I’m going to buy some chickens
down in Chinatown.
On Kneeland Street, you hear them bleat,
their entrails on the ground.
They’re disemboweled daily.
The pigeons have a feast.
It seems an end, alas, my friend,
too foul for even beast.
But people need their chicken,
like people need their bread.
When I buy two, old Mister Woo
says, "With or without head?"
He’ll chop those heads off for you,
but I still take them home.
I decorate faux reprobate,
in early chickendome.
We love your work.
But it hurts our eyes.
Though the meaning is clear,
all the words are fuzzy.
It starts out on a high note
but never ends.
Though it’s perfect for this time,
this is not the place.
We suggest you send it elsewhere.
But don’t mention our name.
You are an excellent typist.
We recommend rearranging keys.
The cows have overrun the field, making the carrots juice.
A band of gypsies in the trees have cut the apples loose.
And morning finds the farmer in the dirt down on his knees.
He’s trying to find the culprit who has killed his precious peas.
Bleeding agriculture comes as something of a shock.
It is the leading reason all the farms are now in hock.
There’s your major bleeders like the grape and the tomato.
Then there’s those that scar to death like turnips or potato.
It’s no wonder Cesar Chavez leapt the leap eternal,
watching corn, battered and torn, surrender its last kernel.
I’ve never seen so many big red noses.
Or people stepping on each other’s feet.
The air smells of face paint and rubber hoses.
It seems there’s naught but bozos on the street.
And as the rally cries ascend to laughter,
while here and there is tossed a custard pie,
one wonders if there’s clowns in the hereafter.
Is heaven just a circus in the sky?
We met in the lower register.
My wings set her hair on fire.
We agreed upon a moon
and put it in writing.
The heavy type was used
to build our dream house.
A first floor of capital letters.
In those days we were moveable.
We sent keys to our friends
and ribbon to our enemies.
But the roof was paper thin.
Soon we were infested with lies.
Our moon appeared
in other words,
leaving us lightless and brittle.
My wings and her hair disappeared.
Our home filled up
with high-pitched screams.
And at night
we prayed for erasure.
How soon before the pumpkins rot.
And leave behind the orange dot.
The viscous game, decomposition.
Sunrise as life’s last musician.
Aswoon, the fallow season drops.
The moons lined up like lollypops.
Beside the bassinet,
she’ll light her cigarette.
The babies in her care
have smoke rings in their hair.
Sometimes near diaper rashes,
you’ll even find her ashes.
And baby’s first words often
are simply, "please stop coughin’."
She’s a nicotine nanny,
a two-pack granny.
She’ll take care of your young,
but they’ll need an iron lung.
It takes her five puffs, maybe,
to sing "Rock-a-bye-baby."
And while they bathe
with rubber duckies,
she’ll smoke three
unfiltered Lucky’s.
Abstract addition. Subversive subtraction.
Rabid multiplication. Joy division.
Golly geometry. Southern calculus.
Recession.
Principal’s officer. Superintendent hero.
School board stiff. Busdriver ed.
Monkey bars and grills. Chalkboard outlines.
Hot lunch date. Hall Monitor and Merrimac.
Boys’ rumor. Raised hand jive.
Wood shop stewart. Penmanship of state.
Gym class distinction. Playground zero.
Report card dealer. Detention deficit.
Inkwell being. Spelling bee hives.
Pencil box turtle. Book covergirl.
Teacher’s pet peeve. Dunce cap and gown.
Immediate graduation.
Horizon gone blank.
Soap pond, floating.
Forty billion mutilated filters.
Haiku heaven has shortened us,
pulled us with extravagant blurbs
toward ruffled outskirts
we poach and penetrate.
O, exchequer of ecstasy,
blue dot neophyte,
Elvis of the sidewalk trash,
smoothe the hood grain.
Better mediate ascension.
Along the highway,
implant signs of doubt.
Sharp edges and spoiled soil.
The green house is extinguished,
the rocks printed over.
We must have sundried eyes.
He slapped the smile off the face
of the etiquette boy.
And batted his batting eyelashes.
His "Pardon me, sir"
was more like a slur
and always resulted in clashes.
He even learned how
executing a bow
could be used as a martial attack.
And God help you, son,
and get ready to run
if he gave you a pat on the back.
Charm school bullies
rule the halls.
Tiny brains and giant balls.
Under manners, overbearing.
"Excuse me," WHACK !
