weisbuden breduntasch

spelling bee

whipping cream

sour path sylvia

babysitter's dead

gautama of old
india gambling
grease at cockfights
in venezuala
venice beach dreadlock

dr. dre's chronic pasta pizza buffet weed

you dug into something with a lawnmower
that pitched into your head
like a jagged tooth
into hot spaghetti

a landmower that
mows the fucked up
lands of grass
to cut it's beard

and fucked up
and picked a tooth
from the grass
with a hot metal
machine

smoking cigarettes
cut from lusty tobacco farms
where that shit is sweltering in a
Virginia variety show
just a puffed up
donut cloud
dreaming pancakes
dead berry trees
planting people
in rows
growing their
hair long
and cooking it like
hot spaghetti

eternal like those things

when i met you
it was familiar
it was a thing
like tires spraying through the mush of wet snow
or the way beads of glass dip and hang from
the tightrope stretching
through town

it was eternal like those things
and there were powerful vibrations between us that
resonated in perfect harmony

i rolled like a barrel
down a federally protected dune
chasing red water
in a seaweed costume
and dartboard snowballs
with motorist degrees
made a fire ceremony
in the mead trough

we almost drowned
foaming through cold salt

roadside attraction

i find all kinds of wild crap by the side of the road

shells and coral
sweden vs. nigeria VHS tape
grilled corn with beans and cheese layered into the open husks
and salsa with nectarines
Funk and Wagnall's with pictures of penguins
box of crayons
ice cream cake
audio cassette recorder
silver snow and
dream dust from Sudan

and then there is the matter of a mama cardinal
nesting in a lilac bush

i see an orange beak poking out from
a tangled wreath of

hair
bark
grass
shoestring
spaghetti
dream dust from England
Scottish whiskers

lost poem

i see one arm rolling up the carpet and the other is brushing a taxi man's teeth.
the signals are crossed and the head falters.
"bring it in for a bath", someone suggests. let it settle down,
it's spinning like a top and i mean, it's trimming hedges, it could take a finger from you.
this dangerous thing has me all tied up, and then i notice a redheaded vulture
with no moral compass gambling with your last wheezing cloud of talcum powder,
hastily, and without remorse as if he meant to lose.
but how did he happen upon it in the first place?
you were saving that one. or I was anyway.

air freshener

sunburnt banana peels
and cigarettes make
my car smell
like banana bread
and cigarettes

the curl

i was reading a story
when my book melted like
wax over my hands.
suddenly, a deep heat seized me.
i stepped out of bed and
my feet sank into the carpet,
now a swamp of hot fudge.
the bureau yawned, it's drooping drawer,
sagging wads of socks
like marshmallow teeth.
the radio, looking like a licorice brick,
went wonky, bending songs into soup.
sour sweat soaked my shirt.
overhead, the ceiling got drips
that dipped into the room like gobs of honey.
i watched the cat cook down
into an orange and white paste,
until he was just a creamy
smudge in the muck.
my own body curled and squirmed like putty
and then i turned to face the bed
just in time to see
the whole thing blink
like a sleepy whale's
giant eye.

DREAM OF DRIPPING PAINT

I coughed up some jelly
spit in the trash
and everything
washes out
like an overflowed dishwasher

we bubble and slide
through checkpoints
turnstiles
border crossings

my crossing guard
hobbles beside me
wearing a dreamy yellow smile
in my dream
of dripping paint

GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

a vandalized bank weeps
for a rash of crime

the madman is a thirty year old
gumball machine

a storm rolls in and
the gumball machine
is shattered by a violent wind
which collects the candy
in a cyclone
and makes a rainbow

an artist goes to work
with the glass
to record the rainbow
which hurts an old man
to see

the old man has a clipboard
and a petition against pain

a seagull signs white shit

the artist cuts himself
on the rainbow
and bleeds out
into the creek

the old man
is saved
from his body

a giant fisherman in a yellow slicker
drags his net through town and comes up
with some good meat
for a story

undercoating

jesus y maria
and the marionettes
put on a sludge coat
to marie antoinette's
little vest
to make it match
they showed
it burn in public

do not disturb

this mealy pie
will only
chide and rile
these chessmen
let it rot
in that pretty white
bag instead
and the chessmen
will have it out
on the bricklayer's
walk

let your eyes out
of the meat cage
have them a stroll
and sponge
up the
blood

we'll go for
more pumpkins
and emergency candles

geez, this waitress
is somethin' else
my coffee is piping hot
again and again and again and
a sock full of worms
to whoever all else
is eating in this dutch mill

dad...what!?
well, i don't know but
why is that other boy crying?

