#292: weather

butt-ass cold in TN
wordness
from stove
is that
it's butt-ass cold
in TN

# 291: BATTLE HYMN OFF YE UNDERWATER REPUBLICK, AS IMPROVISED BY THE RHINE MAIDENS

O inestimably wise
  dolphin taming
skull conquering
   post-verbal essence!

Fuck you!

#290: SIRVENS De Honeste Amore: Condemned 1277

all things disorganized
and inaccessible
   the senses
let in all manner of crap which is after a while
impossible to distinguish
   from beauty--

negating reliability

of either category

   more or less

AND with everything old and new
there is no wilderness

but still I love how hot everything gets


envoi
Andreas I will see that they

canónize you
if it's the first thing I never do

#289: Cookies of Joy

christmastime
12th-century
nuns
are cruising around the abbey
eatn cookies
cookies of joy

!
they can't stop eating them!
!

but mama Hildegard says
'have as many as you want'

#288: WHAT IS A BONE-PENCIL

we've got problems:
LAUNDRY problems
CAT problems
HIBACHE problems
HARDWARE problems
SOFTWARE problems
VOCABULARY problems
DREAM problems


also problems:
BONE-PENCIL
SUMMERS-DAY
IMPERIAL
PSYCHIC
OVERLOAD


plus

ADMINiSTRATIVE OFERMŌD


but....these are practically our

ONLY problems!

#287: L.B.E.

I said to her 'corragio'
but promised myself a cup of absinthe
when I was one again chez moi
though I knew it would make me puke

i have sympathy to spare for the USA
but this is important: Rome,
preferably from atop the Janiculum
is where I'll make my last bitch effort

which when I do
you will know
from my 'corragio'

# 286: Holidays

it is beginning to be late
in the afternoon
the buildings are beginning
to go quiet
and a colder breeze
pours through my window

people everywhere
are beginning to say
'fuck it'

# 285: Extra non-day morning

a gurdel of gyle

i wold go a mile

...to see the mordaunt

we wake to find much haste and rummage in the land
luckily the Cloisters Apocalypse
is near to hand

it is late
it gets later and later
as we read and read


heartsick for a bone

#284: pulsare

my Zen is not so good
i have no yoga
i cannot slow my pulse
enough to see a goddamned thing
I cannot turn aside stimulations
that fill my brain
with holes
pollution
is what I crave
and oxplowsions!

#283: CENA IMPROBA HAMBURGERES INANES

hamburgers of emptiness!
the buns are firm enough
and correct in shape

delicious as murder

and as indecent

they are the culmination of the lame-ass dreams
of many men

you are also dreamed by them
you too will be selected
when your ass
is good and ripe
and ground completely into nothingness

#282: Let them send out alarms

let them send doubt alarms
let them send out all arms
let them sin. doubt. tall arms.

nothing makes sense anymore

     that's a plus or a minus
     depending
      on the score

stoned or on a sugar high
you'll soon hear
the sirens

#281: Let's get lost

i am sweet and useful
didactic and delectable

O, whose unassassinated brother
are you?

motha  fuckahs
I don't know where
     i am going
but am stopping for beer
     on the way




next time's blues: lost inter arma

#280: Lost in each others arms

problem: can't find
the mortgage bill

but they got free kitty cats
down at the shelter

#279: Let's Get Lost

toccata and fugue
a touch and a flight


holy schlitz those

were some memorable improvisations

improve

improvident

improvisus: that which is unforeseen, an emergency

sapienti nihil improvisum accidere potest, nihil inopinatus,

nihil omnino novus

Tusc. Disp. 4.15.37

and I sayde hys

opinion was gode

Amen, sayde sir Thomas Maleorré

#278: many a lonely walk

many a lonely walk have I walked
and many a lonely path
among many skeevy districts
looking for a polling place

there was a scream-cat there
and it was crazy

crazy as the muddled ill-handled horse of the pervert i saw
looking for a cash machine
in Alabama

he had friends but they were never
really friends
if you think about it they hated him
as he hated himself
too much cruelty coming from his parents
too many spankings!
too much too much

i can hear them howling
even now

his well-wishers can wish him all the well they may
but they will be relieved when he has gone away
but his horse will be glad
when he is gone

poor thing! I will help him find
somewhat to nibble on

#277: only to find

themselfs struck blind
their hands chopped off
their moon reduced
to a moldy rind

# 276: Quivering demon

quivering with desire
for tiny girls with angel faces
demons abandon
their hiding places

#275: SNOW

its all
a joke to thi
s guy

it is so frekin cold

evrythins a joke i say

with howver such a

fffffukck! its cold

far-out punchline
as to coincide
with our ouerall
destruccion

im not sayng
it isn't funy
but it hath no survivors

[avalanche]

crapples! keep your heads
remember to spit
upward

#274: HYPOTHETICAL FAIL

if i weren't married
I should steal your
Marxist girlfriend
for my self

heh heh heh

or rather I would say
I should make an ultra-pathetic attempt
to steal said Marxist girlfriend

and certainly go down in flames
or explose!

yes, be utterly explosed
in the midst of my imaginings

by my own dirty cocktail

in my disgusting little apartment

#273: Heavy

hard-core delights
each more fleething than the last
appear both irreversible and
very difficult to remember, I must say,
yet hide strange meaning

but I don't know
i might be full of prunes
these might  be but vain factitious runes
cast quite drunkenly in forgotten seasons
heavy with forgotten reasons

#272: I have been here before

I have been here before

I was hanged for a pickpocket

in the Bailey


to me at some unspecific date

were attributed terrible poems

about vegetation

I did not write them

but I was there


I have been here before

this was my grave once

#271: sacred goat calendar

bearing the bite marks
of the beasts themselves it is furtively passed
among the members of the group
photographed in many different lights
and impossible perspectives

its grid the source
of much anxiety
and discomfort

its surface shines
with irreversible magic

it cannot be destroyed
i know
for I have often tried

#270: Extreamely tyred

the man sayd hee was Extreamly tyred
and wold unto Bedde but if he coud
when it was sayd to hym that it was yet earlie
sixe or thereabouts he sayde
Well I suppose some VVitch hath laid
some curse on mee, and hee meant a Sleepyng
Curse and he was then asked
when the sayd VVitch hadde layd
on hym said curse and by what meanes
she dide so
but hee was allready asleepe

#269: La Complainte d’Outremer, lines 1-13

Emperor and king and count,
duke and prince to whom are read aloud
for your amusement, many a lai
concerning those who, back in the day,
always went in search of war
galloping to Outremer
for the sake of Holy Church—
Now tell me based on what great work
you hope to enter Paradise?
Look, if you have eyes:
these who gained it formerly
(the ones whose tales you so enjoy)
gained it by their deaths, and torment
which they gladly underwent.

