#372: The Scorpion Rod

may 14 2018 jerusalem
israel massacres 58 59
spastidigitating their trigger
they murder 58 59
defending the homeland
which they grabbed
quite recently actually
subjugating already-there ones
with the SCORPION ROD
from the desert heat of Kings
greased up nice
and snarling with US steel

god knows by what  magic
they reason what they do

but we are in GEHENNA now
i promise you

Three hundred seventy-one: A stopping place

this could be the end
when we will have had
our last birthday party
our last
easter-egg clusterfuck on the lawn
(from which children sent home in tears
questioned later by law-enforcement
in search of much-retarded signs)

because I see
I perfectly well see that
you are not human
and cannot be destroyed
by any craft that we here possess

that you so durably subsist
as to be immortal
undying as the humerus
of an archaeotherium
or of one of its teeth

but perhaps you cannot see
that that rule
goes exactly double for me

not that it is any comfort

but an archaeotherium is a pre-historic sloth

#370: PAUSE

how many pearls
can you throw before a swine?
until today I had thrown
369

if i throw one more
zero will have changed
except the number

speaking pearls to power
is insane

but I do perceive
a difference however slight
between doing so
and not
which is not saying a lot
by Gargamel

#369: MEMORANDUM (edited for attention-span)

Pruitt facing mounting mental prot scrut!
of lapses iron mental Wednesday
White House presssexretary uck! said
 he’s done a particular gidley
a puty White House Fox he can’t speak
Pressure Thursday after abuse
sirens  cut through
unusually large ass demoted or forced

IF Pruitt exists, he will have such burf
in disgrace first mention contempt refusing

turn over attempts

to roll to roll back ions
he ate hange and squalid swathes of scientific research
in flavor-industry back-science
Yes his mini whinges
his pending use of holes
he rises and slinks to lobby

AND here are items, three, 

to give a sense of just what kinds
of actions 

1. Washington housing arrangement.
At the center of his balloon
a sweetheart deal to rent a room
in luxury fossil-dusty arrangement
broke his adult daughter
But those they did not
got a sweetheart pipeline-extension deal


2. A shady deal
fraudulent hook fault
to a dog shed Thursday in Salon
then Oklahoma flipped
selling it major
selling it right to the wall


3. Unapproved raises.
Pruitt use a hole
in the safe water
Act two: longtime rejects
their quest for ludes
a provision that allows them
to bypass people intrudes
exasperated channel



next time: 20 more actions!

#368: EVENING CALL

how was your fried meat
today?
did you share it with somebody?

did you pile on the cat poop?

nice.

#367: EASTER

you should be gibbon-flipped
and promoted to the rank of sausage

...but there's no time for that right now
because it is easter and spring
is running onstage with her pants down:
Corrina
is in labor

yes that same Corrina

but this time she carried these kids to term
they will come out gooey
but soon turn fluffy
and very soon set about
busting my balls

so happy easter you
flagrant wad of
carrion-jelly

#366: SHRIVELED ZYGOTE

the shriveled zygote swims
from place to place
organism
in error
the balding zygote
unfinished
with prenatal luxury
walks weirdly
from flesh to flesh
in questionable form

no one will ever tell the stunted zygote
the truth
about zygotes
that they could never be
as veiny and hairless as he

he will float on, content,
through corridors flooded with light
and redolent of janitorial smells

 lone
 infinitesimal
corruption

#365: DAYDREAM

now the senator named after
butt-sex discharge
recommends that survivors of gun-
massacres
take a class in CPR

whereas i escape that sad reality
by imagining
all the first-family incest-porn
that is bound to hit the market

and am comforted by this
at least relatively innocent
daydream

#364: JOHN B (throwback)

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

#363: ThAN WHICH NONE BIGGER

Wow you will have engineered for yourself
the biggest imaginable fail
that is to say your fuck-up
will be so large scale
everybody on earth will know, and be glad they are not you
even motherfuckers in jail
for life will be like: gee
i'm really glad i'm me

#362: A WITTICISM REMEMBERED

Ashbery’s sphinx-like witticism

defied translation into Latin

that fine day

when freedom had previously been glimpsed

in that inappropriate piece of advice

delivered sagely

but intended merely

as a compliment

rather a blank compliment

as if by means of autofill

I remember it was unseasonably cold

on the English Dept. steps

I had my jacket buttoned all the way up

and it was fall

and shit

from all around

was coming down hard

#361: TRANCE

in the middens of the night
he rise
to barefoot tiptoe
on the frosty grass

he try crazy things


and then he tiptoe back

#360: DETONATION

the Austin bomber
has blode hisself up
at last what a sick
son of a bitch
and secondarily what a waste
of demolitions

#359: THE PLASMODIUM part I

for C. L. W.


