THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT

Since brevity is the soul of wit

Permit me this line ‘oer long

To sit and ponder, ponder and sit

‘Til the inspiration’s gone

I thought to write a little ditty

To tell you in lines so short

Something keen and very witty

But I just can’t seem to, sport

Was Longfellow long or was he short?

I’m sure that I’m confused.

What I started out to be quite brief

Now makes me want to get boozed

To make a long story short

Seems so terribly easy, too, too blasé

Would rather make a long story longer,

Now what was it I wanted to say?

Oh yes, it comes back to me now

Despite all this ponderous prattle

That there is something I’d like to say

Today being some sort of special day!

The words are here inside me, dear

But darned if I can rhyme them

If’n I could t’would be completely clear

There’s a half-wit sitting behind ‘em!

And so I claim to be verbose

Even tho I’m occasionally witty

But I’ll not stand and drink a toast

To the soulless wit of brevity.

Ramble on, my witless soul

Your message to preamble

To tell someone in words that spoil

What a headache to unscramble.

But to you I’ll drink a dozen toasts

If you have read this far

Because I’d love you just for that

If I hadn’t already before

© 1956 by Janet M. McGuire  (Composed on the occasion of Sue Cheshire’s birthday)

THE SISSY PRIG

Snitty-mouthed talky taunts

And gliding, gilded

Mincy words

Crescendo –

Then decrescendo

In girly whirly wisps

In muffled yelping twists

His every word

Accentuated, decorating

Condescending lips

Fussy, flippant fellow

You’re momma’s fawning fool

With pig-tailed whispers

And lollipop looks

And silly, fag-hag drool.

“Now, now, now

Fussbucketing slither queenie

Stop those naggy snickers

And keep your naughty

Haughty thoughts

Inside your filthy knickers.”

Don’t let those bad boys

Call you “limp dick”

Or “shit-for-brains”

Or just plain “numb nuts” –

For you’re a pedigree poodle

Compared to those nasty mutts.

So be snotty, snitty, curt and coy

But hurry to your room

And lock the door

Then hug, oh hug your dolly toy.

April 5, 1995

Nonsan, Korea

CONUNDRUM BUM TWISTIES

Polygap thingdongs

Ghouly gig

Rug-songs

Smack of synthinsanity,

A synthesthaesia downer

Bringdown

Chinked in

Inanities, and

Their bum trippy

Slippery trapeze artist,

Adorned with one

Rangoon

Kid glove,

Punch-sucks

A schmukosphere of

Bamboozled plaintiffs

While defendoid tabloid

Wankers

Converse with

Crispy wigged juristicos.

And white linen draped

Coat vestured

Investment banker

Doctor doctore slime-dog

Witch merchant thugs

Peddle yellow-green

Umphalos und bracken.

Galactic center

Align-oids with

Stolen cola stigmas

Flummox around,

Rail-torn in

Blubbering ragacity, their

Rattergeist film mast

Flip-bird pandering –  

Their smug-simpering bang, like

Yzzerphrang foundlings

Pooh-Yi!! ya

Phlang-gum-busting

Yazaher-ites!!

New, improved,

Unauthentic

Designer drug DNA

Donors for slow flow

Mortal poltergeists and

Useless eaters

Chomping at the edges –

The rat’s ass edges –

Of the hubba-bubba

Razor worn welt.

Eyeing the Chinaman’s wen

We sing our aged, moldy

Song – a

Jap-made, slingshoddy

Guelph-like porridge

Psalm.

SUV For Sale

Hey, jackass
Can’t you see the sign?

SUV for sale –
Take this from me now!
I had to buy it –
Everyone was,
They’re just so shiny big
Like slicked-up wrestlers
And so, so in!

SUV for sale –
It runs real good!
Drinks hi-test gas
Farts carbon gas,
Can tear-up country lanes
Like bull-dozing wonders
And so, so manly!

SUV for sale –
Can haul lots and lots!
Even as a mom
And not a working man
Throw in kidz and cart ‘em ‘round
Like a screamer van for thankless brats
And oh so camp!

SUV for sale –
It’s fully loaded!
Cost as much as a small house
But that’s OK
It’s the economy, stupid
Like wage-slave jobs or selling arms
And so very, very wow!

SUV for sale –
It’s not too late!
To join the ranks of bimbos
Or weekend ranger would-bees
That choke our roads
Like over-sized loads
And so, so yesterday!

So waddaya say, jackass?
Take her for a spin?