This is the time. God is looking for you,
arms extended, stained with blood.

          from the French of Rutebeuf
                            (c. 1250- c.1285)

#268: whirlwind

to hide the whirlwind...

in what corners soever
it may be hidden
they shall seek to hide it
from the spirit of tidiness

as you will have guessed
their theories are insane

their crumbly words devote
to the lizard brane

they will not even be looking
for what i am busily hiding

it will be a big surprise
for their
watery organs
to explane

#267: To Shadow

i didn't ask to be an american
with weird skin problems

and you didn't ask to be an old man
in a dog costume

but here we are

#266: Tales of Weirdness

can't...stop. but...i must!
must stop...reading all these...
TALES OF WEIRDNESS


like a creature without a soul--
or a head
i crawled, dragging myself through the foetid swamp
the toxic stench of miasmic witch-fart still
lingered in my nostrils!
and my sanity, my very personality
a ghostly memory!

addicted to tales of weirdness
and of inappropriateness
and of sphincter-mouthed corruption
latching lamprey-like on the bloated body of my bride!

   Just took at his eyes, nurse. Nothing.
   He's completely catatonic!
   Driven mad by tales and stories.
   All right boys, he's all yours.

aiiiiiieeeee!

there is simply no exit
from tales of weirdness





                                  THE END

#265: got your back

hey man. it's me.
i just wanted to say
that if you were about to get hit by a train
i'd totally shove your ass out of the way.
or at the very least call out
hey
you fucking pendejo
 get off the track

#264: vipers! jackals! vultures and kites!

ages hence their bones will occupy
the virtual dump which, when they lived
and lingered there, was a spring
a virtual oasis
but which by the time they croaked
they had already choked and poisoned
with their discharge
and their hair

but at least it will be silent there

#263: Death trip

tonight
having emptied the ashes
from the wood stove
with one or two dying coals
into the fire pit


I see at the top of the rise
against the tree-line
the folding chair
aluminum with nylon bands
(I believe it was Karen's)
turned to face the sunset
now glowing blue


and through the thick of the trees
comes echoing
a dog howling and barking
savagely
but far away
the glowing lawn chair


blue, and now in its glow deepening
expanding
exceeding its shape
on the hill, unmoved


while the barking grows more savage
and more distant still
even though
it is I who am retreating

#262: Triumph of death

'Triumph of Death'
is on my wall
in miniature.
this weird futurity
from 1562: a message
from deep in the mine
of beauty's strange cordial
for the eyes

with an oven at its heart
extremities grow pale
in the interstices
the dead
fructify

the shock itself is the triumph:
the fructifying seed

beholding the rate
 at which these corpses breed

#261: Part of me

it is an unfavorable part
that is often angered
within a cavity
a finite space that will always make room
for ill will
and panic

finite, I should say,
but enlarged:
like the heart of a coke fiend

#260: Forks of Cheat

An after-dinner dialogue

what is it?
it
must be a river
the tune is named after the river

do you like it?
the river or the song?
the song
yes, a lot

are you stoned?

absolutely

# 259: #goatabortions

Angie delivered the goat-abortifacient
with a hypodermic to the necks
of Helena and Hermia
while I held them down
yes
we had left them too long in the company
of Puck their brother

they all matured together
this past frolicsome fall
in their enclosure
and running through the forest with Argos

anyway the foetal remains:
small red birdlike, or goatlike bird
glistening blob
with ribs displayed
like wings

ribs
like twisted
wings



with Argos eating the placenta

#258: round mouth hole

sphinctral round mouth hole
emitting pardons and prophecies
for idiots at full volume
and morbid testicles
and stupid birds

i will not participate in that choral dance

# 257: The supreme blasphemy

thanks to Nazis
and neo-Nazis
history's corpse-filled stomach
regurgitates up
through the floor of the church
a holocaust:
everything is burned
nothing is eaten

# 256: All over the borderline

the poison dart frog crossed the borderline

the same night i dreamt of it

the same dreams stirred

by the journeys of the rats

leaving in the mornings

frosty depressions in the grass


crossing the borderline

and crossing back

# 255: Caucasus

draw me a map
to the remotest confines
of the earth

where no foot hath trod
nor any sort of living thing disturbed the dust

draw me a map to that infinitesimal point

direct me through the bowels
of the elements

with my prisoner



note: Prometheus' punishment
         was hidden, kept secret
         from men

#254: HAROLDVS

One thing we could do is poke
people with needles
to help them with their
singing
              also we should
ask about magic

*
If Harold had a deeming of it
if he had some prognostication
of what was to happen
           he kept his counsel
but did write
or cause to be written:

ᚠᚢᚳ  ᚦᛖᚩᛋ  ᚱᚢᚾᚪᛋ

FVCK THOSE RVNES

They also explored the use
of lead containers
of which they had learned so much
              whilst in Rome
Wonderful powers of preservation
               in lead cylinders
according to them

*
but by then
Harold was dead to reason
cerebral calcification, brought on
by unopened envelopes
(the pity of this)

*
very little remains
of what he knew

#253: Bone

'The spirit is a bone.'

--Hegel

Well but what is flesh,

if the spirit is a bone?


A cloud, a shadow

the shadow of a bone.

#252: to one for whom i forgot to prepare a place

i am sorry little one

#251: take it outta here

you call that a hymn?
a monkey with a bible
and a rhyming dictionary
could write better hymns
than that, lands sakes

# 250: devils confer

for Lars

devils always confer
it is what they do
i'm not saying angels are so perfect
but while the former confer
the latter sing

#249: prayer in chaos

let us not give in to infamy

maybe what they say is false
after all

but even without a cerebral cortex
the reptile can strike
with deadly force
and with blinding speed

like a buzz saw
leaping from the hand
and mangling the one who handled it

at least, let us not give in to infamy

#248: Saw

a sound ripped my ears

it was the diamond buzz saw

splitting  hemispheres

# 247: Eraser

the mirror is an eraser

look in the mirror

you will be erased

didn't you know?

you will be erased

look in the mirror

it's an eraser

# 246: Web

rubato: intentionally and temporarily not in strict tempo
[Italian, stolen]

amok: a frenzy to kill
[Malay, amoq]

so nice

still,
Webster's old attempts
to keep certain words away from me
are not forgotten
like 'canoodle'
and 'godemiche'
and 'homeomorphism'

and 'fatwah'
which I cannot now spell

nevertheless i grok
and where else can you find such divinely
athematic poetry
of the American Language?


also 'jotoburg'
   and 'butt-master'


cough it up, Webister!

# 245: Appointment reminder

Transcription Beta (low confidence)

“Help this is Maggie from the

Ass zero health and wellness clinic

calling to remind you of

your appointment on__um__Wednesday

the eighth at half past Prime”

!

it's ok I managed
to call off that outrage
just in time

#244: UNLESS IT IS

unless it is to read

 all sky-borne particles

back together

I am doing nothing

hands and arms bear lacerations 

from unprotected dealings with twine

and wire

my joints been a perpetual sorrow!

