gilgamesh defied
the god and butchered
the cedars of lebanon
bringing famine drought
and death to the fertile crescent
but satan lives in every epoch
and gilgamesh has returned
as gilgabush
he does as his father in hell
and slaughters
the rainforest
brings global warming and
death to the fertile planet
he is a terrorist
and we the suicide bombers
of his jihad against god
why do we flounder
in the wake of a stone
when we are born to the
community of winged creatures?
god’s chosen must refrain
from the worship of false idols
and return to the garden
hunters and gatherers of spirit
and living in the cave of the heart
slippery on the green rocks my master roars
wet air carries the bolt and pushes it on
sell the green leaves for a survival slavery
the carving of wood the shaping of stone
similar men to i
jumping over ridges and weighing in
arching over in intricate designs
the beauty of chemistry
webs of crystal stronger than a man’s soul
the stream of air so strong it strips the hair
ozone is a deep deep blue
oxygen is the sister of hydrogen
if it came to the door —
speaking serious words demanding entry
steel is a deep deep blue
sulfur is the brother of potassium nitrate
live in holes in the ground
live on steel in the sky
the sweet effort of plastic
the eyes so sharp and full of life
the heart trembles the lungs flex
leap
don’t be sad
it was only a
pyrrhic victory
they don’t know life
like you and i
why the wasteland
of tears and regret?
we will come together
in a field of roses
it’s just a long walk
to california
i think i’ll fly
ah, blucipherous
don’t be so sad
diebold was a’brewin’
and freedom was spewin’
all over the stained carpet
of our lovely ’71 Chevy Monza
with the fake tailpipes
we call a country
it was never o.k.
not ever
except inside the little bit-o’heaven
i call family
but outside
in the great halls of kansas
they’s lookin’ at the pikchers agin
of all ub dem bad tarrishts
gettin’ it but good from the Mighty Men
ooo-eee how they love to fondle those photos
heh-heh the rapist — get it? ha ha ha ha ha ha
that all played real well in the heartland
cause while the soul of america talks Tom and Ben
the heart of america likes it mean and hard
grim and stupid
old and rotten
sick and twisted
gristle and bone
the stupids won!
the stupids won!
yayyy!! haw haw!
what’s that flash?
i’m fired? what?
damn my luck
better get drunk
what’s on the tv
shut up.
haw haw haw
mean and hard.
grim and stupid.
conservative means criminal
and now we’re Criminal Nation
yayyy!! haw! haw!
tomorrow i think i’ll leave my
beautiful little bit-o’heaven
go out and think of new ways
to change their lives.
liquid love and
poured into a glass
a captive angel
like a stricken bird
but she was not
stroked by death
a bit of the penumbra
and all for a penny
in the yellow garden
with a sash
stains of purity
and now a grouse
and maybe a weasel
there’s a deer
in the bedroom and
under the floor
is the beating heart
of robert monroe
how i waste my life
in the piercing
forgetfulness
of moments
i lay stiff
in the morning
a romantic
or justa
nouveau cadaver
in the cast of
a new century
with slippery skin of
the sun style sinew
genuflect
with your beak
and flour fishbick
back to the forties
against the gangway
mishbick
and flishbick
of any jane
sally
or wick shmick
part two of
colonel wheezle’s
diary 8 june 1864
with an insult of
boots overhead
and suddenly
i’m a soldier
in god’s army
and fighting
for you babe
here the pop
and you’re out
out of the body
are you experienced?
and then, my friend
we hugged that wall
hugged it like it was life
helicopters and roamers
dogs and machines
and we bit at each other from fear
leadless unpart nervous
like the little plain pack
of great grandma twenty thousand years back
shuffled unclear muddled
maybe slaughtered by
the cubeheaded tribe
lock stock orderly they
and vicious and dark
they are a’rulin us now
lemme tell ya
more than half the empire
so frightened and so hurt
from the pictures of crumbling smoke
and people jumping
that they’d follow the devil into hell
if he promised to make it stop
and in a democracy we all go
where more than half go
so here we go
hug that wall and whimper
gettin’ warmer
it is akin to love
this life
i saddle down
to ride gautama
into the nothing night
i wish you all the
best my lovers
all those
whom i have known
a speck of love
is greater than
a nuclear explosion
say goodbye to
the twisted need
to stumble down
dark alleys
let the lizard
crawl out of
the basement
drink of the myriad marsh
the sapling and the sup
the welcome breast
of the great mother
here and opening up
we were meant
to poke thru the
satin silence of our
chitinous insect cloth
i wish to you my lovers
a satyr on a toadstool
rewriting history
in a new language
they are saying
“wonderful my
today daughter
birthday
a wonderful”
i wonder i am
swimming through
leela and malti
w/out even knowing it
back to the babbling
of infancy
tasting its brook
and greeting her
in the misty
raiments of morning?
