shit
that drags on the floor
between his legs

he screams:
“I WANT FOOD!
– NOW!
– I’M HUNGRY
– GIVE ME FOOD!”

and everybody gathers around
hugs him, kisses him on the head
and murmurs
“Isn’t he adorable?”

Jan 4, 2013

WILD GEESE

a honk of the horn
announces the great migration south
where I will unfreeze my bones
dry my eyes
from ceaseless sneezing
and dripping nose

today and tomorrow
are mere formalities
I’ve been living in the south
for the past two or three weeks
mind flashing memory movies
of roads traveled
village streets
mountain paths climbed

there it is again:
the waves crashing against
the jagged rocks below
as I stand on the narrow stone jetty
squinting into the wind
still half believing that I can detect
the Italian coastline
in the far impossible distance

this must be my third or fourth
flashback trip to Colieure
since we started packing our minds
to fly south a month ago

there it is again

Jan. 4, 2013

T. ZIMMERMAN: FOOD & SEX CRITIC

overnight
for supper & sleep
at the Hotel Restaurant De L’Abbaye
in Clairvaux (France)

I.
this was by far the worst
cooked food in France
I’ve ever eaten
even the smallest corner burger joint
in the campagne
serves excellent cuisine
compared to this

cold buffet of leftovers
from last month
which countless clients
have spiced with their sneezes
hotdog and potato salad
they’d say it’s Vienna sausage
but don’t be fooled
the dogs have been out of their can
since WWII
and the diced spuds
soaked in rancid snake oil
have age-melted around the edges
and become spit balls

then the main course
“Roti de dinde avec frites ”
which means
slabs of turkey and French fries

I don’t know where they got the turkey
(my guess is from a chain gang
of convicted fowl) but he had
the toughest string of muscle
I’ve bitten into in many a moon
and I’ll be picking it out of the gaps
between my teeth for days to come

and let’s not talk about the French fries
undercooked, over-salted
soggy with dripping grease
(had to return to my room
and stuff my gullet
with chocolate chip cookies
and Milky Way candy bars
to revitalize my sagging appetite

in short it was a carelessly prepared meal

II.
as for the waitress
Bear says (while we’re trying to east)
“She’s getting sexier by the minute”

next time she passes thru
I check her out
one glance and I know
her minutes got all used up
about 15 years ago
I pity the poor Willy Loman
over there in the corner
who is too lonely to pass up
her invitation
five sneaky minutes in the sack
and ten hours of conversations
that’ll send him to his exhaust pipe
four acts early
her bar room and tourist talk
will be nauseatingly endless
“Met this guy last week
with a club foot and buck teeth
blab – blab – blab –
Victor Hugo was born here
right in that house
across the street in 1633
he used to ride his bicycle
in the road and part his hair
in the middle – etc – etc.”
and Willy says, “Forget the pipe
in Act Four,” pulls out a gun
and deceases himself
long before dawn

her most attractive feature:
black painted fingernails
that look like they’ve been
smashed with a hammer

III.
in the morning waiting for breakfast
I’m sure she won’t be
looking any better
looking like one of the beer-soaked
brutes at the bar last night
tried to strangle her in her sleep
but failed because he was too drunk

so I’m not surprised
when she doesn’t show

she sends in her mother
who looks like she stopped
slapping away drunken sailors
about the time the first submarine
sailed up the sewers outside
the hotel
and the captain
decked her halls
with Buddy Holly

as for the food
a basket of croissants
a pot of strawberry jam
and a cup of hot chocolate
you call this breakfast?
where’s the scrambled eggs?
the bacon?
the pancakes?
with maple syrup?
and French toast
French toast?

Clairvaux
Hotel Restaurant de L’Abbaye
Room 5
Jan. 5, 2013

LOADED TRUCK

back on the highway
headed south
in our wild goosemobile
a 16-wheeler
going 150 mph
passes us in the fast lane

maybe he’s hauling
a load of guitars
or maybe just one
surrounded by huge glob
of bubble wrap
maybe it’s THE guitar
it almost has a name

Jan. 5. 2013

ON THE EDGE

funky old auberge
on the edge of ruination
a gigantic dead fly
from last summer
in the bottom
of a white plastic waste paper basket

on the edge of civilization
with two lights in the room
a spot over the bed
that blasts down
like an exploding sun
and a twinkle in the far reaches
of the loft
that could be a distant star

on the edge of history
caught between a long time ago yesterday
and maybe sometime tomorrow

on the edge of a black hole
about to be swallowed
by the tip of its own tail

Sernhac, Jan. 5, 2013

LONG-WINDED WIND

the wind whips adverbially
thru nouns and towns
with strange names
and sadjectives

the chill tiles numb
my barefoot toes

this room was not made
for cold weather

Sernhac (Rhone Valley), Jan. 5, 2013

” . . . NOT SINCE THE WILD GEESE FLEW OVER IN THE WINTER OF ’06.”

all night the wind batters
the doors and windows
rattles the glass

my farts are fierce
they rip the wallpaper
from the walls
they blast the blankets
from the bed

another (blam) blows a hole
in the mattress

the landlord
who lives below
is frightened
his dog starts barking
and soon both are farting
in fear

“Never in a thousand years . . . ”

Sernhac, Jan. 6, 2013

QUATRAIN

the wind shatters the silence
of the night
breaks it into a thousand pieces
I alone remain calm

Sernhac, Jan. 6, 2013

T’ANG DYNASTY MAD WIND

I alone remain calm

with my tattered paperback scroll
of The White Pony in hand
I read the sage words
of the T’ang Dynasty poets

“The wind howling viciously
three layers of thatch were
whirled away from my roof”
(Tu Fu)

my mind is serene

“I hang my hat on a crag
and bare my head to the wind
in the pines”
(Li Po)

my soul is at peace

“the grass will be green again
in coming spring
but will the wanderer ever return?
(Wang Wei)

my spirit is a pool
of unruffled water

“before you praise spring’s advent, note
what capers the mad wind may cut
to cast flowers to the waves
and overturn the fishing boat”
(Ts’en Ts’an)

Sernhac, Jan 6, 2013

GIVE ME THE WIND

give me the wind
and I’ll entertain you for hours

give me the moon
and I’ll bore you to sleep
with dimly-lit passages

give me the sun
and I’ll fill page after page
of my notebook
with lines of summer heat

but the wind is best
give me a breeze
and I’ll ruffle the hairs
of your skinny chin-chin

Sernhac, Jan. 6, 2013

QUATRAIN

give me the half moon
hanging over Rhone Valley
tilted to collect the rain
waiting, too, for dawn

Sernhac, Jan. 6, 2013

“CONTEMPLATING ANCIENT TIMES
I SING THE SONG OF THE PURPLE FUNGUS.”
(Tu Fu)

purple fungus in my sneakers
midnight music on the speakers
I dance around a pole
the totems of a mole
hand in hand with the Geezing Geekers

MORE PURPLE FUNGUS

1.
there once was a purple from Fungus
who said there’s a cheeser among us
my nose is a beak
and it speaks only Greek
but I know it is really humungus

2.
there once was a fungus from Fuddle
his name was a deep purple muddle
(he said) I know I’m a freak
cause I must take a leak
every time I drink a mud puddle

3.
there once was a lady from Deadbeat
whose face was a fungus of head heat
(she said) you could please me
if you would just squeeze me
and suck out the purple and red meat

MICROBEASTS

leaving our room
at the funky auberge
as we found it
leaving nothing behind
except a few microbeasts
from my beard
on the pillow
and taking away a few others
– giving them a ride
to the Vallespir
to see how they’ll enjoy
the atmosphere there

road to Tarascon, Jan. 6, 2013

FROZEN BLACK BULLS

cruising thru the Camargue
famous for its black bulls
we see a heard browsing
swamp grass near the road
fine beasts they are
beautiful black hides
and white crook horns
of wonderful dimensions
a magnificent heard
of a dozen or more

but the longer we look
the more we notice
that they are not moving

the browsers are not browsing
the sky-gazers continue to gaze
they have been gazing
and nor browsing
for months, maybe years
the frozen black bulls
of the Camargue
ever move
except when the painters
come around and slop
a fresh coat
of black on their hides

Jan. 6, 2013

THE KIDS OF THE CAMARGUE
(MORE BULL CRAP)

another swamp with black bulls
these are small ones
and they are moving around
they’re alive

however

under the flapping hides
we see the arms and legs
of children

this is how the kids of the Camargue
spend Sunday afternoons
they put on young bull hides and masks
and frolic in the swamp
wagging their tails

Jan. 6, 2013

ROXIE’S DEATH

it doesn’t really hit me
until we drive into the parking lot
and I expect to see her
trotting out to greet us
slapping her tail against my leg
sniffing my hands and pockets
for treats

up until now the news
of her death last summer
has been an abstraction

now it’s real
she’s not trotting out
and all I’ve got
for her to snack on
are the tears in my eyes.

Mas Trilles
Pont Reynes
Cerét
Vallespir
Pyrenees
Jan. 6, 2013

THIS IS AN ILLUSION

could that be Roxie’s paws
crunching on the gravel of the path
behind the hedge?
can it be that she been playing
a trick on us as in days past?
that she’s going to poke out her nose
and say, “What can this possibly be?”

but
no dog paws today
only bear paws
she peeks out and says
“What is this? What is this?”
and I’m not disappointed

Mas Trilles, Jan. 6, 2013

RED & BLACK

before all else
I visit Roxie’s grave
down by the line of sycamore trees
overlooking the river

I’m sure she’s down there
under the stones
but I wonder
if she is still wearing
the red leather collar

I hope so
but I’m afraid to ask

I want to believe
that the collar
will still be there
long after her muscles
skin and fur and bones
have followed her black Labrador spirit
into the great beyond

then I will return
attach a leash to the ring
and we’ll go for a walk
along the river side

Mas Trilles, Jan. 6, 2013

QUINTRAIN

there was a young lady from Crushtomb
who always made love to her dust broom
til a purple molester
of fungus caressed her
and she learned the true meaning of mushroom

GRAVESTONE POEM – 1

first thing in the morning
I go out to the end of the field
and clear away the grass
from Roxie’s grace

I take a leak beneath the sycamores
(as she used to do)
then I sit on the headstone
and gaze at Mt. Canigou

Mas Trilles, Jan. 7, 2013

DREAM PONTIFICATOR

he tosses works around
as if he knows their meaning
racist
egoist
pleonasm
paradiddle
renunciative
pontification
as if they were blobs of candy
he could snatch back out of the air
with his mouth
crunch to dust between his teeth
and spit into the eye of an elephant

as if they were bubbles of soap stone
he could grab back with his fingers
wrap in candy stripe papers
and send off to graduate students
at Oxfam University
who sit around all day
in gorilla masks
arguing about the differences
between coyotes & litotes
dromedary & lapidary
bumper crops & exhaust pops
as if they were chunks
of raw meat
on which you could sprinkle
a fine white powder
that would get you so stoned
so quickly
that before you finished
eating the meat
it looked like the inside of your mouth
after a gang
of drunken dental school drop-outs
got thru searching
for your teeth
with power drills and ice picks

Mas Trilles, Jan. 7, 2013

“Po Chu-I wrote far too many poems on subjects of no value at all.”
Robert Payne (ed.) The White Pony
WHAT?

QUINTRAIN

there was a young scholar from Oxfam
whose ham actor name was Doc Sham
one day he got slammed
and locked in the can
and now we all know him as mock spam

HOW LEGENDS ARE BORN

Bear tells Amparó
about one of our experiences with Roxie
standing in the parking lot
tossing dog pellets
in the air
Roxie leaping up
and snatching them in her mouth
“She never missed,” Bear says

that was a lie
some bounced off Roxie’s teeth

Mas Trilles, Jan. 7, 2013

OLD POETS

at the age of 17
I read poems from the T’ang Dynasty
about old men
Wang Wei
Li Po
Tu Fu
Po Chu-I
their poems are over-populated
with old men

now at the age of 71
I read these poems again
and realize that only old poets
could have written them
and only young ones
could have hoped
to live long enough
to read them again
and perhaps understand
a line or two

Mas Trilles, Jan. 7, 2013

LOCATION, LOCATION

“The need and ability to immediately identify one’s location upon awakening from sleep is an essential factor in the survival of all primate species.”
Dr. Lao Zoo, Professor of Gorillaphobia at Oxfam University, author of “Gorilla Mania is Good but Ceiling Anxiety is Better” and “Ten Years Ago I Was a Gorilla Maniac; Today I’m Just a Lonesome Gambler.”

this morning I woke up into a place
that had no name
it wasn’t that I didn’t care
where I might be
it didn’t occur to me to ask

I just drifted up from sleep
and I was here
in the world
somewhere
anywhere

only much later
I recognized the ceiling
and knew I was doomed
to extinction

Dr. Lao Zoo writes: (in Interviews with Strange Ceilings) “Doomed to extinction? Doomed to extinction? Sooner or later, yes. We all go the way of the lonesome gambler as the years fill up our back pockets and our feet roll up the miles between down there and up here. Amen.”

Mas Trilles, Jan. 8, 2013

STRANGE RAIN

frost in the night
in the morning sun
it melts and slides off
the laurel leaves
like rain into the dry foliage
below

while bent over
to watch a drop fall
from the tip of a leaf
another drops
from above
and lands on the back of my head

Mas Trilles, Jan. 8, 2013

GRAVESTONE POEM – 2

today I cut away
the tall grass
from around the edges
of the stones

I sat down
on Roxie’s rump stone
with kitchen scissors
and clipped away the milkweed

then I leaned
on her tail stone
and snipped the grass
from around the thin thorn bush
at the end

if anybody should ask
who cleared away
the grass and the weeds
I’ll say it must have been
the wild boars

Mas Trilles, Jan. 8, 2013

SLEEPEATSLEEP

sleep
eat
sleep
read
sleep
walk around
sleep
do things
sleep
eat
sleep
Mas Trilles, Jan. 9, 2013

GRAVESTONE POEM – 3

17 stones
in a rough rectangle
water smooth stones
the size of bread loaves
up from the river

I sit in the center
my back against the head stone
I bend my head
to talk to the stones
and let the sun warm my back

in my black sweater
black sweat pants
black sneakers
black nightwatch cap
people on the distant road
might say:
“Look – down there –
at the bottom of the field
– see the big black Labrador
sitting on a pile of stones?”

Mas Trilles, Jan. 9, 2013

UNREAL ESTATE

every time we go to town (Céret)
Bear stops in front of real estate
office windows
and dreams of villas and chateaus

“Must be some purpose behind this,”
I say
she says, “Just curiosity.”
“Probably a woman thing,” I say
and she says, “Men are interested in door handles
and light switches.”

Mas Trilles, Jan. 10, 2013

THE YOGI BERRA FORK

trip down to the Lidl supermarket
to see if (among the massive selection
of food stuffs) they have a pillow
for Bear’s head

they have hundreds of useful
and useless things
pajamas
frying pans
electric blankets
wireless electric drills
infrared thermal detectors
toilet seats
TV simulators
(protection against burglars)
telescopes
a portable plastic closet
(with 2 drawers in the bottom)
door mats
scales
bags of clothespins
iron & ironing board
gymnastic balloons
an instruction book: “How to Play the Piano”
and yes – a pillow
for Bear’s sleeping head
and yes – yes
an electric guitar
in a cardboard box
an AXMAN guitar
10 items in the box:
combo amp (10watts – 2 channels)
EQ (3 band)
connection to mp3 CD
head phones
tuner
instruction manual
CD instruction manual
3 flat picks
carry bag
only 99.99 Euros
a great value at any price
and no – no it’s not THE guitar
(not by a long shot)
THE guitar will not run on electricity
it will run on human muscles
blood sweat & tears
and it won’t have sharp metal strings
and I don’t think it will come in
a cheap cardboard box

THE guitar is just over the horizon
just around the corner perhaps
I may not be looking
for THE guitar
I may just be walking along
thinking about Yogi Berra
and taking a fork in the road
when it will jump out
and grab me
and I will grab it back
and start strumming and singing
the old folk melody
“How Does THAT Grab You?”
to which the crowd
gathering around
will reply with the chorus
“It grabs me fair
it grabs me square
hand me down
my rocking chair.”

Pont Reynes, Jan. 10, 2013

GRAVESTONE POEM – 4

this morning I placed
croissant ends
on the head stone
and bread crusts and crumbs
on the shoulder and belly stones

all the while a bird
was watching and chirping
at me from a tree overhead

breakfast for the bird
or perhaps the skinny golden lizard
I saw on a nearby wood pile
as I was leaving the field

Mas Trilles, Jan. 10, 2013

RIDING THE DOG
(THE CATALAN DOG)

“Take the bus
– and leave the driving to us”

OK

but who’s going to get stuck
looking at all these weird passengers?

I guess that’s my job

Jan. 10, 2013

REEK

guy gets on the bus
reeking of tobacco smoke
did I smell that bad
once upon a time?

I must have
never less than 3 packs a day

I should have been arrested
for polluting the atmosphere

at the very least exiled
to a remote island
for being a public health hazard
destroying people’s olfactories
to the point where perfume
smelled like sweat
and coke tasted like carbonated sewage

these old guys in their garlic suits
are not so bad either

Jan. 10, 2013

DOG RIDE

and so I ride the dog
into Perpignan
I see guitars in shop windows
guitars from Alicante
guitars from Valencia
flamenco guitars
I see guitar inside shops
I play guitars
4 surprise me by jumping out
and landing in my lap
one of these might be THE guitar
maybe one of them is MY guitar
which one can it possibly be?
only time
and more dog rides
will tell

Perpignan, Jan. 10, 2013

UPROOTING THE VERBS IN VAIN

a young American man
passes me by as I head back
to the train station
his voice a loud CLACK
like the sound of a dead fish
being slapped against
a smooth concrete wall

why do I understand
every word he speaks?
how did that happen?

way back before I could speak
it happened
back when I didn’t know
I was listening

and now far from a place
I used to call home
having put 45 years
between myself
and that sneaky preview
his voice slaps out
and I desperately wish
I could not understand
a single syllable

Perpignan, Jan. 10, 2013

GRAVESTONE POEM – 5

the two croissant crusts
from yesterday
are gone
eaten by the birds
or perhaps the lizard
or the wild boars in the night

or maybe Roxie’s ghost
jumped out of the ground
and snatched them from the air

I replace them with two fresh ones

leaving, standing
at the edge of the field
I look back

the crusts are gone

Mas Trilles, Jan. 11, 2013

PRELUDE & POSTLUDE

I’m hungry by the time we reach
Prats-de-Mollo

all the shops are closed
and the bar-café Fafan Bar
does not serve food

so we climb the steep
stone steps
to the church
sit in the sun
and feast on
one banana
one tangerine
and two Milky Way candy bars

but the picnic
in the sunshine
is just a prelude

we came for the silence
and the tolling of the bell
above our heads
that splits the silence
down the middle

Prats-de-Mollo, Jan. 11, 2013

THE MEXICAN DREAM

something to look forward to:

in the year 2050
Mexico becomes the richest
most powerful nation
in the hemisphere

they control the U.S.A.
they have turned Mexico
into a land of prosperity and opportunity

the Mexican Dream

white Americans flock
to the border
they want to taste the milk and honey

but the Mexicans have built a wall

the whites are caught
and deported
some are shot by vigilantes
as they run towards
Mexico City

Prats-de-Mollo, Jan. 11, 2013

SPEED DEMON

winding out of the mountains
on the sharp curves
if the narrow road
a speed-burning maniac
in an Suburban Attack Vehicle (SUV)
passes us going 150 mph

he’s an impatient speed demon
he’s working hard on his death

heading home from Prats-de-Mollo
Jan. 11, 2013

GRAVESTONE POEM – 6

this is the 6th day
in a row
I’ve gone out to say
hello-goodbye to Roxie

today I go down to the river
and bring back a stone
water-smooth
fits into the palm of my hand
my fingers almost closing over it

I sit on the headstone
and slide the new stone
into a gap between
3 of the breadloaf stones

other gaps
await other palm-size stones

looking into the other gaps
my mind tumbles forward
in time
many years in the future
the population of the world,
of France, of this valley
has doubled, tripled
houses everywhere
one is built right here
at the bottom of this field
I’m sitting in their backyard

a couple of boys (brothers)
are digging a hole
right where I’m sitting
a tunnel to China
they dig deep
and I expect they will soon find
the skull and bones of Roxie

but all traces of Roxie’s body
have vanished
only the red leather collar remains

the older brother
holds up the collar
it glows red in the sunshine
“Look what I found!”

a dog trots into the backyard
from the house
a stray black female Labrador
she paddled down the river
the day before
and decided to make her home here
in this house by the river’s edge

she sniffs at the collar
the brothers loop the collar
around her neck
and buckle it tight

she doesn’t have a name
yet
“What are we going to call her?”

“Let’s call her Brouette.”

that night beneath a star-filled sky
Brouette lifts her head
and howls past the moon
into the Milky Way

and the far-distant Dog Star
Sirius
lifts his head
and howls into the center
of the universe

Mas Trilles, Jan. 12, 2013

GRAVESTONE POEM – 7

today I didn’t take anything
to the stones
I stood and looked
at the drops of rain
which had fallen there
while I was asleep

I also noticed
coming and going
thru the tall, wet grass
that my feet
are starting to make a path

Mas Trilles, Jan. 14, 2013

THE MOUNTAIN SHAMANS

Argeles-sur-Mer
Sunday Afternoon
a concert of acapella music
from the Basques
the Languedocs
and the Corsicans
sung by 7 Catalonians

shamanistic
nechromantic music
with unexpected twists
and turns voices
rising to the highest parts
of the church to rattle around
in the rafters

old music
from the centuries

folk music
from the mountains

this is where the medieval
and renaissance masters
Ockeghem
Obrecht
Des Pres
Dufay
got their gothic ideas
for the polyphonic motets
and madrigals before
they went contrapuntal

can’t understand a word
but who cares if it’s Basque
or Languedoc
it all comes from the mountains
Canigou Music

breathing in and out
in and out
takes the mind away
fills all the hollow places
left behind
with harmonious angelic tears
and the distant whispers
of Mother Earth’s laughter

written during a performance of polyphonic music by Veus Aspres, Eglise Santa Maria Del Prats, Argeles-sur-Mere, Jan 14, 2012

FAMOUS SINGERS

from halfway back
in the church
the singers are small
and their faces blurred

as they continue to sing
song after song
some of their faces
becomes famous

that’s Steve Jobs
on one end
Rosanna Arquette
in the middle
and Michael Moore
on the other end with a pitch pipe
tootling in before each tune

Argelles s/Mer, Jan. 12, 2013

THE BIRD IS THE LEAST OF WARNINGS

I have to say it again
half of the French drivers
should not be behind
the wheels of their cars

they are rude
they are arrogant
they are mental lentils

they drive on emotion
which is the most dangerous fuel
when it comes to guiding
two-ton machines
capable of crippling
and killing human life

this time I’m giving you the finger, fool

next time
it’s gonna be loaded

road from Argelles s/Mer to Boulot
night, Jan. 13, 2013

BELIEVE IT OR NOT

an owl hoots
from yonder woods
thru the frosty night

to the north
snow is falling
they say

I can believe it

Mas Trilles, Jan. 15, 2013

THE WHITE PONY *

1.
FANCY NAMES

and so we ride
on the back of the White Pony
into the Sung Dynasty (AD 960—1278)

and the first house we come to
built into the eastern slope of the hill
is where Su Tung-Po lives
“Tung-Po” is his nickname
what the Chinese call a “fancy name”
“Tung-Po” means “Eastern Slope”

I like that

Eastern Slope Su
sort of like Minnesota Fats
or Louisiana Red
or Southside Johnny

makes me think
I should have a fancy name too

how about
West Coast Zimmerman?

2.
SUNG HO

and so we leave
East Slope Su behind
and ride the White Pony
up to visit
Ch’en Shih Tao
and Li Ch’ing-Chao

they live together
in a house
on page 274

Ch’en says:
“Guests whom we anxiously
expect often fail to come.”

Ch’en also says:
“It is when
we are near the end of a book
that we enjoy it.”

Li (a woman poet
whose father was a life long
friend of East Slope Su)
doesn’t say anything

she sits alone by the window
with her shadow
until the lamp burns out
and the shadow forsakes her
in the darkness

I’ve been carrying this book
around the world for 50 years
and I don’t think I’ve visited
this house on page 275
until tonight

3.
LAST STOP BEFORE THE CH’ING DYNASTY

Lu Yu (AD.1125-1209)
lives farther up the road
self-dubbed: Feng-On
fancy name: “Wild Irascible Old Man”

I want another one
of those fancy names too
how about:
“Weird Metaphysical Book Boy Tuck”?

Wild Irascible Old Man Feng-On
stands by the shelf:
“Often I take books to read
and then put them back.”

Wild Irascible Old Man also says
“Tho I am seventy, I do not
want to leave my books.”

Weird Metaphysical Book Boy Tuck
listens and replies
“Long I have gazed
upon the setting sun
and re-invented myself
with every moon rise.”

Wild Irascible Old Man
says, “I did not know that.”

Mas Trilles, Jan 14-16, 2013

* The White Pony, An Anthology of Chinese Poetry,
edited by Robert Payne, Mentor Books (1960)

GUN CONTROL

the debate rages on
“Americans are hunters
we need guns to provide food
for ourselves and our families.”

that being the argument
I think the killers should be made
to eat their victims
in public
raw
“Here are the bodies of the 35
people you murdered yesterday
in the mall. Don’t get up from the table
until you’ve licked up
the last drop.”

on the other hand
it might not be punishment
for some of those mutant monsters
they’d be licking their chops
“Makes good eatin'”
one might say of the 17
small children he just slaughtered
“The kind of grub
that sticks to your ribs.”

Mas Trilles, Jan. 16, 2013

BIRTHDAY QUATRAIN

tonight it’s snowing
in the south
it’s snowing
on Bear’s birthday

I can believe it

Céret, Jan. 16, 2013

AGE OLD

find myself slow
to get out of a chair
unbending my knees
unfolding my back
pain creeping ’round
as I stretch muscles
and shuffle short steps
to get myself in motion
find myself asking
the same question
heard from coast to coast
down thru the centuries:
how can this be happening to me?

Mas Trilles, Jan. 17, 2013

MY SELFISH GUITAR

when I find my guitar
I will say: “This is my guitar
this is not your guitar
this is not his guitar
this is not her guitar
this is not their guitar
this is not our guitar
THIS IS MY GUITAR
so there.”

Mas Trilles, Jan. 17, 2013

CHUNK-A-CHEESE

“La Brique” it says
on the box
A block of the most odious
cheese ever invented
it won’t go away

brought down from Belgium
11 days ago
(during which time
it polluted the interior
of the car with its vile stench)

banished from the house
it now sits on the wall
outside our door
and threatens my nostrils
with its reek
everytime I pass by

in a strong wind
2 days ago
it blew down
onto the table
by the door
and now is within
striking distance
when I walk by

it’s getting closer and it won’t go away

I think it’s getting ready
to reproduce
dozens of little green nodules
are forming on the outside of the box

soon we’ll be surrounded
by cheese monsters
under the bed
under the toilet seat
stick a hand in your pocket
and the hand will be devoured
before you can pull it back out.

Mas Trilles, Jan. 17, 2013

MAPLE JOE

is the name of our bottle
of maple syrup from Canada
“Absolutely pure maple syrup.”

when they start with “absolutely”
you know you’re in for some
flagrant mendacity

but the taste is pure
and I like the picture on the front
a burly lumberjack
in a red check shirt
a red tractor cap
and a bushy white beard

it’s Maple Joe

give him a pair of glasses
and he’ll look like me

I think I’ll change my fancy name
from now on you can call me
Wild Fistolophical Maple Jerk Tuck

Mas Trilles, Jan. 17, 2013

BEGGAR ON A BIKE

he pulls over to the sidewalk
stops
says to me, “Do you have
any money?”

I say, “There’s a bank
down there on the corner
– they have lots of money.”

he says, “Merci”
and rides on

Perpignan, Jan 18, 2013

PERPIGNAN QUATRAIN

Bear says,
“Perpignan is worn out
– full of half-extinguished people
look at that drooping palm tree
– that says it all.”

Perpignan, Jan 18, 2013

A HOT BED OF UGLY PEOPLE

Perpignan is home
to the ugliest people in the world

women with cave-dwelling faces
ruptured hair
and saltslab bodies

men just back
from the slimeswamps
with their submental submarine
habits

by day they slide around
on footpads
lubricated with
green gooseshit

at night they spend hours
hitting each other with ugly sticks

the world will be doomed
if they start moving around
and visiting other cities

luckily this will not happen
anytime soon
because they still haven’t figured out
where they are
and thus have no idea
that there might be other places
to contaminate

don’t get me wrong
these are not bad people
they’re just stupendously ugly
and everybody knows
ugly is contagious

Perpignan, Jan. 18, 2013

THESE ARE MY TWO GUITARS

today I went looking
for the guitar
(you were starting to wonder
if I’d forgotten
about the guitar)

I went into a shop
and one jumped out
and I caught it

then I went across town
and another guitar jumped out
and I caught that one too

two guitars

one is from Flamenco Spain
the other from Canada
one is called Alhambra
the other is called Ars & Luthier
one is made from spruce & rosewood
the other from cedar and wild cherry

the Flamenco is sharp & brilliant
the Canadian is smooth and soft

now I’m faced
with the ancient dilemma:
you can play
only one guitar at a time

Perpignan, Jan. 18, 2013

SECOND HAND GUITAR

I’m wondering about
this flamenco guitar
I bought today in Perpignan
marked down from 700€
to 480€

I’m wondering why
until I turn it over
and see three bullet holes
in the back

each hole has a halo
of dried blood around it

it’s safe to say
that the last player
never finished his song

it’s also safe to say
that the man who shot him
wasn’t singing along

Mas Trilles, Jan. 18, 2012

TWO GUITARS & TWO PAIR OF JEANS

went shopping yesterday
bought two guitars
and two pair of jeans

even tho I’m into my 7th decade
with cataracts
and squinting blind
I can see the differences

the guitars are made of wood
the jeans are black denim
they stretch
the guitars do not
the guitars have nylon strings
the jeans have no strings at all

they are as different from each other
as a lunar eclipse
and lentil soup
as a meerkat wedding ceremony
and a tattoo parlor in Copenhagen

as different as Saturday night
in a Texas honky tonk
where the band is loud
and the dancers are drunk
and nobody wants to mess
with either after midnight
and Sunday noon
in Golden Gate Park
where old ladies
piously fresh from the church pews
of their choice
blow kisses to old men
on bicycles
with pockets full of IOUs
from all night poker games

as different as a bunted baseball
that squeezes a runner from third
and a hard-boiled egg
in the hands of a mischievous kid
who thinks it’s raw

as different from each other
as poetry written in goat’s milk
upon a hot stone
the exists for only a moment
before it evaporates
and its message is lost
forever tho some will claim
that the white powder
that remains
is the true message
(tho the white powder
may be nothing more
than a distorted ghost
of the original goat bleat)
and the muffled sound
of a French horn
from the far side of the mountain

Mas Trilles, Jan. 18, 2013

CHUNK-A-CHEESE UPDATE

it’s pulsing in the sun
slowly coming out of hibernation
listen closely
it’s breathing in and out
like a timid pervert
on a long-distance phone
when the wires are crowded
with crows
with sponges in their claws

in a day or two
I expect it to start
speaking

Mas Trilles, Jan. 18, 2013

NO MORE TOUGH GUY

the tough guys
are slowly disappearing

there used to be many
playing on the Hollywood screens
Robert Mitchum
Humphrey Bogart
John Wayne
Paul Newman
Richard Widmark
Jack Nicholson
Marlon Brando
Robert D. Niro
Harvey Keitel
Charles Bronson
Rod Steiger

these days the best that Hollywood
can offer is
Tommy Lee Jones
Jeff Bridges
and Ian McShane
tough guys true but few

Steve Buscemi ain’t gonna do it
(tho he might creep up behind you
and strangle you with a wet rag)
Woody Allen ain’t gonna do it
(tho he might bore you to death
with a “What she needs
is a schlug from a .45” joke)
John Goodman ain’t gonna do it
(tho he’d like to be tough with his
“You’re in for a world of pain” lines)
he’s really a triple deck
ice cream cone
with fresh cream and a cherry on the top
Michael J. Fox ain’t gonna do it
(tho he might take out his pet iguana
and feed it a lady bug)
Nicolas Cage ain’t gonna do it
(He’d just stare a thousand mile
tunnel into your eyes)

and the in-between pretend tough guys
are no help at all
Clint Eastwood
Bruce Willis
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Mickey Rourke
(all Mick can do is snarl
and show you his tattoos)
they’re just puffy tuffys
they can’t make up their minds
if they want to frown down
on the world or puff up their cheeks
like dandelions and blow
kisses at it

let’s face it
all we got in a bunch of wimpy men
crawling under the table
groveling on the floor
at the feet of uppity bitches
who’ve liberated themselves
into men’s underwear
and cigar-spitting madness

Mas Trilles, Jan. 19, 2013

IN MEMORY OF K.D.
cousin, sister
who after 69 years of suffering
died on January 15, 2013
in Oakland California

I sit by the river
where Roxie
last year played
chewsticks

a good place
for looking at the river

strong wind
from the east
raises ripples on the water
and blows them upstream

seems the river is flowing
the wrong direction

back to the mountain

even the ducks
are swimming that way

River Tech, Jan. 19, 2013

GHOST DOG SHIT

last night I went down in the dark
after dinner in Amelie-les-Bains
and left the crusts of my pizza
on the head stone
of Roxie’s grave
for the birds and beasts

this morning the crusts
were gone
and in their place
were 3 short, round turds
about the size of tootsie rolls
lying side by side
some bird or beast
eat, dump & go

some bird?
would have to have been
the size of a vulture

some beast?
the scat too small
for a wild boar
too large for a mouse
something about the size
of a rabbit (tho rabbits
leave pellets)
no cats or small dogs
in the area
no badgers
no porcupines
no weasels
no beavers
must have been
the ghost of Roxie

Mas Trilles Jan. 19, 2013

THUS SPAKE THE CHEESE

warm sunshine
for breakfast
took my scrambled eggs
outside to the table
sat down and started to eat
and noticed (still waking up)
that my plate was less than 6 inches
from the chunk-a-cheese

I had never been this close
to the mutating monster before

I leaned close to listen
the chunk-a-cheese was speaking

he said
“Harpoon the ducks
harpoon the geese.”

I shouted back,
“What the fuck does that mean?”
but the chunk-a-cheese
wrapped in his transparent
plastic coat splattered
with raindrops refused
to reply

I finished my eggs
and escaped before
I lost control
and pounded the chunk-a-cheese
with my fist

it’s a fight
I would have lost
I would have gone away
with a hand
that would never strum
a guitar again

Mas Trilles, Jan. 20, 2013

THE CHUNK-A-CHEESE BABBLE

everytime I leave the house
(at least 3 times a day)
I pass less than 3 feet from the table
where the chunk-a-cheese lives

its babble pollutes the air
all the time now, most of it
comprehensible to another
chunk-a-cheese

occasionally a coherent phrase
seeps out
“Kwang kwang go the ducks.”
“Ling ling go the dogs.”
“Swee swee go the sharp knives.”

“Soo soo goes the wild goose.”
“Fling fling goes the sound
of the pheasant wings.”
“Boom boom goes the lizard skin drums.”
“Flee flee go the wild boards.”
“The bird sings ying ying.”
“Crooked are the thorn wood spoons.”

then the chunk-a-cheese
gives himself away:
“Yin fang kuei ch’in huo.”

can’t fool me
that’s Chinese
with grumbles and grudges
the cheese has been
quoting old Chinese
poetry all this time

my copy of the ancient
T’ang Dynasty scrolls tell me
“Yin fang kuei ch’in huo.”
means
DARK ROOM GHOST GREEN FIRE
in other words:
IN DARK ROOMS
GHOST GREEN FIRES
ARE BURNING

what an educated, sophisticated
multi-linguistic chunk-a-cheese

Mas Trilles, Jan. 20, 2013

ELVIS WAS A PUFFY TUFFY

he was no John Wayne
when John had to drain the dragon
he whipped it out
and sprayed the walls
with 300 pounds of pressure
he hosed the place down

when Elvis took a leak
he leaned over the urinal
and his lizard went
drip
drip
drip

what a puffy tuffy

Mas Trilles, Jan. 21, 2013

NO SENSE OF HUMOR

Bear doesn’t think
“Elvis was a Puffy Tuffy”
is very funny

you had to have been there
you would have to have been stoned
you would have to have been
laughing your ass off
when you refused to let him
give you his autograph
and he started to cry

Mas Trilles, Jan. 21, 2013

NO SENSE OF HUMOR RECAP

Bear doesn’t think
“No Sense of Humor”
is very funny

neither do I

Mas Trilles, Jan. 21, 2013

DON’T MAKE A MOUNTAIN HILL
OUT OF MOLE HOLE

Bear points at me
and says to the world:
“You see what I have to put up with
24 hours a day?”

I say; “It could be worse
– it could be Iggy Pop.”

Mas Trilles, Jan. 21, 2013

MAPLE JOE POP

Maple Joe is back
in a bigger bottle
it’s a larger
much improved
Maple Joe

this is Maple Joe Pop
distant cousin to Iggy

who did you expect to see
on an economy size bottle
of maple syrup from Canada?
Neil Young?

Mas Trilles, Jan. 21, 2013

DEEPER THAN SKINDEEP

if the souls of beautiful women
were visible
we might not get so excited
about what we see

Marilyn Monroe
squint, look deep beyond the skin
and see a tortured strip
of old newspaper
hung up on a telephone line
with pink plastic pins

Pamela Anderson:
a bundle of barbed wire
bristling with alligator clips
from starter cables
attached to dead batteries

Bo Derek:
a store window dummy
looking exactly like Bo Derek
only with holes
where the eyes should be

Jane Fonda:
9-month old baby
with a rattle between her teeth
American flag diapers
and snakeskin cowgirl boots
with heels of 9-inch nails
she shakes her head
and the rattle goes “Hissssss.”

Madonna:
the head of a horse
with flared nostrils
large enough to suck up
the balls from a pool table
and sniff them back out
into a corner pocket
an hour later

Julia Roberts:
mostly a vaporous cloud
sometimes it takes the shape
of bank robbery in progress
sometimes the shape
of a song no one remembers
the words to

Brigitte Bardot:
a lower lip
that hangs down
over her chin
a pig snout for a nose
and hair like brillo pads
dipped in poodle oil
below is just a skeleton
that can spin 360°
on its pelvic socket
and door knob knee bones
turn them to the left
and she screams
thru her chain saw teeth
turn them to the right
and a door in her skull opens
and gopher and chipmunks
leap out
and escape to freedom

Terri Hatcher:
a string bean
a garden hose
and a children’s story
about a rabbit with buck teeth
these images appear
on a screen behind her head
as she sits in a sauna
wrapped in a parachute
waiting for her face
to return from a walk
around the block

Angelina Jolie:
Brad Pitt with mumps
and a reflection of Orson Welles
with cigar
in a warped mirror

Lindsay Lohan:
a plump bottle
of cheap whiskey
with the label
peeled away
a label that once read:
HOP SCOTCH
THE BREAKFAST OF MUSHROOMS

Mas Trilles, Jan. 22, 2013

KNOCK ON WOOD (SO FAR SO GOOD)

swim out of the ocean
crawl up onto land
enjoy a little sunshine
grab a handful of sand

knock on wood (so far so good)

dry out in a cool breeze
grow some extra toes
get rid of the bubbles
start breathing thru your nose

knock on wood (so far so good)

put on some shoes and socks
ride the bus to town
hang out down on mainstreet
down where the world turns round

knock on wood (so far so good)

drink a bottle of cheap wine
smoke a weed cigar
rob a bank and score some cash
steal a gas-gulping car

knock on wood (so far so good)

take over a big garage
call in a motorcycle crowd
get a band together
start playing music loud

knock on wood (so far so good)

Brother Ben on drums
Sister Sass on bass
sing your song loud and long
til it blows up in your face

knock on wood (so far so good)

take the band on tour
visit foreign lands
play for the fans in Terra Fuego
Cyprus and Japan

knock on wood (so far so good)

drive up and down the highways
until you get the feel
of life in a democracy
and love on a roulette wheel

knock on wood (so far so good)

get fed up with the bullshit
the bible and the gun
buy a boat and sail away
into the setting sun

knock on wood (so far so good)

get shipwrecked off Bermuda
sink back into the sea
learn to breathe underwater again
dog paddle into history

knock on wood (so far so good)

Mas Trilles, Jan. 23, 2013

I LOOK BEFORE AND DO NOT SEE THE ANCIENTS
(LOOKING AFTER I DO NOT SEE THE COMING AGES)
Chen Tzu-Ang (A.D. 656-698)

and now we leave the rare atmosphere
of Homer (Iliad)
Dan Simmons (Ilium)
Neil Young (bio)
and the ancient Chinese poets
(Chen Tzu-Ang, Wang Wei
Po Chu-I, Tu Fu, Li Po) behind
and turn toward
Rimbaud

boy, was he ever fucked up

I’d be better off
sloshing down a fifth
of Wild Turkey
and wallowing in Bukowski
for a day or two

Mas Trilles, Jan. 24, 2013

CATALAN MOON

first full moon
of the new year
I jerk about
spastic arms and legs
paddle hands
slapping my forehead
yawping barbaric rap
“Blump!’
“Yowl!”
“Deep!”
“Slur!”

I should stop
reading Rimbaud

Mas Trilles, Jan. 25, 2013

AMPLE SUFFICIENCY

and the wind hits the valley
streaming down from the mountains
ripping the trees
pounding the roof

enough slap and rumble
enough reminder of our mortality
reminds of something
my grandma used to say:
“ample sufficiency”

Mas Trilles, Jan. 25, 2013

MUTEMOLE IN AZERTY IS LUTELOKE

my laptop
had a nervous breakdown
started looping around
and tumbling in circles

took it to a drop-off
in Amelie-Les-Bains

it would be picked up by “Yanick”
and he’d let me know
by phone
the next morning

that was yesterday
this morning Yanick didn’t call
now it’s all most midnight
and Yanick is still pure silence

he has everything
in that laptop of mine
all my novels
all my stories
all my poems
all my songs
all my music
everything I’ve written
in the past 40 years
he also has my password
MUTEMOLE

I can see Monday morning’s headlines
in the International Herald Tribune
the best seller list from New York:

OVERNIGHT SENSATION
MORE THAN 30 MILLION COPIES
SOLD IN THE PAST HOUR ALONE:
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF MUTEMOLE
BY YANICK

Mas Trilles, Jan. 25, 20163

THE CHUNK UPDATE

three weeks and counting
the chuck-a-cheese
is still there
thriving
vibrating
evolving

so far it has devoured
a pine cone
a small bird
and a spoon I accidentally
left on the table
overnight

it now speaks fluent Chinese
and has learned most of the songs
from the rock ‘n roll 50s

this morning it was singing
“Roll Over Beethoven”
and pointing a cheesy finger at me

Mas Trilles, Jan. 26, 2013

RAW MEAT MOON

second night
of the full moon

the pigs are out
wild boaring in the field
dancing in the polarized light

do not go wandering
in the field tonight, friend
you might be mistaken
for an edible chunk
of rump steak

Mas Trilles, Jan. 26, 2013

THE WANDERING CHUNK

today
the chunk-a-cheese
wandered away

I didn’t see it go
I woke up
and it was gone

the footprints
in the gravel
were unmistakable

huge black holes
that tunneled down
into infinity

I’m sure glad I wasn’t in the way

Mas Trilles, Jan. 27, 2013

SARDONIQUE

the players lift
their mountain goat saxophones
in the air
and blast off

and the dancers start
dancing
they know all the old
peasant steps
the geeze freeze
the stop crotch bang
the wild western steamboat
the greased goose hitchhike
the boulder rump pomp
the lizard of oz
the loose locomotive mombone
the bossanovacaine
the clusterphobic hoof-a-panorama
the janus jopin dunk jog
the airplane propeller reverse doppler
the devil’s foot cakewalk
the peek-a-boogie tweak
the backslap sneak attack
the pinball paddlewheel
the shock wave bullwhip
the gap tooth pass-the-buck-a-roo
the dubious donkey trot
the exposed armpit airconditioner
the flamenco fingerdangle wiggle
the moby duck
the jetlag mudmobile
the ring-around-the-rosary rag
the slow-motion underdog
the heavy-duty ghost trap
the elbow grease monkey pump
the laughing lady shake
the fats domino robot
the Canadian clubfoot race
the gaz spazmatic
the pugnacious leprechaun
the flim flamingo-rilla limp
Doctor Panama’s Havana pajamas
the flashmob rimple
the pizza-nocchio nose drop
the slipshod swamp stomp
the watershed volcano
the mashed Alaska totem pole vault
Porky & Beans’ pitchfork
the mile-a-minute waltz
the pestiferous Buddha bounce
the see-you-later percolator
the farting frog
the bustagut mule kick
the shithouse mouse pad
the Zimmerman zipper

too bad I wasn’t there

Mas Trilles, Jan. 27, 2013

PICK POCKET MOON

third and last night
of the year’s first full moon

do not go gently
into any kind of light
tonight

keep a close watch
on your wits
and your back pockets

these are the midnight hours
of illuminated shadows

you can sit up all night
waiting for dawn
but you will never get close
to the mystery
of your face
reflected in the moon’s mirror

Mas Trilles, Jan. 27, 2013

OMNIPOTENT MAPLE JOE

should know better than to write
while eating pancakes with maple syrup

now I’ve got Maple Joe everywhere
on the table
in my beard
in my notebook

fucking Maple Joe everywhere

is he going to become
another chunk-z-cheese problem?

Maple Joe on the walls
Maple Joe on the windows and doors
Maple Joe in my slippers
Maple Joe in my pockets

looks like I’ll have to change
my name again
forget fucking Maple Joe
how about
Stick-Stuck Fucking Tuck?

Mas Trilles, Jan. 28, 2013

HOLY MOON

ring around the moon
means rain
they say
we’ll see
wait for daylight
and watch it fade
into the snowfield slides
of Canigou’s western slopes

Mas Trilles, Jan. 28, 2013

LOST IN THE LAST DAYS OF JANUARY

between the 24th and the 29th
the numbers get shuffled
and mixed up
impossible to tell apart
any day could be the 26th
another could be the 25th
or the 28th
or not

tomorrow will be better
it will be the 30th of January

I can hardly wait

Mas Trilles, Jan. 29, 2013

SKYSCRAPE

tonight
no stars visible
the moon
covered by a thin
blanket
of mist

this could turn out to be
a real problem

Mas Trilles, Jan. 29, 2013

LOST IN THE FIRST MONTHS OF THE YEAR

it’s possible
that soon
all the days of the month
will become jumbled
and confused

is it February 2nd?
or February 14th?
who can tell?
not me

the 31st ?
maybe
the 32nd ?
probably
the 44th?
or the 85?
who knows?
not me

then for the days of the week
Monday or Wednesday?
Thursday or Sunday?
could be Tuesday
could be Bluesday
Sinday
Monkday
Flyday
Whimsday
Punday
No Way Day
then, at last, the months
of the year will become shuffled
and scattered
February or Lavatory?
Harpoon or Cocktober?
Remember or Septemperature?

we’ll be lost
in the early years
of the 21st century
if not the last of the 22nd

Mas Trilles, Jan 29, 2013

YOGURT PARADISE

downing 3 yogurts a day
these days
cherry
peach
pineapple
blackberry

the cherry looks like
bloody alligator snot
but I close my eyes
smack my lips
hum like a bug
and dip into
a sky of purple foam
riding a rocking chair gondola
of a hot air balloon
thru whipped c ream clouds
past an ice cream moon
and beyond
into milkshake heaven

Mas Trilles, Jan. 30, 2013

“BUT WILL THE WANDERER EVER RETURN?”
(Wang Wei)

the same old strange thought
flutters thru my head:
why am I here
and not someplace else?

I could be home
in Belgium
but I’m not

I’m here
in Vallespir
in the foothills
of the Pyrenees

I could be in Rome
but I’m not

I could be
in San Francisco
or Paris
I’ve been there
but I’m not there now

I’ve been
in Amsterdam
in the past
and will be again
in the future
but not right now

right now
I’m here
and I don’t know how

if someone knows the answer
let me know
I’ll be right here
or someplace else

Mas Trilles, Jan. 31, 2013

THE END OF THE WORLD IN PERPIGNAN

sitting in Place Catalan
old guy comes up
and starts talking
about the end of the world

I say that already happened
in December

he says
that was a false alarm

the real end of the world
(he says) is coming soon

he wants me to take
one of his pamphlets
if I want to be saved

I say
that’s funny
the end of the world
really was last December
– me and you
and everybody you see –
all got wiped out
which is kind of strange
that we’re sitting here
talking like this
– being dead and everything –
must be some kind of miracle
that doesn’t have anything to do
with those sheep
on your pamphlet picture

but he’s not listening

the sheep and shepherds
in his pamphlet picture
are lost and not likely
to return
anytime soon

Perpignan, Jan. 31, 2013

ANDROGYNIES

the western world
loves its androgynous celebrities
M. Jackson
D. Bowie
T. Rex
Elton John
F. Mercury
they’re safe
they do not threaten
they will not upset
the applecart
and create turmoil
in our central nervous systems

Hillary Swank
is it a man or a woman?
both
Celine Dion?
neither
Rene Zellewegger
anteater
Sarah Jessica Parker
horse
Cher
cyborg
Angelina Jolie
whale
(what else can you say
about a woman whose mass
and body weight
are 98% lip?)

Mas Trilles, Feb. 1, 2013

HARSH

“harsh”
what a word
where did it come from?

don’t tell me Old English
or one of those ancient
Anglo-Saxon dialects

it came from a cave
deep in one man’s heart

shaggy, matted hair
hanging in his eyes
as he gazed at the moon
and wept bitter tears
of lost love

his cave lady
with the buffalo wig
and wolf pelt robe
had just left him
for the mad singer
who lived down by the river
who slapped stones together
and sang his hit song
which had been sweeping
the valley, leaving the tribes
raving for more
“I am the Lonesome Caveman!”

“Harsh! wailed the shaggy loser
from the hills above
“Oh so harsh!”

St. Jean Plat de Corts (Le Tonneau), Feb. 1, 2013

BONECRUSHER & BUCKTOOTH

they say our ancestors
were the Cro-Magnons
who lived in Lascaux
in Dordogne
not far from here

which means
(get ready for this)
everybody with white skin today
is French

the Dutch are French
the English are French
even the Norwegian are French
(especially the Norwegians)
I’m French
and maybe you are too

look deep into the roots
of our family tree
and we’ll find
Bonecrusher Bob
and Bucktooth Betty
our original grandpa
and grandma

they were not only French
but they invented the French language

one night Bob said
“Bonsoir, Betty,”
and Betty said,
“Tootle-loo, Bob,”
and from that moment on
there was no turning back

Jean D’Arc
Jules Verne
Voltaire
Descartes

all are profoundly grateful
to Bonecrusher and Bucktooth
for giving them the power of language
and a tower of speech
from which they can spit
on the rest of the world

Albert Camus
Arthur Rimbaud
Napoleon
Debussy
Jean-Paul Belmondo
Brigitte Bardot
Plastic Bertrand

you can hear their voices
reaching out
teaching us the original speech:
“Je suis ici parcc’que je ne suis pas la.”
“Pas moi – je suis partout.”
“Ces feroces infirmes retour des pays chauds.”
“Il ya deux sortes de gens: ceux qui font la revolution et ceux qui profite.”
“Enorme – c’est enorme!”
“A cinq á sept.”
“Save qui peut!”
“Sauf saveteuse.”
“Ouia”
“Allez hop!”

you can hear Johnny Halliday singing
“Je suis l’homme de caverne solitaire”

ANIMAL WIND

4 a.m.
the wind hits again
snarling in
at 90mph
smashing bashing
everything
that’s not nailed down

but listen closely
there’s more
than the wind out there

there’s an animal
a huge, vicious mutant monster
kicking chairs and buckets
watering cans and wheelbarrows
around on the courtyard stones
bouncing them off the walls
pounding its gusty fists
on the wall beneath my window
breathing in vast gulps of air
them blowing them out
thru ragged teeth
and ripped lips

animal wind

I’m not going outside tonight
animal wind would tear me
into a thousand pieces
before I could catch my breath

Mas Trilles, Feb. 4, 2013

THE WILD WEST WIND

early morning
of the wild west wind
and it’s still blowing

put all the pressurized air
into the mouthpieces
of a thousand-piece brass band
and they’d blow a hole
they the cloudless sky
all the way to the lingering
half moon and back

early morning
I step outside
into the wild west wind

name that tune:
“There goes my baby
with someone new . . . ”

Mas Trilles, Feb. 4, 2012

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2013

it’s Superbowl Sunday
down in New Orleans

over in Arles-sur-Tech
they’re shaving the bear

down in Rome
France and Italy
are playing rugby

in Pasadena
the California Institute of Technology
baseball team after losing
228 games in a row
wins their first in ten years

in Kirikuki, Iraq
a suicide car bomber
attacks police headquarters
and kills 35

in Kuwait City
Muhammad Eld Al-Jami
is sentenced to 5 years in prison
for insulting the emir
on twitter

also in Kuwait
at the camel races
small robot statues
in the shape of al-Qaida terrorists
sit strapped to the camels’ backs
and poke them with electric prods
to make them go faster

in Washington DC
President Obama
is photographed
enthusiastically shooting
clay pigeons
with a shotgun
(so much for gun control laws)

in Den Haag
investigators discover
that 700-high level
European soccer matches
in the past 6 years
have been fixed by Chinese gangsters

in Seville Spain
a garbage collectors’ strike
enters its second week
with 4,500 tons of trash
piled chest high
in the streets

inside my head
I’m living in a dozen places
at the same time
I move a couple of pieces around
and breathe a sigh of relief

Mas Trilles, Feb. 4, 2013

THE RIVER STONE

the river stone I bring up
to Roxie’s grave today
comes from down by the waterfall
a quarter mile downstream

when I place it among
the other stones
there is great rejoicing

“Hey – hey – look who I see!
“Who can this possibly be?”
“A sight for sore eyes!”
“Welcome back – it’s been ages.”
“How long has it been? 10,000 years?”

and the new stone replies:
“More like 15,000.”

“Goodness gracious sakes alive!”
“You’ve changed – you used to be so rough.”
“Now you’re all smooth around the edges.”

and the new stones replies:
That’s what 150 centuries
of running water will do
to your skin.”

“150 centuries? My how time flies.”

I think I should stop
eating chocolate

Mas Trilles, Feb. 7, 2012

HICK UPS

are nothing new
we know this from music history
in the 14th century
composers used a rhythmic device
called the hocket

so humans have been
hicking up
for a long time

Dante, exploring
the circles of hell,
“Hick!”
Virgil,” What’s that
you say, young dog?”
“Hick!”

700 years later
I stand in a field
above the River Tech
gazing towards Mt. Canigou
shrouded in darkness
(hick)
gazing up at the stars
and losing my mind
in the empty vastness
(hick)
all the while taking
a long leak
in the tall grass
and thinking
(hick)
I would not live long
if I could not go out
in the wind
stand on solid ground
and pray for rain
at least once a day

Mas Trilles, Feb. 9, 2013

TABLOID BRAHMS

if the famous 18th & 19th
century composers
were alive today
and had become media celebrities
and had to pick up stage names
to get corporate sponsors
we’d have
Joe Hide
Wolf Moze
Lud Beet
Bob Shoe
Frank Chop
Gus Mall
&
Dick Wag
on the front page of the tabloids

as for 20th century poets
ask Bop Doplan
he’ll tell you all about
Dill Tom
&
Tough Shit L

Mas Trilles, Feb. 10, 2013

NEW DOG
for Stéphane and Amparó

remember Roxie?
while you were away
we got you a new dog
another black labrador
this one is a male
and his name is Hudson
– Rox Hudson

Mas Trilles, Feb. 11, 2013

CLOUD REPORT (NOON)

the sun is warm
the wind is not

eleven clouds in the sky
one the size of Belgium
one no more than a puff
from a leprechaun’s pipe

none have a particular shape
no black, menacing
flying saucers in disguise
no witch face
with hooked nose
no laughing horse head
with rabbit ears
no snow-covered mountain
with a toothless white whale
on top

these are lazy clouds
I paid good money
to see them perform
and they’re just hanging around
ignoring me

looks like I’ll have to wait
for tonight
when they start earning
overtime wages
if they’re not up to snuff
I’ll report them
to the cloud police
and we’ll see who has the last laugh

Mas Trilles, Feb. 12, 2013

CLOUD CRITIQUE

well, it figures
the clouds are just as lazy
tonight as they were today

the sun goes down
and nothing happens
they are mocking my spectator
expectations offending
my artistic eye

I throw a couple of rocks
but they fall short
(by about 5 or 6 miles)
I phone the cloud police
and they laugh in my ear

so now it’s down
to rolling up my sleeves
and writing a critical review
of the show and hope
it gets published:

we should have expected it
the players in this cheap drama
didn’t show up at all
they chickened out
stage fright maybe
or just plain indifference
the sky was disappointed
the slice of the new moon
shed a wistful tear
Orion wept
and Sirius snuck out
the back door
a generous critic
might give their performance
two stars
but I say
don’t waste your bucks
the show’s a bomb
no stars

Mas Trilles, Feb. 12, 2013

BUS STOP GRAFFITI

vive le ska, le kana et l’anarchie

those are the words
some kid has scratched
with a knife point
into the green paint
of the bus stop frame

some of the letters
scraped into the steel
and are rusted thru

I realize that I’ve been staring
at these words
of and on (mostly off)
these past 6 years
while waiting for a ride
to Perpignan
and I still don’t know
what they really mean
because each ‘A’
has an “O’ carved thru it
or maybe the “O’s have “A”s
superimposed
in which case the message reads
vive lo sko, kono et l’onorchie

now I’m really lost
before I had a reliable grasp
on “ska” and “anarchie”
but what the hell is “sko”
and “onorchie”?
skip the “kono”
I have no grasp on that one at all

I’ll probably never figure it out

because maybe the “A’ and the “O”
combined turn into an “E”
in which case I’m stuck with
vive le ske, kene et l’enerchie

staring at these words
6 years in a row

vive lu sku, kunu et l’unurchie

bus to Perpignan, Feb. 13, 2013

CAT HOUSE DELIVERY

for some strange reason
the teenage chicks
in this region of France
think it’s fashionable
to look like mean
battle weary hookers
thick lip stick
lots of eye shadow
but no eye twinkle
and high heels as thin
as switch blades
(come up short on their price
and they’ll cut out your gonads)

underneath all those masks
are innocent 14-15-16
year old faces
heading into town
on Wednesday afternoon
off from school

the bus is packed with them

looks like we’re on the way
to deliver a fresh load
of jailbait
to the local bordello

I pity the poor pedophile

Bus to Perpignan, Feb. 13, 2013

BOXER SHORTS

bought a pair of shorts
jet black with a red stripe
on the waistband

they have a name: Athena

considering that Athena
was a Greek goddess
4,000 years ago
these shorts have as much
in common with Athena
as a roomful of feathers
with the first 10 seconds
of the Boston Marathon

in which case
these are identical
to the boxer shorts
worn by Zeus

unless of course
these are the actual shorts
that Zeus once wore
and which Athena
borrowed one day
to see what it was like
to walk around in men’s underwear

in which case
these are the boxer shorts
that Zeus was wearing
when he ruled the heavens
and made all of humanity
bend down and kiss
his little toe

Mas Trilles, Feb. 14, 2013

72ND BIRTHDAY RESOLUTIONS

stop shooting basketballs with a bow and arrow

stop saying, “You can’t touch my Old El Paso salsa with a 10-foot thermometer

stop being obsessed with puffy tuffys and concentrate more on the essential things in life – like androgynous celebrities

develop Maple Joe as a secret inner personality

in an attempt to become civilized, start taking off my shoes when I go to bed

also in an attempt to become civilized, remove all the blackheads from my front teeth

in an effort to raise my mind above the domain of common trivialities, stop trashing the sappy soap songs of Frank Sumatra and his fellow crooners and ease up on the praise of the burpable lyrics and metamuscular rhythms of Shiskabob Dylan and the Gypsy Kinks

watch an entire episode of Desperate Housewives without making a snide remark

establish beyond indisputable doubt that my mother, Ethel Merman, was an arctic explorer in her spare time

make an energetic effort to become anonymously famous without having to tiptoe thru the rattlesnake room

return the dime I stole from my cousin’s piggy bank in 1946 when I was 5.

re-enlist in the boy scouts and try to get past the rank of tenderfoot before getting booted out again.

enlist in the U.S. Army and tell them I’m ready at last to go to war in Vietnam (and sorry about that draft evasion misunderstanding back in ’66).

get a grass roots movement going that will sweep America and establish “Bird is a Word” as the new official national anthem.

mate a wild boar with a chicken and see what comes out

mate a rabbit with a rhino and notice if the offspring prefers to knock down walls or hop around.

cast the Tarot cards and I hope I don’t come up with The Geek.

give away all my clothes until I’m left with only a jock strap, suspenders, a fishnet raincoat and a pair of sandals made from sponges and duct tape

do something creative with an egg cup and a banjo string

same with a horseshoe and a jar of mayonnaise

a bag of nails and the last page of Finnegans Wake

a spoonful of yogurt and a pine cone

a microchip from a cell phone and a lizard skin baseball cap

a house full of old newspapers and a can of baked beans

a telescope and book of matches

the engine block from a Buick ’59 and an untuned Irish harp

a stick of dynamite and a graveyard full of unmarked tombstones

a gooseneck lamp and a monkey spine sandwich

a cheeseburger and a parking meter

a stop light and a bowl of chicken soup

a photo of Che Guevara and a map of Saskatchewan

a typewriter and spool of thread

an ice pick
a dozen castanets
& a squirt of 3-in-1 Oil

a set of false teeth
a sewing machine
& a hot air balloon full of helium

a bicycle
a beard wig
& a plastic pig snout

a butcher knife
a bible
& a recording Tom Jones singing “It’s Not
Unusual”

a free roller coaster ride
a toothbrush
& a view of the moon thru the eyeholes
of a Venetian carnival mask

a wild boar tusk
a rain cloud
& a late night talk show

a pair of ice skates
a whip
& 3 tiny reindeer

Leonardo’s Mona Lisa
a Sherman Tank
& a pair of camel testicles

a police whistle
a rowdy collection of barflies
& a stop watch

a beached whale
a rear-view mirror
& a toilet plunger

a thousand yards of sandy beach
a thousand kilos of cocaine
& a bowling ball

a wind tunnel
an electric chair
& a pole vault pole

a face lift
a fork lift
& a 19th century Parisian elevator

a store window dummy
a cow prod
& an empty movie theater
showing a Road Runner cartoon

a sledge hammer
a diving board
& a bucket of garbanzo beans

a corn cob pipe
a selection of obscure Italian insults
& an audience of excited spectators

I also resolve to clean up my language until I’m down to using only 2 or 3 verbs a day and no nouns at all

Mas Trilles, Feb. 14, 2013

INSCRIPTION
for Laszlo and Maya

and the circle goes around
and around
and around
and sometimes it spins so fast
you could be the dog
and the dog could be you

Mas Trilles, Feb. 14, 2013

DETECTIVE FICTION

amazing the places
pulp fiction can take you

a few nights ago
I was driving around L.A.
with Harry Bosch

the next night
I was hanging out
with The Women’s Murder Club
in S.F.

then I walked the streets of N.Y.
with Bernie Rhodenbarr
for a few hours

last night I was in Nebraska
with Jack Reacher

and tonight I’m back in San Francisco
with the Nameless Detective

all inside the small globe
of my skull

Mas Trilles, Feb. 16, 2013

THE FAKE ITALIAN JOKER

fog bound
Mt. Canigou locked
in cloud
even Yonder Hills
covered in wet mist

warning from London:
“Beware of a joker
with a fake Italian accent.”

darkness falls
I go out with the flashlight
and prowl thru the woods
down by the river
I search behind every tree
I search under every bush
I know the fake Italian Joker
is out there in the night
I can almost see his eyes
– illuminated yellow
behind dark glasses –
and I can hear
his laughter
sliding thru the woods
on shivers of fog

Mas Trilles, Feb. 20, 2013

AN ABANDONED DICTIONARY

the fog has blown away
from the mountains
I open the window
the birds’ songs are small
copper dice rolling
on a tin roof
as sunshine rolls
down from the sky
I open the door
and a half wave of heat
floats in

darkness creeps in
and 7 hours later
I sneak thief up to the village
and rescue a French dictionary
left perched on the edge
of a trash bin
it’s brand new
damp cover and pages
from the midnight mist
I bring it back
and set it on the table
my job as caretaker
here at the hotel
changes from hour to hour
sometimes I go out at night
in search of fake Italian jokers
on others I go out
and rescue abandoned dictionaries

Mas Trilles, Feb. 21, 2013

HALF MOON BELLY

we wander in Yonder Hills
where the rising half moon
spills tears it dipped up
in China down
into the valley
we gather mimosa
for Laszlo and Maya
and the kids
they’ll all be back
tomorrow

darkness falls
the half-moon rolls
across the sky on its belly
having scooped up
new tears in the valley
it rolls thru Orion
at midnight
right on time
I point a finger
at Yonder Hills
where we walked today
and an owl hoots
my job as caretaker
changes from moment
to moment

Mas Trilles, Feb. 22, 2013

THE CARETAKER BLUES

I toss the crust ends
of my croissant
out onto the gravel path
a small bird
darts down from the hedge
beaks it up
and flies away
sometimes my job as caretaker
is simple and easy

sometimes it’s complicated
and difficult
especially at night

the sun goes down
it gets dark
the moon rises
and it’s more than half
loaded with light
Orion rides the celestial
equator across the sky
the middle star of the belt
touches the horizon
(true west as always)
and this is the moment
I’ve been waiting for

I go back inside
settle down on the bed
under the spotlight
and pick up the book
“The Fool’s Run” by John Stanford
(a Kidd and Lu-Ellen thriller)
I rejoin the story on page 298
and read to the end
40 pages later:
Kidd kills Ratface
and another brute
buries the bodies
Lu-Ellen takes off for Mexico
Kidd goes fishing, paints
a few pictures
and runs the Tarot cards
then he goes to Las Vegas
takes the magic out of the picture
by turning off the hotel lights
then he goes fishing again
Lu-Ellen drops by
throws an old coke bottle
in the river
and of course
with dawn peeking thru the curtain
I must dive immediately
into the book’s sequel
“The Empress File”
I open book two
to page one
and start to read
it’s a tough job
but (as they say)
somebody’s gotta do it

Mas Trilles, Feb. 23, 2013

BUTTERFLY MOON

nests of cheniles processionaire
in the top branches
of the umbrella pines
Laszlo cuts them down
Maya says don’t touch them
and my skin starts to itch
Amporó burns them in the fire
thousands of worms
in spider sacks
“Don’t breathe the smoke
– it’s lethal.”
if allowed to flourish
the caterpillars will drop
from the trees to the ground
hook up and march away
in a line a kilometer long
then hatch into butterflies
fly up and infest
another umbrella pine

night moves in
the moon waxes
and rolls thru the sky
it might be full
by the time we get back
to Belgium
I look up and see
the butterflies
in a chain
like a miniature train
a thousand boxcars long
flittering across the sky
into the dark side
of the moon’s half face

my job tonight
is to name the mysterious things
of the night
let’s call this one
The Butterfly Moon

Mas Trilles, Feb. 24, 2013

RENUNCIATIVE

we went underground
in Mas Trilles
by the River Tech
in the shadow of Mt. Canigou
Vallespir
Catalonia
South France
on the 25th of February
the last day of our retreat

and pop! voila!
here we are
back in Belgium
Province of Liege
Commune of St. Georges
village of Stockay
Rue Grevesse
2 days later

what happened?

3 Saturday night beers
7 songs on the 2 new guitars
Lazlo and Maya and the kids
clapping their hands
the moon a touch away
from full

cold wind whipping
along the gutters
of the highway
cars and trucks
blasting horns
at the toll gates

a full moon rising
from a Novotel window
in Macon
while on TV
at the academy awards
in Hollywood
men in tuxedos
and women in evening gowns
are throwing flowers at each other

the big pig revisited
the huge wild boar
his name is Woinic
10 meters high
14 meters long
5 meters wide
Woinic!

the notebook is closed
the pen silent
as we cross the border
into Belgium
I’m counting:
six trips to the south
and back in the past 6 years
two months each trip
I tell myself
(to my self’s surprise)
that I have now lived in France
for one year

what’s next?
a year here
a year there
my life scattered
over the world’s continents
along 10 rivers
deep inside 15 sinking cities
above the clouds
on 20 mountain tops
a century adrift
in a boat on the Pacific
a millennium
lost in space
abducted by alien creatures
who look like artichokes
who don’t know how to drive
and instead of taking me
to their hideout
on Mutemole
make a few wrong turns
and land me
on the planet of Chunk-a-Cheese
in the Puffy Tuffy Solar System
in the Dark
Room
Ghost
Green
Fire
Galaxy

Woinic!

Feb. 28, 2013

Leaves of the gipsy scholar

2013  |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

PRE-APPARITION

the gypsy-scholar is not gone
he rides the waves of solitude
between the tracks of time he rides
a blind horse down narrow lanes
thru shadows of sunlight he moves
on silent feet across footloose fields
of cracked stone over
a carpet of leaves under
moss-padded trees, he measures his distance
to starlight and he speaks to the moon
in tongues of mad dog howl
and cricket chirp
owl hoot and goose honk

but his voice can only be heard
by human ears
between the drops of rain
when the wind rises
and throws storm clouds
against the sky
and the horizon trembles
with fast fingers of lightning
and thunder rolls down
from the valley-starved mountains

he is not a quiet one

listen

∙ ∙ ∙

WILD GEESE RETURNING

heard from afar
then flying
out of the afternoon sun
a line from east to west
wingtip to wingtip
headed back to the fjords
honking, necks stretching
racing their wonderful marathon
eager to be home
tears in my eyes
as always
coming and going

March 4, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

BEAR ATTACK

Bear is over in the corner
wrestling with a cardboard box

and the box is winning

until she takes a knife
and slits it open
from top to bottom

she carries the sliced corpse
from the house
saying very little
or nothing

March 6, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

WOLF SUN

there’s enough snow
on the lower pasture
to make a thousand snowmen

but what would I do
with a thousand snowmen?

the setting sun appears briefly
over a frozen snowfield
a blob of orange
that seems to be dripping tears
around its edge
it glows
and is gone
and I hear my voice go
“Wuff!”

the sound comes out of me
once in a while
“Wuff!”
like a wolf’s reaction
to too much weird stuff
going on at the same time

“Wuff!”

March 12, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

BULL HORN

the man with the bullhorn
moved thru the crowd
and got everybody
organized

“Mountains over here
and Molehills over there.”

a Molehill jumped up
“And what about you?”

the man stuck his bullhorn
in the Molehill’s face:
“I am a Mountain,
you stupid Molehill
and if you don’t shut up
I’ll turn you into
a book worm
and
stuff you in a worm hole.”

March 14, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

CAT RELIGION

Jimbo has one
basic belief:
if you sit and look at it
long enough
the door will open

March 20, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

SEASONS

how do you see the world?
does it have the taste
of vanilla?

does it look like an old envelope
in which is sealed a letter
to a long-lost friend
never delivered
returned to sender?

or do your eyes
follow the shape of man
walking away, down the middle
of a long, narrow street
late at night
no parked cars
all but one
street light
burnt out?

or is it filled with light
sunlight bouncing off
the roofs and bumpers
of cars in slow motion?

if yes
we have something in common
and you know tomorrow
the world will look
completely different

perhaps it will be
a flag in rainbow colors
flapping against a purple sky
speeding birds on their flights
slowing the setting sun
setting free red balloons

or it will be a warm wind
thru hot air
wafting over the rooftops
of empty houses

or a book
in which each page
is exactly the same as the previous
until you come to the last
and the book surprises you
with a new story

or will the world
be a perpetual Halloween party
with pirate costumes
and wolf masks
dead presidents
aliens from deep space
ghosts in sheets
and trick or treat escapades
with midnight dancing
around a bonfire
with a cauldron of witches’ brew
boiling, steaming in the darkness
all the way to the moon?

or the aroma of sage
in late summer
when the deer are rising
and running
when the mountain lion
with padded paws
chases the deer
thru a heat baked clearing
in the forest
where a row of black oak
nestles against a vast wilderness
of pine
out of which wander the ghosts
of Indians
their bodies dead a hundred years or more
their spirits alive
reaching out, ready to guide you
with benevolence
or practiced mischief
depending on the mood
of the moment
into a dance with empty bullet-proof shirts

or will it have the spin
and tilt
of a marijuana high
the float and glow
the flux and flow
of a spirit temporarily
liberated from the graveyard of gravity

or will it be
a drop of water
dripping from the end
of an icicle
hanging from the eaves
of a cabin roof
with a deep pine forest
in the background?

or will you be seated
beside a wide river
watching the water flow by
knowing the river to be an impossible thing
with an impossible origin and an impossible
destination?

or will the world be
dimly viewed
blurred around the edges
with the muffled sound
of too many distant drums

or will those drums become
a single heart beat
that says, “Now we’ll do this
– until now stops being now
and then we’ll move on to the next
. . . hold on a second.”

March 24, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON

1.
cold wet endless days of winter
you sit on the end of the bed
and try to make your heart
stop beating
then Spring comes rolling in
and you get pissed of
at a guy called Death
because he’s gonna to come along
one of these days
in the next 20 or 30 years
shove you thru a side door
and tell you it’s all over
no more sunshine
no more moonshine
no more shadows
“Gloom and Doomtime – ”
as he pickpockets your wallet
“right down this tunnel, mister – ”

and you stumble
into an empty round room
where every prayer you utter
at the pinpoints of light
glowing on the dome house ceiling
comes bouncing back
in multiple echoes

2.
Death could be a beautiful woman

3.
watch out
for that a funky blues net
that gathers up all
the Lost and Found
all the Fucked and Flapdoodled
all the Sins and Sons
of wealthy fathers failed
all the Fast and the Funny
and the Fat with all their money
all the Last and the Least
all the Busted and the Beat

4.
and the human species
continues to evolve
into unknown and uncharted
oceans of dead end streets

5
nowadays on airplanes
people just sit in their seats
and stare straight ahead

the puke bags go
completely ignored

6.
you don’t have to be a pukehole
you don’t have to wait
for various muscular women
to slap you into shape
you can stop right now
don’t waste another minute

7.
we sat across a breakfast
table and her dead eyes
stared into mine
like cold stones
slamming into hot coals

she was beautiful
and she was dead
her zombie silence
droned in my ears
humming the main theme

“Something Essential Forgotten”

so I jumped out the window
and went looking for love

∙ ∙ ∙

INSECT PORN

performed by
the smallest species of our planet
seen by humans only thru microscopes:

butterfly blow jobs
lady bug anal sex
centipede double penetrations
dung beetle gangbangs

April 1, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

PORTRAITS

1.
MUNK THE PUNK
jumps in his convertible
and takes off
he swerves left
to break the town’s hold on him
and, with a filter-tip cigarette
clenched between his teeth
smoke streaming
from the corner of his mouth,
he drives straight into
a rising Rebel Moon

2.
JACQUES UMBRELLA
while looking up
at a clean white cathedral
steps in a pile of dog shit

3.
HENRY THE APE
was doing a good job
of hair raising
and hoi poloitering
until his farm slid
down the hill into the gutter

4.
HUGH GANDAMASCUS
wearing one-leg green jeans
and three-sleeve short shirts
has nothing to hold onto
except a few gossip emotions
and a lost extension chord

5.
PAVLOPETRI
can’t look at a knife
without thinking about
stabbing his wife
he butters his bread
and stabs himself
in the back

6.
FLIP FLAPDOODLE
hears a delicate tapping
on his bedroom window
tap-tap-tap
it must be a bird
he gets up
opens the window
the head of a wild boar
tumbles into the room
and rolls against his bare feet
tap-tap-tap
on his toenails
go the boar’s teeth
flip-flap
go the rubber tusks

7.
DR. VODKA BOOT
pediatrician, doctor of children
she fills their mouths with teeth
she teaches them how to roll the dice
with their toes without blinking
how to flap their ears
without moving their mouths
most of them will grow up
and land jobs in the private sector
lawyers, stock brokers, bankers
Dr. Vodka Boot’s smile grows
with each generation
her dreams are coming true
her plan to destroy the world
is almost complete

8.
BLINDMAN BLUFF
weighs 450 pounds
and his wheelchair is pulled
by 12 Alaskan seeing-eye Huskies

his face is so obese
that when he puts on his black glasses
he has to plug the lenses
into tunnels of fat

9.
CAESAR B. CZAR
unlocks the hinges
of his shoulders and arms
pulls the pin on his spine
and slumps down into the slug position
from which he navigates
from childhoodlum-hood to geriactrophy
without raising a wrinkle of suspicion
on the faces of the Posture Gestapo

10.
PUFFY PROGROCKIE
is too poor to afford cosmetics
she spends an hour every morning
kissing the rusted car
in her front yard

11.
COW DELLA POKE & PACK McRAT
grew tired of being puppets
on a kids’ TV show
so they slept late
put on orange jail jumpsuits
and went out and robbed a bank
When the cops arrested them
and took them to jail
they were already dressed
for the occasion

12.
WALTON PONDO
grew to adult size
with a curious anatomical feature:
the back of his skull
was shaped into a rack
of small bookshelves

at the age of 21
he filled those shelves
with miniature editions:
the Holy Bible, the Epic of Gilgamesh
Homer, Poe, the Shake
and the complete works of Dickens
down on the bottom shelf
he stocked a few John Grishams
and Stephen Kings

as a joke
he slipped an illustrated copy
of Nina Hartley’s autobiography
“My Top Ten Porn Star Orgasms”
on the middle shelf
between Salinger and Vonnegut

visitors to his library
(when his back was turned)
always went for the porn
but when they opened the book
they found pages of road maps:
Highway 61
Highway 101
Route 66
and the Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion

∙ ∙ ∙

THE FACE-LIFTED WEATHERMAN

trimming my moustache
with pointed scissors
I accidentally snipped
a wrinkle

looks like I need
another face lift
get the skin
pulled back tight
so that I look
like I’m standing
in a perpetual hurricane

get hired
by local TV
to read the weather
they’ll give me
a descriptive slogan
HE ALWAYS KNOWS
WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS

May 16, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

TRIPLE FEATURE MOVIE SHOW
AND THE SURVIVAL OF THE HUMAN RACE

the woods below our house
are boundless and wild
trees both large and small
of all kinds
oaks, beech, birch, ash, fir
on Saturday afternoons
a children’s recreation group
brings out a bus load of kids
and turns them loose
in the woods

Phase One: THE HORROR SHOW

the kids run into the woods
and start screaming
they scream at the trees
they see the trees are alive
and are going to attack
so they SCREAM SCREAM SCREAM
they think the trees
are going to eat them
SCREAM
SCREAM
SCREAM

Phase Two: THE JUNGLE MOVIE

after the kids stop screaming
the boys start yodeling
walking around
pretending they’re Tarzan
YODEL YODEL YODEL
they take off their shoes
and strip down
to only their undershorts
YODEL YODEL YODEL
they pick up sticks
and start beating the trees
WHACK WHACK WHACK
these wild trees need to be punished
they need to be tamed
WHACK
WHACK
WHACK
the girls are down on the ground
ripping up grass and small plants
they have stopped screaming
but they are still frightened
the grass and the plants
might grow into trees
they must be ripped
from the earth
RIP
RIP
RIP

Phase Three: LOVE STORY

eventually
it gets quiet in the woods
the kids are lying down
on the ground
together in small groups
they’ve taken off their clothes
and have become romantic
soon they are practicing
how to reproduce the species
how they will re-populate
the planet
the sounds are soft but bestial
grunts and groans
the kids are too young
to perform the deed
they are going thru the motions
practicing
it’s a children’s prelude
to an orgy
of frightening proportions

darkness falls
the movie show is over
the small children creep
out of the woods
get back in the bus
and go home

their mothers and fathers
their teachers and preachers
are satisfied
if there should be
an apocalyptic disaster
and humans be forced
to return to nature
they know their kids
are prepared to survive

but that first hour
is going to be noisy
SCREAM
SCREAM
SCREAM

June 8, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

OLD CAT

Jimbo’s getting old
it looks like
he’s going to die soon
bad back
stiff joints
falls down
when he tries to jump
from a chair

I feed him
paracetamol and iboprofen
mashed up
in his mouse pie
and it seems to help
“Messes up my head, tho,”
he says
“I keep trying
to lick my toes
and all I find
are claws.”