February 14, 2007/ Silver Spring, MD

THOSE OLD WOODS

Bramble-dense clumping
Notwithstanding
Salamander mugwump hiding
And crawfish creeping,
A primeval wishing
None-the-less
Came bucket-looking
In shallows of a muddy creek
At tadpole wriggling
For to be,
Moreover,
In free-wind balm
Of greening vale
A musty, mossy, mush-mess
Tromp
Where only box-turtles creep,
To inhale
To breathe out
Imaginal path musings –
Of those old woods –
I forget-thee-not.


May 11, 2007/ Silver Spring, MD

SMORGASBOARD

SPYOPTAELIP

Blues Piano Player
Roofer, poet/writer
Military officer, lawyer and English professor -

Having been all of these things and none
Lumbering on-line with chunky fingers
Brontosaurus-brained,
He sets his stubby knucks to work
Peering and clicking, pointing - aglow
From a mirror monitor lizard machine
Warmed from bytes that sizzle and snap
The bloody cold digital guts display
Change, display the info gathered, again
And again the luminescent liquid crystal
Magic-mirror-on-the-wall brightens my self
As it takes my mood from somber zones
To rivet eyes on its cyberland mall
It distracts, it distracts in hi-tech mode
A diversion unique in this land of fools
My bones they creak as I stare and I stare
And the air around is static alive
And communes with a mind
By compu-speak jive
“I cyber-surf, therefore I am,”

Blues Piano Player
Roofer, Poet/writer
Military officer, lawyer and English professor
Spyoptaelip the Cryptic
Spyoptaelip, super-acronym amalgamation
Of all that I am, all that I’ve been
I am spyoptaelip:
I am what I do and what I’ve done
Or not done...
Perhaps I’ve never been
Or will be
Anything more or less than,
SPYOPTAELIP.

spyoptaelip@internetnorth.com.au
Port Douglas, Qld.
February 5, 1997





THIS GLIMPSING OF THE ESSENCE


Maintaining
In this world of forms
On a plane of things,
Standing tall
Among the winds,
In dimensional space
And time
To mark the instant
Of being
Of yearning,
While grasping
At imaginal things,
How all conspires
With the conditioned
Status of our selves.

And if we see the glowing
White tongues
Of luminescence
Hovering
Above our corporeal souls
In a room of friends
Yet the one who sees
Is a bloated
Needful cur,
How can the Essence
Manifest
Like this
As a mirror of the Source?

Wondering on about this,
This glimpsing of the Essence,
I thought back
To the white-haired man
To his tear-stained pillow
Wet with hope
For communion
And commingled being
In the One
The All,
And I deeply set my purpose.

February 23, 1997
Port Douglas, Qld.





WHERE ECHOES OF THE TICKS OF CLOCKS DISSOLVE
I come to you
With foibles and clumsiness -
Like a downtrodden clown, a crippled lover.
Within are furious rash-hasty emotions
That burst forth at the sight of you
In my mind’s eye.
Those same feelings are there,
That sense of wonder resurfaces,
And I am helplessly driven by them.
May they one day find fulfillment.
And when that time comes -
If it is destined to come -
I pray to be worthy of their object for being,
After their having remained vital to this beggar’s heart.
Swirling around my head
Are memories and visions of you.
Poor dope that I am, I’ll say as much.
And it’s a deeper sense of communion that exists for you, sweet one.
But it’s out of my hands.
If love exists, then it finds form in you.
Springtime’s winds blow gently,
Thoughts on riderless horses
That quietly, invisibly bathe me
In their ancient whispers.
Through my window, blown here by some force,
The soft curtains sway and lull and breathe, contentedly.
This man in solemn minutes’ motion
Stills and opens,
Points his compass at the stars.
Stupidly-waiting-man is he.
And raging on this form-world - a drama
Played out consistently, infinitely
Within the hearts of lovers.
But to know that there is a higher, holier love-synergy
Found in the hearts of seekers - searchers of Wisdom:
Truth, Goodness, Beauty - waiting to be bound
To a mutual involution
- This is where echoes of the ticks of clocks dissolve.
In the timelessness of the Light,
Let souls embrace and Spirit unite.
Herein dwells I Am Who Am
Joining mortal notions to spheres immortal.
Herein we find cause to have existed
And reason to exercise higher faculties.


