The Warrior’s Song

Soft is the breeze that carries thee,

Soft the perfumed breeze that strokes your back,

But hard is the wind that buries thee

And hard the bed of stone that takes you back.

Kind are the words that comfort thee,

Kind the tender hands that stroke your back,

But cruel are the words that harry thee

And cruel the miles beneath the endless track.

Your plodding feet that never find their way

Are millstones for the hardened heart that sings.

The never ending road of nightened day

Is the only home the Brides Of Fate will bring.

Such is the warriors’s way, the warrior’s song.

The structure of its refrain that now emerges

Calls out a song of never ending wrong,

A mad regale, this warrior’s lonely chorus:

That sings, that brings, that rings:

The softest breeze that carries thee,

The softest perfumed breeze that strokes your back,

The hardest wind that buries thee

And the hardest bed of stone that takes you back.

Oom Chaka Laka Laka, Oom Chaka Day

Oom Chaka Laka Laka Oom Chaka Day

Even here

in the dark

with the people yellin'

at the hammers nailin'

burned flesh with a wire mesh,

and all the people passin',

their faces lost and ashen

with a terrible passion,

their eyeballs flashing, teeth gnashing,

limbs mashin' and griefs crashing,

broken and wondering what happened,

where even the gilded gates

of seven heavens

are lined with caution tape
and gang rape,

you still bring joy.

That is the song of you.

It is a song of truth.

It is a song the sea's sing all day,

a song of fay:

oom chaka laka laka, oom chaka day.

That's what they say.

Here,

where the winds howl

in a steady growl

on hell's open plains,

the moon splashed terrain is bloodstained,

where even angels

mouth malevolent proverbs

in the ears of the already fallen,

by hell's callin'.

And even the good hearted earth

gives birth

to monsters, ya'll,

you are still the sun.

That is the truth of you.

It is the song that never ends.

It sings

oom chaka laka laka, oom chaka day

in a special way,

in that fey voice of elf friends.

Even here,

lost and on foot,

covered with mud and soot,

in a hanging garden of entrails,

broken bodies,

and dangling limbs like brand new sins,

driven mad by hell songs and evil spells,

where even the endless roots

of the great world tree

are shattered in pieces

like broken plates and bad fates,

smothered in feces,

you still bring wholeness.

Truly you are a debt

that can never be repaid.

Oom chaka laka laka, oom chaka day.

This is the only song that matters,

this song of you,

from which all songs spring,

this song of you,

of which all songs sing,

this song of you,

by which

even hell's screeching choirs,

with its barbed bloody wires,

are made quieter by comparison

thus soothed forever,

as they hide in their garrisons,

even here.

Even here

this is the song

that is sung forever,

this song of you

oom chaka laka laka, oom chaka day

that even gods,

adrift in the world's great water,

fear to sing,

oom chaka laka laka, oom chaka day,

lest even they

diminish its greatness

through simple ineptitude and lateness,

by seeking to be

impossibly

something forever beyond them,

so great is your hymn:

oom chaka laka laka, oom chaka day.

Even here. Today.

Let Us Murder The World Together

Final Version (I think):

Let Us Murder The World Together

Let us murder the world then
you and I
before time runs out and ruins the sky
while there's still
so much time
to try and cry, to toil and sigh.
You know, before we die.


Together we could - whhh - blow out the sun
spread a blanket on the precipice
say a quick prayer and cock our guns
for no particular reason at all
no less.


Together
we could finally enjoy the silence
that was always inside us
that was always denied us
for so long
as we grab another beer,
a dead man's brew,
taking in the view
both far and near
while the cities slowly crumble.


Together we could write love poems
in the dark embark
for this dying earth
and its fading mirth,
turning our tin cans back
in one last toast to the dregs
for oblivion and the utter black,
while sitting indian style with our nuts hanging out
before the stars go out
as we close our eyes
one last time
forever
as if to say
we were our own lights anyway.


Yeah
let us murder the world together
and give birth
for what it's worth
to a universe of our own makin',
our own catechism schism-ism
before the stars get taken
and the lights go out
one last time
like drawing circles in the sea's sand
one last time
or growling in the shadows
one last time
at tossed meat
and random phrases
and all the lost, fled timestained places
and all the shred forgotten faces
or one last beer
for the meaningless excellence
of it all.


Yeah
we could do all that
take the meat and trim the fat
and throw the rest of it away
while the cities slowly burn
and the sea's stars crumble
anyway
before the world that would be murdered
murders itself
anyway
while we make the only toast
to the dying day
that ever mattered anyway
all the beer's gone now
the stars are all done up now
there's no sun's up fun's up anymore
we're all that's left now
we, our own lights,
as if to claim
that birth and death are still the same
before we finally go away
the way we came.