Yet I must learn my ass to bear these awful times

peevishly maintain an arid distance

like a cat
Or an aristocratical
Hobo
in his goddamn dreams

#243: See you on the other side, Dandelion

Dandelion

            I'll see you on the other side

I have kept your skull

and twisted horn

against that day when things like this

are death to hide

#242: heat syncope

heat syncope overtakes me in a flash

must tell the world
must get shit together and

tell the world

shouting from the outer edge
of heat syncope

i will create an echo that may
one day reach the ear
of sensitive ones
ones not yet completely buried



but if i fail hopefully my faint
will cushion the impact of this tragedy

#241: The Bacon Hammer

hear the orphic
songs of the bunnies
wandering
through a world more populated by geezers
than I can understand

and wandering still
through this huge Heffner-ass world of geezers
and geezers modeled on that model
to wield the Bacon Hammer

one way or another that guy was instrumental
in giving boners
to lots of men

everywhere conducting them
 alas so many
boners bred in captivity

#240: Confession

the pungency of Sulphur

wigs me out

#239: APERTURA IN TENEBRIS

SPHINX
 < sphincter, sphincteros
      the Throttler

her mind was thought
 to roam through solid structures
but there is a void within

she hides in dark places
in my house
and moves
in undiscovered conduits
she tightens the string

 in regions above the chamber of the king

she slinks through shadow to pour
from her constricting mouth
the riddle staight
into your ear
and into the void therein

#238: Carmina translationibus improbis desecrata!

tired of bad
translations of the Carmina
laden with ungood rhyme
and sleazy equivalents

please to not jack with my poetry
thus

and do not sharpen your wieners
thereon
by rendering the cantationes
profanae in purblind fourteeners
and aureate dictation

don't be an asshole
or a bitch

as if it didn't matter
as if these delicate lines
were your own
expensive sex toys




i bet your sex toys
don't even
draw blood

#237: Mysterious HWN from Molly's pocket

"what's this napkin?"

Hole in the Head disease

Metronidazole --> Metro +

or

Prima fix

"that's not my handwriting"

written not on a napkin

in point of fact

but a paper towel folded
in quarto

note: put "Hole in the Head disease"

         next to "Patau Syndrome" on your list

         of things never to google

"what is it?"

not a human disease

no human cure

nothing to look forward to
Miss Kitka
but death
from hole-in-the-head disease

# 236: Phenomena

October 30, 2017
I screen Phenomena (1985)
for the film class
it is the first one I have shown them to receive
their applause, plaudites discipulorum
omnium

Jennifer
and her friends:
jack with them
and as I have suggested elsewhere
in otras palabras
(Didaktikon of Death, 2003)
they will
mess
you
up
they will render you
unrecognizable

no teacher no youth no killer with glittering weaponry
 stands a chance
they may try to blame it on the föhn
(demons and witches
are always trying to shift the blame)
but it is Jennifer
who is the fault
in their plans

 her friends
primates and insects
responding to hormones
and heavy metal
will eat your face
arriving just in time
and wielding the requisite cutlery
for that meal

you who will always miss out
on that kind of love

#235: Albrecht Haushofer (1903-1945)

Den Dämon liess er in die Welt entwehn.

In a moment of burning sight
and strange sacrifice
Haushofer wrote his poem
'Der Vater'

the world-blindness that keeps us all
somewhat ignorant
     for our own sweet stake
of profound powers
forsook him

and all-knowingly he wrote of his father

The seal my father did break open.
He did not see the breath of evil.
He let the demon drift into the night.

Den Dämon liess er 
           in die Welt 
                                           entwehn.

# 234: Wortschatz

Montag, Monday
muffig, musty
mühsam, tiresome; troublesome, toilsome
Müllabfuhr, m. waste collection
Müller, m. miller, grinder

#233: Appalachian Dis

Everybody got a jar of dirt
but me

O princes and potentates
O magistri mundi
Ostro-Tennesseinsis

where
is my
dirt gift?

#232: Perpetual Neronia

At Olympia, he was thrown from his 10-horse chariot but was still crowned the winner by fawning, fearful judges. Nero insisted that the statues of previous winners be ripped off their pedestals, and he returned to Rome with 1,808 prizes.

'Why tyrants love to write poetry', Benjamin Ramm

you have called for perpetual competitions
perpetual games
and hot long-lasting
delightful flames

but what will be the crescendo
of such an endlessly extensible display?
and how will we know it when it comes?
and when will you learn to kill yourself properly?

syntax lies disemboweled
diction morbidly rots
and falls off
as fire whips the vestal curtains
   the second and third place winners
   are longing for home

even our hatred grows tired
and wants to go to bed

when will you have done?
when will you order your tomb?
when will you write your
ultimate fascist poem?

#231: Diseased Clowns of the World

their errands take them very far
from their treatments

they soon begin to shrivel

but seem unable to die

even the most diseased clown you'll ever see
will probably outlive you
by about a century




(but I hear they tend to explode
like ticks
in a burning field
or in some fucking
radioactive forest)

#230: Loose heads

who knows where such creatures
in their goings
glide?

or what unheard-of appetites
haunt their gullets
and terrorize their loins?

nevertheless
they are only heads
and in their pulsating frenzy
barely even qualify
as that

anyway if you find one rolling under the table
kick it
kick it with everything you’ve got

#229: EVIL CAT MISSING

every time the wind blows the front door open
or one of the chickens screams in terror
or i accidentally stab myself with a fork
or the giant rat gallops over the grass
between the garbage and the garden
my butthole tingles
like it's fucking Christmas

#228: Star-Side Down

this spool
has an expanding center core
to fit almost any spindle

insert star-side down
in spool cups

we are
US
combat veteran owned
and operated
proudly made in the USA
this spool
has
an expanding
             center
                     core

#227: ITHACAN SAILOR, IN HADES

Odysseus--he's still up there
spinning on his crazy raft
one monstrous wave away
from joining us down here
waiting on Charon
with people clamoring like lunatics
to get on his boat

not me, man--I don't care
if I never get on, or see, another boat
as long as I live, or, mutatis mutandi,
however long I'm dead:
for I will say it: that was one fucked-up tour.

Oh well,
we knew what we signed up for.

