#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.