Edited Version:

Let Us Murder The World Together

Let us murder the world together
you and I
before it's too late
while there's still
so much time.


Together we could put out the sun
spread a blanket on the precipice
and say a quick prayer
for no particular reason at all.


Together
we could finally enjoy the silence
that was denied us all
for so long
as we grab another beer
taking in the view
while the cities slowly crumble.


Together we could write love poems
in the dark
for this dying earth
and its fading mirth,
turning our tin cans back
in one last toast to the dregs
for oblivion and the utter black
while sitting indian style with our nuts hanging out
before the stars go out
we close our eyes
one last time
forever
as if to say
we were our own lights anyway.


Yeah
we could murder the world together
and give birth
for what its worth
to a universe of our own making
before the stars get taken
one last time
like drawing circles in the sea's sand
one last time
or growling in the shadows
one last time
at tossed meat
and random phrases
and all the lost, shred timestained places
and all of the forgotten faces
or one last beer
for the meaningless excellence
of it all.


Yeah
we could do all that
anyway
while the cities slowly burn
and the sea's stars crumble
anyway
before the world that would be murdered
murders itself
anyway
while we make the only toast
to the dying day
that ever mattered anyway
we, our own lights,
as if to claim
that birth and death are still the same.

Old Version:

Let us murder the world together
You and I
While there's still
So much time

Together we could put out the sun,
Spread a blanket on the precipice
And say a quick prayer
For no particular reason at all

Together
We could finally enjoy the silence
That was for so long
Denied us all
While the cities slowly crumble

Together
We could write love poems in the dark
for this dying earth
One last toast to the dregs
For oblivion
Before the stars go out
And our eyes close forever
As if to say
We were our own lights anyway

Yeah
We could murder the world together
And give birth
To a universe of our own making
Before the stars finally go out
One last time
Like drawing circles in the sea's sand
Or growling in the shadows
At tossed meat
And random phrases
Or one last beer
For the meaningless excellence
Of it all

Yeah
We could do all of that
Anyway
While the cities slowly burn out
And the sea's stars crumble
Before the world that would be murdered
Murders itself
Anyway
While we make the only toast
That ever mattered
Anyway
We, our own lights, anyway
As if to say
That birth and death were the same thing
Anyway

The First Forgotten Dew

In my lost memory
Like a forgotten sleep
The first forgotten dew
Lingers
Spread across the fine first sky
Like a web of stars
The way
It always has.

This was my childhood realization
Anyway
My childhood observation
At the very least
Despite the noise of youngling years
As I stared into the sky
And held the moon
Between my thumb and forefinger 
Only to realize
How small I was
That my apparent largeness
Was just an illusion
But grandma loved me anyway
Because that was who she was,
What she did.

Still that's the thing about poetry
If you wanna be good at it
You gotta die first 
But you can't die until you're done
And you're never done
And you'll never understand the moon
Anyway
Not the way it was
Meant to be understood
Anyway
Like the fine firstness
Of all fine first things
So simple in their simple majesty
That even children understand
What the grown ups forget.

And no one
Ever knows
What the fuck you're talking about
Anyway
You know:
That first spinning light
And what not
You know: 
The origin of all things
And what not.
You know:
The first forgotten dew
Of all
First, forgotten things.
You know what I'm talking about
Don't you:
The only thing
That matters?
But then again
You probably don't.
Then again
I probably should have known better.

Even the child i was knew better
Than to say it out loud
The way I did
So long ago
That it doesn't matter anymore
When the moon made fun of me and grandma
While grandma gazed on
Bewildered by us both.

In The Cloud

It's weird
I have all this me time
But I don't know what to do with it
Now that you're not here

It's weird
To stand here now
Between two points in time
Ethereal, ghostlike,
Pondering my own future grave
While two devils in hell
Share a bro fist
Ignoring the legions of suffering souls
At their feet:
Memory and foreknowledge.

But my life is weird like that
and I am no stranger to strength
And I am only in possession
Of a desire
For a deterministic universe
When it is of convenience to me
When it makes me seem to be
The thing I've always
Wanted to be.
The rest of the time
I am content
With the random order
Of everything.

But fate is fate
And karma is karma
And this is the madness
Of the world
I thrust you in
The world that
Like you
I have inherited.
I suppose I should apologize
But I don't know how
Or why
Even
Because even now
Now that you're here with us
the history of the human story
Is still the sound
Of a single sustained scream,
A burned singed cacophony of singularity.