sugar paw

first to admit
that i lost sight of
the apple just before
the bloody jungle gym

and the chocolate snack pack...
i also flushed down the toilet
sputtering
the cats saw everything

suddenly rain pouring
smeared on the windshield
by a crooked black wing
like glue across your eyes
the hot dog guy
gave the thing hell
with a socket wrench

i crashed my car
after a phone call
to see a rainbow
mashed right into his ex-wife
i was almost home
and i really broke my car
thank you larry
and thank you hot dog guy
i'm no good with cars
not since the bloody jungle seed
and those black-brown apples

regular

a purple chest of drawers
overstuffed with artichoke hearts
wet the bed

poem 3

this tomato is wounded
in the field
gold stars all around
a gale stirred up
the lilacs
it sniffs good

anthill

a pair of mango's
for socks made
my shoes turn sticky
the goslings waddle
snake and bob
i spy a fat little chuck
and a wild turkey
blows away the whole colony

trapped in a spiral of death, which can happen to anyone

stand up and
go blind
a six pound crow
rattles a branch
have a seat
in the devil's chair

annotations

sternly, aloofness
in an arranged marriage cemetery
i couldn't resist the temptation to look
possessions
tub
corduroy
peg
enamel curator
plebiscite tassels vanished
fraternity duel
pool of his own blood
i protested by crying
in the expedition
derailed carnage
cue
insane
hear the music and laughter
rolling over the lake
mussels
crayfish
toads
surf a beatnik
expelled

corpuscle

a scrape of mashed beans
on a crusty rind
handcuffed to a suit coat
on a coasting crest of cock-a-doodle-do

leeks, scallions, radish
single elements
pissing up the bathtub

a rusty cart chugs
down the ladder
racing to meet the fire

lemon wedge

A lady carrying a heap of white bags stopped to say, "your purple moon is fading". She walked off into the fray and I rubbed my tattoo. I was locked in a morbid spell cast by a vagabond witch. That's not where I like to be. Stale air. Rat shit popcorn. That kind of thing. I opened a small wooden door in the brick wall beside me and hunched through a curious archway. Inside, a sickly yellow bulb dangled, barely illuminating a small ceremonial mound of raisins. The significance of this particular type of fruit mound was not lost on me. I carved a protective rune into the floor with a bone and bid the cursed room a fond adieu. Alas, the spectral tomb would have none of it. It was as if the door I had come in by was never there. Only bricks. And then a silky gray flower mashed up through the floor scattering the raisins and from the flower's mouth the sounds of the swedish jahaina swept me through the wall and away into a clear blue river under a hot purple moon.

power thoughts

this dog watched a risen corpse ketchup a wet hot american sandwich. doesn't even know what one is. one word. her pale blue face turned inside out before the accident, then darkness. in the plastic tub the earwig wood smoked a string of teeth before it's a done and done ornament. grindstone indian corn into patty cakes and basketball my head off while the cat peeks through the curtain to announce the arrival of the long awaited, a cherry drop finger prick from a milk snake charming.

matter of course

Hot buns rolled over my toes while I waited to cross main street. I clutched my throbbing foot hopping up and down on my one peg-leg. The ice cream truck flustered through traffic to put out the fire. A cone load of frosty coated my leg from a headlight and my hot toe melted right to the surface because the rest of my leg dissappeared from all the fuss. The big red toe glowed like a cherry bomb smoking over the sidewalk. It looked at me and peeled back the nail to say, "certainly there is buffet dining". The hot toe buzzed of at lightspeed to an all-you-can-eat. I invited a mailbox to swallow me which he obliged and later that week I was a mailorder birthday cake at the reception for a mailorder bride in Pennsylvania. I have lost a leg and been through the wash. My favorite part was when the mailman drove drunk on the golf course.

i hate clowns

Danny, no!
don't pop that black balloon
it's full of clown blood

maple moth

lakes of nothing
springing up all over town

a night-crazy pixie-bob
bicycle legs into an elliptical blur

at the bottom of the springtime
snow globe waving grain
in the greatest lung

a headphone sandwich
metal detector

open window

this knot takes a speckled wrench
i've puzzled over it in mouthfuls
writhing like a heavy slug
but my spirit wrapped the city in gold
now when i wake i shoot right out of bed
out of my ear through the window
to join the birds in song

glass jar

Take root. The levers are clenched as walnuts and the wrecking ball swing will knock you up. Bouquets of toothflower flood the clinic Tuesday. The waiting room. This way please. Novacaine pizza party but floss the dead milk bugs out. Spring cleaning. He was up a tree but should not have to be convinced of anything. Departures continue to be scheduled and disrupted as scheduled. City planners too vomit symmetrical bulbs in the median. Daffies pop in the sun trap. Thunder wags naked and shakes the dog free of pond water. Leeches breathe like accordions trolling blind in the shallows. That's why all the barking and the coffin full of clean socks. Burlesque in the parlor at four and ten to five.