Stay with me muse whilst with these leaves
I strive to stanch the viscous flow, drainage
of uncouth compounds, plasmoid outcome,
whose current bears within it many globs,
within each glob a smudge, within each smudge
a plague of particulars.
          Stay, impatient muse.
But swear we shall not speak of origins.
But let us rather leaf through catalogues
          and lists
that bear within them means to other lists,
each thing within each list a hellish spore
redundant.
         And, muse, make legible to me,
in pulsing craniovascular veins,
not to mention shattered brains, the vast
proliferation of things,
and of every accident the discharge total.

#358: UNSEEN THINGS YET ARE

...quod nequeunt oculis rerum primordia cerni
accipe praeterea quae corpora tute necessest
confiteare esse in rebus nec posse videri

...since the beginnings of things do not appear to sight
you must also learn of bodies which you, even you,
confess are things, but which no one can see

Lucretius, De rerum natura I. 268-271

such as manuscript ⍺
      o-prime:
      the archetype

no one gets to see
the archetype

NO ONE

and yet 
its body
sublimely dispersed
brushes against your
dying  flesh
even now

#357: WARNING, after Thomas Moore

Sublime was the warning that Liberty spoke,
Wild were her words on that day.
Soft went her feet though the pillars of smoke
As sunlight began to decay.

And weird were her words when we tried to recall
What Liberty had said.
Was she was a banshee after all?
Whose speech was meant for the dead?

#356: freak-lizard

did you see that
freak-lizard
sneaking up


to eat
the city?

well
fuck
why didn't you say something

#355: Upon the Ides of March

you are a bold man and an unlyckly
to be roaming at large
in the sun
the people among
like an orc
separated from his group
at the museum

you are a brave man
to be so much in view
with such crowds of people
all around
who hate you

but then I never knew much about psychology
and cannot understand or guess
what goes on
in such a flagrant head

but I suppose I am witnessing
a fucking prodigy

#354:The Definition of Hell

It is hell to write a poem
just as it is sometimes hell
to lie
to an animal

there is no one to forgive you
for such an act

you can follow the poor beast
in tears with demonstrations
of remorse ad infinitum
but you will always be guilty

their indifference
will never release you
from that

#353: ffartt

ffartt

is how it is spelled
I assure you

#352: BELLA PLUS QUAM CIVILIA

"If Lucan had lived, he would probably have improved greatly." Macaulay


he had barely enough time
as it was he found it necessary to combine 
the epic framework

and the heart's lament
his magnum opus with 
his juvenilia
before the right hand
of once-great Rome
commenced to apply its blade
its very own

directly to its vitals

and it was carving still
when Nero made him retract
turn on his friends
rat out his mother
!
then kill himself

leaving himself foerever exposed
to the facile commentary
of bystanders

still
I call that living

#351: Canadian

I GUESS Canadian cataloguing-in-publication data
does not care when publication occurred if ever
I mean I am looking at the t.p. verso
of Irving Layton, For My Neighbors in Hell
and I get 

Layton, Irving, 1912-
For my neighbors in hell
Poems.
ISBN 0-88962-111-X bd. ISBN 0-88962-112-8 pa.
I. Title.
PS8523.A98F67    C811'.54     C80-094126-8
PR9199.3.L39F67

and a warning not to reproduce.
a shout out to Canada Arts Council.
 ⓒ Irving Layton [n.d.]
cover design: Ludwig and Susanna.
bound in Canada.
printed on Canadian paper.
but nothing
other than the ravings of the poet himself
to indicate that any of this took place
at any one time
and it's bugging me, Mr President.
It's bugging me.

I remember distinctly buying this book
in London
summer of 2015
Skoob
66 The Brunswick
off Marchmont
£4

otherwise I would not be sure this book
even existed or
that I was alive
these things are important

good one, Irving

#350: Real-Time Satire of Unknown Contingencies

Shall I mutate accordingly?
I shall not mutate accordingly.