Yet... still... I know
That one day when I'm gone
You'll still type my name
In a Google search bar
One day
Propelled by your own innate
Need to know
And then you'll know
Then you'll understand
My thoughts
My dreams
My emotions
(Because you are still my muse
Even after all this time)
And then you'll understand
Because even though I'm gone
I'll still be out there
In the cloud
Teaching you
Guiding you
Misleading you sometimes
And, yes, even loving you,
In my own broken way -
(My love is always
And has always been
Broken
Betrayed by trust as it is)
- Even though my heart
Has grown wispy thin
And made of dying light
The way it always was
Its fading light
Like the moonlight
That once was sunny sun
Will still be strong enough
To drive you forward
And make you strong
Like the meal of joy
That never ends.

Yes
One day
In the cloud
You will finally understand
Your poor broken hearted daddy
And his long far seeing eye.
After all
Anyone who tells you
Their heart isn't broken
Is lying to you anyway
In the cloud
Where our thoughts
And our dreams
And our emotions
Endure forever
Sometimes
Like now
For instance.

Tardis Like These Days

There is no poetry,
no song,
in this sad place.
It is always the same
like black paint
on black paint
in thick wet splotches.

Here
Where everything sinks
into a weird state
of atemporal synchronicity
utterly undistinguished
on a bleak background
of mere carbon oblivion
or the promise of such
anyway.

This is what I have become
here
in this sad place
and that is why
I must leave.

There is no color
in this bizarre world
I was never meant to inhabit
in the first place.

Even my newsfeed refuses
to deliver anything new
here
here,
where endlessness
is only the beginning of more
endlessness,
where even the cockroaches
have shiny new teeth,
slick and brown,
in the mind's eye,
and they are always hungry,
where my karma pushes me
south again
as if to say
what took you so long
in the first place?

After all I still remember once
seeing the moon for the first time.
Don't we all?
Maybe not.

But still I dream,
as if none of it mattered any more,
as if there were nothing else worth doing.
Still I dream
of a place where poetry
and song
still sing
Somewhere at the edge
of an undiscovered galaxy
somewhere lost in time and space.
Still I dream like this
until the heat death of the universe
when and where I stand
Tardis like
on the brink of it all
blinking in disbelief
and wondering how it all began
or if it ever did
even
only to shut the door
in a kind of blind refusal
one last time
only to move on anyway
if only
for one more single drop
of starry rain
or for just one more precious day
I can never live again.

Sonnet On The Occasion Of My Daughter's Absence

The condo's not the same now that she's gone. 
The dolls and toys they, strewn across the floor,
Seem lifeless now. Their absent voices sound
On the walls that are quieter than before

But toys are quiet anyway. The dust
Of doors that slam won't echo in this pall
Nor the pitter patter of her little feet
Nor the cries of "Daddy! Daddy!" in the hall

That rang like joy of birds that have not yet
Grown wings enough to take into the skies.
The kitten that has grown does not forget
Her fairy voice nor the swift time that flies.

Every time I see her she grows tall.
While the world at large is spinning like a ball.

The Wetness Of The Rain

Gone are the seas of daffodils.
Gone the sunny green, the plains.
Gone are the green gored hilly hills
And gone the blue sea's blurry stains.

Gone everything, the curtain drawn,
The dream of yesterday's fond fears
Abruptly brought to what's beyond
The final "triumph" of our years.

All is dark where once was hue
And wet with slime, the years' long trace,
The stones they bare mute witness to
The death of this burned rock in space

And though they did not see the fall
And though they can not voice our pain
They will never disregard at all
The sad, still wetness of the rain.

Acts IV (Murder)

(Wherein the pools of sperm coagulate on the haunted sheets of time's forgotten coital horror where the blood is dry and already dripping in the slow and steady clothesline wind of yesterday's sepia landscape turning like a dread and black and white bad deed)

The mother of Ted Bundy
Never gave birth to a monster.
She gave birth
To the same shimmery ball of light
To which all mothers lay claim
And love until the day they die.

No one wants to be what they are.
No one wants to be the person
Who should never have existed.

Even Hitler needed someone
Before he came of age.
Even murder has a mother.
Even murder owes its existence
To some other thing.
Even evil itself
Owes its existence
To some intrinsic greater good.

This is how
The myth of Satan was born.
This is the genesis of evil.
This is how
We view ourselves
On the mirror of time
And writhe.
This is how we scream.

Ten thousand juggalos
In a stone cavern
Stitching the arms
Of five thousand flesh golems
Simply can not be wrong.

To give birth is the thing
That destroys us
And sustains us
Simultaneously.

We are the kittens that mew
For just one more bowl of blood.

This is the miracle of life
That the myth of Satan
Was meant to teach us.
This is the blade
That was told to tear
The imperfect suture
Of mending.

It's no wonder
We still can't get past it.
It's too much a part
Of what we were
To begin with.

