burnout is real heads melt
research agendas blow away
like sea foam everyday tasks
freeze bones guts are exposed
teeth bite down on nothing
infantile habits and fixations
animate ragged bodies and occupy
raw and stinging brains
at unspecific intervals alas
emails land in your box like grenades
friends are like what's up?
and you tell them and then they are like
oh
skimming the soft outer surface
of our soft-headed sphere
crowding channels
glutting overhead streams
pulsating devil-talk
falls to earth
it is an irritant
even as it is, yes I know,
a mere toxic return
of our own red-hot
undisclosed tumores
with no more space up there
the inner spheres are quickly flooded
with sweaty vapor
the roar that fills your ear is precisely
the space-junk verbiage
of the general harangue
choked at its cognitive limit
now
that irritant invades
all speech
hurts heads
makes assholes burn
and worms itself into dreams
and now becomes the burden
of the incorruptible song
of birds
if you will listen:
the mockingbird (mimus polyglottos)
even now recites
with clear voice and wide-awake sarcastix:
‘thanks a lot
thanks a lot
thanks a lot
you dumbfucks
thanks
a
lot'
no one knows
no warrior
no wise-man in hall
how long
it will take the mimus
to forget that song
ill deposits of tooth
and bone
turgid tongue, a ripening
assemblage of death
and a wilderness
of wasted flesh
Solitudine non é esser soli
é amore gli altri inutilmente.
Note to self: save Venice
by throwing self in canal.
No! No such canal.
Bells twitchy this morning
pigeons
a pain in the ass to all.
And the constant unterhhuptions!
Let me drink a tea
to make everything fall into place
fail into place
step off into space
I’m afraid
of my head
afraid of my stomach
afraid of my feet, always
looking up at me like little dogs.
Too many voices
too many unfamiliar dogs
too many ribbed vaults
crawling with heads!
My apartment: wreckage in every room
the atmosphere is cloudy, a mess
Venice is fucked:
fine.
Three cheers
for anyone
who ever thought otherwise
*
Detective on the scene (voice-over):
Was the suicide a suicide
or a murder-suicide wherein
from three chairs
the bodies were all enfolded
and involved
into a ball
suspended on a chain
from the ceiling
Stan's letter
weighs on my mind
the world is too full of sorrow
and fathers too full
of forgetfulness
and more than his letter could have hoped
or attempted
to express
but this correspondence falls to me
where far from his son
Stan's new dreams begin
literary criticism
is still already at work
I cannot tell him this
departure from the anarchy of my sphere
will come at a cost
but a cost
and for a benefit
that benefits no one
but it's too late now
for me to recommend
to Stan the benefits I have found
in the receding confines of my dream
(still the old dream)
where my sons
I fervently hope (for such is my plan)
can always find me dreaming
a paraphrase of Tao Te Ching 24
If you stand on tiptoe
pretty soon you’re just teetering: try it.
When you’re all in a hurry
you never get anywhere.
Trying to make yourself a star
your light flickers low.
When you try hard to make an impression on people
sane ones lose interest.
Trying to be the boss
you dwell in chaos.
If there is some reason for you to be here
be honest about it,
do that thing
and then stop.
Your kinship with the insane
when once you learn of it
will put your shit list
into brutal perspective
your stomach will never be the same
carrion-brain
weird leisure, shining forms
twisted into vague ideals,
activity impersonating life
and practicing myriad ills
among your kinfolk:
expressionless
clan of leisurely monsters
with no recollection of anything good
Good grief, Pablo
your insane gifts are freaking me out
my mind since I gave up preaching is
as you know tenderly susceptible
to all gestures
& also material objects in the form
of petits cadeaux, and especially
the Waylon Jennings album (you know it for my favorite)
the biography of the anarchist
these have shaken me at the atomic level
from which as Lucretius teaches us
everything flows
from exiguum clinamen
to magnum opus
it is good that I gave up preaching
who knew it lay so deep in my genetics?
But was it not Ebenezer Crofts who 150 years ago
came all the way from Kent
to Texas that he might give,
as he taught us, "full vent to my preachments"?