May 30, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

MOUSE INDIAN

cat with long whiskers
comes purring around
my moccasin feet
think she smells Indians
under the leather
I slip out my foot
and she plunges her nose
into the darkness
and comes out with a mouse
in her mouth

I knew there was an Indian
in there but I didn’t know
it was a Mouse Indian
I take the Mouse Indian
from the cat’s jaws
stick him back inside
slip my foot
back into the moccasin
the cat walks away
and the Mouse Indian
nibbles my toenails
I’m going to get a pair
of crows to fly down
in the morning
and keep my beard trim

June 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

WORLD WAR THREE

first, we got 9/11 in New York
then we got 1/10 in India
and 7/10 in Israel

since then we got
26/11—Israel
29/11—Israel
1/ 12—Israel
2/12—Israel
5/12—Israel
9/12—Israel
12/12—Israel
25/1—Israel
27/1—Israel
30/1—Columbia
16/2 —Israel
18/2—Israel
27/2—Israel
2/3—Israel
7/3—Israel
9/3—Israel
17/3—Israel
20/3—Israel
21/3—Peru
27/3—Israel
29/3—Israel
27/3—Israel
29/3—Israel
7/4—Columbia
10/4—Israel
14/4—Columbia
19/4—Columbia
2/5—Columbia
7/5—Israel
8/5—Israel
9/5—Russia
13/5—India
19/5—India
20/5—India
22/5—Israel
27/5—Israel
5/6—Israel
11/6—Israel
14/6¬—Pakistan
18/6—Israel
19/6—Israel
20/6—Saudi Arabia
4/7—U.S.
16/7—Israel
17/7—Israel
30/7—Israel
31/7—Israel
4/8—Israel
5/8—Israel
18/8—Israel
19/8—Israel
25/8—India
5/9—Israel
7/9—Columbia
10/9—India
18/9—Israel
19/9—Israel
25/9—India
2/10-22/10—U.S.
10/10—Israel
12/10—Indonesia
17/10—Indonesia
19/10—Russia
21/10—Israel
22/10—Columbia
23/10—Russia
27/10—Israel
4/11—Israel
21/11—Israel

all of that in one year after 9/11

in the 12-year period since 2002
there have been 65 bombings
in Israel alone

it has already become impossible
for bombers to pick original dates
so eventually the bombings will stop
because they’ll run out of dates of identification
but then some terrorist will get a bright idea
and start attaching numbers to letters
for their attacks
the A¹ bombing, the Z ¹ bombing
the double A, the triple B
the quadruple X, the quintuple P
infinity will be the limit
the N ¹ºº¹ bombing of the moon

this war is different
from World Wars One & Two
in this war
everybody hates
everybody else
and wants to kill them

your government can’t help you
wouldn’t if they could
you’re on your own

see you in the caves
see you around the campfire

June 28, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

THE HORSE’S MOUTH

I take down a book from my shelf
and read about myself

I take another, different author
and again it’s about me

I claw the books from the shelf
onto the floor, I crawl around
among them, opening pages at random
trying to find one book
one single page
that’s not about me

there are none

I am starving to read about
somebody else
but no matter which book I open
I find my face looking back

the autobiographies
Maya Angelou
Ralph Sonny Barger
Andrea Bocelli
Peter Coyote
Aleister Crowley
Bob Geldof
John Howard Griffin,
William Least Heat Moon
Yehudi Menuhin
Keith Richards

poems
Basho
Robert Browning
Charles Bukowski
T.S. Eliot
Jim Harrison
Omar Khayyam
Robinson Jeffers
Edgar Lee Masters
Sylvia Plath
Arthur Rimbaud
Theodore Roethke
William Butler Yeats

the classics
Cervantes
Chaucer
Richard Henry Dana
Dante
Charles Dickens
Ovid
Sei Shonagon
Jonathan Swift
Voltaire
Wolfram von Eschenbach

modern novels
Sherman Alexie
John Barth
William Boyd
Joseph Boyden
Harry Crews
Samuel Delany
Jim Harrison
Nick Hornby
John Irving,
James Joyce
Jack Kerouac
Thomas King
Cormac McCarthy
Larry McMurtry
David Mitchell
Mervyn Peake
Thomas Pynchon
Tom Robbins
J.D. Salinger
Sam Shepard
Leslie Marmon Silko
John Steinbeck
Kurt Vonnegut
Tom Wolfe
Thomas Wolfe

The Bible
Pulp Fiction
Detectives and Private Eyes

even in the animal stories
I am trapped
Winnie the Pooh
Watership Down
Where the Wild Things Are
The Rats of NIMH
Indian Tales (Jaime de Angulo)
Animal Farm

I know now
I would’ve been better off
born a horse

July 1, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

DREAM BASEBALL

I visit my old baseball team
bring along my glove
for a practice work out

all the players are sitting around
in a big auditorium
opening Christmas presents

July 4, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

ROSE FOOD

she walks out the door
into the garden
carrying a platter
of rotten bananas

“Breakfast for the Roses.”

July 18, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

THE ACTOR’S WAREHOUSE

there’s Clint Eastwood
there’s George Clooney
Jason Alexander
and Johnny Depp
they all light up the screen
with fine acting

but what does an actor do
when he’s not making a movie?

he sits in a chair
in the Actor’s Warehouse
staring into empty space
waiting for a director
to come along
and plug him in

July 27, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

JACK DANIELS DOWN THE DRAIN

when I was 19
I tried to kill myself
by drinking a bottle of whiskey

all I did
was get violently sick
my face hanging over
puking in the kitchen sink
and wishing I was dead

August 1, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

MEMORY SWAMP

“remember” is a word
we speak more frequently
as we grow older

when I was 12
I never spoke the word

in 1976
when I was 35
I spoke the word
3,616 times

in the first 6 months alone
of my 72nd year
I spoke the word
421,618 times

what’s going on?
have I given up on “now” ?

now! August 8, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

HAIKU DEMONSTRATIONS
for Jef

1.
rose bush busy with bees
buzzing in and out
a wasp dives into Jef’s empty beer glass

2.
the wasp escapes
from Jef’s beer glass
here comes Dan Dan

3.
I preach the doctrine
of no difference between
fact and fiction
is that a book of Kerouac haiku
on the table?

4.
short and sweet
thesis, antithesis
synthesis HAH!

5.
if I had 9 syllables
instead of 7
I’d build you a wall

August 14, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

JOHN COOPER CLARKE

last night
I dropped into a BBC documentary
on John Cooper Clarke
and out he pops like a brilliant star
that’s been shining in the sky
every day and night for the past 40 years
and I’ve never noticed

where was I all that time?

I am now convinced
that there really are parallel worlds
I’ve been in one since 1976
or maybe
I dropped into one last night
and when I woke up a few minutes ago
John Copper Clark
will have escaped back into his special world

I’ll have to check

Aug. 15, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

YESTERDAY A WASP

yesterday a wasp
buzzed into Bear’s coffee
she swallowed it
and it stung the inside
of her throat

today I help bury
her brother’s cat, Charlie

August 15, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

PUNK POETS

they say
they don’t give a shit
about anything

then why are they
so angry?

August 16, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

NINE ELEVEN

I doubt if anyone watching the planes crash into the two towers
of the World Trade Center
either live on television
or in any of the multiple replays
said to himself, “This is nine-eleven.”
Or even, “Today is the 11th day of September.”

The tag came later
and it blurred the edges of the event
to such an extent that some people
in a recent poll said that “Nine Eleven”
occurred in the month of March.
The tag no longer refers to a specific time.
It just hangs out there in eternity
like a wet tea bag

August 20, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

THE NATIONAL PAST TIME
in memory of Christopher Lane

I was sad when I saw
on the evening news
that two-turd brain
15-year old boys
in Duncan, Oklahoma
went out and shot down
a college student
jogging along the road

but it broke my heart
when I learned that the student
was a baseball player
on the local college team
NOBODY kills a baseball player
they are god’s chosen few

Aug 21, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

SLOB BIKING
(bicycle poem)

it’s easy to spot
a slob biker
he’s grotesquely fat
he’s wearing shorts
no shirt
and shower sandals
but his most remarkable feature
as he slobs along?

his heels on the pedals
and his toes pointed outward
get the picture?
a slob biker

August 22, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

LOVE AMONG THE SLUGS

I do not approve
of love among the slugs
because from love among the slugs
comes little love slugs
and these become big love slugs

I do not love big love slugs
when I see them I think
that it would be a bad dream
if I had to walk around
in slugskin underwear

August 24, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

GOD SPEAK TRANSCRIBED

as spoken by Antoinette Tuff, phone call to 911
August 22, 2013

I’m on Second Avenue in the school and the gentleman said tell them to hold down the police officer coming and he said he going to start shooting so tell them to back off.

I’m in the front office. Oh, he just went outside and started shooting. Oh, can I run . . . Hold on.

Now, what did you want me to tell her, sir? Okay. He told me, put you on hold and call the news, ma’am.

Okay. He doesn’t want the kids. He wants the police. So back off and . . . and what else, sir . . . He say he don’t care if he die. He don’t have nothing to live for.

He said he should’ve just went to the mental hospital instead of doing this because he’s not on his medication. But do you want me to try . . . I can help you. Let’s see if we can work it out so that you don’t have to go away with them for a long time.

No. You don’t want that. You gonna be okay. I thought the same thing. You know, I tried to commit suicide last year after my husband left me, but look at me now. I’m still working and everything is okay.

It’s gonna be all right, sweetheart. I just want you to know that I love you, though, okay? And I’m proud of you. That’s a good thing that you’re just giving up and don’t worry about it. We all go through something in life.

Okay. He just got his phone. That’s all he got is his phone. It’s just him. Okay. I’m gonna tell you something, baby, I ain’t never been so scared in all the days of my life.

later Antoinette said
that it wasn’t her speaking
it was the voice of God
speaking thru her

reminds me of the old joke
of the man who went to heaven
met god and came back
everybody on earth wanted to know
what god was like

“First of all
she was a woman.”

August 24, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

THE VOICE OF GOD

calm, cool and collected
Antoinette Tuff talks an armed youth
into laying down his gun and surrendering

later she says, “That wasn’t me –
that was God speaking thru me.”

I know what you mean, Antoinette
that sometimes happens to me too

I hope they release her 911
conversation on You Tube

for the first time ever
we’ll all be able to hear
the voice of God.

August 24, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

LATE SUMMER HAIKU

a passing shower
eighteen raindrops on my shirt
nineteen

five syllables
seven syllables
who gives a flea fart?

the woman on the cover
of the magazine sighs
a butterfly escapes from her mouth

Bear snores in her sleep
as dawn comes thru the window
then she starts laughing

Bear in her sleep
breathing on my arm
and dreaming of summer breezes

Bear still breathing
wind on my arm
goose bumps

August 25, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

ANOTHER LATE SUMMER HAIKU

the spider – a big ugly thug
gets ready to pounce
into the toilet

∙ ∙ ∙

BEAR’S HAIKU EARS

he’s so quiet upstairs
I hear one sock hit the floor
where is the other?

now he must be asleep
wearing one sock
digesting toasted cheese

I sit down to lunch
he stomps in and says
“What’s for breakfast?”

he zaps the TV
another quiz show – the things
I have to put up with

August 26, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

MEMORY HAIKU

for Jack K.

without knowing I did
many same things as you
I’m no ape

baseball game
with cards and dice
double six – homerun!

fire look out
Soldier Mountain
no void

constantly jotting
in notebooks
kept in shirt pocket
words!

haiku here and there
gathered together
oh! oh!

August 27, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

THE WEAKNESS OF HUMAN FLESH

a mosquito stings
the back of my hand
hours later
as the swelling goes down
a hive moves in
and takes its place

the mysteries
of the human body

August 27, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

LETTER FROM BETTY K.

first one ever
we haven’t spoken since
high school graduation
55 years ago
and even before
not very much
yet as I hold the envelope
in my hand
before opening
I hear myself say:
“What does she want now?”

August 28, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

WHAT DID BETTY K. WANT?

I thought it was going to be
a long, thoughtful letter
telling me about the ups and downs
of her life

or maybe an announcement
that she would soon be in Belgium
and was wondering
if she might drop in
for a visit

or maybe
she’d confess
that she’s been secretly in love with me
for 63 years

but none of that
just a form letter
fill in the blanks
if I was planning to attend
our 55th high school class re-union

the envelope however
had one small treasure
her name and return address
handwritten in blue ink

I clipped it out
and now use it as a bookmark

August 29, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

SLEEPING NOVELISTS

the ghost of Ernest Hemingway
stalks the land at night
sticking his shotgun
into the mouths
of sleeping novelists
demanding: show me one page
of honest prose
or I’ll pull the trigger

according to the latest count
Ernie has left 1,170 bodies
behind, all of them
new ghosts
stalking the land
with shotguns in their hands

Sept. 4, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

THE CAT’S REAL NAME

“Hello, Jimbo.”

I say it so often
he probably thinks
his first name
is Hello

Sept. 9, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

FIRST NATION CANADIAN WRITING
(GRADUATE SEMINAR AUDIT)

first day of school
I look around the class
35 fresh, young faces
they all look like kids
hell, they are kids

some are looking at me
thinking:
what’s he doing here?
thinking
it ain’t fair
that retired geezer
has nothing but free time
and sits around all week
reading the required books
while we have to struggle thru
5 or 6 classes a day

and I say this to them:
it’s not like you think
I’ll never be retired from anything
I’m busier now
than I ever was as a student

then I was taking in information
today I’m putting it out
I write, I write and write
10-12 hours a day

we’re so different
you’re trying to remember
I’m trying to forget

Sept. 23, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

THE HOP FLY

I don’t know how he did it
but here he is
a huge, red-eye house fly
on the patio table
and all he can do
is trot around
and hop in the air
as if he’s forgotten
how to fly

he trots around
and hops
(about an inch above the glass)
and hops over the edge
and plunges to the ground
(for you and me
a fall from the top floor
of a 150-story building)

he’s going to have to do better
if he plans to survive
my swatter

the Hop Fly
an endangered species

Sept. 24, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

CHAIN READER

I’m a chain reader

as I turn to the last page
of one book
I’m already reaching for another

once in a while I read a book
that stops me for a couple of days
then the monkey crawls back
and I’m hooked into a novel
a biography
a thriller
anything to appease the craving
for the printed word
always searching for the last book
the final volume
the one so good
I’ll stop reading forever
and take up smoking again

Sept. 24, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

LES ETATS UNIS

no wonder the French people
have screwed up ideas about America
when they have Johnny Halliday
telling them
that The House of the Rising Sun
is a prison (penetencier)
and not a bordelle

what other strange ideas
might they have?

the Grand Canyon
is a newspaper

the Boston Red Sox
is a blue grass band

Mt. Rushmore
depicts the carved faces
of the 4-Tops

the Golden Gate bridge
is that euphemistic iron wall
along the Mexican border

and tho they gave it to us
the Statue of Liberty
is an endangered species
of Big Foot which
you can gun down
from a chopper in Alaska

Sept. 25, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

WHY I DON’T LIVE IN AMERICA

a true story – evidentially

two women in a car crash
the car catches fire
a man runs to the car
open the driver’s door
and pulls the driver
from the burning wreck
the passenger woman escapes
to safety, unhurt

the next day
the passenger woman
sues the man
because he didn’t come
to rescue her first

the court tells the man
he has to pay the passenger woman
$500,000

don’t ask me again

Sept. 27, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

WORRY WORTS

you gain a little weight
and you worry about getting fat
you lose a few pounds
and you worry you’ve got
an incurable disease

you watch a TV program
about conspiracy theories
and you worry that all of your e-mails
are being intercepted
and scrutinized
(as if out of 4 billion other people
on the planet
you have come to the attention
of Big Brother
(probably has something to do
with that baked noodle recipe
you sent to your daughter)

you worry about the rising price of gas
as you drive around in a gas hog
that spits and fumes
and pollutes your streets

you worry about the evils of the world
and how the human race
is going to survive
this multitude of crises
then your husband has an affair
with your best friend
and all you can think about
is killing yourself

grandma called these people
worry worts
– or was it warts?

Sept. 28, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

PEANUT BUTTER & JAM

I’m living on peanut butter
and jam sandwiches these days
they’ve got all the essential
ingredients
of a well-balanced diet:
thick slabs
of great-tasting peanut butter
and huge globs of strawberry jam

Sept. 29, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

NATIVE POETRY IN CANADA ANTHOLOGY

some poems I really like
some I don’t like at all
most are just there
in a no man’s land / no woman’s land
with no desire
to advance or retreat

but what do I know?

until recently
I frequently spelled “poetry”
as “pottery”

at least this anthology
has me filling up my notebook
with small, colorfully-shaped pots

Sept. 30, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

ME ON THE INSIDE

Christine says my poems are great

Me on the Outside
nods his head, knows
it’s best not to speak
Me on the Outside knows
he does not deserve this praise

Me on the Inside
does all the work
but he doesn’t care
what other people think
of his songs, stories and poems
good, bad, great or ordinary
it’s all the same to him

he doesn’t mind if
Me on the Outside
gathers the praise

“Just don’t get in my way”
Me on the Inside
tells Me on the Outside
“or I’ll have to go out
and find someone else to fill your shoes.”

Me on the Outside
wears large economy size

Sept. 30, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

NOT SUCH A NICE GUY

some people say I’m a gentle man
that I’m a kind person
quiet and compassionate
“Not a bad bone in his body.”
I’m here to tell you
don’t believe everything you hear
I’m here to tell you
I’m not such a nice guy

age 10 I picked up a .22
and shot a woodpecker
pecking at the top
of a telephone pole
right thru the eye
(a lucky shot)
I went down into the hay field
and picked him up
and held him in my hand
his body was warm
but his body was dead
I had taken away his life
for a few minutes
I didn’t know who I was
but I knew
I was not such a nice guy

lying on the couch, sick
my son came up to me
and asked when I was going to get up
I shouted, “Shut up!”
he knew right then
that I was not such a nice guy

I have violent dreams
machined gunned corpses
bullet-riddled bodies
slit throats, battered faces
and broken bones
I wade thru puddles of blood
with a grim smile
I slog thru a history of massacres
I wake up and remind myself
that I’m really not such a nice guy

the army wanted me
to go fight their war in Vietnam
I said, “Fuck you.”
you see?
I’m not such a nice guy

from the day I was born
until I was two
I cried for no apparent reason at all
I cried all the time, night and day
I drove everybody nuts
(I now suspect I’d figured out
that I’d come to the wrong place
and wanted to go back
and start over)
they all agreed
that when I grew up
I would not be such a nice guy

October 1, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

MORPHEUS & THE ONE-ARM BANDIT

I’m taking a nap
Bear comes up
and pokes me awake
she wants to see if I’m still alive

I say: I’m alive right now
but if I don’t get enough rest
I’ll soon be dead

October 1, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

JUNGLE VIBES

my son, age 8,
called them jungle vibes
commonly known as balsamine
botanically know as impatiens glandulifera

they grow on stalks
near water
in water
and on wet ground
they grow tall
higher than my head
with hooded pink and white flowers

today I walked thru a curtain of them
(end of season, flower dying)
and their pods popped
and scattered leaping seeds
in all directions

some landed in my hair

if I’m patient
and I don’t wash my hair
until next April or May
I am sure some will take root
sprout and decorate my head
with tall stalks and flowers

I am looking forward to being
a jungle vibe head

October 3, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

RAW MOUSE
(UNDER THE COUCH)

the mouse sticks its head
in the trap
snap
dead mouse

the cat trots in
clamps onto the mouse
trap and all
and it drags it
under the couch

for the next 10 minutes
Bear listens to the sounds
of a growling cat
and the flapping and slapping
of the wooden trap
under the couch

I walk in
an hour later
the cat’s long gone
Bear says
“There’s something horrible
under the couch.”

I get down
on my hands and knees
with a flashlight
and pull the trap from
under the couch

no mouse
just its severed head
stuck in the trap
its tiny teeth
clamped over
a small chunk of cheese
it little beady eyes
unblinking
its unspoken mouth, speaking:
“I was doing just fine
being dead
under the couch
until that son of a bitch
started chewing on my tail
and didn’t stop
until he turned me
into a talking head

October 13, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

MILD WILDERNESS

we care for a small plot of land
a vegetable garden
for spuds and spices
we don’t need wild beasts
or heavy-duty monsters
testing the theory of evolution
and keeping us in touch with Mother Earth

we don’t need wild boars
to uproot the beets
or hungry deer
to chew down the lettuce

all we need
are the sparrows and the finches
that fly down
and peck at crusts of bread

an owl lives in a tree
at the bottom of the field
she teaches her greaslings
to fly on summer evenings
their shapes are no more
than grey phantoms
against the dusk

we don’t need a mountain lion
we don’t need a moose
a wolf, a fox or a coyote
we don’t even need a badger
or a skunk to keep us in touch
with the cruel schemes
of Mother Earth

we learn all we need to know
from the horse flies and the house flies
the butterflies and the fire flies
the glow worms and the wasps
the honey bees and the bumble bees

who needs a grizzly
when you got a mosquito two
to keep you slapping
at your face?

Oct. 14, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

SNEEZE FOOD

I sneeze hard
straight ahead
at the wall

later I look at the wall
and I see tiny specks
of the scrambled eggs
I ate for breakfast
very tint yellow specks

off to the side
I see a solitary ant
circling in for a snack

I come back an hour later
a line of ants is trotting
up and down the wall
packing away the specks
for a wedding feast

the next day
the wall is spotless

October 21, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

I USED TO PLAY
FOR THE BROOKLYN DRAFT DODGERS

on August 9, 1974
it came to an end:
all the hiding and paranoia
all the alienation and home sickness
the Man with the Crippled Brain
who had just jumped up from VP
to the topdog rung
of the U.S.A. butcherhouse ladder
pardoned Nixon for his crimes

a few days later
he issued a blanket pardon
for all draft dodgers

after 10 years
of confusion and nostalgia
we were allowed to cross
the border to our homes
without fear of arrest
and incarceration

all this a gift
from a man
who couldn’t tap dance
and chew gum at the same time

October 24, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

BEOTHUGS

can’t stand those pug ugly
vulgar professional teams
from Miami
basketball
baseball
football

was a time
when I’d watched a game
to see who would win

now I watch
to see those thugs
get beat

November 2, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

JULIETTE AT ONE YEAR

Juliette and I seem to be
trading places
as she learns to walk
tottering from here to there
I stagger
from pillar to post
as she learns to talk
“da-da ma-ma”
my speech breaks down
into chaotic babble
“dig dog dig wha dig dog do”
which nobody understands
(not even me)

as she grows teeth
I lose mine
as she grows older
I grow younger

Nov. 14, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

MAN PERCEIVED BY CAT

I sit on the stone wall
looking at the trees and sometimes
at the ground or the sky
he comes out of his big house
and goes down the path
to his little house
he goes inside the little house
and stays in there for awhile
then he comes out
and comes back up
to the big house
he does this a few times each day
and many times at night

what the hell is going on?

November 15, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

FAMOUS PEOPLE I HAVE NEVER KNOWN

GLENN GOULD
and I don’t know why.
we went to the same high school
he was always in the music room
tuning the glockenspiel
I was always in the music room
messing around with the bass drum
strange to think
in four years
our path never crossed once

CHE GUEVARA
I heard about him from friends
he lived next door
to a cousin of mine
but every time I went dropped by
Che was over in the neighbor’s backyard
playing doctor and nurse
with the little girls
he left word that he’d shoot off the balls
of any kid who interrupted
his medical studies

MICHAEL JORDAN
he was just a little kid
when I moved to Chicago
and started my basketball factory
I was told that as he grew older
he scored more than 2,680 points
with my hand-crafted, autographed
basketballs
not once did he ask about me
not once did call me up to say thanks
when he scored his world-shattering record
of 5,000,723 points
even tho I was married to his sister

SHAWNADITHIT
they say she roamed the wild
Beothunk forests of Labrador
I did the same
and I was naked too. even tho she roamed
in 820 AD
and was still roaming in 2005
I always hoped that we would bump
into each other, sit down on pine needles
and share a six pack

I never met BILLY BOB THORTON
and I’m glad I didn’t
he was too famous, a big celebrity
and I was just a cult figure
with a following of about 5 people
(4 if you don’t count the cat)
millions thronged to see Billy Bob’s technicolor, cinemascope bonanzas
because people died – really died
in his action extravaganzas
it was in his contract
225 must bite the dust in each western
130 must drown in the ocean
in all of his boat pictures
as for me
they didn’t even give me a river
I had to make do with a wading pool
in the backyard
I slingshot birds
out of the trees and occasionally
one would fall into the pool
flap water in my face
and fly away

MILES DAVIS
I used to sit in a chair
in front of him
in his kitchen
and watch him eat breakfast
not once did he say “Good morning?
not once did he shake my hand
I was ready
believe me, I was always prepared
with a return hello
but I never got to use it.

MONIKA LEWINSKY
I saw her a couple of times
pushing her shopping cart
around the local Safeways
she had a couple of small kids
in the cart
they both looked like Bill Clinton
and they talked like Bill too.
I chased her down the fresh produce aisle
but the oldest boy – Willie
threw tomatoes at me
and told me to stay away from his mom
his exact words were:
“Bugger off, geek
you wouldn’t even make the shortlist.”

J.D. SALINGER
I don’t feel too bad
about not meeting J.D.
nobody met J.D.
not even his wife and children

MADONNA
I really wanted to meet her
I thought we could have beautiful babies
but she had different ideas
when she saw a picture of me
she said, “Put him in the back row
get a sledge hammer
and break his knees.”
she thought I was at my best
when I was in a closet
where nobody could see me
we exchanged letters
for 30 years
then we sort of drifted off
in different directions

I was supposed to meet JUSTIN BIEBER
but by the time I got from the auditorium
to his backstage dressing room
he had lost all his popularity
and it turned out that I
a humble septic tank pumper
was more famous than he

WOODY ALLEN
once in Venice
he was on one side of a canal
I was on the other
blowing up Greenpeace balloons
one popped
he looked over and laughed
“I thought it was a whale,” he said
but he didn’t see me
under all the scraps of rubber

and once in Paris
I was walking down one side
of the Champs Elysses
he was on the other
we tried to reach out
and join hands
but the traffic was too thick
and he lost a hand in the crush
I lost a foot, run over
by a taxi
Woody and I screamed
at the same time
and that was the closest we came
to a greeting
we were whisked away in ambulances
to different hospitals
where his missing hand
replaced my crushed foot
and my crushed foot
replaced his severed hand
don’t ask me how that mix up happened

Nov. 16, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

HOW TO MAKE AN AUTHENTIC WILDLIFE DOCUMENTARY FILM

go to Africa
sneak up on some lions
and shoot a lot of film

then get some bozo
to sit in a jeep
with binoculars
outside the lion pit
at the local zoo
and rave about how
cute the lion cubs are

add some music
and you have a real, authentic
documentary on African wildlife

Nov. 18, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

DR. FOOT

I went to see
a pedophile
about a problem
with my feet
I took along some pedals

Nov. 18, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

SAMCRO
(Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Original)

Jax Teller & Clay Morrow
Gemma & Tara
Opie & Piney
Bobby and Tig

guns & dope
kidnapping & bribe
rape & revenge

from the San Joaquin Valley
to Belfast
and back to Charming

The Mayans
The Niners
The Sons if Anarchy
our last chance
to live in a civilized society

Nov. 19, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

WOLF DREAM

hibernation season
is upon us again

I crawl into my bed cave
to keep warm
pull the blankets over my head
and hope to sleep
and not wake up until
April 1st 2014

that’s not likely to happen
it’s more likely
that I’ll never wake up at all
drop deep into a wolf dream
and go running thru the forests
chasing rabbits
and fine-tasting elk
for the next 20 years or so

not a bad way to go

Nov. 20, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

A STONE AGE MANIFESTO

we were doing just fine
until the Iron Age maniacs
had to come along
with their swords & spear heads
knives & guns
bullets & tanks
tractors & trucks

we were doing just fine
with stone

personally
I can’t stand zippers
we were doing just fine
with buttons

Nov. 20, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL—NOT
for Tomson Highway

I am not a laid-back cool cat
I don’t know what I am
but I know I’m not that

I am part firecracker
part trombone
part laughter
part weed

you say I seem to be nervous
I am always nervous
when I come to the city
its cruel machine
attacks the grasshoppers
of my brain

I do not have nerves of steel
I can’t stop shaking
I am not a laid-back cool cat

you say I am a cowboy
and that may be true
I have a photo of myself
age 8, wearing a war bonnet
of brightly colored feathers
the expression on my face
is Apache fierce

I used to be a cowboy
I milked the cows
morning and night
for ten years
I went to school
smelling of spilled milk
I was not a laid-back cool cat

now I am part bicycle
part tree
part circle
part coyote

I think of you
and hope someday
I will prove to be part helping hand

Nov. 21, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

HOW TO GET YOUR NOVEL PUBLISHED
IN 21ST CENTURY AMERICA

no matter who or what you are
how old or what your cultural persuasion
change your name to Rose Dickens
(or the surname of some other established author
such as Browning, Melville or Twain)
and distribute the following CV:

Name: Rose Dickens
Age: 47
Race; Afro-American
Sex: Lesbian

be sure to include the following information:
sexually abused from age 7 to 17
by father, stepfathers, uncles and their friends

graduated from high school
despite suffering from dyslexia,
survived the Twin Tower bombings
of 9/11 (215th floor),
kidnapped, raped and tortured
by Al Quaida terrorists
and other Moslem fanatics
for 6 months
now serving 36 years in prison
on 5 counts of involuntary manslaughter
while defending yourself from your attackers
and 3 counts of premeditated murder
when you had the multiple fetuses
of those terrorists aborted

if you shape the information carefully
(you lost your father in Vietnam
and three adopted sons in Iraq)
you won’t even have to write the novel
you will have 25 major book publishers
knocking on your door
with $20 million contracts each
and a panel of editors prepared
to write to the book for you

if you mention that you walk
with a permanent limp
due to a misdiagnosed foot illness
and poor medical care at the age of 3
they’ll give you your own syndicated
afternoon TV show
for which they’ll hire a model
who looks like Beyoncé or Rhianna
to pretend to be you
and all you’ll have to do
is kick back at home, watch the show
and count your money

Nov. 22, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

THE MOOSE-EATING BEACHED SHARK
– OR THIS IS WHAT THE WORLD LOOKS LIKE
50 YEARS AFTER JFK WAS GUNNED DOWN IN DALLAS

a 49-year old mother of four is stabbed to death
in her home in Levenshulme, England

the roof of a supermarket in Riga, Latvia collapses
killing 50

the death toll of typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines
rises to 5,209

an oil pipe line explosion kills 35 in Qingdao, China

a cyclone in India kills 2
and forces hundreds of thousand to evacuate

lethal black widow spiders are found in grapes
in supermarkets in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota

Leonardo Di Caprio donates $3 million to save the tigers

while two men in Newfoundland, Canada
rescue a moose-eating beached shark

Nov. 22, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

MOUSE UPSETS BEAR’S ECOLOGY
(another tale of wildlife in the wilderness)

mouse gets into Bear’s medicine drawer
and chews up all the boxes

making a nest on Bear’s territory
is not recommended

she grits her teeth and growls
she dumps all the tiny flakes
(like rainy day confetti)
into the fire

the cat sits and watches

November 23, 2010

∙ ∙ ∙

THE MUTE GUEST LECTURER
for Catherine Pagnoule

University of Liege
first day of class
First Nation Canadian writing

too many students in the room
she doesn’t know most of them
I can see she is not at ease
doesn’t like the situation

I’m over in the corner
auditing

as she continues
her introductory lecture
she keeps glancing over
at me
and the more she talks
the more she looks
at me

and I know why

she’s looking for support, frightened
in the face of all those strangers

I smile and nod my head
“worry not and have no fear”
I say silently
“EZTZ is here.”

later she told me
she was not intimidated
by the many faces, most of which
were no strangers at all

she said:
“I knew you had a lot to say,”

in other words
she kept looking over
to keep me in my place
to keep me from taking over
the class

she’d heard stories
about my maniacal behavior
she’d heard stories
about how I’d taken over
blues bands
and baseball teams
she was taking no chances

November 24, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

THE ART OF FICTION

I lie
you lie
everybody lies
all the time

the truth lies
behind the lie
but you have to look closely
to see it

it cannot be described
or talked about
there are no words
and if anybody says otherwise
he’s a liar

November 24, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

GHOST RIDERS ON THE WAVES
OF WRITTEN WORDS

I’ve been spending a lot of time
lately with Joseph Boyden
his spirit trapped in the pages of two books
released by my eyes
I’ve also been spending spirit time
with Tomson Highway
Thomas King
Ian Rankin
and Robert Crais (Elvis Cole and Joe Pike)
(they might be pleased
if they knew)

strange to think of their words
written down
traveling over time and space
into my eyes
then into my brain

we are connected in ways
they’ll never know
just as you might
but most likely not
(you beyond time and space)
will ever know

Boo!

November 30, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

Q & A

“And why,” you ask
“did you put the empty yogurt cup
on the table?”

And I reply,
“All the molehills were occupied.”

Dec. 2, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

SNOOKER SUICIDE 1

watching world-class snooker
on the BBC
and listening to the moss-beard
commentators
who say the same things
year after year

“Inch perfect.”
“That was a beauty.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more.”
“No one saw that coming.”
“He’s in a spot of bother now.”
“Gravity came to his rescue.”
“This game is all about fractions.”
“Where’s the cue ball going?”
“He needs the pink – he needs the pink – he needs the pink.”
“That was absolutely magnificent.”

don’t they ever get sick
and tired of themselves?

don’t they ever feel like
sticking a cue stick up their nose
and pulling the trigger?

Dec. 3, 2012

∙ ∙ ∙

SNOOKER SUICIDE 2

watching the final
of the UK snooker
from the Barbican in York
on the BBC

looking at the sleazy uniforms
the players and refs
have to wear
black satin pants
black satin vests
black satin bow ties

and thinking
no cool clothes
like x-tra large
tie-dye day-glo t.shirts
with GOOFY BASTARD
printed on the front
no Hawaiian tropical silk short sleeves
with hand-painted
toucans and pineapples
no white linen suits
with panama hats and huaraches

thinking one day
one of these guys
sick and tired
of his cheezy sleezy outfit
will stick a cue ball up his ass
and sit down so hard
it pops out his mouth

Dec. 8, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

FUCKIN’ GUTS

Al Pacino started it
with Scarface
back in 19-whatever
“Fuck this, fuck that
fuck me! fuck you!”
(repeat 3,000 times)

now the scriptwriters
have got the chickadees saying it

this I heard from the mouth
of a pretty young thing
on the tube last night
“That’s a lotta fuckin’ shit.”

it took a lotta fuckin’ guts
to say that
Dec. 10, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

CELLULOIDS OF LONDON

ping pong balls can catch fire
made of celluloid
the champ hits the ball so hard
it explodes above the net
in a ball of flame

celluloid teeth
man bites down on a hotdog
and the whole thing blows up in his face

Dec. 13, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

GAY MEN

where did all these gay men
come from?
I was just cruising along
minding my own birds and beeswax
for 50 years
then suddenly
I’m surrounded by gay men

I knew some were hanging out
in the shadows
but I didn’t know
there were so many

what’s going on?
what happened to the woman lovers?
the chick chasers?
the girl befrienders?
did the girls chop off their balls?
did they steal their hearts
and use them for punching bags?

where are the guy men?
the John Waynes
the Wilt the Stilts
the Muhammed Alis
the Jack Reachers
The Rocky Balboas
the Casanovas
the Don Juans?
dead and decomposed

they say even John Travolta
has a sweet tooth
for Batman honey

to each his own
I’ve always been a dedicated lesbian

Dec. 14, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

JUST LIKE LEONARD COHEN

she said you remind me of Leonard Cohen
and I said why
she said because your songs are so poetic
I said my god you haven’t even
tickled the end papers
of Cohen’s songs with a feather
or scratched the surface of mine
with a toothpick
we’re worlds apart
you think poets
are one big tribe of Indians
who see the world the same
who cast their nets into the sky
and haul down the same fish?
tell that to William Blake
to Homer and Dylan Thomas
I said my god you are one sorry
shallow-minded excuse
of a fanatic
take me to Yeats
and I’ll let you lean against my heart

Dec. 16, 2013
(thinking back to April 1973

∙ ∙ ∙

I AM THE TRASHMAN

Dylan leans against my gate
he won’t let you in
I’m thankful for his protection

he has saved me thousands of hours
of wrong turns
and mistaken identities

he has rescued me
from my dreams
especially the dreams
of wanting to be
another Leonard Bernstein
another Liberace
another Leadbelly

now I can be
another Surfin’ Bird
with no hesitation at all

Dec. 16, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

HOW DID I GET THIS FAR?

how did I get this far
without some clown
in a 3-piece combo
piano jacket
string bass vest
drum pants
(and do not ignore
the guest appearance
of alto sax suspenders)
stepping up to my face
and plugging my mouth
with a toilet plunger?

without feeling the iron jaw
of George Orwell’s brother
clamp around my testicles

how have I been allowed
behind all these closed doors
marked DO NOT DISTURB
and not been seized by Authority Dogs
dragged to the open window
and cast into the black hole
of the Heroin Angels’ dead letter box?

these are the questions I ask myself
as pages fly out of my notebook
faster than I can rip them
as if a strong wind stands behind me
whistling Dante’s Divine Comedy
on the back of my neck

Dec. 16, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

THINK ABOUT THIS

I’m a pretty cool poetic breeze
for a man with his teeth on fire
if I don’t say so myself

you might think the opposite
and I won’t stand in your way

tell me I’m a bird turd
with nerdish dimensions
and I won’t disagree

call me the rat puke of creation
and I won’t call back

but just remember this:
when the moon is down
and it’s still hours before sunrise
and you hear footsteps
behind your closed eyelids
that’ll be me
and I’ll be getting ready
to toss a gorilla wrench
into the monkey cage of your mind

and if you sniff, you’ll be smelling
the perfume of a gander goose
as he splashes down
into an abandoned lake
the waters of which
have seen no swimmer
since the last Rock of Ages

think about that

Dec. 16, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

THE BEDROOM SLIPPER DECEPTION

walking around the house
in my floppy-heel bedroom slippers
I sound like an old man
shuffling to Orion on his last legs

I sound much better in moccasins

Dec. 17, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

CHICKEN SOUP SCIENCE

western civilization
with Greek theology
and Jewish science

just thinking about it
makes my head spin

a big bowl of chicken soup
when you’re under the weather
no matter what’s bugging you

Dec. 17, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

DELETED LINES UNDELETED
for Pieter Jans

to a student
in Christine’s translation class
I wrote:
it was a pleasure meeting you
you have good things
in store for you
in your future

I resisted adding:
I also had a bright future
as a student
and look what happened to me

Dec. 20, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

THE IDIOT

an idiot keeps coming back
in my dreams
he’s a harmless, gentle fellow
like a big balloon head baby
without suspenders
there are many fewer fish
swimming in his creek
than in most

he always comes up to me
in the middle of nowhere
he gives me a hug
puts his head on my shoulder
then walks away

he tells me his name
but I never catch it
my ears are too far away

next dream
I’ll hang onto him
I’ll say “tell me
how you do it
you are always at peace
you have so much compassion
I want to be like you
I want to be an idiot too.”

Dec. 20, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

INSTANT HEALTH BENEFITS

stuffed nose
sore throat
headache
loose teeth
cramped gut
other than that . . .

my old friend
Eric Duycaerts
phone from Biarritz
it’s been 30 years
“How are you doing?”

“Great,” I say
“Couldn’t be better.”

won’t he be surprised
when he hears the bang
from the stick of dynamite
I just stuck up my ass

Dec. 21, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

THE IMMORTAL COIL SHUFFLE

one night long ago / Uncle Chuck took me to San Francisco’s Playland at the Beach / I don’t know how he got away with it / I was 8 or 9 / my grandma and my mother and her two sisters would have never approved / the rough side of life / showed up at Playland after dark / sailors on leave / looking for girls / looking for fights / some brought their own girls / cheap blonde empty heads / the girls on the loose were whores / they’d all come out to get some kicks / blow off steam / pick up a tattoo / forget the war / drink beer / get the girls on the rides / get them spinning around / and slide their hands up their dresses / some got their faces slapped / some got rewarded with a sloppy kiss / it was wild / dangerous for a kid / yet Uncle Chuck took me around the rides / the Tilt-a-Whirl and the Octopus / Laff in the Dark and the Fun House with speed slides, rolling barrels and tilting walkways / outside the fun house / there were two merry-go-rounds / an ordinary one with gilded trimmings / its ornate horses lifting lazy / and sinking back down along the poles / that was kid’s stuff / I wanted to ride the other carrousel / this one was bigger and had only sleek white horses with thin bodies / their faces were chiseled sharp and pointed into the wind / they didn’t lift up and down / they shifted back and forth / and they ran fast close to the ground / it was called the Race Run / and it gathered so much speed / nobody dared hop on or jump off / Uncle Chuck said he once saw a man / try to step off / and he fell flat on his face / and skidded about 15 feet / another time a man was thrown off the spinning disc / he lost his grip / the force of gravity was too great / the ambulance had to come / and take the splatter man to the hospital / tonight the Race Run was empty / but they had the disc spinning anyway / those low-slung white horses / flashing by / sliding into the future / they were moving so fast /it was impossible to keep them in focus / and there was no music on this ride either / just the low hum of the machine / an ominous rumble / that stroked the air / with menace / we watched the white horses slide by in a blur / all empty / mean-mouth horses / with no riders / when suddenly I saw a man in there / and he wasn’t riding one horse only / he was riding them all / hopping from one shifting back / to the shifting back of another / at first I thought / it was a huge monkey / a gorilla perhaps / but after a few turns / I could see he was human / hunched over in a long black coat / tails flying in the wind / then Uncle Chuck defined the scene for me and evermore / he said “That’s a drunk Indian.” / and so it was / a crowd gathered to watch / the sailors laughed / and the cheap chicks screamed / much too soon the cops came / and the machine stooped / cops jumped on / grabbed the drunk Indian / and dragged him to a police wagon / they shut the doors part way / but I could still see the cops beating / the drunk Indian with rubber hoses / Uncle Chuck led me away / and bought me some salt water taffy / “Forget what you saw tonight” he said / “And don’t tell anybody.” / I didn’t tell / but I didn’t forget / 65 years later I can still see / that monkey man hopping / from horse to horse / I can still see the drunk Indian getting the shit / beat out of him / I didn’t think / there was any other kind of Indian / until Hollywood started cranking out / those westerns like The Comancheros / Winchester 73 and Broken Arrow / the Indians in these films were not drunk / they were pissed off / they were looking for blood / they were bad Indians / they wanted to kill John Wayne / and Gary Cooper and James Stewart / with the help of clever story tellers the bad Indians became dead Indians / Uncle Chuck was long gone by then / killed in a shipyard accident / in Bremerton / a ton of cargo / lifted from a ship / swung across the dock / a rope broke and the entire load / fell on Uncle Chuck / he was as dead as a dead Indian / I felt bad / he only saw drunk Indians / he never saw the bad ones / or the dead ones / and he missed those years later / when the hippies turned the bad Indians / into good Indians / all of a sudden they were the source / of profound wisdom / they knew about Mother Earth / their sham shamans were the salvation / of an entire generation of stoned youth / my Uncle Chuck would have been surprised / the Race Run stopped running / Playland shut down / the real live Indians just staggered around / in the street and passed out / between parked cars / the bad ones had been forgotten / as just so much Hollywood propaganda / and I can’t help but think / that it might have been a gorilla / on the fast track of the Race Run after all.

Dec. 22, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

HAIKU FOR CHRISTINE

the spirit of haiku
goes on and on like laughter
the coyote smiles

the coyote smiles
even in Belgium
even in Liège

December 23, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

FROM IMPOTENT RAGE
TO FATALISTIC ACQUIESCENCE

sometimes I wish
there weren’t any people in the world
but of course
that would include my friends
so let’s say I wish
there weren’t any people in the world
except my friends, but of course
that would include all
my future friends too
so that’s not a good wish
either

how about this:
I wish all my friends
and all my future friends
and me
could be in a place
where all the other people
in the world
were not allowed to come
but of course
I might have thousands
upon thousands
of future friends
so the place would have to be
quite large
let’s say
about the size of the world

Dec. 24, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

FLAPIDATION

took my glasses in
to get the frames unbent
“What happened?” she asked
“Falling rocks,” I said

I didn’t feel like mentioning
that I was the one who shot put
the 20-pound stone in the air
and tried to catch it with my face

Dec. 26, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

MOZART BLUES

I grew up musically stupid
music is what I heard on the radio
and what I played in the marching band

when I was about 8
somebody played me a Mozart symphony
recorded on 78 rpm discs
I thought it was stupid music

not until I went to college
and started hearing others composers’ work
did I realize how much beautiful music
came from the past
from Monteverdi to Debussy
Bach and Beethoven
Brahms and Mendelssohn

but not Mozart
his music still sounded stupid
and it still sounds stupid today

if only they’d dropped a Bach Prelude
& Fugue on that old record player
I would have become a child prodigy
(just like Mozart)

December 28, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

WHAT’SIS NAME

with each year of my life
I add more & more names
of people & places
to my memory

already as a child
my head was stuffed
Booth Tarkington
Yogi Berra
Y.A. Tittle
Eeyore
Bambi
General Douglas MacArthur
Leadbelly
Turk Murphy
Amos & Andy
Dagwood & Blondie
Hansel & Gretel
Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn
Tonto
Uncle Remus
Harry S. Truman
and thousands of others

by the time I finished college
my head was overloaded
Leonin & Perotin
Wanda Landowska
Manfred Bukofzer
Krzyszof Penderecki
Thelonius Monk
Leopold Bloom
Red Blanchard
Nikos Kazantzakis
Alfred Korzybski
J. Alfred Prufrock
Buckminster Fuller
Curtis Fuller
Robert Crumb
Beowulf
Alexander Calder
Barry Goldwater
Ishi
Toshiro Mifune
Cannonball Adderley
Luigi Barzini
Ravi Shankar
Sonny Barger
Wang Wei
and thousands upon thousands
of others

in the decades that followed
my brain was swamped
Lev Semenovich Vygotsky
Sacagewea
Fulcanelli
Yo Yo Ma
Eric Idle
Kareem Abdul Jabar
Obi Kenobi
Prunella Scales
Rip Torn
Roberto Benigni
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Yosarian
Lobo Marunga
Joe Bob Briggs
Brad Dourief
Fritz the Cat
Aki Kaurismaki
Aldo Leopold
Salman Rushdie
Studs Terkel
Wesley Snipes
Jim Jarmusch
Nigel Tuffnell
Henry Jaglom
Henry Chinaski
Howard Stern
Jason Alexander
and thousands upon thousands
upon thousands of others

by the turn of the millennium
I was struggling to keep my head above water
my brain was ready to explode
Turlough O’Carolan
David Foster Wallace
Brett Easton Ellis
Tommy Lee Jones
James Earl Jones
Powers Booth
Vikram Seth
Steve Buscemi
Noam Chomsky
Camille Paglia
Gerard Butler
Haile Gebrselassie
Tupac Shakur
Gregory Banks
Marsha Clark
Jo Nesbo
Michelangelo Carbonara
Alison Balsom
Patrick Warburton
Richard Jenkins
and thousands upon thousands
upon thousand & thousands of others

and now in the 73rd year of my life
new names keep crawling into my head
and finding places to hide
I’ve got them coming out my ears
Charlie Hunnam
Barbara Kingsolver
Huge Everett III
Nat Tate
Sherman Alexie
Kevin Smith
Chris Bosh
Christopher Dewdney
China Miéville
Joan Crate
Niki Marangou
Haruki Murikami
Harry Dean Stanton
Eric Miles Williamson
Sixto Rodriguez
Chubby Alonso
Gigsy Wigsy
Brad Paisley

some I don’t even know how to pronounce
Susan Sarandon
David Duchovny
Bill Maher
Lynrd Skynyrd
Marc Rzepczynski
Jim Caviezel
Noomi Rapace
Siobhan Clarke
Shawnadithit
Carl Hiaasen
and what’sis name

Dec. 30, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

UNSURPASSED EXPECTATIONS

everytime I sit down
and switch on the TV
a pleasurable glow of expectation
flows thru me
and I’m thinking:
this may be the time
tonight there will be only
wonderful programs
the likes of which
have never been seen before

sitcoms with witty dialogues
that will have me in stitches for hours
profound dramas
that will make me contemplate
the roots of our existence
sporting events played
with ultimate sportsmanship
and no interest in money

in short, I will see the very best
of human nature and thought
brought forth, praised and celebrated

but you already know what’s coming next
you already know what I’ll get
(I do too, but I keep pushing the button)
wars, murders, kidnappings, rapes
(and that’s just the weather report)
and the news is so old
it’s lost all its teeth
and needs a golf cart to get around

but one day, I know
my dream will come true
I’ll push the button
and Don Quixote
will come leaping from the screen
on the back of a black Harley Davidson
he will have a windmill beanie cap
on his head, revolving bottlecap
eyeglasses on his face and a brand new
Canterbury Tale perched on his lips

Dec. 30, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

JEALOUS GUITARS

5 acoustic guitars in my studio
standing in different places
I pick up the flamenco over here
and the steel 6-string over there
slides off its stand
and crashes into the piano

nothing like having
a high-string jealous guitar
in the room

December 31, 2013

∙ ∙ ∙

THE COYOTE SMILES
CHAINED HAIKU WITH CHRISTINE PAGNOULLE

the spirit of haiku
goes on and on like laughter
the coyote smiles

the coyote smiles
even in Belgium
even in Liège

even in Liège
as the sun plays hide and seek
winter bides its time

winter bides its time
in suddenly dark grey skies
squirrels from branch to branch

squirrels from branch to branch
tracing a music of fun
steps crunching leaves

steps crunching leaves
and anger swelling out but
the coyote smiles

the coyote smiles
but what happened to the fox?
most unorthodox

most unorthodox
the fir tree swallows a leaf
this wind-blown world

this wind-blown world
twirls tosses and tears apart
pools of silent grief

pools of silent grief
why so sad, my joyful friend?
the coyote weeps

the coyote weeps
clear morning skies pale and blue
the coyote smiles

Blabs of the pave

Poems 2014  |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

The blab of the pave, the tires of carts, sluff of boots-
soles, talk of the promenaders

Walt Whitman, Song of Myself N°8

LOVE POEM
for Bear

I hope you don’t forget
that I love you

you don’t? that’s good

even when I’m acting strange?

you don’t? that’s good

I don’t want to have to be
reminding you all the time

Jan. 1, 2013

HIBERNATION PREVIEW

no trip south this winter
no Pyrenees
no Mt. Canigou
no Céret or Mas Trilles
I have to stay home
and get my eyeballs peeled
hit the hot water bottle
and hope for the best

Jan. 2, 2014

ORGAN DONATIONS

I go around humming all the time
I’m humming to my internal organs
to keep them vibrating harmoniously
to keep them entertained
to let them know they are not being ignored

I have a great fondness for my heart
then again I’ve always been partial to drummers
mine sets the tempo at 50 beats a minute
and that’s perfect for my lung bass
whose plucked strings hit the back beat
with perfect timing, and I’m delighted
when my piano stomach joins in
pumping those minor seventh chords
into the mix, to underline the pervasive humming
I don’t expect much from my harmonica liver
but I’m always glad when he joins in
outlining the texture with bent notes
and trebled wails.

grab a stethoscope, listen up
you’ve never heard music like this before.

Jan 3, 2014

THE SONG OF THE HOLY YODELLERS

I am a goat licking dust from moon beams

I am a child tricking insane old ladies
into thinking that the rug is the floor’s skin

I am a shepherd herding only bats and buffalo
into caves lit by fire flies and glow worms

I am a high heeled dream machine
with my lips stuck on a frozen door knob

remember me when the last holy yodel
echoes down my spine

now I am awake
and I weep as I return to sleep

Jan. 9, 2014

VIRUS GOBLINS

e-mail message on my laptop
from a friend of a friend
of a friend
a panic warning:
a lethal virus is on the way

very clever these hackers
the message was the virus
and now having read it
my mind has been destroyed

Jan 10, 2014

THE CHICKEN SONG

the hen lays an egg
and sings low and soft
a two-note melody

she’s thinking about
the little baby chicken inside
blessed by the Guru of Roosters
who said it will grow up
to become the Shaman of Hens

she doesn’t know
I’m going to eat the egg

if she did
she wouldn’t be singing
she’d be screaming

Jan 16, 2014

STUPID SHIT

don’t you just love those cocaine movies
where the cops bust a gang
and one cop slits open a sack
of white powder with a knife
takes a taste from the tip
smacks his lips and proclaims,
“This is the real deal.”

if it were real coke
the stupid shit
would hit the ceiling
at 700 miles an hour
bounce off the walls ten times
then die of an overdose.

the stupid shit

Jan. 27, 2014

WHAT’S NEXT?
ELECTRIC ROCKING CHAIRS?

electric chain saws?

be the first in your forest
to get electrocuted
while cutting down a tree

Jan. 27, 2014

SHUT DOWN

I still can’t get used to it:

“Windows is shutting down”

I is done shut down
down shit done

Feb. 13, 2014

SPRING SLUG

first sign of spring
a leopard slug
crawls up/out
of the cellar
onto the upstairs steps
and eats the rat poison

he’s off to a flying start

[Feb. 27, 2014]

NOT TO SAY THAT THE REST IS SADNESS

happiness is an empty bladder
happiness is a glass
of fresh pressed orange juice
two scrambled eggs with a suspicion of pepper
walking down the path to my studio
and listening to a dozen different birds
chattering in the trees
switching on my computer
and seeing the pages I wrote yesterday
come alive on the screen
reading what I wrote yesterday
and making small changes here and there
(who cares if for better or worse?)
finding a beautiful translation
of the Kalevala
from amazon.com
in my mailbox

happiness is a bike ride
thru the fields in mid-summer
stoned on fine Dutch weed
a poem written on the run
and forgotten as soon as
the notebook is closed
and back in my pocket
watching the sun go down
then turning to watch a full purple moon
rise over a wheat field

happiness is a bowl
of lentil soup
with a slice of lemon floating on the top
sitting down to a dinner
of hamburger, raw onions
fries and Danish beer
with the Eggheads on TV
and answering questions about arts & books
and film & television
and getting most of them right
before they do

happiness is the sound of a train
clicking on the tracks down in the valley
when the wind is blowing up this way
and reading a chapter (or two)
of a John Irving novel
before going to sleep
then falling asleep over an open page
and waking up two hours later
with everything on the floor

March 3, 2014

THE ROCKING CHAIR PHILOSOPHER

did the kids stand up
and put their hands over their hearts
when Jimi Hendrix played
the Star Spangled Banner
at Woodstock?

and why are patents pending?

why do I have to mouse “start”
when I want to shut down my PC?

why does the ice cream truck
go around playing the 1st movement
of Mozart’s 41st Symphony?

what does “mean” mean?

whatever happened to Saturday night?

why is the man going
to rip me a new asshole
and stuff it down my throat?
Is that even possible?

why are some XXX-large t.shirts
smaller than some X-Large t.shirts?
(does it have something to do
with pornography?)

when a Scot speaks to himself silently
does he hear his accent?

(this man clearly spends
too much time alone
thinking

he should get out
and row a hoe
for a change of pace)

March 6, 2014

BIRD FEEDER

if I put the bread crumbs
too far away from the house
the big black birds come
and scare the little black birds
away

so I put the crusts
near the house
and the little birds come
and share my peanut butter
and jelly flavored crusts
the little black birds
are mostly brown and blue

I watch from the window
as they peck away
at their breakfast
Jimbo, my cat
sits with me
licking his chops

March 9, 2014

PIZZA FUMES IN A STRANGER’S HOUSE

she cooks a pizza
in our stove’s gas oven
which hasn’t been used
in years

the pizza comes out fine
but there’s a lingering odor
in the air
that lasts for days

it’s like we’re living
in somebody else’s house

then, cleaning up the pizza mess
in the oven
she comes across a pile
of mouse shit

cooked mouse shit

that’s the odor
which has been clinging to our nostrils
and making us strangers
in our own house

now, thinking back
I do recall
that the pizza had a slightly
peculiar taste

a little extra flavoring I couldn’t quite place

a special spice:
smoked mouse turd

March 10, 2014

ITALIAN WASHERWOMAN

the old Roman woman
who washed my clothes
in her machine each week
when I was a student
stealing a pair of underwear
from time to time
until I was down to one pair

her husband walking around
like a prince
in the finest crotch sacks
American money could buy

didn’t she think I’d notice?

she probably thought
this rich American
had an endless supply
of Fruit-of-the-Loom medium 3-packs
coming down the line
at the flick of a switch

March, 11, 2014

THE BODY BUILDER

in her next life
she says
she wants to come back
as a man with many muscles

she’s been watching
too many action movies

March 12, 2014

RELIGIOUS PILGRIMAGE

strolling down Grotestraat
warm, sunny Friday afternoon
in a very early spring
with hundreds of Dutch men
and women out SHOPPING
buying stuff or dreaming
of stuff to buy

it’s the new religion

but their choices are limited:
clothes or shoes

me, I’m looking for books
(stuff for the mind, not the body)
(and how many shirts, pants
and shoes can you wear at one time?)

no books on Grotestraat
for those I have to go
into the narrow backstreets
and score from dealers
in whispered tones

Maastricht, March 14, 2014

MIXED INFORMATIONS

you might think
you can only read one
book at a time
but that’s not true

I’ve usually got four
or five going
keep the information stirred up
solid fictions
biographies
essays
poems
thrillers

you might think
that The Mole People
don’t mix well with Jim Harrison
and his search for small gods
but you’d be surprised

after you switch off the light
and go to sleep
they make for some vivid
and continuous dreaming

March 15, 2014

MUTEMOLE

all the adults
who saw me make a fool of myself
when I was a kid
all the dumb stuff I did
when I thought no one was looking
are dead and gone

still I flinch
at the memories
the only person in the world
who remembers those dumb deeds
is me

I don’t believe the old folks’ ghosts
come around and point fingers
they and their ghosts
are long gone

so who is the boy
that stands behind me
looking over my shoulder
whispering in my ear?

I know him better
than I know myself
tho he’s never told me his name

I give him a name: Mutemole
and I know he’s ashamed
of some of the things I’ve done
before and since

he says he’s not going to let me
forget my weaknesses
fuck you, Mutemole

if he wants to spill the beans
I’ll stick his foot in his mouth
and make him chew
on his toenails

March 17, 2014

NAKED

naked came the pimpmobile

when it emerged
from the car wash
it was full of people
and some of them were laughing

March 21, 2014

POLITICALLY CORRECT

the good thing about PC
is that when you revert to the original
there’ll be no mistake about your meaning

when you see a “hearing-impaired” person
and shout: YOU’RE FUCKIN’ DEAF
it will have more impact

as for midgets
the little fuckers’ll get the message
loud and clear

March 23, 2014

SPRING HAIKU

apple tree white blossoms
one red blossom?
oh – a butterfly

April 15, 2014

GOOD FRIDAY

going into the hospital
from an operation
on my left eye
I see a sign
that says Sunday
(2 days from now)
will be Easter

which means today
is Good Friday

total anesthesia
Jesus Christ
I hope I come out of it
better than you did

April 18, 2014

RE-ANIMATION

coming out of anesthesia
in the recovery room
still fuzzy of vision
but ears alert
I hear a gruff pulse
of a beastly growl
somewhere near by

I say to the nurse:
“There’s a monster under my bed.”

turns out to be an old man
(also in re-animation)
with a breathing tube
stuck in his throat
so a machine can pump air
into his body – now it sounds
like he’s snoring in a wind storm

As for the nurse
tho I was anything but frightened
I would have felt a lot better
if she had stopped
patted me on the head and said
“Don’t worry, little man
I won’t let the monster hurt you.”

April 18, 2014

ETERNITY AND THE COMPUTERIZED ARCHEOLOGISTS

the doctor implanted lenses
in both my eyes
when she operated
on my cataracts

miraculous magnified vision

they’ll last for eternity
I was told

I can see my body
thousands upon thousands
years from now
rising to the surface
and all that’s left of me
are two round tokens
of magnifying lenses
and a bridge of 12 false teeth

my friend Ton
will leave behind
a plastic artery valve

when the computerized archeologists
analyze our remains
in the far distant future called eternity
they’ll come to some weird conclusions
about the physical characteristics
of the creatures known as human
who once inhabited the planet earth

April 20, 2014

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (1807-1882)

was a cool dude
he worked with what 19th century America
had to offer

you couldn’t have expected him
to write like Allen Ginsberg
listen my children and you shall hear
the angry midnight fix of Lenny Bruce

or e.e. cummings
This is the Forest Primeval, the murmuring pines
this is ((eye) meyou) & the small (the hands)
are the finger (tips) of (ever fall (ing!) petal’d flow’r’d ) rain

or Jack Kerouac (haiku)
how strange it seems
these Hebrews in their graves
trip trap slippety bop

or Richard Brautigan
In the market place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown
like a lamp that’s spent its life
under the slavery whips of 20-watt light bulb filaments

or Charles Bukowski
Under the spreading chestnut tree
you get
so
ALONE
at times
that it
just
makes
sense

or Lawrence Ferlinghetti
By the shore of Gitchi Gumee; by the shining big-sea water
I am waiting
for the last Hollywood cowboy
to drive past in Geronimo’s Cadillac
shouting “I just discovered America!”

they would have locked him up
or shunned him as a warlock
and told their children
“If you don’t shut up
and go to sleep
the WADSWORTH will come
and eat you alive

April 25, 2014

EVERGREEN 6-6926

EV- 6-6926
is that right?
my phone number
when I was in college
56 years ago
how does my brain
remember something like that?

1442 Fifth Avenue
the house in San Francisco
I was born into

1421 West Dry Creek Road
the ranch outside Healdsburg
where I grew up

the numbers are embedded
in my head
completely useless now
what would happen
if I dialed EV-6-6926?
maybe I’d hear
a younger version of myself
(56 years younger)
pick up the phone
and say “Hello?”
and I’d give him
a few minutes
of heavy breathing
and he’d get pissed off
call me a bastard
and hang up
but at least I’d know
who was on the line
all those times
the freak called up
and didn’t say anything
except breathe into the phone
– until the day I took
a pot from the kitchen
put it over the receiver
and banged on it with a spoon
for five minutes

the freak never called back after that
maybe I should try again

May 5, 2014

RAIN LAND

Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land
T.S Eliot, Ash Wednesday

would that I could
write such a verse
good for a thousand years and more
from shore to swerve in bend of river
out beyond the whirlpool
where the wind blows
across the dry land
waiting for rain without a whisper of doubt

May 11, 2014

NIGHT HAIKU

at the bottom of the field
something glowing in the night
cauliflower power

May 25, 2014

OTHER PEOPLE

American soldiers
and citizens alike
say don’t fall into the hands
of the Iraqis
they’ll do unspeakably painful
things to your body and mind

the Iraqis say the same thing
don’t fall into the hands of the Americans
you’ll suffer endlessly
and never come out alive

the point, it seems, is this:
don’t fall into the hands
of other people
avoid other people as much as possible
and you might have a decent chance
of reaching old age
with all limbs intact
and vision in both eyes

May 28, 2014

BELGIUM SOMETHING : ALGERIA LESS

they kind of ruin it for us
those who wanted to watch the recorded match
at double speed (the only sane way
to watch a soccer match)

all those tooters and honkers
up there on the hill squeezing their air pipes
driving around the village
blasting their horns

I can’t help but thinking
that if Germany had won W.W. Two
and that Belgium was now a state
in European Deutschland
those same people would be out
raving around everytime the boys
from the Fatherland scored a goal

June 17, 2014

BLIND MAN’S BLUNDER

in high school
I had this idea
that nobody liked me
(hell, I didn’t even like myself
very much)

40 years later I revisited
my home town
“Are you kidding?” they said
“we loved you.”

now I’m probably making
the same mistake
running around thinking
everybody loves me
when in fact
behind my back
they’re saying
they can’t stand my guts

June 21, 2014

MIDSUMMER NIGHT
for Christine

sun going down
all your friends and students
eating and drinking in your garden
secretly tossing away
the meatballs and the wine
they don’t like
tomorrow morning
the birds will be down
from the trees
feasting in the grass

June 21, 2014

DR. FEELGOOD

I see my family doc
4 times a year
for a general check-up

today I tell her
why I missed last week’s appointment
“I didn’t come in because I was sick”

she laughs

it might be funny
but it’s true
I only see my doctor
when I’m feeling good

June 25, 2014

BIRD PRELUDES & POSTLUDES

the birds start singing early dawn
on short summer nights
having sung late
the early summer late twilight

I get the impression
they don’t get much sleep
six hours at the most
they’re so exhausted
they’ll be jumping for joy
when the nights grow longer
and winter starts creeping in

then they can settle down
to prolonged and substantial
bird dreams
without all the chaotic twittering
of preludes and postludes

June 28, 2014

SCREEN WAVE

soccer world cup in Brazil
once in a while a camera
strays from the field of play
jumps into the stands to gather in
a few spectators

they see their images
on the big stadium screen
and they wave
to the screen

why are they waving at the screen?
at images of themselves?
why don’t they turn
and wave at the camera?

what do they expect?
that the screen will wave back?

hey people
there’s nothing there
you’re waving at an illusion

June 29, 2014

CONQUERED MUSE

it took him many years
of writing love poems
to her
before he won her over

and when she did fall
desperately in love
with him
he didn’t feel
like writing anymore

June 30, 2014

“UNTITLED” IS A TITLE

the tree bends, heavy with fruit
a bird lands on a branch
the branch breaks

July 20, 2014

GRANDCHILDREN

how can I say
I’m surrounded by grandchildren
in my old age
when there’s only one?

easy
she runs real fast

July 22, 2014

THE OLD ONES

I grow old . . . I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

I don’t have the time
or the patience
or the need
for the new poets

I read a line or two
and toss their books aside

there’s still plenty of mileage
in the old ones
the ones who got to me
when I was young
and made the essential connections

the new poets
have a steep climb
before they can grab my attention

a mountain called T.S. Eliot
then the high walls
of e.e. cummings
Allen Ginsberg
Jack Kerouac
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Gregory Corso
Dylan Thomas
Theodore Roethke
Robinson Jeffers
Richard Brautigan
Charles Bukowski

Ted Hughes?
Philip Larkin?
Seamus Heany?
sorry boys
you don’t stand
a ghost of a chance

July 30, 2014

DOES A BEAR SHIT IN THE WOODS?

no
he comes into the airport
and uses the men’s room
in the VIP lounge
where he can wash his paws
and blow-dry his fur

August 3, 2014

PILL HEAD

he takes a pill
to protect his stomach
from the ravages
of all the pills that will follow

he takes a pill
that would otherwise
eat away the walls of his stomach
as it calms the arthritis in his joints
but will also play havoc
with his kidneys

so he takes a pill
that placates and protects
his kidneys
but will destroy his liver
if he takes more than two per day

then he takes a pill
that his doctor claims
will restore his liver
to functional health
if it doesn’t interfere
with the activities
in his lower intestine.

once he’s swallowed
a few intestinal system pills
he swallows 10 mg of Sipralexa
to maintain the balance
of serotonin in his brain
2 mg of Loramet
to prepare him for 4 hours
of sleep
and pops a couple of aspirin
just in case

eventually he falls to sleep
and dreams about a wild party
where everybody is tripping on acid
pissing in the mud
grabbing hold of electric wire fences
shouting insults at each other
and threatening everybody
with mind control

after two hours of this
he wakes up sweating
disoriented, dizzy
and unable to ease
the spasms and cramps
in his leg muscles

so he takes a pill
to protect the stomach
from the ravages
of all the other pills
that will follow

August 8, 2014

PLAY IT AGAIN, SANDMAN

today Lauren Bacall died (age 89)
yesterday Robin Williams died (age 63)

I can see them right about now
entering show biz heaven hand in hand
Robin’s trying to whistle
Lauren says, “Just put you lips together
– and blow.”

Robin blows

off in the distance
they see Humphrey Bogart
leaning against a piano
cigarette dangling
from the corner of his mouth
whistling from the other
the smoke goes in one side
and As Time Goes By
puffs out the other

August 12, 2014

LOOSE HAIKU

what’s the latest news?
haiku fever sweeps the nation
Belgian mothers too

ITALIAN MACHINE GUN ARIA

another thing about action movies
why do the shooters when they whip out
their automatic weapons, point them in the direction
of their targets and cut loose, spraying them
with 5000 bullets per second for 10 minutes straight
feel the need to grit their teeth and snarl?

they should relax, just pull the trigger
no real effort required, a day at the beach
a barefoot stroll in the warm sand, a few fish
swimming in and out of the tides
a sail boat passing by in the distance
no need to pull a face, try smiling
no need to get aroused, it’s just a couple
of seagulls with no more flap in their wings
floating to earth, sighing and sly-crooning
as Luciano Pavarotti rises from the waves
singing Puccini’s aria “Nessun’ Dormai.”

August 16, 2014

THE HYPOCRITIC OATH

the doctor after examining my x-rays:

“Yes, I can operate and give you a hip replacement
which would relieve you of your suffering
and prolong your life by several years
but I’ve read your poetry
and I don’t like it.”

August 20, 2014

THIS MAY BE WHY I’VE BEEN HAVING BAD DREAMS

up from my studio
I discover a slug
clinging to the side of my sweatshirt
I must have brushed against
the stone wall and it hopped on
for a ride

good thing I found it
when I did
good thing I didn’t take it
up to bed

I might have woken up
in the morning
with the slug on my face
chewing on the dried dribbles of yogurt
in my beard

August 24, 2014

GENIUS AT WORK

finally figured out
why time seems to go faster
the older you get
when you’re two
a year is half your life
at the age of 70
the proportion is 1:70
it didn’t take a genius
to figure that out

only one other thing
this genius doesn’t understand
why does sleep
take forever?

August 29, 2014

INCIDENTAL HAIKU

wonderful half moons
these past couple of days
(thinking in haiku)

Sept. 4, 2014

HAIKU IN PRAISE OF UNCHANGING SEASONS

beach boys are tryin’
to keep the summer alive
I can’t dance all night

Sept. 6, 2014

SUN STROKE

“What part of the Milky Way Galaxy
are you from?”

I’d be embarrassed
if I had to answer that question
from an intergalactic traveler

“The sun. I come from THE Sun.”

that’s like saying “star”
there are billions upon billions of stars
but all we dumb earthlings know how to say is
(galactic ally speaking) “We come from THE Sun”

seems like we should have invented
a less-than-provincial, more accurate name by now
Aldabaran
Polaris
Arcturus
Canopus
Alpha Centauri
those are cool names

we need a cool name for our star
how about
Nostradamus
Digeridoo
Murphy
Pandemonium
wait . . . I got it
Boomerang

“Hi – I come from Boomerang.”

and when we start playing other star system teams
in the Intra-Galactic Soccer League
we will be known as the Boomerang Orangatangs

September 8, 2014
(next time we’ll get into the moon)

LUNAR PROBE

as promised: here’s the moon

“What’s that floating around up in the sky?”
‘That’s THE moon.”

“What’s that parked in your garage?”
“Oh – that’s the car.

no it isn’t.
tho NASA sends an Explorer 3000 to THE moon
you drive a Porsche 911 to Miami

even the planets have given
cool names to their moons
Titan
Callisto
Pandora
Caliban
Triton
Ganymede
Dysnomia

time for me to step in
(cause it seems nobody else
wants the job) and come up with
a suitable name
for the mirror in our sky
that reflects the light of Boomerang

how about (check one)
Rumor Bang
Blue Goose
Thelonius
Mutemole
no good?
then how about
Lemurville
New Balloon
Sacagawea’s Last Chance Café
Clusterphobia
Oxy Moron
Oxymo Ron?
oh hell, let’s call the whole thing off

September 8, 2014

SUMMER ALIVE
you’ll be comin’ home with sand in your shoes
Beach Boys, Keepin’ the Summer Alive

fat black widow spider
hanging from the shed roof
day after day
web trembling in the wind
she’s just trying to keep the summer alive

73-year old man in the meadow
throwing rotten apples at the rain
he’s just trying to keep the summer alive

bumble bees poking their noses
into jungle vibe blossoms
causing the seeds to pop
and scatter over the grass
they’re just trying to keep the summer alive
(and line up a new crop of vibes for next spring)

the filtered sun seen thru thin
motionless curtain of cloud
rolling back into the east
making time stand still
trying to keep the summer alive

leaves falling
gentle breezes lifting them
back into the trees, whispering
“This is one way to keep the summer alive.”

black bird banging his beak
against his reflection in the window
thinking this is a good way
to keep the summer alive

thunder in the distance
flicker of bats in the twilight air
ice cream truck bells tumbling down
from the hills playing name that tune

hunter moon – full – glowing down
like the eye of a giant coyote

wild boars snuffling in the woods
talking about winter hibernation
and wondering . . .

haiku writer stops
drops his pen and laughing
turns into a were . . . wolf
just trying to keep the summer alive

September 9, 2014

DIRTY PEOPLE

me and my woman
are dirty people
we seldom sweep
or mop the floor
almost never dust
grime builds up
on the light switches
door handles
under our fingernails

mold in the corners
on the walls
of our shower stall
hair in the sink
and our doctor suspects
we have bed bugs

then there’s Madam Souci
up in the village
and everybody knows
she keeps her house
spic and span
works at it all day long
sweeps, dusts, washes
sleeps between
immaculate sheets

but let me tell you something, Madam Souci
it’s all superficial, down under the surface
you’re just as dirty as the rest of us

Sept. 18, 2014

HUNCHBACK

“Stand up straight!”

I’ve been hearing that voice in my head
since I was 10

but after living 44 years in Europe
I’ve learned to ignore that voice
the doorways here are so low
it’s not worth the effort
it’s easier to stay stooped
because there’s always another doorway
a few steps later

September 18, 2014

INDIAN SUMMER HAIKU CHAIN

Indian Summer
in the face of thunder storms
at last a soft breeze

at last a soft breeze
stuck between the apple trees
shadows of summer

shadows of summer
apples fall and roll away
a feast for the fruit flies

beware: broken glass
and the shadows of summer
barefoot in the grass

barefoot in the grass
stepping slow and sneezing – ah
a chill in the air

a chill in the air
at night we close the window
sleep under a sheep

sleeping under sheep
autumn fingers creeping in
so long summertime

Sept. 23, 2014

LAST SUMMER HAIKU

where has summer gone?
the weather men are jiving
far away they say

CARNIVOROUS

4 a.m.
I come up from the studio
thinking about that small chunk
of hamburger
left over from dinner

drooling
I search thru the fridge
it’s gone

no it’s not
she put it in the cat dish

don’t tell anybody
the cat didn’t have a chance

October 19, 2014

LANCE ARMSTRONG EPITAPH

he was good, but not that good

like a Greek tragedy
he was blessed by the gods
then he made the mistake
of believing he was one of them

October 24, 2014

HORSES OVER THE HILL

Bukowsli wrote:
“The days run away like horses over the hill”

these days the horses
seem to be racing

sooner or later
I’m going to ride one of those horses
over the hill
and find out what’s happening
on the other side

a sunset?
a sunrise?
I wouldn’t be surprised
if I didn’t find myself
riding back into the picture
coming up on you
from behind

October 25, 2014

I’LL SELL YOU MY ‘GET OUT OF JAIL CARD FOR A ‘GO PAST GO -COLLECT $200′

following a DNA test
a man convicted of murder
was set free
after 27 years in prison

what do you say to that man?
Oops!
Sorry?

not good enough
he should be given
a free pass
legal permission to go out and kill
anybody he wishes

he’s paid his time
now it’s time for the crime

I’d hate to be in the shoes
of the cop
who framed him
and falsely testified in court.

October 27, 2014

SAVED BY THE GODS

haiku knows no time
yet the gods of the daylight
have chopped off an hour

October 27, 2014

A HAIKU FROM THE MOUTH OF THE BEAR

Cozy Bradbury
is a mellow, yellow mattress
for old folks only

October 28, 2014

PISSED OFF AND ON CRICKETS

because I can no longer feel
when I take a leak
I rely on sound
in the dark

dry fallen leaves
in the autumn
frosty crisp grass
in the winter

in spring a mud puddle
is a reliable guide
and in summer
I try to find
a patch of crickets

I start
they stop
they start
I’m done

Nov. 10, 2014

DISTANT DUST STORMS IN THE LIBRARY

first the meat eaters come out
and steal all the protein
then the aquaheads drain the planet
of water
the vegetable gasbaggers dry up the earth
and soon there’s nothing on the fucked land
but a paper thin man
who’d give all the books
of his kingdom
for one more day
with his grand-daughter

November 11, 2014

RETROSPECTIVE

those were the years
of poetry and poverty
floating across
the fields of Flanders
in a bottomless stoned boat

days under the sun
bog-soaked white t.shirts
water-dropped notebook pages
blood-red sunsets
and purple moonrises
and midnight rides
thru phantom pheasant forests

and always from somewhere
a far-off voice crying out:
“Here comes the bike bum!”

November 12, 2014

SOUL SUCKER

rain drops falling on my head
I feel I’m being baptized
by the proper gods
not that old fat belly
white-beard pedophile
who tried to suck my soul
when I was a child

November 14, 2014

INDIAN HAIKU
for Christine

Indian tastes are good
Buffalo stew and fry bread
Coyotes eat for free

November 28, 2014

RIDING THE NIGHTMARE
(UNTIL IT TURNS INTO A DREAM STALLION)

sleep is a sharp pointed shovel
that slides down in front
of your closed eyelids
and buries itself in the ground
at your feet

it sinks down deep
before it starts to dig
then dreams bubble to the surface
and you’re off on another ride
in the garbage truck of your mind
over bumpy roads
where scraps of nostalgia
and banana peels of memory
fly off and litter the landscape

you zoom down city streets
crash into a wall bounce off
thru a window into house
with a thousand rooms
and soon you’re lost
in a labyrinth of chambers
stairways and ramps
in a vast underground city
and you climb, crawl, lost
in the endless maze
until you come to a small cave
and you stand and watch
a sharp pointed shovel
slide down in front
of your closed eyes
and bury itself deep in the ground
at your feet

Dec. 1, 2014

NO REGRETS

I learned it from my father
in the last weeks of his life
he kept saying “I’m sorry.”

sorry for abandoning me
when I was 10 months old
sorry for never getting back
into my life and protecting me
sorry for not being there
when I might have needed him

he didn’t have anything
to be sorry for
except a guilty conscience

but that didn’t have anything
to do with me

I know I’ve wronged a few people
here and there
lied and cheated and broke
a few hearts along the way
but what the hell
I’m not sorry
that’s the way it was
and sorry ain’t gonna change
a thing

if I get into heaven
it ain’t gonna be
thru the trapdoor
of no regrets

December 10, 2014

MUTANT CREATURE

Manjo:
part man, part banjo

December 12, 2014

UNEXPECTED MENU

if you’re ever invited
by some old folks
to dinner at their place
be sure to bring along
your own knives, forks and spoons
plates and cups too
they don’t see too well
these old folks
when they’re washing the dishes
they always leave a few
globs of gravy
dried egg yolk
oatmeal crust
stuff like that

half the time
you won’t know
what you’re eating

I send out this warning
to all of those
we invite over for dinner
bring your own napkins too

December 13, 2014

IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT

baby grandchild coughs in her sleep

stairsteps squeak when I descend
twice as loud in the dark
when I’m the only one awake

crack of ice
when I dip the cat bowl
in the rain bucket

mouse rattles around
in the gas oven stove

the clock ticks so softly
that only the moth
perched on the minute hand
can hear it

the minute hand clicks to 12
the moth flies away
and only the ladybug
that hibernates in the lamp
can hear the flutter of its wings
as they brush against the lightbulb

Bear, deep asleep
yawns
and keeps on sleeping

December 16, 2014

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL (THE MIDDLE YEARS)

it was a time of great greetings & Oops! Halleluja!
a sleeping bag full of sleep & awake pills
it was mailbox full of regret cards & summons
to wondrous events in the Old Yonder Hills

it was Hey Man! & Groovy! & Wow, Can You Dig It!
Right on! & Far out! & “Oh shit a midget!”
new metaphysics & ol’pistemologies
status quotations & no apologies

it was Gregory Bateson, Chomsky & Kuhn
sleeping from dawn to mid-afternoon
then falling & resting in the angel-wing arms
of the Sisters of Mercy, while back on the farm

the head-tripped hippies filled up the barn
with peace signs & god eyes & wind chime alarms
while over in Europe I measured my debts
in bottles of wine & match-lit cigarettes

it was “Hello espresso,” & Michelangelo
Campo dei Fiori & Giordano Bruno
Piazza Navona & the Vaticano
the Spanish Steps & Positano

it was dov’e vai? & Sono Io
che macello and ciao, ad’dio
Hieronymus Bosch & Salvador Dali
Stella Artois, ciambelli, stivali

it was songs about “What if” & “How About You?”
Zen & the Art of Everything New
an untuned guitar & the Family Kangaroo
& fantastic visions in the drugstores of Peru

it was Napoli. Firenze, Venice & Rome
it was goodbye America & home sweet home
rootbeer & do-nuts & the Grateful Dead
7th inning stretches, popcorn, Wonder Bread

it was a stack of backed-up mail & a rack of twisted tails
a ride thru Greek fields on hob-wobbly rails
it was the Steppes of Central Asia thru a distant mist
and a coup d’etat photo with Athens in its fist

trips to the Congo & its lion-starved zoo
to Hungarian dances where the ghouls lashed the stew
to Berlin & its wall of grey concrete
the graffiti monster with a million clay feet

Notre Dame with its gargoyle frowns.
and the birds babbled down into babaloonie town

Montmartre, Champs Elysses, Place des Vosges,
Venice in the rain and Palace of the Doge
Tivoli Gardens and the big ferris wheel
mandolin music and the sound of pedal steel

it was a Halloween hoot with wet witches on trial
it was a French-kissing trick & a double Dutch treat
beware of the talker, the long-distance walker
& the bum who sleeps in the bus’s backseat

beware of the angel who lies dead in the aisle
she’s nothing but something you better forget
remember the Moonlight Sonata’s back street style
& the tracks of Looie the Fleet-Foot Gazette

beware of Looie, the 14th of Gooie
he’s the Hacker from Hell & the Napster of Bounce
beware of philosophers with the last name of Phooie
the pigs who play poker & the poets who pounce

it was a bicycle ride thru the fields of feather
a dash thru mud puddles with pants all unzipped
under lightning, thru thunder & rainy-ass weather
& barns where the cream girls were shaken & whipped

it was roll y’r own Dutch tobacco
it was taped confessions in the still of the night
it was holy matrimony & unholy roly poly
give me a boy & I’ll name him De Light

it was the same old new fanglers
& unicorn wranglers
firefly trackers
& midnight snackers

snick snack & snickers
snake boy goal kickers
it was blind finders keepers
and broken ankle weepers

it was photographs & autographs
buckets of tears & barrels of laughs

it was dusk to midnight & midnight to dawn
then morning to noon & keep truckin’ on
til you drop in a heap & sleep in the arms
of the Sister of Mercy just down from the farm

WINTER SOLSTICE HAIKU

wind wails in the pines
the longest night of the year
time to hibernate

the first sign of spring
time to gather the haiku
free them from their cage

CHU POEMS
(Centre Hospitallier Universitaire)
(University Hospital Center Liège)

MORPH

I’m here to have a hip replacement
that much is clear
what’s not so clear
is why I have all these tubes
sprouting from different parts
of my body like I’m a potato
breeding tubers out of a dry land
pumping various liquids
into my skin
maybe the new tititanium joint
has an unlimited thirst
for sugar and morphine

you’d be surprised
how much you’d enjoy my imagination
when I’ve got that morph
flowing in on an hourly basis

December 22, 2014

SILENT FIREWORKS

seen from a dark hospital room
at midnight high on a hill
overlooking the Ourthe Valley
15-20 miles away
on the horizon
rising from the distant hills
streams of red, white and blue fire
into an empty sky exploding
in small balls of intense light
too far away to hear the sounds
they must be making
a lot of noise

December 25 (00:35) 2014

THE OPERATION
many thanks to Doctor Gillette

two hours on the table
strapped down
wide awake
legs dead, asleep
oxygen mask over my face
I listen to you
saw the bone, odor of bone dust
floats in the air
then the hammer
as you drive in the spike
down deep in my femur
sounds like your building
a birdcage
a big bird
an eagle maybe
or an albatross

as the nurse wheels me away
to the recovery room
the eagle is whispering
to the albatross

I can’t hear what they’re saying
but I know it has something to do
with a trapdoor

December 23, 2014

ARMADILLO IN HIGH HEELS

there’s an armadillo
in high heels trotting around
in the room above
tapping sharply on my ceiling

only one problem
I’m on the top floor
and there’s nothing up there
but about 12-inches of cramped space
under the roof

the armadillo was up there
when they built the hospital
it was hibernating
when they nailed down the roof

it’s impossible to say
where she got the high heels
probably a carpenter in a hurry

they slipped off his feet
which were covered with vaseline
and dropped unnoticed
thru the ventilator

he left them behind
and went out and bought
a new pair with his
high heel insurance

December 25, 2014

EUROPEAN WITHDRAWAL

this morning they pulled out
all the tubes
and wheeled my morph drip away

“You’ve had enough of that dope
you old junkie,” they said

but how can I continue writing?
please don’t take away my sugar lines
but they took those too

deprived of sugar and morphine
I sit alone in an empty room now
staring at a blank wall
feeling the monkey scratching my back

when I speak it sounds like
I have a European withdrawal

December 25, 2014

JUNKFOOD

chemicals I’ve been putting into my body
here in the hospital since Monday
Dafalgan
Lorametzepam
Diazapam
Paracetemol
Morphine
Celebrex
Contramal
Algostase Mono
Tradonal Retard
Patafumidal
Bactrol
Chopolox
Alcatrazoom
Gizaleen
Grozaleen
Buzzarotomandee
Luspell Corex
Vitex
Aquasonic
Movicol
Activox
Phlebitusic Mellow Ban
Nicoslamatoid
Monzo Gatrix Baumspirin
Tickertappolone
Junfreezik-Axbladderpunt
Sandblaster Orangatongue Lotion
Whore Moan Hormones
Mummified Exercise Egg
Loombluff
Tincture of Esclavator
Diagnostic Love Spray
Ting Ting Raw Juice

take my advice
if you ever end up here, helpless
flat on your back, at the mercy
of the 21st century alchemists:
avoid the Ting Ting Raw Juice

December 26, 2014

OUT ON THE EDGE

flat on my back
I drift in and out of sleep
reaching out for things
that are not there

a small cup of tea
balanced on the bed’s rail
gonna tip over and spill
nope. it’s not there.

slap the mattress
to kill a mosquito
no mosquito
hasn’t been one of those
in this place
since 1972

grab a bottle of water
to wash down a pill
in my hand
my hand is empty

sound asleep
knock on the door
I speak up as loudly
as I can
“Come in.”
nobody comes in
no one, no thing
the doorway is empty

eyes closed
Marie-Claire hovering over me
to kiss me on the forehead
I open my eyes
she’s vanished

December 26, 2014

VOICES FROM BEYOND THE EDGE

Who’s letting these people in?
They shouldn’t be here, even those
who’ve paid ten thousand jackals and hypes.
Price of admission: only those wearing
moustaches of masticated mule mucus
and miner’s lamps will be allowed to enter.