Why did Ted Bundy
Murder a dorm room?
The answer is in our flesh.
Why did he drive
A Volkswagen?
The answer is in our bones.
Why did he exist?
Because we refused to die
And that is the truth
that dooms us.

Ten thousand juggalos
Can not stitch that carcass together.
They can only do
What they have always done.
They can only
Make a murderous pantomime
Of the human doll,
The human dance,
Born of flesh,
Born of blood,
Born of bone
And born of the thing
That we wish had never been.
They can only do
What they've always done
Casting their eyes,
Stitched and painted shut,
To the fire lit cavern ceilings
Of the room
They can never leave,
Where the monsters dwell,
Where damned they are condemned
To see themselves
In the shadows
From the corners of their eyes
From which
Only the mothers
Refuse to turn away
Where the little ones
Scurry away
And tell the tale
That should never have been told
If not for its first,
Its final
And its absolute
Necessity.

Acts III (Art)

(wherein the wet wall of myriad vaginas
occupies an enormous doorless room's far end
like low hanging fruit)

The first true love

of H.R. Giger's life

put a gun in her mouth

and blew her brains out

on the bed they once shared

but before she died

she took the time

to scrawl one final word on the floor:

Adieu.

Perhaps it was his art

that drove her mad

it's hard to know

but you don't need a P.H.D.

in perinatal psychology

to see the phallic significance of the act

all you have to do

is look at the fucking paintings

Beltracchi bilked the art world for millions

by telling them what they wanted to hear

what they needed to hear

but he knew what art was really for

by showing us these things

in that way the master forger

became the greatest artist of them all

by splashing his realizations

on the tabula rosa

of art itself.

True art subverts itself

that is its purpose

Giger claimed it was his art

that helped distance him from her death

that it helped him heal

perhaps that is its purpose too:

to heal the wounds

that it creates

but true art,

like the tail of the Uroboros,

consumes itself

just as it consumes us all.

For too long now

I have pondered

the purpose and meaning of art

for too long now

I have tried in vain

to escape its grasp

but that is what it does to us

it draws us to our doom

that is what art is

it is the preponderance of itself

it is both the of itself

and the not of itself

all at once

it is the horror of the spider's march

as we look into its eyes.

It is twelve aborted fetuses

in the chamber of a gun

fired at the heart of the sun

screaming all the way down

or a jet black New African xenomorph

wearing a necklace of human teeth

espousing burial rites

transcribed from the Tibetan

Book Of The Dead

in raspy tones.

It is like giving birth on your knees

to a litter of dead kittens

with your mouth

pausing only to wipe your face

with the back of one stale, shaking hand

pale as bone

or a world of perfect iambs no one reads.

Whenever I think of art these days

now that Giger is gone

I see stars and conflagrations

I see wind swept milky ways

wide, cold, old

like the Library of Alexandria

or the bones

of some long dead inquisitioner

whose sins

even pain can not pardon

or the long and plaintive moan

of earth's last dinosaur.

I see the end of all things

and I see the beginning of all things

in thick, wet ink

scrawled on the back

of a forgotten receipt

or the scalding, blinding black

of all first things

like paint gunning eyeballs shut

or the vicious splash of blood

so red it won't come out

can't come out

sprayed on the sheets that these two lovers shared

before art came knocking

gun cocked

behind its back

and loaded with twelve broken embryos

one for each month of the year

like seeing

Acts II (Hope)

Acts II (Hope)

(wherein ten thousand juggalos

quench the fires of hell with love and laughter)

outside my window

the fires of Gehenna are burning

I can see the fires rising now

as I sit and drink my morning coffee

musing at the fact

that no matter where I go

hell always finds me anyway

hell always comes to me

but the steam on my coffee is rising

nonetheless

through the chill morning air

in my room:

so do the screams of hell outside

dancing in the air

like sparks from the fire

that burns at the heart of everything:

