Red Tin Noodles

Perhaps my abject failure
stems from lack of vision.
Importing foxholes
once seemed an inspired foray.
And when they crumbled
on a turbulent journey here,
the sandcastle-in-a-box kit
seemed an excellent idea.
And, after a brief sojourn
in the mud wrestling business,
came my disastrous involvement
in the Lower Sahara
Ice Hockey League (LSIHL).
I still insist my team,
known as the Alhambra Sheiks,
were of championship caliber,
had we only found a way
to keep ice frozen.

Tape your windows.
Wear your camouflage.
It’s a shooter’s holiday.
Hide your loved ones in the garage.
There’s a death arcade
and many real wild rides.
There’ll be bullets lodged
in some unlucky hides.
There are craft displays,
model grassy knolls.
There’ll be guns for sale,
Colts and Carcanos.
It’s the best day of the year
for folks to flee,
the dawning of the sniper jamboree.

The protoplasmic gun belt
hangs low on the hips of the world.
Shooting speed into cows
is the latest rap. Now they are lowing
the brain damaged mice to sleep
in their electronic cabanas.
A schizoid monkey presses
the wrong button and rockets go off.
It’s independence day at the O.K. Corral.
A host of wired-up babies
are screaming at checkerboards.
There is the cellophane mother,
doing her surrogate chores,
and the men who dance with rays,
pale and dark-eyed, like ghosts
of the future, abandoned
to heartless plans. The glint
of the badge will not blind the eye
of justice. Or so goes the song
of sorrow which ricochets at want
about the globe.

(from "Dead Box")

There’s a crash outside the church
and bodies in the road,
a flood of blood, the sirens cry,
and god is just a goad.
To die in shadows of the cross
seems ethically untoward.
The master’s out of bandages,
he only owns a sword.
A priest is standing in the street.
He offers up a prayer.
But save the space, delete, erase.
It seems the dead don’t care.

All the townsfolk who pray
to the lion and lamb
have decided that justice
is rarely well done.
All the saints ate the sinners,
served up in a jam.
Now the sisters of mustard
all carry a gun.
And the banks have closed down.
And the schools are encampments,
as the flag of obscurity
furtively waves.
All the best who moved west found,
when put to the test,
that old history spends
all that religion saves.

Wicket eyes in cardinal sauce.
Rum furry flakes.
Slapdash panache.
Spicy species.
Involuntary continental mousse.
Anise abuse.
Dribbled backwards conks.
Lubricated moss.
Dendrites on buffalo snatches.
Percolated flack dabble.
Umpteen fruity quads.
Redondo quill flyers.
Potent eight.
Relinquished spartans.
Prehensile mouthwielders.
Instant pelican scones.
Platter pushpins.
Necromantic neuron burgers.

I pick up things
from off the street and sell ’em.
Whenever words
come to my head, I yell ’em.
They call me Hubcap Bub
because I’ve got a big collection.
Folks can stop on by my shack
and make their own selection.
I sell all but the shiny ones
for just a buck or two.
If you’re in need I also have
the odd glove, sock or shoe.
I make up songs and lullabies,
but don’t know how to write.
You bring your sleepless kid to me
and I’ll sing him goodnight.
With all the stuff accumulated
here within my brain,
I often think it quite unfair
that some call me insane.

I awoke at two a.m., my reading light still on,
a book about the chupacabra of Boca Raton
lay open on my chest; I was a fan of science fiction,
the monsters of the southern hemisphere my new addiction.
‘Twas then I heard a growling sound from underneath the bed.
The creature from the pages had now crawled inside my head.
I closed the book. I killed the lamp and gave in to the night.
When morning came, I did not wake. They said I died of fright.

I can’t get a laugh out at the funny farm.
The cows love satire, but find it
ironic not to show it. (Cud-ups!)
The deadly ducks quack up at nothing.
Mules may bray, but only as harassment.
And then there is the neighing of the steeds.
I’d rather work the sad cafe and die of soul
attrition than founder in the flop and slop
of life within these fences.

Two bodies of life lined up on a couch
begin to slouch and generally disintegrate.
The dog eats their dust and turns into rust,
he’s thrown in a car but no one gets the license plate.
The cops get a call, there’s bones in the hall,
the pattern leads to obvious conclusions.
A couple grows up, drinks from the same cup,
and dies the slow death bled by love’s delusions.