She always steps in the lower toilet bowl
before climbing into the raised pools.
But you know how these fug fats are.

I doodle, I doodle
and when I’m not noodle doodling
I’m do-whacking.

He trained his seeing-eye dog
how to smoke and see in the dark
Last seen the dog was trotting
across the far side of the moon
puffing on a cigar.

You should have seen them
this man and his dog
packing for a trip to the equator:
phosphorus pajamas, exploding pendulums
tubes of DNA (Dynamic Nerve Amoeba)
and a stack of tattoo machine magazines.

Make no mistake
it was nothing but a crab crutch crusade.

December 29, 2014

AMERICAN HISTORY WHEN WE NEED IT THE LEAST

I run a line down the in-road
to the fishing hole of democracy
where Walt Whitman lives
alongside the backwater of a swampish creek
perched on a tree stump
pondering his most favorite pastime.
I say, “Proud news from your mentor, Hank Thoreau,
who says: ‘Becalm the foaming mouth.
Celestial powers lean on the mid-day moon
having wasted idle time on trivial pork shoots.
The bat-brain blue coats on the left
are shooting at the grudge goons
in greyhound coats on the right
while a bunch of idiots in red flannel long johns
standing in the middle, shoot and run both ways.'”

“They’re tombed,” Walt’ll say.
“They forgot to button down the parade’s prologue
before they proliferated into a mob of screaming
scape goated nannies. This is where the bucket stops
and the silver dollarinos, the dudbaloons,
and the ja-dimes of Dio Jee Romero join forces
lock their double-slammed doors
and latch their lace curtained windows
because, as everybody knows,
only so much light can circulate
in the dust days of Slovember.”

December 30, 2014

I HAVE AN IDEA

I have an idea:
let’s take a long look
at a map of the world
and erase all the boundaries
so the next time we’re driving
into Albania
we’ll whip out the map
and show him
that there is no border
he’ll have to let us pass
then sneak back home
and take a bath in cold cod liver oil

I have an idea:
let’s go camping in the snow
we can stay warm in sleeping bags
with snowflakes falling in our faces
and when we get hungry
we can turn our heads
and nibble on the ends of fat sausages
elevated from the ground
on toothpicks, mustard will be optional
and delicious

I have an idea:
let’s start out small
with just a couple of molecules
one of them could be an inkling
concerning the infinity of space
the other might have something to do
with eternity. If we messed around
with the molecules we’d probably breed
new ones – baby idea molecules –
and before long we’d be coming up
with something like “The Jerkin Gherkin”
a brand name for a pickle.
We’d utter vile curses for having stumbled
into advertising so soon, but we’d know
it would have happened sooner or later.
We’d add some more mutated molecules
and turn “Jerkin’ the Gherkin”
into a family board game, and finally
into a pop song with limited lyrics.
By then we’d be experimenting
with other brain storm molecules
and combining them with some wild ideas
we’d captured and locked in wild bird cages.
Once bonded these maverick molecules
would give us clear insight into God
and just like that we’d be dealing
with two-face religions and philosophical logics
such as tabloidism and prestidigitation
variously identified as “What the fuck?”
“What’s next? and “Let’s wait and see.”
But not content to be sidetracked
we’d set out to explore
large molecular masses thriving in stagnant water
like swimming pools full of squirming eels.
Those marked “Sneering Superiority”
and “Elitist Snide Remarking” – advanced forms
of rumors and gossip would need some diluting
but we’d toss them aside
for being evolutionarily useless.
We’d think that Traffic Jam Etiquette
might be worth saving
but we’d see the errors of our ways
when we’d accidentally discover
“Enlightenment” and “Transcendence.”
However the government agencies
that fund our experiments
would cast them aside as being
ineffective in national defense
and other euphemistic war efforts
but we’d fall back on DNA chains of “Silence”
and sneak them into the world-wide water supplies
with the hope of making this a better world
thru the miracles of “Science.”

I have an idea:
What say we gather all the empty beer bottles
in the house and line them up on a wall,
surprised to find
that they number exactly one hundred,
and start throwing rocks at them.
With each hit and sound of smashed glass
we’ll open our mouths and sing loudly:
“Old MacDonald had a farm – ee-ii-ee-ii-YO!”

I have an idea
let’s look up Old MacDonald and visit his farm.
After a few beers we’ll convince him
to turn his farm into a burger joint
with golden arches
and styrofoam clamshells.
He’d be so happy
to get rid of the pigs
and all the other ee-ii-ee-ii ohs
that he’d give us free rides
on the mechanical cow and bull

December 31, 2014

  

The following is a collaboration between Christine Pagnoulle and myself, following the ancient Japanese tradition of chained haiku in which the last line of one poet’s haiku is taken up as a first line by another poet. For those who are curious, Christine’s haiku are on the left and mine are on the right . . . no, wait . . . I think I made a mistake . . . it’s the other round away.

Moon and the Seasons
Four-handed Haiku Cycle

uphill every night
the mighty pull of full moon
and blackbirds whistling

the pull of full moon
cherry blossoms in the air
soon to fall to earth

soft fall to the earth
swirling petals swirling flakes
light lacing the tiles

light lacing the tiles
morning shower in April
summer bursting in

light lacing dead leaves
late sun golding soft new green –
hard shale on the path

hard shale on the path?
I finally found it – guess where
right under my feet

right under my feet
light lacing chips of dead wood
shaking off spring sleep

waking from slumber
new spring light lacing dead leaves
thin shivering leaves

thin shivering leaves
filtering sun against sky
curling calls of birds

curling calls of birds
under lush green summer leaves
caught in late sunlight

caught in late sunlight
these days of luminous fruit
peaches, cherries, clouds

clouds, cherries, peaches
glimmering in summer light
rounded, delicious

rounded slopes of fields
in the fullness of summer
meadow- weeds and lady- smocks

fullness of summer
weaving light under the trees
stroking the river

green weaving light
summer shadows’ solid dark
treacherous blind spots

treacherous blind spots
in the corner of my eye
the sun vanishes

the sun vanishes
surprising even the birds
popping up again

popping up again
the wheat after drowning rain
crows not complaining

crows not complaining
all around life teems and steams
but where is the moon?

where has the moon gone?
where the twittering sparrows
with the shrubs all cut?

where is the moon?
look behind the sparrow tree
loaded with apples

apples hanging low
soon to be turned into pie
dough spreads and stretches

apples into pies
baked pies into open mouths
and there goes the sun

and there goes the sun
so many more summer fruits
in juicy colors

brightening breakfast
with many juicy colors
sunshine in my plate

my my my my my
no moonshine, no stars, no sky
dark glasses at night

dark glasses at night
feet trapped in deer ruts, I trip
over and over

over and over
over and under, I trip
I – I – – I – I – Yi!

over and under
fleeing motorway flyovers
off into orchards

look – the harvest moon
circled by a dogday sun
and two blinking eyes

and two blinking eyes
looking for the hiding moon
full as it should be

looking for the hiding moon
my sandals squeak in the wet grass
noises in the woods

noises in the woods
all night long they whisper names
animal or wind?

animal or wind
whispering tall tale stories
under full found moon

under found full moon
shifting shadows into dawn
and a clean washed sun

a clean washed sun
is good for looking into
wind-wrecked jungle vibes

wind-wrecked jungle vibes
lie weeping on the ground
no seeds this season

no jungle vibe seeds?
who knows of nature’s tricks?
as tough as balsa wood

as tough as balsa wood
jungle vibes soon loud again
touch-me-not balsam?

jungle vibes not loud
who will weep for the vibes?
storm clouds passing thru

storm clouds passing thru
thunder too, but no surprise
what did you expect?

what did you expect?
clear breach of blue sudden sun
sodden ground steaming

steaming sodden ground
and leaves and blades pushing up
washing will not dry

washing will not dry
not even my black sweat shirt
wait! – a distant red sun

setting distant sun
popping up in the north east
white light before rain

white light before rain
in already dripping leaves,
slashing in rainbows

slashing in: rainbows
drifting off: rain soaked sun waves
clouds crowd together

clouds crowd together
bees make last trips to gather
jungle vibe honey

jungle vibe honey
and the hidden sap of dusk
long before the moon

long before the moon
gibbous and streaked with clouds
biting dew of dawn

biting dew of dawn
chews through the window screen
one mosquito bite

one mosquito bite
forgotten summer nuisance
in this fall weather

this foul fall weather
stepping into summer’s shoes
impatient foul fool

impatient foul fool
give us back our summer time
you’re too soon too soon

too soon too soon
the owls are waiting to fly
green tree leaves tremble

green shivering leaves
in steady drip drip dropping
splashes of cold rain

splashes of cold rain
feeding green fast growing grass
shy first cyclamens

splashes of cold rain
into the shadows of summer
wild geese heading south

a lone lost wild goose
honks to his far distant flock
as he flies overhead north

a lone lost wild goose
circling among tall white clouds
can summer be back?

among tall white clouds
and deep wide stretches of blue
– mowing grass tonight

summer can come back
if only the tall white clouds
will make the rain stop

make the rain stop, clouds
among the stretches of blue
you too, mosquito

no stretches of blue
pouring sheets on sheets of rain
streets becoming streams

pebbly streaming streets
under big ruffled foliage
floods are underway

floods are underway
a serious thing indeed
one more drop of rain

one more drop of rain
and the roof will collapse
the pine tree drift off

the pine tree will crash
the cyclamens dive back down
– a lone sparrow’s call

a lone sparrow calls
out across the valley, hold
on – that was an owl

the owl prowls the air
above tree tops in the night
wet feathers flapping

tree tops in the night
now bright with morning sunshine
leaves shaking awake

bright morning sunshine
summer breakfast in garden
cat crossing the grass

grass glowing with dew
three cyclamens on the stairs
glory of morning

cat crosses the grass
lifting wet paws, bird in mouth
the grass needs cutting

for several weeks now
the grass has needed cutting
we both need haircuts

for several weeks now
apple trees bend to the earth
prunes drop to the ground

prunes drop to the ground
butterflies feast on the juice
hidden by the rain

hiding behind the rain
the bells of the ice cream truck
and it’s summer again

summer again – not!
the weather is playing tricks
clouds and scattered rain

clouds and scattered rain
tea and scones after swimming
Bach on the radio

Bach on the radio
can’t make up his Baroque mind
summer fall or what?

summer or winter
and soon next spring’s daffodils
have to be planted

next spring’s daffodils
birds singing and strawberries
now apples and pears

apples, pears and grapes
wild boars snouting up the lawn
apples, pears and boars

apples, pears and boars
the chimney sweep is in town
what’s next? a clambake?

what is a clambake?
is it a seafood pancake?
we should ask the moon

we should ask the moon
now growing again high in
gold September light

gold September light
skimming russet maple trees
nights are closing in

nights are closing in
between sunset and half-moon
light still lingering

light still lingering
half moon in the afternoon
swarms of flies and wasps

the flies and the wasps
love the fallen purple prunes
orange butterflies too

orange butterflies
flutteringly vanishing
north wind in the back

north wind from the back
slicing bright evening sky
is the moon up yet?

moon soon high and round
in the shivering night wind
gone in the morning

moon’s down sunlight’s hot
jungle vibes seeds popping now
speaking in wild tongues

speaking in wild tongues
Cree, Cheyenne and Navajo
Indian Summer

Indian Summer
brush fires signal the late news
summer not yet over

summer not yet over
though early nights latish light
on misty mornings

summer not over yet
warm spells next to Bear Lake
maple woods on fire

maple woods on fire
from yellowing to deep red
water shivering

water shivering
then black unrippled mirror
of rock cradled lake

on rock cradled lake
laughing ripples of sunlight
silky smooth and cold

silky smooth and cold
the wonder of late swimming
holiday long days

holiday long days
nestling in Ontario woods
maple woods on fire

in Ontario woods
memories of ducks and geese
and flatlands beyond

flatlands and farmlands
stretching to the faintest edge
of my memory

stretching to the edge of time
between more fields and more woods
water and more water

water and more water
flashing between changing trees
some scattered cabins

scattered log cabins
on those huge flat expanses
as the greyhound leaps

leaping greyhound bus
in the late hot summer sun
impending winter

leaping in a late sun
in a long long past decade
I was a greyhound

I was a greyhound
in a sunrise red track suit
now I see the moon

in a sunrise suit
greeting life in various places
among falling leaves

among falling leaves
unaccountably short days
in long summer heat

in late summer heat
back among the cyclamens
trees not quite as red

trees not quite as red
but yellow and rust and gold
rustling and swishing

in late summer heat
a waterfall of autumn leaves
dry and crisp as wind

dry and crisp as wind
autumn leave comes tumbling down
like a waterfall

like a waterfall
leaves falling clouds tumbling moon
high and receding

high receding moon
as clouds part and leaves cascade
bright red patch out there

bright red patch out there
begonias are still blooming
brown with the first frost

high moon cloud-choked down
dim sunrise thru drooping leaves
mist hanging from trees

mist hangs from the trees
cool breezes curl around their roots
the warm earth shivers

the warm earth shivers
another sweater over
the other sweater

another sweater
finger painted faces in
steam-covered windows

steam covered windows
brown bread baking in oven
time to light a fire

baking crusty bread
baking scones and apple tarts
mid-autumn summer

mid-autumn summer
warm and bright shimmering leaves
red maple here too

dark red maple trees
on the road winding on down
among rusty gold

down moonlight road
silent voices singing
out of Orion

out of Orion’s
picture box of eyeblink stars
the Hunter stretches

the Hunter stretches
across the sky, my eyes surprised
the Dog at his feet

the Dog at his feet
faithfully following blind
snow and ice to come

snow and ice to come
hail and hurricane here now
in sudden winter

sudden winter gale
while trees still dream of summer
flowers cowering

flowers cowering
shrinking wilting withering
darkness gathering

darkness gathering
thunder in the cloud mountains
and the rain pours down

and the rain pours down
leaves escaping on the wind
no moonlight road tonight

more leaves escaping
onto garden stairs and paths
morning breaking in

morning breaking in
later and later each day
breakfast with lights on

breakfast with lights on
supper too, what happened to
yesterday’s glow worms?

yesterday’s glow worms
in the past in the future
now short blinding sun

short blinding sunshine
on the glory of fall trees
between night and night

between night and night
I blink twice, it’s dark, and soon
witches on broomsticks

witches on broomsticks
flying round and round the moon
halloween pumpkins

halloween pumpkins
turned into lanterns and soup
aren’t ghosts too hot?

ghosts hot in sunshine
waiting for the clouded moon
smell of burning leaves

clouded moonghosts turn
into clouds of leaf-burning smoke
ash to ash and dust

ash and dust to dust
and out of the trees above
the hoot of an owl

the hoot of an owl
the call of a sparrow now
in the morning light

in the morning light
lime tree’s rustling golden dome
sun on all saints’ day

sunny all saints’ day
on the rustling of last leaves
sturdy cyclamens

sundown all saints day
picking ferns and flowers
for her mother’s grave

for her mother’s grave
the garden gives up mostly
capucine and sage

capucine and sage
nasturtium and impatiens
and some late roses

late roses too
though all shrivelled and shrunk
no stilted flowers

no stilted flowers
on this bright Day of the Dead
trees’ glorious swan’s song

their seasonal song
never so clear as this year
nor never so warm

no never so warm
tall poplars and cherry tree
leaf-light in the wind

leaf light in the wind
tumbles down end over end
I’ve been here before

I’ve been here before
and now I’m back with an old friend:
goose cries in the dark

goose cries in the dark
we all know the fox went out
on a chilly night

remember the fox
in the chilly nights to come
listen to the owl

listen to the owl
he tells the stories of old
winters underground

the owl’s old stories
hooted in the night’s wet wind
ambers still aglow

ambers still glowing
in spite of the beating rain
the leaves were quite dry

dry leaves smoldering
through the night, and rain all gone
last cyclamens too

through the night and rain
a book of a thousand pages
I read by bed light

reading by bed light
the haiku of a butterfly
I switch off the lamp

a haiku’s butterfly
casts a shadow deep and dark
on this dreaming world

a deep dark shadow
swallowing left-over warmth
more sunny days yet

more sunny days yet
swirling last translucent leaves
stubborn cyclamens

hidden cyclamens
clinging to their memories
a short bright blue sky

a short bright blue sky
under falling light and chill wind
deep red sunset clouds

deep red sunset clouds
marked by vapor trails of jets
writing in the sky

writing on the earth
raking leaves I uncover
boar tracks in the turf

boar tracks in the turf
are clear indications of
strangers in the night

strangers in the night
leave messages in the turf
“Bad Ben says hello.”

but Bad Ben is gone
now lost but not forgotten
swallowed by the mist

swallowed by the mist
after hoar frost in the night
blinding winter sun

blinding winter sun
treacherously sneaking up
until rain returns

rain returns and soaks
trimmed expectant gardens
snow and frost on hold

rain returns and soaks
the weather-battered garden
a drop from the half moon

the half moon rain drop
hits a dry leaf and explodes
a dove lifts her head

a dry leaf explodes
in a flurry of sun dust
half moon leaning low

half moon leaning low
winter smell in the crisp air
bare sounds in the night

bare sounds in the night
a cold winter lies ahead
where are my snow boots?

my snow boots turn up
under a thick wool blanket
kept warm for a year

thick wool blankets
I’m sleeping under three sheep
it’s a three-sheep night

a three-sheep winter
the geese are safe in the south
I’m stuck with the sheep

stuck under the sheep
I dream of jumping fences
in the southern sun

in the southern sun
days will soon be shortening
while our get longer

days soon lengthening
as the seasons turn around
as the year buckles

as the year buckles
light might be back and leaves
now bare tall poplar

tall bare poplar tree
yellow carpet underneath
beech shedding copper

beech shedding copper
and rust glorious memories
of its late radiance

radiance all gone
from earth and sky trees and stones
electric street lights

electric street lights
faking christmas in dark night
stars not to be seen

stars not to be seen
mushy fog wrapping garden yet
big bright setting moon

big bright setting moon
in the bare branches of dawn
big bright rising sun

big bright rising sun
skims the southern horizon
from dawn to twilight

from dawn to twilight
we shiver in coats and caps
we know what’s coming

we know what’s coming
frozen toes and fingertips
cold December night

cold December night
the last full moon of autumn
filled with winter light

cold December night
the stars are not to be seen
full moon thru thick fog

full moon thru thick fog
it appears and disappears
and now comes the snow

snow coming hoar frost
slippering roads foggy cold
last quaking flower

shivering flower
a surviving cyclamen
leaves all packed or burned

leaves scattered in mud
winter is a-comin’ in
loudly sing “yahoo!”

loudly sing “yahoo!”
and dance around in circles
like the cycle men

thanks to the cycle men
and the coyote’s laughter
the world keeps turning

Chasing the ghost of England

Poems 2015  |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

Ghost-herds of uneaten left to rot animals thundering across
the plains
Chasing the ghost of England across the plains forever ever

Gregory Corso, Spontaneous Requiem for the American Indian

STICK IN THE MUD

it’s the moments in between
that get you
when you’re not paying close attention
they sneak in and lay their eggs

new year’s eve fireworks
yippee!
new year’s day feast
gobble!
but what’s this wisp of smoke
wafting in between the fireworks
and the feast?

a trivial complaint about the weather
perhaps?
a sniffle of self-pity?
a whisper of “‘t’aint my fault”?

watch out, friends
the eggs are out there
on the fringe, waiting
they need only a nudge
to roll in, hatch and explode
in your face, covering you
from head to foot
with their rotten mess

they’ll bury your feet
toe by toe
until you are truly
stuck in the mud

January 1, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

JANUARY HAIKU

EARLY MORNING HAIKU

the tip of the pine tree
gives the man in the moon
a delicate lace mask

∙ ∙ ∙

LOVE HAIKU

I fell in love
so many times
I’ve forgotten her name

∙ ∙ ∙

NEW YEARS HAIKU

mouse in the oven
roast turkey leftovers
I’ve said too much already

January 5, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

PO-CHA-NA-QUAR-HIP
(“Cock That Stays Hard Forever”)

the media, rewriting history,
refused to print a true translation
of the Comanche warrior’s name
and instead called him
“Buffalo Hump.”

January 6, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

TAKE THE COLTRANE

jazz poem for David Taylor

lez talk about
the jizz-jazz sindrome
where dwell the cannonball busters
and the yardbird landgrabbers
where the boys hang out
with reefer-baited breath
and the girls hang in
fresh as daisy maybees
with finger-sticky keyboards
waiting to be chorded
and Jizzy Gillespie’s
“Salt peanuts! Salt peanuts!”
turns into “Saw penis! Saw Penis!”

and what’s with these
Felonius Monks of ages
doodlin’ with Twisted Annie
and thinking of you, MJQ?
Senor Silver 3 suits a night
with just enough silk-satin
left over for his trash alley hotel
pajamas stitched from the funky riffs
of Hank Mobley’s Soul Station stops
and Art Blakey’s rim shots
while across the street
Lenny Bruce, fixed skylight high,
steps outta Swiss-American hotel window
(thought it was the ground floor)
breaks the proverbial leg
and Sonny rollin’ across the Bay
builds bridges upon
Paul Chambers’ walking lifelines
Red Garland’s octaves
and the backbeats of Philly’s mojo thump drums

the Fuller Bop Man delivers
his bones from door to door
and Jackie Mac cleans up
and Clifford Jordan and John Gilmore
blow in from Chicago on the Blue Lights
of Blue Note

Stitt st-st-stutters and Miles smiles
rarely and barely, Chet bakes
and Mulligan stews, Monk plunks
while Klook clucks the clan
clips their buk-buk wings
and trims their cock-a-doodle dumb claws

lez talk about
the Roland Kirk bird beak
blind mouth, nose-whistle TWEEET!
while the Underdog of the Ming Dynasty
plucks ripe cherries from G-strings
and hums “AH!”

and always Train, roarin’ thru town
pullin’ 99 cars of hot coal
the Blue Note Express, no local stops
not even a pause
between Philly and Frisco
before plunging into the deep Pacific

lez talk about Lez the Prez
see what he done did for us, to us
turned us inside out smooooooo-thly
turned us round about midnight
and sent us home in another dii-rection
with hii-rections, looking for
and finding only our sweet tooth
while playing pocket pool
out along Hunter’s Point
to Redd Foxx radio rap
(“if you cant fug it, sug it.”)
and the bearded hard bopper mob
line up to have their goats trimmed

CODA
slip – slip – SLAP . . . chunk! shunk!

January 10, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

JEWISH PENICILLIN

chicken soup
cures all sickness
both of us flat on our backs
for 9 days
aching joints
aching muscles
fever
chills

chicken soup
got us back on our feet

I can feel all of you out there
moving in with pen and paper
to get the recipe

1. go into your nearest supermarket
2. go to the shelves where they stack the dehydrated soups
3. choose “Chicken”
4. or “Double Chicken”
5. any brand will do (tho the ones with the largest round noodles in the front picture are the best)
6. buy a box of ten envelopes
7. bring them home
8. heat water to boiling
9. empty the contents of the envelopes into a bowl
10. pour hot water over the powder
11. wait til the powder dissolves
12. stir it around and drink (spoon optional)

we’d probably both be dead
and planted deep in the ground by now
if it were not
for our Jewish heritage

Jan. 16, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

VIRTUAL WARRIORS

terrorist groups
recruiting on the internet:

come to wonderful Syria
and learn how to be an assassin
how to load and shoot a Kalashnikov
a grenade launcher
and a surface-to-air missile
how to use a combat knife
and how to behead infidels
with a sword at no extra cost

after 6 weeks of intensive training
we’ll send you back home
with instructions to do all these things
on your own street

be the envy of your neighbors
surprise them when you run amok
with a stick of dynamite stuck
up your ass, screaming
“God is Great!”

and, if you really want to make an impression
we’ll teach you how to shout
“Je Suis Charlie!”
(at no extra cost)

January 17, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

UNDER THE WEATHER

laid low by a vicious virus
flat on my back 9 straight days
staring at the ceiling and counting
sheep jumping over an open grave
(once in a while one would stumble
and fall in)

when I finally got off my back
I sat in front of the TV
watching NFL & snooker
my mouth sagging
drool dripping into a bucket
between my feet
if I’d been wearing boxing gloves
I wouldn’t’ve been able to lift them
to protect my face
peeling a tangerine took an hour
with 10-minute pauses
between screams of pain

Bear went thru the same agonies
sneezing, hacking, spitting
when we both finally got back on our feet
we limped around the house
snarling at each other
and eating from the garbage bag
because neither of us had the strength
to stand up and cook hot food

since I was still on crutches
I got the best bits
chunks of cough-syrup soaked cardboard
from the paracetemol box

when we get out from under the weather
we’ll go outside, look at a tree
and see what the cat’s been up to.

January 18, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

THE BEDBUGGED WOLF

they used to say to me
“Good night, sleep tight
and don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

what I wondered was this:
how could I keep the bedbugs
from biting
if I was asleep?

maybe in my dreams
when the wolf was chasing me
he also scared off
the bedbugs.

or maybe
he was being chased
by a horde of bedbugs
and we just happened to be
running in the same direction

Feb. 10, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

BIRTHDAY

one day in San Francisco
when I was 22
I found my glasses
in the fridge

I said to myself:
“You’ve got a great future
ahead of you.”

today at 74
looking for my glasses
I found them
on my face

looking back I see
it was a great future

Feb. 14, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

SONG OF THE THRILL WRITERS

his famous name is Stephen King
his famous name is Stephen King
his famous name is Stephen King
his famous name is Steve

he’s in awe of Dan Simmons
he’s in awe of Dan Simmons
he’s in awe of Dan Simmons
he’s in awe of Dan

March 17, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

THE GREAT PRE-SOLSTICE SOLAR ECLIPSE

at 9:58 am I went outside
to witness the big event

the sky was cloud-covered
and the valley was filled with fog
the birds were chirping
and hopping around in the trees
down in the valley
a woodpecker was hammering holes
in a dead log

not one creature was hiding
nervous about a threat
of a premature nighttime sky

inside they were showing
a close up of the eclipse
on TV
“Don’t look at the sun!”
they were shouting
“Don’t look at the sun!”

I went back outside
I didn’t look at the sun
because there was no sun
to look at

the sky didn’t get dark
until about ten hours
later

you have to be patient
with these unpredictable
astronomical events

March 20, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

FOG JOGGERS

all those joggers
out on the road
they’re headed home

or maybe
they’re running from something

March 25, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

THE HOLY COMMUNION WAFER

these days
before I slide
the sleeping pill into my mouth
I wave two fingers
in front of my face
and intone:
ORA PROBOSCIS ABANDON DOMINUM

I don’t know what it means
but it works
a lot better than before
when I just slapped the pill
down my throat
pulled the blanket over my head
and prayed
for an hour or two of sleep

March 26, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

AND DYLAN THOMAS RIDES A PENDULUM

It will be great to be two fabulously handsome guys
surveying the world from a terrace.
David Taylor

and standing on the terrace
we will look down upon
a vast amusement park
where poets of all ages
have gathered to celebrate
the follies of humankind
and the resurrection of its soul

Allen Ginsberg
just off a ride on the tilt-a-whirl
stands weaving, twirling
one finger in the air
above his head
describing the Wichita Vortex

Maya Angelou
hidden, her voice rising
from the roof of the ghost train
singing as the cobwebs of the tunnel
brush across her face
“I know why the caged bird screams!”

T.S. Eliot
in his booth
selling tickets
for rides
on the Ferris wheel

while high on the wheel
Nikki Giovanni looks over
and blows us a kiss

and Samuel Coleridge
rides the merry-go-round
on the back of a white
wooden albatross
its wide feathered wings
trembling in the breeze

Dante hand in hand with Beatrice
emerges from the Tunnel of Love
wondering what that
noise about heaven and hell
back in the tunnel was all about

in the bumper car arena
Arthur Rimbaud
rams into the back
of Charles Bukowski
and Bukowski comes back
with a vicious sideswipe
that sends Rimbaud bouncing
off the wall, rattling
his teeth and whiplashing
every bone in his squellette

Walt Whitman on the Waltzer
white beard whipping in the wind
pencil poised above notebook
prepared to notate
another Song of Myself
shouting, “There’s been some mistake
– this is not three-four time!”

Ted Joans declaring
“Let’s play something
– let’s play anything,”
as he floats by
on the lazy river water ride
“I’ll be Coltrane
and you can be Gerry Mulligan
and we’ll teach everybody
how to snap their fingers
on the back beat.”

and William Blake replies
as he climbs onto a mechanical bull
“I’ll get back to you later
on the snapped finger routine.
Right now I fear I’ve got
an imminent encounter
with a pile of sawdust.”

on the roller coaster
poets are lined up in a row
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
John Clare
Leonard Cohen
Gregory Corso
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Li Po
Omar Khyyam
e.e. cummings
Seamus Heaney
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
William Butler Yeats
Emily Dickinson
some are scared witless
others are amused
as the bottom drops out
of their pants
and they plunge
into a void
more empty than empty

while in the Fun House
the Laughing Lady in the window
turns out to be none other
than Ezra Pound in drag

Langston Hughes
steps into the penny arcade
to listen to the player piano
play the Weary Blues
one last time

and Bob Dylan enters the mirror maze
believing he’s still stuck inside of Mobile
with the Memphis Blues, hoping
he’ll find his way back
to Highway 61

while at the other end of the maze
Silvia Plath stands before
a warped mirror
that squashes her tall body
and long face
into the image of a toad
and she quickly decides
that gas oven sleep
is no way out
of the bell jar
and begins laughing so hard
her clothes fall off
and without hesitation
her feet pick up the beat
of a James Brown tune
playing from overhead speakers
and soon she is dancing wildly
doing the dirty bop, the hard bop
and the sex machine
all rolled into one

while off in the distance
the Beowulf poet
lit by the setting sun
with Grendel’s arm
slung over his shoulder
slouches off to Bethlehem
pulling puppet strings
attached to the monster’s claw
so that the monster’s fingers
are waving to us a vague goodbye.

March 28, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

CALIFORNIA TIME

daylight savings being
purely arbitrary
(as is the 24 hour day)
instead of setting our clocks
ahead an hour tonight
why don’t we get creative
and set them ahead
9 hours?
sunrise at 3 pm
sunset at 5 am

or better yet
go the other way
California Time
11 am sunset
9 pm sunrise

that should give the birds
something to think about

March 28, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

THE OLD FLYING BORDELLOS

when they stopped hiring
“stewardesses” and “hostesses”
and started calling their ugly replacements
“flight attendants”
something went out of air travel
along with the leg room
in economy

no point in flying around the world
today, suffering in-flight movies
bad food and total boredom
if you’re not inspired
to jack off under the morning edition
of the Herald Tribune
as a high-class hooker
strolls up and down the aisle
and smiles down at you
with approval
as she passes.

March 30, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

PRIME TIME

that time of year
before the mosquitoes
come out, the wasps
the house flies
and the horse flies

prime time

reading and writing
at the glass-top table
above the garden
where the trees
are growing green again

prime time

and the molecules
inside everything
are hopping
and popping around
in perfect pitch

and in the book I’m reading
it says that in quantum mechanics
the act of observation
has consequences of its own
. . . “nature is sensitive
to our experiments”

it also says that
123,018,668,453,011,775,513,049,495,838,496,242,077,285,356,959,533,479,219,732,245,215,172,640,050,726,365,751,874,520,219,978,646,938,999,564,749,427,740,638,459,251,925,573,263,034,537,315,482,685,079,170,261,221,491,346,167,042,921,431,160,222,124,044,792,747,377,940,806,665,351,419,597,498,569,201.

is the product of
3,347,807,169,895,689,878,604,416,984,821,269,081,770,479,498,371,376,856,891,243,138,898,288,379,338,780,022,876,114,711,652,531,743,087,737,814,467,999.489.

and
36,746,043,666,799,590,428,244,633,799,627,952,632,279,158,164,343,087,642,676,032,283,815,739,666,511,279,233,373,417,143,396,810, 270,092,798,736,308,917.

need I say it?
yes, I need

prime time !

April 12, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

INSIDE THIS BOOK

in the book I’m reading
it says
“Suppose within every book
there is another book
and within every letter
on every page
another volume . . . ”
which is a quote
from another book
inside the book I’m reading

April 12, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪ ₪

TRIBUTE BANDS

attention music fans
coming to Spa, Belgium
on May 1, 2 & 3
is the annual Tribute Festival

3 full days of bands
pretending to be famous bands
Sticky Fingers plays The Rolling Stones
After Midnight plays The Blues Brothers
New Sensations plays INXS
Abbey Road plays The Beatles
and many, many more
including (but not limited to)
faultless imitations of Iron Maiden,
ABBA, Pink Floyd, Johnny Halliday,
Whitney Houston, Simon and Garfunkle
and Iggy Pop

the sensation of the weekend
will be when the guy
who plays Mick Jagger
on Friday night
comes back on Sunday afternoon
as Paul Simon

this is not something
you want to miss

question:
what about 50 years from now
when the fake Iggy Pops and Amy Winehouses
have burned out?

answer:
they’ll bring in tribute bands’ tribute bands
Beggars Banquet plays Sticky Fingers
California Girls play Good Vibrations
Brothers in Arms plays The Sultans of Swing
LA Woman plays Strange Days
Rubber Soul plays Abbey Road

April 17, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

EVERYONE’S BIOGRAPHY

you go up
you go down
(you have to go down
after you go up)
then you have to go up
again
after which
you go down
again

it wouldn’t be a biography
without the ups and downs
it always starts with going up
and ends going down

when you’re going down
for the last time
the only thing on your mind
is going up one more time
but all you do
is go round and round

April 25, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

QUIZ SHOW JOBS

On TV quiz shows I hear
people describing their jobs

system analyst
office administrator
human resources consultant

what the hell
is a human resources consultant?

and what happened to the barbers?
the trash men?
the plumbers?

design office manager
custom service advisor
continuous improvement coach

what happened to the lamp lighters?
the iceman?
the garage mechanic?

general manager of chemical logistics
utility analyst
logistics co-ordinator

the butcher?
the baker?
the basket weaver?

social care co-ordinator
customer care manager
market researcher

bulldozer operator?
shoe repairman?
undertaker?

business co-ordinator
senior custom services advisor
drainage engineer

brick layer?
gardner?
janitor?

production manager
transport consultant
network systems facilitator

no wonder the world
is so fucked up
people going to work
and sitting behind desks
all day twiddling their thumbs
trying to figure out
what they’re supposed to be doing

April 30, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

SPRING FEVER

how many springs
have I seen
come and go?

enough to know
that I should know better
by now

none of them has lasted
forever
or even long enough

nevertheless
there’s a summer on the rise
and maybe this one
will last forever

or at least until
next spring

May 4, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

HALF PAST WOODPECKER
to Job van Weelden

friend in Amsterdam
has a wall clock
with pictures of birds
instead of numbers

12 birds

each hour you get
the song of each bird

this morning
I got up
at a quarter past woodpecker

we left the city
at ten past owl

Amsterdam, May 14, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

ON THE CORNER OF VAN WOO STRAAT
& LUTMASTRAAT

I fell down
bike and all
I knew it was going to happen
sooner or later

I wasn’t moving
heard a loud car horn
hit the brakes
stopped suddenly
put my foot down
the sidewalk wasn’t there
the street was a few inches farther
lost my balance
slapped down hard
on my right side
bike on top of me
heard a child crying
got up on my knee
saw a little girl
looking down at me
I said, “I’m OK – I’m OK.”
she stopped crying
big men are not supposed to fall over
have a few scrapes
knee and elbow
(like a kid)
a couple of bruised ribs

but what hurts the most
is that I made a child cry

Amsterdam, May 14, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

LE BREU-BIS ET LA BUSE

who knows
what kind of communication
exists between the creatures
of the sky and the land?

mother sheep and lambs
down here
buzzards up there

from below:
“Mom, I’m scared shitless.”

“Don’t worry, son
if you eat all your peas
you’ll be safe
if you don’t
the big bad buzzard
will swoop down
and grab you.”

“Mom, I don’t like peas.”

“Tough shit, son
– it’s either the peas
or le grand mechant buse.”

from above:
“Hmmm . . .
some nice tender meat
down there . . . old mom
turns her back
and I’ll have some delicious
lamb chops.”

from below:
“Mom, I think I just saw
le grand mechant buse.”

“Just a shadow, son
eat your peas.”

“Mom, I’m scared shitless.”

from above:
“You should be
you little lamb chop.”

from below:
“Mom, I’m eating my peas.”

from above:
“Too late, punk.
I’m coming to get you
nothing better
than pea-flavored lamb chop.”

The Netherlands, Highway A2
between Utrecht and Eindhoven
May 14, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

STOPPING FOR LUNCH

I’ll have a bucket
of Colonel Sander’s
Kentucky Fried Nightingale

The Netherlands
Highway A2
May 14, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

DIRTY OLD BOOKS

used paperback shop
in Amsterdam
I always stop there first
for the old prints

picked up five thrillers
got back to Job’s place
opened the (used) plastic sack
and the stench almost
overwhelmed me

these books smelled really bad

I didn’t know how
I would ever be able to read them
(with a clothespin on my nose
perhaps)

back home in Belgium
I took the books
out of the (used) plastic sack
and put them on my top shelf

today I took them down
and thumb-flipped and sniffed
thru their pages
they smelled like normal
used paperbacks
somewhat dusty
with that pleasant scent
of old print and paper

it was the (used) plastic bag
that had contaminated them
temporarily
probably used to
transport rotten vegetables
from the market
tho I wouldn’t be surprised
if it had been a gallon
of dried baby puke

saved the sack
never know what kind
of shaman
might come around
and need to have his nostrils
treated to a taste
of real evil

May 17, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

INTRUDER IN THE SLIME

shall I mention
the fat slug
I found crawling
on the kitchen counter
at 4 a.m.
while Bear was upstairs
deep asleep?

I think not.

May 19, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

THE ‘N WORD

“No no no
– do NOT say it!”

“Never?”

“NO!”

‘Normal?”

“NO!”

“Nomad?”

“NO!”

“Nope?”

“NO!”

“Name?”

“NO!”

“Go nibble on a num-num
you near-sighted, narrow-minded
neurotic Neanderthal.”

“Get out of my . . . my . . . my . . . ”

“Nirvana?”

“NO!”

“See you later, Nastibator.”

“Oh shit,
there’s no turning back NOW.”

May 17, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

THE SWEATPANTS SYNDROME

it starts the day
you put on a pair
of sweatpants after
a shower, more comfortable
than levis

a few days later
you start wearing them
around the house
“Never going outside
looking like this.”
you promise yourself

however, one day
by oversight
you’re wearing them
when you go out
to collect the mail
(you’ve been sleeping in them too
for the past two weeks)

from then on
it’s all downhill
you’re wearing the sweatpants
all the time
inside / outside
sitting in the garden
reading a book
going to the post office
going to the supermarket
(where all the other old slobs
are shuffling around
in sweatpants and sneakers)

you reach the end
the night you step on stage
with your guitar
and realize you’re still wearing
those god-dammed sweatpants

you sing your songs
the audience stares
they do not applaud
they shake their heads
as they walk out
and you can hear them saying:
“He used to be a cool dude
– now he’s just another reeking geezer.”

May 21, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

ANYTHING BUT THE WHIP

“The Whip!”
“No – not the whip!”
“The WHIP!
“No – not the whip!”
“THE WHIP!
“Anything but the whip!”
“ANYTHING?
” . . . . the whip.”

his hair sticking up
all over the place
she licks her fingers
and smoothes it down
before he goes on stage

she’s trying to tame him
but it’ll never work

he’s got some wild ass
toenails growing
down in his shoes
that she’ll never
know about

May 22, 2012

₪ ₪ ₪

THE DANGERS OF A VERTICAL SNEEZE

lying on my back in bed
I explosively sneezed
straight up in the air

a moment or two later
the sneeze juice
came misting back down
over my face

I immediately caught a cold

there must have been
some nasty germs
in that mist

May 30, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

CLOCKWORK PICKPOCKET

for a while this morning
the clock didn’t make sense
when I woke up
it said ten to eleven
I went back to sleep
for a couple of hours
and when I woke up
it said twenty to eleven
another two-hour snooze
and it said half past ten

since then
the clock has started
to make sense
because I stayed awake

as I lay down for a nap
it says
twenty past one

but I’m afraid
to close my eyes
I don’t want to wake up
and find that the clock
has disappeared
and a mermaid
is pulling me from
a deep pool of water
to save me from drowning.

June 1, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

CLOCKWORK PICKPOCKET REVISITED

woke up
the clock said 3:20
and it was singing a song
about a time machine
that left people stranded
in a place called Melmexibornico
where everyone went around
saying things like
“Crips indiss paddy piss from die to die.”

June 1, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

TIED UP IN FORGET-ME-KNOTS

sometimes I visit a private place
where the smallest gesture
of the briefest moment
signifies beyond expectation

skipping a flat stone
across the calm surface
of a lake

sitting under a cherry tree
in full bloom
with the wind blowing
thru my hair
then going to bed
to take a nap
and waking up
with a pink blossom
on my pillow

holding my month-old
grandson in my arms
and hearing myself tell him
“When you’re older
we’ll go hunting
for caribou in Canada.”
not a moment to forget

watching my 2½-year old
granddaughter running
down the garden path
because she doesn’t want
to go home
then turning back
because she realizes
that running away from home
is not such a bright idea
not a moment to forget

surrounded by
the shadowed twilight
of a solar eclipse

flying a kite
from Twin Peaks
until the wind
rips it from the string
and carries it away
over the ocean

surrounded by a cloud
of San Francisco fog
on a Sunday afternoon
feeling the tiny droplets
on my face
when I lift it
and see the muffled golden glow
in the sky above the cloud
and hear from far out
in the bay
the whale belly bellow
of the fog horns
which at night
lift their voices
over the city
and slide them down
the streets from the harbor
into my open window
where I sit at my piano
playing the same two low notes
(ohhhhhhhhh . . . Bump)
in reply

I sit listening “Blue Trane”
Coltrane spinning circles
within circles
within circles
in my head
he knows that because
you don’t leave anything behind
you must bring it with you

these are not
moments to be forgotten

June 1, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

THIS & THAT (HERE & THERE)

I’m gonna do that
and then I’m gonna do
that and that
and that

then I’m gonna take
this thing here and take it
over there and put it
on top of that thing

and after that
I’m gonna do this
and this
and this

and when that’s done
I’m gonna sit down
and look at these things
I’ve got over here
and wonder why
I didn’t leave them
over there

which mean I’m gonna
have to go over there
and bring those things
over here
and take these things back
over there

and hope that someone
doesn’t open the door
and say,
“Where do you want me
to put all this stuff?”

June 1, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

COLORING OUTSIDE THE LINES

If every line is a horizon, what when
I have two? . . .
come
tell me, which do you think is the line I can’t stop crossing?

Gregory Pardlo, “Bipolar (on viewing
Charles Caryl Coleman’s View of Vesuvio: Effect,
11:25 A.M. at the Brooklyn Museum)” in Digest

1.
rainbow arches the highway
we drive under trying to spot
the anchored ends of each

2.
we drop anchor
it sinks straight down
to the bottom and gets lost
in the mud. not a wave
not a ripple. the canoe
doesn’t need an anchor
the plumb line rope
has attracted a few curious fish

3.
I jerk the fish
from the creek
it flops around
in the air
twisting the line
in loops and whorls
as if a madman
is signing his name
in the air

4.
I sign my name
on the dotted line
below the line
is a blank space
above it are many words
that only a lawyer
can decipher
within that vortex
of language
is the promise
that I will let the company
publish my songs
in return they will protect
my songs
and pay me 10%
of the profits
they never do
they don’t protect my songs
and they don’t pay
it makes no difference
if I had signed my name
or another I still
get cheated
there is nothing
in that contract
to stop them
stealing from me

5.
when I was a kid
on the ranch
we had what they called
a party line
all the ranchers and wineries
were connected
the operator in town
gave the line one long
and two short rings
that was us
it was my mom
down in the city
she said she’d be
coming up on the Greyhound
next weekend I could hear
muffled breathing
on the line
at least two or three
eavesdroppers were snooping in
by the end of the day
everybody in the valley
knew my mom
was coming up next weekend
they called it a party line

6.
did I follow the party line?
republican? democrat?
I followed neither
“maybe he’s a communist”
now that was a line to toe

7.
I toe’d the line
when it came to chores
and I hoe’d the line
hoed the row
corn, beans, summer squash
up one side and down
the other into the sun
then back into my shadow
a vague outline
dancing on the ground

8.
I lay flat on my belly
on the concrete
and drew a chalk outline
around my body to see
what I would look like
as a murder victim
then I got up and walked away

9.
connect the dots
it was a game we played
as children
draw lines between the numbers
I liked to draw lines
between distant numbers
the page looked like
the web of a drunken spider

same with the coloring books
I learned at an early age
that it was a lot more fun
to color outside the lines

June 10, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

ON THE PLANET OF PEACHES

there is not one but two
longest days of the year

there is however
only one shortest night

it is the night between
the two longest days

I stayed up to taste
every delicious moment
from when the birds stopped singing
to when they started again

of course I stay up most nights
even on the longest of the year

but the shortest night
has a special flavor
squeezed between
those thousands of bird songs
between the longest of twilights
and the longest of dawns

for a few brief hours
I am on another planet
where life is much kinder
where wars have ceased long ago
and are now unknown
where no tooth or claw
is dripping red with blood
and I don’t feel like
putting my fist
thru almost every face
that appears on my TV screen

another planet
one step out in the
microscopic / macroscopic
scheme of the universe
where old mother earth
and every other celestial object
in our galaxy
are mere molecules
in the front tooth
of a gentle giant

he bites into a peach
and the taste of eternity
floods his mouth

June 22, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

BACK TO NATURE

all of this talk
about going back to nature

bang your head in a doorway
fall down, knocked out
wake up with a bloody scalp
you’ve just gone back to nature

fall off your bike
bruise your ribs
draw an ounce of blood
on skinned elbows and knees
gravity’s the first
of the natural world
to greet you on the other side

nature is waiting for you
with its panthers, lions
tigers, wolves and coyotes
waiting to gobble you up
like the dumb bunny rabbit
you really are

June 24, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

THE CAGED LION

I wake up to a weird sound
coming from up in the village
it takes me a minute to remember
the circus is in town this weekend
and the sound I’m hearing
is the roar of a lion someone is
driving a lion around the streets
in a cage while a kid with a stick
follows poking a stick thru the bars
to make the lion roar

but no, that’s not it at all
it’s a recording of a lion

he roared once and they looped
that recording onto a cassette tape
and now they’re driving around
in a sound truck playing that single roar
over and over and over and over
thru the truck’s loudspeakers

but that’s not it at all
it’s not a good roar – very poor
sounds like the lion was yawning
waiting for his breakfast pork chop
when they poked him with a stick
and he let out a surprised yelp
which slowly trickled down
to the lower register of his voice
and came to a stop with the rattling
of a chain – a long smear
that could be translated from lion speech as

whah
da
fug

over and over and over again

but the longer I listen to it
I hear there’s something wrong
it’s not a lion at all
but a huge chunk of scrap iron
chained to a tractor
being dragged around town
the brutal sound echoing
down the valley all the way to the river

to drum up a little extra business
the circus people have put the lion
behind the wheel of the tractor
and trained him to drive it
he’s smoking a cigar and glancing
from side to side to see
what kind of impression he’s making

nobody’s paying any attention at all

June 26, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

CANNIBAL SLUGS

stomped on a slug
half hour later
I found four other slugs
(brother sister mother father)
feasting on the dead slug’s body

can it get any more fucked up than that?

yes it can

recall the video clip
of George W. Bush and his cronies
sitting around the table
in the white house
feasting on Bill Clinton’s corpse
Bush spears one of Bill’s balls with a fork,
holds it up and says
“Eat your heart out, Monika Lewinski.”

can it get any more fucked up than that?

yes it can

recall the photo of Richard Nixon
sitting around the white house
with his cronies feasting on the bodies
of soldiers freshly slaughtered
in Vietnam and his voice on a tape
he forgot to erase:
“Hey, Kiss, you should cop a taste
of this G.I.’s heart,”
and Hank replying,
“Don’t interrupt me, Dick,
I’m working on this delicious
Viet Cong liver.”

June 27, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

THE TWILIGHT YEARS

I didn’t think my twilight years
would turn out like this

I thought I’d maybe become
a big lump of unbaked cookie dough
with chunks of chocolate
sticking out in embarrassing places

but when I look in the mirror
I see the locomotive
of a runaway freight train
getting ready to steal 2nd base

I thought maybe I’d become
some fuzzy knuckle chuckle head
who was constantly counting his toes
& (numbers being infinite)
never coming up with the same number twice

but when I look at my shadow
on the ground behind me
I see it’s full of dancing leprechauns
chewing on horseshoes
and spitting out nails

I thought maybe I’d become
a floppy-assed slob
who limps around
in pissed-stained jogging pants
& shit-stained sneakers
boring everyone with re-runs
of parental memories
sucking in saliva between his teeth
after every phrase he utters

but when I look in my heart
I see a wild-haired gentleman
lighting the cigarettes of beautiful women
with the fire in his eyes

or maybe I’d become
a cheezy sneezing geezer
who picks his nose in public
& shakes your hand
with the goober still clinging

but when I look into the sky
I see a cowboy on a cattlebone ladder
climbing to the moon

July 1, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

GONE ARE THE DAYS

gone are the days
when a pair of toothpicks
and a gob of well-chewed
double bubble gum
was enough to keep
the devil’s messengers
away from your door

gone are the days
days gone bad

gone are the days
when Dante’s Divine Comedy
was a comic book
so loaded with divine chuckles
it would keep us laughing
for hours

gone are the days
when we thought Richard Strauss
was trying to sing the blues
when he wrote the opening bars
of “Thus Spake Zarathustra”

now any fool with a flatted third
is scorned & any joker
with a flatted fifth
is certain to be mocked & ignored

Miles Davis with his half tones
has come & gone
& we’re down to plan B:
sticking ice picks into peoples’ ears
to get them to sit up & pay attention
gone are the days
days gone bad

gone are the days
of ice boxes
rotary dial telephones
slide rules
& hand-cranked wringers
on washing machines

too bad they didn’t leave
one or two items behind
for the sake of tradition
like rabbit ear antennas
on the TV sets
the rabbit ears were cool
bend them, point them this way & that
grab hold of one ear
& the reception on the screen improved

rabbit ears would be useful on people today
get bored with a conversation
about the weather
religion or politics
grab an ear & discuss
the fate of ice boxes
rotary dials on telephones
washing machines
with hand-cranked wringers
slide rules
& rabbit ears on TVs

& this
where have all the yo-yos gone?

gone are the days
when his master’s dog
looking into the cone
perceived a live mouse
scampering around down there
with all the music
and squeaking out a note or two
from time to time

when to speak French
all you had to do was look like
Jean-Paul Belmondo
and act like a maniac

when the last
of the frogmen
came up for air
and people you actually knew
knew that you could wear
only one pair of shoes
at a time

when teenage werewolves
ran free under a full moon
and first prize winners
at the country fair
were satisfied
with a half of a bath
and a ride on a pig

gone are the days
days gone bad

July 4, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

RAINDROPS

walking up the path
to collect the mail
a single raindrop
(left over from the storm)
falls from a tree overhead
and plonks down
on the top of my skull

returning
another raindrop
different tree
plops
same spot
with only one difference:
this time the cat
sitting at the foot
of the path
is watching

July 13, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

ANTEDILUVIAN BREEZE

trapped in summer sweat
I lie on the bed at night
in front of the open window
and feel a soft breeze
sliding down my face and arms
and taking me back to cool places
before I was born
before I even pretended to exist
in microscopic form
back before the human race
had begun to slide down the stems
of tropical vegetation
into the swamps

it’s a very old breeze
I’ve been waiting for it
to come around again
for a million years.

July 17, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

AFTER READING T.S. ELIOT’S WASTELAND
FOR THE 55TH TIME (ONCE A YEAR SINCE 1960)

April is the cruelest month
because I keep getting stuck on the first line
and cannot stop my fingers
from flipping back the pages
to J. Alfred Prufrock
(who measures out his life in coffee spoons)
to see if he’s still there
and notice for the first time ever
that the entire trapeze
is riddled with rhyme
(where did they come from all of a sudden?)
and by the time I get back to “The Land”
I’m in time to sing the Shakespherian Rag
and I’m flipping ahead to the Hollow Men
(with their Joe Conrad in the jungle epigraph
and Guy Fawlks sub-epigraph)
to make sure the world will end with a bang
and not a whimper
and when I get back to the game of chess
the fire sermon has taken over
and I’m being entertained by Tireisias
the blind prophet and listening to his
“twit twit twit / jug jug jug”
my fingers flip ahead to the Four Quartets
to see if they’re still in the same place
and to see if in my beginning
is my end and in my end
is my beginning
and by the time I swallow
those enormous echoes that inhabit the garden
and get back to “The Land”
the thunder has spoken
the rain has begun to fall
and London Bridge is falling down

Shantih, Tireisias
Shantih (“Hurry up please it’s time”)
Shantih, T.S. and the good night ladies
in the room below
who come and go
speaking of Michelangelo

July 18, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

JAZZ IS A FOUR LETTER WORD

sometimes they get it all wrong
the experts

the origin of the word “jazz”

the motivation in the minds
of the pioneers as they plodded
west thru a hail of feathered arrows

the epistemological reasoning
that explains our subconscious need
for computers

we need the experts
they give our feet solid ground
to stand upon, without their
random-generated opinions
we’d be fucked, flopping around
in inner space unaware
that somewhere outside
our hands are clutching knives
and waving them around
seeking contact with something solid
be it flesh or bone
while our feet sink deeper
into the epistemological sand dune

The best way to make
cheese cake in the rain

Why Abraham Lincoln delivered
the Jitterbug Address at 6 a.m.

Who put the “fuck”
in Fuck-a-Duck

How to find a dance partner
best suited to your hydrophobia

they’re all blowing chunks of hot air
but it’s more entertaining than a huge
empty, soul-screaming dustbowl
of absolutely NOTHING

July 18, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

SONGS WITHOUT RHYME
IN AN UNREASONABLE UNIVERSE

stitch me up, stitch me down
stick me in the Mexican pile
whisk away the moonlight void
next stop: Sunglass City

I ain’t gonna play Sunglass City
I ain’t gonna take the easy way out
I got two times three, three times six
it all adds up to no-stal-jee-ah

read ’em, weep ’em, under-rug ’em
the queen of hearts and the face of fools

put the whip boy back on stage
let me see his comic rage
let me see his destructive dreams
brought to life in a punch line upper cut

Dylan’s everywhere you look
I wanna be Bob Dylan
I think I’ll sing his Holy Book
get a calliope to play behind me

read ’em, weep ’em, under-rug ’em
put their noses in snow melted footprints

play the harp, play the flute
pluck the strings of lowland roots
take your mind into the heart
of lowland music’s deepest secret

I wanna be clapped on the back
treated like peyote
I gonna play my black oak piano
down at the bottom of the river

read ’em, weep ’em, under-rug ’em
grains of sand, the runic riddles

Stravinsky’s Firebird had two doors
with 300 horses under the hood
we don’t have those kinds of beasts
running ’round this neighburlesque

all cramped up in paradise
applecored and stepped on toes
camping out in the buzzard zone
the worms will strike after dark

read ’em, weep ’em, under-rug ’em
gather up the seeds of the jungle vibes

Wednesday ate a blowfish
Friday ate one two and died
Monday said to Sunday Night
“Let’s blame it on Thor.”

he is not Prince Hamlet
I am not the Duke of Earl
you’re not Miss Lollipop
we’re just a pair of loaded dice

read ’em, weep ’em, under-rug ’em
deal the dice from the bottom of the deck

six of one, half of two
snake eyes in glasses dark
count ’em up from three to ten
one-eyed jacks in the box

the fox went out, the chilly night
came down the summer chimney
the ivory tower tumbled all ’round
the last of the summer marsupials

read ’em, weep ’em, under-rug ’em
bury-down deep in the slow-motion fog

give me a break on the two commandments
thou shall not provide a lie with love
thou shall not strike the sacred rock
of the secret lives that live within us

they went and tore down London Bridge
built it back up in the Arizones
add a little water, sell a few tickets
stand back, folks, we’re sailin’ to the moon

read ’em, weep ’em, under-rug ’em
chicken on the corn cob and bull’s eye pie

dust to dust, it’s time to go
where the bag pipe music plays
they’re pounding on the tribal drums
rollin’ out the wheel of ragmop cheese

hi yo! hi yo! Mrs. Chockalotto
she’s the mom who feeds us milk
when we’re all but one day old
joyful brats in a cathedral of tree leaves

read ’em, weep ’em, under-rug ’em
get your batters back to the basics of the beanball

“How does that grab you, Mr. Poe?”
“Right between my baltimores.”
“Do I hear ringing in my heart?”
“I think there’s someone at the kitchen sink.”

you don’t know whether to laugh or cry
take my word, just close your mouth
and pay attention to the weather woman
and wait for the luddite love bite

read ’em, weep ’em, under-rug ’em
throw away the toothpicks, pick up the chops

unbroken fire from hell to highwater
let us go now, you and I
‘cross rusted rails of the Low Water Bridge
into the ruins of Spidertown

is complete exhaustion the solution?
is your illusion better than mine?
wind to window, pose to posture
around we go – motivation to motion

read ’em, weep ’em, under-rug ’em
give me a break in this black hole season

why must we climb thru the hide & seek
in the devil’s hills where the tail winds wail
and the air grows dense with the rising of the moon
then thins out in the after-laughter?

we’re getting good at these interludes
chasing after wild geese
strumming on our vi-olinguistics
playing tennis without a net

read ’em, weep ’em, under-rug ’em
sheep asleep say it’s pasture bedtime

read ’em, weep ’em, under-rug ’em
coins in the parking meter, ain’t in your pocket

read ’em, weep ’em, under-rug ’em
but don’t put a cover on the pot of luck

read ’em, weep ’em, under-rug ’em
glory be to the Mystical Mutemole

July 21, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

LIVE AT THE HIVE

our compost pile
has become a Glastonbury Festival
for slugs

July 22, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

SLUG THROAT

they tell me
this was a remedy
for a sore throat
back in the old days:

gather a bunch of slugs
put them in a glass
pour in salt
and watch them melt

then drink the sludge

whoever thought that up
had to have been
desperate housewives

July 24, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

LOOSE EYEBALLS

forgetting that my friend suffered
from a condition known as “loose eyeballs”
I greeted him
with a hearty slap on the back

his eyeballs popped out
and dangled on their strings
against his chin

I quickly grabbed them
and stuck them back
in their sockets

he screamed,
“You put them in upside down!”

I left him there
trying to climb
and invisible staircase
into the sky.

August 1, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

THE LIMPING FOOT

I know I went a-looking for the snipe
and you went searching for iconic names
we never put an eye to eye again
and all because I have a limping foot

around the world I stumbled day and night
ensnared in traps round and round I spun
my footprint path led right up to my mouth
and all because this god damn’d limping foot

then you were out among the pirate crowd
a-float on laughter, merriment and joy
and I became the butt of all your jokes
“If only you could see his limping foot.”

HA HA

the sight and sound of my infirmity
provoked wild laughter everywhere I walked
when I removed my clumsy shoes and socks
they cried, “Here comes the nude and limping foot.”

a nude and limping foot’s a boring thing
ka-thump ka-thump ka-thump ka-thump ker-splat
I slipped on one of your banana peels
they laughed and laughed and then they laughed some more

I tripped on my toenails and fell down flat
upon my face I had the mark of shame
so I got up and jigged a joggin’ dance
the steps I called the Dirty Limping Foot

and while you mock my sad and crippled stump
I wander thru the world ka-thump ka-thump
collecting pigeon droppings on my toes
I curse my pigeon toes and limping foot

I wish I had a string of epitaphs
a ring of chili peppers round my neck
I’d show you how I trap the wild snipe
with nothing but a lousy limping foot

August 3, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

PURGATORIO TROPE
(and let T.S. Eliot sort ’em out)

ara vos prec, per aquella valor

if I had a dime
for every time

que vos guida al som de l’escalina

I heard the words
of mocking birds

sovegna vos a temps de ma dolor

I’d hide my face
in the fireplace

Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina

but what the hell
I might as well
fill my eyes
with whipped cream pies

August 3, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

ADAM & EVE’S GARDEN HAIKU

bite the apple core
this is this and that is that
and there is NO WE DON’T

August 3, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

YAP YAP

I hear the stag barking
deep in the woods
late at night

YAP YAP

it happens every night

YAP YAP

last night I went down
with a flashlight

YAP YAP

I moved deep into the woods
I flashed my light
into a clump of ivy
and there he was
the man who lives down the road
he suffers from Tourettes

YAP YAP

yap yap yourself

August 5, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

THIS IS THE LIMIT

sitting at my laptop
in my shorts
oblivious to everything
but the words on the screen
I think I feel a mosquito
trying to sting my leg
I reach down to slap
and come up with
a fat, six-inch slug
in the palm of my hand

is this the limit?
no, it is not

the limit would be
to wake in the middle of the night
and find one of these slimy buggers
crawling on my face

August 7, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

AUGUST HAIKU
for and following Christine Pagnoulle

august summer quite
quiet and hot and lazy
just my cup of tea

August 8, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

SLUG ENCORE

stabbing slugs with a spade
(flashlight in the dark)
while humming the theme to “Dallas”
370 of the invaders tonight
and endless repeats of the theme

August 25, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

SOCCER
or why I don’t watch it

can’t stand to see
a buncha spoiled cry babies
running around in diapers

August 26, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

THE EXECUTIONER
or what the starter says
to the runners
for the 100-meter dash
at the Beijing 2015 world athletic championships

“Get ready!”
“Butts in the air!”
SNAP!
and it’s every man
woman
and child
for himself

from then on the media takes over
and the starter rolls up his whip
and goes home
where it’s every man
woman
and child
for himself
and tries to forget
the disaster
he set in motion

August 29, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

HISTORY REWRITES ITSELF

rock ‘n roll is here to stay . . . it will never end
it’ll go down in history just you watch my friend
– Danny & the Juniors

and now it turns out
that all our rock ‘n roll heroes
of days gone by
were gay

Little Richard
James Brown
Jerry Lee Lewis
Bo Diddley
Buddy Holly
Fats Domino
Chuck Berry
The Everly Brothers
Elvis

no wonder our parents were worried
about the future of the human race
especially when we started talking about
sex & drugs & rock ‘n roll

September 3, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

BLUE MOON
(recovered poem from forgotten files)

once in a blue moon
I get this insane thought

I’m walking the cobblestones of Paris
or I’m sitting in a brasserie
sipping a beer and watching
the wind off the Seine
blow up under a young woman’s
skirt (and what does she do?
She uses one hand to hold down her hair
and the other to perform
a slap dash, second rate strip tease
with the other – an inept dance
of splayed fingers
and a few flapping scraps
of a yellow summer dress
that matches her high heel shoes)

or I’m down in the Metro
packed in with Parisian meat
and all eyes are looking
at the door, waiting for it to open
so we can escape topside
I jog up the empty escalator
and into the STONE ARMS
(smack dab there you are
right under where it’s getting
ready on fall on you}
THE CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME
at twilight
and the bells are ringing
and the street lamps
are glowing
and cars are packing up
for a red light jam on the Left Bank

or over on the Right Bank
along the Quai de Gesvres the last
bouquiniste is closing her metal box
packed with books nobody reads

the wooden boxed tower of St. Jacques
pokes up between roofs

the old lady laments

This is Antigone
(Aunty Gone
they call her)
the doyen of the bouquinistes
she must be 85 years old
she points to the tower
“Ça va être couvert
pendant les cinq prochaines années, Monsieur
Et ça fait quatre vingts ans
que je regarde la Tour St. Jacques
et maintenant j’ai bien peur
que je ne vivrai jamais assez
longtemps pour la revoir.”

canvas flapping from the tower’s
heavy wood beam scaffolding
revealing the deep shadows
in which the spirits of St Jacques
are preparing for their return
maybe Aunty Gone will die the day
the tower is unveiled, she’ll take one look
and drop dead
let me tell you, Aunty
the new St. Jacques
will not look like the old
your old pal will be wearing Armani
from shoelaces to shades
he’ll have a golden girl
on each arm
(most spectators will see them as angels)
and they’ll all be doing
the Paris Swingle – two steps
to the right – keep smiling –
two steps back to the left –
repeat seven times – keep smiling
change directions, St. Jacques
and his babes being mechanical
monuments – sophisticated robots
controlled by incomprehensible computers
at remote distances
when Aunty Gone has departed
these statues will demonstrate the can-can,
plus an authentic Missouri square dance
with music and calls broadcast live
from Lake Nebagamon, Wisconsin
which is celebrating their 100th year
as the Norwegian Capital of the world
and moments later
the statues will be careening around
St. Jacques’ platform
going thru impossible contortions
groping, sliding, shoulder dipping
falling to their knees
and sliding to the edge of oblivion
as they perform
a James Brown farewell

or I’m just standing
in a room, alone
and it feels like home
and I’m gazing over
at seven shelves of books
which fill the wall from ceiling
to floor without my glasses
(which means the best I can do
is pick out the colors of the bindings
and snag out an occasional title word
like COOKING
and POTTERY

when it hits me over the head
(like an undercooked pot roast
tumbling out of a Greek bowl
with heroic drawings on the side
of Greek men
flexing their muscles
while Greek maidens
clutch the hems of their robes)
HERE I AM
IN PARIS
WHAT HAPPENED ?
DID I BLINK?
or did a white fang crossbreed coyote
sneak up behind me
while I was standing under a solitary oak
looking over Dry Creek Valley
watching sunset shadows crawling
across the west face of Mt. St Helena
and lick my feet
instantly transporting me
58 years into the future
across one American-size continent
and one huge river of Atlantic Ocean water

and in that instant
I become a brilliant-eyed sea bird
circling the night sky
above San Francisco Bay
around I glide and around
checking out the streets
I used to wander
40 years ago
rooms where I sat
listening to jazz
made in Paris
by Miles Davis
Paris so far away
beyond the pages of books
so far away the maps
were unreliable
I would never travel that distance

then the bird turns, shedding
white feathers, revealing
black feathers beneath
swoops north, down over
my old grade school
70 years ago and there I am
sitting in the back of the class
after-school French
going thru the motions
‘Je m’appelle Boite Rouge.
Je suis une crayon.”
all useless
I’ll never speak a word
of this language

the crow curves
thru the years
up to the new high school
to peek in the window
and there I am
in the front row
along with seven others
second year French
we’re all going to college
and we can’t stand
the jam-packed Spanish classrooms
the teacher is telling us fairytales
about Marcel Marceau
about la Tour Effel
about Paris – the City of Lights
and the Cathedral of Notre Dame

and now here I am
in the geographical center
of the City of Lights
and I can’t believe it
tho I’ve been away
from U.S. soil for 40 years
and I speak the language
like a half-wit Belgian
I usually only have to repeat
myself once
and I’ve breathed the same air
as these people for over
half my life, exchanged
sweat on crowded buses
and trains, traded colds
and sore throat bugs
we’re almost immune
to each other now
but I still stand amazed
speechless, moving slow-motion
inside my skin, THIS IS PARIS
how did I get so lucky?
Why do I love it so much?

did that ever happen to you?

₪ ₪ ₪

THE U.S. OPEN FREESTYLE

watching the U.S. Open on TV
Bear notices that one of the players
in a men’s singles match
has pissed in his pants

and that’s when I notice
that his opponent
has also pissed
in his pants

are they both over-excited?
or is it just pure fear?

discussing this
we notice that all the ball boys
have pissed in their pants

and the line judges too

but wait!
the chair judge
at this very moment
is pissing in his pants
urine is dripping down
from his chair
and splashing on the court

soon after this
every spectator in the stadium
is pissing in his pants

even John McEnroe
who is doing the commentary
for CBS
but John has come prepared
he’s wearing Pampers

September 9, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

THE REDUNDANCY DUNCE DANCE

the most irritating person in the world
has got to be the one
who says everything twice
everything twice

unless it’s the person
who says everything three times
three times
three times

and he’s just being irritatingly obnoxious
irritatingly obnoxious
irritatingly obnoxious
irritatingly obnoxious

September 10, 2015
September 10, 2015
September 10, 2015
September 10, 2015
September 10, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

MARGUERITTE (1926)

did Matisse get it right
the first time?
or did he have to draw that face
over and over
until a thousand sheets
of drawing paper
littered the floor of his studio?

after the 2,000th attempt
he gave up
and sent in the dog

the dog sniffed around
for a couple of hours
then finally picked up a sheet
and brought it to Henri

Henri smoothed out
the teeth marks
and sent it to
the Metropolitan Museum
of Modern Art
where it hangs to this day

September 19, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

THE RATTLER OF ZACATECAS
by Jay Raymond White

waiting for the snake
terrified
can’t sleep
bad dreams
waiting for the snake to arrive
can’t eat
petrified for days
about his coming
even tho I invited the snake
to come to my house
ordered him

day after day
I wait
no snake

the tension mounts
my hands are shaking
my hair stands on end

day after day
no snake
in the mailbox

then suddenly
there he is
the snake
wrapped up
in brown paper
from amazon.com

I open a corner
and see a rattle

THE SNAKE!

I go out of my mind
lose control
rip open the package

the snake slides off the cover
and into my pocket
never to be seen again

September 29, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

LOPHPHORA WILLIAMSI

that’s PEYOTE to the rest of the world
and what I want to know is this:
how much vanity must you have
to put your name on a plant
that’s been around thousands of years
before the Aztecs?

listen, Williamsi
you didn’t discover peyote
you just happened to be the first
greedy fame seeker
to get it copyrighted
in your vain books of science

the Aztecs are laughing, Williamsi

October 8, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

LOGOPHOBIA ZIMMERMANSKI

stand back, williamsi
I’ve just discovered a new type of plant
and I’m calling it logophobia zimmermanski

I’ve got several samples
and they all look alike
two arms, two legs
two eyes, two ears
one nose, one chin
(moustache optional)

they’re all dead scientists
who had the ego-centric vanity
to put their names
on entire species of plants
& trees
& animals
& rocks & water
even on planets
& stars
& galaxies

but I’ve got you now, pups
I’ve put my name on all of you
I own you

October 8, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

LINKEDOUT

last night
I got into LinkedIn
and I don’t know how
that happened
completely accidental

and once I was In
they had me
draining me of information
about my personal life

how many children?
how many extra-marital affairs?
how many children from extra-marital affairs?
how many extra-marital affairs with children?

& suddenly I had
thousands of CEOs
& deputy prime ministers
breathing down my neck
& inviting to me to come & work
as the manager of the Chinese baseball team
known as the Kow Loon Firecrackers

once LinkedIn captures you
they make it damned difficult to escape
but after hours of pounding on my laptop
I found a loophole and LinkedOut

as I was leaving they asked me
one final question:
“What are your reasons for leaving?”
and I typed into the box
“You just answered your own question.”

October 8, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

ROME POEMS: 2015

A MOB OF BACKSTOPS

never saw so many dudes
running around
with their baseball caps on backwards

must be a convention of catchers
I wonder where they’re hiding their masks

I’m also looking around
for the pitchers
can’t have one without the other

Brussels Airport, October 9, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

BRINGING PHIL’S COLD BACK TO ITALY

three years ago
on my last trip to Italy
I came back to Belgium with Phil’s cold
brought it home
and gave it to a friend
when we shared the same coffee spoon
who gave it to a friend
and after that I lost track
of its wide-spread journey
it rambled around Belgium
then jumped up to the Netherlands
and Denmark
bounced around Germany
and over to Canada
hopped from Vancouver
to San Diego, Tucson, Nashville
leaped over to London
then to Japan with the girls’ soccer team
where it spread to all the girls’ soccer teams
in the world
among which was one girl
who brought the cold to Belgium
where she gave it to her grandmother
who gave it to my wife
at an English language lesson
who gave it back to me

now I’ve brought it back to Rome
where I just gave it
to the girl serving ice cream
behind the counter of Fior Di Luna
when against the racket in the street
I shouted in her ear
“Canella Arancia, per favore”

Lungaretta, Roma, October 8, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

SIGHTS & SOUNDS

dead cat on a red tile roof

sleeping lesbian on a bench by the railroad tracks

a river flowing thru a leopardskin landscape
in a painting on the wall of Mario’s Cucina Tipici Roma
on Via Del Moro

who invented the ladder?
(a passing thought about technology)

old crippled man rising up from a chair
with bubble gum stuck to the seat of his pants

a hand shakes a dust rag between the shutters
of a 2nd floor window (just the hand)

a chubby man with a bath towel wrapped around his waist
comes out in the hall, spins the key in our lock
a half dozen times and helps us open
the door of our new apartment

leaning out the bathroom window, stick my nose
over Via Del Moro, I sniff in the odors
of perfume, pipe tobacco and roasted coffee beans

a couple of rusted screws on the parapet
overlooking the river

and what are the odds of finding a map of Rome
lying at your feet, in the middle of Ponte Sisto
while you’re on your way to getting lost
in the labyrinth of streets
between Chiesa Nuova and Piazza Navona?

a slim blonde on a ladder
plastering over a broken stone in an arched doorway
while two dudes hold the ladder
and watch her motionless ass attentively

an old music man tuning his 58-string zither
with an electronic guitar tuner
perched on the pedestal of the statue
of Giordano Bruno
in Campo dei’ Fiori

a punch out between punks of rival gangs
in Vicolo Della Moretta
after which they all put on their crash helmets
and ride home on their scooters

a few drops of rain
and suddenly everybody’s bobbing around
under umbrellas, afraid their hair might melt

who’d think you’d need the voodoo protection
of a mute dead-eye stare against some racist bullshit
from a pair of black African barbarians
in the back streets of Trastevere
at a quarter past midnight?

leaning out the bathroom window again
only now it’s 2 a.m.
and the kids hanging out at the 8 Millimetri
have stopped smoking and shouting against
the drum machine beat of neo-niente music
and wandered away to disturb the peace
at their mama and papas’ houses

and why are you not surprised to see a
BUKOWSKI
TOLD ME
TO
DO IT
t-shirt hanging outside the shop across the street?

taking a sip of bottled water from the fridge
the label says “Blues”
it bubbles in my mouth
“Frizzante”
I take another sip
“Frizzante”

this is what can happen to your eyes and mind
when you return to Rome after three years
and everything jumps out and hits you
between your pizza pies

Roma, October 9, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

FAT CAT

see, there’s this fat cat
making big bucks
at Homeland Security
and every 2 or 3 years
he’s gotta come up
with something new
to keep his job

his first bright idea:
“No guns on planes.”
an excellent idea
if you’re trying to stem the tide
of terrorism

next was:
“No knives.”
that made sense
and the border cops
collected a fantastic arsenal
of Swiss Army knives

then he made all travelers
take off their shoes
and walk around in sock feet
that was good for a year or two
and Fat Cat kept his job

then it started getting screwy
“No shampoo or scissors”
and the border cops collected
nine hundred thousand
bottles of shampoo
and one million scissors

everybody knew
that wouldn’t stop the terrorists
but Fat Cat had to come up
with something
and besides Fat Cat
was getting fatter
as the boss of a black market empire
reselling shampoo, scissors
and Swiss Army knives

then Fat Cat went over the top
NO GLASSES
(might be broken
and used to slit throats)
NO TEETH
(who wants to get bitten
in the neck by a terrorist?)
NO BANANAS
(I can’t hear you
I got a banana in my ear)
NO LONG HAIR
(those thick braids
are perfect for strangling)
NO HAIR
(try breathing with a mouthful
of buzz cut)
NO BOOKS
(rip out a page and stuff it down
the pilot’s throat and see how much
he feels like flying an airplane)
NO JOKES
(depriving people of their freedoms
is no laughing matter)
(Fat Cat was getting desperate
and he had to come up with something new)
NO PEOPLE
and just like that
Fat Cat
invented himself out of a job

now days
terrorists are obliged
sneak around on back roads
and cross borders on foot
with their chainsaws and pitchforks
slung over their shoulders
and everybody else wonders
why all those empty airplanes
are flying around in the sky

Via del Moro, Rome, October 9, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

FAT CAT FOOTNOTE

and it turns out
airplanes
are the biggest weapon
of all

Via del Moro, Rome, October 9, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

POLLUTED ANGELS

clusters of sleek & chic
Italian babes
in the street outside bars and tavernas
smoking like chimneys
beautiful faces
ugly lungs

54 Via del Moro, Rome, October 9, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

THE PLACEBO TESTAMENT

and I become living proof
that placebos are a load of crap

why didn’t I sleep last night?
because I didn’t take a sleeping pill

I took and aspirin
thinking otherwise

can’t fool me, placebo lovers
my nervous system knew
that it takes more than an aspirin
to shut it down

54 Via del Moro, Rome, October 10, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

I WAS NOT BORN FOR THIS KIND OF SMALL BEER

you’re a stickbeak of a woman
and I’m no jelly of a man

you can be my kookaburra
and I can be you jackeroo

which means
that lately I’ve been thinking
too much of Australia
and not enough of Rome

54 Via del Moro, Rome, October 10, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

WILD ANIMALS IN ROME
for Alex Jones

wake up to the sound
of a bear growling in the street
open the window
look down
and it turns into a motorcycle

girl in the street shouts
“How do you like my hair?”
I look down
and she turns into a porcupine

girl in long black robe
along the Tevere
she looks like a nun
up close
she turns into a penguin
(so she was a nun after all)

sleek & chick babe
high heel boots clicking
long flowing brown hair
I catch up with her at a stoplight
she’s an alligator

woman approaches
with a baby in her arms
as she gets closer
the baby turns into a loaf of bread

suonatore ambulante
on the Isola Tibertina bridge
bluesing along to a reggae backing track
I dance for a few beats
and drop a euro in his tip jar
he looks up from his guitar
he’s a wooly mammoth

just married on the Aventino
he stands in his black suit with carnation
she’s decked out
in a flowing white silk robe with veil
friends gather ’round
taking photos and videos
later, when they get home
and open their cameras,
they’ll find themselves looking at
a pair of just married skunks

hearing a choir of women
singing the mass
from outside Basilica S. Alesio
I go in and see:
it’s a flock of geese
with a pigeon on guitar

skateboarders on the Isola Tibertina
seen from across the river
I squint, get them in focus
it’s a pack of young wolves

a religious procession
thru Piazza Trilusa
down Via del Moro
Brazilian flag
leading the parade
nunnish women
with green and yellow scarves
priestly men in long black frocks
pale faces above white collars
are these Brazilians?
no they are not
they are meercats

dinner with friends
we eat
drink
and we all turn into owls

a 10-year old boy
doing jumping jacks
in front of a floral stand
is he a koala bear?
no, he is not
he is a 10-year old boy

Roma, October 11, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

TEENAGE ROMANCE

fat face girl
with harelip
watches beautiful girl
and boyfriend
kissing

bus from Ponte Sisto to Piazza Cavour, October 11, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

FIRST ITALIAN SONG

molto arrivato
gabritutto spato
sapuvo riga giami
tutto spati blami

hipro placimento
cava cana tento
lagostrami si!
nono solo ti!

lembo spretzatura
proto bacalura
venzo prigo vigo
pistolatto digo

scavi’uomo pino
feata tegamino
pastopollo paschi
tómmoro chinaski

∙ ∙ ∙

WAITING FOR BEAR & DANY TO COME BACK
FROM SAYING HELLO TO MARCUS AURELIUS

sitting on a bench
in the Parco S. Venanzo
facing Garibaldi’s Typewriter
I see passing between us
a man in a blue suit
a woman in red-orange leather jacket
a Smart Car
many motor scooters
a puff of fatal exhaust fumes in the air
an empty, bright yellow tourist bus
a desperado in a golf cap on a bike
3 white taxis
a pair of pigeons
a puff of non-lethal tobacco smoke
(don’t turn away it gets more interesting)
the ghost of Il Pollo di Piazza del Popolo
the memory of a prostitute with one leg
and a dog with three
a bird – maybe a crow –
maybe a carnivorous flamenco
a bus with a poster of a vampire on the side
(nice teeth)
a few random words in Roman dialect
“Smengno mali”
“Geh menugo”
“Margini sbono”
shadows
and the feeling that someone who wanted his tomb
to be that monstrous
must have had an ego bigger than a pyramid

Piazza Venezia, Roma, October 12, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

ALBERGO CALIFORNIO

musician with one leg
behind an electronic keyboard
in the Borghese Gardens
playing Hotel California
I toss a few random coins in his hat
then limp away on my aching back
and suffering knee joints
to show him what it’s like
to have two legs

Borghese Gardens, Roma, October 12, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

HAUT CUISINE ON VIA VENETO

cruising down Via Veneto
we pass 3 momsoons
at a sidewalk table
dressed in Diorama & Ciaobella
puffing on long expensive cigarettes
and blowing smoke in the air
one pushes a plate half-full of pizza slices
towards me as we pass
“Take one” she smiles showing a mouthful
of knife-sharpened chompers
“We’re full!” shouts another
I notice the slices are covered
with cigarette ash
I shake my head
I’m not hungry enough
to stick food that’s been slobbered over
by those polluted momsoons
in my mouth
“Not hungry,” I reply
and 10 steps later
my stomach is growling
my mouth is salivating
and my entire body is starving
so I don’t go back

Via Veneto, Roma, October 12, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

WALKING IN ROME

having worn off my feet
I’m walking ’round on stumps
sometimes I feel like James Brown
and sometimes I feel
like that Japanese tourist
on his 14th straight, non-stop day
of tramping around the city
(no, not THAT Japanese tourist
– the one over there – THAT Japanese tourist)

Via Veneto, Roma, October 12, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

THE RISE, DECLINE & FALL OF THE NICOTINE EMPIRE

for the first time
in 17 years
I felt like smoking
a cigarette
so I didn’t

Via del Moro, Roma, October 12, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

BREAKFAST

Bear’s gone off with Dany
to hike the Gianiccolo
and my breakfast?
fig rolls dipped in albicòcca

54 Via del Moro, Roma, October 13, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

AFTER BREAKFAST

before leaving the house
I look down and see
spaghetti sauce stains
on the front of my pants

not wanting to appear
as an old geezer
who can’t control the food
that goes into his mouth
I stand at the sink
and wipe away the stains
with a wet towel

now I look like an old fart
who can’t stop pissing in his pants

54 Via del Moro, Rome, October 13, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

SECOND ITALIAN SONG

bamo prosciutiamo
bamo piúscitamo
glavi savo pavi
ecruto zudo cliavi

tugli á totali
bócavi botali
poco pasto pesto
cantaruga vesto

o fiori sambabuco
quarto castoloso luto
ma checello scampi fuga
tora campolini ruga

pimi concertuna
pico zimi gluma
muvomatto milviovo
amster stella dammoprovo

gacchio a cremaduta
tago nostramo pluta
clarinetto bichi
mundo ta con tiki

glande miglio tanta re
ruta posto pisto he!