we throw our bodies in piles now

we take pictures now of everything we do

but here in hell

where the witches of Papua New Guinea

are still put on display

while the men pour gasoline

down their throats

and the women gawk

posting pictures of it all on Facebook

glad it isn't them this time

there is still hope

there is always hope

because hope is why hell exists

hope is all that matters

hope is so important

that we must suffer to attain it

here in hell

where the blood on the walls

is meant to tell us why we're here

where the screams that echo

down the cavern walls

were put there just for us

so that we can finally become

who we are

so that we can finally be pure

that is what hope is

it is ten thousand juggalos

in black speedos

on their own island

celebrating miracles

with their faces painted like clowns

nuts hanging in the water

that is hope

it is tying your pubic hair

in a nut weave

not giving a shit what people think

that is hope

it is knowing

that money doesn't matter anymore

once you know what money's for

that is hope

hope is a bag of candy

that Wal-Mart doesn't sell

without a doctor's note

hope is Chuck Mangione

blowing that funky sweet flugelhorn of his

feeling so good

and always hearing the children of Sanchez

the way that I will always hear

the witches of Papua New Guinea

hope is one more Bob Dylan song

before he dies

hope is a raging unstoppable erection

at the age of forty seven

when she's face down ass up

when she looks at you over her shoulder

at the age of twenty seven

and says this party starts now

channeling the spirit

of Hunter S. Thompson

without even knowing it

hope is not outliving your children

and somehow making it when you do

hope is loving your children

more than you love yourself

hope is knowing

that being lonely

and being alone

are two different things

hope is obliterating Isis

from the face of the earth

without killing their children

in the process

hope is one line of poetry

that never goes away

that one book

you can't put down

hope is raging against the dying of the light

hope is in your fucking face

hope is a refrain

blowing down the edges

through the trees

on Tobacco Road

hope is knowing

that even old Chuckie Manson

can find peace one day

when he finally deserves it

hope is Carl Sandberg's

American Songbag

stuck in your guitar case

underneath the guitar

where someone has scrawled

this machine kills fascists

on the pick guard

hope is scrounging up enough loose change

for one more beer

hope is the blow job

you've been dreaming about

hope is finally getting a raise

and finally paying off the cards

hope is your car starting in the morning

hope is paying the rent on time

hope is not walking in the women's restroom

by mistake

hope is not getting caught on camera

when you do

hope is one last cigarette

you didn't know you had

hope is the one thing

you didn't know you knew

and finally seeing the women

of Papua New Guinea

set free like singing birds

even as the fires of hell

blow outside our windows

even as we sit here musing

our coffee growing cold

on the only things that matter

Acts I (Lovers)

Acts I (Lovers)

(Wherein Job Is Ejaculated From The Sperm Whale)