Not that we had a clue
what we were signing up for
if you think about it

we did not sign up to be turned into pigs
become addicted to lotus
or be seduced to a watery grave by sirens
nor did we sign up to be eaten by Laistrygonians
or chewed by a cyclops
or squished by a boulder

    we faithfully signed up
    we slaughtered Trojans
    or were slaughtered by them
    we did not run away

but we did not sign up for any of that other
how could we
how could anybody sign up
for everything that happens?

the poet knows this, at least.
small comfort.
but without the poet everyone would be walking around saying
       'well, they knew what they signed up for'
like a bunch of assholes
and if the Captain makes it home
(though I expect him here
any moment now)
neither will he
reunited with his family
sitting at some feast,
repeat--like a total fucking asshole--repeat that lie
'they knew what they signed up for'

--that vicious lie, worthy only of cowards
and soulless fools

#226: TIME MACHINE

apparatus like TYPEWRITERS restore us to a golden time
when men's hair was all suffused
with petroleum
and women were classically trained
to type up all their memoranda
--writing was noisy then
so bosses could tell if you were busty busy
from across the room

at the same time COMPUTERS can replicate
a kind of primal vegetative state
in the subject
as has been shown

but inasmuch as it restores us to the slime
DEATH remains the best machine for traveling time

#225: LOIMOS

and it is damn near time
to release mice at the problem
to call on the Mouse God
if he can localize his LOIMOS
just right
but what am I saying
but he has never had any problem doing that
he can launch his LOIMOS
from afar
with absolute precision

& we can probably conjure him
with something like this:

OK

APOLLONÊ

bring the mice

ΛΟΙΜΟΣ

#224: nice

for over 220 poems
i have been nice
you must admit
and have not told you
to blow it out your enchilada-hole

but at a certain point a person
has to fight back
tears
    and and
fucking spit blood
and implement apparatus
for a change
you know it is coming
in the current dynamic
i know not what
but they shall be the terrors of the earth

because you know one square
of toilet paper
would be enough to wipe
that rictus tight off your ass-
face

#223: Completely Dental

your teeth are like
a row of urinals

*

your teeth are racing along the gutter
like a cluster
of styrofoam cups!

*

your teeth
are the poured-concrete statuary
of an all-out paradise
of your own making

*

your teeth are the bright powdery lozenges
of death

#222: Paranoid Time

can you hear them
people talking about me
behind the shed
vociferous in shadows
sotto voce in judgmental tones

whilst I am sharpening my pencil
 to a fare-thee-well

to write the daily poem
one of the blunter ones for the nones
one of the ones addressed to one or more
illiterate guys
such as congregate in or around one's head

if they will talk about me, well
that's no surprise
but the moment i hear some falsehood
i drive this pencil
short, by now, but infinitely
sharp, no. 2, Ticonderoga
Black Warrior
straight into their eyes

#221: OVERHANG

o my god  i am completely
out of control
these poems are insane did
I write these I must have
been out of my
freaking tree

freak tree

 king tree

freak tree
with twisted buds
and haemorrhaging
molasses

NOTE: in 'Our Lips Are Sealed'
there is much wisdom

when you look at them
look right through them
that's when they'll disappear
that's when you'll be feared

that is when I shall return
with an army and all your cities
I shall burn
that is when I shall be back
in control
of such chaotic performances
as will cause you
to spaz out in earnest

#220: INFESTUS MAXIMUS

clarification: to keep devils away

we need an apotropaic device
or incantation

but it is quite clear
we've got nothing

they breed out of the air

like maggots they cling to life

out of dung they build their nest

right in your head, and starting out from there

lay their eggs at the root of your tongue

infest your ear
co-opt your lung for speeches of any length

when they speak they saw and cut

all sweet sessions of silent thought
they quite digest

and in this wise usurp your portion

your body is their killing floor

your mind is their abortion

unless we can think of something

#219: AԀOTЯOԀAIƆ

the southwestern wind, bearer of storms and drought

he has the body of a man, the head of a dog, the talons of an eagle, two pairs of wings, and a scorpion's  tail

break his bones

GORGEION

HUNKY PUNK

evil against evil

please let it work

𒀭𒅆𒊒𒍪𒍪

#218: Goat Magick II

can you hear
from where you are
the hell-harmonies
of the goats?

the goat procession
inching up the street
along its wandering, lingering route
through the city of death?

as is often the case with parades you cannot tell
the laughter from the cries of pain

it's not something you'll ever
truly
come back from

   the hell-harmonics
   of your first ever
   goat song

#217: TUMOR

I.

the manifestation

on holiday

of an old disease

you thought was behind you

whatever it is
your vacation
is at an end

if flights are still flying out
you better grab
one

because the redactions are spreading fast

II.

redacting things that make no difference
a clever ruse

like sabotaging
the crossword
--a terrorist act

which is much like yourself
a symptom, in point of fact

III.

like a tumor:
whatever it is a symptom of
it represents the triumph
of the whole manifestation
of the old disease

#216: Hüsker Dü

What's going on
What's going on
What's going on
Inside my head?

the question asked
by Hüsker Dü
the song of that title
Zen Arcade (1984)
with feeling
is asked for my sake too

heavy metal chords
earthquake drums
spreading sheets of heavy vibes
penetrating through the rock
inside my head

my head was first made famous
in Ireland where
i put it on a wall
it was widely acknowledged
among a small collection of freaks
that an explosion had occurred
inside there

underground, though
like a nuclear test
in another country

still, ask Paula
she might remember

#215: What This Represents

Yahhhh  you cunts
know what
this represents?

(circular gestures
repeated out of control,
stiff bodies, the rictus
of many a wife)

maybe it's the calm before the storm
and then maybe it's the storm
before the clam
or maybe its the claim
before the calamity

or maybe its the flan
the flan
coming after the sturm und drang
about which i could not give less
of a shit
whatever it is

look at this array of stiffos and termigants!
these warlocks, these thrice-vagrant shrews!



you know what?
I could shit the skeleton, intact,
of a barbequed cat
right here
on my desk
           and everybody would love me for it

#214: The Sheriff

the sheriff looks like hell
the sheriff knows of things he cannot tell
his speech is treading lightly over
things it is imperative that none discover
because the scary people standing to his left                  and to his right
would think the bother only slight
to slit his throat this very night
which who knows maybe they are doing even as I        write

#213: MORON?

Surely not.
Well, consult Webster's.


   MORON (mōrˊon) n. 1. a person having an IQ
   of 50-69 and judged incapable
   of development beyond the mental age
   of 8-12.  2. Informal. any stupid person
   or a person lacking good judgement.

