#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