∙ ∙ ∙

MA (FEMME)

the sound of American voices
in the street
the men braying like donkeys
the women screeching like owls
drives me up a wall

I find myself
talking to Ma (femme)
in bad French

Via del Moro, Rome, October 13, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

I WANT TO SAY SHELLY

an English woman’s voice
floats up from the street
quoting “And did those feet in ancient times . . . ”

I want to say “Shelly”
I want to say “Ozymandias”
but neither are right
I want to say “Cold Play
with Brian Eno”
and that’s close enough
taking us back
to when they ruled the world

54 Via del Moro, Rome, October 14, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

SANTA MARIA IN TRASTEVERE

the Madonna’s gone
removed from her chapel
the back wall is empty
where did she go?

out on the streets
for a pilgrimage to paradise?
or did she sneak away in the night
without leaving a forwarding address
or the telephone number
of the friend she is staying with?
or did some barbarians from the south
think she was just another Sabine Woman
and whisk her off
to their Houses of Unvirginity?

Santa Maria is NOT in Trastevere

Rome, October 14, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

MA (FEMME) AGAIN

even the sound
of German
and French
drives me up a wall
I have stopped speaking
to Ma (femme)
in public

Rome, October 14, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

SONO INVISIBLE

I am invisible
teenagers walk right thru me
kids jump over
adults veer from side to side
as if avoiding
a strong negative magnetic force

must be these ZZ Top cheap sunglasses

Rome, October 14, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

FREE RIDE

hop on a tram
flop down in a seat by the door
sign says
HANDICAPS ONLY
the ticket taker comes by
says, “you can’t sit there”
I say, “I forgot to bring along
my wheelchair.”

Largo Argentina, Roma, October 14, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

BAGATELLA FOR OBOE, BELLS AND WATER FOUNTAIN

Pino plays oboe
in Plaza S. Maria in Trastevere
against the white noise music of the fountain
Albinoni
Handel
Bach
Vivaldi
we arrive late
he’s packing up
but he unpacks
and plays a Tchaikovsky aria
just for us
the bells of the church
ring midnight
and there’s nobody here
not even Pino
who can turn back the hands
of the clock
and give us another day
in Rome

Piazza S. Maria in Trastevere, Roma, October 14, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

MOMENTO MORI

late night packing
to leave in the morning
every sound coming up
from the street
sounds like someone
ripping another curtain
across Rome

54 Via del Moro, Rome, October 14, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

THIRD ITALIAN SONG

capo lupo lutomente
appiamo dollo vente
senzabolite con fugato
grappiamo ho capato

gastoprego carbonero
non é questo poco vero
picio la cantabiletto
alligasto purtametto

un Espago dic’ “Vamois a Pamos”
Io vampiro altre panos
tevitrasto soccerando
sugacini sunatando

alitablo tagliaterra
yogi tanto bollo berra
tengopalli mostro po
lockamando ciri ho!

∙ ∙ ∙

BETWEEN STAZIONE TRASTEVERE & AEROPORTO DA VINCI

on the train to the airport
the ticket taker comes thru
but he doesn’t punch our tickets
he takes out a pen
and writes a poem on each

on mine it says
If you’re looking for fun in Burkina Faso
come see me, Pablo Picasso

October 14, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

ITALIAN MCDONALDS AT THE AIRPORT
for Alex

cheeseburger & coke
sit down to eat
up comes a bus boy
wearing a half of basketball
on his head
and dribbling the other half

he plays for the McBurger Kings
fast food, fast breaks

Aeroporto Da Vinci, October 14, 2015

∙ ∙ ∙

HOTEL OF IMAGINATION
inspired by a drawing of Alex Jones

1.
last night I stuffed my ears
with bullets of foam rubber
and slept in the silence of the lamb chops

got up this morning
sat on the edge of the bed
and sneezed
both plugs shot out of my ears
bounced off the walls
and landed in my lap
I have mastered
the art of the ear plug rebound

2.
saw a drone hovering
above a park
whipped out my Colt .45
and shot it down

clinging to the back
was a tiny figure
two arms, two legs
and a shapeless head
with flesh as soft
as modeling clay

I’d not only put a bullet hole
thru his space craft
but thru his belly button too

I stuck my finger
in the bullet hole
and wiggled it around
he screamed, “Fark!”
and died

3.
DERMATOLOGICAMENTE TESTATO
it says on the wrapping
of a bar of soap
which means (I guess)
that it’s safe to wash with

so I take a shower
and come out with my face
and entire body
covered with blisters
they must have tested it on pigs

4.
people standing up straight
as ramrods, never smiling
rolling around on those
2-wheel segways

these are the Zombie Rollers
they escaped from their graves
the gregarious ones are hoping to find
a new home in an empty swimming pool
20 or 30 don’t mind
being squeezed in side by side
like sardines

the industrious ones are headed
for the fountains of Rome
to stretch out underwater
and catch the coins
tourists toss over their shoulders

5.
we missed the starlings this year
– i storni –
those flocks of migrating birds
that swarm over Rome
by the hundreds of thousands
swooping and swirling
in great masses

“They haven’t arrived yet,”
someone tells us
“We expect them any day.”

we train to the airport
a bit sad that we missed the storni

the plane takes off
and turns back over the city
heading north
and flies right into
a swirling mass of storni
several thousand clog
the engines of the plane
and we crash land
nose down
in the middle of the Coliseum

thousands of spectators
rise to their feet, applauding
shouting for more
then they send in the lions
to clean up the mess

6.
because Giuseppe Verdi lived
in a very small room
– 6 feet x 6 feet –
he had to limit his collection
of musical instruments

he brought in a grand piano
a vibraphone
and a harp
he had to lie flat on the vibraphone
to play the harp
and he had to sit on the piano top
to play the cello

next he got a pair of tubas
and a string bass
to add lower notes
to his musical spectrum
the high end being dominated
by 22 flutes
33 clarinets
and 44 oboes

later he added
a set of 5 tympani
a bass drum
and a rack of tubular bells

choir practice at Giuseppe’s
was no easy squeezin’s

∙ ∙ ∙

ROMA RITORNELLA

plane lands in Brussels
we step out
into 3° chill
it’s snowing in the Ardennes
the roads are slick with ice
two hours ago we were
steaming around
in 25° heat
knowing we would be in
for a shock
but my imagination
didn’t go that far
“shock” was just a word
an abstraction
now I’m up to my knees in freeze
and I feel like a little boy
I feel like screaming
“I wanna go back to Rome!
“I wanna go back to Campo Dei’ Fiori
“I wanna go back and say “Ciao Bruno’ again
“I wanna eat some more salcicce
from Mario’s Cucina Tipici Roma
and gelato from Fior di Luna
drink some more Birra Peroni
take another look at the
BUKOWSKI
TOLD ME
TO
DO IT
t-shirt hanging outside the door
of Acid Drop (and maybe
go in and buy it because
Bukowski Told Me To Do It)
listen to the bells of S. Maria in Trastevere
listen to Pino play his oboe
drop a coin in the crippled woman’s
leather tithe bag
and ward off the parasite vendors of umbrellas
and blinking lights
with crucifix and curses
STRONZINO! I want to go back to Rome

October 14, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

ANIMALS WE LIVE AMONG

THE WOOD PIGEON
relatively slow, chews gum
but rarely blows a bubble
favorite quotation: talk is cheap
until you hire a hit man.

THE BLACK WIDOW
also known as the “Glass Window Spider”
harmless unless poked with a stick
at which ‘point’ it becomes enraged
and spits hot lava in your face
only a quick injection
of vindshield viper venom
will save your life

THE SLUG
pervasive
gets in your pockets
find them in your beard and bed
impossible to eliminate
stab one and ten crawl out to take its place
have been known to fuse
into a single gigantic mass
break thru windows
and devour sleepers in their beds
keep a shotgun at hand
or a sling shot

THE CAT
he comes and goes
his unique brainwaves have never been measured
his genomic structure has never been mapped
scientists have speculated that THE CAT
never sleeps, only pretends to
this is called “The Sleeping Theory”
many books have been written about THE CAT
read them

THE FLY
if you haven’t experienced THE FLY
you’re in for a big surprise

THE SHOE ALLIGATOR
you can’t miss him
one day you’ll look down at your feet
and see that one has turned into
a SHOE ALLIGATOR
it will claim kinship
with your CROCODILE BELT
which will tighten and squeeze your innards
until you snap like a turtle
and swim back to the swamp

THE MOSQUITO
its bite is bigger than its barf
but its barf can be quite nasty
if it gets under your skin
and turns your blood to yogurt

prepare for THE MOSQUITO season
by mainlining small amounts of yogurt
(raspberry and strawberry flavors recommended)
to get used to that puffed up feeling
you can also practice swatting
(swatting can be useful during THE MOSQUITO season
as well as later when weasels come out of their comas
break down the walls of your bedroom
and attack you when asleep)

THE WEASEL
to live with THE WEASEL is not easy
ask Tom “Weasel” Jones
who grew up slapping weasels
ask Bill “Weasel” Gates
he grew up to become a professional weasel slapper
ask Joan “Weasel” Baez
who died from a mob attack
while performing with her heavy metal band
The Iron Weasel

THE COMMON COLD MICROBE
contrary to popular belief
THE COMMON COLD MICROBE
is an animal
and it can turn popular people
into microphobes
it motors around on the wheels
of its hind legs
and you never see it coming
until it sneezes
and then it’s too late
there is no turning back
after a few years of many sneezes
you will turn into a MICROBE
and popular people
will blow their noses in your face

THE MICROPHONE
contrary to popular belief
THE MICROPHONE
is an animal
singers while singing have been bitten
by wild microphones
and have needed immediate medical treatment
other singers have died
from untamed microphone bites
to be safe it is advisable
to unplug THE MICROPHONE
and just pretend
(as Tom Jones says
“It’s better to pretend
than to be pretentious.”)

THE TOM JONES
there is little doubt
that THE TOM JONES is an animal
ask Gruesome “The Grip” Grundgeback
and his wife Gurgle “The Giggle” Gaggle
who once owned a pet TOM JONES
and claimed it was cuter than a border collie

likewise THE BILL GATES
and THE JOAN BAEZ
are animals
the GATES is a ten-foot worm
that gets into your record collection
and eats up all your music

the BAEZ is an aquatic, egg-laying beast
that leaps out of shallow ponds
and latches onto your throat
with its scissor-shaped teeth
as you paddle by in a canoe

THE CANOE
any who might doubt
that THE CANOE is an animal
need only to take a ride in one
you’ll be convinced
when it starts talking to you

THE PICCADILLO
a cross between a piccolo and an armadillo
a breeding experiment carried out
by the Pavlopetri Symphony Orchestra
hoping to attract new spectators
by replacing the old piccolo players
similar experiments have resulted in
THE TROMBOAR
THE VIBRAPHANT
and THE VIOLLAMA
having failed their auditions
these mutants can now be heard daily
playing in the Gerousia Zoo’s Ragtime Band
along with TUBABOONS
BOUZOUKIWIS
OKAPIANOS
TYMPANEAGLES
and PIPE ORGANDERS

October 18, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

THE INFERNAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

“Silas Jorgan
played the organ”
Charles Dickens, A Message from the Sea

Adolphe Max
played the sax
Rip Torn
played the horn
Roseann Barr
played guitar
John Peel
played glockenspiel

Michael Stype
played the bagpipe
Steve McQueen
played tambourine
Keith Moon
played the bassoon
Henry Ford
the harpsichord

Robert Ludlum
played the drum
Sharon Stone
played slide trombone
Eugene O’Neil
played pedal steel
and a guy named Zoot
played the flute

John MacEnroe
played the oboe
Lance Armstrong
played the gong
Harrison Ford
played the washboard
Dan Perlongo
played the bongo

Bill Haley
played the ukulele
Chester Himes
played the chimes
Rin Tin Tin
played the theremin
Dr. No No
played the dobro

Bruno of Nola
played the viola
The Wandering Jew
played the didgeridoo
Arthur Rambo
played the banjo
Stephen King
played the thing

Joe DiMaggio
played the adagio
Harry Partch
played the march
Peter Pan
played the music stand
Othello
played the cello

Hester Prynn
played the violin
Winnie the Pooh
played the kazoo
Billy Budd
played the spud
Garp
played the harp

Neil Young
played the tongue
Lenny Bruce
played the noose
Jack Kerouac
played the Cadillac
William Blake
played the rake

Alfred Deller
played the propeller
Joe the Plumber
played the cucumber
Roald Dahl
played the basketball
Michael J. Fox
played the jukebox

Albert Einstein
played the stop sign
Wolfgang Mozart
played the shopping cart
Robin BeeGee
played the squeegee
Loudon Wainwright
played the streetlight

Eisenhower
played the Eiffel Tower
Al Capone
played the telephone
Peter Ustinof
played the bubelkoff
Dolly Parton
played the buttermilk carton

Minnesota Fats
played the stuffed alley cats
The Petaluma Skins
played the Minnesota Twins
Daniel Boone
played the balloon
Dolly Parton
started fartin’

The Dixie Chicks
played the chopsticks
Joe Palooka
played the bazooka
Toscanini
played the bikini
Monica Lewinsky
played the stravinsky

The Great Gatsby
played the blavatsky
James Dean
played the giggle machine
Ali McGraw
played the saw
My Boy Lollipop
played the mop

Walter Mitty
played the scum ditty
Chief Yellow Jacket
played the tennis racket
Ichabod Crane
played the key chain
Stella Artois
played the je ne sais quoi

Richard Gere
played the chandelier
Derek Jeter
played the parking meter
Margaret Mead
played the rosary bead
Socrates and Plato
played the tomato

Bob the Meercat
played the beer mat
Tiny McBladder
played the Ladder
Wing Ding Dot
played the slingshot
Godzilla Zimmy
played thechimney

Jimmy Kilometer
played the thermometer
Zorba the Gripper
played the zipper
Glenn Ghoul
played the swimming pool
Jeeze the Squeeze
played the sleaze

Fagonard Clophard
played the bard
Lampblack Charley
played the snarly
Goose McDream
played the scream
Uncle Cheese
played “My Dog Has Fleas”

October 19, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

T.ZIMMERMAN, PHILOSOPHER, AGE 74

K
eeps the Americonomy booming

F
easts on towering clouds of misinformation

H
as been frightened by full moon reflections from glass rooftops

S
leeps with a pair of stone-sharpened steel scissors
under his mattress

O
verfed from books, has grown obese with words

H
as never met a man with a beard he didn’t like
except that Apeneck down in Gerousia

H
as a collection of maps of places
no one has ever heard of

H
as sailed one ocean, three seas, four lakes
crossed 114 rivers
and never once had to swim

H
as slept overnight in 411 different cities (or towns)
and only once had a bad dream

P
uts his head in a lion’s mouth only when he needs
to extract the lion’s wisdom teeth with his own
(often he also extracts his own wisdom teeth)

I
s smart enough to know that 12 can go into 36
but that 36 cannot go into 12

P
lays chess with pieces of cheese (cheese chess)

D
enies that he is a Jewalloon

I
s rumored to be the only man on the planet
to take a leak with cream and sugar

O
nce attended a “Come As You Are” party
as a naked bee keeper

T
akes no shit from the cat shit man

H
as been repeatedly attacked in his dreams
by Elizabethan playwrights speaking Spake Shearian Shite

L
aughed all the way to the bank
then found he had no money in his pockets

I
s aware that the world is controlled
by a conspiracy of cartoons

F
ears the day when laughter in public will be illegal
(punishable by immediate lamppost lynching)

I
s wise enough to know that when the sausages start singing
it’s time to get out the harmonica

H
as heard people say that he “percolates the snides”
and would like to know what that means

S
topped smoking for one day in a row

A
t the age of 14 was Marilyn Monroed into submission

U
sed to be a baseball player with an IQ of 130
and a batting average of 108
(or was it the other way around?)

C
an’t stop giggling when his stigmata starts bleeding

N
ever says always and seldom says never
(or is it “always says never and never says seldom?)
(one or the other)

O
wns the only known copy of the recording
“Miles Davis Plays Ben Franklin”

W
ishes he could believe people when they apologize
and finds it impossible when they come back
to say they’re sorry for a tripping over the same fuckup.

E
scaped from the arms of a crazy woman
only after suffering multiple cunt wounds

P
uts his finger on a blister of the earth
and feels thousands of tiny people below
running for their lives

L
ies in bed at night with the window open
and listens to the sound of trains on distant tracks
hears the perfect line
of music in the peaceful silence

October 20, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

LIMAX PROXIMUS

towel drying on a rack
in the courtyard
tag touching the ground
brushing back and forth
in the breeze
just enough contact
to allow a slug
to climb up and hide
in the folds of the towel

so tomorrow
when I step out of the shower
eyes closed
grab the towel
and wipe my face
I’ll get an eyesocket
full of juicy leopardskin slime

October 24, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

CAT TIME

why is Jimbo coming around
at 4 p.m.
for his evening meal?

because he forgot
to set his clock back an hour

October 27, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

I AM CHICKEN LITTLE

raking the leaves
under the oak trees
from the garage to the house
an acorn dropped
and bounced off my head

my whole life
passed in front of my eyes:
a couple of empty beer bottles
a birthday card
and a James Bond Halloween mask

October 28, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

GRAVITY SUCKS AGAIN

the yellow oak leaf
hangs by the thinnest
of molecular threads
waiting for the wind

I blow against it
and it floats to the ground
I hear its soft sigh:
“Free at last.”

as it plops on the ground
I hear its angry whisper:
“Oh shit – not again.
Another burial?”

November 1, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

JOKER

stand-up
comic
on TV
he grew up
in a big family
his mom
his dad
his uncles
his aunts
all told him
he was
funny
and like
a fool
he
believed
them

November 4, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

APOSTATE

a few minutes ago
it was 2 a.m.
then it was 3 a.m.
now it’s 4 a.m.

what’s going on?
what happened to me?

I got apotstated by the true believers
in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower

November 13, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

TOMMA WAITSAH

I step out of the shower
eyes closed, singing
“Oh Tomma Waitsah
– ticky TommaWaitsah”
and smash a toad
underfoot

I knew Tomma Waitsah
was evil
casting those Bukowski
ghost spells on me
down thru the years
with his gravel voice
begging me to worship
his underlip goatee

November 16, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

CALL ME MUD

in Mexico
it is now against the law
to name your baby
Scrotum
Facebook
Twitter
Burger King
James Bond
Hitler
Robocop
Circumcision
&
Rolling Stone

they say it’s to protect the children

in Australia it’s
Bonghead
Dickhead
Shithead
Ikea
iMac
&
Spinach

over in New Zealand it’s
Anal
Sex Fruit
&
Lucifer

in Denmark it’s
Anus

and in China
@

protect the children from what?
other Sex Fruits, Bongheads
Scrotums & Rolling Stones?

I think I’ll adopt a bunch of kids
and call them
Zipcode
Bazooka
Bagpipe
Shortstop
Glam Punch
Mother La Mama’s Mustard
Wooie Looie Gooie
Stigmata
Bassoon
Guillotine
Slippery When Wet
Quicksand
Epic Poem
Peyote
Coyote
Bud Weiser
Fly Swatter
Homeland Security
Fawlty Towers (twins)
Sinustology
Milf
Fungus Amungus
Quasi Mojo

that’s right: Quasi Mojo
take that you shithead censors
stick that Burger King
up your Anus

November 17, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

INFIDEL BLUES

we’ve turned so many corners
lately it seems
we must have gone around the block
by now

time to strap on
my shooting iron
and chase them thievin’ varmints
off the south forty

they call me Infidel
I call them puke brain cowards

yes I’ve read your Koran
it’s an ugly book
almost as ugly
as the Holy Bible

I am the wandering Jew
I am Charlie Hebdo
I am the Eiffel Tower
I am Jerusalem

November 18, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

CAGOUL

forget about making terrorists
register when they buy a gun
make their black masks illegal

see one of these goons in the street
rip off his hood
and send him to the chopping block
with the words
“Enough peek-a-boo, Bo-Peep.”

see one buying a hood in a shop
send in the Cagoul Police
and put him in prison.

no more hiding, cowards
we know what you look like now

November 19, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

SAD, SAD WORLD

The cries of the victims
are identical
to the cries of the attackers

and so it goes in this sad, sad world

Belgium has been the crossroads
of two world wars
now it’s the crossroads of a third
they say the terrorists come from Molenbeek
now Molenbeek has become infamous
its name a curse
I remember not long ago
when Molenbeek’s claim to fame
was a lousy soccer team

and so it goes in this sad, sad world

turn on CNN
to keep up with the breaking news
and 50% of the time
they broadcast ads for themselves

and so it goes in this sad, sad world

they say we’re fighting a war
against terrorism
but terrorism is an abstract idea
(Don Quixote fought wars
against abstract ideas
and see what happened to him)
you can fight terrorists
but we’re not doing
a very good job of that right now

and so it goes in this sad, sad world

seems the only effective way
we can protect ourselves
from these ignorant thugs
is to carry a gun
shoot the terrorist
before he (or she) can shoot you
and we’re back in the days
of the Wild West

and so it goes in this sad, sad world

all the schools are closed today
even the nurseries
the pacifiers hang from named hooks
unsucked

and so it goes in this sad, sad world

a week after the attacks in Paris
the news has moved on
to other atrocities and banalities:

Houston toddler killed
after sibling put her in an oven

The shooting death of a pastor’s pregnant wife

Speaking more than one language is discovered
to have a number of practical benefits

Israeli spy freed from U.S. Prison

North and South Korea decide to talk things over

Colorado governor orders destruction of marijuana
treated with unapproved pesticides

Republicans blast Obama

Syracuse N.Y. man defrauds customers of $1.6 million
selling ear buds as hearing aids

Tumbles the 2-legged dog gets a new set of wheels

Snow in Scotland

we’ll have to wait
for another attack
somewhere else
so people can lift their hands
in the air and exclaim:
“Something must be done about this!”

and so it goes in this sad, sad world

November 20, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

MEN WITH BEARDS

“Men with Beards” is an image that haunts the minds of the most famous conspiracy advocates of our time. Ask them who was behind the assassination of Abraham Lincoln? And they will reply without hesitation, “Men with Beards”

Who is promoted the rise of the devil’s music in New Orleans known as “Jass”? Men with Beards.

Who killed Jesus Christ? Men with Beards.

No one knows the names of the members of this occult cabal which has survived the ages, tho both Abraham Lincoln and Jesus Christ were “Men with Beards.”

It is a widely accepted fact that the world is ruled by Men with Beards, but it is erroneous to conjecture that to join the club all you have to do is stop shaving.

This has been attempted by numerous men without beards, all of whom have failed. They stopped shaving, but nothing happened. The only fruit of their labors was the haphazard formation of a common community organization known as “Men without Beards.”

To demonstrate how deeply engrained the theme of “Men with Beards” has become in our society, take a look at the following excerpt from a sociological study done by a team of experts, published under the title “Men with Beards.” It is a transcript from a typical ethics lesson in a typical fifth grade class in a typical elementary school.
Teacher: Tell me children, who are the most famous men in the world?”
Children: Men with Beards!
Teacher: Who are the most intelligent?
Children: Men with Beards!
Teacher: Who are the most talented?
Children: Men with Beards!
Teacher: Boys, when you grow up what do you want to be?
Boys: Men with Beards!
Teacher: Girls, when you grow up who will you marry?
Girls: Boys with Beards!
Teacher: Excuse me?
Girls: (giggle)
Teacher: Who?
Girls: Men with Beards!
Teacher: And when you have children what kind of children will they be?
Children: Babies with Beards!

December 18, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

HALF MOON, HALF CRAZY

walking the garden path
past midnight
I look up at the sky
and say:
“Coo coo, moon.”

hearing myself say that
I know I have finally become
the village idiot

December 19, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

THE WINTER SOLSTICE QUARTETS

you say you are the bone
and the master of meat
well, blow-dry my balls
I’m the Cream of Wheat

∙ ∙ ∙

Puffy was a harlot
Puffy was a witch
I got rid of Puffy
that huffy little bitch

∙ ∙ ∙

I never had a girlfriend
I never had a chance
because I wasn’t good at
slow pants romance

∙ ∙ ∙

I bet you never knew
that I’m a pukin’ fool
and now come to think of it
I’ll need your swimming pool

∙ ∙ ∙

there’s a man in my wasteland
and he’s just standing there
someone get an airbrush
and brush off his hair

∙ ∙ ∙

someone’s got a toothpick
poking out his gums
I prefer to get my kicks
by sticking up my thumbs

∙ ∙ ∙

he shivers when he licks
he shudders when he looks
that’s’ why they call him Bonafide
the Hunchback Fishing Hook

∙ ∙ ∙

I looked in the toilet bowl
I looked in the mirror
looks like the Hoodoo Man
is getting nearer

∙ ∙ ∙

a little spoon of eggnog
a spoonful of rum
lay it on me, Satan
come and taste my tongue

∙ ∙ ∙

one for the monkey
two for Joltin’ Joe
three’s not a number
Marlon Brando told me so

∙ ∙ ∙

has anybody got a camera
hanging round his neck?
take a shot of this:
the thumb of Gregory Peck

∙ ∙ ∙

so give that man a standing O
he’s survived the rising tide
he swims in dirty water
with a stun-gun by his side

∙ ∙ ∙

a grilled cheese milk shake
for the boy on the TV screen
a grease-dipped burger
for the girl on the magazine

∙ ∙ ∙

Papa Dupe Along
smokes a Cuban cigar
drives a 2-ton bike
and pretends it’s a car

∙ ∙ ∙

if you go from north to south
you’ll probably get a peek
of the one million paddle boats
up Shit Creek

∙ ∙ ∙

T is for Texas
T’s for T-Shirt too
K’s for Frankie Kafka
and his Kansas Kangaroo

∙ ∙ ∙

here is the revised
scheme of things
you hiss at the geese
and I’ll flap their wings

∙ ∙ ∙

we tore down the walls
we ripped up the flag
we raised the roof and blew up
your old colostomy bag

∙ ∙ ∙

once or twice a year
you drop by to see
if you are still a swine
and I am still a pigmy

∙ ∙ ∙

I never thought I’d hear
a flute played by a unicorn
a harp played by an octopus
or a horse-powered horn

∙ ∙ ∙

the drums you hear at midnight
they have a ragtime beat
but the girls you see at dawn
have flippers on their feet

∙ ∙ ∙

most of these here drainpipes
pour into the sea
one or two go way around
and dump your crap on me

∙ ∙ ∙

open the gate
for the Sacred Cow
Winston tastes good
like wow

∙ ∙ ∙

come what may
with Joe and Jane
we’ve still got Alaska
in the Eskimojo rain

∙ ∙ ∙

come what may
with your husband and my wife
we’ve still got Calcutta
and that switch blade knife

∙ ∙ ∙

Bootstrap Steve
said to Backslap Bob:
let’s drink some beers
and act like slobs

∙ ∙ ∙

Backslap Bob
to Bootstrap Steve:
I only drink at Adam’s
on New Year’s Eve

∙ ∙ ∙

then how about some wine
said Bootstrap Steve
to Backslap Bob
ripping off his sleeve

∙ ∙ ∙

or how about a bottle
of Jamaican rum
said Bootstrap Steve
to his back slappin’ chum

∙ ∙ ∙

I don’t like Jamaica
tho I know reggae rules
said Backslap Bob
to the Bootstrappin’ fool

∙ ∙ ∙

so Bob and Steve
went to Saigon
to Diddle Diddle Dumpling
My Son John

∙ ∙ ∙

but My Son John
was hooked on smack
he couldn’t find a needle
in a one-straw haystack

∙ ∙ ∙

guess what happened
to Steve and Bob
they went to No-Blow Sue
and got a slow toe job

∙ ∙ ∙

and that’s the story
of No-Blow Sue
and Steve and Bob
and the Wandering Jew

December 21, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

ATLAS MAN

new Atlas For Men shirt
plaid XXL
sealed tight in a plastic bag
impossible to open

tag says:
IF YOU CAN’T OPEN THIS BAG
WITH YOUR HANDS
YOU’RE NOT MAN ENOUGH
TO WEAR THIS SHIRT

I cut it open with a knife

Dec. 24, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

SHORT CUT

I’ve grown so tired
of stepping in cat crap
that I now leave my shoes
outside overnight
next to the cat bowl

December 26, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

BABY BOOM

they say I cried all the time
when I was a baby

from the age of zero
to one year
I didn’t stop crying

now I’d like to know
how they got me to stop

December 29, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

AND YOU DON’T HAVE TO BREAK THE WORLD
HIGH JUMP RECORD TONIGHT EITHER

for Angela Taylor

been afraid of snakes
for as long as I can remember

in Leslie Marmon Silko’s
The Turquoise Ledge
I read how she takes care
of the rattlesnakes
that slither into her garden
everyday and night
and I’m thinking it’s high time
to put the phobia behind me
find out what I’ve been missing
go to Tucson, hook up
with Leslie for a couple of years
and get my hands deep
into rattlesnake hoodoo

Angela shakes her head
“You don’t have to touch
those snakes, leave them alone
you’ve been around 75 years
and you’ve done plenty of stuff
in your time; you don’t need
to be messin’ with snakes.”

I feel better now
I have permission to take it easy
that’s all I needed to get my brain train
back on the track

now
what about
those spiders?

December 30, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL (LATER YEARS)

I used to be a dog in the manger
Now I am God

I used to be the horse you rode into town on
Now I am Zane Grey’s sidekick and holy companion

I used to be a beatnik
Now I am a toothless beaten nitwit

I used to sing “for Richard Sands”
Now I don’t even bother

I used to be really old
Now I’m really old

I used to think the history books were right
Now I even doubt the geographies

I used to put my head in the lion’s mouth
Now tame dogs bite my kneecaps

I used to have a dog named Tippy
Now I have a cat named Jimbo
(and he looks more and more like a dog
as the years go by)

I used to take exams in universities
Now I watch quiz shows on TV
and try to beat the contestants to the answers

I used to be a white man
Now I’m blue in the face and green around the gills

I used to play trombone
Now I play harmonica – slide harmonica

I used to read a book as if I were swimming
in an ocean, believing if I stopped I would drown
Now I dog paddle up poetic creeks and get stopped
by rhyming rocks

I used to have tonsils, an appendix and a gall bladder
Now I have bedsprings in my knees
and hinges in my teeth

I used to be scared of everything
even the man in the backseat of the convertible
wearing a black leather jacket and aviator shades
Now I’m frightened only when I’m stretched out
between two semis, racing down the highway
side by side at 70 mph
with my wrists strapped to one
and my ankles strapped to the other

I used to work for the United States of America
Now I wish I’d let those fires burn

I used to twist to the tango
Now I bop to Bach

I used to ride a bicycle
Now I pedal in my sleep, wake up with sore muscles
and find myself 90 km away in another town

I used to ride the bumper cars at the fair
Now I ride in an ordinary car
and I can’t tell the difference

I used to ride the merry-go-round at the fair
Now I run around in circles
and pretend I’m a Trojan horse

I used to spin around and around until I got dizzy
Now I tell the gods to toe the line
because without me, they would be nothing.

I used to collect stamps – until a cow ate my collection
Now I’ve got the offspring of that cow
I milk her morning and night
and once in a while I squeeze out
a 3¢ Washington or a Bohemia-Moravia Hitler
on a good day I find a triangular
green and yellow Guatemala
floating in the milk pail
Someday, I am sure, if I keep milking hard
I will recover my entire collection

I used to have a top-20 hit in Lebanon
Now they’ve bombed all the jukeboxes
and the kids have to dance
to machine gun bullets aimed at their feet

I used to be a curator
in The Museum of Failed Parachutes
Now I hold my pants up with a ripcord

I used to live at the center of the universe
where nothing escaped my attention
and I boasted a solution to each and every problem
Now I am but a clue
in one of life’s lesser mysteries

I used to be a cowboy, a bat boy and a boy scout
Now I am a trashman, a weather man and a Zimmerman

I used to be God
Now I am just a spectator

October 21 to December 31, 2015

₪ ₪ ₪

Sailing paper airplanes at the moon

Poems 2016  |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

FOG BLOBS AND MIST PRICKS

villagers are shooting off fireworks
on the southern horizon
but no matter how hard they try
they can’t compete with Orion

the Hunter stands as a backdrop
absorbing their feeble pops
as if they were blobs of fog

and here comes the Dog Star
snapping his jaws and gobbling down
those puny human lights
as if they were mist pricks of popcorn

00:20, January 1, 2016



CROSSED WIRES

odors with crossed wires

chili con carne that smells like cat shit
camonmille tea that smells like burning hair
burnt toast that smells like toe jam

what’s going on?
& what’s next?

how about others senses with crossed wires?
a growling stomach that sounds like a typewriter
a dixieland band that sounds
like a ton of tin cans falling downstairs
orange juice that tastes like milk

& how about crossed wires with crossed wires?
the sight of stars in the constellation of Orion
that tastes like popcorn

January 12, 2016



BUTTERFLY BURGER

a beautiful
orange and black
butterfly
has decided
to winter
in my studio

he comes around
at night
when I switch
on the light
at my writing table
lands on a finger
of my left hand
as I’m writing

he likes me

at first I thought
it was my warm
personality
or maybe
my holy aura

but no
he’s licking
my finger
lapping up
the grease
to keep
from starving

I am
his Burger King

January 16, 2016



BLUE HEAVEN

if people on earth
think that everything
they see, touch
and hear is real
and then die
and go to heaven
and heaven is exactly
as they thought
it would be
they should not relax
they should be asking themselves:
are we going to keep on
getting fooled
forever?
January 19, 2016



SLEEPING WITH SNOW

changing pillow cases
Bear slipped one of my pillows
into a case left behind
by our 3-year old granddaughter

it’s pink
with a cartoon 7 dwarves theme

I now sleep with pleasure
with my head
between Snow White’s tits

Walt Disney
where were you
when I needed you
January 25, 2016



THE MASKED POET UNMASKED
to David Taylor

I’m thinking about Bullboy
I’m thinking about John C’s spirit
in London
with Allen G
I’m thinking about Clifford Jordan
& John Gilmore
blowin’ in from Chicago
I’m thinking about Eric Dolphy
I’m thinking about Spike Lee
does any of this make sense?

January 25, 2016



BUTTER RAT

she thought it was
a rat
sneaking around behind the boxes
in the attic

it was a butterfly
with a very long tail

Jan. 31, 2016



GROUNDHOG DAY

ground hog day?
invented by some dorkaroonie
who had nothing going for him
but a crushing need
to be noticed
running around waving his arms
in the air
“Hey look at me
I’m the guy who invented
Groundhog Day!”

so if you’re jumping up
and down
because it’s Groundhog Day
you’re just a lesser dorkaroonie
crawling around
in another dorkaroonie’s
footprints

other days
invented by dorkaroonies:
Valentine’s Day
(dorkaroonie romance)
4th of July
(for patriotic dorkaroonies)
April Fool’s Day
(can’t tell the fools
from the dorkaroonies)
Labor Day
(a conspiracy of dorkaroonie slackers)
Thanksgiving
(dorkaroonies killing turkeys
to celebrate the day
the original dorkaroonies
exterminated the Indians)

how about Dorkaroonie Day?
Feb. 2nd (why not?)
celebrate it with a parade
of dorkaroonies walking around
with their shoes on opposite feet
and a feast
with bucktooth dorkaroonies
chewing on barbecued groundhogs

Feb. 2, 2016



ANCIENT HAIKU

let us obey now
the wisdom of the ages:
be spontaneous

Feb. 4, 2016



SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES

in the old movies
everybody smoked
especially Bogart
the quintessential cool guy
cigarette dangling
from the corner of his mouth
so the smoke wouldn’t drift
into his eyes

today, in the new movies
only the bad guys smoke
when they’ve got a cigarette
plastered to their lower lip
you know they’re going to die
in the next scene
bullet to the brain
if only they’d quit
before they left the house
they would have never
robbed the 7-Eleven

in the old movies
the bad guy didn’t need
a prop
to let you know
how bad he was
he was the stud
who threw the old lady
down the stairs
in a wheel chair

today, in the new movies
as in actual life
it’s against the law
to smoke in taverns
restaurants, airports, cinemas
train, buses, taxis
and other public places
see the huddled masses
outside bars in the rain
hunched over
smoldering coffin nails
like guilty felons
committing petty crimes

tomorrow
it will be against the law
to smoke anywhere
a crime to pollute the air
with carbon dioxides
you’ll see smoking criminals
slinking thru the back alleys
escaping from the Tobacco Police
who cruise the streets
in their SUVs and Humvees
while out on a nearby freeway
thousands of cars and trucks
stream in and out of the city
every minute, their exhaust
pipes playing the old
Oil Boogie Woogie

February 8, 2016



AGE 75

a little bit fuzzy
a little bit yow
a little bit peevy
a little bit now

imagine being in a place
you never imagined
you’d ever be

a little bit coocoo
with a lotta you and me
a little bitta buzz
with a lotta chivaree

how can you imagine
going back to a common place
you never left in the first place
isn’t that what they call crazy?

a little bit hazy
with a lotta inner space
and not one like
on the Book of the Face

jeepers creepers
I got the heebee jeebees
that’s what happens
when you listen to the Bee Gees

a little bitta drum beat
a little bitta freeze
hand me down my shotgun
I gotta shoot the breeze

did you ever see a man
with a cane in his hand
walk up to a bird house
and fill it full of butter?

a little bitta flutter
a little bitta stutter
a lug of locomotion
with one foot in the gutter

how do I get back
something I never had?
where do you turn
when every moment is a turning point?

how much does it cost for a morning after?
how much for another afternoon?
how much for a cage of motorcycle leather
when the night catches light from a full blue moon?

February 14, 2016



WALTZING MATILDA

watching a youtube replay
of the 2000 Sydney Olympics
closing ceremony
Slim Dusty singing
Waltzing Matilda
I thought I was just relaxing
and having fun
turns out I was doing research
for my book
now Matilda is all over the place
she keeps popping up
as an ear worm
in sea storms
during doldrum stagnations
and while riding across Mexico
escaping from bandits

I’ve been waltzing with Matilda
for 100 pages
and for all I know
she’ll come out and dance
at the end of the final paragraph

March 1, 2016



FREEWHEELIN’ FRANK
to Frank Hulin

Frank drops by
standing straight and tall
as always
stays for a few hours
a few beers
and spaghetti supper

we go back 30 years
to our baseball days
coaching teams
here in Belgium
getting French-speaking
baseball started

so we talk about baseball
that’s our connection
The Rebels
The Atomics
The Europeans
The Cardinals
The Angels
the San Francisco Giants
the upcoming MLB season
the submarine pitch
the 106 mph fastball

Frank’s an old Hog Head
still rides his Harley
used to ride with The Outlaws
we talk about
The Hells Angels
The Bandidos
The Boozefighters
Satudarah
The Nomads
and our friend Jack
who rides with Les Heretiques
down in Bezier

laid off from his job at NASA
Frank now takes long walks
in the woods
mourns the death of his father
the death of his cat
and many friends

his knuckles are tool scarred
and grease is thick
under his fingernails
he’s still hanging on
to the machine/steam age

we talk about
telepathy
prophecy
ghosts
and I know he’ll make it
straighten out
the next Dead Man’s Curve
that Satan tosses in his path

March 6, 2016



INTERNATIONAL BEGGARS DAY

google tells me
that today is International Women’s Day

what the fuck is that all about?

if they’re feeling
like an oppressed minority
we should celebrate
other scorned minorities

International Weatherman’s Day
International Garbage Collectors Day
Black Jack Dealers Day
Bull Riders Day
Umpires Day
Tele-Evangelists Day
Pedophile Day
Nazi Day
Rattlesnake Day

unlike rattlesnakes
some women want to take over
and when they do
we will need
an International Men’s Day

and not far in the future
the machines will take over
and (if we are lucky)
they’ll let us have
an International Human Day.

March 8, 2016



THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS

1.
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS
WHEN YOU TAKE A MIDNIGHT RIDE
WITH ABRAHAM LINCOLN

tho you’re not obliged
you make a pact with the devil
who is not the fire & brimstone
son-of-a-bitch-of-a-bastard
from the biblical comix
but an old skinny ex-fashion model
with too much mascara
who reveals that she’s been
your secret muse all along
but you sign the papers anyway
and she sings you into a beautiful sleep
and you bounce & float around
inside a jellybeanbag of dreams
filled with
autographed baseballs
painted goose eggs
Fats Domino 45 rpm records
whale eyeballs
transparent bowling balls
zebra-stripe cannon balls
Mozart’s metronomes
Foucault’s pendulums
Mexican maracas
Grateful Dead album covers
boomerangs
Frisbees
cell phones
ticking pocket watches
Rubik cubes
snakeskin cowboy boots
football helmets
decoy ducks
church bells
gyroscopes
glowing lightbulbs
blinking flashlights
golden apples
clip-on bowties
tumbling foam dice
snow balls
birds’ nests
cuckoo clocks
avocados
sponges
cantaloupes
& scoops of cherry ice cream
then you stop dreaming
and die

2.
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS
WHEN YOU TAKE SWIMMING LESSONS
FROM KURT VONNEGUT

he takes you around back
where the water is deep
and the mermaids are lined up
along the river, dipping their tails
and sun-tanning their faces
and when you jump in
the mermaids scream
and you search for the life vest
Vonnegut promised you
but it’s merely an elastic rope
that keeps stretching
as you’re swept over a waterfall
into a vortex of laughter

3.
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS
WHEN JOHN COLTRANE TEACHES YOU
TO SNAP YOUR FINGERS ON 7½ AND 9

at first you get tripped up on triplets
then you get bashed on the head
by the ghosts of slave traders
until you come out the other side of the car wash
knowing you’ll never be comfortable
on the disco dance floor again

4.
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS
WHEN YOU READ A BOOK BY ZANE GREY
AT THE AGE OF EIGHT

you soon find yourself reading books by
John Steinbeck
Jack Kerouac
Thomas Wolfe
James Joyce
T.S. Eliot
J.R.R. Tolkien
Henry Miller
Kurt Vonnegut
Richard Brautigan
Charles Bukowski
Hunter Thompson
John Irving
Jim Harrison
Stephen King
Robert Ludlum
James Lee Burke
Lawrence Block
Lee Child
& suddenly it’s 70 years later
& you find your nose
down inside books by
Mark Twain
R.L. Stevenson
& Lewis Carroll
& you’ve completed the loop
& you’re chasing your own tail
into eternity & wondering
if you’ll ever find your way back
to the new
David Mitchell
China Mièville
& Neil Stephenson

5.
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS
WHEN YOU REFUSE TO BE INTERVIEWED
BY CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR

she’ll come after you with an egg beater
then she’ll sweet talk you right down
into a bowl of pancake batter
with sawdust and marbles mixed in
and you’ll find yourself confessing
to war crimes you might
or might not have committed
because you are too busy
looking into her eyes
and wondering what a life of marital bliss
and domestic sorrow with her
would be like

then you stop dreaming
and die
April 15, 2016



PICKING ON SOMEONE NOT MY SIZE

killed a hornet today
two inches long tip to tail
crushed under a fly swatter
but the little croodlin’ doo
stung my fingertip thru the mesh

can’t blame the little croodlin’ doo
he was fighting for his life
and I was a million times larger
than life

May 13, 2016



EUROVISIONARY

my wife tells me exactly
how she feels about
the Eurovision Song Contest
when she gets up in the middle
and starts banging dishes around
in the kitchen sink.

May 14, 2016



ENGLISH IS BUT A DIALECT OF FRENCH

so here we are
me and Juliette (age 3½)
on the couch
in my paperback library
surrounded by thousands of books
and she wants me to read to her
in FRENCH

I can’t read or write French
and I speak it with a lousy accent
but I give the book a try

it’s a story about a princess
and a fairyland of magic

I move my fingertip
under each word
as we go from line to line
skipping the words I can’t pronounce

Juliette is tolerant
of my lapses and mis-pronunciations
but I know what she’s thinking:

My grandpa lives in a room
with thousands of books
and the idiot
can’t even read

May 15, 2016



SIRENS

1.
I made it thru
strapped to a flag pole
stuck into the jeep’s
raised exhaust pipe

but their song did not touch me
I laughed in their faces

they became sullen
and spit at me
their saliva on my face
was warm and golden
it dripped down into my hands
and reshaped my fingers

but the choruses they sang
did not touch my heart
their words did not
alter the pattern
of my brain waves perfection

I laughed and shouted out
dirty jokes as the jeep
drove on thru the mob
the girls were insulted
to understand that nothing
they could do would muse me.

They did not raise desire
they did tempt my body
to abandon itself to their clutches

I wished I’d brought along
a camera
you should have seen the look
of disappointment on their faces
when I lifted my head
and laughed into the sky

2.
BIG MISTAKE
the first one that came up
along side me
sounded like an ambulance
the next sounded like a cop car
and the last like a fire truck

they wanted to see me crippled
arrested and burned at the stake

BAD DECISIONS
their red fangs
and their blue claws
ripped the curtains of night
from the sky
their screams kept me awake
forever

I ended up playing solitaire
with a greasy deck of cards
pretending they were not
right outside my window
waving the flag
from the back seat
of my jeep
May 16, 2016



PLASTIC CALORIES

opening tiny packages
to get at the food inside
and eat it

Milky Ways
Grannys
raspberry cakes
salt crackers
tea bags
chocolate chip cookies
corn chips
slices of pasteurized cheese

all wrapped in thin plastic
I burn up more calories
getting the packages open
than the food inside
will replace

I grow thinner and thinner
as I keep ripping open
the little sacks
until my strength fails
totally
and I lay on the floor
drooling like a fool
and dreaming of a land
where I could roll over on my back
and a ripe blackberry
would drop from a vine
into my open mouth

May 17, 2016



I JUST GOT OUT OF BED

in the photo with grandson Jack
my mess of hair looks like
I just got out of bed

probably because
I just got out of bed

in fact I look like
I just got out of bed
all the time
because I am constantly
just getting out of bed

May 18, 2016



PAPER WEIGHT

I am amazed to realize
in my late age
how intimately my life
is (and has been)
connected with paper

pages of printed books
empty pages of notebooks

I panic if I don’t
have a pen and paper
within reach

I am convinced
that much of my writing
comes up from the paper
as I push down into it
as if my pen were a straw
that sucks the words
to the surface

May 22, 2016



PAPER CLIPS

the French speakers
call them trombones
this is a cross-over curiosity:
I used to play trombone
but I never played a paper clip

not impossible
if you look at one closely
you’ll see that it has no sliding parts
but you can stick it between your teeth
and get a solid twang out of it

I lost a front tooth
last night
playing a paper clip

the dentist says
“No more trombones for you”
the French speakers
also call bread a baguette
a baguette is a stick

I’ll twang my teeth
with my trombone
and you beat on your drum
with a loaf of bread

May 22, 2016



PAPER VISION

some people carry cameras
I carry a notebook and pen

I love to see
a blank page
get filled with words
I don’t know
how they turn
into pictures
May 22, 2016



INVITATION TO A STRANGER
To Joshua Burkett

I got Charles Bukowski’s autographed
candy-stripe cowboy boots
dangling from the ceiling
I got turtles in turtleneck sweaters
I got the highlights of the caribou races
at the Monaco Memorial Day 500
I got a boxing glove left behind
from the Stumble in the Jungle Room
when South Paw Panda
knocked out Right Wing Pelican
I got Curt Kobain’s last wallflower and testicle
in a snuff box on my rare book shelf
I got the Great Delawarizona Highway
running thru the middle of my kitchen
and a dozen dirt roads left over
from “O Brother Where Art Thou ”
running from the outhouse to the barn
I got rented tents full of snare drums
and a Wu Li master teaching
dancing lessons from God
I got the bull by the horn
and a chicken in the corner
eating multi-colored popcorn
I got the three messengers from Time
with hour glasses stuffed up their nostrils
I got a sundial hub cap from H.S.T.’s Sharkmobile
and I don’t think anybody’s every noticed
my 2-inch, 3D binocular TV
that plays live satellite shows
from the Horsehead Galaxy

drop by and say hello
I promise you
it will be like nothing
you have ever experienced
before
May 26, 2016



JULIA ROBERTS & THE CAT

sitting at the table
looking at a magazine
with Julia Roberts on the cover

the cat walked in
I said “Go back outside.”
the cat just stood there
so I threw Julia Roberts at him

Julia Roberts screamed
the cat ran away
and we haven’t seen him since

May 28, 2016



TELEPHONE INSTALLATION BLUES

Phone rings. Q answers and connects me to MC.
Q tells MC who’s calling then hangs up.
I should be connected to MC
But I’m not

MC transfers the call back to Q
and hangs up immediately (no announcement).
Q waits 3 or 4 rings and picks up.
I should be connected to Q
But I’m not

Q tries to connect my call to X
Q hangs up immediately.
X doesn’t answer.
30 seconds later both MC’s and Q’s phones
should ring again
or maybe only Q’s.
MC doesn’t pick up. Q picks up.
We should be connected again
But we’re not

Q tries to connect me to MC again
but MC doesn’t answer.
Q doesn’t hang up. After 3 or 4 rings
Q touch the TRANSFER KEY
and I should be connected to Q again.
But I’m not

Q connects me to MC
he announces my call, and hangs up.
Now I’m connected to MC.
MC repeats a variant of previous exercises

MC tries to connect my call to X.
MC hangs up immediately.
X doesn’t answer.
30 seconds later both MC’s and Q’s phones
should ring again
or maybe only MC’s.
Q doesn’t pick up. MC picks up.
We should be connected again
But we’re not.

MC tries to connect me to Q
but Q doesn’t answer.
MC doesn’t hang up.
After 3 or 4 rings
MC touches the TRANSFER KEY
and I should be connected to MC again.

Does anybody know what’s going on here?
I don’t.

March 18, 2010
revived May 29, 2016



THE WAY IT GOES

1.
sometimes I forget
I can do anything
I want, so there
fore, (one)
goodbye to the ruts
of the tractor brain road
so long sadly
to the guardian angels
who must remain behind
(or must they?)
au revoir to the words in French
I never learned to pronounce
adios to the rain, the wind, the sun
the moon and the rivers
all of whooom
are inevitably dooomed
farewell to the itch
that can never be scratched
the places on the back
that can never be reached
farewell to the pages of books
that will never be turned
farewell to the music
that will continue
to play forever
and keep the soul
of the planet alive
the way it goes is away it goes

we can do anything
we want, so there
fore, let’s (two)
take out the hot air
in our heads
(all 4 billion of us)
and pump it down
into the center of the earth
so the planet will puff up
to twice its normal size
so everyone can relax
and stretch out
and get ready for the next
4 billion

then let’s hijack a space station
fly it to the moon
and find out once and for all time
if it really is the Mojave Desert
in another time/space dimension
and if so, hop on a golf cart
and drive over to Palm Springs
for a round of golf with Bob Hopi
(the Indian trickster)
then steal a dune buggy
and cruise up to Vegas
to watch Elvish Poshly
(the white trash dwarf)
perform at the Wiggle Inn
and win a lot of funny money
at roulette after which
we’ll take a hike to the dark side
and trade a few jokes
with the Nostradamus look-alikes
from the Horsehead Nebula
who have been waiting
for us to show up
since Galileo discovered
the telescope

we can do anything
we want, so there
fore, let’s (three)
take the English language apart
and mix in some
French Canadian lingo
Cajun patois
with a few chopped up Comanche verbs
and nasty Navajo nouns
and call the result
American Slop

after which
we’ll pin all the sheets of the other languages
on a clothesline
and splatter them
with American Slop
and soon the Chinese
will be wearing cowboy boots
and Stetson hats
and South Africans will be
walking around with slot machines
strapped to their backs
and the Iberians
will be speaking rap
and the Norwegians
will be dancing only to Iggy Pop
and we can pretend that we rule the world

we can do anything
we want, so there
fore, (four)
let’s gang up on the Wall Street Bankers
and take all their money away
and give it to the Disneyfied Dreamers
then gang up on the Disneyfied Dreamers
and take all their food away
and give it to the Gut Bucket Vomiters
and then gang up on the Gut Bucket Vomiters
and take all their puke away
and give it to the Wall Street Bankers
the way it goes is away it goes

2.
and you who have been cast out
kicked aside, trodden upon
banished into solitude
sent down into the mind mines
to chip away at coalish thoughts
and return with only dirty tongues
you know what I’m going to say:
the way it goes is away it goes

caught in spider webs
of human tarantulas
trapped in a marriage
with the Giant Bald Head Mouse
squeezed between the pages
of potato peel cookbooks
abandoned on the road
to Purgatory, left behind
to gamble with the sinners
and seek forgiveness
from the Great God Smack

those who dipped into the well
and came up with a bucket of blood
those who know that rape
is no laughing matter
tho the rapist seemed to be having fun
those who know the only way
to keep the mind from spinning off
into madness
is to jack off to a picture
of Charlton Heston with a gun in his mouth
while Madonna in a distant Vatican
humps the face of La Pièta

or those of transatlantic perversion
who prefer a video clip of Princess Diana
in a sex shop with her skirt
hiked up around her waist
trying out a variety of dildos
while Bill Clinton looks on
with his hand up under
Monika Lewinsky’s skirt
from which he pulls of chain
of refrigerator magnets
in the shape of police whistles

those who offend everyone
without even trying
and are punished beneath the heavy rod
of media silence
or if they do manage to slip
between the cracks
and onto TV screens
have their faces torn apart
by dentists trying to prove
that wisdom teeth’s second growth
are the roots of evil silver tongues

those who draw empty squares
on their wall
and fill them with grey paint
they all know
the way it goes is away it goes

you who are scorned by those
who cannot reach outside themselves
and shake down upon your head
a few blossoms from the cherry tree
I can hear you singing as you fade away
the way it goes is away it goes

so let’s hear it again
for those who played the wrong cards
when everybody else was bluffing
and to those who know
the only way they’ll be leaving
the room is feet first
the way it goes is away it goes

3.
what can I say to those
who signed the wrong papers
who opened doors that said
NO ADMITTANCE- KEEP OUT
and suffered the wrath of the gods
whose shoes never quite fit
and would have been better off
going barefoot
who said “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”
those who drove into a tunnel
believing it was one way
those who left behind
many question marks (?)
and many exclamation points (!)
on their tombstones
what can I say?
the way it goes is away it goes

what can I say to those
whose imaginations have run dry
and now resembled creek beds
in late summer
with stones covered in flaky moss
and old trout bones?
as perhaps I myself someday
must deal with stones and bones?

May 30, 2016



FATAL CONTAGION

being sick is no joke
I spit on the ground
and every blade of grass
in the entire field
catches my cold
and dies.
May 31, 2016



MOON STRUCK

On September 8, 2014
I wrote a poem called “Sun Stroke”
it was about how dumb
and uninventive we are
when it comes to naming our star.
We call it THE sun.
A proper name is needed.
I had a few good suggestions
but none have caught on yet.

At the end I promised
“next time we’ll get into the moon”
same problem, same lack of imagination
we call it THE moon.

The next day I wrote one
dealing with THE moon
but I gave up
and called the whole thing off.

Now I’m back
to give it another try.

So far they’ve counted at least
173 moons on other planets
and they all have names
like Calisto & Caliban
& Calypso & Carpo
& Ganymede & Triton
& Pan & Puck

So what’s the deal?
after 7,000 years of hard work
keeping our poets supplied
our moon deserves a better name
than THE moon.

How about these?

June ?
Spoon ?
Goon the Moon ?

Too obvious . . .

Joe ?
Zoom ?
Shotput ?
Tarzana ?
Baby Bananagoo ?

Getting warmer . . .

Ballroom Balloon
Rosebug
Porkchop
Humdinger
Flapjackie
Mon’ocle
The Grateful Head

Getting closer . . .

Slippery When Wet
Gertrude of the Garbage Dump
Slowly Becoming Famous
Looking At The World Thru Both Ears
Pickled Drops of Bovine Blood
Far From The Maudlin Cloud

Closer and closer . . .

Don’t-Be-Madagascar
Guatemaleboge
Halberta Heinstein
Hoola Hoop
Debby Harry
Pampaluna

Get ready to sign the papers . . .

FRIED EGG!

June 7, 2016



HOOD FLIPPER

as I step out into the rain
I flip up the hood of my rain jacket
with such panache
that I expect to hear applause
from the peanut gallery

“That DJ Mohair Samuel
is one smooth mover
a real reekin’ sleek backfield in motion
he sure knows how to flip a hoodie
when he steps out in the rain
you can tell he be naturally cool
at everything he does:
southpaw sidearm pitching
driving the Indianapolis 500 blindfolded
snatching flies (blindfolded)
playing the Rack 2nd (blindfolded)
dancing in the dark
with Camille Paglia (blindfolded)
dancing drunk in the dark
with Amy Winehouse (both blindfolded)
chasing rabbits in Australia (with shades)
chasing camels in Australia (without shades)
(let’s forget all the blindfolds and shades)
reading Homer’s Odyssey in the shade
reciting The Jabberwock in a Russian accent
talking to the owls in sheep language
with a Scot’s accent
pulling nettles by the light of the moon
smiling at the moon without a flashlight
taking time out from his world tour of Belgium
to step out in the rain
and flip up his hood.”

no more applause, please
I do this everyday for fun

June 8, 2016



SLUGGER

not even summer yet
(just a lot of rain)
and the slug alert
is on CRITICAL

millions of the leopard skins
everywhere
I went to pet Jimbo
and he had one crawling in his fur

slugs in the kitchen
slugs in the beer

if you lived in Slugville
(as I do)
you’d want to have
(as I do)
a Louisville Slugger

June 11, 2016



BRING ON THE BIRDS

I’ve had this suspicious feeling
about birds ever since I saw
a program on TV
that showed that they are
what remained when the dinosaurs
got reduced to bite-size critters
at the end of the Mesozoic

I go outside into the garden
at dawn and listen
to the chirping of the sparrows
the swallows and robins

are they really the harmless
little handfuls of soft feathers
they seem to be?

imagine one of them
ten thousand times larger
imagine its voice
and what its chirping song
would sound like –
earth shaking blasts
of a gargantuan beast
that could demolish
the house to rubble
with one swipe of its wing

can I really allow myself to believe
that what these birds
saying to each other
is just idle chit-chat?

no, I can’t
I know they’re telling each other
they’re getting ready to unshrink
and grow back into ravenous
gargantuan behemoths
and take over the world

that sparrow, right there –
he’s saying, “Here he comes again
– the man in the moccasins
stomping around in our territory
just wait till I grow up
first thing I’ll do is hide
behind his house, jump out
and scare him out of his skin
then I’ll rip off his head
and laugh down his neck.”

to which I say:
“Bring it on, bird.
I got a Louisville Slugger
with Wade Boggs signature on it.
Wade Boggs hit 118 homeruns
so he’s no stranger to knocking
the horsehide off the old apple.”

bring it on, bird
Wade and me are ready and waiting

June 12, 2016



HILARIOUS & TRUMPET

politics is not my bucket of burgers
tho this slam dunk contest
between Hilarious Clinton
and Donald Trumpet
is turning out to be
more entertaining than
the NBA finals
the Euro Soccer Cup
the Formula One races
Wimbledon Tennis
and the Brazil Olympics
combined

not that the voted result
will matter
Americans will still be able
to buy automatic weapons
for pocket money
the possession of weed
will put them behind bars
in most places
and the threat of total planetary
nuclear destruction
will continue to hang over our heads
(all to the sound
of hysterical babes
with screech-owl voices
on cable news
polluting our ears
with commercial panic)

the same old Two-Ring Circus
Dance with Death
Louisiana Hay Ride
with suicide bombers
and the Four Horsemen
of the Apocalypse
running in the Kentucky Derby

June 13, 2016



ESP
(one more in a series of sensitive ecology-minded poems
where the relationship and co-operation between
the various species of animal life are celebrated)

lying on my back
looking up at the white plaster
ceiling of my bedroom
(at the very spot I’m staring at)
a little black bug trots out
from behind the roofbeam
travels about ten inches
stops, turns around
and hurries straight back
behind the beam

ESP!
(extra sensory provocation)
I can control the minds of insects
ladybugs
earwigs
cockroaches
crickets

having trouble with your bugs?
call on me
I’ll stare at a spot on your ceiling
and the little buggers will come out
and you can swat them
with a rolled up newspaper

termite control

my powers will increase
with experience
mosquitoes
house flies
horse flies
wasps
I’ll zap them down in mid-air

grasshoppers
fleas
locust
lice
ants

they won’t see me coming

mice
you’ll never need another trap
whap!
potato rup!*

June 14, 2016
* thanks to Jack Kerouac for that last potato rup



THE PORCUPINE PEOPLE

it might appear to you
that I have it in
for the creatures
of the non-human realm
(slugs, mosquitoes, etc)
but that’s not entirely correct

I don’t care much for humans either

everywhere I go
I meet Slug People
Pig People
Rat People
Rattlesnake People
Shark People
Squid People
Lobster People
Alligator People
Hippopotamus People
Laughing Hyena People
Weasel People
Polecat People

so, you might ask
“who do you love?”

and I’ll tell you:
crows
owls
coyotes
wolves
buffalo
lemurs
hedgehogs
my wife
and a few friends

I figure I’m doing fine
compared to most Porcupine People

June 14, 2016



PRE-SOLSTICE SNACK

with these short summer nights
the day comes popping up
like a slice of white bead
in a toaster
barely had time to get warm

the birds and I both
are surprised
the birds are still asleep
and I am still hours away
from shut-eye

toast or warm bread
I still drip
a spoon of honey
on the slice
and deliciously swallow it
in two gulps

June 15, 2016



HAUT CUISINE

hot raw toast
slathered in peanut butter
and honey

as I gobble
I am reminded
of those cooking shows
on the TV
where gluts are cramming
their mouths with spoodle-oo
chewing it, masticating it
masturbating it
as crumps and slurps
spew from their slug-moist lips
then ramming it down
their greedy gullets
with a glug of wine

don’t they realize
how obscene and insulting
they are? don’t they realize
that this show will be played
in Africa and watched
by thousands of starving children
“Mommy, what’s a gastronomic?”
“Shut up and eat your shoe.”

that’s why I snack at 5 a.m.
when my eyes are full of sheepskin
I can’t even stomach
to look at myself in the mirror
cramming my face
with all that raw toast
peanut butter and honey
an hallucination
too disgusting to witness
after the tenth slice

June 15, 2016



EURO CUP IN PERSPECTIVE

1.
European soccer cup
hooligans in the street
running wild, busting heads

easy solution to the problem:
forget about the matches
send the players home
rope off those various
scheduled cities
(Marseilles, Paris, Lyon)
and let the naked, drunken scum
fight till death do them part
until there are only remnants
of one team left
automatic weapons obligatory
bombs, bazookas
flame throwers, poison gas
the survivors can punch
their fists in the air
and sing, “We are the champions!”
as thousands of law-abiding citizen
return to the burnt-out shells
of their homes in a city
that looks like Aleppo

after the quarter and half finals
the hooligan teams
reduced to only 11 goon each
will be turned loose
on a soccer pitch
in a caged arena
with only knives
and ax handles
after 90 minutes
of bloody battle
the winning nation
will be the one who has
the most goons still standing
they can lift the cup and declare
themselves to be the champs
of Europe

this year I predict
the Russians will go home
with the Hooligan Trophy

2.
the next time
the cup is up for grabs
competing nations
will get wise
and release
the most violent criminals
from their prisons
for a month-long free-for-all
on the streets of a designated city
Paris?
Berlin?
London?
Madrid?
Moscow?

who needs suicide bombers
and imported radical
islamic terrorist attacks
for the destruction
of our civilization?
we’ve got home-grown
hooligan talent by the bus load
they’ll be glad to get out
in the arena
and butcher and bash
for the glory of their country

June 16, 2016



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL (PROLOG)

born in the last place
the sun rises on America
the last place the sun sets
nothing beyond
but a deep drop off
into undertowing tides
that wash up on the beaches
of Pacific Rimlands
when the states were 48
and Hawaii was a Pearl Harbor
waiting to be bombed
into constitutional law
and Alaska was all gold rush memories
San Francisco newly a-bridged
after 7 million years
of boat crossing
Costanoans in canoes
Miwoks on rafts
pumas paddling
towards Tamalpais
open season on deer and rabbits
sage-flavored and blackberry ripe

just a peek
into my first fresh breath
of sea-breeze air
and the atmospheric molecules
that penetrated my brain
and set me rolling
down the mountainside of life

June 20, 2016



MIDSUMMER RHYMES

dull grey
midsummer day
give me a Ray Charles
What’d I Say
I’ll need a bit
of moonwhite glitter
for midsummer night
if it rains I’ll bite
a hole in my eye
and throw it away
punch a hole in the sky
and let in some light
don’t ask me why
it’s the way I stay
in touch with the play
of shadow and light

who do I have to valentine
to get a spot of sunshine?

June 21, 2016



SOLSTICE LIGHT

five a.m. daylight
best the sky can do
at this latitude
planet can’t tilt
any farther over

step outside
rub out a couple of slugs
like I used to rub out
cigarette butts
in the pavement
with the toe of my boots

in Avignon
five years ago
in the dead of winter
we stomped the streets
with snow up to our knees
so cold the sap in the trees
overhead froze and the branches
cracked loudly
and the trees fell apart

it’s just one quick blink
one flick of a brain cell
from back then
to right now
leaf green trees
bend in the breeze
and a dewdrop
rolls from a leaf
and lands on my head

June 22, 2016



ALLIGATOR VENTRILOQUIST

an alligator stands
on the path before me
it speaks
“In a whithspered lipth.”
its jaws do no move
I rip off its jaws
the voice is coming
from a speaker
“I am a where woof.”
I rip the wires
from the speaker
“Canst thou psst whisst?”
I look around at the crowd
it could be any one
of these jokers

June 22, 2016
sometimes my dream world comes so close
to my awake world I have to write it down



ON THE ROPES

The story can be told one way only: dipping way beyond the stretches of monuments erected to scare off the monkeyshiners while the killer bats fly out of the heads of statues, circle in wildflap GOTCHA blink shadows but otherwise harmless as dandelion pollen scattered by wine-scented winds and sniffed by non-allergic nostrilos. I step out of an eternity of skip-to-my-loogarrooga ruggerbuyer walk-up redbricker nubs (did I say that?) with my rap-around packet of silk and peanutbrittle hand-to-mouth puppets. I know where I’m going gone into a shiver of the last upperverse, shrugged off and immortalized in the lost canticles of bus station cardboard suitcases give me your huddle bundles of mass monster produced priest lore crucifixion fictions of mis-animated miscellaneous muscular overthrow of the undertow, the whiplash back-smash honk-crash juggernauts pushing for Pasternakian peace prizes amid the curiosity rubberneckers shoelace soul bruised in bargain basement profundity. Either I’m drawing attention to my slapdash cosmetic pose of “make that two cappachucos & a sweetenlo staggerlee of japflacks” or I’m deflecting the baghouse scrut of museum mob-eaters pecking at the milo-microcosmal sauce of my high brows and the liddle diddle pots on my fair face POW one less moskeeter in the dark nightsoul of the universamerican swamps.
This is what happens when you read too much Kerouac and start to BELIEVE.

June 23, 2016



MOON FRAMED
(WITH AND WITHOUT)

without the frame
of tree branches
the moon
is floating
thru the clouds

without the frame
holy smokes
I don’t think
I’ll ever get it back

June 24, 2016



DASHAWAYS & LAUDANUM

I am reading a book
(let’s say Richard Henry Dana’s
Two Years Before the Mast)
and fighting off sleep
I turn a page
and my foggy eyes blur
and my weary mind
begins to drift
into a place that would never fit
into Dana’s Two Years
but my eyes keep reading
losing focus and the words
are floating and my mind
is slowly drifting along
into a strange place
and I fall into the gaps
between the words
between the letters
and suddenly I see
that the writer
(let’s say Richard Henry Dana)
is writing about something else
completely different
he’s not writing about
an ocean voyage
from Boston to San Francisco
around the horn in 1836
but rather he’s given the world
a treatise in which all
the basic questions
about our existence in the universe
our past and our future
are explained in great detail
I am reading the ultimate
book of truth and wisdom
and I can almost grasp
the entire picture he’s painting
(I almost have all the ultimate
questions answered)
when WHOOPS
my eyes stumble
my brain jumps free
and I’m wide awake reading
(let’s say Richard Henry Dana’s
Two Years Before the Mast)
and I can’t remember
a single detail
of the cosmic treatise
no matter how hard I try
it’s lost and gone

until tomorrow night
when I start to fall asleep over
(let’s say Thomas De Quincey’s
Confessions of an English Opium Eater)

June 25, 2016



FOOD CHAIN

slug eats the lettuce
chicken eats the slug
I eat the eggs
got all the basic elements
for a balanced diet
salad
meat
dairy product

I got a better program
I kill the slug
the chicken eats something else
I eat a peanut butter sandwich

July 1, 2016



“THEY TOOK MY THINGS”

again sitting up in bed 6:30 a.m.
reading out the end of the day
in a book about the Gypsy-Travelers
the prose slouches along
in an academic style
my eyes flutter, start to close
I keep reading, lose focus, my mind drifts –
and there it is as before
a phrase leaps out
from the tangle of words
“They took my things!”

I snap out of my fuzz-eye drowse
go over every letter at the bottom of the page
but I can’t find those words
“they”
“took”
“my”
“things.”
check it out for yourself
bottom of page 34
“The Gypsy Travelers”
by Judith Okely

I heard the voice
I heard the words
amazing how much stuff
is down there between the cracks
sometimes it’s in a rut
deep enough to plant potatoes.

it happens
when you’re not paying attention
it happens
when you lose focus
you just let your eyes
roll down the spaces
between the lines
like a red bowling ball
into the screen
of an old movie

July 2, 2016



THE BATTLE HYMN OF BIGFOOT

at night he stomps on the slugs
smashing them into the concrete;
in the hot morning sun
the black flies swarm
and devour the black corpses

far and wide in the slug villages
wails of mourning can be heard
grief-stricken slug wives
and slug children
who will never see
their slug daddies again

symbolic funerals are arranged
slugs dressed in black
follow the empty coffins
(each representing a fallen soldier
on the field of battle
– its body since devoured by flies)
to the slug cemeteries
on the compost heap
overlooking a pile of garbage
dirges played by slug brass bands
are punctuated by sobs and weeping

then they all leave the graveyard
and return to their villages
the brass band picking up the tempo
playing rag time tunes
and the slug women
and the slug children
go skipping along

while the brothers and sons
vow revenge
and prepare to go into battle
that night
against Big Foot
the hairy monster
who haunts the darkness
with the flash of a spotlight
blasting from his single eye
“I’m going to jump up
and rip off his face!”
declares the youngest slug
“Let’s start with his toes,”
says a teenage slug
“My daddy almost got one
last night
– if we all gang up . . . ”

and that night
Big Foot stomps into battle
singing
“Glory, glory hallelujah
his truth is marching on”

July 6, 2016



THE TRAVELER

sometimes the influence
of what I read in books
is so powerful
it changes my life

having just finished
four books
on Gypsy life in England
I find myself growing lazy
lying in the mud
around a campfire in the field
drinking mugs of tea
and smoking a corn cob pipe

I’ve just traded my house
for a broken down wooden wagon
and a lame pony
soon I shall take
to the open road

July 4, 2016



THE FLUSHING TOILET

I flushed the toilet
– and it scared the shit

July 12, 2016



METAMORPHOSIS

you can’t miss them
one day you look down at your feet
and see they have turned into alligators
they will claim kinship
with your crocodile belt
which will tighten
and squeeze your innards
until you snap like a turtle
and swim back to the swamps

July 10, 2016



THE SIDEREAL SUMMER OF THE FROZEN ROSES

it was a day for bouncing
a red rubber ball
over the moon
and hitting a cow
on her way up

and could only be improved upon
by watching the cow
catch the ball in her mouth
spit it back over the moon
to land in the centerfield glove
of Willie Mays’ ghost
as he robs another National League
slugger of a bases loaded home run.

July 13, 2016



BODY COUNT

remember a few years back
when families sat around
the dinner table, watching TV
and listening to the daily
body count from Vietnam?

today it’s the same
only now the bodies
are falling on American
and European soil

Jan. 7, 2015 – Paris – shooting
20 dead, 22 injured
Jan. 9, 2015 – Porte de Vincennes (France) – shooting
4 dead, 9 injured
Feb. 14, 2015 – Copenhagen – shooting
2 dead, 6 injured
Mar. 22, 2015 – Brussels – suicide bombs
35 dead, 340 injured
June 17, 2015 – Charleston, N.C. – shooting
9 dead, 1 injured
June 26, 2015 – San Quentin (Lyons). – bombs, beheading
1 dead, 12 injured
August 26, 2015 – Chattanooga (Tenn.) – shooting
5 dead, 2 injured
Oct. 10, 2015 – Ankara – suicide bombing
102 dead, 508 injured
Nov. 13, 2015 – Paris – bombs and shooting
137 dead, 368 injured
Nov. 27, 2015 – Colorado Springs – shooting
3 dead, 9 injured
Dec. 2, 2015 – San Bernadino (Calif.) – shooting
14 dead, 23 injured
Jan. 12, 2016 – Istanbul – suicide bomber
12 dead, 14 injured
Feb. 11, 2016 – Ohio – machete attack
1 dead, 4 wounded
Feb. 17, 2016 – Ankara – suicide car bombing
30 dead, 61 wounded
March 13, 2016 – Ankara – car bombing, shooting
37 dead, 125 injured
March 19, 2016 – Istanbul – suicide bombing
4 dead, 36 injured
May 10, 2016 – Munich – stabbing
1 dead, 3 injured
June 12, 2016 – Orlando – shooting
49 dead, 53 injured
June 28, 2016 – Istanbul airport – suicide bombing, shooting
49 dead, 239 injured
July 7, 2016 – Dallas – shooting
5 dead, 6 injured
July 14, 2016 – Nice (France) – truck attack, shooting
84 dead, 303 injured
July 24, 2016 – Munich – shooting
9 dead, 15 wounded
July 24, 2016 – Anspach (Germany) – suicide bombing
1 dead, 15 injured
July 25, 2016 – Fort Meyers (Florida) – shooting
2 dead, 18 injured
July 26, 2016 – Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray (France) – knife
1 dead, 3 injured *

I could add up a total
but you can count as well as I

July 29, 2016

* this is only a small number of recorded terrorist actions in the past year and a half. There are two to three, sometimes four attacks everyday in Iraq, Syria, Israel, numerous countries across Africa and South America and other parts of the world. Causalities in the thousands, too many to count. What do all these deaths have in common? You figure it out.



ON THE FUTILITY OF THROWING TOMATOES

I hear and see so many stupid comments
on TV and on-line
that I’m tempted to write in
and say, “Bullshit
you’ve never learned to read
you’ve never taken a moment to observe
you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

but then I fold
what’s the use?
those idiots wouldn’t listen
they don’t know how to listen
they’ve got their heads so far
up their asses they hear nothing
but the hissing of their rotten hearts

August 6, 2016



FACES

I say the human face
is the measure of all things
under the sun

we see faces everywhere
not only in our mirrors
and on our crowded streets
but in a crumpled towel
on the floor
in a pile of dirty clothes
in our mashed potatoes and gravy

we see faces in the clouds
(“look – there’s an old man
smoking a pipe”)

I’m still haunted by the witch face
that danced on the October wall
of my childhood bedroom
shadows of bare branches
outside the window
that shifted back and forth
with the howling wind

August 8, 2016



MIND & NATURE – 1
for Jean Santilli

if you open your ears
you will hear the wind
coming down the valley
thru the trees
long before you feel the breeze

August 20, 2016



MIND & NATURE – 2
for Jean Santilli

if you get stung by a nettle
no need to run to the pharmacia
pluck a dock weed
crumple it between your fingers
and rub the moist leaf
against the nettle burn
(it’s the old litmus test:
alkalai & acid)

August 22, 2016



A CHAT WITH THE CAT

my days are numbered
but due to diminished
mental capacity
and memory loss
I can’t count that far

so I sit with Jimbo
sleeping in the sun
and listen to his purr
his days are numbered too
but all he can see
thru one open eye
is an ant
headed his way
on a blade of grass

August 23, 2016



I SMELL A RAT

bad odor in the bathroom
she says. “Smells like cauliflower”
turns out to be
a decomposing rat
now she knows why
I don’t like cauliflower

August 24, 2016



ONE ELEPHANT IS ENOUGH

the heat waves
birds fall from the sky
like flies
and flies fall in love
with gravity forever

in the evening
the faraway flicker of lightning
on the southern horizon
too far to hear
even a faint boom
papa thunder is coming this way
and mama thunder
is moving in from the west
folds of grey blankets
crumple against the sky
sticks of lightning
leap out of the clouds
the clap of BOOM thunder
follows lightning leaps
& I count the distance
FLASH
one elephant
two elephants
three elephants
four elephants
five elephants
six elephants
seven elephants
“It’s getting close,” I announce
“Only seven elephants.”
Marie-Claire trembles
she hides
she’s scared of the elephants

when I was a lad
the old folks called thunder rumble
the old potato wagon
rolling across the sky

but now in my mind
the potato wagons have vanished
and the elephants are up there
measuring the distance

I stand in the doorway
gazing at the slashes of light
listening to the rolling BOOMS
of thunder
and there they are
at last
the elephants
marching across the sky
stepping on black clouds
pushing them down
the elephants march on
the clouds pop back up
and release their BOOMS

the elephants continue to march
back toward the south
growing faint in the distance
but wait!
here comes one left behind
a baby elephant
he can’t keep up with the others
he can’t step from cloud to cloud
he bounces & leaps
he lands on a cloud
it goes POP
he leaps again
and misses
he tumbles down
thru the grove of pines
I hear him hit
I rush down
he’s lying on his side
he’s still alive
I lift his broken body
onto my back
& bring him up to the house
“What is it?” she asks
“A broken baby elephant,” I say
She gets out a bottle
& feeds him milk
I place him in my rocking chair
I turn on the TV
and he goes to sleep
watching the Ravens
trample the Lions
on ESPN.