Not an ignoble reason to relocate
but still, for me, now, unworkable
in poetry
that that coin finally dropped
gaudeamus igitur
am I right?
no Pablo: no more preaching for me
it's all prophecy now
everyone will have to gather strength
where they can
wiles and defenses if you do not have them
must be learned
you may not see me
for days at a time I'll be gone
but this should not in the least
be of any concern:
though I have no strength
nor any skills to speak of
it's OK
until i can make it back
i promise
i can breathe this air
i know my way around
and as for survival, fear me not:
my self-loathing has never let me down
“To those who do not know that the world is on fire, I have nothing to say.”
--Bertolt Brecht
the sky will burn a pale sunset
for your national epic
painted in broad strokes
executed
with you in mind
beginning in bland strokes
like a chemical burn
whose origin and gradual spread
at first
you'll barely discern
you'll go on sensing nothing in fact
until it's hard to tell
if it’s dawn, or sunset, or noon
or hell
and then you’ll feel something:
look for it soon
revelation always interrupted
by dropping of darkness
or another distraction
in a maze of fading
possibilities
Instead of perfume there will be rottenness;
and instead of a girdle, a rope;
and instead of well-set hair, baldness;
and instead of a rich robe, a girding of sackcloth;
instead of beauty, shame.
Your men shall fall by the sword and your mighty men in battle.
And her gates shall lament and mourn;
ravaged, she shall sit on the ground.
Isaiah 3.24ff
But that won’t happen to me
no
that will never happen to me
the campaign has just begun
it's the first day of spring
and I'm immortal
we have been sowing
and living in
such garbage garbage
for so long
and subject for so long
to dodgy cartoons
bad sound
and jerky animation
characters clearly insane
voiced by vaguely familiar voices
to say nothing of the iffy coloration
all relieved only by commercial breaks
gouging us
on many levels
the world’s too sad to be reported
dreaming wiggling children
smile from far away
from far too far away
but not too far away
we watched tv
and went to sleep
others loaded amnesiac bullets
for sleepless bastards
who died allover the world for our precious freedoms
but you know
they were very low-utility freedoms
result in so much pain?
empires die like suns
trying to vomit I see only stars
a lot of people get saints wrong
so i'll break it down
right now
a saint might have eaten shit
in an elaborate way
at the hands of a roman
or barbarian king
a saint might have levitated or learned
the cure for madness or rabies
a saint might have endured years
at the top of a mountain
or in the dark recess of a cave
these things make them awesome
but not saints
they must all be re-evaluated
so listen:
i'll tell you what a saint is
and then you can canonize
whomever you want:
a saint is one
who tears a hole
in reality
from the outside
and then splits
bad dream
like moon in
pig water
bad water
like moon in
pig dream
bad moon
like pig in
dream water
bad pig
like dream in
moon water
from a standing position
shuck pyjamas
and without falling down
get dressed
underwear t-shirt
shirt pants socks
as fast as humanly possible
so you don't have to see your body
What are you saving that stationery for you freak
those golden days
when you will be at your escritoire?
dashing off cards?
bent over loving letters?
those days aren't coming
No, somewhere along the line those days have been changed into
stupid dreams nobody wants to hear about
it’s not your fault
the world will do that: take a turn
which like a horde of bullshit butterflies
changes everything.
Everything.
And then what had seemed perfectly reasonable
in terms of plans
is transformed into
ridiculous jokes
like sitting in a chair reading a book
or learning Italian
or as I’m saying now
sitting at your desk
and writing me a letter
in which you will say
(in ways only you still can I bet)
how much you miss me
and really appreciate the slow but steady progress
my poems are making
if we can only dodge time’s preemptive terror
and butterfly bitch-smoke
i bet we can use up our stationery
but we gotta act fast
don’t think about it:
just grab a card and write ‘c u in hell’
and put a stamp on it
just write ‘Wake up asshole’
don’t even sign it
I’ll get it
and I’ll read it
and whatever it says
I’ll know what you mean
before we continue
don't hate me
or at least don't hate me because
my prophecies are always
correct
like 100% correct
it's not my fault
you see
i was born with a crystal ball
instead of a heart
all i have to do is peer into the damn thing
for a moment
and, well, you already know
i'll admit one or two minor events
have surprised me
but regarding the big things
and the deep things
and the things
that move in darkness
all around us
right now
my crystal ball have never let me down
not once