  [GK: neuter of mōros foolish]


so, a MORON technically
is a castrated idiot or fool
interesting

#212: Thin Paper Towel Meat

Yes I suppose it is time to hurl
cleaning supplies
to the hurricane-afflicted
of Puerto Rico
in the form of  rolls
of more or less absorbent
paper towels

that is the next
logical step in our descent

and you are exactly the one
to hurl into the faces
of  the people hurt hungry and grieving
these loose, semi-absorbent spools
of pressed chemical pulp
dredged from the stagnant abyss
of your heart

for who else is capable
of such a thing

#211: MEMORANDUM in re: USA SPAIN IRAQ

Karl Marx only needed to be right
about one thing
and he nailed it

while you grab at imaginary vaginas

meanwhile
Saudi Arabian women now
can drive!
cars!
and soon will be able
to issue the FATWAH

meanwhile
KURDISTAN VOTES
CATALONIA VOTES

    while you are out golfing like a bitch
    or some kind of prehistoric bitch-sloth

and the counting of the votes
(you Francoid fascists and desert puppets)
will be out of your hands

i don't even want to think about the deaths
your guts are absorbing

unfortunately this poem
which scans like a piece of meat
covered with worms
is a memorandum in minatory terms:
the next thing you try to grabb
might just chop of your hedd

FATWAH

# 210: Puerto Rico Is Sacred

Puerto Rico is sacred

college campuses are sacred ground

in this country immigrants are sacred

because the crossing of rivers is sacred

innocents murdered by police were sacred

the life-struggle of black folks of the Americas

because since slavery we have practically no other history
is sacred

homosexuals and drag queens are sacred

everyone at whom you hurl your feces is sacred

this planet is sacred

this planet is sacred

Puerto Rico is  sacred

# 209: 9/29/17

don't worry
my president
have no fear
I was writing yesterday
I was writing about

Flowers
Under
Clear blue skies
Kissed by bees
Yielding nectar all
Openly
Under the clear. blue. sky.

#208: another

it is hard to remember your song

but a momentary awkwardness need not wig you out

it will be miserable
you will want to die
but guess what:
this has been your training all along

wanting to, and not, has made you strong

in fact you would be surprised
how debilitated Pluto is
how circumscribed
in his luxury

he has never been to your school
and would be seriously dismayed
by a single day
in a head like yours

#207: Orpheus

with all the ambient noise of the kingdom
in that shifting red darkness and heat
and nonsense arguments
from damaged personalities
and (despite the palpable arrogance that reigns)
 no one in charge
and all the residue of floods
in states of overwhelming putrefaction
and all the insults aimed at your head
and crude plans being perpetually voiced
by the sinecure employees of this place

it is hard to remember your song

#206: my new truck

my new truck is smoking from someplace
deep in its center
and burning something within itself
with a smoke that smells like crack

but the sparkles

it is the sparkles
that will bring me back

#205: cuts

the scissor dragon, not unlike Wright's Swallow
will jackknife and swan dive
then again his bladed wings
shall dip and pivot him
cutting and then splicing
the viral minutes
fashioning the time
the light
the air itself
into something
really
horrible

 over the chained bay waters
liberty


and you will have realized too late, and with infinite sorrow,
that today, the day you were cut, is tomorrow

#204: Lumie di Sicilia

the octopus salami I had
at Lumie di Sicilia, Roma,
looked like a slice of brain
not a healthy brain
but  that of a murderer
or mutant

it was delicious
but at the same time it was no basis
for a system of government
nor was it a viable
conductor
of the slightest intellectual spark

but here we are


that's Lumie di Sicilia
the Gianicolo
Roma

#203: Kim is definitely winning the poetry contest

“I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire,” Kim said of Trump, who is 71 years old. “Action is the best option in treating the dotard who, hard of hearing, is uttering only what he wanted to say.”

wake up man
Kim Jong Un
is obliterating your ass in the field

his verbal command rolls
like an amazing apparatus
all over your face

you got nothing
can you manage some improvement?
the poetry of Kim is flourishing
creating massive poetic events
that cause the utmost damned astonishment

i know you have a lot on your hot-plate
in terms of shit-enchiladas
you must eat

but it is time to wake up

for this much is obvious to all:
in the poetry competition of the known damn universe
we are getting
vaporized

#202: It is time

all right mad old king
bring your sleazy daughters to me
teach me their illiterate names
and tell me to whom
you have in mind to marry them
and what you think
is going to be left
after that

explain to me again
because I must have dreamed them
your mesh-and-lace notions
of this fidelity
and how it will hold these-all rats
somewhat in check

ok go

you now have my undivided attention

#201: Haud Perfectus

the well-wrought urn
eludes again
sculptor ignotus
who chucks it on the pile

meanwhile, scriptor ignotus
walks by
and picks it up
and writes a poem about it

that spontaneously disrupts
all marriage customs
destroying future genealogies
plunging history
into darkness

right: too much.
perfection again
eludes us.

mess.

back to work.

#200: HOW TO LIVE

eat

a rat

#199: Holocaust centers

but your head is the holocaust center
your mouth is the holocaust center

your eyes are blisters of film
your ears are the drains
in concrete floors
and those
are ashes falling from your nose

until I don't know which comes first:
your smile
or the ovens

but surely the question is academic:
tissue, ash, adipocere
    all of it
        drains into the center

        which is, in turn,
full of cracks
  and fissures

#198: Hazard

your brain

is like a christmas tree

with way too many lights

Poem 197: Cassini enters Nirvana

that loose part of us which is a weightless chunk
of metal,
sublime cylindrical trunk
with one arm locked out straight into the gulf
    of its own total sensorium
speeding
along that course that hath so wide a turn
and coasting the walls of Titan
and Enceladus
bearing its little light
     just crashed into Saturnus
                         and it was good

Poem 196: Neti atman

a wise person when having some murderous thought
will say: neti atman

when one has a hateful urge

she says: neti atman

when one swells with anger

or craves destructive delights

he says: neti atman

'that's not me'

*

not that I'm so wise
but I mutter it constantly

I even had this troubling thought:
will the atman ever arise?

in your case, I sure the fuck hope not


neti atman

Poem 195: Ahimsa

the principle of no-harm
is hard to observe
though it may sound easy

there are infinite ways
to do this harm
and google ways to forget

even vampires can work passively
and spread their contagion
dragging the innocent with them
through a valley of bones

and you can not-mean-any-harm somebody
right into their grave
I have learned

vague, barely motivated gestures
can sear the mind
or convulse the heart
of an acqaintance, friend
or lover whomsoever

don't kid yourself:
you are a walking field of himsa
and you don't know how to stop

Poem 194: Don't Think about Nothing

"We Came to Destroy"
Heather Leather
---------------------------------------
Destroy! You better lock your doors tonight, Don't think about nothing,
Don't try to pull out something for me, Or I'll blow you away, yeah,
Destroy...We
came to destroy, we will blow you away, we are hotter than hell, under a
spell, Destroy...Don't you know how it feels, when you're too young to be
dead or alive, don't burn me, don't let me down, Destroy... We came to
destroy

Heather Leather
descends on me
in my dreams
Sylvia Ruth and Sandie

first they play their murder song
and threaten to blow me away

which scares the shit out of me

but it also makes me laugh

but once they hear me laugh
it's all over:
the sisters seem to multiply
and I know I deserve to die
and just when they are about to try
to pull out something
for me
I see God
writhing in hell
--then sleep paralysis sets in
and I wake up screaming
like an infant left out to die
on a frozen mountainside
in Helotes

Poem 193: Maestro

I heard someone say of the Maestro
that he was 'absurdly grandiose'

grandiose perhaps
   excitable certainly
a trait one has noticed
in the Latin American intelligensia
generally

but who knows
he could just be on drugs, and if so
more power to him:
at his time of life what's he got
to be prudent about?

