WHAT?

what? happened?

today?

standing atop the 

tomb of law I can 

see

the whole graveyard

THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE

"Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius."

Always at the daunting beginning of something

you can see these hot-red formations

feel their new positions

close to the heart.

The Song of the Cathar Wars:

'bels chanz, mala crozada':

too many brains and jawbones

on blood-soaked fields.

Too many noble ladies thrown into the fire

or down a well.

Too many kitchenboys and mercenaries

entitled to pillage and rape,

too many meetings

with bishops and abbots and legates

that drag on forever!

And the many siege engines groaning

mangonels, cats and bitches;

to say nothing of the Weasel.

But it was fun to watch Simon de Montfort

coming unglued 

at the siege of Toulouse:

his speeches are increasingly insane

and so thick with flourishes that it's a mercy

when he is finally brained

by a little stone

launched from within.

That was a stone

right close to the heart.

OCTOBER 2023

the problem was (is)

that it all started

too close to the end

life-destroying  diagrams 

interruptions which fail to suspend the narrative

or prevailing force-space dialectic...

our junk is everywhere now.

Now it appears

holes in the narrative are filled with worms 

(insect and worm protein is the fucking future! 

grubs!)

Biden’s unconditional support of Israel

is all swirled up in the looks I get

on the streets of Cairo.

The ¼ sleeping pill Molly gave me

has me wide awake,

and I complain about it like a prince.

(O cursed spite!)

If you’re not careful, your charmed life

will keep you up all night.

AMY'S INSECTS

Amy's insects are crawling

singing softly by night

chattering by day

what in their wisdom

are these ancient ones 

trying to say?

Much effort it takes to listen.

But the sense at last appears:

"Thomas!" they say (for now it is

perfectly clear)

"A. You don't have a soul--

but, B. That's OK:

You don't really need one!

So don't freak out."

TO MY FRIENDS

I wrote these words for you

on my Krishna-blue

IBM Selectric II

cf. Petrarch, Rima Sparse 189

MY BARGE is large but I forget

what people, items squat in cargo hull.

The brains are inaccessible, the skull

is poorly pitched against the salt and wet.

 

There are oars, and sails on sails, and yet

sans oranges, the crew is dull.

Drums, and the requisite seagull,

anchor them in music of regret.

 

The whole assembly’s now in danger:

cords creak, timbers bend, joints leak.

Weird hindrances. Signs impossible to read.

 

No captain I am to all stars a stranger.

The whole ship now begins to gibber and squeak.

Damn this ship! Fuck all ‘god’ and ‘speed’!

CONCENTRIC HORSES

Four concentric horses.

Two running, two curled up in clover,

dead or only sleeping in the clover.

They won't be separated out:

no unbroken mind

from anywhere may ride them.

They will have no secrets.

 

If we looked long enough at them

our secrets too

would soon become laughable.

 

Impossible flower of horses.

 Four Horses: Concentric Design, Persian, Early 17th Century

MAIMED: HE SEES FACES IN THE GLASS

 

I see faces of blood

faces of bone

faces of sphincter-like

aspect

horrible faces of stone

 

faces of meat

faces of crème brûlée

or of meringue

in advanced decay

 

angel-heads

with revolving faces

shifting melting

features rearranged

utterly

the eyes however

they maintain a constant stare

that has never changed

nor shall it ever change

MAIMED AN INTRODUCTION

 

Maimed? Well you are not alone

in hell let me

introduce you to your new

friends this is Shitfit and this is Dickless they

will be overseeing your problemo grande

SUPERVIELLE

Jules Supervielle does not wait 

    for inspiration

he brings his instruments

to rediscover those things and noises

abandoned in a moment of confusion.

Oceans of blood lap at his feet.

 

You cannot wait for inspiration 

especially if like Supervielle 

you have cardiac troubles

(as who, ultimately, does not)

you can’t wait for the earthquake

before grabbing your hat

or learning to box

because look: you’re already in the ring

with a monster,

a complete freak of nature.

Or is that merely a blur

in your most secret mirror? Some smudge

attesting to the departure

of her most obscure majesty?

 

I would like to learn that technique

to stay an ocean of blood

to speak with a siren, to question her

beyond her many refusals

though I know it is late

 

to be learning this art.

MONSTRA GLAEBOSA

 

for it is the time of lumpy monsters
contriving in great freedom
on the banks of a toxic flood

room for corpse-wolves

wading ashore to come

 

and under a moon engorged with blood
contriving
colossal pyramids

according to barbaric plans

 

it is the time

of burlap scrota

sweeping through charnel realms

 

ps

Grendel was a floater

My services to poetry include the following:

1. Removing maggoty rats from the space above the ceiling without pausing to think
2. extracting Neo the Catbus from windy tree-top, the trunk of which tree was luxuriously robed in poison ivy
3. dreaming and frowning under Walnut’s dizzying canopy of mutated leaves
4. unselfconsciously, however regrettably, seeking fun in each of places under the sun, and forms of love
5. familiarizing self with metrical laws and their violation
6. innate vulgarity and pleasant disposition
7. perverse delight in subterranean solitude
8. very low threshold of pain
9. vast expenditure on books and lending, giving away or losing same
10. general irreligion
11. active late-bloomerdom
12. the ability to be represented by the imago superficialis near Bozkir, Turkey, Taurus Mountains, Ikonya 132: a seated woman holding a bird which is eating grapes from the hand of another woman who holds a child
13. with Sid’s help, and by dangerous means, getting my van back on the road...to everyone's delight.

FANCY BARBARIANS

 I said OK kid 

   principal parts of

ferō: 

      go!

--Daddy?

--Yes? 

--Were the Romans just

fancy barbarians?

ENIGMA

 

ANCIENT DANCES

‘Doesn’t anybody want my dear Fortunata to dance?’ he said. ‘Honestly no one dances the cordax better.’ 

–Petronius

 

All song and dance is heard in the Dharma. 

–Hakuin Zenji

 

For Jesus leads the dance of love. 

–Wyclif

 

She coulde of that art the olde daunce. 

–Chaucer

 

These petrified relations must be forced to dance by singing to them their own melody. 

–Marx

 

Anayu, Storm Snake Old Man,

Come here now, for we are dancing!

Bring your rain, you arrive now! 

–song of Nanbe tribe

 

This time only you will see me.

When they dance at Takimildin

Fog will cover the base of the mountain

Toward the south!

I watch from there!

Thus, when the time comes,

They will dance it thus!

Whoever dances thus will think of me. 

–song of Naninnoh-hoi tribe

Raoul Housmann, the Dadasopher

Archive production: morning poem 482

 

WARNING*

CRACKERS TO THE WHITE ASS

FLAG FASCIST DRAPES

WITH THE CRACKER ASS FUCKS!

 *This text was flagged as inappropriate by fb

LENINIST PEP TALK

 

  It feels stupid 

while you are doing it

but what you are doing

is called living

and I 

want you 

to know 

    that it is 

a

 fucking

revolutionary

activity!

QUOD OPUS MIHI EST

 

what is my work

what is my job?

materials everywhere

and tons of contrivances

a net amount of flesh is totally involved

but my overall energy levels

spell the death of hustle

and when I stop:

the slight taste of iron

and what is my wages?

well, it must be something

visible only

from very far away

Cancelled poem from early 90s