MARCH 8, 20000000018
i have seen all the meems
and all the giffys
it's supposed to snow later
there's a big blue moon like an adderall pill
stay away from the zero key it multiplies
out of control.
Well, am I contagious?


How many beers until the president
is out of my face?
how many songs will it take to void this place
and give the vote
back to the people?
I don't know if it's a fire wall
or a wonder wall
or a borderwall
Kim Wall
narwhal
Aspenwall
but I love you all

Molly: "after you die
everyone will be reading you."
I shall be like that Viking chief
whose teeth were contagious after death
Orkneyinga Saga.
Don't believe me? THink
I'm being facetious? google it
if you are so incredulous.

#349: THE POET WILL REPEAT THE QUESTION

'Have you built your ship of death?'
have you rehearsed pronouncing 'shibboleth'
have you memorized your recipe for meth
have you composed your death-haiku
your proprietates mortis? Have you?

Have you put your shoes by the door
have you opened the windows and swept the floor
have you lain awake for your cruelties, grave or         slight?
cataloguing crimes? chanting names in the night?
have you heeded those summonses as is right?

Are you prepared for the sirens bright and hard
the headlights that will pull into your yard?

#348: SECURITY CLEARANCE

security clearance
INFERNAL
your upgrade
is almost nigh

CHARON will
have cleared a bench
for your lily-white
ass, it is no lie

and when MINOS starts
gibbering
and roaring
you can sail right by


to be continued

#347: WATER MAGIC

but it isn't universal magic

tense rigidus
tension intentio
tenterhooks suspensus
tenure possessio

the memory resting
with awesome sharks
water bearing your weight
but it isn't a universal memory
though it is ancient
and if you
already forgot it
you're going to be rather tense
rather soon

IF the magic applies to you

immo rigidus
immo mox


either way:
valē
hominid
ad aeternum

#346: [OSCAR NIGHT]

Grettir Asmundarson's
chopped-off head
didn't bring much luck
to his killer

It wasn't hard to guess
that Thorbjorn Ongul
had the benefit of someone's witchcraft
when he attacked an already-dying man

Thorbjorn had to travel
all the way to Byzantium
before he could fearlessly
tell his tale

and even then someone overheard him:
Thorstein the Galleon
split his skull
down to the jaw

#345: ANATOMIC

not as intense
the further out you get
from the carnival hub
the centre of the bone meat
this applies to road trips
politics
syllabi
budgets
sometimes love
sometimes poetry

but you can't dwell long
on the marrow of the marrow
the atoms of my beings
which is the atoms of atoms
and they had better be:

since the atom can't any longer be called
with etymological clarity
an atom:
that is I can see light
between it

#344: serpens formosa

Teeth hurt for retarded snake
Daniel has feelings
Eats rats

Mind hurt for hungry snake

He has disappeared
Gone into the heart

But he will return
Alive to me one day
All black formosa

#343: ‘EVERY TRUE MAN’S APPAREL FITS YOUR THIEF’

ABHORSON! ABHORSON!

iambic containment
contaminant   

                        with sad eyes
the poor fellow looks on
not understanding while I dig into
his super supper utterly blinded
it is not my first encounter with a phoenix

rising from the acid

riveted by uncouth paradoxes
perhaps the executioner expects us
to understand him, his underground
workplace Abhorson
the quintessence of correction
the rootspace where stands the bladed wheel

glutted with human sausage the inferior critic
thinking for all of us now who stay to watch
the delicate warping of words
Abhorson rules the vats
and rules the wheel upon its axle
my head my tongue  Abhorson
already talking the nonsense talk
of the dead

#342: Ex ungue leonem / Beauty's stresses

Ancient Rome in the Middle Ages: grandeur, antiquity,

     textuality.
After all this time textuality is not yet a word
my computer will acknowledge. Fuck it acknowledges.
What you get if you were born
during papyrus embargo: strange doubts
assail one,
a deep sense of the fleeting nature of things.

So textual criticism: what is it?

Is it all about the future
or is it looking for a place to die?