"Thanks for sharing."
In breaking the bone of the beak,
so to speak,
we’re changing the shape of a life
in a week.
Unwrapping the bandages,
please take a peek,
and if you don’t like what you see,
please don’t shriek.
O, the nose makes the face
by its size and its grace.
Many honkers in place
simply take too much space.
So, if chopping’s in need,
make a change with due speed.
It’s a simple excursion
to get a new version.
The state has assumed full control of my life,
despite all my better intentions.
They monitor me through computers, you see,
and other more subtle inventions.
The cable t.v. is looking at me,
it’s one of their obvious tricks.
Whatever I do they invariably see.
I feel somewhat like number six.
Technology’s praised as the future’s new wave.
I actually buy their devices.
The ultimate goal being total control
at totally outrageous prices.
She takes her picture once a week
in that old photo booth.
She once fell down outside of Sears
and chipped a baby tooth.
She buys her jeans and magazines
and cigarettes all there.
At CVS she buys a gel
to colorize her hair.
One time she stretched out
on a bench for a two-hour nap.
And she admits to shoplifting
an item from The Gap.
The courteous mallflower
spends every waking hour
avoiding time at home
inside that shopping dome.
And once school’s at an end,
she often tells her friend,
she’ll still be in the mob there,
’cause she’ll just get a job there.
Tap our phones and cramp our styles.
Lock us up without fair trials.
Check our luggage for nail files.
We will not be cowed.
Keep tabs on library books.
Categorize us by looks.
Sometimes kings can fall to rooks.
Freedom is our shroud.
Change the laws and steal the land.
We still have the upper hand.
Ninety nine united stand.
Though mountains are plowed.
We the people shall prevail.
You can’t put us all in jail.
Our life blood is not for sale.
Stuff you, mushroom cloud.
“God always comes in through the side door
if he bothers to show up at all ,”
said the tired old grey haired bartender,
one day late December, after a mild fall.
“He sits on the stool by the juke box,
as if that’s just where he belongs.
He has a few shots of tequila,
and always plays these same three songs.
It’s ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow,’
and ‘Baby, The Rain Must Fall.’
And then halfway through ‘Lonely Teardrops,’
he’s usually startin’ to bawl.
he says he’s the cause of our troubles.
He can’t stop the shit goin’ down.
He sure gets to me. I turn on the t.v.,
and usually buy him a round.
And then he takes off in a hurry,
as if he’s remembered a date.
He leaves a good tip” ‘Go down with the ship,
but sail before time gets too late.’ “
The ghost of mediocrity
is out bowling for dollars.
Ten pins, he wins, the counter spins,
he flies around and hollers.
The game is just a sidelight.
He should really be asleep.
But smashing wood
sometimes feels good,
more fun than counting sheep.
Tomorrow he’ll resume his rounds,
shepherding toward the mean.
But right now there’s a six-ten split,
and he’s a spare machine.
The righteous will die with the damned,
a puzzle all over the land.
The pieces are covered with blood.
We’re working our way to the flood.
The troops are well-meaning, of course,
a brave and insidious force.
The rockets are aimed. The weak will be maimed.
Much later we’ll deal with remorse.
The bombs are all loaded in planes.
War fever is coursing through veins.
Each woman and kid who’s not too well hid
will suffer incredible pains.
The world will forgive us in time.
Some day war will be seen as crime.
But, until that day, we’ll say bombs away.
We’re murderous men in our prime.
My love for the Queen
is out of check.
Want to storm her castle
like a knight.
Call the bishop,
I am sweet love’s pawn.
King me in the palace
of romance.
Conjoined protractors
measure proclivity
in inverse parallels,
negating the subjugated need.
If only the conquerors
Had similar technology,
perhaps we’d not be buried
in the vast electric haze.
When thinking is a shock,
the system must shut down,
allowing present currents
to prevail unopposed.
And in unfettered quantities,
oppression can be static,
a blanket of false charges
like a constant grid
of automatic doom.
The bait shop’s been decorated
with cornstalks and old flags.
Another seasonal war appears.
The leaf wrencher attacks
the futile pushcart vendor.
The fatalistic pharmacist
overpacks his capsules.
Morning mists, like gray troops,
storm the flatlands.
The arc of the earth
and the edge of the sky
clash in thunderous combat.
A sad old woman finds her wave.
Tomorrow the sea will spit bones.
