and
Im taking a shit and Im listening to Rancid and Im screaming
"Fuck you all!" in my mind and Im dying inside and Im
skipping my classes and Im learning firsthand from
prizewinning poets and Im on my way to a basketball
game to see my girlfriend cheer but she hates it
and I told her to quit and she says obligations and
I say fuck that and she says responsibility and I say
if you only knew and I miss my band and I need to
play and scream and sing and dance and howl and
drink coffee and smoke and annoy girls in parking
lots and get chased off by the cops and smile and nod
and proclaim my rights under my breath somewhere else
after the police have left and Im wiping my ass now
and Im off to the game and Ill probably write
more and Ill get hassled by the administration
and stared at by parents but I said Id go and
I will.
Sitting On Toilet
Sitting on toilet reading Rimbaud --
showerhead dropping dripping hammers into the silence --
theres a pounding on the floor of self --
Will I wash away?
God Plays Bingo
If Bingo is the holy game,
then artists are the cover-alls.
Paints and pens the chips
which remember evry uplifted fist --
each defiant digit
a step to
Heaven.
Blues
bent rent tear notes,
tales of misfortune --
Ill never smile.
Evol
"A Love Supreme" bops the boombox.
Is there such a love? Or was
Coltrane a golden-horned scam-man
stamping out his beat in the Abyss?
The Prince of Air? A love-supremacist
injecting his myth into my ear?
The Glorious History Of Majestic Old Father Germany
sausages.
The Secret Of The Body
The old man told me the secret
of the body that he buried
behind the church, bloody and bruised,
the holy corpse.
He said: "Let me teach you the horrors of being mad --
every world waggles itself into a frenzy!
Every womans words wind themselves into ropes
in which youll be tied!
Let me show you the truths I found in her belly:
Love is fear, hate is bliss,
and trust does not exist.
I drained her juice to drink with dinner,
got drunk off of sacred blood.
Visions came and PUFF!
Thats how we find God -- by urging ourselves
and our machines onward, testing the rubber
bounds of physics, pushing the limits of exhaustion,
challenging the expansion of the west and of the night,
questioning immutable religions, and swallowing
soothsayers to receive visions.
We pray with inkpens, methods to secure our heaven."
Parrish Street
Stepping down Parrish St. in January rain,
all sidewalk-splashed by pickup trucks
filled with fucked-up men and
heartless cars with their artless women.
Ear imprisons drip-drippity drop of drizzle,
zup-zupping of corduroy pants,
and crackling splat of black boots in puddles.
Head crowned with floppyweathered old Bill Lee hat,
chin skinned of bardic beard,
left eye an egg of vision torn from
its nest in return for your wisdom.
Polluted lips and sinful fingertips
raped, rusted, and bleeding --
frenzy-stripped of the robe of your hands,
and their touch, and their healing.
I shit me hollow to be filled with your shine.
So now I aim my pointed pen
at your bullseye of lies and complacency,
your corkboard of hypocrisy and hollow words.
I could make you hate me, crave me, eat, or love me,
tight-thighed clasp your hands in prayer,
or spread-legged writhe above me.
I never set my steel-trap couldves though.
Instead, I plucked my feathers and stuck them
to your shoulders so that you could fly.
You, who holds thump-thumping drum-heart in hand --
You, with clenched fist,
with painted nails stuck in the palm --
You, who imprisons my rhythm in her fingery cage,
who could never find her keys or keep a beat.
Wildflowers
raise blooming ends
to the anxious sky --
humble teardrops.
The Wasp
Wasp lands in pine tree,
sipping in its sweetest sap.
Do the pines get stung?
My Enigma
Im a florescent shade
of invisible, you cant
see me in my glow.
Climbing The Sky
Think about nothing -- think without words,
charge the gates of language --
try to silence your mind --
the answers will come if you shut up and listen.
Life operates with clockwork precision,
its when we tinker with the gears
that it doesnt chime on time.
Practice not-doing -- live life and love all shapes
of ecstasy and suffering until you
BURST
out of your seed-skin like
a sprouting spruce sapling,
enduring December wind
yet keeping your green,
c
l
i
m
b
i
n
g the sky to and through
the burningbright eye of heaven.
Cigarette
I snuff my spent cigarette --
fireworks burst in ashtrays
stratosphere.
Herpes Lasts Forever
I worshipped you for your tragedy.
shivering stars cried in chorus
on hearing of our
defeat.
Years were burned in vicious minutes --
disgruntled teardrops unionized
and went on strike, they formed
picket lines on the rude mystique
of my face,
they dragged their jagged heels
to scrape the scars under their feet.
You brushed them all aside and held me closer still.
Will you ever believe in the good ol days?
I tried my hand at hating you,
but cant forget Liverpool, London,
and Dublin nights,
miracle moments that we kissed and were one.
Im coming to save you in western Eden;
Im coming to save you in the Irish night; Im coming to save you in the woods of desire;
Im coming to feel you and to pluck out my eye.
youll be there waiting,
tearing your hair out
and counting the thorns,
listening close to the sounds
of the city,
sucking softly on raspberry
wine coolers, Natalie Merchant piercing the calm --
the night laughing down on you cause you
and your junkies pissed the poor
old poet away.
Ive given you a million words -- Ive built immortalities in your honor --
Ive sent the atom bomb away --
Ive cleaned the great machinery of soul --
but Im nothing in the process of
the world and
neither are you.
We spent 730 days locked in bonds
of "you and me" ---
what is that in the eyes of God?
Sometimes we send ourselves to slaughter.
Id make a dainty sandwich,
but you would know,
youve eaten me before.
If youre going to try to crucify me
use nails, not thumbtacks Jezebel.
Ive learned many a proverb
from our endless nights and twisted limbs --
Q: Whats the difference between
your love and herpes?
A: Herpes lasts forever.
Ill track you down though.
I wont let you fly until you count your feathers.
Im coming to find you on the edge of the world --
Im coming to find you in your glass balloon --
Im coming to find you on the outskirts of heaven --
Im coming to find you at your fathers tomb.