I ask this, the implications of this,
and of that I in Virgil the Middle Ages used:
Virgil: poetry , texts, history.
Because weird things crop up.
Virgil Vergil really.
Orthographical questions turd up everywhere.

Not to mention error.

Adam Scrivein:
The faulty scribe is thematic
of textual transmission
debate between body and soul
contagion and spirit


But wait O genetrix Aeneadis
wait, nocturnal hippos of the night---
we’re not even to the Visigoths yet
not even to Ausonius
not even to the hour of night
that is the
silent entangler of beauty’s tresses! 

#341: couplet

burlap scrota
sweeping through charnel realms

#340: Cur etiamnuc cano?

cur, canule, cano carmen
cum dissolvet mundus iste
quis audiet aut quis leget
cur etiamnunc cano triste?

vado tibi tacite
etiamnunc amo te
mox dormiens
nox invadens

absolve, parvule,
istud carmen, canule,
insomne
somniente

amabo te!



why little dog to i sing a song
while this so-called world dissolves?
who will listen or who will read?
why even now do i sadly sing?

i come to you quietly
i love you even now
soon sleeping
night in-creeping

forgive, little one,
this so-called song, little dog
sleeplessly
entering sleep

please!

#339: Butter Krust confessio and unction

gorgeousness has always been  my curse
made in usa
roaring products spring
directly into my hand
like a punch in the face
or the head
when i lie dying i am sure i will smell
Butter Krust Bread
such gorgeousness having always been
my downfall and my curse

but at least I can chuck that piece of card stock
that institutional stationery that
cast such a spell
nor recycle its pulp for tenuous inane futurity
but chuck it in the garbage
where patterns also reveal themselves
look into it who will

but I shall have entered Butter Krust Country
à la dernière fois

#338: tired

i am tired of your website
i am tired of the brownshirt aesthetic you have given it
i am ultimately disgusted by your
jutting chin
clearly you have been
checking out footage
of the Duce

still, I do not look forward to the newsreel
in which you effect
your final imitation
of that colossal ape
when he is dragged back into town
from his retreat
and his chin at last is upside down

#337: mutants

eveb mtants hb to sleepe

# 336: Negative Fucks

broken suns
and well smashed urns
fragments and shards

children of tomorrow:

find them in their beds
put a glock to their heads

drown the bunnies
drown the bunnies

for it is the time
of negative fucks

BONUS text

# 3 3 5: Monstra glaebosa

it is the time of lumpy monsters
contriving. in great freedom.
on the banks of a river. in the moonlight.
engorged with blood.
and contriving
colossal
pyramids.

#334: questions

if not now, when?

if not never, why?

#333: hvd: for Molly

for my part
my heart is like
a restless squid, hyperintelligent
escaping from his dark area

to answer the tentacular
chaos
coming from the depth
of your
stormy tank

#332: Sanguinis erit

no kind of sack
or whatsoever container
can contain
such blood
for long

#331: Pulvus erit

terrorist love, caritas
will not at all to quietness be wed
but chaos
the child of all the negligent
bastardy of previous days
will be the unspecific groom


whether by some act of sabotage
or silent attack
her ravishment is almost nigh

# 3 3 O: KASSANDRA

Zeus fathers Helen as a swan
no rebirth: humans leaving
non-human wombs

humans having non-human
divine or bestial wounds
Helen a microcosm of guaranteed ruin

Argive men the vital fluid
of the horse: transmitted
to the womb of Troy

when she leaves the egg:
first of two births
incubates in Troy and is reborn

as a Greek

thus
Trojan culture is aborted

#329: AFTER ALL

Perhaps it is true:

I have been so focused on Pratinas’ 

epichormon against the encroachment of the flute

in choral accompaniment

merely because I am avoiding writing

the necessary poem:

the one that 

summons 

fire

#328: Invocation to DIONYSIACA

from the Greek of Nonnus

SING goddess the bright burning mess-

enger of the CRONIDAI

the breathless labour brought on by thunder

the electrical storm in Semele’s bridal bed—

               report on the birth

of twice-born BACCHUS whom Zeus his father         plucked

half-formed from the fire —goo-covered baby—

SANS DOULA

how painfully he cut a cavity in his thigh

and carried him there, father and noble mother      both

not unmindful of a previous pregnancy—

     when his head gave birth

having an unbearable and unbegotten lump

enlarging his cranium

until it burst

and shot forth burning in her armor bright

     ATHENA!