But 'absurdly' must redound
   on the critic's own head
his own pristinely
super-cooled
fucking head

Poem 192: Signs

--crying and holding head

--patient yells when turned

--refusal of meds

--patient lying on floor

--dark yellow or red urine

--sobbing at bedtime

--grinning / salivating 

--inappropriate performances

Poem 191: liar

Heriger, bishop civitatis Mainz,
once met a prophet who had been carried
bodily to hell, so the prophet said

among the many things he reported
he mentioned that hell was all surrounded
by a thick forest, very dense

Heriger laughed. I shall, he answered,
send my swineherd there with some extremely
skinny pigs.

Then the liar said: I was taken up
up to heaven too. I saw Christ up there
happily seated and feeding his face.
And John the Baptist, he was cupbearer
circulating  wine (which was top shelf)
in fancy goblets to all the saints
...

Heriger said: Wow. But come, tell me how
God in heaven chose to honor you? Where
were you seated? What did you eat?

The prophet answered: Me? O I just sat
off in a corner chewing a piece of lung
which I stole from one of the cooks.

Heriger had him bound, tied to a post
and thrashed with broomsticks
whilst he spoke to him harshly
addressing the liar in the following terms:

Should Christ hereafter
invite you to eat
at his high table,
do not then repay
his kindness with such
avoidance and thievery.



(from 'Heriger, Urbis Maguntiensis' 10th c.)

Poem 190: King Arthur's Goat Magick

bouc passant d'or 
mounted with tripping king

Cath Palug rampant meets Rex Arturus
on the path to hell
in the top of a tree
on the cathedral floor
at Otranto

Arthur himself may well be
on psychedelic drugs
at least he's just after watching Abel
feeding a cat to a jellyfish

but Arthur's head is right where it needs to be
he is seeing what he is meant to see
let him ride it out
when he gets to hell
he'll know what to do

meantime the goat he rides
is walking the razor's edge
to hell he knows the path
it is a derke road and a salvage

some critics have called Arthur's mount
'a hoofed quadruped (possibly a horse)'
or else 'a donkey or an ass'

but you don't have to guess, there is no doubt

      what Arthur rides to hell

in the top of a tree

on the Cathedral floor of Otranto:

it is an Ur-goat out of space and time

 for hym liste ride so

Poem 190: fire

you look just like, e.g., that gibbous freak

the super-saturated orange hue

of a cajun boy

disfigured by too-hot gumbo

 his brane is a
rancid roux

now

it’s running all over the scene

inflaming my impaludism

so bad 
I want to punch a plasma screen

the world is on fire
flooding the empty spaces
 leaping rivers

& look at this burnt-marshmallow poem

look what you made me do

Poem 189: wire

'down to the wire'
and the wire is
twitching

clearly it is a trap
no sentient creature on earth
would touch a wire like that

save me
and my demented cat

note: both of us are ANTIFA as fuck

if you come for our asses
let me caution you
we will be along that wire
like it was WICHITA
and we were working for the county

Poem 188: MORDRED IS CHOSEN KING

No one saw that coming.
The miscreant meant through forgery
and bad calligraphy
to bend reality
to say that Arthur was dead

then moved forward incestuous designs
for getting Guinevere into bed
and he said plainly he would wed her
which was his uncle's wife
and his father's wife

she got out fast,
took the Tower of London
 and, according to my author, suddenly
in an all haste possible
she stuffed it with all manner of victual

Mordred did not see that coming
thereafter he was passing wroth out of measure
and well nigh wood and so offered
to decapitate
the Archbishop of Caunterbury

So the bishop in his turn cursed Mordred
IN THE MOST ORGULUST WISE
THAT MIGHT BE DONE
a curse too horrible to be written down
a curse too horrible for words

and got out fast

but, at the last, Mordred had convinced a 'goodly parte off the peple'
that with him always was great joy and bliss
everybody just ate it up

See ye not what a mischief here was?

Quid plura? He was king.


but the ORGULUSTE CURSE
is in effect:
he will get no good from that

a curse too horrible to be written down
a curse too horrible for words

Poem 187: my head

my head itches.
there are rats in the walls
rustling. i hear crickets
coyote calls.

the big white dog is on his rounds
he will seek the causes of these sounds

but the head remains
my own
infernal debacle

Poem 186: Anecdote of uncreated hells

'...a teen reunited with her birth mother
...who then killed her and burned her body
...according to police'

all is for us
to learn this: all poems are about the Dharma

all poems
are about
the mother
fucking
Dharma

a vital lesson
but one is still in hell

HOWEVER: there is some good news about hell



which I will tell you later

Poem 185: mistakes

no-one makes mistakes
in hell

hell must be totally zen

poems written there daily
are all
completely correct

Poem 184: Chemical Futures

i can get used to a chemical future
there will be a science fiction glamour
it could develop into something really noir
really noir
not some dopey fiction anymore

our bodies warm with toxins and smoke
our wit sharpened by seeing
fellow citizens
declining into pools of rancid adipocere
on a regular basis

warm nights atop bank buildings
watching the horizon's burning jelly
glad of our
sub-par cigarettes
and disreputable booze

i wasn't using those national parks anyway
let the ice-caps flow
fuck it (I can already hear you say)
let's slither into that
very next tide

Poem 183: Guest poet: Neo, the Catbus

I'M A TWAZY TITTY TAT
I'M A TWAZY TITTY TAT
I'M A TWAZY TITTY TAT

LOOK. AT. ME.

*

i WILL NOT  kill you
but when you die i will eat
your hands and your face

*

I KNOW where you buried the rabbit guts

*

What are you doing
what are you doing what
are you doing

LOOK AT ME
MOTHER-
FUCKAAAHH!


i love you

Poem 182: In Houston, Cuidado

watch your step
in Houston
fludded or unfluid one minute
you're a maister of the universe
and the next
you're squatting in an alley
eating a cat

it is a barbequed cat

you think it can't happen to you
but you're wrong

one minute you're walking on water
the next minute you find yourself subject
to just such refinements

Poem 181: Ungood bargain

Stages falling apart
and crashing into the sea
far away

not far away enough
not to be a scalpel
I shall feel

according to this graph
I feel everything
at every stage

from my own footprint
the pain spreads to my heart

Poem 180: But No

WEIRD druid math, numberless.
UNweird gun math, with unweird numbers
for simpletons
and the mad