Hank Archer's Private Eyes

These new binoculars have shown me the world already. It's tough and it's trouble. First thing this morning, I boiled eggs. There are naked dancers in the windows and jealous lovers creeping near every hedge. The neighborhood is full of shit and now I seen a murder. I packed my bags and left my landlady a note. It was a gloomy rattle down to Baltimore. From the train I saw jackals ring around the rosy. The conductor harumphed, then scraped his moustache with a thumbnail, "Next stop is black as coal and ashes to ashes they all fall down".

Shung and Me

Shung's bandolier hung nervously across his chest. Shung Havrefred who was bandit, holy man and snake oil. Ode songs he swung through the sands in bags full of flowers and hair. Toothpicked grin, Shung was a happy hand at work. Hollowed a tree for a boat and scraped bark for tea. Shung was no fear. His gun stayed saddled. He had only to walk wide, leg to leg, feet pointed out, on his way through the woods and the desert and the mountains, and he brought me along.

plory flumage

flouridated wallpaper taffy kneaded endlessly by machine
loom wallpaper
shaky crystal doorknob
baseball cream owls
the golem
the golem
rock man astrology pops his rock head
rock and rock pop head
lorimer schermerhorn
hoyt schermerhead station
brown basket station
hot wantastiquet bread
rock baked basket and hand painted
cells simmering in color
in simmering color
somber quartz
cordoned oblong
bed rid
quarantined florida
helium torte
lawn dune
clucked his tongue

cat nap

ONE

i filled a basin with hot water
soaked a seafoam washcloth for your headache
a spoonful of cloud puffs and
red clay to squeeze between your fingers
it's only in your head

TWO

it's a head full of hot clouds for to squeeze
your seafoam puffs between a soaked basin
and a washcloth red spoonful
of clay water fingers

festival of mirrors

seen by telescope, quite plainly, a muppet jacking off in an alley.
quite contrary, i do say. the captain coughed his eye out.
but do take note of the times; a slapped mollusk spent uptown
what jacks read in the roll
a ninety to one shot, dead on
wincing in the mulligan's bluff.
not unlike the thrush, spun on a root beer float... dead ahead!
not a moment later a tartan sipping cider through a twizzler off the starboard bough. call up the buckle boy. oh... sorry sir, the boson is pulping chives in a canyon of milk for the hors d'ouerves barrel bathhouse of the shoyu prefecture. A most important client. He's down in the galley and wont be stirred to comment for the likes of a couple squirty papparazos like myself or my camping bag sleepy head that is

100 pubic hairs

colors of hair on your vagina
one hundred percent
red red orange read
white blonde pink red

doughnut

you've been red flagged
4 doughnuts this week tripped the switch.
we noticed the way you take more than your share,
cut in line, and hog the comfortable chair.
we've made a note in the sand,
of course, you're welcome to blow it away
or make a sandwich from these blossoms if your ready for that too
but we've been watching us careful
i mean you
i mean i've been watching me careful
you have?
but wait
if it's me,
then why did i trespass
against myself?
poach from my own stock!
we don't know that
nobody knows everything
and you know even less

canady gose

flickering blue light on and off the pitched ceiling
and then the deep black silouhette of a dog
and the barking bark bark bark reverberating
in the pebbles on the street
porch, mailbox, coffee can full of nails
or snail shells wrung the purple barn
squeezed until the paint fell off onto the lawn
and made it a purple lawn
a lawn everyone called a crazy lawn
a patch of earth defiant

PRESS RELEASE

Barry "The Hatchet" Morley, Rio Hasick, and singing telegram Holly Bartnof do a sea shanty. They shanty away that burning sensation alright. Maria, (you just don't know what you're dealing with) we're in the belly of a whale here. Rafaela's still gotta lay some timbale tracks at Bongo SantaMonica, the engineer down there drinks a whole lot of Moxie pop and lives up to his reputation. He produced Tattooed Beat Messiah for Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction. Man, they were driving on some holy gasoline, burned the fucker down.