#327: EXCARNATION

meet me atop vulture mountain

to dance about

on  the bone-bed

and contemplate

the fleshless moon

I’ll be the one

dressed as a vulture

#326: deep totals

computed sans reason
perpetual counting
even while we sleep
simultaneously
in several worlds

and while we are awake
near the ocean floor
it is hemorrhaging mathematics

#325: process

standing on the shoulders
of mutants

following in the footsteps of the dead

under ice-cold thicknesses of stars

i scraped my head

and awakened

like a blind sardine
in the night

with the night itself
flopping on the shore




to be continued

# 324: panic

but you have no right to insist
that poetry make sense
that you be able
to grasp it
to eat it
or suck it out of a box
or bite it off a bone

that panic of yours
is strictly your own

# 323: time

bong bong bong
Bong bong bong
Boong boing bung
Bing
Bang
Bong

 animals are incredible
at all times
wherever
they lurk

#322: ARCHAIC CONVERSATION

eavesdropping on ancient conversations

is not that enlightening

but

neither are a lot of things

              e)nqusia/zeiv: the god is in you.

They, in typical Athenian fashion, started talking
their heads off
in various tenses
and aspects.
Tense is like trajectory;
aspect is like pedal-work. As in:

        "Be careful who is helping
        you throw up."

Or else:

Having persuaded up his friends (a)napei/sav)

from elsewhere (a)/lloqen)

(he had always been trying to convince them (e)pei/qen)),

he outlined his plan:

“You wait around

until I have

returned.”

      He’s an aristocrat
      and he means to seize power.

When the time was lunch
they grew up until
something should eat them.

       The pig is already dead,
       but even if it were a goat
       it would never have counted
       in the sacrifice.
       Get another
       but hurry the place is filling up fast.

Solitary divergence on a point
of physical law
is nothing on which to found
a theory of liberty—
but maybe it is.

        the moon offers a blessing:
       wisdom for the moment of death.
       Still, I dare not accept it.

the old men were like
pickpockets
trapped in a crowded room

    STRANGER, go and be announcing to the Lacedaimonians
    we are a dithery race
    quite passive barbarians.


OKAY
OKAY

OKAY 

OKAY
Don’t say anything else.

I am going.

#321: adversary

sleepy-eyed orange butt-troll
effecting fart-storms in the lower air
toxic entertainer
of degenerates

fast-food fascist
 bag
of adipocere

 sick bird fat
from years
of eating garbage

* i am talking to you *

...i get it i really do
i understand why they love your guts!

they remember as i do too
a broken-down fun-house
at some amusement park or fair
to which a deep and inexplicable
infinitely painful nostalgia
attaches

identify strongly with all that abuse

even in mad old age
and in your rage
you will never try to rob them of that thing
in their fists

#320: De dialectica

my dialect is standard
goofy American English

my baseline is deracinated Texan

from which by pure exertions
i may rise to either
universal-historian-struck-blind-by-forest animals
or work myself up to
winter-rooftop-with-ecstasy-coming-out-of-my-ears

or sink
to the abysmal depths of
invisible-blasted-spirit-dwelling-in-waiting-room

but these are all only minor variants
of standard goofy American English

#319: deranged body

ill deposits of tooth

and bone

turgid tongue

ripening

assemblage of death

in fact, a wilderness

of wasted flesh

to gorge the great sarcophagus

#318: let me guess

the states of the unions is
can I borrow your stapler?
gfhnỾꜴꝟꝰklm'l e
rrl',d,,

346Ɯƻ
92m4=3
ꝇꜼꝚꝒꝶꝷꝄꜹↈsꝦꝨꝜꝢꝘ
ꝶꝶꝶ

ꝤꝥꝦꝧ

Ꝏ




heresyourstaplerback

#317: le minuscule testament

the bastards whose total destruction
has by no means been called off
yet lose no opportunity
to deaden the dead
to enroll their bitter testaments
in sheets of lead

even you Master Villon
would be downgraded, as if
they had a clue,
from murderer to petty thief:
you who well could discern
when wolves had only wind to eat

my testament and my prediction:
the bastards' hiding place shall be
their final address,
where no amount of quietness
can hide their wind-borne corruption
or cancel their total destruction