'more red is in it'
heating up with
throbbing
literalist calculations

if only you could forget that network
and delete that accounting
then we could have some fun

god knows I'm up for almost anything

Poem 179: QUAEDAM DICTA

Some people had better be careful
talking about certain things
relating to dickheads
who shall be nameless

certain people who should know better
have been interfering in certain things
they wot not of
sans scruple

somebody is liable to get
an unspecific body part
caught in some machinery
quite beyond certain people's ken

and some people
are saying certain things
to which certain assholes
better listen

because quaedam dicta shall not be repeated

Poem 178: Process

foot being held together
by stretchy bitch-tape

world and world-spirit are crowded
into painful foot-shape

for which: rest
and ice

no going back:
the pain has now spread
beyond my foot
and beyond my body

but at the same time I know
it will never depart completely
from its origin

Poem 177: hyrca hyrce nazaza

alien talk
all
cytherizat cantico

dulcis philomena

but you would never know

Poem 176: The Path of Partiality

the chickens are chill on the grass.
the rabbits are floppy and fresh.
Neo the Catbus still
is out for human flesh

goats are silent for once.
they neither leap nor run.
in the forest: half-moon tear-drops
falling from the sun.

in the dimness of the afternoon
Argos and Augie sit with me
watching the projected shadow
of an almost disappearing pea

Molly and Rex absent only accidentally
from the path of partiality

Poem 175: yeasterdy

yesterdays
my beody was so far away
i couldn't reach the controls
to say

'barbariol barbariol
barbariane'

Poem 174: Cicero versificatus

quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?
quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet?
quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia?


How long, asshole, to you intend
to abuse our patience?

How long must your insanity offend
and embarrass us?

Where will it stop? To what putrescent end
will you not rejoice
to see the nation brought?

With the SPQR, surely,
rotting under the Roman sun.

Poem 173: Cur etiamnunc ades?

You should be far away by now
you should be in Switzerland
in Argentina
in an undisclosed basement
you should be in a volcano in Sicily
or in the catacombs
with the bones
of the long-
evicted dead

you could be in a room
with liberated torture architects
you could be on a ghost train
out of
this mundus

Why are you still here?

Poem 172: The Dead Sound

Congratulations you have found
the dead sound at the final stroke
of the hour

you have discovered
the death-rattle
in the ancient bell

you have found its bitter secret
and made it tell

Poem 171: Maxim

It's no good sitting around waiting
for rabbits to eat your problems

Poem 170: Proprietates prodigii

a reddish coil
tightly wound
and burning hot

instead of a brain

*

a morbid dullness
around the eyes

*

speech
from his belly
like a dogfight

or a cockfight

*

a tongue-like miniature
tentacle
where the penis should be

*

and the most dangerous attribute of all:
the self-possession
of a wounded chicken

*

plus great big ass

Poem 169: PUGNATOR DEI

"The demon is a liar. He will lie to confuse us; but he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us. The attack is psychological, Damien. And powerful. Do not listen. Remember that. Do not listen."

--Father Merrin

but Damien Karras
departed from the script

deviated from the ritual

went wide of the text

all else having faded with use
and with the demon's sense of entitlement
becoming ever more grotesquely
engorged

Damien, the only surviving exorcist
now,
when death was closing up her eyes
as if to say 'OK FINE'
turned pugilist



and made the absolute most
of the incipient crack
in Pazuzu's carnal facade:
that was also, it must be said,
a psychological attack

Poem 168: Upon the Question of Sides

"...violence from many sides"?

a piece of quartz
has many sides
a section of hard cheese
likewise
may have many sides

an origami  baboon
will have many sides
the Rubiks cube
has many sides
the Pentagon has many sides
six or seven at least

but Neo-Nazis
in Charlottesville
loudly swearing Nazi things
and with a car
mowing down
the people
in a crowd

that does not have many sides:
only two

Poem 167: Infant of the Planets

child-form
brain
and face

flower = flower

be kind to that child
that useless lazy
big eyed

infant of the planets

Poem 166: Path of Totality

thousands of people
it's going to be crazy down there
but you're not supposed to look at the sun
 hundreds of thousands of people
from all over the world
that's the only problem
the whole seaboard is
coming down

see that shocks me
you should go on the lake

it's going to get dark
traffic's gonna be crazy
animals are going to be going nuts

we must go to Greeneville

Poem 165: Maybe there's time

having learned no treatment exists
for our tissue-eating virus
(which soon will have reached the braine)
perhaps there is yet time
for one more weird lament

for the people we know
and for those to whom we meant no harm
for the butterflies
and the long-eared rats
that live on my farm

for the visions delusions and dreams
that made life fun
right up to the end

although they never took effect


although some of them did


just as the
VERY
LAST
one
(caution:
nuclear-hot asshole
take shelter)
shall perhaps have done

Poem 164: Forks of Ivy

it was our anniversary
at Sovereign Remedies

the beer called Ceremonial Funeral
or Funeral Ceremonial
was excellent

the menu was like a technical theory manual
the freaky little plates
were pleasing
brutal scintillating
but in general
emotionally stable

but then we tried
the Forks of Ivy

in touched us in the brains

what followed was nothing less
than a boozy bolero
of melancholia
pouring from the heights
of untapped headaches

Poem 163: Eject

hit eject

for acrobatic surprise

and to see the slopbbery labyrinth

within

Poem 162: 22 Years

22 years
married to an utter freak
Molly is still
fuzzy like a peach

Poem 161: ✠ VETUS EXORCISMUS ✠

Hear me demons of every kind
disfigured club-footed and blind
I am about to give commands
so    listen     carefully
to the sound of my words

all you spectral creatures
functionaries attached
to the twisted toxic snake
him in whose polluted wake
you all were pulled along
fully a third of heaven's lights
GORDAN   INGORDIN  INGORDAN
by the power of Solomon's seal
and the Pharaoh's damned magicians
I conjure you all
and banish you
in the name of all three wizard kings
Caspar    Melchior    Balthazar
and David who sedated Saul
and with his harping
put you all to flight
and drove your asses into everlasting night

I summon you hither
and bind you
on the authority of God:
be not so eager as heretofore
to molest us humans

present yourselves
for banishment
and so seek
with all desperate beings
your dwelling in CHAOS

I call you hither
to lock you in a state of terror
and trembling
for that day of judgement
that day of eternal discomfort
miserable day
of  always-dawning sadness
when you will be led into Hell
and we into salvation, finally

By the sublime unspoken name
the Tetragrammaton of God
may you shudder
and shiver

I exorcize you Larvae Fauns and Spirits
Nymphs Sirens and Hamadryads
Satyrs Incubi and Household Deities

✠DAMN✠

seek your dwelling in chaos
and visit your corruption on us
no more

✠ As save us God from these degenerates ✠

Poem 160: ✠ NOVUS EXORCISMUS ✠

Exorcizo te immundissime spiritus

I do exorcize thee infernal spirit

✠

Adjuro te serpens antique

I compel thee ancient worm

✠

by the judge of the living and the dead
your creator and creator of the world
who does have the power
to send you to GEHENNA
or any other type of hell
and according to the principles of decency
communicated to those who have ears
by Jesus himself
that you depart
from this body
at once
with fear
and quickly
along with your army of furies