Someone please break down the door.
Memory is on the floor.
How we lost this history
still remains a mystery.
Images that once were hale
now are rendered wan and pale.
It’s as if a seeping rain
has snuck in and washed the brain.
Photographs once framed and mounted
now can hardly be recounted.
All that had been once is lost.
Long life comes with quite a cost.

Sister Sidewinder just can’t take old Sister Snake.
They battle in the apses all night long.
One says "chalice," one says "malice;" it’s real hard to take.
Their dogma tells them everyone is wrong.
It would not surprise to see them battling with crosses,
en garde about the pews and sacristy.
It may be time for Saint Sublime to simply cut its losses
before one gets strung up by rosary.

It is not the world I wanted.
Claim it not as your mistake.
If at night our eyes are haunted
maybe this could be our break.
Some great star will fall upon us,
some bright moon will make us see.
It does not go on forever.
We must make it, you and me.
I cave in to all the charms fear
casts my way in depths and dreams.
Bury me deep in your arms, dear.
Life is not the way it seems.

(From "Invalids and Uncles")

If a giant crab decided
it would fight a lobster,
would there be a betting line,
created by some mobster?
Would the ring of battle
be at sea or on dry land?
What would be the rules
regarding throwing of wet sand?
Would their strategy involve
the gouging of stem eyes?
Would the crab’s quick scuttling
catch the lobster by surprise?
Would they battle to the death
or just accept submission?
I would act as referee,
but just on this condition:
winner gets to crawl away,
tentacles aflutter;
loser must come home with me,
to be served with butter.

A book falls off in fantasy, a cup collides in flight.
We are captured by the solitude of gulls.
Aged wood falls in upon our houses, bleeding seams.
We are crushed by the weight of ancient air.
It is hopeless. Splashed paint creates a wake
upon the walls of the heart. Listless nights seep
through illusions’s blotter, fade into the gaze of stars.
We should die penniless, accosted by fools.
And the cars creep.

One futon
front of the other.
Tatami
can you see me?

With temperatures near zero,
I try to play the hero,
intent to go outside and feed the birds.
The turkey is most foul,
unlike the sacred owl,
an animal too ugly for mere words.
With face most like a vulture
and raised within a culture
whose habits are to preen and eat and shit,
the animal shows not a shred
of care for humans, live or dead,
and yet, somehow I seem to feel for it.
And so, dressed like a clown,
in jacket filled with down,
I brave the dreaded wind chill like a champ.
They’ll eat their scattered food,
with scrapes amongst the brood,
and then return to their cold turkey camp.

The lackluster Jesus just polishes cars
as the haves all head off to the holidays.
He sprawls in a drift in the guise of a cross
and sings praise of the wage that no money pays.
And a tip of the lid to his curious crew,
and a nog on the egg to odd others.
He climbed up a tree in his break to get free.
Now he calls all the leaflets his brothers.

Bald naked umbrage teeming, garbage fueled, jargon-strewn
half life, led in stages of decay and marked from birth,
lined into corners by sidelong glances and fancy passes
disguised as droplets of glory, emerge to a timeless dawn
of forsaken moments, backward thinking, vine-swinging
retribution, penned by non-existent demons made starlike
by this chorus of wails.
Filch this never-ending youth, planet of hipsters in a cloud.
The cry abounds. Grandfather dirt, mother of oceans,
beguile us with mundane unearthly wisdom, the truths
of startling winter even heaven cannot know. Take hold
the light’s dominion like some stellar dance path’s magic.
Eviscerate the crown volcanic, tragedy’s room mate,
yesterday’s bill of lading for the host of fine rememberings.
Nothing is sacred that cannot fly.
To the end we twirl, shameless in this pivot of doom.

Dad was not kilt in the war.
Scotch tape and fine whiskey.
Brigadoon was just a bore.
Highlands are quite risky.
Play on, bagpipe, play,
with your wail and whine.
I’m a Scot and to this day,
I’m drunk but I’m fine.
We’re the ones invented golf.
And we do dig plaid.
We’re a brave and hearty race,
though tend to be mad.
Play on, bagpipe, play,
with your wail and whine.
Haggis is o.k.
I’m drunk but I’m fine.