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 the writing of which
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
I am not one of those poets
who write about mulch
neither its acquisition
nor its application
and certainly not
its many toxic effects
so
there will be no poem today
The goddess of chance is generous
but can be appealed to
only for present needs
that is, do not
seek to extend her kindness
at all into the future:
death's frenzy is as far ahead as she can think
my advice?
ask her only for useless things
things that vanish
as soon as the stars come out
or when you sneeze:
if she grants it, great
if not, even better
then you'll have a friend for life
I used to love
everybody I loved
like a big stupid
dog
it made every day exciting
but it hurt a lot
anyway I am trying
to get back
to that
summer: brutalized by the Roman sun
reduced to weird circles
out and back again
with badly-planned groceries
my books are sleepy
my head is hot and dry
like Keats and Shelley before I die
(though I do hate
to repeat myself) it would be nice
to sing unselfconsciously
like some kind of bird:
that is the exact idea
if not the most precision wording
but I’m talking about freedom goddammit
freedom to be obscure
and from within that obscurity
to rob empires
emphatically not talking about those freedoms
always referenced by Americans
as having been died for
by soldiers
listen:
as we are learning now
those were always very low-utility freedoms
but you, Laura, with your medical knowledge
with your fresh laurel
di Padova se non erro
and delicate hands
if you could just kill me, perform the operation,
then bring me back
such that
some kind of bird
like that one I often heard
in the Protestant Cemetery
(I’m willing to fly to Rome
for this;
we'll do it in the graveyard)
might rise from the chaos
just to hang out
and be itself
...I bet you anything
it would work
could you read up on that?
I think we should try it
for Molly
Ovid says
is not quite right in the head
also lovers find clothes too restricting
and are happier in underwear and hosiery
Cercamon says he is
both luxurious and sick
and ‘my sickness hath a wonderful appearance’
according to Wyatt he's all about
long small arms
and pallid thighs
naked feet and imperious looks
all in the aftermath
of a pleasant guise
for Housman he's a melancholy corpse
whistling so softly
you can barely hear
you'll taste before you see the blood
that drips from his throat
which like enough is slit from ear to ear
That is a pretty scary picture isn’t it
maybe it will give you a nightmare
and if it does I hope
with all my heart
I'll see you there
'Spellbound' runs
through unresisting brain
around and around
like getting stoned
with Molly and Lisa
or drinking that tea
de Quincey switched to
but I forget
my watch is ticking all by itself somewhere
in the dark
raging
deprived
berserk
I hear and I am sorry for it
horns drive
through unresisting body
train horns
hornsmoke
cry of Dandelion the one-horned goat
knowing it will soon
be pushed though a very small opening:
death
I hear and I am sorry
being far from innocent
in the matter of Dandelion
a shudder runs though unresisting bed
it's a cave-in all right:
a collapse somewhere in the deep
spreading quakes
around inside the planet's terrible head
which will not stop
absorbing its food
from everything
everything
an electrical ghost it
runs right through
neurons
passages
of infinitely binding
Suddenly I do not know
what cruelties 'our leaders'
are not
poised to commit
wolves and jackals do not
in the least
overthink
their remit
the demos is fucking
infested
with lazy bloated infants
who think the sun rises and sets
on their doughy asses
all righteously powdered
and fed to perfection
while all around them
nature
is
screaming
"i feel like a hot dog!"
when you call them on it
they look at you like:
"I am sternly following the market
how dare you"
