Poem XVIII: Dies Corpulenta Martis

NOTE TO EACH OF BELOVED ONES:

I AM NOT HERE
I HAVE GONE TO PHYLLIS AND DAVID'S RIGHTEOUS SCHOOL-NIGHT MARDI GRAS

IF YOU WILL NOTICE THAT ONE OF THE HENS
IS GONE
WIG NOT I AM RIDING
THAT CHICKEN
STRAIGHT INTO VALHALLA


your loving,
Tammuz

Poem XVII: Be careful who is helping you throw up

Be careful who is helping you throw up

this is important

because if it's not Dionysus

whispering sweet nothings in your ear

whilst through purple lips

you hurl like a cat

it might just be Apollo

if it is the former

then the solace you will have received

whilst beneath the trees

you purpled the ground
with your guts

is free

it’s forgotten

but if it is the latter

you’re going to have to pay it all back 

Poem XVI: Ars mentis

i'm not crazy:

we can increase our awareness of reality
by likening things which are not
associated by habit
or by Nature,
but which we by doing so
augment, as by development.

It is a practice I practice.

It is a dream I have.

Poem XV Neo Catbus: Feles Improbus et Aegrotus

I'd like to tell you a little bit
about my gato peligroso:
first off
he is loco en la cabeza
he is a nuisance and a hazard
with his busy paws
and inquisitive claws
he is a lunatic and means to seize power

he hath a perennial head-cold
his habitual sneeze
covering everything in sight
with his perpetual discharge
above all he cherishes the taste
of human flesh

yesterday he drew blood
from Augie's leg
in a dramatic ambush

the children fear him
the goats won't go near him
Argos is over him
Molly adores him beyond measure

I don't know what his problemo grande is
but you have to admit
for being such a total pendejo
he's got panache.

Poem XIV: MR. SQUEAKY

Mr Squeaky
has escaped!

It's been three days.

The farm has not been the same without him.

I mean
he was kind of a pervert

but his song was like
a serrated knife
every morning
tearing the sun
a new one.

Poem XIII: FOUR-LINE ORPHIC MYSTERY

Fates clothed in white

through many a workless night

bring forth the little flower

in Aphrodite’s hour

Poem XII: Warning from the Grail Hermit

Warning: few meanings are spiritual
in the literal sense of the word.

You can see through transparent symbolism

the details twist together

to form a bloody spiral.

Orthodox? Nay:

arising from the damaged memory

of an aureate demigod

are the things it rescued from oblivion:

things cut from the papers

and blogs usurping love and reason

a square of cloth, a sweet emulsion

retaining forged a physiognomy,

or else a misplaced spear, a bowl of blood.

(The hermit crashes into the wood

running through the night in crazy clothes

stomach crammed

with  voles and mice and nightingales

and unspecific bits of cloth

never to be seen or heard from again.)

Poem XI: 1826

I have an 1826 Greek edition

Lipsiae sumptibus et typis caroli tauchnitii

of Thucydides Peloponnesian War

once owned by a guy named, if I read it right,

Thauxag Anomouia of Casa Crambousa (?)

His handwriting is crap

if he ever lost this book I bet he never got it back.

It then became a library book, for it is stamped

library

state teachers college

johnson city tennessee

it was last checked out April 10, 1966

by, it looks like, Hamdamader McBnearney (?)

It contains, let me see, the last three books 

of the War, and begins with...uh...

Tou= d’ e)pigignome/non qe/rouv, ai0 me\n e0niau/sioi spondai\ diele/lunto me/xri Puqi/wn…

Book V! My second favorite

fucking book of Thucydides!

—It is the tenth year of the War

and Cleon, after his improbable successes at Pylos (425)

and having persuaded the assembly to let him attack Thrace

is killed while running away.

‘Cleon himself’ (the historian writes) ‘had no intention of standing his ground;

he immediately took flight and was soon overtaken

by a Myrcinian peltast

and killed.’

(the fuck is a peltast?)

He who scarcely deserved death in battle.

Despite his improbable successes, etc.

A peltast –I promise this poem will be over soon—

was a light-infantry spearman

with a crescent-shaped goat-hide shield.