prize fight dry tortugas

a dog pack fanned out in front of my cart,
a hearty braid of rope for each one.
huffing and jangling, we had popcorn and beer to deliver us.
sundown on the ranch, the dogs sleeping and creaking in the yard
raking fingers through my shaking wig
we've got plenty of roots to chew
i tut tut tut all round the living room
doing a dance to put me to bed

weather report

overall, the thunderstorm was a dog spook.
a salt and pepper window washer.
harsh words took flight on the wind,
and according to my sources
some feelings were hurt.
But, the grange remains intact,
and the griddle cake cook-off
is still on for Saturday.
after careful deliberation,
we decided you all should take care
to visit the oak tree
and carve a love letter there.

field trip

plymouth rock
is a bubblegum
cemetary

heptagon

clouded leopard cubs
proved fatal
monday morning
and all hail the quaboag
drum and fife ramblers
who eulogized
the man
a tumbler
of nectar

When i was 95, a lady named Rhododendron moved in to a house down the street from my old place. She was a gentle soul and she made peppermint soap in her basement.
She kept a peanut brittle mailbox and a brown flower couch.
She drank peppermint pop in the lemongrass patch and hollered at the moon.
It's true that I learned of the plant ways from her.
In the summer, I crashed my bicycle into her fence.

a beautiful tree grew out of that wreck.

We spoke on her lawn for the first time.
We were crying.

Her past was a flooded mineshaft
singing and swimming
to stay alive.
I was a welder's word
sharpening shark teeth
to bite myself to death with.

I built her a plastic swan lamp.
It was rather magnificent
and it marks the beginning of
our love affair.

The swan seemed happy.

But on it's eighth birthday, it
ran away from home.

We weren't really sad.

Plastic swan lamp
moved out of the river
into a swamp.
Swan lamp slept in the
bell of an enormous flower.
Hearty eagle-racoons
arrived with a flaming
declaration of peace.
Plastic swan lamp built
a radio
for flower.

swan and flower

swamp boggle
a red bird's map
couldn't navigate

an egg tariff has been proposed!

i was encased in a bubbling mass of blue hydrangeas
which killed me in an agreeable way.

love always love

in the warmth of the nest
i am swimming
in kisses
only the hum
of the heart engine
fluttering blood
through your body
and love
always love

sunday cats

a russian blue, a calico and a tabby
one of them strong as rust
one albino pigeon
one kid in bulky knee pads tends the goal
i followed the sun

fustian fathers

just some vague dancing patterns on my eyelids
and my sonic earmuffs until
the sharp nose oboist plucked me from
my reverie and poked my nose with
his index finger. his thin white beard, gross
and wispy, a horn rimmed mind bloat and known pedant
staging opera in local gardens with undead liver for libretto.
bygone hippie days in some rusty waterhole. not the half of it.
the grade D meat and stinking egg patties, diabetic soda chug, high heel puncture wounds,dildo padiddle, rabbit shit smoker, and security guard sex scandal. not to mention a romantic fervor for the old south up here in a far off union hollow.

disintegrated brain flakes dusted the surface of the water until the king fish broke the mirror with tiny puckered snout. the old wild world fell to pieces just now.

imagine

scapegoat

musn't he be then?
the musky one?
the killer.
his bent reed dirty boot foot path
leads right to the corpse.
he stinks of rotten leaves
sin written on his wide drooping
mouth and in the creases at the corners
of his eyes.
it's clear.
the waves of
guilt have lapped him up,
and washed him out for us to see.
mute, yes, but just as guilty.
there,
in his eyes!
i'm not so sure.
the light's gone from the eyes.
i can hardly make him out anymore,
not much more than a weeping shadow,
flickering here in our waiting room.
a mere apparition.
i won't point my finger,
nothing is certain.

set-up

mudbogged my dune cart.
it was meant for the sand
but i couldn't resist.
i watched it sink
for a minute and then
i had to figure out
what the falcon
was flapping over;
i found out.
it was a jimmy hoffa mask. the bird upturned
a birthday cake and there it was.
he gestured at the frosty plastic face with a sweeping wing
and spoke slowly, "you cannot afford to be without it".
FBI's all over it. the woods are a
maze of yellow tape and im being charged with
poaching wild toads.