August 28, 2016



FROZEN BICYCLE POEM

working out
on the stationary bike
in the therapist’s gym
trying to get my muscles
back in bicycle poem shape

streamlined machine
got all kinds of dial information
on the dashboard
speed, distance, time

if I pump fast
I get the measure of distance
numbers spinning ’round
in their little window
miles upon miles
whizzing by

but no matter how fast
or hard I pump
I can’t make the clock
slow down
& stop
Sept. 23, 2016



AUTUMN SOAP BUBBLE

Juliette blows a soap bubble
into the garden breeze
it floats up into the trees
and joins
the falling leaves

Sept, 24, 2016



IN PRAISE OF THE WAY

without the lessons
of the tao
you’ll find yourself
walking down a narrow
tilted road
leaning to your right
with your up-hill left leg
becoming shorter with each step

without tao
you’ll never realize
that the flat tire on your bike
saved your life
if you hadn’t been delayed
you would have been side-swiped
by a cement truck
at the crossroads
& ended up
in a speechless wheelchair
for the rest of your life

tao awareness
is easy
flip a coin
& don’t get hung up
on heads/ tails
it’s the coin that matters
it has two sides
they’re so much alike
you can barely
tell the difference

Sept. 28, 2016



RAGS OF RECTIFICATION

1.
acorns fall from the oak tree
on the steep macadam path
roll under my moccasins
upsetting my precarious balance
I can no longer
walk a tightrope
and if I ever told you
I could juggle three oranges
I was lying

2.
I never screamed
at the horror movie shows
on Sat. Nite
but on the 5-mile ride
back to the ranch
in Jimmy’s open-air jeep
I saw werewolves
behind every telephone pole
the fingers of the Creature
of the Black Lagoon
curled over the railing
getting ready to pull himself
out of the creek
was I scared?
I told myself “no”
what a liar I was at 14
I was scared shitless
if Jimmy hadn’t been there
I would have screamed
all the way home
(just so you know)

3.
you’d never guess
but I used to speak
in a milk cow accent
I had cowboy songs on the radio
but I knew they never
milked their cows
they’d mess up
their guitar-pickin’ fingers

4.
the pigs squealed
& I squealed along
as I slit their testical sacks
& popped out their gonads
the dogs snatched them
out of the dirt
& slurped them down
I wanted to lick my lips
but I couldn’t stop squealing

5.
people say
I grew up close to nature
don’t be fooled
the closest I ever got
to nature growing up
was a few skunks
a dozen rattlesnakes
and a spring flood
no earthquakes
no volcanoes
no hurricanes

most of the time
I lay in the grass
contemplating the night sky
& slapping mosquitoes

Sept. 28, 2016



SEPTEMBER 30, 2016, 5:55 PM

report from Marion in Rome:
Francesco slipped in the bathtub
and broke his ribs
I say to Marion:
you’re lucky he didn’t break your heart



SEPTEMBER 30, 2016, 6 PM

getting ready to take a shower
I rip off my pants
keys fly out of my pocket
hit wood and bounce off the wall

can’t find them anywhere
Bear comes in and finds them
in the basket of rat poison

two keys
two points



BEAVERS IN BELGIUM (Bike Poem 1)

the beaver is back

biking along the L’Ourthe
we notice the trees
along the path
chewed away deeply
about a foot from the ground
chips piled in a circle
in the grass
the beasts sharpening their teeth
chopping down trees
getting ready
to attack the bridges

I’m waiting for the wolves

October 1, 2016



BIKE POEM 2

Tilff to Esneux
& beyond
& back
bike path
not too crowded
strollers
people with kids
people with dogs
a few other bikers
said “Bonjour”
178 times today

October 1, 2016



CHILD ADULTERY

faking it
pretending to be grown-up
a disguised child
playing at being an adult

felt it when I was 20
30
40
50
60
70
now at 75
most of the adults
I have to deal with
in the dead serious outside world
are younger than me
some young enough
to be my children

and I wonder
why aren’t they laughing like maniacs?
it’s a big joke, kids
these are the same games we played
when we were little shavers
doctors & nurses
ticket takers & bus drivers
waitresses & cashiers
airplane pilots & flight attendants
hotel clerks & customs inspectors

I keep waiting for some fat guy
with a long white beard
& a stovepipe hat
that says “Grandpa God”
on the front
to jump out & say
“Good work, kiddies
– keep it up
& never grow old.”

but my god
now I know Grandpa God
is never going to jump out
we’re on our own, kids
we’ll always be children
& alone
faking it
pretending
wandering around
lost
giggling
occasionally
busting a gut
& shaking down
the rain clouds
with our laughter

October 6, 2016



ROME POEMS 2016

SKIDMARKS

cruising at 28,000 feet above the Alps
seated in neat rows
packed in like sardines
I wonder how many of us
are sitting in
(“I wouldn’t be caught dead in”)
shit-stained underwear.

Brussels Air flight to Rome
Oct, 6, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

IN THE STREETS OF TRASTEVERE

a couple kissing
a dog pissing
a driver in his car waiting
for the above to be finished
girl in a shimmering purple cape
on a pink bicycle
a long line of tourists off a bus
drooping heads
slumping along in lockstep
to a silent dirge
the distant chimes
of three different church bells
at the same time
(me)

Oct. 6, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

THUNDER OVER ROME

something new for us
flashes of lightning
over Aurelia Antica
claps of thunder
gradually coming closer
and closer
until WHAM BO!
right on the top of our heads
carving new statues from the stones
up on the Gianicolo
and sending drunk berserkers
in the street below
deeper into their cups of madness

Via Benedetta
Oct. 3, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

FOOLED AGAIN

all these years
I’ve been believing
the statue of the Virgin Mary
in an alcove
of the church
of Santa Maria in Trastevere
was the real thing
turns out she none other
than St. Cecelia
known as Our Lady of the Sorrows
not only that
she is not a life size
head to toe statue in white marble
as I remember
but a polychrome sculpture
and painted bas-relief
with a half-size head & shoulders
in a frame
no larger than an old TV screen

the power of prayer
over the years as I sat in her shrine
gazing up at her
and feeling the essential powerful connection
to the original earth mother
my mind/spirit had transformed her
from a dwarf with imaginary arms
and fluttering eyelids
into the big mama of all creation

still she’s got the look
that same brown leather
motorcycle jacket
and shuteye slutlook
of a backstreet chick
who’s just popped a vein
with a needle loaded with junk

Oct. 7, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

THE FOUR BASIC POSITIONS FOR SLEEPING

belly flop face down
that used to be
my default position
for deep, prolonged slumber
but long out of order
due to bad back

flat back
staring at the ceiling
counting sheep
but even with eyes closed
the sheep keep leaping
and the Jazz Age flappers
won’t stop jitterbugging
flat back
feeling the motion of the earth
as it spins on its axis
has never been an option for me

that leaves the right side
& the left

the right side is where
the wild boars come out at night
and uproot the grass in the meadow
with their toothy snouts
where the 7 X 7 wives
coming from St. Ives
with 7 X 7 X 7 sacks
roll down to the river
and join the sirens
who shave their legs
with their fingernails
and pluck carnations from the collars
of tuxedo’d movie studs
while waiting for
the midnight bells to ring
then vanish into the fog
clutching the tails
of their pet jaguars

on the left
flourish the 76 trombones
who lead the Rose Thorn Parade
playing 5 Easy Pieces for Pioneers
by Anton Webern
which if allowed to finish
will turn the scene
into a chaotic tumble of faces
performing lip-stretching exercises
in clusters of madness
as they prepare for a night on the town

in either case
it’s hard to get past the coyotes
who operate the trapdoors of perception
on both sides

Oct. 7, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

I wake from an afternoon nap
when Marie Claire
unplugs a memory stick
from between my ribs

Via Benedetta
Oct. 7, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

MITHRAS & FRIENDS

Rome
& the constant conflict
in my mind
between the obvious
blind corruption of the church
(money & souls)
and the fundamental ancient spirit
of the pagans which has survived
the centuries in spite of Vatican
suppression

it’s Mithras & Dionysus
Luna & Lupercalus
who keep me coming back
they’re everywhere in the city
the cries of joy
the laughter
the child-like play of surprise
even in the mouth of a minotaur
staggering from one labyrinth
into another
all of which will outlive
pope the priest
& his polluted minions

I join the pagans
and say: give it up, you phony healers
there’s not a shaman among you

Via Benedetta
Oct. 7, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

SPQR

sono pazzi questi romani
io sono pazzo too
sono io: Giordano Bruno

sono io: Bruno Schivales
sono io: Pedro Carvaggio
sono io: Jumbo Columbo
Bingo Beluga
Hambono Handriano
Cicero Mystico
Signora Snooze
sono io: Bandini Chinaski
Palazzo Poluta
Shoudini the Alpini
Massimo the Maximo
Bermuda Torpedo
Abbastazza Prozippo
Pastor Promesso
Postelippo Tuscolano
Killer Kazoo
Capistrano Caputo
sono io: Castrato Cazzo
io sono pazzo

Via Benedetta
Oct. 7, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

ANCH’IO

anch’io
just another birdman of the airwaves
with his brain being broadcast
at 880 cycles per second
into the abandoned radios
of Mithraic temples

anch’io
just another
atavistic scorpion
sucking juices
from the bull’s cock

anch’io
just another bicycle thief
posing for a photo
with the Fountain Freaks
of Palazzo Farnese

anch’io
just another drunken sailor
shanghaied from solitude
& set loose among the last
of the big spenders

anch’io
just another satisfied customer
with a sagging belly

anch’io
just another hippo-beat
with one fingersnap in the riffs
of Thelonius Monk
& one eye blink
fixed on the Grateful Dead’s
ghost of Bohemians Past

anch’io
just another passenger
into oblivion
on the Rapid Fire Express
with wings on my feet
& angels dancing on my head

anch’io
just another wide receiver
downfield, waiting for the ball
as it passes over the goal posts
& into my heroic hands

anch’io
just another high priest
with a flag
waving pilgrims
around in circles

anch’io
just another designated driver
with a lobster in the backseat
& the gates of Xanadu ahead
slowly becoming visible thru the fog

anch’io
just another Confederate soldier
limping home after the war
crutches in my armpits
my amputated leg
strapped to my back, declaring:
“If anyone gives me shit
I’ll kick them in the balls.”

anch’io
just another madman
who tapes CDs all over his body
then sets himself on fire, screaming:
“Give me freedom or give napalm!”

anch’io
just another blind piano tuner
who knows if you want to hear
the true harmony of the spheres
you must plunge your hands
into his eyesockets
& cup his eyeballs in your fists
anch’io
just another jockey
who rides a fire-branded horse
off the Kentucky Derby track
& out onto the Lonesome Highway
where whip-o-wills cackle like roosters
& the Sons of the Pioneers
join the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
& crash the annual festivities
of the Lupercalia

Oct. 7-12, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

SUNDOWN ON THE GIANICOLO

on the 3rd floor
of the Baby Jesus Hospital
people are watching TV
the same program
in three different windows

Passeggiata Del Gianicolo
Oct. 7, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

EVENING ON PONTE SISTO
(with the lit dome of St. Peters in the background)

on Ponte Sisto
jazz trumpet & guitar
puffing & grooving
on Bird
the trumpet player looks up
nods his at me
who does he see?
Chet Baker

sono io: Chet Baker

Ponte Sisto
Oct. 7, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

LAST POEM OF THE DAY
to Dan Dan

waiting for the tram
at 1:30 am
among all the thieves
& pickpockets
of Stazione Trastevere
who are returning home
from a concert
by John Prine

sono io: John Prine

Via Arenula
Oct. 7, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

I AM TEMPTED

our bedroom window
is three floors
directly above
the entrance
of a beer bar
afternoon, evening
& night
drinkers stand outside
to smoke while they drink

from above
I see only the tops of their heads
(some bald)
& the open mouths
of their beer mugs
held away from their bodies
& tempting me
as I lean out
to take a slice
of salami
from my sandwich
& let it drop
hoping to score
a direct hit
into one of those
beer mugs
below

Via Benedetta
Oct. 8, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

OLD MAN (1)

old man, bent over
ugly as shit
hobbling down
a backstreet
in Trastevere
showing me
I need not be ashamed
of being an old man
ugly as shit
bent over
hobbling down
a backstreet
in Trastevere

Via Calisto
Oct. 8, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

OLD MAN (2)

old Roman
outside his car
bent over
looking around
the cobblestones
for a lost screw
we join in
searching
6 more eyes
peering down
into the cracks
between the stones
lots of small junk
but no small screw

he gets in his car
& drives away

I stop & reflect
there was no lost screw
it was just a lonely old man’s way
of keeping close to other humans

Via dei Genovese
Oct. 8, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

FOUR-NAIL CHRISTIANITY

Christ was crucified
with only 3 nails
where was the 4th ?
the Gypsies stole it

can you imagine
the kind of world
we’d live in today
with Four-Nail Christianity?

the Vitruvian Man
St. Leonardo Da Vinci

Via Benedetta
Oct. 8, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

I went into a bookshop
and I didn’t buy a book

Via Lugaretta
Oct. 9, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

MINIATURE VIEW OF ST. PETE’S

there are people
who come to the Temple
of the Knights of Malta
to stand in line & peek
thru the keyhole in the door

and there are people
who come to look
at the people standing in line
to peek thru the keyhole

then there are people
who come & look at the people
who are looking at the people
standing in line
to look thru the keyhole
and some of them are eating
ice cream

Oct.9, 2016
Piazza Cavalieri di Malta

∙ ∙ ∙

BETWEEN CHIESA NUOVA & PIAZZA NAVONA

1.
in Governo Vecchio
on my way to Piazza Navona
I saw myself from 50 years ago
he was walking the other way
towards Chiesa Nuovo
about 25, innocent face, tall
loping & bouncing stride
looking down at the cobblestones
oblivious to the tourist crowd
lost inside his mind
definitely a visitor
not a tourist
living here in Rome
probably a student
perhaps a composer
studying at Santa Cecilia

he didn’t see me stop
to watch him pass by
(or perhaps he did
from the corner of his eye
just another shapeless stranger
in the crowd)

I watched him go down
thru the crowd, keeping close to the walls
& doors of the buildings
lost in his thoughts & time
I thought of running after him
& tapping him on the shoulder
but it was too late
I didn’t have the stamina
in my bent back
I watched him disappear
into the night

2.
as I continued to Piazza Navona
it occurred to me
that maybe 50 years ago
I, age 25, standing tall
with a loping stride
& bouncing gait
had walked down this same street
towards Chiesa Nuovo one night
& passed a 75-year old man
going the other way
who stopped to look at me
but, lost in my thoughts,
he was no more than a shadow
in the crowd
perhaps he was too tired
from a day’s walking
to run after me
tap me on the shoulder
& say:
“I know you.
I was you 50 years ago
& you are me 50 years from now.”

Piazza Navona
Oct. 9, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

QUARTETS

1.
leaving S.Alesio church
where a quartet of flute
lute, cello & harpsichord
are preparing for an evening
of Italian Baroque Music
I hear the roar of a motorcycle
(no Vespa or Honda)
& down the road
we pass thru a crowd of bikers
I count no less
than 20 customized hogs
parked by the gates of a garden
inside they are celebrating
the end of a biker’s wedding
group photo of 40 or so
the Roman Chapter
of the Harley-Davidson Club
posing in front of the panoramic view
of the city
with the dome of St. Peter’s
behind them
in the distance

2.
later, after midnight
going home
crossing Ponte Sisto
amplified acoustic guitar
two drummers
& didgeridoo
drone music
with fast, clever drum riffs
& a dancer

I give them everything in my pocket
except the keys of the house

Ponte Sisto
Oct. 9, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

LEAVING PONTE SISTO

a woman with a camera
stuck to her face
steps over
and tromps on my foot
I trip, stumble
& almost fall
& for a moment
I see myself
cracking my skull
on the iron rail
I hear an American tourist voice:
“Oh I am so sorry.”
I almost say:
“You are the messenger of death.”
but turn
& get away from her
as quickly as possible

Oct. 10, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

we went off to see
the Old English-American Cemetery
to visit the tombs
of Pee Bee Shelly
and Gregory Corso

we were too late
the gates were closed
but we were just in time
(outside the wall)
to see a girl
with a butterfly
on her finger

Oct. 10, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

today I went
into another bookshop
and bought a map.

Oct. 11, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

I went into a café-bar
& recalled a memory
from many years ago
in a far away place:
a man coming up to me
and speaking quietly into my ear
“Your barn door’s open.”

I went into an arcade
the escape the pouring rain
& looked between the iron bars
& saw the flood
that would end the world
so I pulled up the hood
of my jacket
& stepped into the street
& discovered
that rain stops everything
except people in cars

I went into a church
& almost didn’t come out

I went into the first bookshop
& didn’t realize it was closed
until I walked out
thru the glass door
into the street

Oct. 11, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

LEXICON
& USEFUL PHRASES IN THE ROMAN DIALECT

Osteremo bichanove
“She likes to look out the window
when we travel by airplane.”

Capotranico besta volli
“You know how it is when the moon is full
& the beasts are on the loose.”

Lugatartaruga
“Don’t worry, it’s just a turtle.”

Piccolari guistabanza
“Hey! There’s a slice of salami in my beer!”

Frugopasto
“You can’t fool me.”

Fiumocello imbrusca
“Don’t go anywhere without your chair.”

Cipolama contestiamo
“Let’s go & be on a cheap game show.”

Portrento aus grabbe
“I used to be old fashioned in Germany
but now I’m just unhappy.”

Porba lorba
“Ugly as shit.”

Romanophobia mestico Alabama
“I’m scared of Rome
especially when I’m in Mississippi.”

Duvalido trecosmo
“Me too.”

Gappo yootooba
“You can’t fool me . . . twice.”

Villa Marsupilingo
“I left my tongue in New Zeeland.”

Ma ma mobiletto!
(a common expression used for anything
you don’t like . . . “Ma ma Mobiletto!”)

Squinto Pregoso Quivoni Rogodomo
“These people can’t be trusted
when they’re running around in the ruins.”

Tove, vai, vutto?
“Where are you going to (after) put
those drippin nostrils.”

Torso Storado
“I am scared of toothless women.”

Stoppato! Lavorancho!
“Stop washing your hands.”

Scavo uomo, unodicevo elonzo grabbata
“Dig, man. The snacks are free.”

Monohamico cleano flexicrucibile
(untranslatable: it has something to do
with the Aztec civilization & a girl
with a butterfly on her finger)

Pocativi nella bello rondo
“It pokes me in the belly.”

Panno scorsato
“Send some do-nuts
to the people in the north.”

Mi pompa lutanesca
“My barn door is open.”

Burecca danzing indo norbego
“Breakneck dancing is allowed
only in the shadows.”

Vomitanto maggio mutto clambino
“Once in a while passengers on a plane
like to puke.”

Agatabasco Azeteca cimbali
“Forget about the Aztecs
– let’s invade Bali.”

Polando Eurobravo tedusco
“Somewhere in Ohio
there is a courageous child
with a dusty teddy bear.”

Oppo cioppo gagalatto giafusta
“Wow! I never thought I’d be a gangster!”

Fatto caldo
“I am cold.”

Fatto Fredo
“Meet Fat Fred.”

Dommendalo pinchi bustano big
“An extra-large bus driver
just pinched a dome-headed deaf-mute.”
(useful if you hang around bus drivers
& deaf mutes.)

Ziguri tuscalama mama
“Smoke your scalp,
you Tibetan Monk of a tuskéd mother.”
(an insult to be used with caution)

Lexiconisto più giosso ballusto
“This lexicon is useless.”

Oct. 11, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

with my muscle cramp back
it occurs to me
more frequently these days
as I stumble & limp
over the cobblestones
that this could be
my last trip to Rome

no wheelchair, please

I mean
how could you ever
get me up to the top
of the Pantheon
in a wheelchair
& keep me from rolling
off the roof?

Oct. 11, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

a girl under an umbrella
agonized & painful expression
on her face
behind her
from a window
the sounding of a grinding machine

at first
I thought the sound
was coming from her mouth

∙ ∙ ∙

DELAYED BIRTHDAY GREETINGS
to Dan Dan

at this moment
28,000 feet above the Alps
you are 22,500 days old

or if you prefer
537,930 hours

or if you prefer
31,884,160 minutes

give or take a few

Oct. 12, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

EXIT

north bound
cruising at 28,000 feet
above the Alps
I find myself dreaming
of a fast train
& wishing I was stretched out
on a bed with high speed
steel wheels clicking
on silver-smooth rails
beneath me
rolling along tracks
from Via Benedetta
to the front door
of our house

∙ ∙ ∙

I DOUBT IF THEY’LL EVER BRING BACK THE SMOKERS

you can get a good idea
of how old a jet plane is
by the little light above the seat
that says: NO SMOKING

this plane is kind of old

Oct. 12, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

EXIT TWO

“this waterless urinal
saves up to 250,000 liters
of valuable drinking water
each year”

I just gave it a quart
of Italian beer.

Brussels Airport
Oct. 12, 2016

∙ ∙ ∙

IO CREDO

I said to Bibo
“I am not religious
but I believe.”

not bad for a pagan

Oct. 12, 2016

 

VOCAL DROP
for Wizz Jones

my voice has dropped down
a fourth or a fifth
over the past 20 years

soon I’ll be singing
so low you won’t hear
my voice with human ears

it’ll just be vibrations
that rattle your bones
tremors that chatter your teeth

microscopic earthquakes
that ripple the ground
tickle the bottoms of your feet

October 15, 2016
the night I played
a couple of songs
with Wizz Jones
in Perwez, Belgium



WILD BOAR

the boar hunters
came by today
and said they will shoot
all the wild boars
that have been rooting up our land
then they will give us
all the meat

if they do that
we’ll be eating wild pig
for years

boar burgers
boar soup
boar salad
boar pie
boar cheese
boar butter
boar sandwiches
boar flapjacks
boar tooth cupcakes
boar milk shakes
boar ice cream
boar scaloppini
barbecue boar ribs
boar pizza
boar & beans
spaghetti & boar balls

they say it’s delicious
but I think I’ll pass
on the boar sputum & hot chocolate

October 22, 2016



THE OWLS

the owl house fell down
& now they’re camped out
in a tree way down
in the woods

I hear them hooting
at night
I miss them

you’d think
they’d drop by
once in a while
to say hello

they don’t even . . .
(I’m not going to say it)

Oct. 24, 2016



ROTATION, ROTATION

they say that love
makes the world go round
I don’t think so
I think fucking
makes the world go round

every thrust & nudge
of the male anima’s erection
be it lion, bull, horse or human
adds a little more momentum
to our slowly spinning planet

October 27, 2016



FALLING BACK ON CLOCK TIME

spring forward, fall back
I spend the extra hour
reading Jim Harrison poems
and scratching the back of my head

scratching the back of my head
and listening to dead leaves
fall from trees outside my window

falling from trees outside my window
and landing on the roof
like paper clocks of dandruff

Oct. 30, 2016



BANQUET

one of the pleasures
of having friends over for dinner
is that we are aware
of all having the same taste
in our mouths
at the same time

but what about those people
in other parts of the world?

as I lift a bottle of Grolsch
and the taste of best beer
flows into my mouth
I ask myself
how many other mouths in Holland
at this very moment
are flooding their taste buds
with sparkling Grolsch?

a bite of bacon and fried egg
thousands of men, women
and children in Canada
are sharing the same breakfast

a chunk of do-nut
what’s that I hear?
the satisfied sigh
of thousands of cops
all across America
dunking their maple glazed
into cups of coffee
and sucking out the juice

spaghetti vongole?
thousands of Italians
are slurping up the noodles
and agreeing with me
that this is one of the most
delicious flavors in the world

special fried rice
thousands
and thousands of Chinese
are licking their chops
and chopsticks
and joining me
to shovel this tasty food
into our mouths

the world is one big banquet table
just don’t put it on TV
those food shows
with close-ups of privileged mouths
masticating a slice of marinated nightingale
make me want to puke

October 30, 2016



WALPURGISNACHT

Halloween
All Hallows Eve
The Witch’s Sabbath
the night the ghosts & goblins
come out & dance on tombstones
the boogie man stomps across the land
& the bugbears come tumbling
down the mountain
in balls of fire, while the trolls
grunt & grind baby bones
& batwing banshees scream
as they drop from the sky
upon your back
& you find yourself
turning into a were-wolf
a were-fox
a were-bear
a were-boar
a were-bird
a were-rat

it’s the night of pagan perversities
the night of evil eye enchantments
of charms & curses
take up your bell, book & candle
ride your broomstick
across the moon
& into the pool of the rising sun

that’s the only way
you’ll escape the spider web
the vampire’s hot teeth
& the claws of the cruel were-lobster

crawl from the pool
dripping with sunshine
& heed the ganglion of skeletons
who whisper, “This is the Day of the Dead.”
& whisk you off in a rattle of bones
to join the clack & rattle
of hipbones
rib bones
knee caps
shoulder wings
spines
& skulls
& make you DANCE DANCE DANCE
to the music of the Gravedigger’s Boneyard Band

October 31, 2016



GRANDPA & ME

photograph of me & grandpa
walking down Market Street
in 1947 hand in hand
he’s wearing a suit, tie, vest
white shirt, polished dress shoes
and a grey, narrow brim Stetson
never left the house
dressed in any less

he wasn’t an important man
he was a farmer from Illinois
chased from his land
by dust bowl drought
he worked as a newspaper packer
at Fort Mason during the war
and saved short pieces of string in boxes

he was not pretending to be
someone else
that’s how he dressed
when he went out of the house
even to do short-list shopping
at the corner grocery

back to the photograph
& grandpa in his 3-piece suit
habits stick in unexpected ways
in 2016 kids run around
in shorts, slap sandals
& t.shirts with messages
like
(front)
THERE’S TOO MUCH BLOOD
IN MY ALCOHOL SYSTEM
&
(back)
IF YOU CAN READ THIS
THE BITCH FELL OFF

I can’t go out in public
dressed in anything less
than long pants, sneakers
& a long-sleeve shirt
I’m casual
in my own view
grandpa would not’ve approved
“Sloppy & ragtag,” he would’ve said
shirt unbuttoned, untucked
sleeves rolled
over a blank, black t.shirt
a baseball cap instead of a Stetson

yet I realize I am repeating
my grandpa’s habits
somewhat relaxed
but just as strict
he wouldn’t’ve been caught dead
wearing what I wear
and I wouldn’t be caught
anytime anywhere
in surfer shorts, strapback cap
& a t.shirt that reads
BUKOWSKI
TOLD ME
TO DO IT

kids spot me
from a mile off
as I spotted my grandpa
in his formal & elegant
clothes habits
“Here comes that old gazebo again.”

November 1, 2016



TWO WISE MEN
to Jonah Jones

I describe the leaves
falling from the trees
in mystical words
Jonah picks up a broom
and sweeps the path

the leaves continue to fall
and I continue in the metaphysical mode
Jonah flies off to Florence
to look at paintings
in which leaves fall from trees
only if you catch them
in transcendental light

Nov. 2, 2016



THE “I MEAN” TIC

Where did it come from?
it wasn’t around five years ago
nobody ever started their statements
with “I mean . . . ”
it has replaced “Ya know . . . ”
but it begs the question:
What has he said so far
that demands clarification?

Nothing

Out of the clear blue he says
“I mean there I was
with a ring of albatross feathers
around my neck.”

How do you feel about
the presidential election?
“I mean I’m gonna vote
and all that, but I might
just go whinge . . . ”

What’s the meaning of life?
“I mean among all the owls
in our neck of the woods
there is only one
world-class contra-tenor.”

Do you find any meaning
in any of the things you meant to say
but never got around to saying the words
that really mean something to you?
“I mean, hopefully . . . ”

Now he’s full of hope
I mean, gimme a break

November 4, 2016



THE GOOD HOUSEKEEPING SEAL OF APPROVAL

my moccasins
track all kinds of crap
into my studio
dirt abounds
the carpet belongs in a pig pen

I pay no attention
until the day
on my way down
I pass under a rose bush
and an hour later
a few of the petals
drop to the floor
from my hair

now it would be a cryin’ shame
to sweep the carpet

November 7, 2016



REVISED GEOGRAPHY

out on the highway
the white lines are the government

you toe the line
or get busted

you cross the line
you get bumped off

nobody’s got a check list

November 8, 2016



REPORT TO KEROUAC

chicken is still good eatin’
when one is hungry

railroad trains are still crossing
the mid-west prairie tonight

billboards are still blazing
with radios

drums are still beating
in vacant lofts

the sun is still chasing
your shadow, Jack

the unsung still fuck
the gung ho

and Santa Rosa is still
coming into view

November 8, 2016



NEWS FROM THE INDIAN NATIONS

the Arapahoe are still speaking Buffalo
the Cheyenne are still speaking Duck

Cherokee Joe is chatting with a coyote
in pidgin-wolf

the Sioux have invaded
and taken over France

the Comanche have taken over
and occupied Germany

the Navajo now control Spain
and the Kickapoo have trampled the Vatican

Blackfoot Bob
is the new prime minister of England

pow-wows at 10 Downing Street
fry bread, beer and rodeo riding in Hyde Park

meanwhile,
last moment radio signals:

a horde of Apaches have risen up
and stormed the White House
while the rest of the world waits
for America’s other shoe to drop

I would have told you sooner
but the world was not ready for the news

November 9, 2016



A SWEEPING GENERALIZOMBIE

once you take away
the object from the subject-object polarity
there is no more polarity
and the idea of “subject”
becomes redundant

I’m just howling at the moon
and barking up a tree
I don’t know what I’m really saying
tho it sure does sound good

November 10, 2016



TO NEW POETS WHO WANT TO BE OLD POETS

too sober, you prim prods
stick a pinwheel up your ass
and let a tornado
hurl you from a cloud
filled with smacking curses
and kicking send you
into a pit of demolish and debunk
allow the drunken demons
to crawl from your brain tubes
out your ear porches and down
your shoulder pads and arm sticks
greasepole your palms
& ignite your fingers
while you fist-smash the lights to darkness
and spin your flaming fingernails
in the air, drawing lines
that connect the stars

then open your mouth
and bellow like a bull

your cutes and clevers
bore me blind
eat rocks and let your guts
grind them to gravel.

“Here I sit, writing a poem”
that’s how ALL your poems start
even when they don’t start that way
shove the pen between your front teeth
bite hard and swallow the ink
rip out your belly button
and let the gastrobombic juices
squirt out

ballpoint pen
quill pen
fountain pen
it’s all poison pen
write with an ice pick
write in blood
it doesn’t have to be your own
stab a sheep and write
lop-sided manifestos on canvas
pierce the hide of a black cat
and with its claws
scrawl a canto on the wall
razor a razorback
and carve upon a white shag rug
an epic of accelerating and ambiguous bestial certitudes

forget sonnets
forget haiku
forget quatrains

sized up and seized up
by sneezes and sniffles

and please
for god’s sake
don’t go around
calling yourself a poet
it’s the same old paradox
once you think of yourself
as something
you’re not

November 11, 2016



DRUTHERS

I’d rather be a spitoon licker
than a poet

I’d rather be accused
of being a low down
double crossin’
horse thievin’
cattle rustlin’
yellow-belly sidewinder
than be accused
of being a poet

November 12, 2016



THE U-TUBE LABYRINTH

is a trick maze
easy to get into
hard to escape

I started out
with Bobby Freeman’s
“Do You Wanna Dance”
and ended up
two hours later
with line dance instructions
in Chinese

don’t ask me
how I got from one
to the other
tho I do remember
a few stopping places
along the way:
Davinci’s Inquest
Attaque 77
Ronnie Spector singing
Don’t Worry Baby
and Brian Wilson singing
Be My Baby
Betty Lou by the Cadillac Kings
Spinnerette
The Glenn Miller Orchestra
The Bridge Room Ukulele Band

what finally got me out
was when I backtracked
to the 2013 Wales v England
Six Nations Rugby match
and I realized the quarterback
was acting strange
the wide receivers
were not catching passes
and that what I’d been watching
for the past hour
was not American football
at all
but some kind of pagan ritual
in which men with no teeth
tried to bite each other’s necks
arms, legs & butts

November 13, 2016



ROOM ONE

I sleep in Room One
that’s what it says
on the cup ring she placed
on my breakfast-in-bed tray
a few months ago
Room One
it’s still there – the tag
ROOM ONE

there are other rooms
in this house
but they don’t have numbers

on the refrigerator door
there’s a seahorse magnet
but I don’t think that’s a number
and I don’t think the fridge
is a room

November 14, 2016



ROUTINE

my days have become routine
get up when I feel like it
eat if I’m hungry
go back to bed if I’m still tired
get up when I feel like it
write write write
(whatever comes into my head)
read a book
(whichever comes to hand)
listen to music
(whatever pops up)
write write write
read some more & etc

the only serious choice
I have to make
is at night when I finally
lie down to sleep:
do I start on my right side
or on my left?

the right side is where patriots
emerge from their log cabins
check their mailboxes
which are always stuffed
with dead owls
and waving red flags
join up with a flash mob
of redneck peckerwoods
who have become experts
in Chinese line dancing
(“Tip your hat to the ladies
and slam your hams.”)
after which they all march
down smalltown mainstreet
punching out stoplights
with boxing gloves
attached to the ends
of polevault poles
throwing bags
of Birdseye frozen peas
at desperado housewives
who stumble out of beauty parlors
supermarkets and taverns
and drive away behind the controls
of Caterpillar tractors
at which point the patriots
slowly begin to shrink
are covered by a thick mist
and when they emerge again
have been turned into tiny
opera singers playing the roles
of unknown Roman heroes
on a doll house stage
where they perform
a retrograde version
of Saturday Night Fever
complete with dances in reverse

on the left side are the caves
of the conspiracy freaks
who come out bopping
to the music of teenage deaf mutants
playing bamboo shoe horns
and coconut shells
while the freaks
wrapped in barbed wire
are stomping around
in camo boots
in the shape of submarines
with periscopes in the toes
which spin around
and spit oceanic insults
as they splash thru mud puddles
while overhead hover
a swarm of choppers
decorated in blinking lights
that form various shifting
constellations of stars
– a dazzling display
which is capped
by the choppers
opening their bellies
and disgorging thousands
of bat-shaped drones
which flap around
playing pre-recorded
shrieks of tormented sax players
and screams of drunken sex maniacs
thru the funnels poking out
of their glass assholes
while the tides of the ocean rise
flood the land, sweeping
civilization away
and replacing the humans
and other animals:
shark-head inflatable dolls
crab-face robots
and octopus-mouth store window dummies
all chanting “Let’s Go Surfin
. . . Surfin’ Safari”
after which the tide recedes
leaving the aquatic creatures
stranded on dry sand
to watch mice with human heads
jumping around
on the balconies of sand castles
and rabbits in hazard suits
hopping around on the 19th hole
of a wasteland golf course
where the green is brown glass
and everything between
is a radioactive dust bowl

right side? left side?
it’s always a tough decision

November 15, 2016



PARADOX N° 2016

“Stop complaining”

that sounds like a complaint
to me
Nov. 16, 2016



HEAVEN

speaking to a man
who just got back from heaven

heaven?
how was it?

compared to hell
it was a hell of a lot worse

November 17, 2016



IN ORLANDO, A BALD EAGLE FLEW INTO A SEWER & DIED
– Joe Kloc, Harper Weekly Review, Nov.17, 2016

I can’t bring myself
to pronounce his name
due to pollution
of brain, mouth & room

they call him “that guy”
I call him that creep
that racist
that fascist
that psychopath

I was already sick of seeing his face
on TV long before
the Republican primaries were over
he made me want to puke

now what?
four years
(if he lets us live that long)
of more nausea & repulsion

repulsive
in both body & mind
his brain is a writhing mass
of three different kinds of worms
(one of them cannibalistic)
& down under that squirming mess
sits a fat toad
that burps once or twice a day

his face is a corruption
of slaughterhouse fat
mixed with rat guts

his hair looks like sheets
of damp toilet paper
stuck together with putrefied
skunk piss

his eyes are snake eyes
dripping with venom

his mouth looks like
he’s getting ready
to suck another hippo cock

“that guy”
that nasty man

Sint-Niklaas
Nov. 19, 2016



MORE POLITICS

now I get to go back
to being ashamed
of being an American

“Where you from?”

“California.”

it’s true
it makes perfect sense
more than ever

Nov. 21, 2016



NO PATH *
to Marc Terreur

too many people
have tried to get into my life
for the wrong reasons

anything other than friendship
is the wrong reason

as you may have noticed
I was sceptical when we first met
I was looking, I was listening
but my mind was in the back row
prepared to protect me
from another intrusion
& if it turned out bad
– or worse
to kick my feet into motion
& get me running the other way

we sat & talked
we got together
we shared music
we exchanged songs
my feet felt less & less
like running

now we’re somewhere
over the rainbow, friend
welcome to my life
& may you endure the rough roads
as we travel thru the circles of hell
& delight in the flight
as we cruise & glide
above the clouds

Sint-Niklaas-St. Georges
Nov. 19-21, 2016

*There is no path; paths are made by walking”
– Antonio Machado



BREAKFAST

shell fell into the pan
along with the rest of the egg
couldn’t fish it out
well hell, eat the shell

Nov. 22, 2016



DREAM COMPASSION

shot in the guts
fall to the ground, muttering
“That’s the last time
I’ll be friendly to a stranger.”

Nov. 27, 2016



SEVEN BELOW ZERO

& a heavy permafrost
has settled over the land
the field the wild boars up-rooted
in early autumn
now looks like a frozen ocean
of white-capped waves

November 30, 2016



ON SAFARI TO STAY
we’ll all be gone for the summer
we’re on safari to stay
tell the teacher we’re surfin’
surfin’ U.S.A.
– Brian Wilson

surrounded by retired people
I’ve got nothing to retire from
why should 1,000 songs be enough?
1,000 poems?
who can deny
I’ve yet to write my best?

& who can stop me surfin’
from the beaches of Trastevere
to the slopes of Canigou
& all over the wheatfields of Flanders

watch me wipe out
in the pipeline
of the towering towers
of St. Peter’s Square
just give me one more shot
at shooting the curls
of California Girls
& I’ll go back to writing
duck pond haiku

November 30, 2016



THE FAT BAWDS OF SMOKE

age 17, San Francisco
I happened upon a lonely book
on a shelf in a lonely bookshop
“In the Rose of Time” by Robert Fitzgerald

I thought the title
quite profound

“The Rose of Time”

the poems had lines like:

Touch inconsconable love
the hands of your ancestors

Our faint years
fell like snow beyond the valleys

and phrases like:

flowers of thought
the arms of pain
corners of rain
the fat bawds of smoke

and these were the good parts

now, 60 years later
I read back and say, “What rot!”
from what academic cage
was this poet moaning?

better:
The Junkman’s Obbligato
A Supermarket in California
Amnesia in Memphis

yes, Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg and Corso
came along later that year
and saved me from having to pick
thru a trash heap of images
looking for the truth

yet, looking again
The Fat Bawds of Smoke
is not all that bad.

December 9, 2016



FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA

age 17, I was young and dumb
innocent and gullible
I believed in America (sort of)
I tried to enlist in the Marines.

they turned me down
bad eyesight (close shave)
I joined the U.S. Forest Service
and became a firefighter
(barracks life)

on slow days
we were trucked to a spot
deep in the lava beds
where we were ordered to demolish
everything we saw:

high barb wire fences
wooden slatted shacks
weather-rotted by the years
inside rows of beds
40 people to a room
under the floorboards
we uncovered skeletons of babies

I complained to the ranger
he sent me up to the look out
on Soldier Mt.
to watch for fires.

I stayed alone up there
for five months
I read books
I wrote poems
I thought about things

first snow of winter
at thanksgiving
I came down from Soldier Mt.
and kept on walking
right out of the forest service
and back to the city

months later
working in the college admin. office
as a microfilm operator
I came upon a file:
an American-Japanese student
who’d quit school
given up American citizenship
and went off to live in Japan

I learned in his file
he’d come of age
in concentration camp
in Northern California

maybe it was the same
my crew was ordered to demolish
(re-writing history)

from then on it was easy
I slipped free from the clutches
of U.S. Patriotism
(a government that could do things
to other American-born citizens
could easily do the same to me)

when the Army drafted me
in 1966
I was gone
I never looked back
it was easy
it was simple
America didn’t deserve me

December 9, 2016



THREE FOR ELLYN MAYBE

1. FROM THE LINER NOTES OF MY WRIST

You live twenty years away from Richie Havens
tuning up at a cafe.
I watch the liner notes of your wrists like a fortune teller

Ellyn Maybe “Myth”
Walking Barefoot in the Glassblower’s Museum

bless your soul
your lines fall into my gaps
and smile

thesaurus too?
shame on you
shame on me

I used to think Richie Havens
was the voice of the 60s
now I believe he was the voice
of the 20th Century

∙ ∙ ∙

2. A CONFETTI OF TANGERINES

Suddenly confetti of tangerines fell from the sky
labeled hand-picked by Icarus
Ellyn Maybe “Myth”
Walking Barefoot in the Glassblower’s Museum

your words tumble into my eyes
and when I blink
out come jelly beans
covered in the tears of your voice

I read your Glassblower’s Museum
over & over
I haven’t done that since T.S. Eliot &Ginsberg
hooked me with their lines
60 years ago

when I traveled thru Wasteland & Howl
when my mind was starved
and I was surrounded by mendacity
& double dealing
when emotional understanding was rare
& the air was being sucked out
of the rooms all around me
by encyclopedia salesmen
with vacuum cleaner noses

I was hungry for any truth
that cast aside the lies

reading you now
I didn’t know I still had the hunger

∙ ∙ ∙

3. ENVELOPE WINDOWS

There is a man of letters looking out
the windows of envelopes
squinting at the rain

Ellyn Maybe “Charisma”
Walking Barefoot in the Glassblower’s Museum

I sit up and take note:
the survival of The Harmonica Press-Telegram
beyond 12 turned-pages
that double talk dictionary
is topping the charts
and Dylan is still singing about
stolen post offices and locked mailboxes

it’s all on the tip of my tongue
you put it there with salt and sand

I’m with you in Paris
I’m with you on Alcatraz
on the Vietnam War Memorial
waiting for a Brylcreme moon to go down
and another blow-dry day to begin
waiting for the Greasy Kid’s Stuffed Gorilla
to stop tuning up and start breaking strings
waiting for the squeaky pips
to pop their tops and trim their whims
waiting for Eeyore to emerge
from behind his tar paper double wide
in the Hundred Acre Wood
and collect his prize
of deep fried petrified woodpeckers
and nicotine submarines

and I’ve yet to read
your Cowardice of Amnesia

Dec. 12, 2016



CAN’T EAT BRICKS

the selfish greed
of too many Belgians
to own brand new homes
(rather than restore old ones)
has caused builders to encroach
on acres of valuable farm land

“Can’t eat bricks,” say the wheat farmers

now with the scarcity of bread
many starving people are caught
nibbling away at the corners
of new brick houses

one night
an entire family of Starvers
gnawed thru a wall
into the bedroom
of a Greeder family

“Holy Yuppieshit!”
Mr.Greeder shouted
throwing snow shoes
skis, ski poles
tennis rackets, golf clubs
bowling balls and trophies
at the Starvers

the Starvers gobbled them all down
and howled for more

Dec 13, 2016



DION
can you locate the exact moment
when Dion Di Mucci started wearing a beret?

(hint)
it was at the exact moment
Dion Di Mucci stopped being a Wanderer
and became the King of the New York Streets

December 14, 2016



UNPUBLISHED

Jack, Bob, Ray, Jack
I’ll be with you
in Unpublished Heaven’s Hell
someday and we’ll compare
the Road Maps we sketched & scrawled
on the backside of late-nite Chinatown menus

maybe Hank Chinaski
(still smiling)
will drop over
from the Privileged
Published Poets
Apartments
to show us
that he is just as unpublished
after all

December 16, 2016



SURROGATE PSYCHIC BALANCERS

televised pro sports
are great for psychic balance
they got all the good guys
& bad guys
lined up on opposite sides

the players you’d be proud
to call a son:
Tim Duncan
Tom Brady
Kawhi Leonard
Mo Farah
Dustin Pedroia

& the arrogant bastards
who are easy to hate
Lebron James
Cam Newton
“The Joke” Djokovich
Lance Armstrong
& every knee-bashing, neck-biter
they allow on a soccer field
(the more talented they are
the more fun it is to hate ’em)

December 21, 2016



SAILING TO ITHACA

each night now
I switch on the TV
hoping to see some
GOOD BREAKING NEWS

MEIN TRUMPF GOES BERSERK
SHOOTS WIVES AND CHILDREN
JUMPS FROM HIS TOWER
INTO A SWIMMING POOL
OF SULFURIC ACID

or

THE “NASTY MAN” GUNNED DOWN
BY TIME TRAVELER FROM THE FUTURE
WHO SAW WHAT IT WAS LIKE
TO LIVE IN AMERICA
UNDER A MILITARY DICTATORSHIP
WITH AN ABOLISHED CONSTITUTION
AND CONCENTRATION CAMPS
FOR BLACKS, BROWNS
AND UPPITY WHITE FREE THINKERS

and my hopes are shattered
night after night

December 29, 2016



TUNNEL VISIONS

tunnel vision
with a lamp
strapped to your head
you see only the bird in your hands
whispering voices
off to the side
in the dark, murmuring
humming
faces slide around
in the after glow
the bird flies away

tunnel vision
footsteps behind you
to the soft beat of drums
a marching band of mice
ahead a dancing bear
soft shoes from side to side
forward and back
then forward again, leaping
into a bear hug
that dissolves in your arms

tunnel vision
they warned you
nothing here is reliable
flapping bats turn into jazz riffs
the wail of an alto sax
turns into a neon sign
click
pitch black again

tunnel vision
speck of light
grows larger as you approach
it’s a reflection
of the candle you’re holding
you smash thru the mirror
into total darkness

December 30, 2016



SPIT & DREAMS

cough myself awake
lean elbows on knees
& spit out last night’s dreams

from here I could go to
spitting image
spitting mad
spitting nails
spit in the ocean
I Spit on Your Graves
(J’irai cracher sur vos Tombes)

or I could go to
“I Have a Dream”
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
California Dreamin’
What a Day for a Day Dream
Sweet Dreams are Made of This
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
& Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily
Life is but a Dream

but I won’t

I’m not going anywhere today

I’m going to sit here & sing

last-tense a-ludo toast roasted up a trust
on a mystical model of a double datin’ jog
a lumferocious pog on the front line burger bust
a para-muncha lotto valve smackin’ thru the smog

a herbal loco lumper & a saddle soaper joker bloke
a bop city scape dude a-babble in the rabble gang
a meatball messiah a-bubble in the barking plot
a sleeper from the supper mob speakin’ sucker tit slang

December 31, 2016



THE ALBATROSS CORNER

THE BEAT SCENE

the pure joy of putting wild words
down on paper and watching them
blow away in the wind

the surrealism of streets
& rain-painted windows

BEAT ROOTS

they suffered the bongo bag parade
& the nervous novices on T-Bird bum rides.
they doomed the Coffee Club
Circuit Board of Electric Directors
with happy stances & smolder dust smiles
they grooved to butterfried chuckweeds
on loophole toast
as the buster beaters
with egg burdens & judo-harps
cobble-clotted the streets of Circus City

the survivors were at the mercy
of flux maniacs, lawless meatballs,
bermudisciples up from pachuco flop houses
and moldy fags with figmouth silhouettes

BEAT DRUMS

when combinations of nouns & reverbs
take on dimensions & shapes
never seen or heard before
crushmumble spiralations
clouds of undertow sentimentals
tar baby boom balloons
oof goof loops
sagging sacks of panoramas
apocryphal gossip whirlpools
mirages of smoked jokes, abstract
slapsticks, mattress gap gags,
twit-lit comebacks, moisturized
jestology, whimper-loud gospelitis
& jovial voodoo

BEAT UP

or down whichever way
the pack of cardovasculars fall
in the “See-You-See-Me” game
of 52-pick-a-daisy

BEATITUDE

long live the Broadway Beggars
& the Masturbabe Bums
with their bug eye cameras
changing rolls of film
in the blink of fingers
snapshots of sidewalk nickels
& dimes, half do-nut, dog barf
& wanted dead or alive classified ads
needed: one logger
& two toothpick choppers
for afterhour slash & heartburn operations

half pay spy work
for retired street sleepers

seeking work: barfly swatter
with no experience
yet ambidextrously adept
with a heavy metal nail gun

for rent: 2-house garage
with attached swimming pool table
with attached sky dive board room
rugs of all colors and shapes
used mailbox
and youthful corners
with echoes of broken sighs

greetings & bleatings
for Stovepipe Hatters Anonymous
who go off completely cocked
walking around with animated
electronic ads on their pipes
which circle around in endless loops
and make the poker players nervous
when they sit in for a game
of San Francisco Shanghai
(hold ’em up & hold ’em down)
standing ovations, root salutes
& drum roll applause, trumpet toots
handshakes all around
for the boys in the bagroom
all mocked out in their turtle snake sweaters

BEAT LUCK

bring your own poverty
bag your blues in a busted sock
bet your nevers & toss your poppy wigs
over your chipped shoulder
into a pulse of leeches
that cling like peaches to JayCee’s balls
as he staggers from the river, chanting
“I wanna hold your hamburger”
(and he said he could walk on water)

lob a gob of piccadildo snot
into the folds of the alpha male’s
silkworm accordion
and keep the bottom feeders tuned in
to a ring of radio ropes

sink a paper submarine
in a stack of wet newspapers

smoke a wad of potluck
and consider your rained brain
be-skulled, fuddled & ego whacked

read the rapture
on the dodge ball wall
(we don’t need these childish
autographs in our age
of lip-guided missiles
& atomic cork-loaded cockscrews)

scream “Bazooka!”
and see how many laughs you get
on Carpetbag Street
where the leakers lie down with the liars
& the last of the BuckskinTexicans
fast-draw their piss-loaded pistols
& shoot it out
at the Okie Dokie Oklahoma
Road-ee-o-lee Roller Rink

  

THE HOUSE OF THE HIPSTER

in the house of the hipster
the ink stains have been removed
from the white frames
of paintings
of golden brown beef

in the house of the hipster
phones are ringing
radios are playing
and bootlegger’s grandchildren
are waltzing in the hinterlands
of the Fox Trot Ballroom

in the house of the hipster
guests are wearing clothes
several times to large
men in white sport jackets
that hang to their knees
women in mini skirts
that drag the floor

in the house of the hipster
time stands still
giant grandfather clocks
are frozen with gloved hands
stuck in the ice of midnight/noon

in the house of the hipster
chemistry experiments
are being conducted
in secret locked rooms
small explosion are heard
by servants passing by
in the hall as they carry
trays loaded with clinking
crystal glasses
of pink champagne
their destination the rumpus room
in the west wing
where gigglemeisters
dressed in elephant costumes
sit in zebra skin hammocks
blowing bubbles
from their upraised trunks

in the house of the hipster
hard mob candy dieters
stand on scales, yawning
waiting for the balanced weights
to stop tilting the bar
hours later
the accurate weight of each
is proclaimed in neon lights
in billboards across the city

in the house of the hipster
the fashion models in the billiard room
are spinning diamond necklaces on the tips
of their cue sticks
while skydivers in stovepipe hats
are speaking Yiddish to
to Babylonian dreamers
in Brautigan sweatshirts

in the house of the hipster
sippers of gin & hydroponics
are fanning their safety valves
with fly swatters

in the house of the hipster
visitors can see the garden
from a backroom window
where the white trash hipster cousins
have parked their battered double wide
the lawn is littered
with junked out hipster bicycles

in the house of the hipster
a movie star lights a cigarette with a fire fly
sucks & swallows
smoke rings puff from his belly button

in the house of the hipster
Bill Blake, the Ampersand of Amsterdam
the Double Dealer of Fearful Symmetries
is doing chin ups from a book shelf
in the library, repeating
the same thing over & over
“Hold that tiger!”
“Hold that tiger!”
“Hold that tiger!”

in the house of the hipster
there is always going to be some theft
there’s always a guest
who’ll rip off a crystal chandelier tear drop
a blues singer’s tooth
the host brought back from Chicago in 1949
a hand-written first-draft page
from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1816)
a scrap of burnt sackcloth
from Giordano Bruno’s cloak (1600)

in the house of the hipster
sprinklers rain down
on the heads of cyclists
as they guide their bikes
thru the elaborate maze
of a vast medieval underground
parking lot for chariots
those who reach the center
sit down at a table
where funnels are inserted in the mouths
of their lifted heads
to collect the liquefied steaks
of golden brown beef
that were raised in paintings
with white frames

  

THE OUTPOSTS OF THE EMPIRE

1.
American military officers in drag
lipstick stuck, high-heelin’ down
London’s Birdcage Walk, salutin’
high-fallutin’ beehive wigs
slipping electronic ankle bracelets
under Marble Arch
I’ve seen them
(just so you know)
up to no good
with the boys in Piccadilly hotpants
wait’ll they get back
to General Flagbottom’s tent mobile
& hand over the marked deck
of Russian aces & jokers
that say the Commies
have got ’em in the crosshairs
of their crossbomb bows

2.
bombs falling on the corner sweat shop
some Pancho Villa punk pulled the trigger
(they said)
as tanks rumbled by on Rue Rivoli
3 a.m. July 14 (they said)
preparing for independence day
celebrations, as the tank tracks
tore up the cobblestones
& the bombs took forever to fall

3.
& the bombs’re still falling
ancient Greek gods
pedal by waving
rainbow stripe peace flags
bullhead Mithraic priests
moo & boo ’em down
into chinashop dust
& feast on buckets of matador brains
rip off their buckles
& settle down to read
from the pages of
the Kor-Blimey- Ran
the part about where the feasters
lie down with the lame lamb-ka-bobs
& chew the wool

4.
& need I mention
the steplads of the CIA
have got it in for us
(out here in the outposts
of the empire)
since Dante cracked the codes
they sit around watching movies
of black buses racing up
down Highway 101
from Mexico to Canada
gouging deep ruts
that will slice away a strip
of the West Coast
& dump it in the ocean

5.
we send them recordings
of Hip Van Winkle vibraphone solos
& they send us tarnished pennies
& when we refuse to give up
our beat down ways
they feed our names into newspapers
& the next morning
our tight-lipped smiles
are plastered all over
the front pages
do the readers realize
that the mouse tails
dangling from the corners of our mouths
have been photoshopped?

6.
hypocrisy & lie soup
it’s the blue plate special
everyday out here in the outposts
of the empire

  

PORTRAIT OF A MUSE

iTongue
uTurn
iTang
oStuff

  

HIM & HER

HE stands
with fists in his pockets
clenched around leaves
he picked while dreaming
as he slept in the arms
of a chestnut tree

SHE buried him a dozen times;
HE kept rising
& hiding in her heart

SHE closes her eyes
and allows herself to be led
into a blizzard of bats
by a pack of Venetian blind dogs

HE plays amorphous poker
a hand of heart attacks
beats a pair of one-eye jack hammers

SHE goes to a costume party
disguised as an anorexic cockroach

HE sees the light
which turns out to be
an abdominal snowman
with a bowling ball head
and sparklers in his mouth
snapping dayglo elastic suspenders
over a melting belly

SHE reads about the snake

HE catches a lizard
& is soon holding only the tail

SHE reads about the turtle

HE crawls into a zoo
with the lizard tail between his teeth
& pins it on a donkey

SHE tags him for a tom-tom

HE sleeps in his socks
& in his wool shirt pocket
there is a scrap of paper:
“Jesus, squeeze us, please . . . etc.”

SHE threads the needle
and punches the camel in the eye

THEY come to the conclusion
that they are best suited to others
so SHE hangs her pet unicorn hide
out to dry and runs off
with a negative ion life coach
and his deep pockets of promises

while HE
returns to the cow with the crumpled horn
who ate the corned beef burger
in the meadow where the scarecrow hangs

  

UNKNOWN FAMOUS PEOPLE

Duke O’Lapse
played falldown for the Pissbird Streakers scoring in a single season a record-breaking seven roll-arounds & three jump-ups

Fungus Inepto
with mouseketeer ears on a beanpole he marched in demonstrations protesting the torture of glow worms in experiments to develop a floor wax that would make fox spotting effortless

Tizzy Splam
traveled the world with rear-view mirrors attached to her eyelashes.

Vroom Ramshackle
rode into town on a paracetamule speaking in breakneck prosody; later, holed up at the Brutal Poodle Saloon, he was heard chatting in Speakease and big shitting in Rude Speak with whip blowers and spinalogues.

Crack-A-Toe Gonghsu
“Corruption Up the Crude Boot,” was his first movie; his second was “Sugar & Cremation.”

Magpie Shaking Spear
cooked the books in boiled beer; t’was a recipe from the Athabascanadians.

Benjamax Gopher
invented the piss steam locomotive; arrested for aerosolipsitude, served for three years as a panther victim in a leopard colony.

Garbagio Zoot
suffered five years of Stompolini Commulism, feeding on boiled u-Tubers twice a day and drinking gallons of spitunarcotics all night long; broke free, escaped in a fit of color blindness; was among the many pilgrims who stopped at the Fist and Bull Inn on their way to Viagra Falls.

Wolverina Chick Stick
knew how to handle the boys. When one reached out, she’d grab his hand and shove it up under her skirt. The boy’d scream, jerk his hand away and hold it in the air as smoke drifted away from the black crusted lump of flesh on the end of his arm. “Hotplate!” he’d screamed. “She’s got a hotplate between her legs.”

Mamzel Hoom
tickled by long lashes, her eyeballs turned to pearls

Matadog Zoostels
with his buzzard cut and submarine shoes he broke the snob barrier of accelerated social wisdom and taught the give-a-hoots how to whisper in three different rhythms: Jamaican Reggae Pop Toe, Nashville Fast Draw with Honky Tonk accents and Boston City Stutter with ink stains on the capital letters and a puff of oceanic breeze on the vowels.

Weak Torpedo
medicine man of the Wiggledog Tribe; ship-wrecked in the wilderness, survived on spiced rubber wine, barbecued burps of sandman footprints and cream of nowhere soup. Later he buttoned down his toupee, unzippened his panpipes and sold snorkle chapstick to the tourists.

Mud Climbertomb
introduced the idea of frat houses into Bedouin nomad culture; established the Order of the Cloak & Hooded Benzedrine Monks among Nashville pedal steel players; abolished the last of the secret cults of weightlifters with lollipop heads known as The Hearts-Are-Made-To-Be-Broken Society.

Normal Zeus
a victim of aplomb bombs dropped by gopher-tooth psycholostomy bag busters, and the aphrodisiacclimations of pencil thin Mustaphallopians; recovered miraculously and went on to become the director of the Yogurt Froba Foundation.

Oval A’Rabbit
brewed out of chuckle-me-chin rotgutters, age 40, remembered by the hoi poloi as the most promising leg cramp artist this side of Vindolanda; later retired into obscurity, devoting his life to his collection of inflatable yellow jacket stings and lipwrangler sonnet spills

Jumpy “The Pimp” Armstump
funked on tooth-brushed plump-footed pumps, cloaked in bring-it-on challenges and upraised middle toes; ran out of town on a lightning-struck ironing board because of flesh mortifications, unauthorized stigmata and psychoyote horns.

Pagan Paydirt
outlaw; a book in the Backslider’s Bible; trapped in a cold cut pisser with a munch of mules, came out of it holy and sanctified, tooting on a bazookazoo

Gunjo Gwart
was all quietude when the About-Face Feasibles moved in from the Loothern Panthapopia Swamps in mysterious ways; trapped by bungee jumpers with Nordic walking sticks, he saddled up the hippodrone and flew off to join forces with the transparent revolutionaries in the Nuclear Winter Mountains. Last heard, they were planning to blow the top off a barrel of poisonous mushrooms with a 10-megtune balloon to see what kind of cloud it would produce.

Frytog Malicious
known as The Ivory Ghost; snuck into ouiji board meetings and occupied the position of Recommended Whistler; he brought along the Wart Hogs; he brought along the Windbags; he shared his fumigator with the Gobsmacks and Chopstucks.

Perfidia Nomenclature
dead at the age of 16, she left her footprint on the ceilings of low-rent motel rooms from Magnetotozen to Chimerica, established contact with the Lost Nerve Wisdom Smashers who supplied forged paintings to high-class bone museums – Rushvelte originals and lost Maxime Mudboy landscapes and fire-destroyed portraits of electric chain victims at moments of highest voltage; in deep with the Mexican History Factory Poets with whom she boozed on fermented terrapin saliva and frozen mahjong methiolate.

Riga Tony Bunky Fruit
a minority minstrel with more than three strings on his banjo hat and a Frankensturmundring up his sleeve, celebrated for being able to tell the difference between observation and opportunity; in the Church of the Universal Virgins he did not wilter; his personality-rating rose from tenditious to sevenditious.

Mrs. Zippy
got knocked up in a blizzard by a fake Eskimo with a mule; moved to the tropics and hung out with muscle men and voodoo boys; got knocked up by a shaman with faulty caveman forcep techniques. She said, “What am I going to do with two mule-face kids?”

  

FLAVORIOUS FAVALATIONS

sophistimasticated & skepticallous
sour grapewire on the gropevines
quirky jerky nervosperm
in the collection plate

these are a few of my flavorious favalations

pendulums swinging high wildly
and shooting off into space
like bullet face dogs

flop-belly splurge drinker chicks
trapped in the accelerating revolving doors
of a naked butt dance

life coaches with random access memory
that discourages co-incidence and sends it off
to the supermarket to buy a six-pack of canned heat

bag mouth bambini in rock-a-bye polar caps
and one Jolly Green Giant
left over from an Ajax commercial

(Oops! did he just introduce the names of well-known,
advertised commercial products into his writing for the first time?)

fallen Hollywood & Vine starlets who contribute
to the entropic state of society
by crawling around on their hands and knees
loaded down with body-pierced jewelry
twice their weight
(love ’em)

their male counterparts
who corrugate their bones with tin roofs
and feed their road rage with laughing hyena gas

store window dummies in white hazard suits
animated by high voltage electric shocks
zapped thru wires attached to their pedestals

the Holy Beach Boys who surf Coleridge’s sacred river
from Xanadu’s Pleasure Dome to the Bermuda Triangle
and become cultural icons when word gets out
that they’re down in that bottomless hole
with such momentous personalities as
Agatha “Lock-a-Promise” Christie
Hieronymus “Digital Backbone” Bosch
James “Loopy” Joyce
and Bob”Riga-Me-Roll” Marley

the newspaper crossword puzzle that opens in the middle
and the puzzler follows his pen into the hole
down past the sports page, past the editorials
and the front-page stories, thru the headline
and into the action behind it:
pedophile hunters prowling dark alleys
searching for dirty old men
in dirty old raincoats
which when flashed open
reveal a steady downpour of rain

A bustion of whirly gigglegirls

the stand-up comic who become so predictable
that his audience is already laughing
as they enter the club; then, having nothing
to look forward to when he takes the stage,
they turn and walk out.

street lights slashing across the ambulance’s windshield
as the driver, his face turned into a cadaver,
races across town to a 62-car pile up on the interstate.
latest report: surviving victims are fighting each other
with poisoned dart blow guns and grenade-loaded slingshots
and a baby in diapers is crawling around on cars
and smashing windshields with a machete

a few of my flavorious favalations

(The above was written under the influence of the plague and several types of Asian flu – chicken flu, rooster flu, snake flu and dog breath virus, while suffering aching joints, headaches and sore throat which only goes to show that great art cannot be produced under such 19th Century Romantic conditions; however I would urge you to toss a few coins in my hat (at least I gave it a try).)

  

NURSERY RHYMES REDUX

this old man he played one
he played nick-nack with his gun
BANG! end of story

I knew an old lady who swallowed a fly
I pray she noticed the fish hook

hickory-dickery dock
two mice ran up the clock
the clock struck one
got him right in the balls
and the other escaped with minor injuries

three blind mice
see how they run
no dark glasses no white cane
the guide dog laughs
to see such fun

hey diddle diddle
the cat in the middle
got caught in a trap
of elephant crap

and if you ever get hit
with a bucket of shit
be sure to close your eyes

  

THE ALBATROSS SONG

lumenthug waster the blurpo pannalotto
rebelation lipposnaction canna pov-a-leapstag
stoff me grinders it’s Lobstrange Chumpa
he’s a rumpool blotto crave-a-coolie creeperbag

Jackpot Needleduck’s in a data blog
Melstroke Trickle Shag’s in a megatootin’ shave-a-thum
blunky nastrolominies gimee da cheeps
o sacrosunken neoplysium

geister cambalasto & stacken greeda loop
harvajobba jisto splatter& meezlebubble stump
gobblestreak whim & hog larva croonie
whistledark nova & pewneewar rump

freaklin’ culprit jag & mugbait cool
these are the crudes of my Dublin drool

  

ALBATROSS APHORISMS

love is in the eye of the marauder

sometimes love is like a swarm of mosquitoes
in a nudist camp

don’t touch the egg shells
you don’t know where they’ve been

only a fool wastes his time
jumping off the wrong cliff

mutemole in azerty is luteloke

the only difference between yes & no
is the difference between shop & go

a watched pothead never boils water

those who get mature
about urine and manure
will never break wind again

  

ALBATROSS ADVICE

the sun usually rises but once a day
if twice or more adjust your kaleidoscope

look before you sleep
it might be the last time you see
the alligator that lives under your bed

bite your nails and you’ll soon be shitting bones

imitate the desert: B flat.

believe only half of what you think
and none of what you believe

November – December 31, 2016

A lamp for any fool’s feet

Poems 2017  |  TUCKER ZIMMERMAN

Who remembers Wang Chi, “the real human like
multiplied sunlight?” No one, of course,
but his words are a lamp for any fool’s feet
Jim Harrison, after ikkyu 38

& FOUND

climbing the path
on the frozen snow
I look down
& see a mosquito-type insect
crawling thru the vast snowfield

I say, “Boy, are you ever lost.”

at that moment
my feet slip out from under me
& I end up
on my hands & knees
face down
in a vast snowfield
inhabited by only a tiny insect

for a few moments
I am completely lost

January 3, 2017

THE FOOTSTEPS OF YOUR
SHADOW

crunch crunch
night time
footsteps in the snow
sounds like somebody
behind me
crunch
crunch
following me everywhere
right on my heels

who mocked
the windmills of your mind ?
the sunshine of your love ?
the shadow of your smile ?
the rivers of your memory ?
the bright elusive butterfly of love ?
the smoke rings of your mind ?

“Not I,” said the Little Red Hen of my Shadow

Jan. 4, 2017

DREAMS NOW AND THEN

the dreams I had as a kid
were confusing
disturbing
threatening
& sometimes frightening

my dreams these days
are totally incomprehensible
their only message is:
you are too old to understand

at least now
I am invisible
I wander freely in my underwear
& nobody sees me

January 12, 2017

THE MASTER OF THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE

inhospitable
the word rolled around in my head
I liked the sensation
I was bent over
looming down at a frozen landscape
32,000 feet below
somewhere over Canada
(flying across the North Pole
London to San Francisco, 1987
my first time back since my escape
20 years before)

down below the violent winds
swept over the perpetual ice & snow
I said it again – quietly
“Inhospitable”

I was proud
I had found the perfect word
I was the most articulate passenger
in the planet
all I needed now
was an audience

a few minutes later
he strolled up
& stood next to me
I waited for the perfect moment
I nodded at the window
& the landscape below
“In-hos-pit-able.”

the man turned
& walked away

January 13, 2017

GOD DAMNED AMERICA

in memory of Dan Propper whose poem The Fable of the Final Hour served as a model for the following

In the 1st minute after his arrival in the White House the newly-elected president of the United States pushed the red button.
“What’s up?” said the Pentagon.
“Drop the big one on North Korea.”
“Any place in particular?”
“Seoul.”
“Seoul’s in South Korea.”
“Bomb that one too.”

In the 2nd minute after his arrival in the White House the newly-elected president of the U.S. withdrew troops from overseas & set them patrolling American cities with orders to shoot all Mexicans & Muslims.
“Shoot to kill,” he told the generals.
“But we might get some African-Americans caught up in the attack.”
“Shoot ’em too. Kill em’ all.”

In the 3rd minute . . . etc . . . president of the U.S. erected a wall between Mexico & the U.S. border. He also declared a free fire zone of up to one mile inside U.S. territory.
“Open season on wetbacks.” he declared. “No hunting permit required.”

In the 4th minute . . . etc . . . the newly-elected president abolished the constitution.

In the 5th minute . . . etc . . . . all media coverage of his activities was banned.

In the 6th minute . . . etc . . . the president declared martial law. Curfew was established. Any citizen found walking the streets between 6 pm & 6 am would be shot on sight.

In the 7th minute . . . etc . . . he began the systematic roundup of dark skin people & sent them off to concentration camps in the Mojave Desert.

In the 8th minute . . . etc . . . he declared war on Mexico. Twelve hours later U.S. troops marched into Mexico City & took control of the country.

In the 9th minute . . . etc . . . U.S. troops invaded Canada. Toronto fell. Hundreds of thousands were slaughtered in the streets of Montreal & Quebec. The hold-outs in the Rocky Mountains did not last long.

In the 10th minute . . . etc . . . journalists of television & newspapers were thrown into prisons.
“What took you so long?” said the Russian president.
So the president bombed Russia off the map.

In the 11th minute Neil Young wrote & performed a song criticizing the president-elect. The president picked up the red button telephone to the Pentagon.
“Bomb Hollywood back to hell.”
“But Neil Young lives near San Francisco.”
“Bomb them too . . . in fact, wipe California off the map.”

In the 12th minute Spike Lee was executed by firing squad at the Lincoln Memorial for wearing glasses.

In the 13th minute Bill Maher and Michael Moore were tortured to death on the White House lawn for mocking the president-elect & making people laugh.

In the 14th minute the decomposing body of George Carlin was dug up & hung from by the ankle bones from the torch of the Statue of Liberty.

In the 15th minute American citizens huddled in fear. Each & everyone was turned into a babbling idiot with permanent brain damage.

In the 16th minute the president-elect ordered all libraries burned to the ground & all citizens were ordered to bring their private collections of books outside to pile on raging bonfires.

In the 17th minute the president discovered that the ex-chief justice of the Supreme Court was hiding a copy of George Orwell’s 1984 & ordered the Pentagon to bomb Washington D.C.

In the 18th minute the city disappeared in a ball of fire & radioactive smoke. At the last moment the president realized his oversight.
“Oh Shit,” he said as he went up in ball of fire & radioactive smoke

There was no 19th minute . . . or 20h or 21st.
There was no first hour.
There was no final hour.
The U.S. had ceased to exist.
China waited 50,000 years.
Then they moved in.
plowed the land
& planted a lot of rice

January 20, 2017

TULIPS

they gave us a bunch of tulips
we put them in a jug of water
& placed it on the table

after a week they started drooping
petals falling off

all I can say is
that didn’t last very long

Jan. 30, 2017

CIRCUSIMUS MAX

the cat is scratching
at the front door
a rat is thumping
on the cellar door
hoping to get in

what we need now
is a trapeze

Feb. 2, 2017

STRAY CAT

chased a black & white
stray cat away
from Jimbo’s bowl
of cat food
down the path
& into the thick brush

I followed it
with my flashlight
saw it ahead
in a thicket
of thorns & brambles

I hissed at it
for a minute
it didn’t move
I poked at it
with a long stick
& discovered
it was a white
plastic bag

Feb. 4, 2017

MORE THAN A MOUSE

I put out the poison
& the traps for the mice

the first beast to turn up
was more than a mouse

lumped down dead
at the foot of my rocking chair
I needed more than one hand
to lift him
carry him outside
& chuck him into the woods

don’t tell Marie-Claire
that a poisoned rat
died next to the couch
while she was asleep

she’ll never sleep again
& she does need her rest

Feb. 12, 2017

ONE TOO MANY OF EVERYTHING

sometimes I get distracted by time
& take one too many of everything

blue buses, fives
encores. requests, trips
hits, high inside fast balls
numbers, steps back, bribes
highroads. short cuts, notes
prisoners, bites, deep breaths
exams, rain checks, stabs in the dark
rides, swigs, photographs, sleeping pills

too many spoons of honey in my tea
too many flying fucks at the moon

Feb. 21, 2017

TERMS OF IMPEACHMENT

transgender bathrooms & the Mexican wall
everything was going fine
until the Psychopathic Predator
rode into town on a dead mule

March 1, 2017

KING KONG

Marie Claire says, “King Kong,”
as I pass thru the room

is she talking about something
on the TV?
or is she talking about me?

March 6, 2017

THE RETURN OF THE GOOSERS

here they come
wild geese flying north
strings of spring
dripping from their wings

four score & forty black bellies
spiraling high in the sky
an occasional silver shimmer
when they turn
their top feathers catching the sun

March 12, 2017

TOO MUCH SUN, TOO SOON

Bear says
“When you overdose on vitamin D
the letter D appears on your forehead
in yellow.”
March 12, 2017

SLAP APPLES

found a need for a cell phone
found a use for e-mail & the internet
found a need for a computer

forget the rest
tweets
twitters and jitters
blogs and blobs
face books and fake books
instagrams and shams
wikileaks
kon-tiki geeky peeks

slap apps
forget ’em
don’t need ’em

March 13, 2017

ATTENTION DEFICIT SYNDROME

powerful hot sun
in the last days of winter

fine day for sitting in the garden
& reading Thomas de Quincey’s
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
before the mosquitoes
flies & wasps come out
& give me an incurable case
of ADS

March 14, 2017

ADS

a strange condition
promoted by TV ads
music clips and video games
everything chopped down
to half second chips
(the lower limit is a tenth of a second)
everything flashing by
in the blink of an eye
spurts of sound
that might be words
(or drastically unfinished symphonies)
got us all lying on the edge
of our potato couches
and falling asleep
to dream of scenes
chopped
down
to
the
blink
of
an
eye
and spinning our brains
out the holes in the tops of our skulls

gaze upon the mute, mama
the zombie, baby
the blind ghost of a lost chance

he who was once a man
is now an erased message
in the dead letter box of his own post office

March 14, 2017

THE NEWS

“Astronaut freaks out
carries a b.b gun in her purse
& drives across America in diapers.”

“29-year old man
(multiple sex offender)
enrolls in the 7th grade
pretends to be 12-years old
is not discovered
until he rapes an 11-year old girl
& gets her pregnant.”

an ad on Superbowl TV
showed two men
snacking on the same Snickers
people got nervous
gays got upset
“Human rights got set back
20 years,” said one queer

“210 billion dollars in cash
(that’s several tons of paper)
was delivered by plane
to Baghdad 4 years ago.
What happened to the money?
Nobody knows.”

this is the news
these are a few of the headline stories
this is what’s happening in the world

who cares?

you can be sure
that some terrible event
is going down somewhere else
right now & they’ll never
talk about it they don’t dare
there would a civil war
if we knew half the crap
that gets flushed down
the pentagon toilet
they speak only lies
nobody listens anymore
they’re getting away
with murder

FAKE NEWS

Tucker Carlson
has a political talk show
on one of the networks

the spin doctors
& buzz worders on CNN
speak of him by his first name

I’m slumbering in my rocking chair
when I hear one of these pundits
say the most alarming thing:

“Tucker was wrong about that.”

I sit up, wide awake
never before have I heard
my name linked
to such an absurd claim

March 25, 2017

JUMPING TIME ROPES

daylight savings time
I read “Owl Creek Bridge”
by Ambrose Bierce
for the second time in 60 years
then set my clock ahead
one hour

March 26, 2017

APOLOGY TO WALT WHITMAN

when did lilacs last in the dooryard bloom?
last year
then we cut them down
no more lilacs

March 27, 2017

EXTREME SPORT

I don’t need to climb a mountain
hang glide, bungee jump
or go over Niagara in a barrel

each time I go up & down the stairs
is an adventure

March 28, 2017

LORD OF THE FLIES

I attacked the huge black
hibernation flies
with a vacuum cleaner
the nozzle sucked them in
I heard them popping
all the way down the tube

I shut off the machine
& heard them buzzing inside
then it rose slowly in the air
& floated out the open window

April 4, 2017

MICRO SOFTSOAP
for Hans

You showed me
how to put
a photo on my laptop screen
I took what you taught me
& put a photo on my PC screen

now after 15 years
of staring at a black, blank screen
I have the shadowed statue
of Giordano Bruno
(seagull perched on his head)
looking out at me
& reminding me
that I am becoming a computer genius

soon I will have
a black belt in Information Technology
children will flock to me
& I will teach them
the subtle art
of sophisticated hackery

April 4, 2017

HANS & SHEILA

Hans & Sheila came into my life
bearing gifts of delicious food
meats & pastries
like in an old-time movie
of ancient Greece

when they went home
they left warm lights of love
glowing in my eyes

Hans & Sheila came into my life
loving my music
& they didn’t ask for an autograph

April 11, 2017

WINDBAG

the wind at the window
breathes the curtain out
& in against the fly screen

I breathe in & out
like an old wind bag

sleep & dream
of a snubbish Pulitzer prof
I ask him: “Do you think
Richard Nixon was an incompetent composer?”

wake & daydream
I’m returning to Ithaca with Odysseus
& wondering what my life will be like
when Circe turns me into a pig

& the curtain continues to breathe

April 13, 2017

DR. DAO TAKES A TRIP ON UNITED AIR FLIGHT 3411

he’d just discovered the fountain of youth
a special chemical combination
distilled into a pill
take one a day for a week
& you’ll return
to your prime & live
for a thousand years

he was very happy

& they dragged him off the plane
squealing like a pig

April 14, 2017

THE OFF-LOAD

I’m ready to go
but first I gotta pack
my bags
but before that
I gotta check my e-mails
& wash the dishes
but before all else
I gotta trim my fingernails
& unplug the phone
& feed the cat
& find my new baseball cap
& oil the hinges on the front door
& take a shower
& furthermore
I can’t forget to sweep
out the garage
& take out the trash
& wash the car
& rake the leaves
& trim the rose bushes
along the garden path
& mow the lawn
& other than that
I’m ready to go

April 29, 2017

TEMPURA

for Jef Van Gol

Jef tells me about
the old masters
and how they mixed
egg yolk with their paints

the paint hardens
and lasts for hundreds of years

raw egg

imagine what it does
to your liver

I can

art historians
will open my organs
post-mortem
& discover galleries
of masterpieces
in the Museum of my Liver

unknown Michelangelos
Rembrandts & Van Goghs

& down at the end
in a small work room
they’ll find Jackson Pollock
with a shotgun
shooting holes in paint cans
& watching them drip down
onto a canvas at his feet.

April 30, 2017

CHEESE PEELER ET AL

found the cheese peeler in the garden
got tossed out with a bucket of garbage

& that’s how we lost all that other stuff

passports
marriage certificates
birth certificates
gold medal from the 1964 Olympics
(hammer throw)
Pulitzer Prize for Literature
(“Armadillo Brain”)
Nobel Prize for Literature
(“Thorn-Ripped Flesh”)
three platinum records
hundreds of autographs
(movie stars, celebrity athletes
pop stars, gangsta rappers)
the 1953 Marilyn Monroe Playboy calendar
the 1st edition of Homer’s Odyssey
with hieroglyphic footnotes
by Gilgamesh & Enkidu
Chief Sitting Bull’s bull whip
The handlebars of Hannibal’s bicycle
& his elephant’s gas mask
Monika Lewinski’s harmonica
the 3 aqualungs that Hank Chinaski’s sons
– Stiffi, Stuffi & Shaggy – were wearing
when they were shipwrecked on the moon
the infrared tapes of Nijinski
demonstrating his exceptional talent
for spatial location in the dark
the mouthpiece of the last bugle call
from Stieg Larsson’s lips
the alarm clock that fell to earth
when Albert Einstein was playing
his violin in the apple orchard
& singing about Fig Newtons
the 16-second scrap of 8mm film
that captures the last conversation
between Crazy Horse & Anne Frank
a telegram from the sinking Titanic that read
Blow out the candles, ladies (stop)
we’re goin’ down (stop) into the deep dark
(stop) watery tombs of Neptune’s gin mill
(stop) where the fish will play (stop)
pinochle on our snouts (stop god-damnit)
the bullets from the rifles of J.D Salinger
& Heinrich Böll when they squared off
at the Battle of the Bulge for the most famous
literary shoot-out of the 20th century

et al

May 12, 2017

ARGUING WITH THE UMP

Ump, I do not like thee
let me count the ways

you are stupid
you are insane
you are a fascist
you are a racist
you are POISON

you have infected the minds
of everyone in the world
the virus now known as the UMP
infects the minds of humans
on a dumbconscious level
they don’t know they are contaminated
until it’s too late

you have infected many Americans
with hate, fear & confusion
some with gut-ripping violence

speaking for myself
I see that I am now less tolerant
less patient & more easily annoyed
even with her, the one I love the most

oh yeah, one more thing, Twitter Head
you insane, fascistic bucket of poison:
you abuse women
you do not respect them
you do not recognize their true value
in the continuing flow of life
on this planet

OK, that’s it
kick me out of the game
gotta get back to ESPN anyway
S.F. Giants up one run in the 8th.

May 12, 2017

THROWING THE BABY OUT WITH THE BATHWATER

I visualize a hefty woman
lifting a tub of soapy water
in which she’s just given a baby a bath
& tossing it out onto a patch
of bare ground in front of the porch

the baby goes sailing
thru the air
& lands in the dirt
on his butt & bounces
a couple of times

the hefty woman
wipes her hands on her apron
& goes inside the house
to raise Cain

a dog trots around
sniffs at the baby
then laps up the spilled soapy water

the baby crawls off
into a potato patch
to make a mountain
out of a molehill

May 18, 2017

ROME POEMS 2017

VATICAN SONG

Big belly bony ass
St. Hieronymus sputters the mass
kyrie eleison and something in Greek
and here come the birdboys with worms in their beaks

meanwhile Mother Mary is counting her blessings
she takes out a hammer and plays the blues
mumbles numbers at the wall, spins around
and shows everybody her cool blue tattoos

the Pope in outlaw leather jumps down from a hog
climbs a ladder to the top of a street light
performs a soft shoe on the globe of golden glass
singing, “The Godson is coming down later tonight.”

