Victory Lapse
Victory lane has gone insane.
We’ve sold off our gold for spare parts
(and broken ecologists’ hearts).
The losers are spilling champagne.
The world is awhirl with false starts
(and watching the crash simply smarts).
Tentative Filer
All file cabinets look the same
to one in the shoveling game.
I was yanked off the mainland,
fitted with a tight armband,
told to alphabeticize
words I didn’t recognize.
If I worked for just an hour,
I could take an ice cold shower.
Then, they said, if I worked two,
they would let me sniff some glue.
Random order seemed to reign.
Boss wore masks and looked insane.
Papers filled up several rooms.
I was really zonked on fumes.
Next I knew a fire started.
In the smokescreen, I departed.
Found a boat and rowed to shore.
I don’t wanna file no more.
Automan Umpire
Big die. Small die.
Paper playing field.
No balls.
Sharpened pencils plot
solid strategy.
Behold the charts!
Numerical gods.
The roll and click
of recognition.
Snake eyes and
boxcars rule.
Another imaginary
victory
in the dream season.
nine ball
i am number nine
i have been orphaned
through a hole in
the world’s pocket
i am a fatality
of the revolution
a straight roller
gone awry
i am a yellow brain
on a black pedestal
i am the breakfast
choice of dead men
i am the goddess
of click click click
Tumbling Mumblewards
No sooner had the words leapt
from my mouth than they just died.
They fell and crashed like eggs on smoke.
Perhaps it’s good I lied.
My tongue was roped, then given hope,
then surely lashed and tied.
I saw a verb against the curb
bleed vowels from its side.
My head’s become a cave
for dying sentences, it seems.
They leak out nightly, gross, unsightly,
prodded on by dreams.
And as the wellspring gives them life
from somewhere deep inside,
just rest assured that every word’s
an oral suicide.
Downloading Groundswells
The nodding schedule
of the world unencumbered
exacted a diagram
of freeze-free trees
and glowing hair.
Of wastrel gasses
and canned contamination
not a peep was heard,
fences and walls withstained.
Reality had a hardball factor.
The zen pool soon imploded.
Factual orbits identified
and rerouted groundswells.
Larva covered lava.
And the fish ran away
with baboons.
