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

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