#316: everything fades

but dynamite of a certain age
such as we have sown
is unpredictable

its voice pierces rock
and bone

#315: aestuans rubeta

seething red
to burn, eating through
the cobalt hue

#314: aliquid rubrum

something red
to relieve incessant blue

#313: Opulentia sordida

both the food and the housekeeping
     in the printer's house
were beyond description miserable
yet there is good reason to suspect
that i am exaggerating
inasmuch as the scurrilous polemic of Alberto Pio
of Capri
could not possibly
go unanswered

because with my last dying breath
by christ
i will defend from all attacks both the housekeeping
and the food
of  ALDUS

312: boustrophedon continua

y o u r b o u s t r o p h e d o n

Ꮧ U ꟻ W A ɘ t i u p ƨ i ɐ u n i t n o ɔ

n o n e e d t o c o n t i n u e t h i s

Y ⅁ O Ꮧ O H T A ꟼ W O Ɔ ᗡ A M
!

B A D S P E E D T H E P L O W 

И O ᗡ Ǝ H ꟼ O Я T Ƨ U O ᙠ Я U O Y И M A ᗡ

I T I S N O T Y O U R T U R N A N Y M O R E

p l z  s t o p

#311: i think i've got it

puerile jokes
at the expense of doubters
and  boners
at the expense of donors

#310: NATIONAL REALITIES

interesting deposits of poetry
embedded in the irony
yes but not a shitload

hands bleed
from massive clean-up jobs
completed by ones not subject to extermination

their clothes are funny
but they have no bells, and weave no spells
they die from myriad minor ills

it’s OK to laugh
however no magic shields us either
from that hilarity

#309: ☠ dangerous loads ☠

boyohazard
keep 1O0O0ft. away!
corrosive metal lode
chemicals under pressure
highly flammable asshole!
keep away

do not inhale! lung damage!
mess you up

stand clear of opening:
powerful suction
lads
a most powerful suction


☠

#308: a detour regarding the Greeks

Roman culture did bear striking

resemblances to the conquered

and here we are

at the Ara Pacis, power, and visibility thereof,

economically irrational, a series

of unplanned consequences

like the mare nostrum’s shoreline

constantly unfolding

unfolds all the way to Africa if you want.

Seriousness there, of a kind we no longer have,

unfolds as well, 

like eating the tetrax

cosmos collapsing into contingent

a model of the Ara Pacis not twenty paces from the Ara Pacis.

my friend plucks a wad of paper

from the ear

of Marcus Agrippa,

hands it to security guard

which I remember thinking

was very nicely done

#308: Exemplum: Arthur and Gorgalon

if you suddenly hug and kiss your wife
for no reason
o high-spirited prince
be warned:
you might have to  ride out
to seek
the Werewolf King

and then the lord knows what you'll find out




to be continued

#307: fire puzzle

we can't finish the
fire puzzle!

because it is too hot
and because the cat
keeps jumping in
the middle of it

and running away
laughing and laughing

purzle pices burning holes
in the carpet

# 306: Disaster

do you know
what a disaster is?

it’s not a catastrophe
it’s not a mishap
or a calamity
nor yet is it a clusterfuck

it’s not a meltdown
it’s not annihilation
it’s not property damage
nor is it the reduction of cities
to rubble

nor is it death
in some unheard of magnitude

a disaster is when
the stars
come unglued

#305: Heretic

HERETICK!
do you know what i do to heretics?
their life being forfeit
they dwell in absolute freedom
within the realm of my sadism
and in no necessary hurry
so i take things slow
we go out for gelato

but soon we are back in my chambers
where we watch tv

and almost without their knowing it
i manage to gorge them on
cookies of joy until their stomachs
are painfully distended

then warm them under an electric blanket for about
36 hours
after which  they are bled
into one of Dale's ceramic bowls