They chucked their javelins at close range

and retreated

they could leap away from hoplites

(wtf? à Greek heavy-armed foot-soldiers)

like so many gazelles.

Book Five of The Peloponnesian War ends with the Battle of Mantinea (418-17)

and the Melian Dialogue.

The Peloponnesian War ends with Athens

a plague-ridden 

smoking 

ruin. 

Poem X: Pea-Heads Revisited

Mr. President yesterday’s poem
which was about my childhood
went to Melania just so
you know
I’m not falling behind
in the daily-poem campaign
which is also a damn lifestyle,
as you are well aware, and a song.

BUT THIS YOU MUST ALSO KNOW:
Vladimir Putin’s pea-head
is different from Julius Caesar’s pea-head.

if you will think on this
for a moment
you'll see I am not wrong.

Poem IX: My Childhood?

To the mata mata which had chilled for years
at the bottom of his tank at Little Hipp's
that burger joint on N. St. Mary's, San Antone,
Ellen and I would sing our song:

Please don't take my creature from Brazil.
Please don't take my creature from Brazil.
Please don't take my creature.

                                                  From.

                                                               Brazil.

and when it died
we sang it to its empty shell

Please don't take my creature from Brazil.
Please don't take my creature from Brazil.
Please don't take my creature.
                                                  From.
                                                             Brazil.


You were asking what my childhood was like
and now you know.





Note: this one was directed to the First Lady.

Poem VIII: test

The General's bitch-test

will yield a thousand improvements

Poem VII: 79 AD

Pompeii BVRNED,

that we know:

buried in lava

and ash, and flying pumice.

Everyone’s lungs

were vaporized

with sulphurous gas.

Herculanaeum also got hit.

And what survived?

Three things:

1. murals
2. graffiti
3. and corpse-shapes

in other words

1. painting
2. poetry
3. and sculpture

Poem VI: DADDY’S GOAT MAGIC

All I have do is speak a word

and the goats come running;

I say it again, at a whisper,

and they follow.

The woods grow silent in our wake.

The children aren’t into it.

In fact it seems to them ill-omened

for dad to be communing thus with goats,

with them talking

and into the forest walking.

But dad employs

defensive magic only

to preserve the farm

and keep his boys from harm

nevertheless, it’s no joke:

because these goats

are psychic imperialists.

Poem V: INEXPLICABLE NOTE FOUND IN POCKET

page 385
fat plump = endomorph
skinny = ectomorph
strong = mesomorph

p. 492 Actualization

Schitzo p. 470

"chill the gnomes from head to toe"

screen irrelevant stimuli

POEM IV: Valentine monster

valentine monster

is so happy

to be in Paris

somewhere deep in the El Dorado

like me
in that same memory

But if you see that guy, ACHTUNG:

when he was young, wherther he was a tourist
or a terrorist, who knows. 
but he was definitely
on the watchlist
he was definitely caught trading in units
not intended for individual sale

just like me

quand j’ai visiter Mollee

en sa chambre de bunny

et 
toujours

en 

Tennessee

poem III: SMELLS LIKE VICTORY

The dog moved in
quiet, close and closer
so slowly as to be
barely moving
repeating to himself
his mantra:
‘...stealth, Argos, stealth...’

and the skunk’s ass
just exploded


nice one

poem II:GRAFFITI IN THE HOUSE OF THE GODDESS

SKINLESS

BONELESS
BREAST: SHE IS
DEATH’S BRONZE MEDALIST

EVERYTHING SHE HAS DONE HAS BEEN
COSMIC
CHRYSELEPHANTINE
 & OF DUBIOUS FUTURITY

NO MATH FOR THESE RECKONINGS
NO MEASUREMENTS
FOR SUCH A HOUSE

FARE THEE WELL LADY KATHARYNE

Poem to White House I: Corinna

One of our goats,

Corinna,
miscarried last Thursday.

Three not remotely viable  goat-fetuses

were discovered
asleep in the hay.

Horrible,

yet at the same time
sort of beautiful in its horrible way.
Nature's mind
is a corpse-chucking fuck-show,
as we farmers like to say.

We also have chickens
rabbits
and bees

except the bees are gone

We were like 'Stay!'
but they  were all 'No.'
It was time for them to go.

Bye, honey.