parallax rodeo

i shattered a great globe with my feet hands, wavering now, light fogged my vision and gave birth to floating star spots. A moron in fussy dungarees smokes, unzipped, burned by a hot button. The story of his toothache and his headache and his stomach and his nerves and his shit and his mind and pancreas and whatever all else was written in bits and pieces, objects and garbage speckling the room in their gravity prisons. I often imagine the ashtray drifting in a cloud of carbon dust, my tobacco slouch clutching crusty puffs, sending off the lamp like an air balloon, until the tug of weightlessness gently wrests its plug from the wall socket. i retreat to fantasies of this kind in the desert of my life. parched, mad times, tall as saguaro and just as thorny. a jungle time came and i soaked the lobster of my mind in a buttery roil of tiger blood rhythms, sticky tree fronds caterpillaring with poison, catamaraning with lemurs for skis down a mountain of skulls. thats when im cruising. Through the bevoodooed eye of a caribbean puffer fish i noticed some things on the walk; the possum corpse lingered on the spike at the end of a crumpled fence for as long as the dead squirrel remained impaled on the wrought iron post in the acid rain holocaust theme park. There are also a bunch of fishsticks drinking mezcal in the carpark. fleshies and trapezoids spotted hobknobbing in the grain silos, anti-political mouth terrorists pillaging libraries with a congressional identity crapped in the district attorney's clubhouse. A carefully planned tuna heist carbureted the getaway to polynesia, monkey-wrenched kiwi poachers, and coughed up a misty lake of desires. plenty going on out there. it is not some parallax rodeo on a scarfy level. its charlemagne. it's heck thomas, a tough lawman in indian territory. it's alan lomax recording a butterfly with a rectangle. it's blackbird, the first blind ping pong ball champion. it's the Tlingits reenacting family sagas, or the plaster coated robot bird head chewing affectionately on your finger while the theremin breaks the sound barrier in a dream where johnny cash keeps on changing into george c. scott, a scotch bonnet that radiates a cow family farm carpet.

little guy

your digeridoo is dribbling
on my convertible
and haggis is a mystery
that i would like to taste
but the crux of the matter
is a nest of hair in an oil spill

flight

wolfy, wolfy come to bed
your harpsichord needs no further tuning

my insides are eaten away
i will take food no more

wolfy, that's ridiculous

i'm confused by reflections, shadows, common language,
my own face seems to me strange and mushy
purple rings around these weird eyes

cast aside these mad thoughts
you are deprived of rest
and you're beginning to scare me

i think only of my brother,
that compulsive nomad,
caressing a gun
sleeping near a horse
or planning an ambush in a cave...
i am there with him now

clapervoch

trumpets leapt from the bandstand
in a rigid floe as if coated with resin
passing dirt clods mouth to mouth
all this i notice in a flurry of biting ants
that everyone else ignores
i've lost a tooth in my ice cream
the sun is sure to disappear again
and by then it'll be tea time
wipe the saucers and dangle the bags
the lizard is knocking
knocking our porch
out of whack with
his crude dermis
and his god awful
punk face
better invite him
in for a civilized
time
oh, too late
the neighbors are spaying their
cats over it. there'll be a dramatic
reenactment on TV now.
another perfectly good sunday
gone the way of the cuckoo

lambinatr

shepherd to sheep, "grow my children"
sheep to shepherd, "that is our way"
wolf to shepherd, "look at the sun"
shepherd to sun, 'god..."
wolf descends
shepherd is blind
smiling
wolf is trapped by
eagle
the sheep are safe

oscar the grouch

angus mcfarren is an atheist
his ancestors were ostracized from scotland
for plumping themselves on pagan potatoes
he drives an armored car
protects the heavy bags with his life to make sure
the television nanny cooks your kids
a delicious packface nutriment

ragtime

ragtime
such a good time
for a bath or too much to drink
either way. no matter. hardly.
let your skin chap carelessly
feel it and know its a laugh
ahh...the piano roll
so tightly wound but fluid
like a two pointed star
or a porcupine dalmation
in a phantom blanket

scorpio

squealing gangs of kids are melting all the snow
with sparklers, water dripping down your hair and
sizzling on the pan. we were cooking like eggs
in there. good thing you got us out when you did.
we might have broken our yolks
or been made to perform grape juice rituals
in a carpeted basement while
the congregation frothed
and fidgeted circles around us, writhing in
their black and red
frenzy, apple juice lost
in the rummage.
i don't mean to make things sound so grim,
its just that i've capsized my bathtub
and my frozen licorice vines are wiggling in the water.
im getting used to it.

