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?