 ✠

depart
from this body
to which you have no right
and which you corrupt with your hideous presence

✠

depart
surrendering not to me
but to the eternal principle of Nature
which does have the power
to dissolve you
in her stomach

 ✠

depart into the void forever

✠ you ignorant fuck ✠

PER OMNIA SAECULUM SAECULARUM

✠ 🕂 ☧ ☨ ☩ ☥ ☭ ♱ ☫ ♰ ☬ ⛧ ⳩ ☺ 🕂 ✠

⍶      ⍹

⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘ 

Poem 159: Globall problemz!

popullution levels very high
staggering levles
of humands
freaking the carmichaels
out of the aire!

animules look
and taste
like shit!

dammit!

pools and pullulation
darkness and devils!

poopules increase
what with fatte
to unpossible levels!

plus something is grong
with my dictionary

this is all putting a lot of stresse
on my braines
I warrant thee

Poem 158: Empedocles in Aetna

DID Empedocles
fling himself into the craters of Aetna
them fiery bowls of Hephaistos
 to prove
he was a god?

I woll nat say that hit was so
but rather I woll say
"krater -->  gradalus --> bowl"

If such was his motivation
 did he prove it after all?
Consult Diogenes Laertius, Vitae:

"One of his sandals
was blown back out
settling the matter."

But which way?

DAMN YOU
WHICH WAY

Poem 157: A Weirder Pain

when you finally learn to suffer
it will be weirder pain
than any we, at present,
can formulate or name

it will begin at an alien discomfort
surely
at which point it would I imagine be of considerable
scientific value
to hook you up to a machine
capable of recording these things

since outward signs
may tell us nothing

when it dawns upon your conscience, at last,
the smoking skillet
of your avoidance
        initiating a period of elemental collapse

        (again, terra incognita for us all)


you will then be like a monkey in space
untethered
uncomprehending
of the forces
that lay their hands upon you

        your psyche
that vast and unexplored
and until now unactivated medium
for pain
will know shattering, spectacular, unknown colors
of pain
spreading lights, and towering
nebular forms
of regret
   
then you may be momentarily stretched
like a burning silver sail
that pulsates in the dun
air sublime
and is quickly vaporized
by the sun

Poem 156: Ask the Spiritus Mundi

A theme?
You are looking for
themes?

How about the "rotten hoof
on a one-horned goat" theme?

no wonder
you searched for it in vain

what about
"overlappin hangovers"?

naturally enough you also missed
"verbal degeneracy
in hell on earth"

I got tons
what about
"the atomic-level collapse
of all categories?"

that will be 10 drachmas

thank you very much

Poem 155: I see all

mother
fudge-
sicle

! it !

all just kicked in
to slow

 motion

and I can discern

everything

which sucks for you

Poem 154: Dandelion's Skull

At Tim and Theresa's party
Lexy let me know
that Dandelion's skull
is almost ready

the excarnation, that is
is almost complete

flesh fades, and falls away
sockets gape
teeth begin
to rattle in the wind

his blue horn
alone
grows into the sun

Poem 153: finis Angilberti carmini

...

Overwhelming grief and sorrow:
naked bodies of the dead
corpses are transformed to victuals:
vultures, ravens, wolves eat well
horror piled on horror: bodies
lacking burial

Pain-filled wails of lamentation, 
I may give them voice no more
each of them who mourn must master
surging tears as best they can
for the dead we pray, lamenting,
Lord have mercy on their souls

requiescant in pace

Battle of Fontenoy 

June 25, 841 CE 

Poem 152: idem

...
Lest we dignify the slaughter,
let the poets sing it not
rather let them, in all places,
east and south and west and north
mourn those men who here have fallen,
each one drawn here to his death

May this day be cursed, and truly,
with the circle of the year
let not be numbered, rather
blot it from all memory
let the sunlight never see it,
to it let no dawn return

Nor that night, that night so bitter,
night which hardly we survived
during which such valiant warriors
perished steeped in battle's lore
father, mother, sister, brother
each of dear ones mourns them now

O...

to be continued

Poem 151: carmen Angilberti, cont'd

...
In my mind I see the valleys
see the ridges up above
where against his adversaries
Hlothar, strong and royal, fought
falling on the ones retreating,
even to the river's edge

Karolus on one side flanked him.
on the other Hludovic
both sides left the place of battle
white with linen-sheeted dead
as when seagulls in their season
turn the autumn strands to white
...

Poem 150: Reality-hole

Congratulations you
really have torn reality
a new one!
the question now
is whether
one gets sucked

into one's own new reality-hole

or withers along the event horizon
like a used-up lophiiform

much to learn
concerning new
reality-hole

I'll tell you one thing
I'm not going in there

Poem 149: rursus cum Angilberto apud Fontanetam...

...
Death was turned away from Hlothar
God's right arm protected him
victor thanks to heaven's guidance
he fought with amazing strength
if the rest had fought as he did
terms of truce had soon been sought

Even as when Judas, traitor,
secretly betrayed our lord
even so, o king, your barons
turned upon you with the sword
Be on guard! lest you be taken
as the lamb by savage wolves

Fontenoy is what the locals
call their fountain, and the town,
district where corpse-fest happened
hemorrhage of Frankish blood
meadows shudder, forests shudder
shudder too the very swamps

Grass is not refreshed with showers
nor with morning dew nor rains
there where valiant warriors perished
steeped in battle's scholarship
father, mother, sister, brother
each of dear ones mourns them now

Horrors which were here accomplished
I have told in metrical form
Angilbert by name, both witness
and combatant with the rest
I alone remained of many
out upon the foremost line
...

to be continued

Poem 148: amplius, grind them clean

corpses

Poem 147: plus Angilberti

battle roars in every quarter
grievous fights ubiquitous
brother plots to murder brother
uncle nephew seeks to slay
nor does son unto the father
render what to him is owed

corpses never in a meadow
nor at Martius lay so thick
Christian law is shattered, sunken
flushed with floods of human gore
at the hands of nether spirits
sick delight of Cerberus



to be continued

Poem 146: Versus quadratus Angilberti

At its first arrival morning
tears asunder shades of night
not a sabbath to illumine
rather saturn's evil tricks
brotherhood is ripped asunder
to the demon's great delight

to be continued

Poem 145: From the Latin

A thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand we've beheaded.
We a thousand-headed man, have a thousand-square beheaded.
May he live a thousand thousand thousand years who has killed his thousand!
Nobody has hoarded anywhere near the amount of wine
in terms of liquid measure
as this man, Aurelius, has spilled blood.