1. are you walking
into the light or
running from
your death
or just crashing
down stoned and
holding your breath?
2. in the shallows
was a creature
floating in the
gentle current
a pufferfish perhaps
or somebody’s parent
maybe a whale or
maybe its wife
it could have
been me in
a past life
3. the americana piranha
like hunter s might say
“they’re cold walking meat
with dead eyes and
they’re out to kill us all”
when you’re not looking
they come out of the shadows
and bite your nuts off –
the neocons
4. did you ever
think about garbage
the garb of our age
the way we wear our lives
yet we all have
the same eyes
animals
plants
pieces
of cardboard
species of plastic
maybe even
the styrofoam cup
as it sits on the table
and sizes you up
5. i went around
and mobilized
the boys and girls
of the neighborhood
they formed a group
called the junior anarchists
otherwise known as
the jack asses to
the local viv chag
the brains who have
no people
i trained the kids
to cut to the bone
they came out of
the hills of western
pennsylvania with
teeth as sharp as
knives and shins
as thin as fins
have I ever
told you about
them?
they were the lost
tribe of northern
appalachia sucked
into the earth
in the final age
6. a girl with a piccolo
notes on the breeze
green with
the galloping
of boyhood I was seized
my throat bursting
with the sudden
knowledge of
the all
but it’s
too much
i must
withdraw
7. have you met
the newer stranger?
he’s an actual
surviving member
of the discordians
but did you see
his kids leaping
from the turrets of
the fortress of america?
they spent too long at
the intersection of methadrine
and cathode ray streets
they have lost their jive
and the will to survive
8. have you
ever walked
the sharp edge
of terror?
you get so far
out you can’t
get back
“just leap
into space”
whispers
lady vertigo
and she gives
you a little
shove
9. we of the
heather and moor
have always sung
the tribal songs
gathered as one nation
on the whole of the earth
(we laid down our
weapons
in the last age
when we returned
to the forest)
we are brothers
and sisters
of the silence
but not really
come on