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
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
what boneheads everywhere
fail to grasp
but will soon learn
may be found under Apocalypse, the
in my upcoming glossary:
apocalypse is not
the event itself
happening in the unspecific future
not that occasion
when the comet of many fucks
will turn the sky
the color of dogshit
make everything seethe and boil and bubble
with eruptions and awesome
slime from the crypts
(however much those things will
all happen to you) but no
the apocalypse is not an event at all
but the uncovering
a thing already happening
full-on
that is why I am conducting a sun
come with me
radiant one
we will occupy that age
that aeon
between breaths
and deaths
and flares
and stairs
and make our sauts de cabri
through caves
and graves
and river valleys
and well lit alleys
and crown the dying world with a verse:
whatever one, let's say, is not too burnt
at the end of our long day
though it will surely
be partially burnt
butterfly harming
pesticles already
in my blood!
fascists are visible
in that reddish cloud
in my urine
a cologne called
"Vanity of Monsters"
is all up in my olfactory
region
and i love it
i dine on plankton
and whale
petition's not gonna cut it
pace St. Augustine
at the end of the day
very few meanings
are spiritual
in the literal sense of the word
OK I'm ready now:
make it hurt
dear America my heart
is a bluddy sponge
from cleaning up yr messis!
amnesiac bullets
for sleepless-eyed bastards
roaring from your guns
a flaming head of wax
full of children
burned beyond their skin
empires die like suns
it's not a fail or malfunction
there's nothing else for them to do
the final days however
and this i hadn't foreseen
are all in slow motion
no need for you or the kids
to miss a single
burning frame
my poems you son of a whore
is a bluddie mop
from cleaning up your braines
when a voice whispers in your ear
I WILL DECOMPOSE YOUR
BULLSHIT
LIKE A FUCK
you had better listen:
it's not a ghost
it's not a god
it's KRONOS
and you've been told
madness
grows to the size of its container
this has nothing to do however
with biomass
nor
with being stoned off your ass
most measurements in fact
won't factor in
thank you!
for the leftover nachos
regarding which I was about
to take a certain precaution
but now I think I won't
the poem that prevents you
from going to bed is
by definition
a bad one
being a perfectionist
good ones
however unfinished
will come to bed with you
they don't care
Had they made as good provision for their names, as they have done for their Reliques, they had not so grossly erred in the art of perpetuation. But to subsist in bones, and be but Pyramidally extant, is a fallacy in duration.
Sir Thomas Browne, Hydrotaphia, or Urne Buriall
now more than ever seems it rich to die
and be an everlasting mummy
and in a gorgeous manner
to rule over cats in the dark
and crocodiles stuffed with papyrus
forever
bathed in the deep, blind un-gleaming gold
that sleeps with me
to ride the narrow boat of sleep
on sweet moonlit waters
to drink wine and eat strange drugs
and keep my guts in separate jars
and to forget
and let the world forget
one's worthless name
that accident of syllables
that metrical shipwreck
that jackal's cry
whatever it was
its obliteration
will be no error
fame in any case is fleeting
while obscurity lasts forever
i've already forgotten my address
my brain has been carefully
removed from my head
already i am talking
the nonsense talk of the dead
She comes out of nowhere to stop me
doing that I came for.
her whims
destroy all scholarship
and poetry
and peace
in the form of a small
woodland rodent
lies mangled on the floor
she is neither an ordinary cat
nor an ordinary demon
I don't know what she is
but there is no place to hide
from her relentless lifestyle
not even in sleep
which is always a violent scene:
i've got fictional aureate poets
knifing each other
in my dreams
then standing on my chest
screaming for food
and love
take dictation please
the savage loop in which we find ourselves
strike that
the hellish cavity in which we
no strike that
the molten clusterfuck that is our state of affairs
and from which it is necessary to all parties
that we extricate ourselves has I need not tell you
been a plague of frogs and toads
and toxic worms and big white
subterranean
strike that
subcutaneous worms
strike that vermin
and tentacular ghosts
and burning ashen skies
this letter is to alert you
therefore that should you continue not
to budge from your present position
I will be forced on behalf of everyone’s welfare
including ultimately your own
to take measures that very soon
will cause you
the utmost damned astonishment
signed, etc.,
SHUT UP
while I finish my song
incredible results from cyberspace
coyotes from the outer darkness
tonight
came to the perimeter
their piercing
infantile voices
from out beyond the fence line
Argos and Willow are so indignant
they have become partly divine
Willow is in her first youth
watching Argos though
i saw the years fall away
the old man wanted to tear down the whole forest
with his teeth
and he would have
if the coyotes hadn't
suddenly gone quiet
which was also
a goddamn unforgivable
slap in the face
the moon was not kidding around either
the glow got down into
their shaggy white fur
until crisscrossing the forest
they themselves were shining
like burning spirits
which of course they are
we walked back to the farmhouse together
I loved it
but you know
coyote-song is hard to shake
it's a cold shot
and the dogs will grumble all night
as well they should
because
fucking coyotes