She said there must be

some deep rooted trauma

in my past

for me to even make such a statement

and I said that she was probably right

but it didn't prove me wrong

in fact it just supported my argument

when I said

that Hemingway was right

when he compared love to a dung heap

upon which the cock crows

then I remember the slamming doors

the huffing and the puffing

that threatens to blow the house down

and I think that we

are like a different species

her and I

one of us quiet and dreaming

like the coral reef

the other loud and screaming

screaming at me

screaming at our child

screaming at car doors and windows and text messages

screaming at life

screaming at everything really

everything around her

a source of provocation

but she tells me all the time

that she is not an angry person

None of us are

I suppose

the animal,

it is inside us all

the cage,

it is our bodies

no one chooses to be this way

no one chooses to be locked up

no one chooses to be themselves

no one chooses the violence

of their bodies

it is a natural thing

puppets on a string

we dance the slow and awful waltz

to the time of a piano poorly played

missing all the notes at all the wrong times

as we try to sing along in the wrong key

no one chooses life

it is thrust upon us

an act of sexual violence

in which we play no part

this is the truth

that hammers our bodies

I watch her breasts rise and fall

huge pink areolas

for the tongue's taking

we are sharing a cigarette

she says she doesn't usually smoke

but with me

she's always doing things she doesn't do

I guess I'm just a bad habit

that people pick up that way

like cigarettes only easier to put down

or maybe I'm the one

that's hard to addict

it's hard to say

my eyes move down

to the patch between her legs

shaved into a slender charcoal line

like a landing strip

she's the first girl I've known

who shaved herself that way

and it brings out the animal in me

there's a look in her eyes

that says she wants to do it again

and I'm thinking

she is probably right

but it doesn't change things

nothing changes things

even change doesn't change things

a part of me

doesn't want to do it ever again

a part of me

sees sexual congress

as the ultimate act of selfishness

operating as it does

under the guise of altruism

it is a male thing I guess

even murder is more kind

by not pretending to be

something that it isn't

the act of sexual penetration

being the ultimate fuck you

that it is

every orgasm

like the emptying of a well

that leaves us parched

and waiting

the thirst that is never truly quenched

there is a violence

at the core of everything

that makes the world seem

more naturally abhorrent

more abominable

than even killers care for

it is the scream

at the heart of everything

to give even killers pause

it is what they look for

in the eyes of their victims

as they die

and never find

and don't want to when they do

it is the truth that ruins us all

a second, final time

the world is not what we would have it be

it is not what we think it is

and I look at her again

at the roundness of her ass

admiring its whiteness

as she turns on her stomach

to look at me

the trauma the violence

the scream at the heart of the world

raging inside of me

love and hate fused

in a single white hot

carnal moment

I can not resist

I hear the screaming

she hears the screaming

and it joins us now

we pretend that we can't hear it

but it has taken us anyway

unawares

unbidden

we are puppets on a string

and I look at her one last time

before I enter her again

not gentle this time

but hard

thrusting savagely

she doesn't seem to mind

the animal again

the violence

the primal scream at the heart of everything

just as nature intended

and it frightens me again

just as it always has

it exhausts us both

and rolling on our sides

we go back to the place we came from

knowing

always knowing

that there is a separation

between us all

that can not be breached

our bodies are cages

to which no one

not lovers not even love itself

can hold the the keys

the keys that jingle and jangle

just out of arm's length

eternally, like a punishment,

a sentence,

the bars of our flesh

simply do not yield

only oblivion can set us free

and as I slip into dream

where all past lovers merge

into a single faceless creature,

that single undifferentiated primal force,

I ponder once again this thing

that is the truth of us.

• 12/14/15

Wal-Mart Orientation 2009

I'll never forget March, 2009

how cold it was that day

my first day at Wal-Mart

after spending the winter alone

with the power off

living on lentils and corn meal with the occasional onion

onions were a luxury for a while

I never knew onions could taste that good

they tasted like sunshine

like spring itself in a soupy brine

of earth and water

like freedom

like the freedom to fail

and that first day at Wal-Mart

I knew in my gut

I felt that first fire in the belly and knew

that the freedom to fail

was the most important freedom there was

we spent three days in orientation

staring at computer screens

in a slow state of indoctrination

murdering what was left inside of us

that was good

and holy

while outside the air was bitter cold

the coldest winter in years

I like to think of it

as a sign of things to come

a harbinger if you will

of a great misfortune

but after three days we left the womb

of the orientation chamber

doe eyed lambs to the slaughter

and set out to greet the day

to greet the great big world

of Wal-Mart

where weeping was a way of life

they had painted a picture for us

of a perfect Wal-Mart world

where everything goes according to plan

where everyone lives better

but everyone knew

that world couldn't exist

it was the kind of world

where even the banks were too big to fail

and all the Barbie dolls came fully complete

with fully functional labia majora

all the better to fuck you with

but yeah the banks failed

and I failed

only Wal-Mart survived the year of 2009

squatting on the ruins

like the three headed cock that crows

like the slobbering heads of Cerberus

and as I left the orientation chamber

beaten

confused

hungry

tired and bleary eyed

there was still a part of me deep inside

like a turnip that refuses to be pulled free

from the fine first earth

that is the soul's first weathering hole

a part of me that knew and would always know

what freedom truly meant

because Wal-Mart would always be there

to take it from me.

Tree Top Flyer

I guess it had been – what? - thirty years or more

when I found that old newspaper clipping

in my email

my dad again

only this time the clipping was about

his dad, my grandfather,

a man we never talked about much

someone I haven't thought about

for a while now

I guess family is like that sometimes

Grandpa

yeah, I haven't thought about you

in a long time now, have I?

