SOPHOKLES, AJAX, ll. 646-647

At every pass

time, vast and measureless,

brings strange and unexpected things about

while everything that's obvious

is plunged into doubt

SPACE VOMIT

 

where does this strange new vomit

come from?

deeper than stomach

deeper than bowels

it rises up

from more abysmal depths

than body

can possess

 

it comes from hell

no!

it comes from space

 

as if on purpose

to eat your face

WHAT DAY IS IT

poetry books filled with slime

pages of this year’s books

full of damp

covers of paperbacks curl upwards

what was the problem?

not enough rigor

no motivation

or a crowd of lesser, but easily got, satisfactions

blunting the will

and spelling the death of hustle

not enough witches

not enough wolves in the throne room

not enough darkness on the throne

perhaps there was never enough geometry

to begin with

I sure as hell neglected

mine

LASS UNS LEBEN

scream the German elephants

which if I had the imagination

I would totally do

why does my cellaphone smell

like meat

why  does my plasama screen

smell like alcohol and mold?

why do all creatures run away from me

how far in that direction am I

allowed

to travel?

SICKO

 The doctor said, 

‘the pure products of America

go crazy’

you would know that better than most

if you weren’t so damn crazy

but I’ll say this for you

you are robust in your naked criminality

your  lust and puerile prodigality

your disease

whatever it is

is having a good ride

 

but there is no Asclepius with a cure

for your sovereign sickness

the doctor's got  no ℞ on his pad

for the thing that ails

your slowly boiling self

you’ll just have to lobster it out

NOSEBLEED PROPHECY

with a deep-crimson nosebleed

i started the day

i raised my flag

days of rice and beans

days of rice and beans and blood

afternoons of loneliness and tears

recordings assist

in bringing to life

the wailing of the children

beyond

and well within

and all along

the borderline

anti-psychotics

for children in tears

banners for nosebleeds

hollowed-out retail space 

for concentrating

small inconsolable captives

here is my prophecy:

  when this all flips

   you will die

most horribly

cf. Sophokles, Oedipus Tyrannus, ll. 1-13

 

O CHILDREN

of old from the Kadmean line

what brings you even here

strewing the porches of the shrine

with laurel branches

wound with wool

and assuming the contorted postures

of supplication

?

The city's air is choked with incense

and heavy with groans

and the murmur of prayer: therefore

I must know

from you

what is up!

*

...such was, and is, a good thing

for a king to ask

his suffering people

even if the answer

will ruin his house

and cause him to tear out his eyes

and send him forever

alone

to his shrivelly place

SOMEBODY REMIND HIM

 

If you don't remind me I'll forget

to send you that bibliographical source

to read your poem so full of beauty and force

as I already know that it is

alas the brain

is lousy with concepts and appointments

whose purpose the soul cannot fathom

so please remind me

that everything except

• poetry

• bibliography

• and sex

is completely useless

please please you freak

whoever you are please

remind me in case i forget

VENI, PRODIGIOSE

Hear me, abnormal one
come out of hiding:
they should be hiding
from you
the world should be watching its back

creep out a little and
stretch
industrial parts and pieces

and slabs of debris  
(I'll put my back into it)

can be cleared away
to give you space

what it feels like now to be a person
I know: a mere symptom

a presentation
a point of blood
in a great splotchy patch

of pulsing psoriatic red

a flesh cloud
a puzzle whose guts are exposed

not that you need interpretations from me:

you're the one living on the edge

be a demon: rock, barf, kill

or sit still
and be a total expert:

open your school

or whatever the hell:

you can do it completely

without a plan

hail to thee abnormal one

you're free!

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.