Mute the Mole. a pilgrim, crawls up on hands & knees
stands, gazes up at the globe dancing Pope
“I cannot speak,” he says, “but I think you’ll understand
“that when I see your tap dance boots and pipe of dope
“it gives me shivers, I’ve changed my mind
“now I don’t give a damn.”
then he buries his bloody penitent stumps
and disappears into the sand

the Godson floats down in a feather-covered balloon
it’s a free, one-way ride from Paradise
next stop Hell but who gives a damn
if the hole in the earth is swarming with mice

“I like a good mouse,” preaches the son
“and I like a creamed castle in the clouds.
“but too many in one place gets chaotic as Hell
“cheese in the trap and panic in the crowds.”

the Saint comes back, hammers nails in the cross
to hang his collections of neckties and keys
what happened to the chickadees
with ribbons in their smiles?
they’re down in the catacombs brewing up the cheese

monks gather round chanting up the credo
spicing it with rumors and jokes
while cats in the combs prowl the empty spaces
lapping from wandering streams of whiskey cokes

back up on the altar among a pile of old newspapers
a broken record plays the Third Man Theme
while up inside the dome ageless angels flutter round
like honey bees buzzing for their numb-lipped queen

then a laser beam of sunlight pierces thru the dome
and sucks everything up thru the hole
and that’s all she wrote in this corner of heaven
goodbye, adios, ciao, monks, mice & moles

May 27, 2017

&c

BLUE”D & TATTOO’D

in Piazza Navona
an old fat woman in shorts
legs covered with varicose veins

in passing, I say
“Nice Tattoos.”

May 27, 2017

&c

BACKSTREET BACKDOWN

it starts with a tattered
black raincoat
lying crumpled in a doorway
with a carefully placed
black umbrella
on top

we stand looking, wondering
what happened to the man
who lived inside that raincoat?
where did he go?
did he just vanish into thin air
and let the empty raincoat
drop into the doorway
like a rag rug doll?

Dan Dan takes a photo
and from the next doorway
here comes Il Capitano Haddock
determined x-bum of 70+ years
slept under bridges from Rome to Liege
battered face, rain-creased brow,
frozen jaw, cropped grey hair
and bean-sprout beard stubble
he seems to come from far away
he looks into Marie-Claire’s eyes
shakes her hand and tells her
how beautiful she is. (I agree)
it’s love at first sight (his)
and here comes the clown
from the same doorway, skull face,
bald head, stripe pajama bottoms
ragged black vest over bare chest
he bounces around from side to side
trying to get into the picture
goof-tooth smile, bulging eyeballs
Haddock pushes him away
Skeleton Puppet keeps hopping
around, trying to squeeze between us
Haddock shoves him away, muttering,
“why do you have to ruin everything?”

it’s just a gathering of old folks
in a Trastevere backstreet
on a lazy Saturday afternoon

May 27, 2017

&c

MITHRAS

no mithras today
no mithras ever it seems
the pious overlord
doesn’t answer his phone
except by punch dialing
and when I finally get thru
he tells me the temple is open
only on the first Sunday
of months ending in the letter X
between 6:05 b.c. and 6:20 a.d.

the only way I’ll get his attention
is to drag a bull down to St. Prisca
climb up on the altar
stab it in the chest with a knife
and tell everybody that I am
the ancient Sun God
returned to send Christianity
back into the shadows

I’ll stab the bull again,
to get the blood squirting
everywhere while shouting:
“This is what I call
real old-time punch dialing.”
and declare the day to be
the first Sunday
in the month of Redux

May 29, 2017

&c

TRASTEVERE SHOWDOWN

red head, coke head
shouts at the flower girl
slaps her face, punches her in the guts
knocks her to the cobblestones
rolls on top, screams, dogs bark,
drunks gather around and pull them apart
flower girl, wounded, limps away
right in front of Santa Maria in Trastevere, Mother Mary looking down
upon a cat fight with dogs

an hour later only flowers
lay abandoned and dying
on the cobblestones

May 29, 2017

&c

GHAZAL- 1

pink eyes, mean tomato mouth
hey, Pit Bull, don’t bite on me

Top Dog ! hold back the water
like a Peruvian belt holding up my pants

Rip Off City holding up the man
with unripped pockets, stealing his nest egg

an egg is a weird thing, impossible,
a Salvador Dali nightmare, never catch on

a late model Hudson Hornet rumbles down
Dali Strada crushing egg nests
under its Bolivian tires

May 30, 2017

&c

LEXICON REDUX (ABRIDGED)

SENZA SQUATTO
The aroma of nothing
“Don’t give me none of your senza squatto.”

STROMO RESTOVANCI
All you can eat in one bite
(common expression in the north)

SWISS-CHILI
(from the ancient Hebrew: “Tutto a Posto.” )

UMALATTO TUPO
An Aficionado of vicious vegetation

PO GRAPPO
(from “Pograppo Lo Versace”)
(lit. Pograppo the stupid suitcase)
Commonly used in the following :
“Don’t give me no po grappo
about the birdshit on your sleeve.”

MATTUNATO TURBO
when the nuns in black are lined up in the pews reading the ritual while the choir sings the credo from the loudspeakers and it is not the same as when you walked into a down-home Baptist revival and found yourself dancing the gospel, the situation is said to be MATTUNATO TURBO

BALUSTA WIG
– what’s that on your head?
– why, it’s a balusta wig
made from the fur of a wild balusta
– taken from which part of the wild balusta’s body?
– taken from his neck in late autumn
when the sun has sucked
the sweet glandular nectar from his throat
and he wears it as a golden necklace
– I wanna balusta wig too!
– Can you wait until late autumn?
– I can wait and think at the same time

FARMOREGULISTO / FARMAREGULISTA
the man or woman who controls the electric light plugs at a rock concert

GALANDOBLASTI E POFOTOTO CLIC PER SOMASCHI
“Selfies” in Medieval Roman dialect

DELMONTE STRONGINI
colloquial insult from the American West, circa 1870 spoken by Italian cowboys; in 1970 adapted by Italian film makers for their spaghetti westerns; approximate meaning: “You’re nothing but a dirty, low-down, yellow-bellied can of peaches.”

MANDOLIPI
“Birds!” (expanded version of the traditional saying: “It’s a bird! – no, thousands of birds – hey they’re storni.”)

VACI VACI GUMENTALLI
A witch’s curse, literally: “Wait til I get back home and hang these storni scalps on my wall.”

UOMOMENTO
Feast your eyes on my birthmarks, man

PAPANUGUINI
(literally) Disguise my fodder

DONA POCA FUNNA FREAKO
He’s not drunk, he’s just a cripple

HO STACIO!
“Ah – a man.” (spoken only by young women in the Villa Borghese, sitting up in the trees and watching people walk by below)

&c

GHAZAL – 2

free glutens escaped from cages
sticking my shoes to the pavement

stone free! The key-unlocked fortune tellers, shouting
down the wrung-wrong path to Terrazo Rima

run, rabbit, run – down the pigeon-pecked path
upon the picadoors – knock on, knock on

rim shot, rum shot (cocaine cola on the rocks)
Medea takes a bow, pulls the curtain, collapses

Hadrian pulls the bow, shoots the arrow – thunk!
Medea addicted lovers breathe a sigh of relief

May 30, 2017

&c

Dan-Dan’s terrace
blessed by martinets
sweeping & swooping
at sunset, red twilight
pour me another bucket of Peroni

I’m just a scribe
in the eternal whirlwind
of nerve verbs & nimble nouns

May 30, 2017

&c

MUSEO ST. EGIDIO

exhibition of photographs by Vivian Meier

a cluster of fallen leaves
in her shadow on the pavement
(self-portrait)

two black kids looking at Vivian
from the backseat of a Chevy
on the streets of San Francisco, 1955
I have cried thru those eyes)

boys, lying flat on their bellies
swim-masked, snorkeling
in pools of water at low tide
(have breathed thru those
mouth-plugged tubes)

PAULSON’S COFFEE HOUSE
BAKED
SWISS STEAK
POTATO PUFF
& SHERBET
(luogo e data sconosciuti)

two old men with a rolled hose
between them on the pavement
wondering which end to start with
or does it have two?
or maybe it’s alive?

teenage boy with a Top-Flite
whirly-gig hat and 2 baseball gloves
on his way to pitch a no-hitter.
(he’s done it before, you can see
by the wave in his Wildroot hair)

Betty Kirkpatrick’s mom
in the passenger seat
of a late-model Buick convertible
blown back straw hat on her head
unlit cigarette dangling from her lips
(looking for a light) New York 1954

burned out armchair
still smoking on the curb
waiting for a charred occupant
New York 1960

Huge cardboard box up-ended
print upside down

DUMONT
ANOTHER TELESET
CONTENTS TELEVISION RECEIVER
THIS SIDE UP 

boy climbing ladder
to peek inside
no t.v. set
New York 1950

seller asleep
behind a small window
of a kiosk chaotically surrounded by
newspapers
magazines
Look
Variety
Collier’s
Life
Post
Nepszala
Italo Americano
comic books
Straight Arrow
Beetle Bailey
Bozo
Tales of Horror
Buster Bear
Red Ryder
Looney Tunes
Wedding Bells
Woody Woodpecker
Little Scouts
Gene Autry
Police Gazette
The New Yorker
Time
Newsweek
TV Guide (Groucho on the cover)

alert sign: “POISONED MILK”
New York 1953

(I have read those magazines
and comic books)

kids waiting outside Walgreen Drugs
with printed balloons:
Lunchtime Little Theater
WGN
Television
Channel 9

a line of moms and dads spread out behind
not looking forward

Roleiflex self-portrait
in the mirror of a cigarette machine
(left to right)
Camel
Lucky Strike
Chesterfield
Salem
King Size Winston
L & M
Viceroy

(I have smoked those cigarettes)

side of a shadow-crossed wall 1954
down in the bottom left corner, a sign:

MEYER LIGHT
JUDGE
____________
MEYER LIGHT
JUDGE

New York 1953
STRIPORAMA
Lili St. Cyr
Georgia S_ ?
Rosita _ ?
BURLESQUE
man upside down
head on the pavement
feet covering Georgia S_? and Rosita _?
pants leg slipped down to his knees

next to the marquee
girl in sloppy dress
hair a mess
one sandal on
the other sandal nowhere in sight
everybody joining the spirit of the strip show

(I have heard the music
coming from that open door)

May 31, 2017

&c

DRUNK

lit up
4 nights in a row
weaving a path home
humming an ancient tune

becoming an alcoholic
is not as bad
as I first thought

May 31, 2017

&c

PRELUDE TO A NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Roma prepares for the big feast
a stray fast-moving jet craft
slices thru the sky among
a flock of seagulls, a blues band
warms up in the distance
even the church bells sound
a higher octave chime
you can feel the vibrations
floating up from the street
people celebrate people here
all the time, but this is going to be
on a gigantic scale

June 1, 2017

&c

A FAR-SEEING NUMBER

“Seven is a fat number.”
she says this into a cell phone
while drinking wine from a telescope

June 1, 2017

&c

CLEAN STYLE

she says she likes my hair style
I haven’t looked in the mirror all week
but I’ve taken 6 showers
so it must be a clean one

June 1, 2017

&c

GODFISH – 1

into the Ghetto
to Nonna Betta Cucina Kosher
menu in Hebrew
bluster blob waiter
with a beard and tiny specs
Jonah thinks he’s rude
I explain
“he’s a Talmudic scholar
and everything he’s been reading lately
makes no sense at all.”
I know this because I’m half Jewish

June 1, 2017

&c

GODFISH – 2

rested on stone steps by the river
on the way to Nonna Betta
and quickly discovered
I was sitting on a nest of ants

now seated, a half hour later
in Nonna Betta
I see a single ant
crawling across the white tablecloth
headed for my beer mug
the waiter is not pleased
I explain: “I always take him with me
when I venture into the Ghetto.”

June 1, 2017

&c

GODFISH – 3

the waiter mixes up my order
I want Polpete col Sedano
(meatballs with celery & tomato sauce)
fussy flurry the head waiter
curses the fat Talmudic scholar
glances down at this notebook
as I’m writing in it (see Godfish-2)
and thinks I’m a food critic
cruising Rome for an American magazine
with important international influence
my supper arrives
four meat balls
three stars

I advise the readers
of AMERICAN GASTRONOMIC IN EUROPE
to drop into Nonna Betta in Rome
for great meatballs
that the waiter spit in the dish
on his way from the kitchen
in no way alters the delicious taste

June 1, 2017

&c

THE SCENT OF ONE CHINESE JASMINE BLOSSOM CAN HIDE ANOTHER

Paolo loves to talk to Marie-Claire
Jean loves to talk to Marie-Claire
Jonah loves to talk to Marie-Claire
Dan Dan loves to talk to Marie-Claire
Everybody loves Marie-Claire

June 1, 2017

&c

A SLEEP OF 660 TUNES
(from “Angel Baby” by Rosie & the Originals
to “The Boys Are Back” by the Dropkick Murphies)

I’ve organized my Fiio library of tunes
in compilation folders
some have invented names
Blue Goose
99 Cent Dreams
Waves of the Future
The Electronic Brain
Great Expectations
Because Life is Not a Sport
The Art of the Beautiful Struggle
Head & Heart
The Moondog Coronation Ball
Flora Mundi
Return of the Native
Saturday Nite Jive
Sideways
Of Time & the River
Used Jukebox
I’ve dedicated a few folders
to the decades
the 50s
the 60s Before
the 60s After
the 70’s
the 80s
the 90s
the 21st Century
(Blue Goose et all – see above)

last night I plugged in
lay down on the bed
and closed my eyes

I went to sleep in the early 60s
and woke up in the 21st Century

June 2, 2017

&c

COBBLED WITH COVERSTONES

reflecting on the 660-tune sleep journey
I took last night:
what people & places I must have visited

I lived with Leonard Cohen in his tower of song
I went tub thumping with Chumbawamba
I walked in the rain with the Ronettes
I asked 99 questions with ? and the Mysterians
I painted it black with the Stones
I picked up the good vibrations from the Beach Boys
I got the night in my veins from Chrissie Hynde
I heard Roman Calvary choirs singing
when I ruled the world with Coldplay
I was born in East L.A. with Cheech Marin
I blew up the United States with Was Not Was
I lost my religion with REM
I walked in Memphis with Marc Cohn
I danced in the street with Martha & the Vandellas
I was born on the bayou with Creedence
I stirred it up with Bob Marley
I walked on the wild side with Lou Reed
I ended up with the Zimmerman Blues
with Ralph McTell
I went free fallin’ with Tom Petty
I ran up that hill with Kate Bush
I ran thru the jungle with Creedence
I walked like an Egyptian with the Bangles
I hitchhiked with Marvin Gaye
I said a little prayer with Aretha Franklin
I saw the light with Todd Rundgren
I fell off the face of the earth with Neil Young
I had a room in the Hotel California
with the Gypsy Kings
I sat on the dock of the bay with Otis Redding
I sailed to the land of 1000 dances
with Wilson Pickett
I expected to fly with Buffalo Springfield
I got stuck inside of Mobile with Bob Dylan
I revisited Highway 61 with Bob Dylan
I worked on Maggie’s Farm with Bob Dylan
I went swimming in Kern River with Emmy Lou
I played piano in the Chateau Lobby
with Father John Misty
I played 3rd base at Dodger Stadium
with Ry Cooder
I rolled on with J. J. Cale
and The Beatles took me down
to Strawberry Fields forever

no wonder I had such wild & wonderful dreams

June 2, 2017

&c

NO LUDE FOR THE PRELUDE

must be some mistake
this is a national feast day
where are the people?
nowhere to be seen
the streets are empty
everybody at home
wrapped in Italian flags
hiding in closets?

yet the moon is ceaseless
growing larger moment by moment
a thin slice 6 days ago
this afternoon rising half
on the way to full

and I’ll take this opportunity
to tell you about Hadrian
he was a wise man
he never called a lady a tramp
he never rode a mechanical bull
and he never wore socks
inside his sandals

this I know
because I was with Hadrian
from the Halls of Montezuma
to the shores of Tripoli
when we marched in a brass band
he on trumpet
me on tambourine

June 2, 2017

&c

FRAME

moving around Rome
sliding in & out of bars
trattorias, bookshops and doorways
smooth & cool
looking like I own the place
why did it take me so long
to become such a groovy guy?

June 2, 2017

&c

ON GETTING DRESSED AFTER A SHOWER

the only reason
life is so fucking hard
is because I don’t feel like
walking around naked

June 2, 2017

&c

RADIO RIDE

& the taxi is off
like a speeding silver bullet
Italian punk on the radio
the airport express
can’t get us out of Rome
fast enough
window down
tears drying in the wind
ain’t gonna be no weeping
in this here taxi today

June 2, 2017

&c

GLUTEN FREE

airport sandwich
2 tramezzini
gamberi
e verdure
con salsa cocktail
SENZA GLUTINE
I didn’t have a problem with gluten
before I ate this sandwich
but now I do

now I’m hooked on gluten

the sandwich tasted like nothing.
no gamberi
no verdure
no salsa
and absolutely no cocktail at all
it was a sandwich SENZA EVERYTHING.

June 2, 2017

&c

SUGO DE PESCA

my wife went into a mini market
and asked for a bottle of fish juice

June 2, 2017

&c

EXIT: ENTRANCE – 1

returned home
I become a human feather duster
sweeping away the cobwebs
as I pass thru doorways
and climb the stairs

dust settles on the memories
of Hadrian & Haddock
& Paola of the Opendoor

June 2, 2017

&c

EXIT : ENTRANCE – 2

last night in Rome.
dinner in the Ghetto,
the beautiful bottle
that stood in the center
of our table
now, 36 hours, 2000 miles later
stands before me
in the center of my breakfast table
(gift from Dan Dan Il Ladro)

lifting and tilting the bottle
I notice a tiny pool of water
sliding around in the bottom
like quicksilver
I’ll save it for the day
I’m really thirsty
for the turtle fountain of Rome

June 3, 2017

PORNOGRAPHIC TENNIS

with the tennis players
grunting & groaning
so loudly
with each stroke
it sounds like the boys & girls
are having multiple orgasms
– one every 4 seconds or so
for 2 hours or more

close your eyes
& you’re listening
to the soundtrack of a porno

mixed doubles
are especially exciting

June 9, 2017

LISTEN MY CHILDREN AND YOU SHALL HEAR

the mama owl hoots
she’s teaching her children to fly
all night long
those babies are in Owl Boot Camp

June 16, 2017

GUAPO’S

why the apostrophe?

if it’s not possessive
(& it’s not)
then how about
Lo’s Angele’s
La’s Vega’s
Texa’s
Pari’s
Genesi’s
Elvi’s

they should be more inventive
Guap’os
G’uapos
Guapo&s
Guapo!s

Guapo&s

Guapo s
Guapos

in case you haven’t got
my point
how about thi’s:

I like to drink
a glas’s of Stella Artoi’s
while reading
Uncle Remu’s storie’s

June 17, 2017

TRASH TALK

beware Brits & Americans
there will soon be
(if not already)
more people in the world
speaking English
than your combined populations
look at the Middle East
Africa
China
South America

it’s an English
that has no foundation
(cut off from its roots)
no literature
or literary history
even dictionaries
& grammar books
are being ignored

Trash English

am I being a snob?
hell no
it’s my language
unlike those
gargle-throat trash talkers
I grew up speaking it
it’s in my bones
I have nothing to say
to those who have never read
a line of Dickens
never heard of Jim Harrison
& would guess that Mark Twain
is the host of a reality TV show

OK, maybe “Jim Harrison”
is going too far

how about Peter Pan?
Alice in Wonderland?
Winnie the Pooh?

June 23, 2017

FOREIGN WAYS & MEANS

in America
I impressed everybody
by eating with my left hand

knife in my right
fork in the other

“Sophisticated,”
(they whispered)
“The man has seen the world.”
“He knows. He knows.”

June 24, 2017

SEVEN HALLUCINATIONS

FIRST HALLUCINATION

friendly thieves
stole the statue of Giordano Bruno
from Campo dei Fiori in Rome

it now stands
at the bottom of my garden
surrounded by thousands of fluttering butterflies

June 16, 2017

  

SECOND HALLUCINATION

for two or three prolonged moments
I was lost, identity erased
without a name, without a face
as if, in the blink of an eye,
I had been snatched up
from whatever I had been doing
& plopped down here in this darkness
. . . on a mattress
. . . yes, a sheetless mattress it was
. . . in a room set squarely in the middle
of an airport’s runway
with jet planes shooting off into the night
all around me

June 16, 2017

  

THIRD HALLUCINATION

the stag in the woods barked
he went “gurp.”
I went “gurp.”
& he came charging at me
out of the trees
head lowered
antlers aimed
thinking I was a rival stud
to his macho supremacy

so I did the one thing
I’d been taught by the wise loggers
of the California wilderness
I pointed my finger at him & shouted
“No more shit from you, Buddy Boy!
– so take your gurp
& shove it up your ass!”

& when that didn’t work
I ran like hell

June 17, 2017

  

FOURTH HALLUCINATION

today we went shopping for
a flat screen TV
a computer mouse
an electric water boiler for tea & coffee
& a cell phone

we bought everything
(& the mouse turned out to be blue)

the shopping was so fruitful
& so much fun
I had to prolong the pleasure
so I bought
an iPhone
an Apple computer
a pair of Polaroid sunglasses
a sun lamp
a vacuum cleaner
a hair dryer
an ironing board
a pair of “Infinity” binoculars
a “Humdinger” electric drill
a gas-powered barbecue pit
(with headlights)
a tractor lawnmower
(with mounted grenade launcher)
a dozen rattlesnake detectors
a combined sawtooth generator/chainsaw
an original “Atom Smasher” particle accelerator
a hundred gallons of liquid oxygen
& a thousand sacks of Guapo’s

June 17, 2017

  

FIFTH HALLUCINATION

sitting in a car
parked in the supermarket lot
I feel my sinus congestion break loose
lean my head out the window
and finger-snort a slug of snot
from my snoot
onto the pavement
I snort again and my brain
gushes out in a long unbroken rope
I watch it gather itself into a ball
and roll over to the car parked
in the next slot

it opens the car door
crawls up inside
and a moment later
starts the car
and backs out

two frontal lobes are clutching
the steering wheel
and the top of the occipital lobe
like a small head
is just visible
above the edge of the window

I watch my brain
peel out
burning rubber down the street
and I wonder
which of my old lobes
has his foot on the gas?

June 21, 2017

  

SIXTH HALLUCINATION

returning to the house
from my studio tonight
even tho I had a lamp
to help me avoid the small creatures
I stepped on a baby toad

looking back
I saw that I had smashed one of his legs
as I walked into the house
I could still feel
the impression of the baby toad’s body
under the heel of my sandal

while sipping a cup of tea
I felt the impression under my heel
grow warmer

the spot began to expand

soon my entire foot
was warm
& starting to change

by the time I finished the cup of tea
my entire leg had vanished
& in its place
was a gigantic
amphibian’s flipper

June 23, 2017

  

SEVENTH HALLUCINATION

after hanging out the laundry on the line
I found myself talking to a wet towel

you know the old rule: everything’s OK
until the wet towel talks back

I said: Are you more north than south?
& the towel said:
Everybody’s more north
than south
except those
who are more south
than north.

I said: Wise ass. What do you know?
& the towel said:
I know you don’t dry
between your toes
after you wash your feet.”

I said: Why don’t you mind
your own business?
& the towel said:
Keeping you dry
is my business
– but you could co-operate
from time to time
to make my life easier.

I said: I wasn’t put on the earth
to make your life easier.
& the towel said:
Well then,
screw you,
you ego maniac.

that’s when I started punching the towel

& the towel began to scream & shout:
Oof!
God damnit!
That really hurt!

& that’s when the neighbor rushed down
& pulled me away from the clothesline

as he dragged me back to my house
I heard the towel giggle:
Why don’t you pick on somebody
your own size, pinhead.

instantly I leaped for the door
shouting: I am your size, you dumb shit!

they dragged me away
& locked me in a closet

hours later
when they let me out
the towel was gone

I went around muttering:
Cowards!
I’m surrounded by cowards!
until I saw a calendar on the wall

you know what they say:
it’s only when the calendar starts talking back
& you’ve got a knife in your hands
that things go south in a hurry

June 25, 2017

CATFOOD CHILI

4 cans of Friskas cat food
2 pounds of ground chili pepper
a half dozen rotten tomatoes

Mix the cat food & chili peppers
in a tin bucket
& heat for 24 hours

Give each of the tomatoes
a heavy dose of pesticides
squeeze them to pulp
then dump them in the pot

Heat for another 24 hours
adding slug bait as needed

Serves four
You can mention the pesticides
but do not tell them about the cat food

See also our recipes for:
Horse Hair Soup
Road Kill Meat Loaf
Pigeon Feather Salad
& Dog Puke Pie
with Fire Extinguisher Foam Topping

June 27, 2017

CLIMATE CHANGE

manufacturers have jumped
on the bandwagon
& are now producing
climate change swim suits
climate change anal suppositories
climate change ukuleles
climate change sledge hammers
boomerangs
bowties
trampolines
wigs
flashlights
climate change sewing machines
bazookas
bongs
popcorn
bagpipes
cell phones
sex dolls
fake fingernails
climate change (brand) cigarettes
climate change nostril hair trimmers
(with each purchase
you get a free deck
of nostril change playing cards)
they’ve even cornered
the children’s market with
climate change playpens
diapers
jump ropes
baby bottles
hamster wheels
speech defect detectors
& discount houses
are now offering
climate change metronomes
microphones
ice cream scoopers
gigantic hitchhike thumbs
thimbles
baseballs
basketball hoops
gangster masks
& if that isn’t enough
you can buy the following in bulk
climate change barf bags
barfly swatters
barb wire
barber poles
barbarian pepper spray
Barbarella autographed barbells

climate change candy bars
climate change bird cages
climate change hipster moustache wax
climate change band aids for belly dancers

climate change diving boards
climate change electric chairs
climate change elevators
climate change bandwagons

June 29, 2017

THE SKIN OF MY SKINNY SKIN TEETH

bridge fell out
in one drop lost all my teeth
on the top but one
& he’s only a spike

down below
everything’s gone
but a single stump

but I’m in luck
the spike
& the stump
match
so I can still chew

the grinding surface
between them
is about the width
of a match head

I’m fierce on green peas
a grain of rice
doesn’t stand a chance
in my grist mill
I have a little trouble
with chick peas
& pitted olives
are now beyond
my crushing capabilities

I’d like to keep eating
healthy foods
but even my friends know
I’m headed for a steady diet
of aspirin & rum

July 4, 2017

THE DUMBPHONE

a dummy
while texting
on his smartphone
gets so excited
by what he sees
he starts pressing only the letters
on the bottom row
of his upsidedown keyboard
with both thumbs

YO! POP! TURP!
WORT!
QWIPPY!
IT TOOTS
RUTTER TO YOU
YOU PIT RIP

etc.
(the rest is up to you)

July 5, 2017

THE TICKS ARE BACK
(AND THEY’RE LOOKING FOR
TROUBLE)

they’ve come
with the entire crew
& all their tools

bagpipes
spikes
steampunk jack hammers
nail guns
brass knuckles
switch blades
bull horns
gas masks
flame throwers
whips
blow guns
chain saws
electric cow prods
tomahawks
pitchforks
harpoons
& lethal injections

we pull them out
with twist tweezers
I whisper in their faces
“You come dancing around
with your music
& your fancy instruments.
Did you ever think about
taking up the vibraphone? ”

I’ve never seen a happy one

July 5, 2017

AN EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES

time for another catalog
of collectivities

we all know about
a murder of crows
a gaggle of geese
& herd of turtles*

& we have documented
a leap of leopards
a risk of rain
&
a fraud of freudians

now how about – ?
a snooze of sleeping pills
a snore of bad dreams
a suspension of beliefs in bridges
a ródeo of rodéos
a pack of jokers
a cradle of baby pictures
a slide of trombones
a gullium of slums
a crush of cobbers (Aristophanes)
a flex of muscles
a band of wrists
a mist of opportunities
a slapdash of insults

* see the first collection in “A HERD OF TURTLES”
in Dream Me a Spinning Wheel July 29, 2007

GRANDCHILDREN SLEEPOVER

I’ve always been as quiet
as possible when they’re asleep
creep past their bedroom
at the top of the stairs
in my sock feet

tonight I remembered
being a kid about their age
in San Francisco
lying in bed half asleep
& hearing my grandpa
come thru my room
humming a long-lost tune
(that never had a chance
of being found)
on his way to his bedroom
on the sun porch in back
where, while shaving,
he’d whistle tunes
that had no direction
never seemed to end

looking back I realized
that these are some my best
memories of my grandpa
released from a day of strife
at his warmest, most human
moments

so tonight I marched upstairs
whistling Bridge Over the River Kwai

and what did I hear
from behind the kid’s door
at the top of the stairs?

the applause of two
tiny pair of hands

July 16, 2017

“SUPPER’S ALMOST READY”

the aroma of Bear’s cooking
drifted upstairs
where I was taking a nap
& woke me up

it walked up the stairs
down the hall
opened the door
& strolled into the room

it had feet
it was a meatball

July 13, 2017

STOP YOUR SOBBING
gotta stop sobbin’ now
stop, stop, stop, stop
Ray Davies (Chrissie Hynde)

the number one word
in the English language today
is “Sorry.”

sorry for this
sorry for that
sorry for the way
I sat on your hat

apologies abound
even from the stand-up comics
who are trying to be funny

Rolf Harris
had to apologize
for saying “Abo”
in a comic song

so take heed
you cowardly little weasels
hiding behind words
get a sense of humor
or go back to your hole in the ground

take heed
all you thin-skin
liver-lillies

stop bitching & whining
& learn to laugh

& before you call me
a racist
be aware that you are
a hypocrite

July 22, 2017

TESTICLE EXPOSURE

speaking of apologies
the only sincere ‘sorry’
you’ll get these days
is one that will come
from a bruce down under
(appropriately):
“BALLS OUT!”

July 22, 2017

FOR WHOM THE SUN ALSO RISES

been ages
since I sat outside
& watched the sun
come up

weathers don’t allow it

sitting at the glass table
above the garden
sipping tea
chewing on a crust of bread
reading Ovid
writing in my notebook

about 10 o’clock
the day changes
the neighbor cranks up
his lawn mower
& mows his lawn

at 10:30 Jack & Bear
(grandson and grandmother)
join me (grandfather)
at the table for breakfast
under the parasol

moments not to be forgotten

but nothing can rise above
those first 4 hours
just me & silence
just me & the birds
just me & the buzz of a fly
just me & the sleeping cat

the moment when the sun
first sparkles
thru the leaves of a tree
& catches me in the eyes
is beyond belief.

July 22, 2017

HOMELESS NO MORE

I met this homeless person
in the city
I said you can come & stay
at my place
I got plenty of room

so he came
& I set up
a cardboard box
in the back yard
& so far
I haven’t heard any complaints

July 23, 2017

SHOELESS JOE

guy comes on TV
& says humans will be obsolete
in 50 years

he’s probably right
I’ve been faked out of my shoes
so many times in the past 50 years
that I don’t even bother
to tie my laces any more

starting tomorrow
I’m not going to bother
wearing shoes at all

July 23, 2017

SIMPLIFIED MATH

on a package of hand towels
it is printed:
1 = 2

that’s refreshing to know
much better than

1 + 1 = 2

or
1—1 = 0

cut out the middle man
reduce everything
to maximum simplicity

maybe it’s a code?
buy one
get one for free

if that becomes an established
mathematical rule
then everything will be half-priced

&
our physical world
would be radically altered

Formula 1 = 2
Apollo 1 = 2
Terminator 1 = 2
3 in 1 = 2

or
by extended logic
for the free package
of hand towels
1 = 2
you should receive
another free one
for each of the free ones
making a total of
1 = 4

but
for those 4 free ones
you should be rewarded with 8
& in no exponential time at all
your house will be overflowing
with packages of hand towels

&
let’s hope that 7-11
doesn’t turn that hyphen
into a minus sign

I’m not going to calculate
what would happen
if you went in & bought
seven bags of salted peanuts
& they subtracted eleven

July 24, 2017

INFAMOUS DON

if we survive
his presidency
& dictatorship
his name will live
in infamy for generations

take Adolph Hitler
in this day & age
not many Adolphs around

in days to come
no mom or dad
will want to call
their kid Donald

poor Donald Duck
poor Donald Sutherland
poor Old McDonald
(his farm & his fast food joints)

& apologies to
Don McLean
Don De Lillo
Don Siegel
Don Drysdale
Don Rickles
Don Lemon
Don Ho
Don Juan
Don Quixote
&
Don Zimmer

your name has just become
a curse

July 28, 2017

FEE-FI-FO

why I didn’t like
the play the Name Game

Tuck Tuck Bo-Buck
Banana-Fanna-Mo-Muck
Fee-Fi-Fo-Fuck TUCK!

July 28, 2017

OF LITERATURE & THE UNIVERSE

leaning over my bookshelves
to search for a book below
I placed my hand (by chance)
on a book on the shelf above

immediately I felt heat
emanating from the book
The Flame Throwers
by Rachel Kushner

I pulled the book out
& opened it
smoke poured out
the page was smoldering
I turned the page
it burst into flame

I ran outside
& tossed the book
into the garden
it caught fire in mid-air
& landed in a pile of dry leaves

soon the leaves were on fire
the flames were spreading
to the zucchini & pumpkins

I ran back inside
& grabbed a copy of Moby Dick
from the book shelf
took it outside
& threw it on the fire
an ocean erupted from the book
& doused the fire
& submerged the garden
in 10 feet of water
the book was floating around
on its back
& spouting water in the air
like a whale

I ran back inside
grabbed a copy of Fahrenheit 451
& tossed it on Moby Dick

the whale melted
into a blob of blubber
the ocean evaporated
& the fire re-ignited
spreading into the cornfield
where the heat soon had
the kernels popping

I gave up
sat down with a bowl of butter
a shaker of salt
& copy of Kurt Vonnegut’s
Slaughterhouse Five
and relaxed, munching the popcorn
reading aloud
every time I came to the phrase
SO IT GOES
while the world caught fire
& burned until
there was only
a scattering of ashes
floating around the sun
with a perplexed moon
spinning out of control

so I pulled out a copy
of Johannes Kepler’s Somnium
read a few pages aloud
about Libussa, Tycho Brahe
& the Island of Levania

& the moon stopped spinning
& drifted off
into outer space

August 1, 2017

IF HARRISON FORD WERE A BOOK HE WOULD BE HOMER’S ODYSSEY

John Goodman→ War and Peace
Annette Bening→ Selected Poems of William Wordsworth
Salvador Dali→ Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Jerry Garcia→ The Confessions of an Opium Eater
Federico Fellini→ The Divine Comedy
Marilyn Monroe→ The Great Gatsby
Oprah Winfrey→ The Joy of Cooking
Bob Dylan→ The Complete Poems of Dylan Thomas
Bill Clinton→ A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Michael Jordan→ Gravity’s Rainbow
Humphrey Bogart→ Quiet Days in Clichy
Jim Carey→ Metamorphoses
Muhammad Ali→ Where’s my County, Dude?
Michael Moore→ The Shining
Stephen King→ Fahrenheit 451
Johnny Depp→ On the Road
Terry Gilliam→ Don Quixote
Larry David→ Slaughter House Five
Lance Armstrong→ The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Igor Stravinsky → The Wasteland
Dustin Hoffman→ Stravinsky’s Poetics
Woody Allen→ Voltaire’s Candide
Jack Nicholson→ Gullliver’s Travels
Marlon Brando→ Moby Dick
Miles Davis→ Waiting for Godot
Paul McCartney→ Wuthering Heights
Tom Brady→ The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Claude Debussy→ Madam Bovary
Bill Gates→ Brave New World
Jackson Pollock→ Naked Lunch
Charlie Parker→ Leaves of Grass
John Coltrane→ The Norton Anthology of Poetry
Barack Obama→ Tractatus Logico Philosophicus
Arnold Schwarzenegger→ Steppenwolf
Jim Jarmusch→ King Lear
Mel Gibson→ The New Testament
Quentin Tarantino→ One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Al Pacino→ How to Talk Dirty and Influence People
Jerry Seinfeld→ Peter Pan
Roger Federer → The Man with the Golden Arm
John Cleese → Fanny Hill
Tom Waits → Origin of the Species & the Descent of Man
George Clooney→ Walden Pond
Clint Eastwood→ Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Leonard Cohen→ The Name of the Rose
J.F.K→ To Kill a Mocking Bird
Jeff Bridges→ Grapes of Wrath
Jay Leno→ Of Mice & Men
Stephen Spielberg→ The Medium is the Message
Anthony Quinn→ Zorba the Greek
Glenn Gould→ Piano Player
Sam Shepard→ The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Yogi Berra→ Catcher in the Rye
Steve Jobs → Death of a Salesman
David Beckham→ Hamlet
Ed Sheeran → Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Harvey Weinstein → Animal Farm
Wolfman Jack → Lord of the Rings
Charles Bukowski → Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Mo Farah → Blade Runner
Lewis Hamilton→ On the Road
Ken Kesey → The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
Robert Mitchum → The Old Man and the Sea
Hunter S. Thompson → The Wizard of Oz
Hilary Clinton → Don’t Look Now (Daphne Du Maurier)

LOST TIME

the hour that just went by
will never come back
I hope you spent it well

the day that just passed
is gone forever
how much of it
did you squander?

what happened to last year?
puff!
vanished in a cloud of dust
I hope you kept a few
good memories

a fly just landed
on the toilet seat

August 2, 2017

MEMORY DOGS

the memory dogs
have run over the hill
& each night
they bark at the moon
which has not appeared
in the sky
since the last eclipse

instead neon sighs
have popped up on the horizon
from time to time
saying things like

NO MOON TONIGHT .

MOON GONE FISHIN’ .
&
MOON SHE NO DOORMAT .

the memory dogs are barking
at these signs
& sometimes
the signs bark back

August 9, 2017

TEN-HOUR HAIRCUTS

I see athletes on TV
soccer, basketball, track & field etc.
with weird haircuts
baroque sculptures
shaved sides, peaked tops
razor-cut lines, spots

so why aren’t they out
training & keeping in shape
instead of getting haircuts?

I guess you can practice running
only about 6 hours a day
take 8 hours for sleep
& that leaves 10 hours for haircuts

10 hours in a barber chair
seems like a long time
but the barbers
keep them entertained with tall tales
& when they run out of stories
there’s always the TV in the corner
where the athletes with weird haircuts
are running around playing soccer
basketball, track & field etc.

even in football
after each play
the players rip off their helmets
so everybody can see
their ringworm designs

August 10, 2017

DOCTOR PIANO TEETH

my new dentist
is a free-wheeler
he likes to improvise
drill a little here
rip out a tooth over there

after 5 visits
the inside of my mouth
looks like a Thelonius Monk solo

August 10, 2017

WATER RULES

water rules
the elements
it extinguishes fire
no more need be said

water is not friendly
to paper
& water is not friendly
to electricity

they say the ice caps
are melting
& the waters
are rising

better start drinking
& cut down on pissing

August 10, 2017

TWITTER HAIKU

jumping out froglike
140 characters
a tweet or a burp?

Aug. 18, 2017

THREE TWO TWO

went to sleep
with my cellphone
in my sweatpants pocket

woke up 4 hours later
to find I’d rolled over the buttons
and dialed 322

pressed the call button
voice came on
“We’ve been trying
to get in touch with you
for 76 years.”

I disconnected quickly
I didn’t want anything to do
with 76 years ago

the phone rang
I threw it in the toilet
flushed it

everytime I passed by
the septic tank
I heard the phone ringing

drained the swamp
the ringing stopped
the phone was gone

a week later
I got curious
went out to a pay phone
& dialed 322

voice came on
“We’ve been trying
to get in touch with you
for 76 years.”

I understood
it was a recorded message
I took a chance:

“You’re a recorded message.”

“I am not.”

“Prove it.”

“I have been trying
to get in touch with you
for 76 years 6 months
& 5 days—since the moment
you were born—plus
the 9 months before that
when you were conceived.”

“Who are you? Death?”

“Nope.”

“God?”

“Some people call me that —
but I don’t. I’m just a clerk
in the Registrar’s Office
of the Cosmic Census Bureau.”

“So what do you want from me?”

“You came to the wrong place.”

“California?”

“Earth—you were supposed to go
to Gormenghast.”

“So what do you want me
to do about it now?”

“Nothing. We’re going to move you
—two technicians are on their way
to remove you from earth
& take you to Gormenghast —
they’ll be there in exactly
—12 minutes—starting —
NOW!”

I waited
exactly 12 minutes later
there was a knock on my door
I opened it

two small ladies stood there

“What took you so long?” I said.

“We hurried as fast as we could,”
they replied.

“OK, I give up,” I said. “Take me
to Gormenghast.”

“We’re not going to take you anywhere,”
they said. “We want to give you this.”

they handed me a pamphlet
Jehovah Witnesses
god, I hate crank calls.

August 19, 2017

NOTHING HAIKU

Zero:
A Brief History of Nothing
there’s nothing to it

August 21, 2017

DOUBLE OR NOTHING

there’s nothing there
a whole lot of nothing
nothing to get excited about
nothing to write home about

I got plenty of nothing
I know nothing
nothing to declare
think nothing of it
. . . & nothing but the truth

here goes nothing
nothing is impossible
nothing in common
you ain’t seen nothing yet

good for nothing
next to nothing
stop at nothing
what part of nothing
don’t you understand?

August 21, 2017

TOOTH TAG

I tagged out the runner
at first
the umpire shouted:
“Show me the ball!
—Show me the ball!”
I opened my glove
& showed him
a set of false teeth

August 22, 2017

SEVENTH INNING STRETCH

went out for a drive
in the car
forgot my baseball cap

that’s OK
I don’t think I’ll be playing
baseball today

August 22, 2017

THE VILLAGE SHORTSTOP

flyer from the commune
listing sports clubs
I might like to join

choices include (among others)
hip hop dancing
kick boxing
escrime medieval (medieval fencing)
diving
&
triathlon

but wait!
– no joke –
PÉTANQUE
geezers only
that’s me
a geezer only

next time you hear from me
I’ll be tossing silver balls
the size of baseballs
in the air
&
showing them
how a shortstop
throws out a runner
at home plate

August 23, 2017

BEATIFICATION

THE BEATS
they articulated
when I was speechless
when I was dumb-floundered
when I was up-dumped
& shrug-blocked

they had words
the real rebel yells
spatsprung fastrack yaps
loopmouth ventriloquism
with vocal cordatorios
ad lippo lippies
free whoopin’ bleat blasts
& a corpus of old moon howls

they had typewriters
with endless ribbons
& they banged the keys
so hard
I heard them clear cross town
clear cross America
all around the world
they tapped
like a brainwire telegraph

August 24, 2017

FALSE TOOTH HAIKU

I went in for false
dentures and the dentist
gave me a buck tooth

August 24, 2017

ILLUMINATED ILLUSIONS

thanks to Yuval Noah Harari
and his book Homo Deus
in which his illumination of “illusion”
circles around the earth
and joins up with
the Zen Buddhist illumination of “illusion”

ILLUMINATED ILLUSIONS
Las Vegas (obviously)
God
Money
Marriage
America
Democracy
The Holy Bible (chock full of illusions)
the “Pope”
Heaven & Hell
Philosophy
Medicine
Schools / Universities
All Institutions

all also known as
FABULOUS FICTIONS
reflections in a mirror
photographs
credit cards
history
laws
passports
drivers’ licenses
protest marches
revolutions
games (board, card, computer)
amazon.com

also known as
CONVENIENT CHIMERA
television programs
movies
the news
the internet (websites, e-mails, blogs, tweets
facebook and other electronic quirks)
political correctness (euphemisms etc.)

in contrast to
FACTUAL FOCUS
picking a blackberry from the vine
and eating it
(apple from tree, peeling a banana etc.)
standing alone in a forest
& clapping your hands
(singing, talking to a tree, pissing etc.)
digging & planting seeds in your garden
fucking
giving birth to a child
drinking beer (coffee, tea, etc.)
looking at the moon
taking a crap
getting bit by a mosquito

see?
there’s lots of stuff
you can do
without standing in a pile
of your own crap
(which is another factual focus)
August 25, 2017

TOO SOON HAIKU

geese flying south
too soon flickering shadows
thru the tops of trees

August 25, 2017

WEIRD

you are WEIRD
& I am WEIRD

we think WEIRD
thoughts
& our heads are full
of WEIRD
ideas

from WASP to WEIRD
what a trip

we are WEIRD
people
& we live
in a WEIRD
society

(Western,
Educated,
Industrialized,
Rich,
Demonic)

August 29, 2017

REVOLUTION!

you & I
revolving like singing tops
in a choir of mouthless meatballs
we spin down & out
collapse into silence

& the world turns one more revolution

whirling dervish
clockwise
while behind his eyes
he whirls in the opposite
direction
the clock unwinds
hour & minute hands
fly off
into the shadows
of his inner space
numbers jumble
bend & melt
count for nothing
eventually

& the world turns one more revolution

crusader rabbits
hopping around
on a gigantic illuminated globe
with unplugged microphones
in their hands & flags
stuck up their asses
beating on their ear drums
as they try to unlock the horizon

& the world turns one more revolution

ballet spider dancers
spinning on tiptoes
spinning a web
that circles the city
connects the cities
close & faraway
where other spider dancers
spin on their tip toes

& the world turns one more revolution

marathon runners
sprinters
joggers
headed west
into the setting sun
their feet keeping the earth a-spin
they run into darkness
they run thru the night
they run until they feel
the rising sun
warm their backs
then the day shift takes over

August 30, 2017

PORTRAITS OF OUTCASTS

HUMDRUM BABALONG

Humdrum Babalong came into the café
wearing
alligoiter shoes
a rawhype belt
a joke strap
wipe socks
a mad hat
& a trench mouthcoat

Humdrum Babalong talked loudly of
paversity
fliverosity
pandiculation
perdolinguistics
vilicious rumposers
sapurculated muppatellas
& predelicious tupscrippers

then he whipped out his mishi gun
and shot himself in the football

Humdrum Babalong was last seen
limping away on nailgun toes
drinking vintagio
and chanting quadralupus bee nines

  

GOOBER DA’LOOBER

the pools of his electronematodes
were zippered into his post-mentalities
and kept him hungered up
from breadfast at Tripoli’s
to snacktide at Middlenight

Goober Da’Loober was a Nope

  

MARGIN ELFSTROKE

Margin Elfstroke is a carbon copycat
he is a diaper sour
he’s a napeneck sweetie
he’s a converted wagon wheezle
with a mulebox flaglip

he’s a technolop pop sizzle
a stangled blooper
a skip rope-to-my-loophole-o-gram
& a rammer school childburst
among the dappled deals

he’s a bluff blind hogmeister
a truthache in the jawshucks
of cornerstone deaf tubamutes
a william telefusion
who de-fives deathanition
& a dime & dime akimbo
with a boogie trap for brains

he’s a whimper in winter
& a slow emotion slack button in summer

  

Name: FARTIN’ MARTIN THE OBSO-ATHALETE
Age: 99 bubbles of warts on the balls
Height: Glue Roofer
Weight: Meatus Fat-tigue
Race: O*
Sex: Tweece
Place of Birth: Hoverdare
Religion: Mixolibian
Political Affiliation: Slum Bop High
Favorite Food: Polkapows

* if the letter O: Ooze Doodle
if a zero: Zipperleak

  

TICKADIVER CONGAROO
author of a dozen rock star autobios,
buried by a back hoe
while dodging the draft.

  

MA McGEEK
winner of the Nobelizter Prize
in Lipperature for her transolution
of Darwin’s epic The Abolution of Man.

  

J.J. EYEBROWS
holy shitskis
he’s third level white trash
can’t look at a car
without wanting to steal it;
stole 14 motorcycles in one night,
between midnight and dawn,
and left them lined up
on the post office roof

later seen with ribbons of molasses
flowing from his lower nose

  

BURGOMASTER BUTTERSHRUG
has burgomaster plans
for the burgomaster race:
a ram with removable sheepskin
a rock-and-cactus-strewn mind
and slob stories of crossing
a field of football bathmats
in cat shit sandals

  

ROOKIE RACKOON
the Bossjerk of Droopaneck
sleaze monkey money
corruption up the kazoo
bathes in pickled drips of bovine hoof
and echoes from sleepmachine t’raveloggers
singing:
I’m a-goin’ fishin’
nuclear fishin’
you can come a-fishin’ too

  

PANTALOONIA ESKIMORFINO

If he put the bang in boomerang
who put the boom in Rangoon?

  

PLOOTARK
he boosted his ratings
& rated his boostings
he strapped his boots
& booted his straps
he boiled his oils
& oiled his boils
he subdued the Marines
& submarined the dudes

he was lean-to and meaningful
to those who trod the paths of gulpathology

  

SCHEISSE MIGHTLY
drives a Kon Tokyo Tikyo
thrives on oboe diddley winks
staves off loneliness
with zombeenimbles
& jackobeequirks
feasters on spuddumplins
& korangensaft
craves a bleating fur goatpost
a terminox for hertermites
& a clock-free wee gee beard
of spiderwebsites
applauses justinitus beeper tones
blog cabin balladeer horns
& meatleaf johnsongs
without birdwords,
plopsidedsickles
& triple jump tropes

  

TOM DICTAPHONE & HARRY TRIGGER
half brothers
one was a rag & hambone, gung home-a-side
the other was a belly scope-u-lating teen rager
Tom said: Hug!
Hairy said: Data!
Tom said: Laugh!
Hairy said: Slugalicious!

Tom was magazine netball pointer
Hairy was a deaf ringer

  

DINGOMEETER FUCKAROONIE

he’s a terrible
he’s a terrible
a terrible unka whacka hoo

he’s a horrible
he’s a horrible
a horrible hupple yang dong

he’s a miserable
he’s a miserable
a miserable severino spostick

he’s a mischievous
he’s a mischievous
a mischievous wheekatong bang

he’s a despicable
he’s a despicable
a despicable wumpa payo pump

he’s a chacka panatou
he’s a cashew minna tree
a mizereadle moof & an ova tigga wom bom

August 30, 2017

FAKE MOOSE FASTUM
(known as “Speedy”)

boxes in the upper middle class
weight division
his gloves are globes
illuminated electronic maps
each European city a point
that rings when he makes contact
with an opponent’s chin, nose or brow
London: Ding!
Paris: Dong!
Vienna: Ding Ding Dong!
Amsterdam: Dong Dong Ding Ding!
Barcelona: Ding Dong Ding Ding Ding!

his other globe glove
is a map of American cities
the points of which
play popular tunes
when they meet jaws & jowls
“L.A. Woman”
“Shuffle Off to Buffalo”
“The Streets of Bakersfield”
“Portland Town”
“Walking in Memphis”
“King of the New York Streets”
“Streets of Philadelphia”
“Little Old Lady from Pasadena”
“San Francisco Bay Blues”

Here is a play-by-play re-run
of the third round
of Speedy’s title fight
against Slobbertooth Slanderman:

Ding! Dong! Dong!
Ding! Ding! Ding!
“Sweet Home Chicago”
Dong!
“The House of the Rising Sun”
Ding! Ding! Ding ! Ding! Dong!
“Viva Las Vegas!”
BLAM!

a knockout punch
from which Slobbertooth
has still not recovered.

August 30, 2017

JARGON & DRUM
after reading Patti Smith

I think she cool
but I don’t know

how can I know
when words of herself
natter & tatter
& seem to matter
but never riverrun
to the sea?

I sit in a room
and watch the sun
at my back
light the wall
in front of me, fade
and night creeps in
on soft shoe feet

who be cool?
not me, not I
I close my eyes
open my mouth
catch the tears
of earworm weeping

she knows, she sighs
“You’re peeking.”

she pulls the curtain
shuts out the night
“No you’re not
– you’re leaking.”

September 1, 2017

ATLAS FOR MEN

Atlas sells clothes
mail order
shirts
t.shirts
shorts
jackets
pants
sweat pants
socks
baseball caps

he lives far away
in mythological Greece
not only does he balance the world
on his shoulders
but he takes time out
once or twice a year
to get down behind his sewing machine
and stitch me some duds

he keeps me warm in winter
and dry from rain
that’s what a god is supposed to do

he’s a good guy
but he’s not my favorite god
that would be Tum Tum Potato

September 2, 2017

TUM TUM POTATO

who the hell is Tum Tum Potato?

he can only be known
by what he isn’t
by what he doesn’t do

he doesn’t balance the world
on his shoulders
he doesn’t keep me warm in winter
or dry from the rain

he doesn’t get along
with Atlas or any of the other
gods & goddesses

he isn’t a shape shifter of language
he isn’t a laughter merchant
he isn’t even a dream weaver

he isn’t a 12-stringer
he isn’t a tar baby long jumper
and he’ll never be
an Uncle Wiggly

he isn’t a slide-me-by
a whopper whooper
a blue moon downloader
a harpoon tuner
a sacrificial lamp post
a butterball kangaroo icon
or a bug eye hum drummer

(you get the idea)

or a shadow boxing translator
a long hair son of a beach comber
an oxygen backpacker
an incognito door-to-door pep talker

(got it!
stop!)

he isn’t listed in the yellow pages
he won’t be found in the trenches
with Joe the Plumber
(I do not have
a Tum Tum Potato baseball cap
and I’m pretty sure
there is not a baseball team
called the Tum Tum Potatoes)

he has never been mentioned
in a single episode
of the Jerry Seinfeld Show
(which makes him less than nothing)

he doesn’t know
he’s my favorite god

come to think of it
he’s not my favorite god
anymore
I’m giving up on Tum Tum Potato
& going back
to worshipping the sun

now the sun
he’s really something
fuck you, Tum Tum Potato

September 2, 2017

NEITHER HERE NOR THERE

coming back as always
to what is not said
yet essential to understanding

Europe as a museum
in my prolonged escape
from non-museum America

the harmonica solos
that were never slipped in between
the verses of “Keep a-Knockin’
(But You Can’t Come In)”

the autobiography of a mute molecule

the wash of ocean tide
to & fro between our feet
when we stop to worship
the setting sun

the sound of ticking clocks
when we talk about eternity

the uranium they never brought up
from the silver mines
when the Indians were watching

the space between each & every word
in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake

the gap between the eyebrows
when a friend frowns

the silence created by an audience
when the actors perform
“Waiting for Godot”

the lingering echo
of a Beethoven Symphony’s
penultimate chord
when the final chord is struck

the hum that underlines
an orchestra’s performance
of “The Rite of Spring”

the white noise
that hangs in the airwaves
between the end of a tune
& the dj’s announcement:
‘That was Andre Previn’s
1960 smash hit
“Like Wow!'”

there is indeed a missing link
between ape & man
it’s printed on billboards:

WATCH THIS SPACE

September 3, 2017

WORK IN PROGRESS

“You are a work in progress,”
she told me
it was meant as a compliment
but I took it as a warning

long time passing
I have cancelled the word “progress”
from my vocabulary
(along with “purpose ”
“success”
& “failure”)
PROGRESS is an idea that has got a lot
of people in the world
into a lot of trouble
assuming that each step
we take must be higher
than the last

there is no stairway to heaven
sooner or later no matter how
high you climb, you must
step down

another of those 3 words
bothers me too: WORK
I’ve left that one behind
long time passing

I never work
I just do
I write
then I stop writing
sometimes it’s 10 minutes later
sometimes 10 hours
or 10 years
but no matter how long
it’s all effortless
no labor, no sweat,
no gnashed teeth
if gnashed teeth
appear on the horizon
I don’t even bother
to sit down to write

I just do
I write
& I am transported
into places I do not expect
& I always return
renewed
revitalized

that’s not work
call it anything else
& you’ll better describe it

call it
doors in clouds
that open into laughter

call it
a ride on a bright blue
Jack Kerouac-autographed
bike down a farm road
with a cream of wheatfield
on one side
& a cornfield of confetti
on the other
birds fly out of the wheat
cats hide in the corn

call it
a lazy red balloon afternoon
in the Season of the Yo-Yo
when muppets detach themselves
from puppeteer hands
& go tumbling in acrobatic
slow motion over a briar patch audience

call it
tiddley winx hi-jinx
in a hopscotch minuet
with bagpipers inhaling
smoldering speed weed
& exhaling Afternoon of a Faun
smoke signals
at 220 beats a minute
while tortoised stoners
thru half-closed eyelids
think they’re witnessing
subtitles in a movie
about soap suds

call it
a dream boat
that skims the Creammilk Sea
on the wings of a dove
on the back of a whale
Popeye whistling in the rigging
Sufferin’ Suckotash at the wheel
blowing silver bullet bubbles
& stand-up comics
water skiing in the wake
telling jokes to dolphins

three words: WORK IN PROGRESS
cross out the first & last
one out of three
is not a good score

I’m left with IN
maybe I am an IN
I know I’m not an OUT
or an OVER
never BEHIND
seldom UP
and only occasionally DOWN

call me a bug in a rug
call me a bird in the hand
call me a tempest in a teacup
a man in the moon
a teenager in love
a stitch in time
a father-in-law
an Alice in Wonderland
a pig in a blanket
a partridge in a pear tree

anything but a (WORK IN PROGRESS)
please

the eye of a brainstorm?
or a ghost of a chance
in the blink of an eye?

September 4, 2017

RETARDED AGES

they say 70
is the new 50

when I was 20
I was ahead of my time
I made 20
the new 10

by the age of 30
I was a new 15
a rampaging teenager
an emotional retard
I should have been locked up
they tried
but I tricked them into thinking
I was sane
when everybody knew
you had to be insane to survive

& wouldn’t you know it
today I’m suddenly 76
& make no mistake
it’s the new 20

next year I’ll start voting
drinking in bars
& hanging out with adults

what a dismal
abysmal
thought

September 5, 2017

PERILOUS JOURNEYS

up steps
down steps
under door jambs
over cat
& cat food dish
thru spider webs

on an average trip to the city
you could prematurely die
at every step
sidewalks
collapsing buildings
cars
pedestrians with evil intent
cars with evil intent
trucks with & without
evil intent
flower pots falling
from 3rd floor windows
snipers from rooftops
cops with & without
evil intent
restaurants (food poisoning)
cafes (drink mistakes)
disease
cars
people
people
cars

glad to get back home
to exploding stoves
& short-circuit toasters
& fridges
back home to where
I can be attacked
by ticks
venomous wasps
blood-thirsty mosquitoes
insane doves, owls
& crows
& airplanes falling from the sky

I think I’ll just
lie on my bed
& wait for a bolt
of lightning
to hit the roof
above my head

September 6, 2017

STRINGS NO STRINGS

men & women have mysterious ways
of coming together
without intention
suddenly a stranger
soon a companion
how did that happen?
where are the strings
that pulled them together?
who pulled the strings?
the strings are so deep inside
we cannot see the fingers
but we know them
to be our own.

September 7, 2017

THE OTHER END OF THE TUNNEL

the old poets had it easy
pray to the gods
blame it on the gods
damn Zeus
fucking Aphrodite
go to hell, Hades
curses on you, Poseidon

then the Jew-Christ god
stepped in
shut us mortals
into a tunnel
& went about slaughtering
his Greek and Roman rivals

now we’ve emerged from
the other end of the tunnel
we look around
no god
he’s gone

so are all the old Greek and Roman
gods & goddesses

so we lean onto the only ones we know
Immortal James Dean
Holy Marilyn Monroe
Hail! Charlie Parker
Avé! Allen Ginsberg
Amen! Jack Kerouac
Sacré Stravinsky
Transcendental Hunter “Saint” Thompson
Too soon, Woody Allen
Who’s this? Lenny Bruce?

as for those still living
who might get voted into
the Hall of Faith,
(The Dome of Infinite Divinities)
they’re all lined up, waiting
to die
for history to be re-written
to become our imaginary guides
confessors, scapegoats
“If not for you, Bob Dylan.”
“Thank Heavens, Michael Jordan.”
“Make my day, Clint Eastwood.”
“Shed you light on me, Obama.”
“Send me someone to love, Dolly Parton”

while the old guard
stomps around in skinhead boots
kicking the new arrivals
off the heavenly cloud
& demanding greater devotion
from us mortals below
“Save me, Picasso!”
“Take me in your arms, Abe Lincoln!”
“I pray to you, Albert Einstein!”
“Bless my soul, J.S. Bach!”
“I’m down on my knees, Shakespeare!”
“Just give me one more chance, JFK!”
“Inch’Allah, Dalai Lama!”

yet all goes well
until Elvis sends down
his only begotten son
Elvis Junior
who bumps off the competition
& the pretenders to the throne

& becomes The Skinhead Supreme

September 8, 2017

TRUTHS SELF-EVIDENT

tricks are not the only
ghost writers of no treats

I consult my Thesaurus
as a believer bothers his Bible

exiled Ovid’s Tristia
not once does he mention
that things could be worse

the see-saw
sees
& saws
it sees
& it saws

the swing
swings & misses

nomads
are going
out of style
where did they go?

the most innocent of phrases
hits like a hammer
ee-yow!
not so innocent after all

one foot up
one foot down
— on the other hand

what mean
“Jimmy Crack Corn”?
it mean
I don’t care

big brother
is watching you
— little brother too

it’s Bach
it’s Beethoven
it’s Burt Bacharach

Beethoven was a traffic cop
Debussy ran a pawn shop
Mozart was a short stop
(truths self-evident)

let’s get back
to the fundamentals
roll the dice
& flip the coin

Question:
Why do you grow a beard?

Answer:
I don’t
The beard grows itself
I just don’t shave

did you hike
into the mountain
or did the mountain
hike into you?

six of one
half dozen of the other
are waiting
down in the valley
for an answer

age 55
he smokes his first joint
he goes
“Oh yeah — ”

six translations
of Dante
in search of a poet

needless to say
but he says it anyway
(“needless to say”)

go outside
come back in
loop
we travel
in loops

September 9, 2017

RABBIT TOOTH LAMENT

t’would have been nice
if evolution had given us
some rabbit genes
so that when we go to the dentist
all we would have to say is:
“Take a little off the top.”

September 10, 2017

LIKE A HURRICANE

we watch the storm hit Florida
our eyes glued to the TV
a friend’s family lives in Naples
their lives are being threatened
disaster news is usually unnatural
it’s happening to strangers
this is personal

for 4 or 5 hours we watch the storm
pass thru Naples, watch the palm
trees whipping in the wind, watch
the rain hammering down
until it seems to be pouring
thru the screen, leaking
into our house.

I step outside
the rain is pouring down
the wind is blowing hard
I don’t know
where in the world I am
for a moment or two

September 11, 2017

MOSQUITO MAN

we worship nature
when it’s peaceful
but nature seldom is

close up
the food chain is a bloody mess
from worm to bird
the wild goose eats the mosquito
then we shoot & eat the goose

the lion takes down the antelope
the rhino batters the lion

volcanoes, earthquakes
hurricanes. forest fires
are awesome
are beautiful
they are the geese
we are the mosquitoes

September 11, 2017

PEACETIME WAR

over-lapping fireworks echoing
off the valley wall
ripping earth, trees & people
to shreds
with nuclear-powered rattles
stopping me mid-word
at my computer
lifting me from my chair
by the tips of my hair
& trotting me outside
to witness the destruction

fireworks

no more war nostalgia
when will we stop
needing to be reminded?
fixated on bombs bursting in air
& raining down poison fireflies
on our faces

September 11, 2017

THE SICILIAN NOTEBOOK

1.
grand piano live playing Beethoven in airport boarding mall looks like civilization is on the rise television screen ten steps later showing the news tells me other wise

into the flow of air traffic torpedoes lining up getting ready to shoot down the cloud submarines

blast off

roll the dice not the usual pair but a half dozen praying triple snakes eyes don’t come up in other words we’ll be lucky to come out of this in 2 or 3 pieces alive or other wordswise

2½ hours to Rome Industrial Airbus A319 flight AZ 1733

Ginsberg on my mind the old bald head goon mouse with his serendipity obscurity hippie lip lapper perpetual youth fountain spray gun scattering his spiritual ashes long dead these several years not afraid to stand naked body in front of newspaper flash bulbs

Jimboy Cricket the Ancient pulls curtain between me & 1st class empty seat peek thru curtain ears popping pop again gimme a bottle of water waterlady weird 1st class phantoms performing indescrutable rituals on the other side of the curtain their voices POP jumping & sleuthing with moisturized verbs & hyphenated ape names tell me more than I want to know ’bout the (pop) post-modern sacrifices voodoo rites with big roosters flophouse mama rising up with a mattress between her teeth scarecrow fear mongers dream infiltrators

“please . . . ” in Alitalia English microphone bleak ear noise just a small drop of desert water waterlady the dry clouds of thirsty be movin’ in (enough pops) like parchment a farmer’s scorched earth in a flood swamp drought gap pull back curtain facelady in marooned dress says ‘immediately” (in Alitalian) immediately turns outback collecting rain with a funnel in a gut bucket here she comes here she comes glass of water with Nuova Coca-Cola Zero Zuccheri Zero Calorie powder in a sack pour it into the water never seen this miracle before wonder what it’s gonna taste like powdered coke maybe like old army boot tongues or saddle sweat OOPS it’s a damp napkin in the sack for wiping mouth purposes

gulp! gulp! shut me up

no chance who says riding around in a death trap aircraft is an art form it’s a ball of yeast a bag of beans it’s 2 hours to Rome on wings of string & bedpost bubblegum a touch of borderline belief suspended with a dish of slap on the side slide into pool pockets of Swiss secrets bumping over the Alps & shit we’re flying over the ocean Argentina bound with Amazon & Andes on the horizon Inca icons Easter Island in the sun poppin’ down “light turbulence” she says in loudspeaker brittle voice hear the pilots up front background screaming “get out the yellow life jackets the life boats pull the rip cord, Franklin, tell Laura I love her & fuck those weasels back in economy going down Fumicino in sight brown ground comin’ up quick listen to the baby wail wind howl Ginsberg howl over the tormented time lines of past centuries thru a hurricane vortex & dead presidents shot down gangstered down moonshot down twisted down Cubans crisis down Wall Street broke busted all money shit bankers and loaners shit out rushhour mush dust insult to Indian down Wounded Knee down Walter Little Moon down Black Panther down on the ground & up against the wall motherfucker & who’s your boob doctor Malibu acid freak Vietnam wheelchair vet down meth head down thumb sucks billion dollar brainless Hollywood video game movie block busters no mercy for the victims of childhood muggings dream rapings spiritual blackhole sinkin’ & general asswipe mind fug comin’ down grief birds down (last down pop) ground comin’ up fast bump & grind down bump down 9 / 25 / 2017

2.
Kobo E-Reader lost in the whirlwind
somewhere along the line
Ibis budget Hotel this morning
dropped on the bed
bounced on the floor
fell thru a crack
into the open mouth & gnashing teeth
of a giant bookworm
who’s acquired a taste
for electronic editions
of Ovid, Margaret Cavendish
& Elizabeth Barrett Browning
discovered gone in Roma transit terminal
amazing the materialistic attachments
I’ve given up while living in visiting in
stop-overing in Rome such as
digital camera, reading glasses
cell phone, baseball cap
books gone, sunglasses gone
seems like an ancient spirit of SPQR
has reached out & relieved me of another burden
teaching me a lesson of non-attachment the futility
of thinking you can take it with you even from
Belgium to Italy looks like I’ll never learn

9 / 25 / 2017

3.
& here in the sterile air-conditioned atmosphere of the transfer terminal a single mosquito hovers in the air above my lunch lost, lonely, unloved; this is no place for a mosquito; I don’t have the heart to slap him.
9 / 25 / 2017

4.
American tourists
yapping loud
like they own the lunch house
raise the hackles on my neck
I immediately abandon compassion
drop down
into my rebel without a cause stance
head lowered like a speared bull
glowering fuck-you glances
into their vapid overfed
spoiled rotten
wasp bland faces
make me want to spit
make me wanna holler
make me wanna pull the fire alarm
& clean out the place of useless rich white trash.

9 / 25 / 2017

5.
more from the loudface Americans
overheard (how can I avoid it?)
“And then I had to drive the BMW home!”
(what sufffering)
makes me wanna take out a bow
& shoot an arrow right thru
their blind arrogant ignorance

9 / 25 / 2017

6.
Roma-Catana 1½ hours Airbus Industrial Alitalia Flight 1747 calling on the ghost of Allen Ginsberg again help me memories in my Ginsberg mood mode harking back into high-tension tenses of past time observations, reflections of bomb shelter scorns rat race affluence refusals bible belt rejections back into the bread lines of dark depression pre-birth vitamin deficiency ripped retina calcium flawed teeth dentist drill revenges A-blasted Hiroshima hide your heads ‘neath the desk boys & girls while I pop out to the teacher’s room for a camel lucky strike chesterfield later marlboro filter tips with clenched scorpion lipstick teeth right up into North Beach bust out City Lights illumination & Greek sandals & wine squirt goatbelly bag & jazz off the campus and Coltrane blowing thru town on the last hardbop junk express Bop City Jr. eye yam jam riffing on a whiplash with my perfect pendulum poised on my reedy teeth Baby Blackhawk wailing on my hog-a-dogophone barking into Honk Muscle Vibes of stiff nostrils (“Blow your scribblehorn, hobo”) reading the American Tourist Poem to Bear interrupted twice by flight attendant life jacket education automatic pilot reassurance we’re not lacking wings & hey he’s rolling down the strip to the launch pad he’s not going to take off rocket boost yes he is extreme acceleration lift off into the skin of the air above Rome pulling in the wheels machine grind lift get up you lazy albatross around the neck of all albatross lovers turns slim slit sun patterns shifting across the overhead luggage compartments sunlight glancing off wing oh shit I just saw the loud mouth Americans on board venomizing the air pressure polluting the interior stratosphere and me without a parachute without my chopping list:
punderance
peasal
lento
porca l’orca
sloop
plinth
pastizanno
le zoons
breeder
mostly
limpeed
l’eau de futé
muscalub (large size)
frizzburl (½)
whammowaste
fleeceberry
jonquilts
andoo
gramish andoo
chuttle andoo
leak of limp
clockus
twankadilly (frozen)
shap naff
quilko (bonkette)
domini (2)
jusqu’à juice
cliff-on booth
tuscaripper
tifkin
firebachs (1 doz.)
rawrunzel
nomite (meridiso nomite)
rath-doodeheever choplocks
unknee
sopa (zo-app)
plainchute trois
outdice
hoberjeans (3 lbs.)
x-raid tedamoans
krokro
yep vesters

they make me want to puke & it’s always there inside the basket flap THE PUKE BAG never seen anyone barf on a plane lately they used to BARF all the time in past airplane history barfing was one of the most fashionable ways of passing time on Tran-Alpine flights people just clapped the bag over their face and puked their guts out it was something to see row upon row of pukers writhing and moaning “I shoulda never eaten that beef slop & goo” nowadays people just sit in their seats & stare straight ahead the puke bags fly across mountain summits completely empty & ignored & we unrelentlessly enter into September days of football weather youth cut grass fast ballers winding up the end of the season world series around the popcorner & crackerjack hammer knucklecurveball muscle-massed bulging pumped bicep behemoths aiming for the fence swinging & missing & sipping cocacolaclock ticking & dip losing altitude headed down into Sicily a half hour hence for 3 days of volcano closeup suchness that was fast buckle up “25 degrees” dip (pop) Alitalia chat over the tinhorns bambino wailing no good those childwails bang bump we’re down slowing Fontarosa addio Irvino Jardino
9 / 25 / 2017

7.
dope-sniffing dog dressed up in innocence
at the customs exit gate
Mafia don’t want no outside competition
gotta buy it from their runners

walk out of airport (more like a train station)
and POW
there it is
Mt. Etna
snowcapped
“Suhhhhh-MOKIN!”
from now on & from here
to eternity it’s going to be
everywhere

we drive away
in an Etnamobile
out of Etnaville
& soon we’re on Etna Highway
where beyond stands
the Etna House in which
we will abide
with Etna Ghosts
in the morning I’ll change
into my Etna Shirt
& Etna Pants
lace up my Etna Pipsqueakers
go down to Etna Market
to buy Etna Fruit
go into Etna Bar
drink Etna Beer
get Etna Drunk
watch Etna Sports
on Etna Vision
come home to Etna House
& twist to rap

9 / 25 / 2017

8.
first Sicilian morning
pissing into the rising sun
in an olive orchard
under a cherry tree
blinded by the double reflection
once off the lowdown clouds
then again off the Ionian Sea

shoes crunching under lava bubbles
blink sun spots
chain saw over the hills
dog bark below
ship chugs up the bay
crawls into the straits of Messina

Sicily pretty much the same
as Belgium
except you don’t have to be stoned

9 / 26/ 2017

9.
Etnahouse like a photo in Better Homes & Gardens
needs friends’ “come over & see what I’ve got”
not too many poems here not too many songs

9 / 26/ 2017

10.
step outside mid-morning
see a man below painting
the arbor frame in silver
want to say hello
can’t think of the word
in Sicilian
oh yeah – “Buon giorno”
thought I was in another country

9 / 26/ 2017

11.
Etnahouse spacewasteful
built for looking at
tho blessed with a walkaround terrace
on all four sides
I prefer going out on the terrace
do to my looking

thousands of years down there
civilizations built & crumbled
olive trees scattered on the hillsides
witnesses older than me
older than you
older than the man in the moon
hiding behind the woman in the sun
whispering amusements in her ear

9 / 26/ 2017

12.
shower stall floor slippery
stepping out I have nothing to hold onto
so I apply my old tai-chi techniques
by shifting weighted balance perfectly
from one flat foot to the other

but the roof-covered terrace
with tile floor and expensive view
of the coast from Taormina to Mascali
becomes a dance floor
for pod plug ear bare feet
string of songs I haven’t heard in ages

9 / 26/ 2017

13.
visiting blue Mexican house with its cactus trees ground littered with fruit never seen before pick one up “Don’t touch that!” drop it thinking maybe venomous the little fruit is a prickly pear I have a few needles in my fingers I’m not going to die

had to go back when no one was looking
picked it up hold it longer
to experience the essence
of prickly pear heard about read about numerous times
(“Here we go round the prickly pear,” said T.S. Eliot)
rolled it around in my hands for a few minutes
tossed it away left my skin
clustered with tiny needles they stung
for a couple of hours less intense
than Belgian nettles
& hey – I got a chance to experience
a prickly pear & I’m still alive

9 / 26/ 2017

14.
open market in Catania
vibes of old Roman Campo Dei Fiori
fruits
vegs
fish
prickly pear (non toccare)
I’m looking for dark glasses to hide behind
two table hustlers thrusting
weird shapes & shades at me
toccare & you’re hooked
third table girl lets me look
without hassle
at least 100 pairs in 5 long lines
Bear is my mirror
I try on a few
no
(real fake hipster)
no
(what are you thinking of?)
no
(Jesus not those)
no
(are you out of your mind?)
YES
“Blues Brothers”
“Va Bene”
girl says, “Ten euros” (dieci)
I say “Five euros” (cinque)
she say “Ten euros”
I make a move to place them back on the table
she say “Right euros”
I say , “Va bene”
& I’ve just bought a pair of authentic
Ray Ban knockoffs

9 / 26 / 2017

15.
table outside bar open market sugo di pesca Birra Moretti waiting for Bear to finish shopping observing market activity end of the day shouting from every corner crates of lettuce go dump into big black plastic bag boy walks off with sack food for the homeless old folks bumming under piers I stumble in Italian with bar mama still thinking I’m in another country bar mama’s boy low slung jeans hands slouched in pockets red baseball cap on backwards he’d like to be somewhere else Vespas chugging up & down narrow space between table & spinach stall shouting from everywhere “spinachi! / “prego” / “EE-YAH-AH-VAAA!” ancient lexicon explosive words (approx.) “devicento” / “lavoro cinquedici” / “formena gipsana freddo sulavi mi pret-paramigo grazie ola formi-cha insalata!”

9 / 26 / 2017

16.
down by the fishing boat harbor
in Riposto
park the car
roll down the window
“are you enjoying the silence?”

if I say yes
I won’t be
enjoying the silence
9 / 26 / 2017

17. The Lemon Tree House on the Hill

two lovely women
the German lady is Jasmine
her daughter, Clio
their apartment to rent
is full of wonder
view of Taormina below
the sea & sheep
bells distant tinkle
we join the ladies
for totally relaxed tea
we are already making plans
for our famous futures together

9 / 26 / 2017

18.

Orazio
with pirate headscarf
& silver paint brush
will be coming today
climbing up his ladder
to finish painting
the metal arbor
attached to the terrace
so I’m preparing my verbal brain
with a few useful phrases
so I can speak with him
& sound less like an idiot.

“Buon Giorno, Orazio
come stai?
noi visituto tue amici
Jasmina & Clio ieri pomerigio
ho vedo-veduta
il cano & il gato
et les mouton pensive
come sei dieci
‘Lemon Tree House on the Hill’
in Siciliana?”

only to learn that Orazio
is not coming today
or tomorrow
so we won’t see him again
this time around
& all my short term
Sicilian lessons
will be lost forever
in the flow of memory time

“Ciao, Orazio”

(besides which, I am told
Orazio speaks perfect English)

9 / 27 / 2017

19.
DO NOT THROW
ANYTHING
EXCEPT
TOILET PAPER
IN MODERATE
QUANTITY

got it
no stones
no olive trees
no cats
no people
but the sign is not quite clear
about WHERE to throw
those moderate quantities

at the house?
thru the window?
at the sky?
at Orazio?

my advice
better not
to throw anything
at
thru
under
over
until you have perfected your aim
by practicing
Zen & the Art of Moderate Quantity

9 / 27 / 2017

19.

Antonio Machado
designer poet
his lines fit perfectly
on posters for tourists
capable only
of short-attention-span
intellectual aspirations

if you can quote it
it’s poster doomed

I shouldn’t have said
“poster doomed”

now this one
is poster doomed
9 / 27 / 2017

20.
mint-flavored walk
down steep hill
to the railroad tracks

& slow stumble cripple walk
back up potted road
one step at a time
(“The Top of the Mountain
is Reached One Step at a Time’)
(another poster doomed graffiti
for brainless tourist home walls)
lizards skittering into bushes
water pipes from Etna
thundering roadside
with an occasional flicker
of liquid lightning at the joints
& flies swarming eyes
doing their sweat gather job
I wonder if under-eyebrow deodorant
would keep them away

broke back sweating
when I get back to Etna House
dreaming of a shower
it starts to rain

9 / 28 / 2017

21.
thought it was
a small animal
buried in the grass
christ almighty
who wants to be
a dead glove
in an olive orchard?

9 / 28 / 2017

22.
OK
so the view out front
of the sea
& coastal towns
& the flood plain
is spectacular if you got
your spectacular glasses on
(your spectral-occulars)
I still prefer the view
out back of the kitchen

a few olive trees
a cherry tree
& another rise
of Etna foothills beyond
that’s enough to keep me occupied
for hours

looking at microscopic rooftops
down below out front
is not my favorite pastime
the anthill out back
is all the entertainment I need

9 / 28 / 2017

23.
I laugh
she says “What?”
I say, “You.”
9 / 28 / 2017

24.