often others question me
and so i just fall down
sometimes i breathe funny
when i forget this stuff
moonies. i don’t like ‘em
they don’t like me
look up there!
that’s a trick
i like movies
alien squishies
no color in some movies
and atomic things go:
whoo whoo whoo whoo
that’s a good sound
a kid’s dad said we all gotta eat dirt sometime
so we tried it
jumped my banana bike
off a ramp got hurt
digging holes is fun
big deep holes in the backyard
crawlspace
that’s a scary word crawly spider space
end it all vote for george
because god says so
tupelo
what the hell is that
makes you sad when your dog dies
telephones are everywhere
so many wires and waves whooo
antarctica’s melting
damn
andy!
i am not
not what
you know
just go
go!
i awaken to the promise of a new morning
with a million suns dawning in my head
like natives hauling my brain cells around in
canoes and navigating the stream of consciousness
the radio intrudes and i begin the reckoning
the canoes have been swamped by churning
paddleboats full of tourists w/ straw hats & cameras
i pour a glass of fresh water from the faucet
the river of life becomes unfit to drink
i head for the office and the contract is signed
a forest of prime hardwood for a thousand an acre
i drive to my new house in the country four tiered
with six bedrooms for me and the wife and kid
i grab a big mac as the tribe returns from the hunt
to find cattle grazing in the clearcut village
i stop at walmart on the way home to buy
another pair of nike sneakers as the native
children start to work in the factory built
just for them so they can improve their lives
ask the girl who was raped after her shift
of making clothes including the negligee
my wife wears as we make sweet love
my dreams are full of dread as the
shaman has a vision of the great spirit
helping to reunite the scattered tribe
i awaken with a thudding heart as
the tribe reassembles to drumbeats
sounding the promise of a new morning
thorvald and the falling stones
do you remember that one?
out in the valley the air
stretches for miles and he flies
happy hopping proud strong fellow
smart eyes and practiced calm
he’s top of the world here
underneath it’s different
catastrophic physics and dark pools
quick-darting fluidists prowl
all day they leap in little splashes
a single day five thousand years
the sparkle and expanding universe
my friend the tilted slab
my ancient enemy in dark entrances
i leave spirit and buried treasure
the mortal edge smiled at me
halfway down the fly on the wall
recounted the drops and tumbles
stopped to eat a beautiful orange
and returned to the splendid year
scatter down platypus
and rage on tecumseh
a star has fallen
on the ground
ancient campfire
history is mystery
and out of the mists
strides the shaman
there was a time
before he was born
when hearts blazed like
pieces of the sun
he was unknown
as the disease
he was conjured to cure
then men were seduced
not by women
but by myth
the belief in clay
instead of spirit
guile before power
the myth destroys
the message and we
forget who we are
and where we are going
the shaman helps us stoop
to hoist the divine mantle
that has drooped from
our sagging shoulder
an arrow thru the moon
and tender wears the sky
its clouds a thousand
garments hung upon
the celestial guy
with a gasp or
with a cry
we shall yet enjoy
the simple pleasure
of falling awake
in our sleep
so right here there’s six things
two are: impressions of the organic tide
from a point in space looking down on earth
the agonies and ecstasies of the mortals
from spider stories to squid glories
parent to child
and then down to this body this life
this stormy oasis
how i love.
how i feel too strongly
hate the distance and the hatred it makes
hate the haters
love the brave lonely lights
way out there on the water
love the earth.
the actual dirt of this place.
deep dark caverns of soul
chrysolite. whatever that is.
