TOXIC ATMOSPHERIX, or THANKS A LOT

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

PERPETUAL NERONIA

 

ill deposits of tooth

and bone

 

turgid tongue, a ripening

assemblage of death

 

and a wilderness

of wasted flesh

 

to gorge the great sarcophagus

FOR MARIO STEFANI

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

like a censer? And,

truly, what will become of Venice?

Of all of us?

STAN'S LETTER

 

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

And a sane man will have none of them

 

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.

NEW KIN

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

SERMO THOMAS AD PABLONEM

 

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

WHAT IS A POET LIKE

a poet is like

a geiger counter

one isn't sure

is working properly 

THE COMING WEIRDNESS

 

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

TOMORROW

 

“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

because it will be scorching even 

the eastern horizon

TODAY

revelation always interrupted 

by dropping of darkness

or another distraction

in a maze of fading

possibilities

 

ORACULUM NEGATUM

 

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

 

HISTORY LESSON

 

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

 how can ordinary human behavior

result in so much pain?

too bad for you

empires die like suns

trying to vomit I see only stars

SAINTS

 

a lot of people get saints wrong

so i'll break it down

and then there can be no mistake

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

but these things make them awesome 

not saints

they must all be re-evaluated

i'll tell you what a saint is

and then you can canonize

whoever you want:

a saint is anyone 

who tears a hole in reality

from the outside

CONCENTRATION

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

ANTHROPOS APTEROS

 

last night somebody 

got high

and ate my wings

READY?

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

C U IN HELL

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

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

FIRST DAY OF SPRING

to the doves remaking their nest

outside the kitchen

and who flip out

every time I open the window

i say chill freakazoids

to the young environmentalist

who referred to me as

        a boomer

i say 

        excuse me

                    missy

i am generation X

and will thank you just

to remember that

to my dogs who will not stop barking

at coyotes and delivery trucks

with equal fury i say

keep it up

to Solaima I say

stand by:

the poem is on its way

to everybody else 

thrashing around in the whole end-of-days

scenario

 i say:

don't have a hyper-spaz

it hasn't even started yet