big day

it's a big day out there. brushing my teeth with peanut brittle
seemed like a bad idea. i had a go at it
and washed it down with carrot milk. i considered
taking off my pants and toppling the pyramid of cereal
like a fat cyclops, so i popped my camera and
wrapped thirty-six exposures around my skull.
celluloid headband with sprocket holes for cranks.
a dumb child hatched from a globe beside me,
"fascinated by my yo-yo? should be. it's an omega fireball,
it glows in the dark" i swept him up with a bok-choy. i'm trying to think damn it! about these sponges, these creme eggs stuffed with buffed fondant, this hairnet microphone, fish pouch, foil balloon, pumpkin liqueur, a real midnight puzzler.
but anyway, my name is Mark. I'm kinda dusty
so beat me bloody out back and I'll clean up nice.
i pocketed some pickles, we could picnic after?
fruity pebbles is my stage name. I'm dancing
at the Hollywood with Sugarhouse tonight.
no doubt, i have an impressive mask collection but
I'm going to need to borrow yours.
that one is just the ticket.

a new york highway ride in the bitterly cold hot sun

three giant hogs vacuum slop
a splintered chimney flies a crow with a chunk of hot ice
in a hurry that tatters a flag
the clergy proclaim that,
"luck has nothing to do with it"
a half dozen crumpled barns sinking ship
in a christ farm
rows of christs
for christs sake
these fucking cookies

hoffmans tacklebox

from the shrieking brick mountain i can see
skeletons grow deep in the car park
where birds do secret magic
and skyhook over greasy sheafs of pulp

shapes on the concrete collect,
distort and morph pulsing sickly like
broken hearts bloody in a
bag lady's bag hands

smoke drops balloon into prominence
i think it's a temperature thing

drift in and out of costume after
6 months of monsters and moths
carrying your corpse while you watch them eat

i sat silent next to the naked detective
incubating in his promotion chamber
threats of violence swell against you
pinwheeling the body into hysteria
and laughing your guts out

reflected national banner
swimming in the wind of
my plastic case my eye
my pugnacious radiator
combusting rusty metals
in a dark water
grey water garden
my spasm bags
scattering electronics
your pantomime shotgun
peppered my steak
your wild blind shogun
tattered my paper tiger
my wild fire drowned
in a cotton gin
my arm folded in
a wrought iron
molasses mouth
your castor oil
cauterized my
harmonium
my wooden egg
birthed a grimace
in your image
your name is
flanagan

i dusted off my winter wings in the western library
fluttering through american railroads and oxidized artifacts
awash in a dark sea of
thousands of buried letters
made soft and rotten in a backyard earth hole
i jumped into a garbage bag like cartoon pajamas
and slam dunk a rock into your forehead

we could dig up the hound
or drip hot plastic on a fern
in the barn, scratch poppies,
bike jump a cigar cloud
by the porno tree
or snakebite a lake hand
in a blueberry mouth smear
let's wade through another desperate swamp
forgot the life jacket
but we can swim now
in blue smoke
and fly into the fog
after dinner

halcyon mobile

i miss that one crusade
the one where you wore a purple cape
i can smell it now when i lick a styrofoam cup
in a battery park skateboard roll
we bunked up in a foxhole with a lotus
and passed the pipe for days
the dark light shined out of your lamp
and the edges yellow burning
my musket plugged and burst black
over the picnic fish
that daredevil herring
with mercury eye

your stack of fetish magazines
and vegetable necklace
made me deaf by
a tiny brass band
dangling from a pine

horseback days
to the turtle pond
on a criminal hoof
blindfolded
hands tied behind
our heads
gone to
milk
the
grass
for sun
drops

mule boys

boating on the colorado river in a talapoosa strip rib slab strap wrapped around strawberry salad shake striped yellow and ketchup red cream pie french fry submarine listerine barbecue toothbrush vandal spraypaint marble

marinated veal heart chicken pan jump up and down bang bang until you puke

beachcomber

i was hunched in a white hot parking lot,
the pavement seared my feet,
but i ignored them. i was digging at
a metal rainbow and i was determined to wrest it
from its paved clutch.
beads of sweat rolled down
my forehead and my fingers cracked and bled,
but i kept on digging at it. i grunted and cursed under my breath
my wife came up from behind,

"let it alone you dingbat, you're playing with fire"

"you're a real sour apple, im sticking with my gut on this one Xena"

"suit yourself, you're going to end up like greg, covered in mud and hexed by voodoo" she said.

i kept right on digging and finally it came loose. i rolled it around in my palm and it jangled like a prism in my eye.
suddenly i felt that something was terribly wrong, i turned around and the cars were gone, and the clam shack was gone, and the umbrellas were gone, and the beach was gone, and where was Xena? oh now i felt foolish, i loved Xena more than I love myself, and now i'd fallen for the oldest trick in the book. the old, "shiny bauble in the reeds" bit. there was only black clay and some dead, rustling grass. just when i really began to sulk, a giant seagull swooped down and opened it's mouth and everything in the old world poured out of it, back to the way it was.