Etna House is also
a Heart House
38 hearts of various
sizes, shapes, fabrics
densities & colors
festoon one kitchen wall alone

11 hanging in mobile
over the end of the bed

I bet she dots her “i”s & “j”s
with bloody hearts

one day she’ll die
of a heart attack

9 / 28 / 2017

24.
back on the wings of Ginsberg Ghostal Airlines direct from ghost to ghost to embrace the shadows of the traveling mind delivered into my seat in a wheelchair went down in the check-in line wheelchair first time been delaying this step into the irreversible for a long time know the way back is narrow is dangerous tendencies & liabilities to weather change in the cosmos inside my nodding head first on the plane I must sleep give me Ginsberg memories later in Milano.

down in Milano in the special handicap waiting room cool uncrowded amazing way to travel remember from mom’s trip to London Air Canada 4 hours in Vancouver sailing around in a chair me pushing having just as much fun deciding where we had to go no discussion now I’m the silent masked marauder come to steal wheel upon the land gliding down long ghost corridor on rubber sneak wheels expecting cobwebs to sweep across my face skeletons to dangle vampires to pop out dripping tooth blood ghouls hovering screaming from crypts waiting to touch me into the wasteland where T.S. Eliot’s grow not in dead soil dry riverbeds what the thunder said & Ginsberg’s swings me around & it’s just a puffy leather couch lounge Bear’s back with cheese & tomato moonbug bread & bottled water 3 couples against the far wall silently shouting in sign language silently laughing from the House of the Deaf judge on the TV says “I understand your pain.” & suddenly another chair operator pushes me back along ghost train alley into another elevator bus that delivers me into the backdoor of Alitalia Flight City Liner AZ150 from Milano Inate to Brosella & down to our seats row 8 & we’re off rolling out to the runway for launching into wild blue yonders of ancient European skies where once upon another time American bombers from Catch-22 unloaded their exploding surplus over innocent heads collateral damage while shooting down ceramic German aircraft those pesky messerschmidts & fockers & pre-jet propeller driven machines of war & we 70 years later keep asking ‘why war?” as nations dissolve borders finally revealed as the illusions they’ve always been dissolving tho islamic freaks caught in darkest of ages vile habits continue to launch misery swords into the gut of post-civilization like stabbing a dead cow horse whipping stubbing dead cigarette memories into the smash tray oh allah baba baby watch those smoke rings rise from your snout closed eyes weeping now everybody is snacking away on salty savory rings by Tavalli Traditionali especially packaged for Alitalia 120 calories saturated fat 4%, sodium 9%, carbohydrate 5%, 2 grams of protein good for you healthy & nutritious wheat flour sunflower oil olive oil & sea salt ammonium bicarbonate store in cool dry place expires July 31, 2018 fears abound in every row every seat each passenger with his own shopping cart skidding down the aisles in the Supermarket of Fear collecting fruit picked from forbidden trees, contagious onomatopoeia, shoelace electrocution, gaps in the picket fence, mugshot traps, whipsnap crackle poppin’ backlash; witch burners in bumsneakers, alcohooligans seething with thug horizon aftershave, nude muleskinners with mean motor scooter tattoos; fear of fat insanity, harookie jah-bookie death rays, kamakazi sutra flinch mobs, new born-again baby rabies, street car rides to Jericho, jellobotomies: their brains boiling with deceptive cadence disorders, massive binary obsessions, hypno-klepto-microphobias, mailbox dread, steroid void, weight loss diet doldrum anxieties, weed whacker propaganda panic; gargoyles all – waving boarding passes to ward off the fumes of acid reflux gag reflex – then Life comes rolling in with its cloud nine breezes, paint-by-number dreams, popcorn delight, doo-wop jubilation, bookshop beatitudes, bass guitar vibrations & stoned after laughter & I get pissed off at a guy called Death because he’s going to come slapping along one of these days in the next 5-10-20-25 years shove me thru a side door & tell me it’s all over no more sunshine no more moonshine no more ELO no more Traveling Wilburys no more Richie Havens Neil Young Jesse Winchester no more Ed Sheeran no more Joni Mitchell no more shadows & light “Gloom & Doomtime -” as he pickpockets my wallet “right down this tunnel, mister – ” (no more . . . ) & you stumble into an empty round room where every prayer you utter at the pinpoint of light glowing on the dome house ceiling comes bouncing back in multiple echoes or maybe it won’t be a guy Death could be a beautiful woman she could be an angel in fashionable disguise she could flap her wings & make the world disappear and when you open your eyes you’d be looking down into the Ultimate Popcorn Popper “the abyss of inner space” (or so they advertise on the telepathic network) & the Ultimate Popcorn Popper contains anything & everything you want it to contain “some go for the Statue of Liberty theme others go for the Grateful Dead Matrix Playback it’s all down in there James Joyce on the Jungle Gym Horace Silver’s chopped onion skeleton keyboard Homer in Hades Chaucer in the Tankbard Tabernacle Dante double bop & Cervantes windmillions & Anonymous & Co (Dante to Cervantes to Anonymous best triple play combination last season) the dreams of the Hopi & the maze of the Navajo Gulf Coast Floods & the last bag of blues “Hi-ohh, Silver, Ohi-ohhhh” & the path goes down down & down it takes a lifetime or 2 or 3 to get to the bottom down among the diamonds & the pearls where you barefoot among the dimes & quarters buy you a crust of croque-massage toast buy you a sip of blanc La Bretagne buy you a boatride from Porte d’Orleans to Pont d’Avignon down among the demons that look like New Jerk rush hour lesbian business women on their way home from butchering pork so you jump in an alley with Long Tall Sally (how’d she get in here?) & down at the other end sitting on busted-out crates illuminated by a 40-watt bulb that dangles over the garbage-infested cul de sac the Dead are playing Shakedown Street & by the way he explodes his electrode you know Jerry Garcia is GOD & you know when the gig’s over (when they play 44 extra verses of Truckin) Jerry’ll come over to your pile of bricks sit down light up a joint pass it over grin & like any pair of schoolyard backstop yo-yo chums talk about Waylon Jennings singing to Buddy Holly saying (more or less) “Don’t feel too bad about dying in that plane crash back in ’59 – YOU HAVEN’T MISSED MUCH” & I’lI disagree Buddy missed a lot in the last 48 years he didn’t get to hear Brian Wilson & his Beach Boys or the Ronettes & he would have been amazed by Dylan he didn’t get to see the Boston Red Sox beat the New York Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series then sweep the St Louis Cardinals in the World he would have read books by Brautigan & Vonnegut he would have read Rolling Stone Magazine with Hunter S. Thompson & his gonzo guns ablaze and guts spilling from White House Windows he would have made a come-back after 20 years in a coma & 10 years in intensive physical therapy rehab & he’d roll on stage in his wheelchair right into the middle of a Z.Z. Top concert right into a funky blues net that gathers up all the Lost & Found all the Fucked & Flapdoodled all the Sins & Sons of wealthy fathers failed all the Fast & the Funny all the Fat with all their money all the Last & the Least all the Beauties and the Beasts and Buddy would have taken out his panhandle cycle-clone maracas & chanted his RAZOR BLADE RAP: ware yu goan / wutch dat tow truck towin / witdat lawn mower mowin / alda grass yu been smogin / alda joints yu been jokin / ware yu at / witch yo bustball bat / witch yo possum patchen cat / and dat matchem rat? / yu be wokin fat & Jerry’ll say “I wouldna missed that for all the tipis on Mt. Shasta” & the Pandemonium Kid’ll pop up with joke smoke in his eyes & mirrors in his teeth &’ll remind you that this is your life from this moment forward can’t drag those U.S. bombers along over Milano Avignon Dresden Hiroshima Nagasaki Hanoi Saigon getting everybody crunchy snacking war lords forgotten unforgiving along with all the nothingeverything on the vast motherearth worms everynothing jackrabbits nothing idle thoughts confessions excuses complaints bradaccios nothing everything popcorn nothing curveball nothing cast off toilet bowl amid Etna slope weeds nothing train whistle nothing amid sea-distant Ionian boat nothing mr. & mrs. nothing mr. Cash nothing wheelchair nothing can’t cast the difference into a Golden Bough pool to see if one floats & the other flies away into moon everything Orion everything Sirius everything next door universe everything black hole everything worm hole tunnel gravitational singularity event horizon everything nothing like a night out with the boys bowling brawling beating Beethovening the babes night out girl scout henpickings damn yankee dame blames barbie doll dunk the dumb bell dopes keeping everything on the edge of nothing til the frail light goes off & matter unmatters . . . this is the bend the no return point dropping down thru coocoo clouds & summer is going out like summer a-done come in & who sweetly sings the minstrel of the seasons sees spring tastes summer juicing feels fall feasting trembling hears winter rumbling down thru the clouds into blind zones Ginsberg placing his top hat on bald pate (” I guess I’ll get me cloak”) checking off the toes of his star-spangled banner sneakers sneaking out the sidedoor with Wolfman Jack on his tail sayonara adios next time around make mine a mixed bag of scarecrow medicine show placebos & mojo poetics

9 / 29 / 2017

25.
delayed on the plane
last to leave
sitting up front alone
talking to the pilot
and the flight attendant
(“I’m from Rome,” she says)
he says he started the day
flying from Pisa to Roma
Roma to Milano
Milan to Brussels
(this done flight)
& now as soon as the plane
gets refueled he’s headed
back to Roma
I say, “That’s a lot of ups
& downs in one day.”
we chat with great warmth
& enthusiasm
& when the wheelchair man
finally wheels me off the plane
backwards thru the open door
& down the glass tunnel
we wave goodbye
like old friends
we might not see again for a long time

9 / 29 / 2017

THE PENIS MONOLOG

I don’t want to be cold
I don’t want to be lost
I don’t want to be lonely

I don’t want people talking
about me behind my back
I don’t want to be old
I don’t want to be ignored

I don’t like my name
I’d rather be called Bob Tail
or Polyphemus

I don’t want to be slow
I don’t want to be soft

I want to be hard
really hard
for ever & ever
without an amen

October 19, 2017

RAIN DELAY

the man on the baseball radio
says, “A bolt of lightning
just hit second base
a cloud just burst
over centerfield
& it’s pouring down
cats and dogs
– stay tuned
for a play-by-play rain delay.”

riding my bike
a car ran me off the road
I could’ve hit my head on a post
could’ve woken up in the hospital
people could’ve said, “We thought
you were dead
– you’ve been asleep for 19 days.”
& I would’ve said, “Rain delay.”

I keep waiting for the cows to come home
for the chickens to come home to roost
but the cows & the chickens
are taking their time
sometimes it seems
they are going the other way
into an eternal rain delay

October 24, 2017

CAT RUG JIMBO

old cat Jimbo
(17 years)
is so disabled
& decrepit
(lost & lonely)
that he sleeps
on our doorstep
day & night
leaning against
the door
always in the way
day & night
making us risk
serious injury
when stepping
around him
I think
he’s writing
his will
letting us know
that when he dies
he wants us
to skin him
and make his pelt
into a rug
I can see the day
when we enter
our house
& wipe our feet
on our new
beautiful
furry
black & white
cat rug
called Jimbo

October 26, 2017

NOTE FROM THE BEAR

I waited for you to
wake up, I even
ate slowly but as you
are still asleep
(3:00) I have to get
Jimbo sth to eat
and do it while traffic
is not too heavy –
ah! there you
are!

October 30, 2017

PORTRAIT OF THE POET AS
PAVLOV’S DOG

he salivates when he speaks
he drools when he talks
about the weather
when his mouth
is not drooling
he’s thinking about it

his brain is drooling all the time

November 10, 2017

SKIN DIP

thin drizzle night
wouldn’t know it’s raining
without the bright beam
of flashlight cutting thru
the microscopic drops
(& the fine spun strings
of spider web across the path)

stand out here long enough
& your clothes’ll be soaked
to the skin

Nov. 17, 2017

REPLY TO SUSAN CONCERNING ME
AS AN ENDANGERED SPECIES

not to worry, Susan
I’ve stopped going up
& coming to down to my studio
wearing bedroom slippers in the snow

I now take the slippers off
carry them in my hands
& use the toe nails of my bare feet
as claws

but the dangers I face are much more serious
than slippery snow & ice
I have to remember to avoid
the wolf traps I’ve set along the path
duck the attacks of savage owls
that want my baseball cap for their nest
& keep my eyes
on the herd of wild boars
that roam the meadow
day & night

December 5, 2017

THE HUMAN POPPER

I ate a bowl of pop corn
some of the unpopped kernels
lodged in my intestines
put down roots
& sprouted

they grew up
thru my intestines
& soon a field of corn
was growing in my belly

one day I swallowed a bottle
of Louisiana hot sauce
& the corn began to pop

my belly bulged out
I swallowed some salt
& melted butter
& my belly sat watching
a re-run of Field of Dreams
on TV

not once did it utter a burp
as it chewed & swallowed
its new food.

December 6, 2017

PORK & BEAN BREAKFAST EVOLUTION

the word comes down
from the highest level of news room insanity:
the human adult farts
20 times a day
“That’s an average between 15 & 25, folks.”

what I want to know is this:
what kind of freak goes around
counting people’s farts?
that’s got to be the creepiest
job in the world:
Chinese farts, Bolivian farts,
Cuban & Canadian farts
need I mention Scandinavian
& American Indian farts?

& I can see the future:
FART TAX
some other creep invents
a fart counter
they strap it to your ass
information is relayed by satellite
to a central computer
& you get charged a hundred bucks
for every fart over 20
on an increasing scale
you get an itemized bill in the mail
at the end of the month

“On June 17
you farted 72, 331 times
that will cost you
$17,700,000.”

“On June 18
you farted 33,133 times
& that’ll be another $860,000.”

“So far
for the month of June
you owe the government
17 billion dollars plus change.”

people who can’t pay
will start using anal plugs
they’ll blow up & explode
rather than facing a life time sentence
in their local prison’s gas chamber

“A man who owed
the government
$17,000,000,000
who had a plug
up his butt for three months
just exploded
as he was getting on a bus
in downtown Denver.
Forty-five bystanders
were killed by the impact
of the explosion
sixteen others died
from breathing lethal fumes
& an additional fourteen
were hospitalized
with traumas related
to auditory loss.

The Wife shouts at the Husband
as he leaves the house
to catch the bus:
“I don’t think it was a good idea
to eat that can of pork & beans for breakfast.'”

& the human species
continues to evolve
into unknown & uncharted
oceans of dead end streets

December 9, 2017

iYAM

I am evolving into light
please don’t cast a shadow

I am waiting for the wolves
listen,
over the hill,
down in Deep Raven

I am not counting on the clock’s tick
there is no time today

I am a shapeshifter magnet
I see them lurching around my window

when you see me riding my bike
down the freeway in the fast lane
I am the least of your concerns

I am an algorhythm
& a Chinese blues singer

bring me some peanuts & cracker jacks
I’m enjoying the 7th inning stretch

I am going to take a nap now
I shall return

December 15, 2017

DEAR JOHN — MARSHA

Dear John –
You don’t know what women want

they want
whole-hearted wheat bread toast
buttered with bluebird pie jam
a 3-piano tooth pump
a postage stamp mask & a pigeon hat

See? You didn’t know that
did you?

You don’t know what women like to do

they like
to spin needles on their back door bones
to skate border lines between stooge bloopers
& shotavodka sailors riding around
on their sperm-killer whales

To make saxophone calls
with oomphallus chatlip a-moans
to peek thru tastefood windows & spy watchmen
eating noodless stewage & mumpkin soup
to chat with the sub-machos about marathon
tango dance contests & volcano worship

You’ll never know what women are thinking

They think
of shooting smoke signals
into the antiquewood pecker winds most of the time
of coveting a flame rug thrown down some of the time
of joining a Splendero Luminoso dramaturity cult
as light babes seldom
of proof-reading 90 % of all books
with “trees” in the title never

You think you know women
but you don’t

So I’m leaving you flat & double wide
escaping from your octobaby rung jump birdcage
fleeing from your microwave lobs
of gravity yard stone wallpaper
with its mud sticks
& flourescent flower potbelly pigstoves;
I’m speeding off into the flow charts
of Jubiloso Unlimited on the back
of the Wobbley Man from Kajokestan
with his curly whispers
& his taperbook backs
mark my words,
he’ll be driving a Parsifallopian Tube Hog

you can guess the rest
— love Marsha

December 15, 2017

PLACEBOMOSIS

one sure way
of getting sick
(if you’re so inclined)
is to go into a hospital

they’ve got every disease
known to man in there
& they don’t mind
if you borrow one or two

even better
go see you family doctor
when she’s got a waiting room
full of sick patients;
at the very least
one of them will give you a cold

on the other hand
you might come home
with an illness
never seen before
& to which
there is no known cure

low topsy
rolipoliolio
mousecadaveristis
hippo-nitrochrondria
thermo-knuckular blasphemy
monodroptheria
thug tooth
osmockatoastis
juicy fruitsag jaw
earwigglephonius
stun gunalized skinflint
nibelungen ring-a-dingworm
bastardpox
pulmo-lockstep spinalis
nostilophrenia
fat fever

of course
if you want to make it easy
on everybody including yourself
go into the backyard
and smash in the top of your skull
with a ball peen hammer

December 30, 2017

NOTE TO JIMBO

there are a million starving cats
in China & not one of them
has ever turned up his/her nose
at cow tripe sheep bladder
pig gut pie

hell, in China they leap right up
& rip open the stomach
of a living cow & eat out the lining
as it chews on its cud & stares
at another cat with its head buried
in the side of a pig chewing
on the intestines

hell, in Scotland the cats leap up
chew a hole in a drunken man’s belly
& suck out the booze

hell, in Belgium . . .
just don’t get any wild ideas

if you see me with a bottle of rum
in my hand I mean
do-NOT-get-any-wild-ideas
one false move & I’ll show you
how little room it takes
to swing a cat

December 31, 2017

THE OLD WOLF

he crawls down into a pile of blankets
hibernation mode

the old wolf
he’ll be lucky to make it thru the winter

December 31, 2017

NEW YEAR FULL MOON

I’m doing my best
to keep up your spirit
in these final minutes
of a year gone by

ignore those two slash marks
of muck back there
they just slipped in
when I had my eyes closed

forget low topsy
& thug teeth
ignore the cats
dipping their claws
in the innards of drunken Scots

take a look out the window
gaze at the sky
OK so it’s covered
with gloomy grey
dismal dense clouds

but take my word:
behind those clouds
is a full moon
spinning round
getting ready to whisk us off
on another circle around the sun

December 31, 2017

IN MEMORY OF LEONARD COHEN
[ September 21, 1934 – November 7, 2016 ]

I sit quietly
& wait to hear your name
I listen
but I cannot hear your name

not in the whisper of wind
that seeps thru my screen window

not in the flap of the washing on the line
as the wind kicks up
from a distant grasshopper in Guatemala

not in the whine of a mosquito
that circles my ear
drawing a mandala circle
in the air

not in the clicking of the train on the track
echoing up the valley when everybody else
is sleeping snugly in their beds with visions
of Sugar Babes dancing in their heads

not in the millennial whoop
of a prize-winning pasteurized teenager
who wants to be remembered
for her hypnotic skills

not in the snarls of anger
in the solos of John Coltrane
inaudible to the white man’s ears
save those with a special ticket
to the cosmic roller coaster ride

not in the ticking of the clock on the wall
at 3 a.m. as it competes with the hum
of the fridge in the corner
where mice are tapping their toes
to the tune of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall

not in the bells of the ice cream truck
rolling down the hill
loaded with sweating men
covered in vanilla, strawberry
& chocolate flavored foam
& dancing a slop shoe
to the music of Watermelon Man

not in the clink of my keys when I take them
from my pocket to unlock the door
& night birds in the trees whistle & chirp

not in the hollow hoot of the mother owl
teaching her babies to fly in the last possible
hour of night before dawn

not in the national anthems of 40 countries
or all top 100 hits on the charts

not since Suzanne
fell off the charts
and Mrs. Robinson
climbed up to take her place

not since the pages of your Lady’s Man
stopped mumbling to my fingers
as I turned them

not in the ring of a gorilla’s cell phone
as he rides the train across
the border from
male to female
& back again

not in the hiccup a baby
who gets a sniff of feces
in his cheeseburger
then tries to change
his own diaper

not in the rustle of dead leaves
as a fox scurries for cover
thru the woods
& into the chicken house
where the rooster & hens
stand as stone statues
hoping the intruder
won’t notice they’re alive

not in the silence of the lamb
as it gazes at the moon
in the deep of night
while close by in the woods
a wolf licks his chops

not when the frogs start marching in the rain
& the splashes of their flipper steps
bounce up into the eyes
of a passing cyclist
who wipes them away
& sees a landscape of paradise
open before him

not in the tap of old folk canes
who can’t climb mountains
but can still climb hills

not in the explosions of farts
the fat actor delivers
into the backside of the curtain
while the audience applauds
for a curtain call

not in the subtle sneeze
of Catherine Tekakwitha

not in the voice of a story teller
who ends his tale
as the elevator door opens
on the top floor
of the Tower of Song
& everybody steps off
into empty space

2017

JACK KEROUAC AT 95

1.
he steps outside his house
sticks out his thumb
& hitchhikes a ride
to the crossroads of Heaven & Hades
where a dog is taking a leak
against a sign post that reads:

IF YOU’RE GOING TO NIRVANA
BETTER PUT SOME HAIR
IN YOUR FLOW CHART

he drops his pants
& joins the dog at the sign post
singing:
Hup! Hup! Hup!
Nervous Nirvana
that’s the blues for me

2.
on the way to Heaven
he gets into a heated discussion
with the driver of the pick-up
(a bible salesman)
about re-incarnation
The driver wants to come back as a prophet
Jack doesn’t want to come back at all

3.
he sits in an over-grown garden
surrounded by high thistles
reading the newspaper
there’s nothing on the front page
but headlines
he finds the obituaries in the back
he reads about
Pancho Villa
Hunter S. Thompson
Buck Rodgers
Lenny Bruce
he finds no mention of his name
he scats:
Whap! Whap! kadoodle flap!
I’m still alive!

4.
at night he prowls the graveyard
finds empty graves & says
“You can’t keep a madman down”
he reads epitaphs on tombstones
that quote from his own books

“Wheels within Whales
& the Rattlesnakes of Iceland.”
“Gaze Upon My Rosethorn-Ripped Flesh” (&)
“I Must Have Walked Into The Wrong Room”
“I Saw Mumblepeg Screaming at the Sky” (&)
“Please Don’t Eat My Pet Armadillo.”

Jack says
“I didn’t write ANY OF THAT”
he shouts:
“CHOP CHOP A BIBLE BOP!”

5.
there’s a church inside his head
seen from the corner of his eye
he wonders:
who put that live rooster
in a cage atop the steeple?
he pulls a rope attached
to the rooster’s wings
& the rooster sings like a church bell

6.
they’re all coming back now
all the BEAT poets
& beatific angels of the street
& beautific chicks of jazz
they are all singing in unison
“Ta – potato rup . . . potato rup!”

7.
he gets out his old typewriter
dusts it off
& writes a sequel to On the Road

THE DHARMA BUMS IN PREHISTORIC
EUROPE

Chap. One
Me & Big Shig the Neanderthal
Storm Thru Germany with Baseball Gloves
& Unrhymed Epic Poetry
Chap. Two
Tour De France on a Sabre Tooth Tiger
Chap. Three
Free Love with the Cro-Magnon Girls
in the Caves of Spain
Chap. Four
Smoking Weed with the Cool Cats
of the Low Lands
Chap. Five
Beat Skiing in Scandinavia
Chap. Six
Me & Hannibal the Cannibal
Climb the Alps
& Become Abominable Showmen
Chap. Seven
Me & Cleopatra hitchhike to Rome
on a fast rhino
& name it “The Eternal City.”
Chap. Eight
Off to Greece
to Hang Out with Homer & Jethro
Chap. Nine
Hollywood Days & Harlem Nights
in the Holy Land
in white robes, loose clothing
& rented sandals
Chap. Ten
Off to India & Japan
to Meet the Buddha
& become the inventor
of Zen

8.
he walks around the table
three times
eats his poached egg
& shuts up

9.
he drops a humongous tab of mescaline
& dies
& is reborn five years later
as a hundred-year old butterfly

10.
“We don’t have enough of your kind
around here,” says the landlady, handing
him the keys to her kingdom.

2017

HOWL REVISITED (HOMAGE TO ALLEN GINSBERG)

I have heard the troubadours, ancient & post-modern, wailing in the night who, with guitars on fire, stood on the mountain & lit up the sky from Polaris horizon to the antipodal cross with perpetual northern & southern lights shooting like soft lasers from their fingertips,

who waved their arms & traced massive rainbows in magnificent
multi-tudes from east to west & didn’t stop when their music became too loud for human ears,
who were followed by rats as they piped a path to the river where the rodents lay down with the frogs & learned to breathe underwater,
who lived inside radios from coast to coast, the coal mines of Moloch,
the Wichita Vortex & Drugstore Cowboy Rodeos of Dallas & Fort Worth, broadcasting the Grand Old Operas of Beat Mozarts & Bohemian Puccinis,
who cast their songs into Tin Pan Alleys & got back pennies on the
millions or less than nothing in return,
who, outcast & ignored, turned their burning cheeks aside &
continued singing despite the House of Un-Amerigo-Vespucian Activities’ blacklists & suffering jails,
who drove the Roads to Hell & repeated the tire tracks of broken
down Model-Ts’ into Promised Lands of Golden Milk & Honey Opportunities, where they got promised & scorned & turned down & were forced to pick the bitter fruits of their labor, to sweat & survive evolutions’ cries of fiddle bow noses to the grindstones, then gathered by dry river beds & formed Okie bands that would soon trod the streets of Bakersfield,
who hitchhiked & loose rambled from Mo-Town to Downtown &
back to the Mosquito Coast on 66 routes & 61 highways where hard rains fell & tumbleweeds turned into rollingstones, who boogied after hours in the House of the Rising Sun & got paid in lice & crotch crabs,
who stumbled over doorsteps & monosandalos entered the Cotton
Clubs of rewritten history with pianos on their backs & muted bugles in their fists,
who lifted saxophones & blasted the words of wordless riffs into the
faces of blind waitresses, speaking loud & clear & prophesying the Fall of the Monopoly Players’ Fake Empire,
who dragged their morning-after tails into cafeterias along the Great
White Way, seeking the solace of black coffee, unfiltered Camels & just one more gentle fix in the uni-sex crapper in the bathless backroom,
who flocked like seagulls, wings flapping, to the stages of Woodstock
& Altamont where they were taught that the music of Peace & Evil balances out at the end of each song, after which they packed up their axes & scattered like ravens into future centuries,
who sat at ribbon-blurred typewriters in dusty attics & banged out
unexpurgated, unpaginated odes to mortality & jag-edge sonnets of 14,000 lines that sidestepped the dull drone of barbiturate rhymes, yet in spite of this neglect somehow miraculous fused their bed-bugged & busted voices into mellow & harmonious polyphony proliferations,
who plugged in atomic autoharps & raised the roof at the Fillmore &
Avalon, who hallucinated Tangier Tunnels of No Return when they dipped their harmonicas in acid & rocked the Kasbah with their Jumpin’ Jackhammer Blues,
who frog-leaped over boiling cauldrons of Blakean gloom & landed
hipster-style in Kerouac Soup, Corso Stew & Ferlinghetti Meatball Spaghetti Sauce served in backalley greasy spoons,
& who then feasted till dawn in celestial Chinatown dens &, dipping deep into their chopstick bowls & plunging their mouths into beef rice green onions, chewed the Pastures of Plenty to rags & swallowed till ecstatic,
who climbed to the rooftops & babbled saintly verses to the stars that will not be understood till the day money becomes useless & advertising obsolete,
who lay their heads down upon cigarette-burned tables on Coney
Island & dreamed of the centaurs & mermaids that once inhabited the earth & made peaceful all creatures with their holy modal rounds of Dorian harps & ocean flutes,
who jumped into jukeboxes & never returned sending back recorded
whispers trapped in rubber message bottles,
who whistled Whitman, hummed Dylan & snapped their fingers to
Marvin Gaye rhythms in their heads alone & got busted for disturbing the de-pubed politicians’ poodle dog wives’ sedated peace of mind,
who slugged it out in Vietnam with monkeys on their backs & spiders
in their eyes as napalm blew out their music box balls & replaced them with organs they could grind on the streets of Saigon,
who became phantomized poets when they clung to the Creedence
Clearwater tracks repeating in their skulls as they ran out of the jungle & back into the arms of their weeping loved ones,
who with cramped intestinal fortitude braved the subways & bus stops
with tip jars, fish hooks & strapped-on dulcimers, then armed to the teeth attacked redneck hillbilly energy in the shark-infested waters of Nashville where the ghost of Hank Williams wept down over the graveyard of pedal steels, the farmlands’ lost roots & the corporate cash flow machines driven by Machiavellian greased pump-haired psychopaths,
who plucked their beards & heard the music of the spheres &
immediately sat down to cough up the lyrics,
who lay out in the desert in lizard skins like buzzard bait & watched the
vultures fly off in a straight line, pointing the way to weird scenes inside the gold mine,
who spun around like weather vanes in a mind-scrambled wind,

shouting directions surrealistic absurdities shamanistic visions & sometimes nothing at all but humming the tune & hoping the glee club angels would pick up the tongue-blurred words,
who wandered into amusement parks & stood amazed while Buddhas
ha-ha’d & Jesus freaks wept, then rocketing over oceans of a bang-headed swarm grabbed the rollercoaster bullhorn & passworded ragtime arias & be-bop yodels to their fellow passengers who, zonked on placebo roofies, giggled & merely flop-housed out,
who prayed to statues of Shakespeare & Co & Chaucer & Bro
were rewarded with laughter spit from the statues’ mechanical mouths,
who traveled back in time to visit Coleridge & got so stoned on opium
with the bard they forgot who was who & remained behind in the 18th & 19th centuries while the Albatross Man jumped ahead into the 21st.
who howled it out with the wolf moon gazers & learned later that they
were famous long before Chuck Berry & Little Richard produced the watered-down imitations of their throat-ache explosions of joy & sorrow,
who stomped on bar three of Happy Birthday to You & veered off
into endless verses of Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowland which was then decided by popular vote to be the new national anthem,
who were Yamaha’d into submission by samurai hordes wielding untuned kotos & shakuachis, but then threw off the shackles of the Pentatonic Empire & began composing 12-tone fugues for Tin Horns & Steel Drums,
who died stiff-nosed & thin-lipped in Hollywood’s Oklahoma singing
Old ManRiver & were resurrected on the final track of the Beatle’s Revolver playing thousand-string sitars & singing backwards,
who popped Tower of Babel bubbles & poked fun at seaweed
covered tombstones with chest-pounding shanties,
who slouched into bookshops hands a-pocket jiggling coins & keys &
pill boxes in fingersnap time to the backbeats of Thelonius Monk’s Rhythm-A-Ning, & read about sucker-punched flamethrowers who dwell at 451 Fahrenheit Avenue, then tossed copies of petrified vanities into a bonfire round which they danced in sing-a-long passacaglias with radioactive bagpipes,
who punished for lewd ballads survived vocal operations in which all
melodic content was removed & went on to became the Last Poets of a Transcendental World,
who delivered their Bardic Hymns into the ozone as their sky-
scraped bald pates glistened in the moonlight & tattoos grew upon their popeyed arms,
who fearless with flasks of grapevine wine tippled luminous into

rumors & backscratch gossip & bottlenecked by musical nonsensicals, spoke in tongues Om Shanti Shanti Shanti,
who flat picked high tension wires with remote-controlled drones
above parking lot darkness & frightened the widows of abstract painters with fingertip portraits of Marcel Marceau in their frosted windows,
who studied the sacred notations in the songbooks of Stephen
Foster, then out of respect for clear mentalities, intelligence & good taste of singers who did not share southern enthusiasms for slavery, changed all the words, substituting those found in the Official Major League Baseball Rule Book,
& who then played musical chairs with potato couches & background music supplied by naked closet-trapped barbershop quartets who paused each time they came to the 7th inning stretch,
who organized symphonic orchestras of vacuum cleaners, hair dryers,
lawn mowers & rusted motorcycle parts & performed all the old standards such as The Art of the Fugue, Petrushka & Rhapsody in Blue,
who grew up in mutational slums, malnourished on angry punch lines,
yet flourished into butterflies of elusive love & blossomed into the flower- powered meat of soprano’d laughing ladies & bartitonal cool chimes singing in abandoned pigeon loft choirs,
who chanted with mouths full of Canticles in cathedrals till priests
crept from confessional booth woodworks & made them stop praising the pagan exploits of Gilgamesh & Enkidu,
who heralded the second coming of a savior with a lead-plated belly &
wild goose quill strumming on Stella Artois-Gibson-Martini-Epistlephones by standing in desolated rows of recording studios, breathing their souls into steam-heated microphones, then emerged to sail their platters like frisbees thru open windows where they settled down on turntables of 33 rpms that would someday become nostalgia but in the here & now bounced the needles from groove to groove & proclaimed that croon and chin-dribble was dead & that rock ‘n roll’d go down in history, just you watch my friend,
who, epically Homeric, sailed out of San Francisco Bay, disguised
as pirates, with a bum in a Odysseus t-shirt at the tiller, to search for souvenirs on the far beaches of South Pacifics where Penelopes by the dozens waited to teach them the eternal Songs of Innocence & Experience,to these poets & songsters I get down on my knees, bow my head to the ground & kiss their footstepped earth with praise & pray that they may continue to thrive, for without them the Planet Earth will stop spinning, the sun will fade to a pink ball of cotton candy & the moon will run away with the forks & spoons to a distant galaxy.

2017

GHAZALS

in memory of Jim Harrison

I.
last night in Oracle City the cows came home to roost
the sheep bent down to root with newspaper clogged snouts

I started picking my nose & my finger fell off
I should have paid attention when I started losing fingernails

I inherited this limp from my grandfather
a long line of limpers & unrepentant hunchbacks

they joined hands, the Bumbler & the Beaker
last minute changes in the size of the glazed hotdogs

burger wrappers blown around the square by bum nostril winds
the breath of statue breezes stir up fountain feathers

II.
a chorus of tipped bottles straight from the horse’s mouth
gifts from the jukebox, strip-tuned to the key of screech

tempo in Blue Flat adjusted to the speed of need
dancing for a rainy day swim thru the rain, get wetter

synchronized dancing? shame on you
play it in the key of Three

I smoked a joint & sat up all night
blowing into a harmonica hole

III.
midnight at the Miracle; mumbles from the mailboxes
drumbeats for breakfast, cramps in the guts

egg yolk drips on my white t-shirt
we could roll up the rug & eat it

thought-poachers leap from the page
it’s said that I read too much from between the lines

rodi-omens, runticulations, purpataine, bendiloquent
a growing concern among euphemists

tears in the lumber room; loopholes in the trampoline
it’s time for another Lee Child

IV.
stick in the foam earplugs & listen
to the faint acouphenic bells that never stop ringing

I string my own guitar & carry a black knapsack
I’m a real, natural, gas roots joke singer

“Being reckless with your life also involves me,”
he said sticking out his tongue at his reflection in the mirror

gazing at a photograph of himself as a boyfriend
“It’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for.”

rabbits coming over the hills in V formation
the camels are coming ha-ha, ha-ha

V.
spelling bees swarm; tripwires in sanitized cathedrals
it’s bingo night in the boondocks

rubber ducks tango in distant pocket pools
a lobster wins the marathon; oh Bo Chelly!

glittering reputation as a master of invective
there was no way he could explain the licked lollipop

what’s a little rhinophobic enthusiasm
compared to a sunken bohemian houseboat?

she ran with the wolves; he ran with the bulls
the last time I saw them they were flying with the geese

VI.
reading the life of Ambrose Bierce
a snowfall of danderuff from my beard

chain-reading mysteries & thrillers
the acrobat of the quip, the pitchforks of the gnawed fingernail

Bertrand Russell whipping expensive automobiles
let this come as no surprise

bold yet iffy; pandiculatious yet bigamous
who ordered three gallons of cherry ice cream?

enigmas in the mixolydian
who put the wham in the whigga-boppa-looga-bam?

VII.
hey doo dad, you old doo dad, down on doo dad row
we’ll get into the messy parts at a later date

pop goes the weatherman, the wind’s in the weasel skin
no round trip ticket; we can’t stop ram-bull-in

nomadic tribes; they’re coming out of the hills
looking for love & monkey business

dust bowl black model T heading west, ball game
on the radio, Dodgers down by one run in the 9th

blink! – everybody knows the world
was black & white back then

VIII.
mass market paper moons, the Blob on the rise
don’t go to the drive in with girls named Sheila

blimping thru the soundless air, Goodyear & Sons
patrol the borders of Lady’s Day at the ballpark

a string of credo beads, an anchor of horseshoe hide
baseballs whirling thru the sky as batters bomb the birds

trick rubber bricks & fliedermaus bones, Don Wander
clicks the rosary beads of his satanic bucket list

comin’up the hill with a load of stones
need another pill, call for Bop City Jones

IX.
pre-echo of a melody in my head, I sleep
with my lumber jacket pulled up around my ears

6 a.m. alarm clock ring from the hotel room next door
all god’s chillun gotta rise up & smoke the chillum

mark every tree with a slashing glance
you’ll never get lost in the woods

“Owl Creek Bridge” I cannot say why;
I find it impossible to say a lot of things

international spy, agent for the Belgian Secret Service
“St. Georges . . . Stockay St. Georges.”

X.
in with the outlaws, over the moon
catch me you can, I’m the fly swatter man

whistle blowers jumping rope; hackers swatting flies
thugs emerging from the fog

a pack of dead flies on the windowsill; a lone, lost goose
flying in circles at twilight under a crescent moon

huge black hibernation flies, none can escape
the terrible swift sword of my swatter

he dribbles! He shoots! Nothing but net!
the man with the swatter declares his room a No-Fly Zone

XI.
Double Downtown Doodle Boy King of the Road
“Lez smoke some Hoogawamma. ”

he introduced curves into the landscape
& made a lot of square dancers nail-biting nervous

beholden to no one (not Wolfman Jack nor Frogman Henry)
his feet are always cold ’cause he never cuts his nails

mouth breather, bottom feeder, used card dealer
beaten in canasta by more than 61,000,000 points

rose thorn-ripped flesh, he stops to ponder
“Must have walked into the wrong room.”

XII.
Ghazal, Ghazal, don’t mess with Ghazal; if you can’t
get it down in two lines, don’t bother at all

got the drinkin’ blues? can’t get the beer
in your mouth? you’re holding the mug upsidedown

slurp the paint, make your liver livid
make your guts growl, beg for a thinner

Dr. Sax says “I don’t blow alto in the alley.”
now we’re down to welfare check jazz at Bop City

“See what you made me do?” the ritual chant of the boy
who stuck his thumb in the cherry pie & pulled out a phone

XIII.
I grew these stags around me when I walked into the wilderness;
I drew the trees, then I cut them down

the hoots of Mama Owl teaching her children to fly
all night long, those babies are in boot camp

I knew it was true love at first sight;
I could smell her DNA from a mile away

nose to nose, she said open your eyes, I said I knew
we were close, I didn’t know we were that close

I lifted my head to look at the moon
& got it tangled in a cobweb of memories

XIV
sub-bourbon burps, weasel-mouth bashful babe
with buck teeth, no accounting for taste

anybody on TV’s fair game – any body, ritual
roasting, long-suffering eyelashes thrown under the wheels

the circus left town taking only the elephants
the clown has fallen on hard times

infrared tapes of a ballet dancer demonstrating
her exceptional talent for spatial location in the dark

butterflies with four wings, humans with one
once in a blue moon a babe is born

XV
Shakespeare’s Macbeth with cowboy hats & boots
The Riders of the Purple Stage

“Do you mind if I pull down the curtain?” F.Scott
Fitzgerald listening atavistically for wolves in the side snow

hey, Bo Chelly, where you goan?
sophisticated voodoo with a Persian cat bone

the leaping waltzer laughs & leers
hoodoo in the ball room; who do you love?

I don’t know but I’ve been told
if you ever stop dancing you’ll start to grow old

2017

Poems’ index

003241753993 (2011e)
2 DOWN IN THE BOTTOM OF THE 9TH
WITH THE STRIKE-OUT KING AT THE PLATE (1973-1986)
4 MORE YEARS (2012d)
4 PLAY (2002-2004)
10 YEARS LATER (1973-1986)
23 HOURS, 59 MINUTES & 57 SECONDS LATER (2008)
37° IN THE SHADE (2009b)
50 MILES AND 5 FEET (2011a)
71 VALENTINES (2012a)
72ND BIRTHDAY RESOLUTIONS (2013a)
90 WINDS (2010a)
96 & 94 YEARS OLD (2009a)
120 POUNDS OF BLUES (2011a)
190 POUNDS AND GROWING HEAVIER (2011a)
501 BUTTON FRONT LEVIS (2012a)
1984 (1986-2001)

A

ABANDONED DICTIONARY, THE (2013a)
ABSOLUTELY HEADING HOME (2009a)
ABSOLUTELY & DEFINITELY HEADING HOME (2009a)
ABSOLUTELY & WITHOUT A DOUBT BACK HOME (2009a)
ACHILLES DOWN (2012f)
ACRONYM (2008)
ACTOR’S WAREHOUSE, THE (2013b)
ADAM & EVE’S GARDEN HAIKU (2015)
ADORABLE SATORI (2013a)
ADS (2017)
ADVENTURE IN LUMBERLAND (2011a)
ADVICE TO WIVES OF COMPOSERS (2011f)
AFTER BREAKFAST (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
AFTER CANIGOU (2008)
AFTER DINNER (2005)
AFTER PANDERAMA (2011e)
AFTERTHOUGHTS ON FIRST WINTER POEMS (2003)
AFTER LOVE POEMS (2011d)
AFTER LOVE IN GERMANY (2011d)
AFTERMATH (2012d)
AFTER READING T.S. ELIOT’S WASTELAND FOR THE 55TH TIME (2015)
AFTER THE RAMPAGE (2011a)
AEOLIAN COMPLAINT (BICYCLE POEM 4) (2009b)
AGE (2008)
AGE OF APARADISO, THE (2002-2004)
AGE OLD (2013a)
AGE 75 (2016)
ALBATROSS ADVICE (THE ALBATROSS CORNER) (2016)
ALBATROSS APHORISMS (THE ALBATROSS CORNER) (2016)
ALBATROSS SONG (THE ALBATROSS CORNER) THE (2016)
ALBATROSS (WHY THE ANCIENT MARINER SHOT THE ALBATROSS) (2006)
ANCIENT HAIKU (2016)
ALBERGO CALIFORNIO (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
ALIEN AEOLIANS (2009a)
ALLIGATOR VENTRILOQUIST ON THE ROPES (2016)
ALL HALLOWS EVE (2010b)
ALMOST FAMOUS PEOPLE’S ALMOST FAMOUS LAST WORDS (2011f)
ALMOST HEADING HOME (2009a)
ALMOST SILENCE (2009a)
ALOTTA GOTTA (GONNA WANNA) (ROME POEMS 2) (2009b)
ALPHABET BLOCK SOUP (2005)
ALPHABET BLOCK SOUP (2011h)
AL TALLEY AUTOGRAPH, THE (2011h)
AMAZING MINDS (1986-2001)
AMERICAN HISTORY WHEN WE NEED IT THE LEAST (2014)
AMERICAN OPINIONS IN THE DARK (2009b)
AMERICAN OPTICAL (A CHANGE OF SEASONS) (1973-1986)
AMERICAN SOUP (2011d)
AMERICA’S EMASCULATES (2011g)
AMPLE SUFFICIENCY (2013a)
AMPUTATED TALE OF LITTLE DID HE KNOW, THE (2011f)
AMSTERDAM POEM 1. BURIAL AT SEA (2011f)
AMSTERDAM POEM 2. CAFÉ MARCELLA (2011f)
AMSTERDAM POEM 3. CRIME WAVE (2011f)
AMSTERDAM POEM 4. STUMPMAN OF OOSTERPARK (2011f)
AMSTERDAM POEMS (2005)
AMSTERDAM WHEELIE (2009b)
AMUSED & AMAZED (2011f)
AMY WINEHOUSE RIP (2011g)
ANAL RECTIFICATION (2011a)
ANCESTORS (2012f)
ANCIENT HAIKU (2016)
ANCH’IO (ROME POEMS-4) 2016)
ANDRE’S ASHES (2011h)
ANDROGYNIES (2013a)
AND DYLAN THOMAS RIDES A PENDULUM (2015)
& FOUND (2017)
AND SINGS LIKE A DROWNING STOOL PIGEON (1973-1986)
AND SO WE LIVE OUT OUR LIVES IN THE MOST UNEXPECTED WAYS (2011a)
AND THE END IS NOT IN SIGHT (1973-1986)
AND THE WAITER SPEAKS ONLY CHINESE (1973-1986)
AND THE SKIES ARE NOT CLOUDY ALL DAY (2011g)
AND THE SNOW KEEPS FALLING (2010b)
AND THEN WE COME TO THE FIRST NIGHT HOTEL (2012a)
& UGLIEST HOUSEFLY IN WESTERN EUROPE (2012d)
AND YOU DON’T HAVE TO BREAK THE WORLD HIGH JUMP RECORD TONIGHT EITHER
(2015)
AND WE WILL HIBERNATE NO MORE (2010b)
AND YOU DON’T HAVE TO BREAK THE WORLD
HIGH JUMP RECORD TONIGHT EITHER (2015)
ANGEL (2012f)
ANGELS (2011d)
ANGRY REPLY TO A LETTER I NEVER RECEIVED FROM GREGORY BATESON, AN
(1973-1986)
ANIMAL POETRY (2005)
ANIMAL POETRY 2 (2005)
ANIMAL WIND (2013a)
ANIMALS, THE (2011h)
ANIMALS IN THE DARK (2011h)
ANIMALS IN THE NIGHTGARDEN (2010b)
ANIMALS (THOSE WEAR CLOTHES (1973-1986)
ANIMALS WE LIVE AMONG (2015)
AN OBSERVED BICYCLE POEM (2011g)
ANONYMOUS (2011b)
ANOTHER AGE, ANOTHER CENTURY (1973-1986)
ANOTHER LAST BUT NOT LEAST LADY (2011f)
ANOTHER LATE SUMMER HAIKU (2013b)
ANOTHER USELESS ARGUMENT (1973-1986)
ANTEDILUVIAN BREEZE (2015)
ANTELOPE SHOWDOWN (2011b)
ANTICIPATING SPRING (2005)
ANTINOMOUS BEAR, THE (2011a)
AN UNDERGROUND CITY THE SIZE OF PARIS IN MY HEAD (2012a)
ANYTHING BUT THE WHIP (2015)
APHORISMS (2012f)
APHRODISIA (2011d)
APOLOGISTIC (2011f)
APOLOGISTICA REDUX (2011h)
APOLOGY TO WALT WHITMAN (2017)
APOSTATE (2015)
APPROACHING WISDOM (1986-2001)
APRIL FOOL’S FISH (2011g)
APRIL POEMS (2006)
ARGUING WITH THE UMP (2017)
ARIE MUSICALI (2010a)
ARISTOCRACY (2007)
ARISTOCRATIC (2007)
ARNO, AGE 4 (2002-2004)
ARMADILLO IN HIGH HEELS (2014)
AROUND THE WORLD IN 2000 HOURS (2006)
ARROWS (2011d)
ART OF FICTION, THE (2013b)
ASHTRAY GARDEN (1986-2001)
ASSIS AU BORD DE MON LIT (2012c)
ASSWIPE (2005)
ASSWIPES (2002-2004)
ASTROLOGUE (2012f)
AT JORDI’S CAFÉ (2011a)
ATLAS FOR MEN (2017)
ATLAS MAN (2015)
ATM (2012d)
ATTENTION DEFICIT SYNDROME (2017)
AT THE TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN POETS (2012b)
AUGUST HAIKU (2015)
AU PAYS DE LA COUVERTURE (2012c)
AURELIUS (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL (1) (2012f)
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL (2) (2012f)
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL (3) (2012f)
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL-1 (2011f)
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL-2 (2011f)
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL (PROLOG) (2016)
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL (LATER YEARS) (2015)
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL (THE MIDDLE YEARS) (2014)
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PRINCE IN EXILE, THE (2002-2004)
AUTOGRAPH (2011g)
AUTOGRAPHED GRAFFITI (1973-1986)
AUTUMN ROSES (2010b)
AUTUMN SOAP BUBBLE (2016)
AVATAR BABY (2011b)
AVIGNON 1910 (2010a)
AVIGNON 1911 (2010a)

B

BABY BOOM (2015)
BACK AT THE MAS TRILLES (2009a)
BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND (2011a)
BACKGAMMON (1973-1986)
BACK IN 53 (2002-2004)
BACK ROOM STRATEGY (1973-1986)
BACKSIDE OF THE MIRROR, THE (2011e)
BACKSTREET BACKDOWN (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
BACK TO NATURE (2015)
BACK TO THE TV (2010b)
BACKYARD COLLECTION OF PENDULUMS (1986-2001)
BAD FOOD (2011h)
BAD MEDICINE (2011h)
BAGATELLA FOR OBOE, BELLS AND WATER FOUNTAIN (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
BAGMUMP (2011f)
BALLAD OF JUNKYARD JOE, THE (1973-1986)
BALL STATS (2012d)
BANQUET (2016)
BARAQUI WHELP (2005)
BARBARIAN INVASION HEADACHE (ROME POEMS 1 (2008)
BARBARIANS IN ROME (ROME POEMS 2) (2009b)
BARTENDER’S WIFE, THE (2011f)
BASIC ITALIAN – LESSON ONE (2012e)
BASIC ITALIAN – LESSON TWO (2012e)
BASIC ITALIAN – LESSON THREE (2012e)
BATTLE HYMN OF BIGFOOT, THE (2016)
BATS OF HELL (2012f)
BEAR ATTACK (2013b)
BEAR BEHAVIOR (2007)
BEAR COOKBOOK 1, THE (2012e)
BEAR COOKBOOK 2, THE (2012e)
BEAR COOKBOOK 3 THE (2012e)
BEAR COOKBOOK 4 THE (2012e)
BEAR COOKBOOK 5 THE (2012e)
BEAR COOKBOOK 6 THE (2012e)
BEAR DISAPPOINTMENT TRILOGY, THE (2002-2004)
BEAR IN THE COPENHAGEN AIRPORT (2012e)
BEAR OPERATES THE OPTICALS (2012a)
BEAR SAYS (2002-2004)
BEAR SAYS (2008)
BEAR SUGGESTS EAR PLUGS (2012d)
BEAR TELLS A JOKE (2011g)
BEAR TRILOGY, THE (2011h)
BEAR’S HAIKU EARS (2013b)
BEAR’S SLIM KNOWLEDGE OF THE REBEL (2010b)
BEAR’S SOUP (2012b)
BEARD (2010b)
BEAST (2005)
BEAST UNBURDENED, THE (2012a)
BEATNIK BABIES (2002-2004)
BEAT SCENE, THE (THE ALBATROSS CORNER) (2016)
BEAT SHARPENER, THE (2011b)
BEATIFICATION (2017)
BEAUTIFUL DAY (2005)
BEAVERS IN BELGIUM (BIKE POEM 1) (2016)
BEDBUGGED WOLF, THE (2015)
BED HEADS DEAD HEADS (2011f)
BEDROOM SLIPPER DECEPTION, THE (2013b)
BEDTIME PRAYERS (2002-2004)
BEDTIME STORIES (2009b)
BEER-BELLY BARREL POLKA HAUNTED HORSES OF HIGH ALTITUDE, THE (2011a)
BEER-SPLASHED FORGIVENESS (BICYCLE POEM 6) (2009b)
BEES & GODS (2011g)
BEETHOVEN (2009a)
BEFORE & AFTER (2012e)
BEGGAR ON A BIKE (2013a)
BELGIAN NEWS (2010b)
BELGIUM SOMETHING, ALGERIA LESS (2014)
BELIEVE IT OR NOT (2013a)
BELLS OF ROME (2012e)
BELLYACHE AND BLUE (2011b)
BEOTHUGS (2013b)
BEOWULF IN BELGIUM (2011f)
BEOWULF OF THE UNGULATES (2009b)
BERGER MALINOIS (2011h)
BETWEEN CHIESA NUOVA & PIAZZA NAVONA (ROME POEMS-4) 2016)
BETWEEN STAZIONE TRASTEVERE & AEROPORTO DA VINCI (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
BEVAGGED LOVABOND, THE (2011e)
BEWARE WHEN THE LADY SAYS BUT (2011g)
BICYCLE BLUES (2003)
BICYCLE DREAM (2002-2004)
BICYCLE POEM (2007)
BICYCLE POEM 2011 (1) (2011g)
BICYCLE WEATHER (2003)
BIG BAG HYPO-THESIS, THE (2010b)
BIGGEST PILE OF BULLCRAP EVER DISHED, THE (2012d)
BIG HYDROGEN DUDE RANCH IN THE SKY, THE (1973-1986)
BIKE POEM 2011 (2) (2011h)
BIKE POEM 2011 (3) (2011h)
BIKE POEM 2011 (4) (2011h)
BIKE POEM 2 (2016)
BIKE POEM (AMERICAN) (2006)
BIKE POEM (MY BODY) (2006)
BIKE POEM (RACE) (2006)
BIKE POEM 1 (2005)
BIKE POEM 2 (2005)
BIKE POEM 3 (2005)
BIKE POEM 4 (2005)
BIKE POEMS 2004: COMING HOME (2002-2004)
BIKE POEMS 2004: DON’T RUN OVER ANY STRANGE OBJECTS IN THE ROAD (2002-2004)
BIKE POEMS 2004: HIGH TIDE (2002-2004)
BIKE POEMS 2004: KILOMETERS (2002-2004)
BIKE POEMS 2004: LAUGHTER (2002-2004)
BIKE POEMS 2004: LOOP TWO (2002-2004)
BIKE POEMS 2004: MOBILITY (2002-2004)
BIKE POEMS 2004: ROADKILL TOTAL (2002-2004)
BIKE POEMS 2004: ROSES IN MY SPOKES (2002-2004)
BIKE POEMS 2004: STRETCH, FLAP & FLY (2002-2004)
BIKE POEMS 2004: SUNDAY AFTERNOON (2002-2004)
BILLY THE KICK (2011d)
B MINOR MASS PERFORMED BY JOHAN SEBASTIAN BOB, THE (2011h)
BIRD AND THE BERRY TREE, THE (1973-1986)
BIRD FEEDER (2014)
BIRD IS A WORD (2010a)
BIRD IS THE LEAST OF WARNINGS, THE (2013a)
BIRD LIVES (2010a)
BIRD PRELUDES & POSTLUDES (2014)
BIRDS’ DREAMS (2007)
BIRTHDAY (2015)
BIRTHDAY GREETINGS (2010a)
BIRTHDAY PARTY (BICYCLE POEM 5) (2007)
BIRTHDAY POEM (2009a)
BIRTHDAY POEMS (2011a)
BIRTHDAY QUATRAIN (2013a)
BIRTHDAY SNEEZES (2010a)
BIRTHDAYS (2009b)
BIRTH OF THE BLUES (2010a
BLACKBIRD HAIRCUT (2012a)
BLACKBIRD SWIMMER (2012b)
BLACKBIRD TREE (2011f)
BLACK BLOB EVIL BEAST (2011g)
BLACK CLOUD (2007)
BLACK DUST COWBOY, THE (ROME POEMS 2) (2009b)
BLAME IT ON EMPTY V (2011g)
BLAME STONES (2012f)
BLANKET LAND (2012b)
BLEATING LIKE SHEEP” (2011h)
BLIND DATE (2012b)
BLINDED BY BEAUTY (2012e)
BLIND MAN’S BLUNDER (2014)
BLONKERS (2012a)
BLOW OUT THE CANDLES (2011d)
BLUE’D & TATTOO’D (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
BLUE HEAVEN (2016)
BLOSSOM CAN HIDE ANOTHER (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
BLUE MOON (2015)
BOARS IN THE CITY (2012d)
BOB DYLAN’S FAMILY TREE (2009b)
BOBOLINK POEMS (2002-2004)
BOB’S BLOGS (2011h)
BODY BUILDER, THE (2014)
BOO HOO BOOGALOO, THE (2012a)
BODY COUNT (2016)
BOHEMIAN HUT (2012a)
BONE BACKSLIDE (2011a)
BONECRUSHER (2013a)
BOTTOMLESS BOWL (2011h)
BOOK (2012d)
BOOK FOUR (2011g)
BOOK OF ANCIENT SIGNS ONE, THE (2011b)
BOOK OF ANCIENT SIGNS TWO, THE (2011b)
BOOK OF ANCIENT SIGNS THREE, THE (2011b)
BOOK OF ANCIENT SIGNS FOUR, THE (2011b)
BOOK OF ANCIENT SIGNS FIVE, THE (2011b)
BOOK REVIEW (2009b)
BOOKS (2009a)
BOOKS (2010b)
BOOKS IN THE WOODS (2011g)
BOOK WORM (2012d)
BOO HOO BOOGALOO, THE (2012a)
BOO TO THE BEAR (2011a)
BONE BACKSLIDE (2011a)
BOSCH (2009b)
BOSS MAN AND BOSS WOMAN (2010a)
BOTTLES OF BEER (2011f)
BOXER SHORTS (2013a)
BRAT, BAD BOY, BOLD PARIAH (2012f)
BREAKFAST (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
BREAKFAST (2016)
BREAKFAST IN CAHORS (2012a)
BREAKFAST IN CALIFORNIA (2011a)
BREAKFAST IN CHINATOWN (1986-2001)
BREAKING NEWS (2012d)
BRIDGE OF LOCKS (2012b)
BRINGING PHIL’S COLD BACK TO ITALY (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
BRING ON THE BIRDS (2016)
BROKEN RAILS (2011f)
BROTHER PAIN & DRAG (2011g)
BUCKET FULL OF BURNT-OUT CANDLES, A (2011b)
BUG SPLATTERED T.SHIRT (2005)
BUKOWSKI (1986-2001)
BULLHORN (2013b)
BUNCH OF BOYS, A (1973-1986)
BURGER KING AND THE LIP LADY (2011f)
BURIAL AT SEA (2011d)
BURIED ALIVE (2010b)
BUSINESS NEWS (2007)
BUS STOP GRAFFITI (2013a)
BUTTERFLY BURGER (2016)
BUTTERFLY MOON (2013a)
BUTTERMILK PIES ONE & TWO (2011b)
BUTTER RAT (2016)
BUT WILL THE WANDERER EVER RETURN? (2013a)

C

CADAQUES (2008)
CALIFORNIA TIME (2011g)
CALIFORNIA TIME (2015)
CALL ME MUD (2015)
CAGED LION, THE (2015)
CAGOUL (2015)
CAMEOS OF THE GREAT BLIND POETS (2012a)
CAMEOS OF THE GREAT LONG HAIR COMPOSERS (2012a)
CAMPO DE’ FIORI SATURDAY MORNING (ROME POEMS 2) (2009b)
CANASTA? CAGOUL? (2012a)
CANADIAN BOOKSTORE CHARM (2012b)
CANIGOU SNOWMELT (2012a)
CANNIBAL CAT (2005)
CANNIBAL SLUGS (2015)
CANDY BAR (2003)
CAN’T EAT BRICKS (2016)
CAOUTCHOU (2009b)
CARETAKER BLUES, THE (2013a)
CARNIVAL (2009a)
CARNIVAL FUNERAL (2009a)
CARNIVOROUS (2014)
CARROTS (2002)
CARS (2003)
CARTOON BASED ON A TRUELIFE STORY (2011f)
CASINO (2011f)
CATALAN MOON (2013a)
CAT & OWL & FALLING LEAVES (2009b)
CATAPLASM (2012f)
CAT BEATERS ANONYMOUS (2011h)
CATERPILLAR (2010a)
CAT FOOD (2011h)
CATFOOD CHILI (2017)
CATHAR COUNTRY POEMS (2007)
CATHEDRAL (2002-2004)
CATHÉDRAL ST. JEAN IN PERPIGNAN (2009a)
CAT HOUSE DELIVERY (2013a)
CAT LUCK (2008)
CAT RELIGION (2013b)
CAT RUG JIMBO (2017)
CATS (1986-2001)
CAT’S REAL NAME, THE (2013b)
CAT TIME (2015)
CECIL SHARP HOUSE, CAMDEN TOWN, SEPTEMBER 22, 2010 (A MEMORY) (2011a)
CELLULOIDS OF LONDON (2013b)
CHAINLINK FENCE (2007)
CHAGALL SOUNDTRACK (2008)
CHANGE (BIKE POEM 11) (2009b)
CHAOS (2010a)
CHARLES BUKOWSKI (2011c)
CHAT WITH THE CAT, A (2016)
CHAUCER? THUMBS UP! (2011b)
CHEESE PEELER ET AL (2017
CHERRY BLOSSOMS (2008)
CHERRY FLAVORED SMOKE (2009b)
CHEF D’ORCHESTRE (2012f)
CHEWSTICKS (2008)
CHICKEN JHAL FRIAZI & NEPALESE FRIED RICE” (2011h)
CHICKEN SONG, THE (2014)
CHICKEN SOUP SCIENCE (2013b)
CHILE (AVIGNON REVISITED) (2007)
CHIEF OF SILENCE, THE (2011e)
CHILDHOOD MEMORIES (1973-1986)
CHILI PRIDE (2009b)
CHINESE CULTURE EXHIBITION (1973-1986)
CHINESE ROOMMATE (1986-2001)
CHINESE POEM (1986-2001)
CHINA RISES (2011g)
CHAIN READER (2013b)
CHILD ADULTERY (2016)
CHOCOLATE-FLAVORED APPREHENSION (2009b)
CHOMSKY (2012b)
CHOMSKY REVISITED (2012b)
CHOPPING LIST (2011f)
CHUMBAWAMBA (2008)
CHUNK-A-CHEESE (2013a)
CHUNK-A-CHEESE UPDATE (2013a)
CHUNK-A-CHEESE BABBLE (2013a)
CHUNK UPDATE, THE (2013a)
CIRCUSIMUS MAX (2017)
CITY LIGHTS (2011c)
CLASSIC WOOD PIGEON (2012a)
CLEAN STYLE (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
CLIMATE CHANGE (2017)
CLIMATE CHANGE FOR A DOLLAR (2012a)
CLIP FROM AN OLD MOVIE (2011h)
CLOCK TIME (2011a)
CLOCK 2 (2011a)
CLOCKWORK PICKPOCKET (2015)
CLOCKWORK PICKPOCKET REVISITED (2015)
CLOSE TO HEADING HOME (2009a)
CLOSURE (2007)
CLOUD CRITIQUE (2013a)
CLOUD REPORT (2013a)
CLOUDS OVER AMSTERDAM (2012d)
CLOVE LOVE (2011b)
CNN: FACT & FICTION (2005)
COBBLED WITH COVERSTONES (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
CODY CASSADY WITH HIS ULTERIAL BRAIN WAVES (2011f)
COLD FINGER HOT TAMALE (2011d)
COLD WIND TUNNEL (BICYCLE POEM 20) (2009b)
COLD WISHFUL THINKING (2010a)
COLLEGE (1973-1986)
COLOR BLIND (2012d)
COLUMBUS DAY (2002-2004)
COMING BACK TO ROME (ROME POEMS 1) (2008)
COMPUTER ENGLISH (2009b)
COMPUTER GLASSES (2009b)
COMA (2002-2004)
COME TO ME ON A NIGHT LIKE THIS (PART ONE) (2011d)
COME TO ME ON A NIGHT LIKE THIS (PART TWO) (2011d)
COMMON MAN (DUSTY RHODES AND SLIM PICKENS) (2011d)
COMPUTER VIRUS (2002-2004)
CONCERNING THE HOTEL’S WINTER SITTERS (2012a)
CONTEMPLATING ANCIENT TIMES (2013a)
COLORING OUTSIDE THE LINES (2015)
CONNECTING THE DOTS (2011c)
CONQUERED MUSE (2014)
CONSIDER THIS (2011b)
CONTAGIOUS DISEASES (2011g)
CONVERSATION WITH A DOG (2009a)
COOL IN CARS (2008)
CORN’S DOWN (2003)
CORKY POEMS FOR ELLEN (1986-2001)
COSMETIC CHOICES (2012e)
COTTON EAR (2009a)
COWBOY (1973-1986)
COW TAIL ROMAN STYLE (ROME POEMS 2) (2009b)
COYOTE SMILES, THE (2013b)
CRASH BLOSSOM (2010a)
CREAM OF CONNUBIAL SOUP (2009b)
CREATURES (1986-2001)
CREDO (1986-2001)
CREDO (2011b)
CROSSED WIRES (2016)
CROWDED EMPTY CITY (2007)
CROW FEATHER (2007)
CROW FEATHER REVIVAL (2007)
CRUISER (2008)
CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE MUSIC BARN GIG, A (2012d)
CROCODILE FARMERS (2012a)
CRO-MAGNON HALL OF FAME, THE (2011f)
CRUCIFIXION (2011b)
CRUMMY (2012b)
CURSES (2007)
CYBERPUNK POEM (1986-2001)
CYCLISTS (2006)
CYNICISM (1986-2001)
CYPRUS POEMS (2006)

D

DAILY GRIND, THE (2011a)
DALLAS GETS INTO MY DREAMS (1973-1986)
DAME FAME (2011b)
DANCE (2011b)
DANGERS OF A VERTICAL SNEEZE, THE (2015)
DANNY AND THE JUNIORS (1973-1986)
DARK AGE STORY TELLERS (2012b)
DARK MACHINE RIDER (2012a)
DARKNESS (2009a)
DARWIN’S LAW IN ANIMAL GOD HEAVEN (2012a)
DARWIN’S THEORY SIMPLIFIED (2011f)
DASHAWAYS & LAUDANUM (2016)
DATE (1986-2001)
DAYLIGHT HOTEL (2010a)
DAYLIGHT SAVINGS (ROME POEMS 1) (2008)
DAY THE CHINESE INVADED THE USA, THE (2011b)
DEAD BAT (2005)
DEAD EYE CHILDREN AGAIN, THE (1973-1986)
DEAD OR ALIVE? (2005)
DEAD TIRED (2002-2004)
DEAFER & EVER MORE INARTICULATE (2012a)
DEATH TRAP DREAMS (2011f)
DEATH TWICE (2005)
DEAR JOHN — MARSHA (2017)
DEAR MR. Z (1986-2001)
DEDANS DEHORS (2012c)
DEEP RAVEN WALTZ, THE (2003)
DEEPER THAN SKIN DEEP (2013a)
DEFINE ASSHOLE (2008)
DELAYED BIRTHDAY GREETINGS (ROME POEMS-4) (2016)
DELETED LINES UNDELETED (2013b)
DECARTES WAS A CLEAN MAN (1973-1986)
DETECTIVE FICTION (2013a)
DEVANT UN CHOIX D’HORIZONS GLAUQUES (2012c)
DEVIOUS DIGGERS (2011f)
DIALOGO (ROME POEMS 1) (2008)
DIFFICULT CRITTER (2011d)
DION (2016)
DIRTY OLD BOOKS (2015)
DIRTY PEOPLE (2014)
DIRTY SNOT RAG JOKE (2009b)
DISCONNECTED (2012f)
DISTANT DUST STORMS IN THE LIBRARY (2014)
DITCH POEMS (2012d)
DIZZY GILLESPIE IN FIRENZE (2012e)
DOCTOR PIANO TEETH (2017)
DOG & CAT (2011f)
DOG & HOG (2009a DOG DAY FEST (2011f)
DOG & LOG (2009a)
DOG FEEDING (2008DOG IN A BAG (2012e)
DOG BARKS (BICYCLE POEM 1) (2007)
DOG LICK (2012a)
DOG LOVE (2011d)
DOG RIDE (2013a)
DOG SNIFF DEATH ROW (2003)
DOG STAR (2009a)
DOG TROT (1986-2001
DOGS & CATS & SMALL CHILDREN (2012b)
DOGS (2011a)
DOGS BARK (BICYCLE POEM 2) (2007)
DOG’S DOG (2002-2004)
DOGS OF BELGIUM FEEL BAD, THE (2011h)
DOG YEARS (2009a)
DOES A BEAR SHIT IN THE WOODS? (2014)
DOMESTIC DRUMBEATS (2009b)
DOMESTIC PUNCHLINE (2009b)
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE (2009b)
DOMESTIC SILENCE (2009b)
DOOM THE DRUM (2011d)
DO NOT EXPECT (2012f)
DON’T GO DOWN THAT ROAD (2006)
DON’T MAKE A MOUNTAINHILL OUT OF A MOLEHOLE (2013a)
DOPPELGANGER (2011b)
DOPPELGANGER’S ECHO, THE (2011d)
DORIS’ THOUGHTS (2006)
DOUBLE OR NOTHING (2017)
DOWN BY THE RIVER – 1 (2011a)
DOWN BY THE RIVER – 2 (2011a)
DRAWING A LINE IN THE CIRCLE OF DUST (2012b)
DREADFUL GATE, THE (2004
DR. DAO TAKES A TRIP ON UNITED AIR FLIGHT 3411 (2017)
DREAM BLURRED OBSERVATION (2012d)
DREAM COMPASSION (2016)
DREAM DEMONS (2009b)
DREAM DICTATE (2007)
DREAMING IN FRENCH (2012a)
DREAMLAND (NIGHTMARE CITY) (1986-2001)
DREAM MAPS (2009b)
DREAM ME (2011f)
DREAM ME A DREAM (2011f)
DREAM PONTIFICATOR (2013a)
DREAM SCREAMING (2012b)
DREAMS (1973-1986)
DREAMS (1986-2001)
DREAMS NOW AND THEN (2017)
DREAM SCREAMS (2007)
DREAMS DREAMS (2011c)
DR. FEELGOOD (2014)
DR FOOT (2013b)
DRESSED BY THE STREET MERCHANTS OF CATALONIA (2012a)
DRIVING LESSONS (2006)
DRINK AND DRIVE AND DRIVE AND DRINK (2003)
DRIZZLEHEAD (2007)
DROPPING NAMES (1973-1986)
DRUGSTORE BEST SELLER (1973-1986)
DRUMBEATS FROM THE GLOBAL VILLAGE (2009b)
DRUMMERS (1986-2001)
DRUNK (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
DRUNK DRIVING OLYMPICS (2002-2004)
DRUTHERS (2016)
DRY LEAF (2006)
DUCKS (2003)
DUFFER (2010a)
DUMB (2002-2004)
DUMBPHONE, THE (2017)
DUMMY DESPERATION PARADE, THE (2011a)
DYLAN’S BOOTLEG (1973-1986)
DYLAN’S WHITE BIRDS (2008)

E

EAR PLUGS (2012b)
EAR POP TUNNELS & MIST COVERED HILLS (ROME POEMS 1) (2008)
EARTH (2003)
EARTH ANGEL (2011f)
EARTHFILL (2007)
EARTHQUAKE STRIKES POOR TURKEY (2011h)
EASTER NUMBER 30 (1973-1986)
EASTER SUNDAY EVE (2009b)
EAST OF CARROT STOP (2008)
EATING DISORDER (2009b)
ECCENTRIC (2007)
EGO-GEOCENTRICUS (2008)
E. HEMINGWAY (2012d)
EL CENTRO DE MON (2011a)
ELECTRIC ROCKING CHAIRS? (2014)
ELECTRONIC SMILES AND FROWNS (2010a)
ELEPHANT STORM (1986-2001)
ELEVATION (2006)
ELEVATOR OPERATOR (2011c)
ELVIS WAS A PUFFY TUFFY (2013a)
EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES, AN (2017)
ENDANGERED SPECIES (2017)
ENGLISH (2011b)
ENGLISH BOOKS (2009a)
ENGLISH IS BUT A DIALECT OF FRENCH (2016)
ENGLISH MAID (2011b)
END OF A DREAM (2009b)
END OF THE WORLD IN PERPIGNAN, THE (2013a)
END QUOTE (2008)
ENVOI (2009a)
EPITAPH (2009a)
EPONYMOUS ERRORS (2011e)
EROS DENIED (2011f)
ESCAPE MUSEUM (2011e)
ESP (2016)
ETC (2012f)
ETERNAL CITY SUMMER (2012e)
ETERNAL CITY SLICKERS (2012f)
ETERNITY AND THE COMPUTERIZED ARCHEOLOGISTS (2014)
EULOGY (1986-2001)
ETRUSCAN GIRL, THE (2012e)
EULOGY (2012a)
EURO CUP IN PERSPECTIVE (2016)
EUROPEAN TRAVELS OF AN OVER-EDUCATED MISFIT, THE (2011e)
EUROPEAN WITHDRAWAL (CHU POEMS) JUNKFOOD (2014)
EUROPE ON ONE HEARTBREAK A DAY (1973-1986)
EUROVISIONARY (2016)
EVENING ON PONTE SISTO (ROME POEMS-4) 2016)
EVERYBODY KNOWS WHERE THEY’RE GOING (BIKE POEM 2) (2008)
EVERGREEN 6-6926 (2014)
EVERYONE’S BIOGRAPHY (2015)
EXECUTION ON THE HIGH ROAD (2003)
EXIT (ROME POEMS-4) (2016)
EXIT: ENTRANCE – 1 (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
EXIT: ENTRANCE – 2 (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
EXIT TWO (ROME POEMS-4) (2016)
EXPENSIVE ANGEL (2010a)
EXTREME SPORT (2017)
EYEBALL SONATA (2010a)
EYEBKLINK OBLIVION (2011g)
EYES (2005)

F

FACE (2002-2004)
FACELESS CHEERING SECTION, THE (1973-1986)
FACE-LIFTED WEATHERMAN, THE (2013b)
FACES (2016)
FACING A CHOICE OF DISMAL HORIZONS (2012b)
FACTS OF LIFE V.S. THE ACCIDENTS OF YOUTH, THE (1973-1986)
FAENZA BIKE POEM (2012e)
FAENZA TRATTORIA (2012e)
FAENZA TRAIN STATION (2012e)
FAKE ITALIAN JOKER, THE (2013a)
FAKE MOOSE FASTUM (2017)
FAKE NEWS (2017)
FALL (2008)
FALLING BACK ON CLOCK TIME (2016)
FALLING SATELLITE TO HIT EARTH (2011h)
FALSE FISHMONGER (2012a)
FALSE TOOTH HAIKU (2017)
FAME (THE FIRST TO KNOW) (1973-1986)
FAMOUS MAN, THE (2009b)
FAMOUS PEOPLE I HAVE NEVER KNOWN (2013b)
FAMOUS PEOPLE’S LAST WORDS (2011d)
FAMOUS QUOTATION FROM THE ROMANS (ROME POEMS 2) (2009b)
FAMOUS SINGERS (2013a)
FAMOUS STRANGER, THE (2002-2004)
FAREWELL FEAST (2010a)
FAREWELL ROXIE (2012b)
FARMER AND HIS SON (2003)
FARM ROAD (2005)
FARM ROAD SOUTH (2006)
FAR-SEEING NUMBER, A (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
FASHION BALD COPS (2012d)
FASHION SHOW (1973-1986)
FAST CARS (2003)
FAST FOOD & STUFF (2012a)
FAST TIME (2011a)
FAST TRAIN FROM AMSTERDAM (2007)
FATAL CONTAGION (2016)
FAT BAWDS OF SMOKE, THE (2016)
FAT CAT (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
FAT CAT FOOTNOTE (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
FATHER (1986-2001)
FAUCET FUELS (2011a)
FEATHER FLIES OUT, A (2011d)
FEATHER FENCE POST ROAD & SURPRISE (2008)
FEAST (2008)
FEAST OF BLIND FOOLS (2011c)
FEE-FI-FO (2017)
FENDERBENDERLESS (2010a)
FESTIVAL DE POÉSIE À NAMUR 2012 (2012c)
FIFTEEN OBVIOUS MINUTES (2010a)
FIGHTING FOR YOUR LIFE (2011h)
FILM STAR WARS (2010b)
FINAL FLING (2009b)
FINDS GOOD FOOD ON MT. EVEREST, THE (2011h)
FINE LINE THE (2011h)
FIREWORKS (2009b)
FIREWORKS AFTERMATH (2009b)
FIRST DAY OF WINTER–1, THE (2008)
FIRST DAY OF WINTER–2, THE (2008)
FIRST DAY OF WINTER–3, THE (2008)
FIRST ITALIAN SONG (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
FIRST NATION CANADIAN WRITING (2013b)
FIRST REAL BIKE POEMS OF 2006, THE (2006)
FIRST WINTER POEMS (2003)
FISH ON BICYCLES (2008)
FLAG (2011b)
FLAPIDATION (2013b)
FLASHION SHOW (1986-2001)
FLASHLIGHT (2012b)
FLATULATORS & PEDOPHILES (2012e)
FLEA MARKET (ROME POEMS 2) (2009b)
FLIGHT OF THE COOPER, THE (2009b)
FLUPILL (1986-2001)
FLAVORIOUS FAVALATIONS (THE ALBATROSS CORNER) (2016)
FLIP A COIN (2005)
FLOWERPOT SNEAKERS (2009a)
FLUSHING TOILET, THE (2016)
FLUTTER BIRDS (2003)
FLUTTERNOSE BOUNCE (2011d)
FLY NOW PAY LATER (2010b)
FOG BLOBS & MIST PRICKS (2016)
FOG JOGGERS (2015)
FOG UPON THE LAND (2011c)
FOLDED NOTE (2009b)
FOOD & MOUSE MOOD (2012b)
FOOD & MOUSE MOOD (French Translation) (2012c)
FOOD CHAIN (2016)
FOOLED AGAIN (ROME POEMS-4) (2016)
FOOTBALL GAME (2008)
FOOTNOTE TO A FOOTNOTE TO A FOOTNOTE (2007)
FOOTNOTE TO CARROTS (2003)
FOOTNOTE TO “THE AGE OF APARADISO” (2002-2004)
FOOTSTEPS & FOOTPRINTS (2012a)
FOOTSTEPS OF YOUR SHADOW THE (2017)
FOR BEAR ON THIS DAY WHEN OUR MOTHERS WOULD HAVE BEEN
96 & 94 YEARS OLD (2009a)
FOREIGN WAYS & MEANS (2017)
FORGET-ME-NOT (2016)
FOREST (2002-2004)
FOR THE 55TH TIME (ONCE A YEAR SINCE 1960) (2015)
FORWARD BACK (2012b)
FOR WHOM THE SUN ALSO RISES (2017)
FOUR BASIC POSITIONS FOR SLEEPING, THE (ROME POEMS-4) (2016)
FOUR MEMORABLE LEAKS (2002-2004)
FOUR-NAIL CHRISTIANITY (ROME POEMS-4) (2016)
FOUR QUEEN STUD (2011d)
FRAME (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
FRANK BUCK’S GRANDCHILDREN (2009b)
FRAUDULENT VIBES ON BBC (2012d)
FREAKY (2006)
FREE RIDE (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
FREE WATER (2011h)
FREEWHEELIN’ FRANK (2016)
FRENCH BOOK TITLES (2012d)
FRENCH DRIVERS (2012a)
FREUDIAN SLIP (2012d)
FRIENDLY THOUGHTS (2011g)
FRIENDS (ROME POEMS 1) (2008)
FROG LIGHT (2006)
FROGS WITH WINGS (1986-2001)
FROM APRIL FOOLS TO HALLOWEEN (1986-2001)
FROM IMPOTENT RAGE (2013b)
FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA (2016)
FROM THE ALCOVE OF THE MADONNA (2010a)
FROM THE BOOK OF ROCK AND ROLL (1986-2001)
FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH (2013b)
FROM THE VALLEY OF THE OWL (2011e)
FRONT DOOR (2011c)
FROZEN BLACK BULLS (2013a)
FROZEN BICYCLE POEM (2016)
FUCKIN’ GUTS (2013b)
FUCK SINGER’S LAMENT (2011d)
FULL BLAST DRAG (2012a)
FUNERAL PROCESSION (2012f)
FUNNY BONE (2009b)
FURTHER FLORA & FAUNA ON YONDER HILLS (2009a)
FURTHERMORE WHISPERS FROM THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS (2011f)
FUTURE OF BANKS – 1, THE (2007)
FUTURE OF BANKS – 2, THE (2007)

G

GAMBLING IN AMÉLIE-LES-BAINS (2009a)
GARBAGE (2003)
GARBAGGIO’S GUIDE TO SAINTHOOD (2012a)
GARGANTUAN SHAMPOO DECEPTION, THE (2012d)
GARDEN PATCH (2007)
GARDEN PATCH SEQUEL (2007)
GATHERING MIMOSA ON YONDER HILLS (2009)
GAUFRES (1986-2001)
GAY MEN (2013b)
GEEK TEETH (2011d)
GEESE (2007)
GEESE (THE SAME ONES) (2007)
GEEZER PREPARES HIS HIT LIST, THE (2011h)
GEEZE TUB (2007)
GENERAL MACARTHUR DRIVES ON DEEPER INTO BELGIUM (2010b
GENERAL MOTOR’S MARCHING BAND (2011b)
GENIUS AT WORK (2014)
GEORGES & THE PIZZA (2011a)
GHAZAL – 1 (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
GHAZAL – 2 (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
GHAZALS (2017)
GHOST BONES (2009a)
GHOST DOG SHIT (2013a)
GHOST IN THE ROCKING CHAIR, THE (2012d)
GHOST RIDERS ON THE WAVES OF WRITTEN WORDS (2013b)
GIFT FOR BEAR (2010b)
GINSBERG’S WOODS (2006)
GIRLFRIEND (2002-2004)
GIRL ON THE COVER, THE (2011d)
GIVE IT A NAME (2012a)
GIVE ME THE WIND (2013a)
GIVE THAT HUMANOID A BANANA SPLIT (1986-2001)
GLASSES (2003)
GLUTEN FREE (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
GOBBLEDEGOOK (2002-2004)
GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (1986-2001)
GOD DAMN AMERICA (2017)
GODFISH -1 (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
GODFISH -2 (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
GODFISH -3 (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
GOD SPEAK TRANSCRIBED (2013b)
GOD THE GOON POEMS (2011d)
GODS ARE NOT RELIABLE, THE (2011f)
GOD’S EYE (2009b)
GODS MESS AROUND, THE (2002-2004)
GOING SOUTH (2010a)
GOING SOUTH & GETTING RIDICULOUS (2010a)
GOING SOUTH & GETTING SLIPPERY (2010a)
GOING SOUTH HAIKU (2010a)
GOING SOUTH QUATRAIN (2010a)
GOOD FRIDAY (2014)
GOOD HOUSEKEEPING SEAL OF APPROVAL, THE (2016)
GOLDEN AGE OF CHAUTAUQUA (2009b)
GOLDEN ROAD TO UNLIMITED DEVOTION (THANKS) (2005)
GONE ARE THE DAYS (2015)
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JON (2005)
GRACELET (2002-2004)
GRANDE CAFE DE PARIS (2009a)
GRAND CANYON GREASERS, THE (2012a)
GRANDCHILDREN (2014)
GRANDCHILDREN SLEEPOVER (2017)
GRANDMA’S AGE (2002-2004)
GRANDMA’S FAVORITE LAMENT (2002-2004)
GRANDPA & ME (2016)
GRAVESTONE POEM (2013a)
GRAVESTONE POEM (2) (2013a)
GRAVESTONE POEM (3) (2013a)
GRAVESTONE POEM (4) (2013a)
GRAVESTONE POEM (5) (2013a)
GRAVESTONE POEM (6) (2013a)
GRAVESTONE POEM (7) (2013a)
¬¬¬¬¬GRAVITY (2008)
GRAVITY SUCKS AGAIN (2015)
GRAVY TRAIN (2002-2004)
GRAVY TRAIN GIRL RAINS ON THE SMITH BROTHER’S
COUGH DROP PARADE, THE (2011d)
GREAT PRE-SOLSTICE SOLAR ECLIPSE, THE (2015)
GREAT SPIRITUAL MIGRATION OF 1965, THE (2012d)
GREEN DREAM (2011b)
GREGORY CORSO (2012e)
GRIN AND GURN (2011d)
GRIP (2011g)
GROUNDHOG DAY (2016)
GROUNDHOG GRAPEVINE (2011a)
GROWING UP WITH UNSPICED CUISINE (2012d)
GUAPO’S (2017)
GUEST BOOK (1973-1986)
GUIDE TO SENSIBLE BEHAVIOR (2003)
GUN CONTROL (2012d)
GUN CONTROL (2013a)
GUN FREE (1986-2001)
GUN LOVE & GIRL LOVE (2002-2004)
GUSTAV MAHLER WOOL CAP, THE (2010a)