(put bowl of blood aside for later use)

then I further immobilize them with great doses
of tawny port
laced with heroin

then I have sex with them
and then I forgive them
and then...
into the fire
for literal purification

but in your case I will make an exception:

we'll skip the sex
and also the forgiveness

for i know you are studious of results

# 304: my trobairitz

i miss my trobairitz

the lord knows in what castle

she is staying 

or what she's singing or to whom

but i suspect she's somewhere

singing and playing

to an audience struck dumb with adoration

nevertheless i'm glad she's away:

this being the case at least i know

i won't stumble into the presence of one

whose face if glimpsed without warning

plunges me 

into such uncertainty

and strikes me dumb with adoration

her graceful smile is sharp as a blade

on whom she bestows it is granted

the boon of a quick death

even though that mercy

as i can attest

seems to drag on forever

or could attest were i not struck 

dumb with adoration

#303: werewolfery

 the first time i ever saw

'Les Lupins' by Maurice Sand 

the etching from 1853:

in the San Antonio Public Library

George Washington Carver Branch

I lay on the carpet

scanning the illustrations 

in Georgess McHargue

Meet the Werewolf, Lippincott 

Philadephia and New York

1976

page 8, age 11

eight or nine lanky creatures

on their hind legs, leaning on a desolate wall

in small groups (though one stood by himself)

in the moonlight

beneath it the caption

'a nighttime gathering of French werewolves'

i myself was eight or nine:

i have never been the same

or rather I should say: i remain now

in the moment of that sight

# 302: Chant of the Dead

shit hole countries
shit hole countries
shit hole countries of the dead

down at the cunt-root
that pierces my head
wide awake in my shitty bed

swarming from our shitty holes
and up from the shit hole country of the dead
there is one promise that is said

an underground burrito made of lead
down by the cunt-root that pierces my head
shall be your bed

# 301: inhuman environments

i can no
longer deal with
retail space

or any
sales environments

    those blinding
    inside-out
    planets of pain

# 300: The Werewolf's Lament

New York is changing. I've been around a long time and I'm not saying everything was better when Manhattan was a bunch of farmsteads with drunken Hessians beating at your door, but things always do seem to change for the worse. Have you ever eaten a crack fiend? Of course you haven't. They taste like a burning tire.


to be continued

#299: End of Days and 'Anger is Brief Madness'

Anger is brief madness: Seneca. 

Vidius Pollio do you feel better
having thrown that slave into the new piscinia 
with your lampreys in full bloom
attaching themselves to his vitals?
I hope so because
having witnessed that display
Augustus is going to plow your villa
completely under

His monuments decay, and death comes even to his marbles and his names: Ausonius.

That is one is torn between savage anger and trying 

a little to enjoy the end of things like Ausonius.

    Errantes silva in magna et sub luce maligna
    inter harundineasque comas gravidumque papaver
    et tacitos sine labe lacus, sine murmure rivos,
    quorum per ripas nebuloso lumine marcent
    fleti, olim regum et puerorum nomina, flores.

and if we call on Helen:

    They wander in deep woods, in mournful light,
    Amid long reeds and drowsy headed poppies
    And lakes where no wave laps, and voiceless streams,
    Upon whose banks in the dim light grow old
    Flowers that were once lamented names of kings.


Poetry or terrorism 

manners and men?

choose one

mutate accordingly

#298: Death Sketch

o tiny-faced frozen velvet pill
with all four hands upraised
in that soft medieval gesture
of sorrow:
palms facing out together

o pink-footed tunneler
how regal this winter's brutal cold
has kept your blue black coat

above ground on my farm my guest you will stay
rest on grass
until spring for I know not
what to do with a body
so regal
and so little subject to decay

#297: Dropped

why Christopher decided to drop me as a friend
i cannot say
did I alienate him by sending him postcards
and poems
did i forward too many
--or too few--
doctored papal videos?

who knows
?

Nevertheless, i rejoice when I learn
that he is alive
and shedding his corruption
thoughout the Chicago area

and being a full-on
trancendental
American

unlike some assholes
I could mention

# 296: time to go

there is a zombie display
in my brain
which is set to replay
automatically

i like it
i like it a lot

but it's killing me

#295: CREATION

molecules mutating
cells splitting
microbes popping

ice cracking

dogs barking


fire

sex


song


random objects are weaponized



song

sex

fire


play

# 294: spoon

my sternum hurts
wow my sternum
hurts
Doctor, my sternum
really hurts ow

'Aww, it's just your staples.'

O i forgot about them
staples.

#293: DIALOGUS

DISCIPULUM: What is a saint?
MAGISTER: A saint is someone who tears a hole in reality from the outside.