"Are you coming sweety", Xena said. i took her hand and we walked off towards the ocean.

food misanthrope

not until rachel's pad thai
had i considered the political implications
of our favorite foods
pad thai was introduced
by traveling vietnamese merchants
and popularized by the prime minister
in an attempt to conserve rice for export
by encouraging
more domestic noodle consumption
pancakes were invented by paul bunyan's wife
to help him charge up before setting off to defeat the forest
and macaroni and cheese, well, i invented macaroni and cheese
to poison and disgust you. i realize that my plan has backfired; somewhat.
but there are small victories.
some of you cringe, cramp, vomit, or glut
and that's the idea.

manhunter

brethren jebadigo
he eats people
so as to absorb
their powers
he's eaten a lot
of people by now
so, you know, he's
a real bulldog,
fun to hang out
with. it's hard to keep
up with him, but he's
got enough to go around.
trouble is he ate a good one.
Dennis... we all used
to whoop it up,
shoot birds and whiskey.
i wonder if i'm next?
i hope so.

neft droomer

on the verandah, an umbrella farm
breeds entitlement and self loathing.
dipped in syrup, sold as paradise.
your ears are ugly, drooping again.
flick the lobe, swab the inner tube
for christ's sake
cecilia turntabled her margarita
rimming the edge for salt
with her tongue
peeking out from behind black sunglasses
perching for a facial expression
from tom, anything to know
she was getting under his fingernails
tom ignored her famously
he flagged down a waiter
the waiter bent down and tom
whispered something behind a hand curtain
cecilia sighed, grunted and lit a cigarette
sucking on it like a fish
the waiter returned with a silver plate
and set it down in front of tom
a razor, a bowl of lather, and a brush
tom took off his shirt
what the fuck are you doing
cecilia peeled away her sunglasses and stared
tom lathered up the brush
and began swabbing some onto his eyebrows
quickly and violently he tugged the razor
through the cream, shaved away his eyebrows,
snatched cecilia's margarita, spat in it,
dumped his plate of food over his head
and finally, hollandaise dripping down his
forehead into his eyes smiled wide and
spoke in a serene, melodious voice
i want a divorce

the history of everything as seen from one moment

we found pink bogey wax in a clam belly.
it was mixed up with true grit, black blood.
stuffing the well full
of plastic action figures
in my four year old summertime
while the national union perched
on the edge of a grinder
and daddy, who are those men
with Mr. Gorbachev? fending off mutant
lobsters in the kitchen, or ruining the
neighbors lives by destroying their mail. either way
it all amounts to me writing this poem right now.

seasonable cucumbert

tom, get out of the road, man.
noontime drunk and a shiny golden coin.
tom has meandered into the road in some cockeyed
act of defiance against the flow of commerce.
you can tell by watching him, that he's not sure of what he's doing.
a heavy cold snow sheet cracks and slides off the roof
ensnaring some wires.
pigeon milk collects in a
measuring cup.
tom and golden coin
pierce their ears with a safety pin
at the soup kitchen.

eggplant michelob

layer after flaking layer
of honey dough melting into
a bowl of orange juice.
the baklava was that good.
ok, i lied,
it was made with crappy ingredients
but it satisfied my lust for garbage
and they might be giants anyway

connecticut river raft

sandra, trish, and marilyn
gone fishin' with
kevin bacon and sandy koufax
crashed into a sandbar
busted their rowboat into
splinters that decayed
instantly into mush
and the king crab danced around
a bone heap gargling incantations

swamp walk

i slept in today, and then headed down to the beer garden
had a kielbasa stuffed up with kraut
a load of beer
and a pastry too
i felt fat and happy
but kind of guilty
like after you jerk off
too much on a pot smoke getaway
so i wandered into hammerfrog forest
hands in pocket and i noticed
the black owls and twisted vines, the
thorny brambles like barb-wire fence
warning against a step in the swamp
i considered the life of a chinese rabbit
as i was wearing one on my head