H

HAIKU (2005)
HAIKU (2007)
HAIKU (2011c)
HAIKU DEMONSTRATIONS (2013b)
HAIKU FROM THE MOUTH OF THE BEAR, A (2014)
HAIKU FOR CHRISTINE (2013b)
HAIKU IN PRAISE OF UNCHANGING SEASONS (2014)
HAIKU RAILS (2011f)
HALF MOON BELLY (2013a)
HALF MOON, HALF CRAZY (2015)
HALF PAST WOODPECKER (2015)
HALFWAY HOUSE (2011h)
HALLOWEEN FALL (2009b)
HALLOWEEN PREVIEW (2011h)
HALLUCINATION SNAKES (2007)
HAMMERDULCIMER POEMS (2011c)
HAMMER-SLAMMED BRAIN (2011e)
HANDS (2002-2004)
HANDS OF THE ANGELS, THE (2006)
HANS & SHEILA (2017)
HANT WERPEN (2002-2004)
HARES (2003)
HARMONICA WIND (2003)
HARSH (2013a)
HARVEST (2003)
HARVEST (2008)
HARVEST (BICYCLE POEM 9) (2009b)
HARVEST MOON (2003)
HASPENGOUW 181 (BICYCLE POEM 3) (2009b)
HAUNTED HOUSE (2012f)
HAUT CUISINE (2016)
HAUT CUISINE ON VIA VENETO (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
HAZELNUTS (2011g)
HE FLOATS LIKE A FLY IN BUTTERMILK
HE GOES ROUND (2011f)
HE HAD SEASON TICKETS TO ALL THE GOLGOTHA HAMMERS’ HOME GAMES (2011e)
HE MIGHT BE A POET & HE DON’T KNOW IT (2012d)
HE RISES UP (2011e)
HE STILL THINKS (2011e)
HE VERBS, HE NOUNS (2011e)
HE WAS THINKING OF CHARLES DICKENS AND THE MAN WHO SLOUCHED (2011a)
HEADACHE (1986-2001)
HEADER (2003)
HEADLESS HORSEMEN (2011f)
HEE-HO-MOP-O-MO (2011f)
HERD OF TURTLES, A (2007)
HEINEKENS & AMSTEL (2011g)
HELLO UP THERE (1973-1986)
HEN-PECKED HUSBAND, THE (2012f)
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (1807-1882) (2014)
HEAR PLUGGED (2011h)
HEART BROKEN NOSE (BLUES RAIL ONE) (2011f)
HEAVEN (2016)
HELENE (2002-2004)
HELMINA (2006)
HESBAYE BIKE POEMS (2006)
HESBAYE COWBOY (2006)
HESBAYE HAIKU (2006)
HIBERNATION PREVIEW (2014)
HICK UPS (2013a)
HIGH NOON IN PROFUNDITY (2011g)
HIGHWAY PARIS TO LIEGE (2011a)
HILARIOUS & TRUMPET (2016)
HIM & HER (THE ALBATROSS CORNER) (2016)
HIPPIES IN AMERICA (2012b)
HIROHITO (1986-2001)
HIS DOG HAS FLEAS (2011e)
HISTORY OF RELIGION, THE (2012f)
HISTORY OF THE ROMAN STRINGERS, THE (ROME POEMS 1) (2008)
HISTORY REWRITES ITSELF (2015)
HOLE IN THE HEAD (2005)
HOLE IN THE MOON (2011c)
HOLY COMMUNION WAFER, THE (2015)
HOLY MOON (2013a)
HOMAGE TO THE AVATARS (2010b)
HOME (2009a)
HOME ABOUT (2012e)
HOMECOMING KING, THE (2011b)
HOMEGROWN BLAB (2011g)
HOMELESS NO MORE (2017)
HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD (2011b)
HONOR SYSTEM ITALIAN STYLE, THE (ROME POEMS 2) (2009b)
“HOODLUM RUNS AMOK IN THE STREETS OF A SLEEPY BELGIAN TOWN” (2011h)
HOOD FLIPPER (2016)
HOOKED (2002-2004)
HOOT TO YOU TOO (2007)
HOPE SPRINGS INFERNAL (2012b)
HOP FLY, THE (2013b)
HOPSCOTCH (2011g)
HOP, STEP & JUMP (2008)
HORSES OVER THE HILL (2014)
HOT BED OF UGLY PEOPLE, A (2013a)
HOTEL AT NIGHT (2010a)
HOTEL OF IMAGINATION (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
“HOTEL GUEST WAS BAFFLED BY THE PROCLAMATION TAPED TO THE BACK OF THE
DOOR THAT SAID NO SMOKING IN THE ROOM & ANOTHER WHICH SAID NO SMOKING IN BED AS IF THE BED WAS NOT CONSIDERED A PART OF THE ROOM, THE ” (2011h)
HOTEL POEMS (2011c)
HOT TOWN (2012b)
HOT TROTTERS (2011b)
HOT WATER BOTTLE FEVER (2010a)
HOT WATER BOTTLE EPILOG (2010a HOUSE WARMING (2002-2004)
HOUR GLASS SAND CONTINUED (2012a)
HOUSE OF THE HIPSTER, THE (THE ALBATROSS CORNER) (2016)
HOW DO THEY DARE (ROME POEMS 1) (2008)
HOW DID I GET THIS FAR? (2013b
HOW LEGENDS ARE BORN (2013a)
HOW OLD DO YOU WANT TO BE? (2009a)
HOW TO MAKE AN AUTHENTIC DOCUMENTARY FILM (2013b)
HOW TO GET YOUR NOVEL PUBLISHED (2013b)
HOWL REVISITED (HOMAGE TO ALLEN GINSBERG) (2017)
HUMAN APE, THE (2007)
HUMAN POPPER, THE (2017)
HUMAN SUITCASE (2009a)
HUMP, THE SCHOLAR-WARRIOR (2011b)
HUNCHBACK (2014)
HUNCHBACK CRONE SPRAWLED ON THE STONES IN THE DOORWAY
OF SANTA MARIA IN TRASTEVERE, THE (ROME POEMS 1) (2008)
HUNCHBACK PHEASANT (BICYCLE POEM 19) (2009b)
HYMN TO THE HIPPIE IN THE STRING BIKINI (2011d)
HYPOCRITIC OATH, THE (2014)

I

I AM CHICKEN LITTLE (2015)
I AM NOT A FISH (2010a)
I AM RIMBAUD (2012f)
I AM TEMPTED (ROME POEMS-4) (2016)
I AM THE TRASHMAN (2013b)
I AND THOU AND YOU AND ME (1973-1986)
I CHING RIP (2011f)
I DOUBT IF THEY’LL EVER BRING BACK THE SMOKERS (ROME POEMS-4) (2016)
I ENJOY A GREAT DEAL OF FREEDOM (2002-2004)
I HAVE AN IDEA (2014)
I JUST GOT OUT OF BED (2016)
I LIVE AT OP. 50 AVENUE GABRIELLE FAURÉ (2010a)
I LOOK BEFORE AND DO NOT SEE THE ANCIENTS (2013a)
I LOVE IT (2011d)
“I MEAN” TIC, THE (2016)
I NEVER EXPECTED (ROME POEMS 1) (2008)
I PIT MY WITS AGAINST POSSIBLY THE FASTEST, LOUDEST
& UGLIEST HOUSEFLY IN WESTERN EUROPE (2012d)
I RAGAZZI DI FAENZA (2012e)
I SMELL A RAT (2016)
I, THE INCOMPLETELY EDUCATED ANIMAL (2012b)
I USED TO PLAY FOR THE BROOKLYN DRAFT DODGERS (2013b)
I WANT TO SAY SHELLY (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
I WAS NOT BORN FOR THIS KIND OF SMALL BEER (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
I WILL SOON GRADUATE FROM LEVIS (2009b)
I WILL SURVIVE ON FLOWER DREAMS (2011g)
IBERIAN WOLF (2012f)
ICON ALLERGY (2011e)
ICONOCLASTI (2011f)
ICE PLANTS (1986-2001)
ICH BIN LADEN (1986-2001)
IDEAS (1973-1986)
IDIOT’S MAZE (2011f)
I’D WALK A MILE FOR A PACK OF CAMELS (2008)
IF BOOKS WERE PEOPLE (2011g)
IF I’D BEEN AROUND (1973-1986)
IF HARRISON FORD WERE A BOOK (2017)
IF ONLY BIPLO CAPASO WERE HERE (2011a)
IF ONLY I WERE (2011g)
I’LL SELL YOU MY ‘GET OUT OF JAIL CARD FOR A ‘GO PAST GO -COLLECT $200’ (2014)
ILLUMINATED ILLUSIONS (2017)
ILLUSION UPON ILLUSION (2010a
IMAGINARY COMPANIONS (2012a)
IMAGINARY STORYTELLER, THE (2011b)
I’M GLAD IT WASN’T MICKEY MOUSE (1973-1986)
IMMORTAL (2012f)
IMMORTAL COIL SHUFFLE, THE (2013b)
IMMORTAL SPARK (2009b)
IMPORTANT PHONECALLS COTTONFIELDS OF CHRISTMAS (1973-1986)
I’M YOUR MAN) (2011d)
IN ABSENTIA (2010b)
IN AN UNREASONABLE UNIVERSE (2015)
INCIDENTAL HAIKU (2014)
INCOMPLETE PORTRAITS OF FORGOTTEN MEN (1973-1986)
INDIAN HAIKU (2014)
INDIAN SUMMER HAIKU CHAIN (2014)
INFAMOUS DON (2017)
INFERNAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, THE (2015)
INFIDEL BLUES (2015)
IN FLAGRANTE DELICTO (1973-1986)
INFLATION RATTLESNAKES (2010a)
IN MEMORY OF K.D. (2013a)
IN MEMORY OF LEONARD COHEN (2017)
IN ORLANDO, A BALD EAGLE FLEW INTO A SEWER & DIED (2016)
IN OTHER WORDS (2012b)
IN PRAISE OF THE WAY (2016)
INSCRIPTION (2013a)
INSECT PORN (2013b)
INSIDE OUTSIDE (2012b)
INSIDE THIS BOOK (2015)
INSPIRATION (2012a (2012a)
INSTANT DREAM MEAT (ROME POEMS 1 (2008)
INSTANT FREUD & JUNG (ROME POEMS 1) (2008)
INSTANT HEALTH BENEFITS (2013b)
INTELLIGENT SNOW (2010a)
IN TEN WORDS OR LESS (2010a)
INTERNATIONAL BEGGARS DAY (2016)
INTERNATIONAL NO-FLY ZONES (2011a)
INTERPOLKADOTCOM (BLUESRAIL TWO) (2011f)
INTESTINAL FORTITUDE (2012b
INTROIT (ROME POEMS 2) (2009b)
IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT (2014)
IN THE MOUNTAINS – 1 (2012a)
IN THE MOUNTAINS – 2 (2012a)
IN THE MOUNTAINS – 3 (2012a)
IN THE MOUNTAINS – 4 (2012a)
IN THE MOUNTAINS – 5 (2012a)
IN THIS DAY & AGE (2012a)
IN THE SHADOW OF THE 20TH CENTURY (2010a)
IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD, 2004 (2002-2004)
INTRODUCTION (THE IDIOT’S FRIGHTFUL LAUGHTER) (2012f)
INTRUDER IN THE SLIME (2015)
INVENTION OF FOOD, THE (2009b)
INVISIBLE DOORKNOB MUSIC (2011a)
INVITATION TO A STRANGER (2016)
IO CREDO (ROME POEMS-4) (2016)
IT (2006)
ITALIAN ELVIS (ROME POEMS 1) (2008)
ITALIAN MACDONALDS AT THE AIRPORT (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
ITALIAN WASHERWOMAN (2014)
ITALIAN MACHINE GUN ARIA (2014)
IT GETS BETTER AFTER THE DREAM (2010b)
IT’S LIFE, IT’S LOVE (2011d)
IT’S HARD TO KNOW YOUR DESIRE) (2011d)
IVAN THE POMME DE TERRIBLE (2003)
IYAM (2017)

J

JABBERWOCKS (2011f)
JACK DANIELS DOWN THE DRAIN (2013b)
JACK HORNER BLUES (2011b)
“JACK KEROUAC” (2006)
JACK KEROUAC AT 95 (2017)
JACK THE RIP (2003)
JAMES BROWN COW (2008)
JANE FONDOO (1973-1986)
JANUARY DOCUMENT (“LE DÉCADENT”) (2012f)
JANUARY HAIKU (2015)
JAPANESE POEM (1986-2001)
JARGON & DRUM (2017)
JAWBONE (2011f)
JAZZ IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD (2015)
JEALOUS GUITARS (2013b)
JEALOUSY (2012f)
JEF SAYS (2002-2004)
JEF SAYS TWO (2005)
JESUSOGRAPHICAL (2011e)
JEWISH PENICILLIN (2015)
JIMBO’S BOP CITY (2011a)
JIMBO FROM LIMBO (2012a)
JIMBO THE SNOWMAN (2008)
JIM HARRISON’S POEMS (2012b)
JOB DESCRIPTION (2005)
JOHN COOPER CLARKE (2013b)
JOKER (2015)
JO NESBO (2012b
JOUBA JOUBA THE SUICIDE DOG (2011b)
JOY OF LOOKING, THE (2010b)
JULIA ROBERTS & THE CAT (2016)
JULIE (2011c)
JULIETTE AT ONE YEAR (2013b)
JULIETTE POEMS (2012d)
JUMPING TIME ROPES (2017)
JUNGLE VIBES (2011h)
JUNGLE VIBES (2013b)
JUNKFOOD (2014)
JUNKIE (2007)
JUNKIES (2012b)
JUNKIES (French Translation) (2012c)
JUNK MAIL (2005)
JUNK MAN (BICYCLE POEM 7) (2007)
JUST LIKE LEONARD COHEN (2013b)

K

KANGAROOSTER (2009b)
KEEP DANCING (2008)
KEROUAKIANA (2011f)
KEY CHAIN (2005)
KIDS (2007)
KIDS OF THE CAMARGUE, THE (2013a)
KILLING TIME IN FOUR PARTS (2011c)
KING KONG (2017)
KING OF CATALONIA, THE (2010a)
KITES (2002-2004)
KNEECAP (2003)
KNOCK DOWN, DRAG OUT IN THE ALLEY (2011a)
KNOCK TO BEE-YUMS (2006)
KNOCK ON WOOD (2013a)
KYRIAD ELEISON (2012a)

L

LABRADOR DESIRES (2010a)
LADRO DI SOGNI (2012e)
LADY BEESWAX (2012a)
LADY DOCTOR (2009b)
LAMPE TORCHE (2012c)
LANCE ARMSTRONG EPITAPH (2014)
LANGUES À L’EAU DE VAISSELLE (2012c)
LANDSCAPE PAINTING (2012b)
LAPTOP SHOPPING (2011a)
LAST BICYCLE POEM OF THE YEAR (2003)
LAST BIKE (2005)
LAST CHAT (2011d)
LAST LATE SHOW, THE (2011d)
LAST MINUTE (2010a)
LAST NIGHT (2005)
LAST OF THE HAUSFRAU DESPERADOS, THE (2011g)
LAST POEM OF THE DAY (ROME POEMS-4) (2016)
LAST SUMMER HAIKU (2014)
LAST SUNSET (2005)
LATE BIRTHDAY GREETING (2011g)
LATER LIFE LOOPS (2011h
LATE SUMMER HAIKU (2013b)
L’AUBERGE DU COEURE VOLANT (2011a)
LAUDANUM (2012f)
LAUGHTER (2012f)
LAUGHTER TEETH (2011h)
LAZY VIOLENCE (2011g)
LEADBELLY WAS THE GRANDFATHER OF ROCK ‘N ROLL (1973-1986)
LEAF (2010b)
LEAF FEATHERS (2012b)
LEAP YEAR SONGS (2012b)
LEAST OF MY WORRIES (2011f)
LEAVES ARE FALLING (2003)
LEAVES DANCE IN THE SPACE BETWEEN US (2006)
LEAVING A DREAM (2005)
LEAVING AVIGNON (2010a LESS OBSCURE & NO EXPLANATION (2007)
LEAVING FRANCE (2010a)
LEAVING PONTE SISTO (ROME POEMS-4) (2016LE PAYS DE CATALAN (2008)
LE BREU-BIS ET LA BUSE (2015)
LED ZEP MOON (2011a)
LES ETATS UNIS (2013b)
LEST WE FORGET 1 & 2 (2011b)
LES YEUX PLEINS DE SOMMEIL (2012c)
LETTER (1973-1986)
LETTER FROM BETTY K. (2013b)
LEVIS (2009a)
LE VOILE INTEGRAL (2010a)
LEWIS CARROLL & HUNTER QUINN REVISITED (2011d)
LEWIS CARROLL REVISITED (2011b)
LEXICON & USEFUL PHRASES IN THE ROMAN DIALECT (ROME POEMS-4) (2016)
LEXICON REDUX (ABRIDGED) (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
LIEGE CITY TALK (2006)
LIFE OF O’REALLY, THE (2011f)
LIFE SO FAR (2011g)
LIFETIME OF ANOTHER DAY, THE (2011e)
LIFETIME SUPPLY OF JINGLES, A (2012a)
LIGHT (2009a)
LIKE A HURRICANE (2017)
LIMAX PROXIMUS (2015)
LIMPING FOOT, THE (2015)
LIMPING ON EMPTY (2011g)
LINKEDOUT (2015)
LISA’S SONETTES (2011d)
LISTEN MY CHILDREN AND YOU SHALL HEAR (2017)
LITTLE BUGGERS (BICYCLE POEM 8), THE (2007)
LITTLE GREEN MEN DESCENDING FROM A UFO (2011h)
LITTLE RED ROOSTER GETS READY, THE (2011e)
LITTLE SOLDIERS (2010b)
LITTLE TYKE (BICYCLE POEM 18), THE (2009b)
LIVE AT THE HIVE (2015)
LOADED (2011a)
LOADED TRUCK (2013a)
LOCANDA PARADISO (2012e)
LOCATION, LOCATION (2013a)
LOCOWEED (2006)
LOCOWEED CODA (2006)
LOGGERHEADS & JAMPACKS (2011f)
LOGOPHOBIA ZIMMERMANSKI (2015
LOOP (2003)
LOOK (ROME POEMS 1) (2008)
LOOK AT THE WEREWOLF (1973-1986)
LOOKING FORWARD TO THE 2008 OLYMPICS (2008)
LOOK INTO THE MIRROR (2011b)
LOOSE EYEBALLS (2015)
LOOSE HAIKU (2014)
LOSING THINGS (2002-2004)
LONDON POEM (2010b)
LONDON OLYMPICS 2012 (2012b)
LONGBOARD SHADES (2012a)
LONG STORY SHORT (2002-2004)
LONG-WINDED WIND, THE (2013a)
LOPHPHORA WILLIAMSI (2015)
LORD OF THE FLIES (2017)
LORD’S REPLY, THE (2009a)
LOST (BICYCLE POEM 3) (2007)
LOST INNOCENCE RECOVERED (2012f)
LOST IN THE LAST DAYS OF JANUARY (2013a)
LOST IN THE FIRST MONTHS OF THE YEAR (2013a)
LOST IN THEIR LEGEND (2011f)
LOST LOVE (2011d)
LOST NEIGHBOR’S LOVE (2010b)
LOST TIME (2017)
LOST TIME MACHINE (2011f)
LOVE (2012f)
LOVE AFFAIR (2012f)
LOVE AMONG THE SAVAGES (2012f)
LOVE AMONG THE SLUGS (2013b)
LOVE IS WHAT HAPPENS (2012d)
LOVE JACKET (2002-2004)
LOVE LAUGH FOR AMANDA (2011d)
LOVE POEM (2011b)
LOVE POEM (2014)
LOVE POEM FOR BIRD (2011b)
LOVE POEMS FOR AMANDA (PART ONE) (2011d)
LOVE POEMS FOR AMANDA (PART TWO) (2011d)
LOVE YOUR NEIGHBORS (1973-1986)
LOUD RAIN (2009b)
LOUD SUCK-MOUTH FELLOW, A (2012b)
LOW DOORWAYS (2007)
LOW LATERAL THINKING (2011b)
LOW FASHION (2012e)
LUCK & LUCK SEQUEL (2002-2004)
LUDWIG VAN COUVER (2011g)
LUNAR PROBE (2014)

M

MA (FEMME) (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
MA (FEMME) AGAIN (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
MACHINE-SPED METAL (2009a)
MAD PORK (2007)
MASKED POET UNMASKED, THE (2016)
MASTER OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, THE (2017)
MADONNA AT HALFTIME (2012a)
MAHMORAH (2011b)
MAIL ORDER BRIDES (2012d)
MANBOY (2011f)
MAN DRIVEN INSANE (2005)
MANICURED (2012a)
MAN IN THE MIRROR, THE (2011h)
MANKIND’S TIME (2010a)
MAN MADE CAVES (2011b)
MAN PERCEIVED BY CAT (2013b)
MAN WITH THE GOLDEN HORN, THE (2011b)
MAPLE JOE (2013a)
MAPLE JOE POP (2013a)
MAPS & PHOTOS (ROME POEMS 1) (2008)
MARGUERITTE (1926) (2015)
MARY SAID SHE HAD TO DO SOME PUSH-UPS ON THE FLOOR
WITH THE BOY SHE BROUGHT HOME FROM SCHOOL (1973-1986)
MASS ROMAN HANGOVER (2012e)
MATERIALISTIC BUMPS (2005)
MATING RITUAL, THE (2012b)
MAXIMUM ALTITUDE IN THE SHORTEST DISTANCE FROM THE STREET TO OUR
SECOND-FLOOR APARTMENT ON VIA PANIERI (2012e)
MCDOGSHIT BURGER(2009a)
MEANWHILE (2012b)
MEATHOOK MAMBO (2003)
MECHANICS OF CELESTIAL HARMONY, THE (2007)
MEDICATIONS (2008)
MEETING OF GREAT MINDS AND BODIES, THE (1973-1986)
MELODY LANE (2003)
MEMORABLE BEAR QUOTATIONS FROM THE CATALAN (2010a)
MEMORABLE QUOTATIONS FROM THE BEAR (2009b)
MEMORY DOGS (2017)
MEMORY HAIKU (2013b)
MEMORY LOOPS (2011h)
MEMORY SWAMP (2013b)
MENDELSSOHN (2011b)
MEN WITH BEARDS (2015)
ME ON THE INSIDE (2013b)
MENELAUS OF THE GRAVEYARD (2012e)
MENELAUS REVISITED (2012e)
MERCENARIES (2012f)
MERCIFUL SISTER (2012f METAMORPHOSIS (2016)
METAMORPHIC NOD IN THE DIRECTION OF OVID, A (2011b)
MEXICAN DREAM, THE (2013a)
MICK & KEITH (2011a)
MICROBEASTS (2013a)
MICRO SOFTSOAP (2017)
MIDDLE EAST GOLD MEDALS (2010a)
MIDNIGHT HALF MOON (2010a)
MIDSUMMER NIGHT (2010b)
MIDNIGHT WINDOW (2011e)
MIDSUMMER NIGHT (2014)
MIDSUMMER RHYMES (2016)
MILD WILDERNESS (2013b)
MILL & THE CROSS, THE (2012d)
MIND & NATURE – 1 (2016)
MIND & NATURE – 2 (2016)
MIND OVER MATTERHORNS (2012a)
MINIATURE VIEW OF ST. PETE’S (ROME POEMS-4) (2016)
MINI GREED OF THE MATERIALISTIC BUMPS, THE (2008)
MIRACLE BOMB (2006)
MIRROR (1973-1986)
MISCHIEVOUS LITTLE BOYS ARE STILL AFOOT ON MOONLESS NIGHTS (2012a)
MISERABLE CRITTERS (2006)
MISSING WEREWOLF, THE (1973-1986)
MITHRAS & FRIENDS (ROME POEMS-4) (2016)
MITHRAS (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
MIXED INFORMATIONS (2014)
MOB OF BACKSTOPS, A (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
MOIST PLACE (2007)
MOM & DAD (2010a)
MOMENTO MORI (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
MONDAY NIGHT OIL (2012d)
MONEY SCREAMS (2012a)
MONOPOLY MONEY (2011h)
MONSTER CHICKEN (2006)
MONSTERS (2002-2004)
MONSTER TRUCKS (BICYCLE POEM 21) (2009b)
MONTH OF SUNDAYS (HERD OF TURTLES – PART 2), A (2007)
MOOSE-EATING BEACHED SHARK, THE (2013b)
MOON AND THE SEASONS (FOUR-HANDED HAIKU CYCLE) (2014)
MOON FRAMED (2016)
MOONLIGHT (2011c)
MOONLIGHT AND THUNDER (2005)
MOONLIGHT AND THUNDER (2011b)
MOON STRUCK (2016)
MOP ME UP WITH Q-TIP (2011b)
MOPPING UP WITH A MAP (2011f)
MORALITY PLAY (2011b)
MORE CARS AND THE RAISED MIDDLE FINGER (2003)
MORE DIRECTIONS (2008)
MORE EAR STOPPERS (2012a)
MORE FEEBLE GEEZER SOUND BITES (2012a)
MORE FUNK (2005)
MORE GEESE – 1 (2007)
MORE GEESE – 2 (2007)
MORE GEESE – 3 (2007)
MORE HANDS (2005)
MORE MAD PORK (2007)
MORE MONDEGREENS (2012a)
MORE NOTHING (2009a)
MORE OBSCURE ROCK FESTIVAL POSTERS (2007)
MORE POLITICS (2016)
MORE PURPLE FUNGUS (2013a)
MORE STRANGE PHIL (2012e)
MORE STORNI (ROME POEMS 1 (2008)
MORE TEENAGE MANIACS (2007)
MORE THAN A MINUTE) (2011d)
MORE THAN A MOUSE (2017)
MORE WEIRD WEATHER (2006)
MORE XMAS (2005)
MORPH (2014)
MORPHEUS & THE ONE ARM BANDIT (2013b)
MOSQUITO DREAM (2010a)
MOSQUITO MAN (2017)
MOSS CANAL WOODS, THE (2009a)
MOTHER, BABY, BABY BUGGY (2005)
MOTHER GOOSE CHASE (2011b)
MOTORCYCLE MOUTH (2011b)
MOUSE INDIAN (2013b)
MOUSE THAT BROKE THE TREE’S BACK, THE (2012d)
MOUSETRAP CHEESE (2010b)
MOUSE UPSETS BEAR’S ECOLOGY (2013b)
MOUNTAIN SHAMANS, THE (2013a)
MOUTH & MOUSTACHE FLIES (2012e)
MOVEABLE MONDEGREEN (2012a)
MOVIE (1973-1986)
MOVIE STARS (1986-2001)
MOZART BLUES (2013b)
MRS. CANIGOU & THE VITRUVIAN MAN TRADE LINES (2012d)
MT. CANIGOU (2008)
MUD PUDDLES (2006)
MUSEO ST. EGIDIO (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
MURDER MYSTERIOUS (2011f)
MURDER MYSTERY (2011a)
MURMURATION OF STARLINGS A (2011f)
MUSE SLAM (2011b)
MUSIC BARN POEMS (2012d)
MUSIC ON THE BUS SPEAKERS FROM PERPIGNAN TO CÉRET (2010a)
MUTANT CREATURE (2014)
MUTE GUEST LECTURER, THE (2013b)
MUTEMOLE (2014)
MUTEMOLE IN AZERTY IS LUTELOKE (2013a)
MY COLLEGE EDUCATION (2007)
MY FRIEND COOKS HIS DESERT (2011g)
“MY LITTLE FINGER IS BIGGER THAN YOUR LITTLE FINGER” (2011h)
MYSELF AWARENESS (2012a)
MY MOUTH WAS NOT IN THE MOOD FOR FOOD TONIGHT (2011f)
MY PLACE IS BY THE WINDOW (2011d)
MY SELFISH GUITAR (2013a)
MY SIDE OF THE BACON (IN MEMORY OF JACK KEROUAC) (2011d)
MYSTERY (2003)
MYTH AMERICA (1973-1986)
” MYSTIC TEMPORARILY LOSES HIS METAPHYSICAL PERSPECTIVE AND TEASES
THE ANIMALS, THE ” (2011h)

N

NAKED (2014)
NAMENCLATURE (2012a)
NATIONAL PASTIME, THE (2013b)
NATIVE POETRY IN CANADIAN ANTHOLOGY (2013b)
NEIGHBOR’S CLOTHESLINE, THE (1973-1986)
NEITHER HERE NOR THERE (2008)
NEITHER HERE NOR THERE (2017)
NEST OF UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES, THE (2011b)
NETTLE PULLER, THE (2011g)
NEW AEOLIANS, THE (2007)
NEW COUNTRY (2002-2004)
NEW DOG (2013a)
NEW ECONOMY, THE (2011b)
NEW ITALIAN DIALECT (ROME POEMS 1) (2008)
NEW ITALIAN LEXICON, THE (2012e)
NEW JUNK (2008)
NEW MOON (WANDERING MOON) (2011h)
NEWS FROM THE INDIAN NATIONS (2016)
NEW YEAR FULL MOON (2017)
NEW YEARS EVE, 1975 (1973-1986)
NFL ALL-STAR SECOND STRING (2012d)
NICO (2005)
NICE GUY (1986-2001)
NIGHT & DAY (LIFE & DEATH) (2007)
NIGHT BEFORE XMAS, THE (2011b)
NINE ELEVEN (2013b)
NIGHT HAIKU (2014)
NO BIRTHDAY (2010a)
NO, BUT I READ THE BOOK (1973-1986)
NO CHANGE OF SEASONS (2011h)
NO CHEESE DREAMS (2010b)
NO LUDE FOR THE PRELUDE (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
NO MAN IS AN ICE CUBE (2011b)
NO MIRACLE (2011f)
NO MORE TOUGH GUY (2013a)
NO PATH (2016)
NO PETS ALLOWED (2011f)
NO REGULARLY SCHEDULED WIND BLOWS THRU BELGIUM (2012a)
NO REGRETS (2014)
NO SENSE OF HUMOR (2013a)
NO SENSE OF HUMOR RECAP (2013a)
NO SHIT OFF MY BACK (2012e)
NO TEA FOR TUGBOAT TONIGHT (2011g)
NO URINALS IN ROME (2012e)
NO WIND (2009a)
NIKE GOODBYE SONG (2012a)
NOISE FOR ETIENNE BOURS (2010b)
NOISELESS BLUE-EYED BOY, THE (2010b)
NOISES IN THE NIGHT (2011a)
NONE OF THE ABOVE (2011b)
NORTH INTO L’ AQUITAINE (2011a)
NORTH WIND (BICYCLE POEM 1) (2009b)
NOSTRUMS & PANACEAS (2009b)
NOTE FROM THE BEAR (2017)
NOTE TO JIMBO (2017)
NOTHANKSGIVING TREE (2011h)
NOTHING (2005)
NOTHING (2006)
NOTHING (2009a)
NOTHING HAIKU (2017)
NOT INSULTS (2012b)
NOT OBSCURE AT ALL (2007)
NOTRE DAME LONG DISTANCE (2012b)
NOT PROFLIGATE (2011g)
NOT SINCE THE WILD GEESE FLEW OVER IN THE WINTER OF ’06 (2013a)
NOT SUCH A NICE GUY (2013b
NOT TO SAY THAT THE REST IS SADNESS (2014)
NOT YET NEW YEAR (2011g)
NUMBER NINE (2011e)
NUMBSKULL HIGHWAY (2002-2004)
NURSERY RHYMES REDUX (THE ALBATROSS CORNER) (2016)

O

OBAMA CAP (2009b)
OBLIGATORY OBLIGATO (2009b)
OBSCURE POEM & ANNIHILATING EXPLANATIONS (2007)
OCTOBER 17th POEMS: BICYCLE PRAYER 4 (OUR LADY REVISITED) (2003)
OCTOBER 17th POEMS: BICYCLE PRAYERS 1-3 (2003)
OCTOBER 17th POEMS: BURNT OFFERINGS (2003)
OCTOBER 17th POEMS: FANGS (2003)
OCTOBER 17th POEMS: FRENCH SPEAKERS (2003)
OCTOBER 17th POEMS: OUR LADY (2003)
OCTOBER 17th POEMS: REFLECTIONS ON “THE BRIDGE” (2003)
OCTOBER 17th POEMS: RUE DES CHAMPS (BAPTISM) (2003)
OCTOBER 17th POEMS: SORROWS (2002)
OCTOBER 17th POEMS: THE BRIDGE (2003)
OCTOBER 17th POEMS: THE DOG (2003)
OCTOBER 17th POEMS: THIS OTHER ROAD (2003)
ODORS OF AEOLIAN (BIKE POEM 17), THE (2009b)
OCEAN PINECONES (2010a)
ODD JOB (2009a)
ODE TO A DEAD WOODPECKER (2011d)
ODYSSEUS AMONG THE PRAETORIAN GUARDS (2012e)
OF LITERATURE & THE UNIVERSE (2017)
OH BUCKAROO (2011f)
OKLAHOMA 6-PACK (1973-1986)
OLD AGE & THE CALL OF THE WILD (2011h)
OLD BIKE (2002-2004)
OLD CAT (2013b)
OLD DUDE (1986-2001)
OLD FLYING BORDELLOS, THE (2015)
OLD FOLKS (2009a)
OLD MAN (1) (ROME POEMS-4) (2016)
OLD MAN (2) (ROME POEMS-4) (2016)
OLD MAN IN BOOTS (2002-2004)
OLD ONES, THE (2014)
OLD PISS POT (2010b)
OLD POEMS (2003)
OLD POETS (2013a)
OLD SPICE (2011g)
OLD WOLF, THE (2017)
OMNIPOTENT MAPLE JOE (2013a)
OMS (MANTRA) (2010a)
ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON (2012e)
ONCE UPON A TI (2012a)
ONE (2002-2004)
“ONE AFTERNOON OF RAIN IN ROME I DECIDED TO SURRENDER” (2012e)
ONE ARM ROOM (2011d)
ONE BALD POEM (2011d)
ONE BOOK (2007)
ONE ELEPHANT IS ENOUGH (2016)
ONE HOUR & A HALF (2009a)
ONE LAST BICYCLE TEACHING (2003)
ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS OR MINE? (2005)
ONE TOO MANY OF EVERYTHING (2017)
ON-FOOT POEMS (2005)
ON-FOOT FOOTNOTE (2005)
ON GETTING DRESSED AFTER A SHOWER (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
ON SHARING A SEAT WITH AN OLD MAN WHO THINKS HE NEEDS ALL THE ARM SPACE
TO MAKE HIM FEEL IMPORTANT (2012e)
ONLY SLIGHTLY OBSCURE (2007)
ONLY THE POTATO (2011e)
ON SAFARI TO STAY (2016)
ON SHARING A SEAT WITH AN OLD MAN (2012e)
ONTARIO POEMS: ANYTHING (2005)
ONTARIO POEMS: ANYTHING 2 (2005)
ONTARIO POEMS: ARE WE CRAZY? (2005)
ONTARIO POEMS: BARN (2005)
ONTARIO POEMS: BARN HAIKU (2005)
ONTARIO POEMS: BARN SEQUEL (A STORY) (2005)
ONTARIO POEMS: FARM HAIKU (2005)
ONTARIO POEMS: GASPS AND GULPS OF GEESE (2005)
ONTARIO POEMS: JAW HAIKU (2005)
ONTARIO POEMS: LEAVING TORONTO (2005)
ONTARIO POEMS: ONTARIO DARKNESS (2005)
ONTARIO POEMS: ONTARIO POSTSCRIPT (2005)
ONTARIO POEMS: ORION (2005)
ONTARIO POEMS: ORION AFTERTHOUGHT (2005)
ONTARIO POEMS: TORONTO 1 (2005)
ONTARIO POEMS: TORONTO 2 (2005)
ONTARIO POEMS: TORONTO 3 (2005)
ONTARIO POEMS: TORONTO 4 (2005)
ONTARIO POEMS: WHITE BUFFALO WOMAN DREAM (2005)
ON THE CORNER OF VAN WOO STRAAT & LUTMASTRAAT (2015)
ON THE EDGE (2013a)
ON THE FUTILITY OF THROWING TOMATOES (2016)
ON THE PLANET OF PEACHES (2015)
OOOPS (2012e)
OPEN MOUTH (ROME POEMS 1) (2008)
OPRAH WINFREY SHOW, THE (1986-2001)
OPTICIANS IN THEIR OPTICAL SHOPS (2010b)
ORACULAR (2012f)
ORANGE PEEL NOTEBOOK (2010a)
ORDINARY MAN (2003)
ORDINARY DAY (2002-2004)
ORGAN DONATIONS (2014)
ORIGINAL FOOD (2008)
ORIGINAL SOUL’S SPIRITUAL QUEST, THE (2012f)
ORPHEUS INSANE (2012f)
ORPHEUS IN THE UNDERGROUND (2011d)
O SOLO MIO (2010a)
OTHER END OF THE TUNNEL, THE (2017)
OTHER PEOPLE (2014)
OTHER ROWS TO HOE (2011e)
OUR 45TH ANNIVERSARY (2012b)
OUTLAWED DREAMS (2006)
OUT OF THE WOLVES’ LAIR (2012f)
OUT ON THE EDGE (2014)
OUTPOSTS OF THE EMPIRE (THE ALBATROSS CORNER) (2016)
OUTSIDE (2007)
OVER THE HUMP INTO A CRACKPOTHOLE (2010b)
OWL CREEK (2006)

P

PABLOWDOWN PICKASOAP (2011f)
PACK OF JOKERS, A (2011h)
PALAVER (2012d)
PALAZZO RICCI & I SUOI LEUTARI (ROME POEMS 1) (2008)
PALM PSALMS (2010a)
PANIC AT THE CROWD-PACKED STREET MARKET (2011a)
PANDIESTIC (2006)
PANDEISTIC (2011g)
PANDIESTIC TWO (2006)
PANTOMIMIC (2011f)
PAPER CLIPS (2016)
PAPER VISION (2016)
PARADOX N° 2016 (2016)
PARALLEL PEE BEE (2012e)
PARAPHRASE (BIKE POEM 15) (2009b)
PARADE (2009a)
PAPER PLATES (2002-2004)
PAPER WEIGHT (2016)
PASTORAL (2009b)
PATER NOSTER (2012b)
PATHETIC FALLACY, THE (2011f)
PAVLOV’S DOG LOOP (1973-1986)
PC (2012d)
PEACEFUL PASSING (2006)
PEACETIME WAR (2017)
PEANUT BUTTER AND JAM (2013b)
PEAR-SHAPED (2012d)
PEAR TREE BIRD HOUSE (2012d)
PENIS AND THE BEACH BALLS (1973-1986)
PENIS MONOLOG, THE (2017)
PENTAHAMLETTER (2011f)
PEOPLE ACT IN STRANGE AND CONTRADICTORY WAYS (1973-1986)
PERFECT EVENING (2008)
PERFECTLY COMFORTABLE (2011a)
PERFECT PITCH (2012b)
PERFECT TOUCH (2010b
PERFECT WORLD (2010b
PERILOUS JOURNEYS (2017)
PERPIGNAN (2009a)
PERPIGNAN QUATRAIN (2013a)
PERPLEXITIES OF A CLOSE FRIEND, THE (2011f)
PESTER BOUNCE (2010a)
PETE’S PICTURES (2010b)
PHANTASMAGORIA (2012f)
PHEASANT FEATHER (BIKE POEM 12) (2009b)
PHEASANT HUNTING IN THE 20TH CENTURY (1986-2001)
PHILOMATHIC (2012f)
PHOTO CAPTIONS FROM THE ABBEY HOTEL (2011a)
PHOTOGRAPH, A (2008)
PICKING ON SOMEONE NOT MY SIZE (2016)
PICK POCKET MOON (2013a)
PICTURE (2005)
PICTURE OF MOJO BLOW, A (2011f)
PIECES OF CARDBOARD (2002-2004)
PIGEON FEAST (ROME POEMS 2) (2009b)
PIGEON HOLES (2010b)
PIG LATIN QUATRAIN (2009b)
PILES OF RUINS & ERODED STONE STATUARY (ROME POEMS 1) (2008)
PILGRIMAGE (2009a)
PILGRIM’S PROGRESS (2011b)
PILL HEAD (2014)
PINE TREE FRAME UP (2011a)
PINT SIZE (2005)
PISSDOG (2011f)
PISSED OFF MAN, THE (2011e)
PISSED OFF AND ON CRICKETS (2014)
PITY (2002-2004)
PIZZA FUMES IN A STRANGER’S HOUSE (2014)
PLACEBOMOSIS (2017)
PLACEBO TESTAMENT, THE (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
PLANT LIFE (2007)
PLASTIC CALORIES (2016)
PLASTIC CUPS & PAPER PLATES (2012b)
PLAY IT AGAIN, SANDMAN (2014)
PLAYLAND (2002-2004)
PLEASURES OF DOWNHILL GARDENING, THE (1973-1986)
PLUMAGE (BICYCLE POEM 8) (2009b)
PO-CHA-NA-QUAR-HIP (2015)
POEM (2007)
POETIC FISH (2005)
POETRY FESTIVAL IN NAMUR 2012 (2012b)
POETS (2007)
POETS (2012f)
POISON D’AVRIL (2011g)
POLARIZED PICTURES (2011c)
POLITICAL RUMORS & THUNDERSTORM (ROME POEMS 1) (2008)
POLITICALLY CORRECT (2014)
POLLUTED ANGELS (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
POOL DOG (2011g)
POOR BILL’S WIFE (1986-2001)
POPE OPINIONS (2005)
PORCUPINE PEOPLE, THE (2016)
PORK & BEAN BREAKFAST EVOLUTION (2017)
PORNOGRAPHIC TENNIS (2017)
PORTABLE QUARTZ ALARM CLOCKS (1973-1986)
PORTRAIT OF A MUSE (THE ALBATROSS CORNER) (2016)
PORTRAIT OF THE COUNT AND HIS WIFE (2002-2004)
PORTRAIT OF THE POET AS PAVLOV’S DOG (2017)
PORTRAITS (2013b)
PORTRAITS OF OUTCASTS (2017
POST CAMBRIAN (2005)
POSTCARD INSTANT CHRISTIANITY (1973-1986)
POSTCARDS, NEWSPAPERS, PAPERBACK BOOKS (2009a)
POSTFACE (HUMMINGBIRDS WITH BROKEN WINGS) (2011b)
POST HALLOWEEN APPLE TREE (2011h)
POSTSCRIPT (2011d)
POTATO (BIKE POEM 13) (2009b)
POTATO STEW (BIKE POEM 14) (2009b)
PRAISE (2002-2004)
PRAYER (2006)
PRAYER (1) (RIMBAUD) (2012f)
PRAYER (2) (RIMBAUD) (2012f)
PRAYER (3) (RIMBAUD) (2012f)
PRAYER ONE (2011b)
PRAYER TWO (2011b)
PRAYER THREE (2011b)
PRAYERS OF THE PARASITES (2011f)
PRE-APPARITION (2013b)
PREFAB SLUT (2011f)
PREFACE (BICYCLE POEMS (2003)
PREFACE (HUMMINGBIRDS WITH BROKEN WINGS) (2011b)
PRELUDE & POSTLUDE (2013a)
PRELUDE TO A NATIONAL HOLIDAY (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
PRE-SOLSTICE SNACK (2016)
PRIME TIME (2015)
PRIME TIME PARTY TIME (2011b)
PRIZES (2002-2004)
PRO-AND-POST VISIONALS, THE (2012b)
PROFOUND CULTURAL DIFFERENCES (2012e)
PROFUNDITY (2011f)
PROLOGUE (THE FOOL’S JOURNEY) (2011b)
PROPINQUITY (2011b)
PROXIMUS (2012b)
PRUNES & BERRIES (2011a)
PSYCHEDELIC VOICES (2012e)
PSYCHOTHERAPY ROAD (2006)
PUCKATOON (2011f)
PULSE OF THE PEOPLE, THE (2011g)
PUNCHING THE CELL (2002-2004)
PUNCH LINE (2009a)
PUNK POETS (2013b)
PURITANICAL MANACLES (1986-2001)
PURGATORIO TROPE (2015)
PURIFICATION PONDS (2005)
PURPLE MOONRISE ROAD (BICYCLE POEM 5) (2009b)
PYRAMID GAZING (2012e)

Q

Q & A (2011g)
Q & A (2013b)
QUADS (2008)
QUANAH: FIRST YEARS STORIES (1973-1986)
QUANTUM MECHANICS (WHAT DID WE HAVE IN COMMON?) (1973-1986)
QUARTETS (ROME POEMS-4) (2016)
QUATRAIN (1986-2001)
QUATRAIN-1 (2008)
QUATRAIN-2 (2008)
QUATRAIN (1) (2013a)
QUATRAIN (2) (2013a)
QUEEN WITH MOUSE (2008)
QUESTER & THE HOUSE OF BELIEF (2011f)
QUESTION & ANSWER (2012f)
QUIET WEEKEND AT THE WHITE HOUSE (2011c)
QUINTRAIN (2013a)
QUINTRAIN (2) (2013a)
QUIZ SHOW JOBS (2015)

R

RABBIT TOOTH LAMENT (2017)
RADIOCEANIC (2011d)
RADIO OUT-TAKES (2012d)
RADIO RIDE (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
RAGS OF RECTIFICATION (2016)
RAIL LOOP (2011f)
RAINBOW STUB (2007)
RAINBOW STUB GAP (2007)
RAINBOW STUB MIRAGE (BICYCLE POEM 9) (2007)
RAIN DELAY (2017)
RAINDROPS (2015)
RAIN-IN-THE-FACE (2012d)
RAIN LAND (2014)
RAMBLIN’ GEEZER, THE (2013a)
RAT RACE (2012d)
RATTLER OF ZACATECAS, THE (2015)
RAW MEAT MOON (2013a)
RAW MOUSE (2013b)
RAY CHARLES FACE (2006)
RAZOR BLADE RAP (2011f)
RE-ANIMATION (2014)
RED & BLACK (2013a)
RED BERET (2010a)
RECANTATION (2012f)
RECIPE FOR IGNORED SPUDS (2011d)
RED JAG SLAPSTICK (2006)
RED LIGHT (2011b)
REDUNDANCY DUNCE DANCE, THE (2015)
REALLY HEADING HOME (2009a)
REEK (2013a)
RE GENESIS (2011f)
RELAXING AT THE PIG (2013a)
RELIGIOUS PILGRIMAGE (2014)
RENUNCIATIVE (2013a)
REPLY TO PETE ’64 (2005)
REPLY TO SUSAN CONCERNING ME AS AN (2017)
REPORT CARD (1986-2001)
REPORT TO KEROUAC (2016)
RESPONSABILITÉ (2006)
RESURRECTION DAY (2009a)
RESURRECTION OF THE BI-LINGUAL SERPENTS, THE (2012f)
RETARDED AGES (2017)
RETIREMENT HOME (ASSISTED LIVING) (2011g)
RETIREMENT HOMES (2012b)
RETROSPECTIVE (2014)
RETURN (2011a)
RETURN OF THE GOOSERS, THE (2017)
RE-UNION OF THE CLASS OF 1958 (1973-1986)
REVENGE OF A LESSER SHAMAN, THE (2009b)
REVISED GEOGRAPHY (2016)
REVOLUTION! (2017)
REWARD (2008)
REYNES-CASTLENOU, ALLER-RETOUR (2009a)
RHYMES (2005)
RHYTHM AND BLUES FOOTBALL (1973-1986)
RIDICULOUS (2006)
RIDING THE DOG (2013a)
RIDING THE NIGHTMARE (UNTIL IT TURNS INTO A DREAM STALLION) (2014)
RIDDLE OF THE BARDS (2011f)
RIMBAUD MUSEUM IN CHARLEVILLE, THE (2012f)
RIM LIGHT (2012a)
RINGS OF FIRE AND AN ASSHOLE FULL OF ICE (1973-1986)
(RIP A LIP) I HAVE TO TELL THE TRUTH (2012a)
RIPPED HAIKU (2011g)
RISE & SHINE (2012a)
RISE, DECLINE & FALL OF THE NICOTINE EMPIRE, THE (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
RITUALS (2012b)
RIVALED ONLY BY THE POTATO IN POPULARITY (2011e)
RIVER BARGE (2005)
RIVER ROAD INCIDENT (2006)
RIVER SONGS (2011h)
RIVER STONE, THE (2013a)
RIVER TECH (1) (2008)
RIVER TECH (2) (2008)
RIVER TECH (3) (2008)
RIVER TECH (4) (2008)
RIVER DREAM (2009a)
ROADKILL (2003)
ROAD KILL BELIEVERS (BICYCLE POEM 7) (2009b)
ROADSIDE (2002-2004)
ROAD TO HEAVEN, THE (2012a)
ROCKS AND STONES (1973-1986)
ROCKING CHAIR 3D (2012d)
ROCKING CHAIR PHILOSOPHER, THE (2014)
RODEO (2006)
RODEO (2011f)
RODEO POSTSCRIPT (2006)
ROLL CALL FROM THE HEAVENS (2012d)
ROMA – JUNE 4, 1943 (2012e)
ROMAN ON THE RIVER (2009b)
ROMA PAZZO (ROME POEMS 2) (2009b)
ROMA RITORNELLA (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
ROME (2011b)
ROOM ONE (2016)
ROSE FOOD (2013b)
ROTATION, ROTATION (2016)
ROUGH AND TUMBLE BUNCH, THE (2007)
ROUND ROUND BUTTER ROUND, I BUTT AROUND (2011g)
ROUTE D115 PAST CÉRET (2010a)
ROUTINE (2016)
ROXIE’S DEATH (2013a)
RUE DE BLUES (2006)
RULE OF LEAP YEAR, THE (2011g)
RULE OF THUMB (2007)
RUN ME DOWN (2011f)
RUSH HOUR DOWNTOWN SAN FRANCISCO (2011c)

S

SACK OF CASH (2011b)
SACRIFICE (2002-2004)
SACRIFICE SUNDAY (2011h)
SAD, SAD WORLD (2015)
SAD SIGHT (2007)
SAD SIGHT IN VALLESPIR (2009a)
SAILING TO ITHACA (2016)
“SAILORS PULL THE PLUG & CARS SWIM LIKE FISH” (2011h)
SAINT CAMELOPARD (2008)
SAINT GARBAGGIO ON BASS TURDS (2012a)
SAMCRO (2013b)
SAME OLD DOVE (2005)
SAND DOES NOT CHOKE IN THE HOUR GLASS, THE (2012a)
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE (2011c)
SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER (2011c)
SANTA MARIA IN TRASTEVERE (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
SARDANE (2010a)
SARDONIQUE (2013a)
SARGASSO (2012f)
SATELLITE ANGELS (2010a)
SATURDAY AFTERNOON HAIRCUT (2011a)
SATURDAY EVENING MUSSEL DANCE IN AMÉLIE-LES-BAINS (2009a)
SATURDAY MORNING STREET MARKET (2011a)
SATURDAY MORNING STREET MARKET IN CÉRET (2009a)
SATURDAY NIGHT (2010b)
SAVED BY THE GODS (2014)
SAY GOODBYE TO THE PEACEFUL MADNESS (ROME POEMS 2) (2009b)
SAY NO MORE (PARTS ONE & TWO) (2011d)
SCARECROW (2010a)
SCARF (2007)
SCARLATTI SONATA, A (ROME POEMS 2) (2009b)
SCENT OF ONE CHINESE JASMINE, THE (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
SCREEN WAVE (2014)
SCREEN WINDOW (TWO SUMMER POEMS) (2011c)
SCHRRUNCH SCHRRUNCH (2011a)
SEASON (2013b)
SEARCHING FOR A TITLE (via Short Message Service) (2014)
SECOND FAMOUS MAN, THE (2009b)
SECOND FIRST RIDE (BICYCLE POEM 2) (2009b)
SECOND-HAND GUITAR (2013a)
SECOND ITALIAN SONG (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
SECRET OF LIFE – PART ONE, THE (2007)
SECRET OF LIFE – PART TWO, THE (2007)
SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE, THE (2011f)
SENSORY DEPRIVATION TANK, THE (1973-1986)
SENTIMENTAL GLUE (1986-2001)
SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK CROSSING OVER INTO KINGS CANYON (1973-1986)
SEPTEMBER 30, 2016, 5:55 PM (2016)
SEPTEMBER 30, 2016, 6 PM (2016)
“SERVER NOT FOUND” (2012a)
SEVEN BELOW ZERO (2016)
SEVEN DAYS OF FALL, THE (2008)
SEVEN DAYS OF SPRING, THE (2008)
SEVEN DAYS OF SUMMER, THE (2008)
SEVEN DAYS OF WINTER, THE (2008)
SEVEN FAILED ROMANCES (1973-1986)
SEVEN HALLUCINATIONS (2017)
SEVENTH INNING STRETCH (2017)
SEVEN O’CLOCK NEWS ON CHANNEL FOUR, THE (2011b)
SHAKESPEARE & CO. (2012b)
SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, THE (2012d)
SHAPES & SIZES OF SNEEZES, THE (2012d)
SHAPESHIFTER’S LAMENT (2011f
SHAMAN’S GIFT, THE (2009b)
SHE WAS TOLD (2002-2004)
SHIRT OPINIONS (1986-2001)
SHOELESS JOE (2017)
SHORT CUT (2015)
SHORT DISTANCE (2012a)
SHORTEST POINT BETWEEN TWO LINES, THE (2012b)
SHORT MOUNTAIN (2009a)
SHORT STORY LONG (2005)
SHOULD WOULD COULD (2012d)
SHRIMP (2005
SHRINK (OR 8 REASONS WHY I REFUSE TO SEE A PSYCHIATRIST) (1986-2001)
SHUT DOWN (2014)
SICILIAN NOTEBOOK, THE (2017)
SIDEREAL SUMMER OF THE FROZEN ROSES, THE (2016)
SIGHTS & SOUNDS (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
SIGNS OF LIFE IN THE WILDERNESS (1973-1986)
SIGNS OF THE TIMES (2011f)
SIGNTOLOGY (2012a)
SILENCE AFTER 33 YEARS IN BELGIUM (2002-2004)
SILENT FIREWORKS (2014)
SILENT MAJORITY, THE (2011c)
SIMPLIFIED MATH (2017)
SINGER (1986-2001)
SIRENS (2016)
SITTING STILL LONG ENOUGH (2011b)
SIXTH SONG (2010a)
SIXTIES, THE (1973-1986)
SKIDMARKS (ROME POEMS-4) (2016)
SKID MARKS (2011d)
SKIN OF MY SKINNY SKIN TEETH, THE (2017)
SKIN DIP (2017)
SKINFLINTRAIL (2011f)
SKYSCRAPE (2013a)
SLAMS (2011d)
SLAMDUNK (2007)
SLAP APPLES (2017)
SLAP THIS MAN (2011b)
SLAVE’S SONG, THE (2011b)
SLEEP (2008)
SLEEPEATSLEEP (2013a
SLEEPING (2011g)
SLEEPING BAG FART, THE (1973-1986)
SLEEPING BAG PEACE OF MIND (2012b)
SLEEPING NOVELISTS (2013b)
SLEEPING WITH SNOW (2016)
SLEEP LOOP (2011d)
SLEEP OF 660 TUNES, A (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
SLEEPWALKER’S SERENADE, THE (2011f)
SLEEPWATCHER (2011h)
SLIP & FALL (2008)
SLIPPING THRU THE CRACKS (2010a)
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SLOBS (2003)
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SLUG ENCORE (2015)
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SMALL COUNTRY IN SOUTH AMERICA, A (2008)
SMASHED JAM SANDWICH (2007)
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SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES (2016)
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SNAPSHOTS OF TRASTEVERE (2012e)
SNEAKER (2011g)
SNEEZE FOOD (2013b)
SNOOKER SUICIDE 1 (2013b)
SNOOKER SUICIDE 2 (2013b)
SNUFFLE TREE, THE (2011f)
SPEED DEMON (2013a)
SNEAK FREAKS (2002-2004)
SOCCER (2015
SOLITAIRE (2011a)
SOLSTICE LIGHT (2016)
SOME OF THAT GOOD, OLD-FASHIONED FRENCH SURREALISM (2011a)
SOMETHING (2011b)
SOMETHING & EVERYTHING (2008)
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT (2011b)
SOMETHING WE CAN DO TO SURPRISE LASZLO & MAYA
WHEN THEY GET BACK FROM HONDURAS (2009a)
SONG & DANCE (2012e)
SONG OF APHINAR (2012f)
SONG OF JIM JOYICITY, THE (2011f)
SONG OF THE HOLY YODELLERS, THE (2014)
SONG OF THE THRILL WRITERS (2015)
SONGS FOR JULIETTE (2012d)
SONGS WITHOUT RHYME (2015)
SONO INVISIBLE ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
SONOMA COUNTY COWBOY YOUTH (2006)
SONS OF ANARCHY, THE (2009b)
SORRY AGAIN (2011h)
(SORT OF LIKE) THE BEST MINDS OF MY GENERATION (2012a)
SOUL SUCKER (2014)
SOUNDS OF ROME (NOISES AND VOICES) (2012e)
SOUTHPAW (2011f)
SPA CASINO (2009b)
SPANISH BORDER POEMS (2011a)
SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR EMERGENCY WINDOW REMOVAL (2009b)
SPECTACLES (2009b)
SPEED READING SHOULD BE OUTLAWED (2012a)
SPIDER AND THE MOUSE, THE (2011h)
SPIDERS & MICE & BIRDS & BATS (2011h)
SPILLOVERTOWN (2003)
SPIRAL STAIRCASE, THE (2012f)
SPIT & DREAMS (2016)
SPITTING IMAGE (1986-2001)
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (2010a)
SPQR (ROME POEMS-4) (2016)
SPRING FEVER (2015)
SPRING HAIKU (2014)
SPRING SLUG (2014)
SPROCKET & DUMB DRIVER ESSAY (2006)
SPUD DIGGER (2003)
SPUDS (2003SPINOZA (2002-2004)
STAIRCASE (2007)
STANDING, KNEELING, PRONE (2012b)
STAND UP COMIC ON A ONE NIGHT STAND, THE (1973-1986)
STEAM BATH (1973-1986)
STEAMPUNK GOGGLES (2012d)
ST. FRANCIS (2011c)
STICK IN THE MUD (2015)
STICKS & STONES (2012a)
STILL LIFE SCULPTED FACE (2011g)
STILL STUCK AN HOUR LATER (2010a)
STONE AGE MANIFESTO (2013b)
STONE ON STONE (2008)
STOP BREATHING (2003)
STOP YOUR SOBBING (2017)
STOPPING FOR LUNCH (2015)
STOPPING AT THE PIG (2012a)
STORIES LONG & SHORT (2012d)
STORIES LONG & SHORT GIBBERIZED (2012d)
STORM DAMAGE (2009a)
STORM IN A CATHEDRAL (2002-2004)
STORNI & ZECCHE (ROME POEMS 1) (2008)
STORY (2011b)
STRANGE GIFT, A (2012e)
STRANGE MAN, A (1973-1986)
STRANGE RAIN (2013a)
STRANGERS IN FAENZA (2012e)
STRANGER’S STRANGER (2010b)
STRAIGHT FROM THE BEAR’S MOUTH ON JANUARY 24 (2009a)
STRAIGHT FROM THE BEAR’S MOUTH ON FEBRUARY 13 (2009a)
STRAY CAT (2017)
STREETCAR EYESIGHT (2009a)
STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO (2011c)
STRINGS NO STRINGS (2017)
STRING QUARTET VOLCANOES (1986-2001)
STRIP POKER (2007)
STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE, A (2011h)
STRONZA DI TORO (2012e)
STRINGS NO STRINGS (2017)
STRONZA DI TORO (2012e)
STUBBLE BURN (2007STUCK AT 3:30 PM (2010a)
STUMBLEBUM (2011h)
STUD & SEQUEL (2003)
STUMPS OF MEMORY (2012f)
STUPID SHIT (2014)
SUBCONSCIOUS MAD MAN, THE (2011e)
SUB PLUGGED (2012e)
SUGO DE PESCA (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
SUICIDAL COWS (2008)
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2013 (2013a)
SUNDOWN ON THE GIANICOLO (ROME POEMS-4) (2016)
SUN STROKE (2014)
SUN WORSHIP (2009a)
SUMMER 2007 (BICYCLE POEM 6) (2007)
SUMMER ALIVE (2014)
SUMMER OF ’06 (2011e)
SUMMER’S GONE (2002-2004)
SUMMER WITH HIBERATION ON THE HORIZON (2009b)
SUNDOWN (2003)
SUNDOWN ON THE GIANICOLO (ROME POEMS-4) (2016)
SUNG HO (2013a)
SUN HAIKU (2011a)
SUNSHINE SUPERMAN PARANOIA (2007)
SUN STROKE (2014)
SUN’S VOICE, THE (2011a)
SUPERBOWL SUNDAY HAIKU (2012a)
SUPERMARKET 360 (2012a)
SUPERMARKET ADVENTURE #2 (2012a)
“SUPPER’S ALMOST READY” (2017)
SUR LA TOMBE DES POÈTES INCONNUS (2012c)
SURPRISE (2003)
SURROGATE PSYCHIC BALANCERS (2016)
SUSAN SONTAG (2006)
SWEATPANTS SYNDROME, THE (2015)
SWEEPING GENERALIZOMBIE, A (2016)
SWEET DREAMS (2012b)
SWEET SPIT (2008)
SWINE (2012f)
SWINE LEGENDS (LAUSANNE 1981) (1973-1986)
SYLLOGISM (2002-2004)
SYLLOGISM & SEVEN PROOFS (2011h)
SYLVIA PLATH RELAPSE (2006)
SYLVIA PLATH THESARUS WITH XMAS LIGHTS (2006)
SWEET LITTLE 13 (2002-2004)
SYMPHONIE ECUPHENE (2002-2004)

T

TABLOID BRAHMS (2013a)
TAB LLOYD CANDORLANDOUGH (2010b)
TAKE ME HOME (2011d)
TAKE THE COLTRANE (2015)
TALE OF AGAIN AND AGAIN, THE (2011d)
TALK ABOUT CO-INCIDENCE (1973-1986)
TALKING TO THE RADIO (1986-2001)
TALL (2007)
T’ANG DYNASTY MAD WIND (2013a)
TATTERDEMALIONS (2011f)
TEENAGE MANIACS (2007)
TEENAGE ROMANCE (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
TELEPHONE INSTALLATION BLUES (2016)
TEMPLE EMANU-EL (2002-2004)
TEMPURA (2017)
TEN BICYCLE TEACHINGS (2003)
TEN-HOUR HAIRCUTS (2017)
TERMS OF IMPEACHMENT (2017)
TERRITORIAL IMPERATIVE (1973-1986)
TESTICLE EXPOSURE (2017)
THANKSGIVING (BIKE POEM 16) (2009b)
THANKSGIVING BLUES (2009b)
THAT BEER (2003)
THAT MAGIC TRICK SET (1973-1986)
THAT WAY SEQUEL (2011f)
THAW (2010a)
THE BIG ONE (2011d)
THE BELGIANS (1986-2001)
THE BOHEMIAN (2012f)
THE BOOK OF BICYCLE TEACHINGS: PREFACE (2003)
THE BOOK OF BICYCLE TEACHINGS: NUMBER ONE (2003)
THE BOOK OF BICYCLE TEACHINGS: NUMBER TWO (2003)
THE BOOK OF BICYCLE TEACHINGS: NUMBER THREE (2003)
THE BOOK OF BICYCLE TEACHINGS: NUMBER FOUR HIGH (2003)
THE CHILD (2012f)
THE END (1973-1986)
THE END OF THE WORLD (2012d)
THE EXECUTIONER (2015)
THE FOOL (2011d)
THE FOOL (THE FOOL’S JOURNEY) (2011b)
THE GARDEN (2011c)
THE GEEZER QUARTET: GEEZER DEATH (2002-2004)
THE GEEZER QUARTET: GEEZER BEACH (2002-2004)
THE GEEZER QUARTET: GEEZER TEETH (2002-2004)
THE GEEZER QUARTET: GEEZER LEAGUE (2002-2004)
THE GRAPES (2011d)
THE GREEDY, THE PEOPLE (2011b)
THE GUITAR (2013a)
THE HANGED MAN (THE FOOL’S JOURNEY) (2011b)
THE HEADHUNTERS (2012f)
THE HERMIT (THE FOOL’S JOURNEY) (2011b)
THE HONKER (2009a)
THE HORSE (2012f)
THE HUMMER (2003)
THE HUNTER (2002-2004)
THE IDIOT (2013b)
THE ISLAND (2012f)
THE JAZZ AGE (1986-2001)
THE KISS (2002-2004)
THE LIGHT (2012f)
THE LOVERS (THE FOOL’S JOURNEY) (2011b)
THE MAGICIAN (THE FOOL’S JOURNEY) (2011b)
THE MALL (2002-2004)
THE MOON (THE FOOL’S JOURNEY) (2011b)
THE MOUSE (2009b)
THE MOVES (1986-2001)
THE NAPSTER (2012a)
THE NEWS (1973-1986)
THE NEWS (2011g)
THE NEWS (2017)
THE NOTEBOOK (2012a)
THE ‘N WORD (2015)
THE OFF-LOAD (2017)
THE OPERATION (2014)
THE OWLS (2016)
THE PAINTER (2002-2004)
THE PARIS QUINTET (2011d)
THE PIG (2013a)
THE POET (2011g)
THE RAT (2009b)
THE SAINTS (2011b)
THE SHOUTER (1986-2001)
THE STAR (THE FOOL’S JOURNEY) (2011b)
THE SUN (THE FOOL’S JOURNEY) (2011b)
THE TIDE (2012f)
THE TOWER (THE FOOL’S JOURNEY) (2011b)
THE TRAVELER (2016)
THE TRIP (2011b)
THE WAIF (2012f)
THE WAY (2005)
THE WAY I FEEL (2009b)
THE WEASEL (2009b)
THE WILD BOAR (2009b)
THE WIND (2003)
THE WOLF (2011g)
THE WORD (2012f)
THE WORLD (THE FOOL’S JOURNEY) (2011b)
THEIR FOOTPRINTS ARE STILL VISIBLE (2012b)
THEORY OF THE BIG BAG, THE (2011g)
THERE’S NOTHING LIKE (ROME POEMS 2) (2009b)
THESE ARE MY TWO GUITARS (2013a)
THESE MOMENTS (2005)
“THEY LOWERED THE AVERAGE HUMAN IQ & STAYED UP ALL NIGHT
BLEATING LIKE SHEEP” (2011h)
THEY SAY TIME HEALS ALL WOUNDS (1973-1986)
“THEY TOOK MY THINGS” (2016)
THIEF (LADRO) (ROME POEMS 2) (2009b)
THIN GOOF (2011f)
THINGSGIVING (1973-1986)
THINGS I SAW AS A KID, THE (2011f)
THINGS SHE HAS TO DEAL WITH, THE (2010b)
THINGS THAT MAKE LIFE WORTH LIVING (2012d)
THIN RAIL (2011f)
THIN RIP (2011f)
THIN SONG (2011f)
THIN WAIL (2009b)
THIN WAIL (2011f)
THIRD ITALIAN SONG (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
THIS AFTERNOON (2003)
THIS AND THAT (2011e)
THIS & THAT (HERE & THERE) (2015)
THIS IS A FACE (2011c)
THIS IS AN ILLUSION (2013a)
THIS IS MY AMERICAN BODY (2011c)
THIS IS NO ORDINARY HOT AIR BALLOON (1973-1986)
THIS IS NOT A DREAM BOOK (2010b)
THIS IS THE LIMIT (2015)
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS (2016)
THIS MAY BE WHY I’VE BEEN HAVING BAD DREAMS (2014)
THIS ROAD (2003)
THIS ROAD REVISITED (2003)
THIS ROAD REVISITED AGAIN (2003)
THIS SUMMER (2002-2004)
THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON (2013b)
THOUSAND MILES AND MEMORIES LATER, A (2012e)
THOUSANDS OF HEAVENS (2002-2004)
THREE-DIMENSIONAL ROCKING CHAIR (2012d)
THREE FOR ELLYN MAYBE (2016)
THREE GIRLFRIENDS IN THE DARK (1986-2001)
THREE LINES (2011f)
THREE MORE SECONDS IN THE LIFE (2008)
THREE SECONDS IN THE LIFE (2008)
THREE TONGUE PRAYERS (2011f)
THREE TWO TWO (2017)
THREE VIRGINS GOING AWAY (2003)
THREE WAYS OF LOOKING AT ILLUSIONS (2012b)
THROWING THE BABY OUT WITH THE BATHWATER (2017)
THUMBNAILS (2011h)
THUNDER OVER AMSTERDAM (2012d)
THUNDER OVER ROME (ROME POEMS-4) (2016)
THURSDAY NIGHT MOVIE (2011a)
THUS SPAKE THE CHEESE (2013a)
TICKS ARE BACK, THE (2017)
TIED UP IN FORGET-ME-KNOTS (2015)
TIME (2002-2004)
TIME (2006)
TIME (2009a)
TIME LIMITS (1973-1986)
TIME OF THE ASSASSINS (2011g)
TIME TO TURN (2011b)
TIME TRAVEL (2010a)
TIME-TRIPPING DIOGENES, A (2012e)
TO CHERYL SAVAGEAU (2012b)
TO DAVE (2006)
TO GRACE, WHOEVER & WHEREVER YOU MAY BE (2012a)
TO JACK CODY IN SA LEM (2002-2004)
TO MAURICE KENNY (2012b)
TO NEW POETS WHO WANT TO BE OLD POETS (2016)
TO ST. RITA (2012f)
TO THE BLIND ORGAN GRINDERS (2012f)
TOES (2010b)
TONIGHT (PARTS ONE & TWO) (2011d)
TOMBSTONE (2003)
TOMMA WAITSAH (2015)
TOMORROW (2010a)
TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL (2013b)
TOO LATE (2012a)
TOO MUCH SUN, TOO SOON (2017)
TOO MUCH TV (2009b)
TOO SOON HAIKU (2017)
TOOTH GOD (2007)
TOOTH TAG (2017)
TOOTH TALK (2009b)
TOUR DE FRANCE (2008))
TOURISTS A LA CARTE (2012e)
TRACER UNE LIMITE DANS LE CERCLE DE POUSSIÈRE QUI SE FORME AUTOUR DE
MES PIEDS NUS ASSOMMÉS DE SOMMEIL SUR LA CARPETTE (2012c)
TRAILBLAZERRAIL (2011f)
TRAIN POEMS (2005)
TRAIN STATION (2009b)
TRANSATLANTIC NOSTALGIA (2011b)
TRAPPED IN AN UNDERGROUND CHAMBER (2011b)
TRASH TALK (2017
TRASTEVERE COWMAN, THE (ROME POEMS 2) (2009b)
TRASTEVERE SHOWDOWN (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
TRAVEL AMONG THE LEASH WOMEN (2012d)
TRAVELING LUNATIC (2012d
“TRAVELING SEEKER OF BUDDHA NATURE FINDS GOOD FOOD
ON MT. EVEREST, THE ” (2011h)
TREATISE ON MORALS (2006)
TRIBUTE BANDS (2015)
TRICKED CAT (2011h)
TRICK OR TREAT (2011b)
TRIPLE-FEATURE MOVIE SHOW (2013b)
TRIVIAL THINGS (2006)
TROIS FAÇONS DE REGARDER LES ILLUSIONS (2012c)
TRUE LOVE (2005)
TRUTHS SELF-EVIDENT (2017)
TUBA MANURE (1986-2001)
TUBES (1986-2001)
TULIPS (2017)
TUM TUM POTATO (2017)
TUNNEL VISION (1973-1986)
TUNNEL VISIONS (2016)
TV (2005)
TWENTY ANTHRO-APOLOGIES (2011b)
TWENTY KILOMETERS A MINUTE (BICYCLE POEM 10) (2009b)
TWILIGHT (2009a)
TWILIGHT YEARS, THE (2015)
TWILIGHT ZONE (2003)
TWISTING THE ROPE (2011f)
TWITTER HAIKU (2017)
TWO BUMS UNDER THE SUN (2012b)
TWO CATALAN PORTRAITS (2008)
TWO CAT LUNCH (2010a)
TWO CLOCKS (THE LONGEST DAY OF THE YEAR) (2007)
TWO-DONKEY POEM, A (2012b)
TWO GUITARS & TWO PAIR OF JEANS (2013a)
TWO HAND ONE MAN TAP DANCE BAND (2011b)
TWO KINDS OF STORIES (2009b)
TWO LITTLE OLD LADIES (2003)
TWO MORE BIKE POEMS (2002-2004)
TWO NO FOOLS (2009a)
TWO PUKE POEMS (1986-2001)
TWO SHRIMPS (2011d)
TWO SUMMER POEMS AGAIN (2002-2004)
TWO WISE MEN (2016)
T. ZIMMERMAN, FILM CRITIC (2011h)
T. ZIMMERMAN, FOOD & SEX CRITIC (2013a)
T. ZIMMERMAN, HERMIT, AGE 67 (2008)
T. ZIMMERMAN, PHILOSOPHER, AGE 74 (2015)
T. ZIMMERMAN, POET, AGE 67 (2008)
T. ZIMMERMAN, POLITICAL ACTIVIST, AGE 67 (2008)
T. ZIMMERMAN, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, AGE 67 (2008)

U

UNCLE (2002-2004)
UNCLE BUDDY’S IDENTITY CRISIS (2011b)
UNCLE SPAM (2011b)
UNDERGROUND (2012b)
ULTIMATE BICYCLE POEM, THE (2003)
UMBRELLA (ROME POEMS 1) (2008)
UNDERSHORTS (A PAIR WITH FESTIVE RED STRIPES) (2011g)
UNDER THE SIGN OF THE MOON (2012f)
UNDER THE WEATHER (2015)
UNEXPECTED MENU (2014)
UNKNOWN FAMOUS PEOPLE (THE ALBATROSS CORNER) (2016)
UNIFORMS (ROME POEMS 1) (2008)
“UNTITLED” IS A TITLE (2014)
UNPLUMED (DEPLUMÉ) (2012f)
UNPUBLISHED (2016)
UNVANISHED MOUNTAIN, THE (2010a)
UNREAL ESTATE (2013a)
UNSTUCK AT 5:00 PM (2010a)
UNSURPASSED EXPECTATIONS (2013b)
UNTIL THEY TOUCH OUR EYEBROWS (2010a)
UPROOTING THE VERBS IN VAIN (2013a)
UPS’NDOWNS (2012b)
USED CAR (2011b)
USEFUL PIECE (1973-1986)
U.S. OPEN, THE (1973-1986)
U.S. OPEN FREESTYLE, THE (2015)
U-TUBE LABYRINTH, THE (2016)

V

VANCOUVER 2010 (2010a)
VANISHED MOUNTAIN, THE (2010a)
VARIATIONS ON THE FRUITS OF HUMAN EVOLUTION (2011g)
VATICAN SONG (ROME POEMS 5) (2017)
VECCI’UOMO (2012e)
VEGETARIAN VIOLENCE (2009b)
VENOM OF LA DAROMPHE, THE (2012f)
VERTICAL CLOUDS (2009a)
VIDEO GAMES (2003)
VILLAGE SHORTSTOP, THE (2017)
VIRGIN (2003)
VIRTUAL REALITY ONE (2007)
VIRTUAL REALITY TWO (2007)
VIRTUAL REALITY THREE (2007)
VIRTUAL WARRIORS (2015)
VIRUS GOBLINS (2014)
VISITORS NOT TOURISTS (2012d)
VIVA LA CUCARACHA (2011h)
VOCAL DROP (2016)
VOICE OF GOD, THE (2013b)
VOICES FROM BEYOND THE EDGE (2014)
VOICES FROM THE WAITING ROOM IN HELL (2011d)
VONDERFUEL (2012a)

W

WAITING FOR BEAR (2008)
WAITING FOR BEAR & DANY TO COME BACK FROM SAYING HELLO
TO MARCUS AURELIUS (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
WAITING ON THE MUSE (2011e)
WAIT UNTIL YOU READ HIS UNCENSORED MIND (2011e)
WAKE ME WHEN IT’S OVER & TIME HAS BEEN RESTORED (2010b)
WALKING IN ROME (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
WALKING LESSON (2011a WALPURGISNACHT (2016)
WALKING THE DOG (2009a)
WALT (1986-2001)
WALTER DE BUCK & THE PUMPKIN (2011g)
WALT WHITMAN PSYCHOTICALLY RE-INCARNATED (2011f)
WALTZ (2011b
WALTZING MATILDA (2016)
WANDERING CHUNK, THE (2013a)
WASTING TIME (2011c)
WANDERING JERKS, THE (2012d)
WANDERING LIGHT SWITCH, THE (2011g)
WARNING (2011b)
WAR ZONE (2006)
WASHING MACHINE (2010b)
WASHING MACHINE BELLY (2008)
WATCH POCKET MEMORY (2010b)
WATCH TV (2005)
WATER CLOSET (2012a)
WATER RULES (2017)
WAY IT GOES, THE (2016)
W.C. FIELDS’ SECRET (1973-1986)
WEAKNESS OF HUMAN FLESH, THE (2013b)
WEASEL BASKETBALL (2008)
WEATHERMEN IN THEIR WEATHERSTATIONS (1973-1986)
WEATHER REPORT (2010a)
WEATHER REPORT FROM AN OPEN WINDOW (2012e)
WEATHER THIEF (2011h)
WEEPING WILLIES (2011b)
WEIRD (2006)
WEIRD (2017)
WEIRD WEATHER (2006)
WELCOME TO WINOLAND (2012a)
WELL-BALANCED DIET, A (2011a)
WE WILL IRON OUR BRITCHES NO MORE (2009b)
WE SPEND A LOT OF TIME WITH THINGS THAT ARE NOT HERE (2011c)
WEREWOLF CANE (2009a)
WEREWOLVES IN THE WIND (1973-1986)
WESTERN CIVILIZATION ON THE ROCKS (2010a)
WEST WIND (2009a)
WEST WIND BREEDS FANTASIES OF A MOST BIZARRE CHARM, THE (2006)
WHAT? (2013a)
WHAT AM I DOING HERE? (BICYCLE POEM 4) (2007)
WHAT? CONVERSATIONS (2011g)
WHAT DID BETTY K. WANT? (2013b)
WHAT GOES IN HAS GOTTA COME OUT . . . SOMETIME (1973-1986)
WHAT’SIS NAME (2013b)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT? (2007)
WHAT’S NEXT? (2014)
WHAT THE FUCK? (2006)
WHAT’VE YOU GOT (2002-2004)
WHEAT, BARLEY & RYE (BIKE POEM 1) (2008)
WHEELCHAIR 1 (2005)
WHEELCHAIR 2 (2005)
WHEEL OF FORTUNE (THE FOOL’S JOURNEY, THE) (2011b)
WHEELS (2002-2004)
WHEN I WAS A SLAVE (2010b)
WHERE WERE YOU ON AUGUST 24, 2009? (2009b)
WHILE UNLOADING SOME OF THAT EXPENSIVE WATER (2010b)
WHILE YOUNG EINSTEINS DREAM (2012b)
WHIPPING STICK (SONG), THE (2012f)
WHIRLWIND (2012a)
WHISPERS (2005)
WHIRLWIND BLUES (2011b)
WHISPERING STRINGS (2011d)
WHISPERS FROM THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS (2011f)
WHITE NOISE (1973-1986)
WHITE PONY, THE (2013a)
WHIZMO GIZMO (2011b)
WHOLE EARTH POETRY PRIZE, THE (1973-1986)
WHO’S GROWING OLD? (2007)
WHY BIG (1986-2001)
WHY I DON’T LIVE IN AMERICA (2013b)
WHY IS THAT EYE LOOKING DOWN FROM THE SKY (2011f)
WIGGLEWORM & WIGGLEWORM POSTSCRIPT (2011b)
WILD ANIMALS IN ROME (ROME POEMS 3) (2015)
WILD BOAR (2016)
WILD BOAR ADVICE (2011a)
WILD GEESE (2002-2004)
WILD GEESE (2013a)
WILD GEESE RETURNING (2013b)
WILD HONEY (2011a)
WILD SIDE (1986-2001)
WILD WEST WIND, THE (2013a)
WIFE BEATER, THE (2012f)
WILLIAM BLAKE IN IMAGINATION (2011b)
WINDBAG (2017)
WIND FARM AMUSEMENT PARK, THE (2012a)
WINDMILLS (2005)
WIND, RAIN, OBNOXIOUS PEOPLE AND ME (2010a)
WINDOW SHOPPING (2007)
WINSTON CHURCHILL DREAMED (2008)
WINTER OLYMPIC INSOMNIA (2010a)
WINTER SOLSTICE HAIKU (2014)
WINTER SOLSTICE QUARTETS THE (2015)
WIPERS (2002-2004)
WISE TO THE WAYS (2011g)
WOLF CHASERS (2011g)
WOLF DREAM (2013b)
WOLF GANG (2011b)
WOLF SUN (2013b)
WONDERBOY (2011h)
WOODEN TEETH (2012d)
WOODPECKERS (THE COYOTES OF THE BIRD FAMILY) (2011g)
WOOD PIGEON FOOTBALL (2012a)
WOOD PIGEON RAP (2012a)
WORDS (2009a)
WORDS & MUSIC (2012d)
WORK IN PROGRESS (2017)
WORLD PEACE (2012b)
WORLD IS SUCH A COMPLEX THING, THE (ROME POEMS 2) (2009b)
WORLD SERIES GAME ONE: “TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME” (2011h)
WORLD SERIES GAME TWO: “TAKE ME OUT TO THE CROWD” (2011h)
WORLD SERIES GAME THREE: “BUY ME SOME PEANUTS AND CRACKER JACKS (2011h)
WORLD SERIES GAME FOUR: “I DON’T CARE IF I NEVER COME BACK” (2011h)
WORLD SERIES GAME FIVE: “AND IT’S ROOT ROOT ROOT FOR THE HOME TEAM”
(2011h)
WORLD SERIES GAME SIX: “IF THEY DON’T WIN IT’S A SHAME” (2011h)
WORLD SERIES GAME SEVEN: “AND IT’S ONE-TWO-THREE STRIKES YOU’RE OUT
AT THE OLD BALL GAME” (2011h)
WORLD WAR THREE (2013b)
WORRY WORTS (2013b)
WORST DRIVERS IN THE WORLD (2009a)
WORTHLESS CENTIMES (2010b)
WRONG NUMBER (2010b)
WOULD THE PATRIOT WITHOUT SIN PLEASE STAND UP (2009b)

X

Y

YAK HAIR (2011a)
YAP YAP (2015)
YESTERDAY A WASP (2013b)
YET ANOTHER STRANGE PHIL (2012e)
YOGI BERRA FORK, THE (2013a)
YOGURT PARADISE (2013a)
YONDER HILLS (2009a)
YOU ARE HERE (2011f)
(YOU MIGHT SAY) TOO SOON (2007)
YOUNG GROUNDHOG, THE (2010a)
YOUNG NUN’S TONGUE (2005)
YOUNG PERSON’S GUIDE TO ROCK & ROLL, A (2011b)
YOU’RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE (2012a)
YOUTH BRIEFLY (2009b)
YOUTH IN ASIA (1986-2001)
YOYO STRING ECHO (2011d)

Z

ZACK’S SONETTES (2011d)
ZACK’S ZOO (2011b)
ZACKWALK (THE POEM) (2011d)
ZEELAND (1986-2001)