Too long you could say

but it's not always wise they say

to disturb the dead

who dare to dream

but I have dared to dream

and tonight we will dream together

in the savage night

of the heart's wide wasted water

our own personal Lethe

of blood and memories

that forget to remember

You, the way I remember you,

that stubborn, persistent man

who organized his socks

so he never wore them on the wrong foot,

the man who never missed a church service,

that bastion of a conservatism

that drove us all away,

the man who never broke the rules,

the war had given you that I guess,

the big one, the big war,

the one that left dirt on your hands

and stony roots in your soul,

the one with the swastikas

and suicide bombers,

the one where you flew a plane,

the one where you got to come home

when half a generation didn't

Yeah it's no wonder you had to something to say

I guess we've got some

catching up to do now

you and I

grandfather and grandson

it's been a long fucking time

even though I know

you would hate my phrasing it that way

great lover of propriety and metrical form

that you were

yeah

that poetry thing again

you might be happy to know

that it's all your fault

at least that's the way I like to see it

after all it is

one hell of a legacy

by the shores of Gitchee Gumee and all

me as a child on your knee

listening to you recite

Hiawatha's Child,

in that baritone voice of yours

as it echoed down the hall,

fucking spellbound

yeah, you and I, we need to talk

that's for sure

we aren't so different, you and I,

we need to talk

about the newspaper clipping

the one from 1948

we need to talk about

how you got arrested

for buzzing the tree tops

at an altitude of fifty feet,

low enough for all of them

to feel the wind of the war on their faces,

while you tossed out political pamphlets

for the university students when the war was over

like the tree top flyer

in that song by Stephen Stills

only you weren't smuggling drugs that day

you were smuggling ideas

the way I smuggle them now

under the guise of poetry

where the fools won't find them

the wolves

the predators

and the wannabe Hitlers of our tender age

yeah, we're not so different,

you and I, these days

I find myself more like you every day

that stubborn

that meticulous

that sensitive

and that committed to all the wrong causes

for all the right reasons

while I grow more conservative

every day

I guess that one day soon

death will have us both again

it has to happen

and seeing you buzz the tree tops

in my heart's high night

I know that

we're all children when we die

we leave this world

the same way that we came into it

naked

alone

kicking and screaming

crying for the darkness of the womb

yet afraid to leave the light

where even the pain is better

than that one great unknown

it is the war that never ends

it is the war we never win

but when I see you flying low

I know that poetry

is the only way to talk about it

after all it was you

who taught me to love poetry

in the first place

by the shores of Gitchee Gumee

and even though I know

you would disapprove

of the mode of my expression

when I see you tree top flying

throwing political pamphlets in the wind

I know that that is the one

slightest of transgressions

you would easily forgive

because you too were unconventional once

as all young men are

because love and truth

transcend form anyway

and true words have the power

to resurrect the dead

regardless of how

they are put together

so let us

you and I

celebrate this tree top flight

one last time

as grandfather and grandson

while the night is still young

because time is fleeting

and we will not have this opportunity

again

And sometimes even the dead rest uneasy

The dead who dare to dream

When they have something to say.

When The Cavemen Walked The Earth

There's a theory going around
In scientific circles
That the interbreeding
Of Homo Sapiens and the Neanderthals
May have taken place just four times
Four times
Four acts of sexual congress
Was all it took
To alter the human genome forever

But what gives me pause
Is knowing that
For such a thing to be possible
It would mean
That the entire worldwide population
Of humans at the time
Must have been so small
As to make our very existence today
Seem like an anomaly
An accident
A twist of fate
With no cosmic significance whatsoever
Like bird shit on the windshield
Or something sticky on the sole of your shoe
That small
That insignificant
And that ultimately unnecessary

It must have been a bleak and dreary life
For them all
Watching their children die in the snow
Die in the ice
Leaving them for the animals
When they could not be buried
But there must have been worse things
Than seeing your children
Eaten by animals
When the cavemen walked the earth

No wonder then
That the newly born human brain
Evolved a way to protect itself
From self destruction
From the madness of despair
That would surely
Have doomed us all

No wonder then
That it was necessary
To invent the afterlife
And to invent the gods
For who doesn't want to see their children again
When so many have died
And all about you
Is ruin and waste and brokenness
Broken lives
Broken hearts
Broken bodies
And broken everything
Everything was broken
Hope was all they had
I wonder about their eyes that way
I wonder about the secrets they possessed
The brokenness that they possessed
And I begin to understand

That the bleakness of reality
Is the madness that afflicts us all
It is the disease
For which there is no cure
No wonder then
That even children know how to pretend
Without being taught
No wonder then
That even cavemen
Looked to the sky and dreamed
When they walked the earth

300

300 Spartan warriors
Defending Greece
against the hordes of Xerxes
And I can't even find a better job
And sometimes my car keys

Now when I think
about old world heroism
Everything about my life
Stands in stark contrast
Skinny fat guys
Don't set off lunk alarms I guess

No, I am no Spartan warrior
I am instead
Cowardly
Lazy
Self-indulgent
And easily defeated
With a tendency towards compromise

Perhaps one day though
When the time is right
I'll raise my singing sword of flame
And take the field
While the cheering crowd
Sings its timely and unfortunate hallelujah
In my head
Leaving corpses in my wake
A trail of blood for the troubadours
Screaming freedom or some shit

Maybe one day
But probably not
So until then
I'll just be one lonely guy
In the modern age
With no illusions about his place
In the grand scheme of things
Singing his sad no songs
For the tone blind

God Fearing Thieves

We spent the night stocking
Blue rays and DVDs
Tossing them one by one
In the bargain bins
Scanning UPCs
And hunting modular locations
Like Easter eggs

When I saw it
A small white copy
Of the movie Do You Believe
A primer of Christian fundamentalism
I assumed
Then I noticed that it had been cut open

The DVD inside was missing
Stolen
And I wondered
What kind of Christian lifts a DVD?
The God fearing kind I suppose
But you have to wonder
What goes through the minds
Of God fearing thieves

I suppose it's possible
That they didn't know stealing was wrong
Not having seen the movie yet
Or maybe they were stealing it for someone
To impress them or something
Or maybe it was just the thrill of transgression
Or maybe they just had a profound appreciation
For the irony of it all