then several other questions:
where is sky.
i wish missy io was still talking to me
she would like the title of this poem
i got it from her voice i still hear:
all right mama, i’m a-coming
hello the maxwell, i tell simon stories to my kids
and they like him, the heroic yet edgy simon
great stories with dangerous mac.
there he goes again.
hello tonight out to ALL ALIVE
let’s live
awhooooo.
hey andy.
weirdo.
sometimes in the morning, when i’m shaving and
no one’s around
i go into my son’s room and sit down on his chair
next to the aquarium with the six walking sticks
henry tommy cupcake raisin oatmeal and the baby
they always flex at the sound of the razor
and we talk.
the baby had lost a leg but now it’s grown back
and she’s becoming quite the mighty bark-skinned beast
i get freaked when they walk on me
but i love them.
goodnight all.
now at gymnastics
my ten year old
is a lemur leaping
a cheetah chasing
a spider spanning
and oh how I long
for the innocence here
but tomorrow gone!
beware the burglar
for when we sleep
the tumblers are turned
and this eternal day
is stuffed into
the vault of time
personal history
is then told
by the lines
on a wrinkled face
innocence dies
to experience
like a rose
to the painful thorn
but what is this?
the wizened face
stands apart from
time and space
Ive been deceived
and not by time
but by my own
distorted chime
my daughter just
leaped thru the ceiling
of this gymnasium!
not bad for an old woman
with a wrinkled face
in another time
and another place
diggers don’t dig
they dig everything
eyes as bright as the flowers in their hair
this summer they face down a police brigade
twenty thousand flowers in the air
god sent us down his only son
his name was abbie hoffman
but there is no god
you are all alone
we’re the only lights that shine down here
and love
yes it’s all love
everything around us gleams
walking on electric beams
digger free dropped the daisies down to super joel
and they ran to tell the diggers what they knew
this summer the diggers could use daisies to raise the pentagon
and fight to lose the battle of michigan avenue
grace slick said this time would come
these days of pain and infamy would shine
but there is no sun
something’s gone wrong
it’s the bad tribe that rules down here
and love
oh love
everything that’s good on earth
barely won from the pounding surf
on the night of the grand central station massacre
the cops crushed ron shea’s hands
when he fought his way to digger free
the diggers stopped the giant clock quite a shock
to mock the head ticktok so
fourteen precious seconds knocked
off the master schedule
and there’s so little time
before we fade away.
I would love
to be a hero
carrying
the banner of truth
in protest of the big lie
I would love to oppose
the architects of war and
tyranny and oh how they hate
anyone whos not a redneck
I would live behind bars
for the sake of the women
and children and to see
the cutting of the ribbon
at the entrance
to the global village
but I know that
my freedom march
is a dead man walking
into the jaws of the monster
oh how he loves my fury!
how he is warmed by the
friction of our clashing views
and measures his strength
by the length of my hatred
no, I will not feed
the beast but will stand
still in the eye of
his hurricane rage—
he is no equal to
my quiet meditations
when I arise
he will be gone
leaving only a
wisp of sulphur
in the air
above gods garden
reinhold horst from essen writes:
“HELLO JUPITERSHEEP!”
found the website and downloaded
everything
now happy to listen all day
to the deep ocean of a dead band
he wants more history
more more more please
well, hold on to your lederhosen
here’s a story for you reinhold:
in plymouth california on an abandoned walnut farm
in a big house with vaulted ceilings overlooking
a dark pond where the dead elizabeth grace once emerged
naked and dripping in all of her perfect way
max and byron were hiding in the master bedroom
writing music with a guilty feeling, hearts pounding
hurry hurry before he comes home let’s set the bridge
max’s fingers fumbling out a bass line
byron singing in a tense whisper
oh god.
the sound of a car on the long dirt road.
coming nearer — it’s him. jesus christ.
everything put away and byron runs for his upstairs bedroom
doors closed. sitting on beds. waiting.
the front door swings open
‘honey i’m home!’
max and byron shrink and clench
like mussels torn from their shells
an arm clears the counters down in the kitchen
plates and glasses bottles and jars all
glass smashing on the floor and now
he kicks a hole in the wall.
steps.