ribstick

we got a ribstick at the BJ's discount feedlot
its like a rack of meat stick that you wouldnt even know existed
if it didnt jump out like a javelin into your buying heart and demand
purchase of louisiana style barbecue knob sauce
but now that you know you wont refret it
because the strings are good like that
even though its not a conventional
hockey box, it'll hold 'em

extra, extra read all about it

He looked just as natural with a bong in his hands as he does swimming in the pool. He was the gold medal winner of bong hits.out of control from the moment he got there.I had never seen my mother that upset. The soldiers went door-to-door handing out chili and beef stew rations to people cooped up hunkering for a sex activity in the pulpit. Grant Exton is a gun owner, "A gentleman came into the church. He was mentally deranged, and at the end of the sermon, pulled out a gun and shouted something about baptism and proceeded to shoot me in the back a couple of times. I still carry one of the bullets embedded in my spine." Eating varmints is in vogue these days, at least in Great Britain. Cut to Kansas City, that's where Brownsberger rolls into the parking lot of Leon's Thriftway in an old maroon Impala with a trunk full of frozen meat. The French rabies doesn't exist in Missouri so cut off the paw and drop the carcass into a stew pot of Billy Washington tiny leg, "See that? Tender as a mother's love," he says with a grin. "Good eatin'. "My grandkids will just tear this one up, it'll be so good" 'Yay! We're saved!'"

eyewitness america

as seen on a bench between the parking garage and the bars:

Barbie F. is a hoaly good freind
and justly in the eyes of god

blizzard of '09

buy a pint of sesame oil for a bearded old communist
and watch him sweep his car with a lanky husk
dunk your junk in maple syrup and commune
with a sadistic bumblebee tribe in your childhood swingset
park me in, will you? i don't want to be able to leave
i can't control the chief. he's a sweetroll.
mercury fat dolphin bob
that's what they call him

the past, the present and the future

i hefted the toboggan
up onto my shoulders
"my cross to bear"
i chuckled to myself
the highway overpass
a diving mustard packet
cracked the windshield
and sent the pregnant
lady into a tailspin
some said "the twins
are cursed!"
we immolated a waffle
iron and the preacher's
son ran off to escape
that moment which was for us
our only liberation

no salvation but by my own hand

sarah and zach turned me on to a magical gospel

nals goring for president

jelly fill fuller
piano architect
of the future
hammered strings
with his peepy dicky
yammered wings of ham
flapping smooth
in the meat time

home

so, the devil, lon chaney
and dick cheney
walk into a bar
in a wheelchair
bartender looks ‘em up
and down, “lemme guess…
couple-a shirley temples
and a big ‘ol peanut shell for your
fingernails too” barfly laughter
choking on bubbles

shickus

we peeled apart the head of cabbage
salted the leaves
baked the cake
she popped right out to surprise him
in the dimly lit western bungalow
tan carpets and brown chairs
pencil thin thrift shop mustache
earthquake chandelier
nosebleed over lips
she bruises easily
and we drank so much black tea
that we almost got ahead of ourselves
sharing ideas and sparkling eyes
while he ate pizza and watched
george clooney

dog museum

i had a crush on emily when i was 12 or 13
i saw her last night in the stairwell of my building. i am sick, so i was wearing sweatpants and i was too damn lazy to tie my boots so the laces were swinging every which way. she told me she read some of my poems in a sleep deprived state of mind. she said they made sense that way. and now i cant sleep and ive got a fever maybe. and it makes sense that way too. escape from new york leaves a lot to be desired. it suggests such a great and colorful world of garbage way beyond what it delivers. the part where snake spikes the juggernaut with the baseball bat is pretty amazing though. and harry dean stanton plays a guy called brain. so thats pretty great. kurt russel sucks though. oh yeah, but ive always loved the fact that john carpenter does the music to his movies. sometimes i cant figure out if its the right time to eat but im always hungry and im not really sure if im allergic to wheat but i have been experiencing some kind of backlash from my intestines in the last few months. i just try to be careful of what i eat, but, you know, who wants to do that? id eat fried chicken and cheeseburgers all day if my guts werent screaming. im okay with rice and vegetables. corn chips. but i ate a bunch of apricots and shit did i poop. and fart too. i guess i did eat a bunch of them though.

specious glando

harve shaved his boot
with a special knife that was part of a big rusted multitool
before the silver reign of the leatherman
stirring pots of food within earshot of a rattling serpent
keep on yer toes so you dont get
a fried mars bar in your stocking