Its hard to know for sure
But as for me
I like to think they did it
Just to fuck with people's heads
Since not being a God fearing man myself
It's the only thing that makes sense
In my own little personal
Fucked up world

But in the end I'll never know
It's just another one of life's mysteries
Like locks on doors
Like the sound of birds
Like watching your step father slowly die
For three whole days
While outside the quiet
Of the hospital womb
The tornados raged in a town
That had never known tornados

I guess we're all thieves in a way
God fearing or not
Thieves of time
Thieves of flesh
Thieves of life itself
Every moment we enjoy
Existing at the expense of some other living thing
So I guess
In the end
One more missing DVD
Isn't going to make much difference anyway

For now it's enough to know
That the mystery itself is enough
Enough to know
That in the end
No one really owns anything at all
And that information
Is more important to me
Than another useless prohibition
Or fundamentalist Christian primer
That fails to explain the problem in the first place
Much less justify its own existence
Or ours even

Wal-Mart, 2015

Five days now I have written my soul empty

but there's always Wal-Mart

to fill it back up again

Wal-Mart with all its bullshit

Wal-Mart

with its stupid fucking cheer

Wal-Mart

with its vapid rollbacks

and fucking early Christmas lights

with its side counters full of crap

and half eaten stolen deli dinners

with the skus torn off

General Tso's goddamn chicken again

Wal-Mart

where the Peter Principle

is more perfectly embodied

Wal-Mart

where thieves find their tools of trade

box cutter blades by the screwdrivers

with which to ply their trade

all free for the taking

Wal-Mart

where they sell rotten meat

because labor is a controllable cost

where they lock the bathrooms at night

where cashiers shit their pants

and stockers need to pee

where everyone's in too big a hurry

to give a shit anymore

Wal-Mart

where it's cheaper to pay a fine

than it is to do the right thing

where you get fired

for doing what you're told

where they treat you like shit

even dogs get treated better

where they build you up

just to knock you down again

where respect for the individual

is just another meaningless mantra

just one more lie

in a sea of lies

that add insult to injury

Wal-Mart

where everything is incrementally excremental

Wal-Mart

where it gets shittier every day

where they fill your head with bullshit

and where the screaming in your head

never ends

Wal-Mart

the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room

the great big swinging dick in the room

its ridiculously huge cock swinging there

back and forth

like a pendulum

like the goddamn fucking cross

of Golgotha

come there to save us all

come there to save us all some money

and help us all live better again

Yeah, Wal-Mart will fill me up again

because there's enough human drama

enough human suffering

and enough human condition there

to fill volumes

to stock the shelves of every library in the world

enough even to fill the shelves

of every goddamn fucking Wal-Mart

in the world

The Poetry Machine

I buy one thirty dollar smartphone
And already I feel like Google
Has taken over everything

But I never realized
That they had finally invented
The perfect poetry machine

It's always there in my pocket now
Awaiting the perfect line
And the not so perfect line

Example:
Today it captured the strangest image
Of mysterious hungry mouths
On hungry yellow stalks endlessly swaying
On a white plain
A sea of mouths in the wind
The size of melons
As far as the eye can see

Nothing gets lost now
As it sits in my pocket
An ever present presence always waiting
The serendipity of eternal dictation

And while the endless sea of mouths move
They murmur too
Some in unison
Some not
While in the cacophony
Something beautiful is occasionally heard

The Dumb Ass Patrol

The dumb ass patrol is out in full force today
The dumb ass patrol
And their impossible expectations

Like 75 picks an hour
Climbing up ladders
Pulling down cases that weigh 40 pounds
While one hundred fifteen Chinese kids
Are packed together in dorm rooms
To sleep four hours and do it again

Impossible expectations
Like a clean back room
And everything off the floor
When there's two trucks worth of freight
And nowhere to go with it
Sitting on pallets
Mute and silent like the dusty dead
While somewhere a child spends Christmas eve
Making toys for other children

Impossible expectations
Set by impossible dumb asses

Impossible expectations
Like cranking out two thousand price changes
When you have to reset
The entire department
By yourself
But no overtime
And no excuses
Or its your ass
You should've been done already anyway

Impossible expectations
While Isis mutilates it's children
Just so we can pump more oil through our trucks

Yeah the dumb ass patrol
Is out in full force tonight
That new breed of supervisor
Whose mouths work faster than their brains
When they even have brains at all

Yeah impossible expectations
But my mind is far away
In a land of far away vision and manga

Hey, Shinichi Izumi
Who is that your talking to?
Are you talking to your hand again?
Your cock this time?
But Shinichi doesn't answer
And I turn once again
To hear the barking of human dogs
with Wal-Mart badges and titles
That obedient
That stupid
That impossible to ignore
While the blue pallets bear mute witness