up the stairs.
byron’s door kicked open –
‘FUCK YOU!’ comes the scream
and the door slams shut again.
the house is silent.
byron goes to work.
the next morning the car sound fades
and brings byron and max out
on goes the bass amp and out comes the microphone
guilty guilty hurry and back to the bridge
ten days left to live this way
ten days of guilty little mice
chewing out the first three songs
tails twitching at every sound
fleeing when the dirt road rings
with the thunder of The Demon
captain wilson cries out loud
you have shot my brothers down
seven days.
you know i’m not real i couldn’t be real
i’m just getting better at keeping my picture steady
three days.
feel strange really feel strange
falling head a hundred foot flames
and the brickbats fell
they drove away
and then, they say
the lamb that day
became the sheep.
where youth holds the
illusion of immortality
old age falls for
the mirage of death
she of the sargassum
is too old to be seduced
by the heart
too young to stumble
into imaginary graveyards
she is pulled by neither
the currents of fear nor folly
and simply floats on
the skin of the world
what war will she wage
that is not her own?
what lover will she embrace
who is not a reflection
of herself?
when there is nothing
left to live for
she becomes truly alive
a still point of consciousness
in the great coma
you wish to awaken the world?
wake to your own day and
the night around you will
appear to pale in the rays
of the cosmic sun
the taste of orange cream soda
standards flapping in the afternoon wind
i found myself walking through the county fair
backwards, with large white feet
the ferris wheel diesel roars and the happy patrons
flung into the clouds, scream joy
i put my money on the shootin’ stand
fwap fwap fwap and my prize is
a giant faceless beast of fur
who clings to me, frightened to have been won
i reassure him and see that he does have eyes
in the monkey fear trailer i lose him
to the mirrored flash and the falling
it makes me sad.
i ride the cars and the planes
and then aboard the ferris wheel
they stop halfway up and i look over the whole world
but i don’t see her face
and the pang
the stab of loss the total fear
that i have lost her
that i may fly into the sky
but i will never see her face again
i’m crying when the man pushes the lever
the wheel shudders and jerks and
my face is pulled back and
out of the seat i fly
lost
the whole world is a cloud
her face never to see
her face again
love comes as a surprise
in the milky dawn of waking
you are so strange and murky
as you commute
the distance of my desire
silent are the stories
traced by fingers and toes
breasts and buttocks
the bedsheets are mountains
on our journey to each other
lilting lovers language low
like poets breath and himalayan
playing in the alpenglow
the air is stretched thin and deadly
we could fly and forget
the valley of xinjiang
but where would we place
the vase of our love
in the coming of spring?
tarp came up out of grants so
i stopped and re-hitched everything
and went for a dixie queen
screen door slams and shirra says:
‘hey bert, where’d ya get the shirt?’
that’s damned old, shirra, i said
coffee coffee i’m going to colorado springs
and i need some coffee
‘well, we got the mud, all right,’ she says
‘have a set down.’
i sit down and i see this stranger
he’s got a yellow cast and
his eyes are sweaty and flicking around
i look down at the menu.
whatcha got for beef here, shirra
‘chicken-fried steak’s the best’, she says
so i get that. and a cold dixie queen.
when i’m done i head for the men’s room
pay with a ten, shirra gets the change and
gives me a friendly pat.
‘y’all come back now, here?’
ah, that shirra.
the road’s good tonight, nobody out
new mexico desert’s strange in the dark
too many stars
not enough ground
i start to hum, which i do when i drive
and i think about shirra
looking out over that deep grey sea
not a wave for miles under that sweet moon
i came up on a VW bug stuck off the road
the guy looked panicky so i pulled over
‘i’m not stuck but i can’t push-start it down there’
i get one of the big straps out
and tie it to his bumper
my baby doesn’t even notice but i can see
he’s up and running. we get the strap off
and he thanks me.
‘i can’t tell you, man. it was getting spooky out here.’
i know, i tell him. like a big grey ghost sea.
he looks like he’s gonna faint.
‘thank you. i’ll pass it on.’
you do that, fella. have a good night.
once his tail lights are gone
the grey ghosts come out again
that man
has no idea.
that’s my good deed for today.
ah, shirra.