May 11,1997
Istanbul





MY LIFE, ON BITS OF PAPER


In a crevice of my wallet
Hides a little wad of stuff
Stuff that’s crammed there
In frantic minutes’ travels
A wee vertical heap
The sideways X-files
Of doings - odd antics - a life
My life, on bits of paper -
On tiny bits of paper scraps
Torn envelope corners
Scratch pad leaves
Or backs of business cards -
That reveal (truly reveal)
A crazy-quilt-free-floater
Free-loading schemer,
Collector of dead-ends
And unfulfilled good intents
Little scratchings
Of ball-point pens
Or flair-tip blurbs that
Stay and say
Just where I’ve been
Just who I am - or ain’t.
A life left almost in the rain
Yet safe, preserved
In its dry nook tent.
And when I need to know
I look and ponder
These ragged clips -
Still-clips of an action life -
Flowcharts of an empty world
That trace a nothing, tramping soul
Across the space of nothingness
An occasional thing
Is gleaned, then culled,
And a cryptic library
Re-synthesized
Re-filed and integrated;
These bits of paper - my life
Important stuff indeed,
One day to be duly trashed
By my trusted, unsharing
And faithful trustee.



June 20, 1997
Istanbul



LIKE THE MANY CATS OF ISTANBUL


Like the many cats of Istanbul
I creep around on paws so light
The folks don’t see my silhouette -
Just the light within my eyes
Maybe this they see - no more.

Just like the cats that stay so put
Upon the corner garbage bin
While I lumber down the road
Noticed, glanced at, gone,
Rounding ‘bout before I’m sus’ed
They’ll never catch me
This I know, I know for sure.

I’m on the fringeland
Of their world. And of their world
I’m surely not, oh surely not -
I’m from a cast-off
Cast-a-way gene pool,
Like the many cats of Istanbul.

June 20, 1997
Istanbul




ANIMAL CAPTIVES


Animal captives in my soup
Lions and tigers go loop-dee-loop
I’m just a primate nin-cum-poop
I wash them down in one big scoop.



March 1, 2000
San Francisco








WELL-FED FARM ANIMULES

On the grounds of government barns
Grovel hordes of beaks and snorting things
In squeaky hollow passageways
They pace and trapse like chimpanzees,
Caged in language factories
Where cranking out a daily read
Of pablum-gruel-statistic feed
That goes to galleys sanitized
Who print this lolly-jargon weed
For mass consumpto-reading-oids
Or wasting warehouse storage voids,
The work of the well-fed
Farm animules, helps those folks
From grazing plains
To eat at the Trough of Government Plenty –

In the name of this zoo
And its animal inmates
I welcome you,
Citizen-visitor taxpaying primates.




March 1, 2000
San Francisco






TRANSPERSONAL PROGRESS

You're a fish
Trying to learn how to walk.
Without situating
Yourself first
In the water
You don't do well
Walking on the bottom
Without legs,
Without knowing
It should all be done
On land.
You think --
"If only I had legs"
-- Not remembering
You have no lungs.
So you swim
In a walk-like way,
Sending dreams
To fins and gills,
You're walking
Anyway?



January 21, 2000, San Francisco

LIVING IN THE 1970s

Andy Warhol’s white arty face smile
Elton John’s same old voice
And disco bore guitar blurbs on
President Ford receives another oatmeal transfusion
For his next press conference
And Rockefeller has another of his suits sterilized

Can't make out one representative or senator from another –
All look like lecterns at a Sunday afternoon Mass
The Pope’s head has already petrified
Into one more Italian bust
And the whole world,
As photographed by the last Apollo,
Is just another ham sandwich.


Winter, 1975/ Hadley, MA

LAST NIGHT OUT WITH THE '69 COUPE DEVILLE

472 cubic inches: God's own American drunk petrolsaur
Second biggest production engine General Motors ever made
Best running Caddy in the city and my car
My car, the mothership, the fatherland's pride
Big American V-8 under the hood
24 gallon gas tank
12 miles to the gallon car o'mine
Meat-eating, devil worship god-machine o'mine
Riding rails
Built for comfort, not for speed
Vacuum-hosed monster wicked daddy
Oh you dash daring mesa jut angle design
Pumping always pumping
Pride draped and silent
The Presence
Of the whale
The year: one year after the Tet offensive
Quiet rumble electric/automatic everything
Strong motor
A creampuff
Creaturing the roads
With muted fins
Solid frame, big grill
Turn signal slow, even
I got in one day and never looked back
Pleasure of leather
Big back seat
Chocolate brown
Black vinyl top
Tow hitch, cassette dream machinegun
Hero of capitalist, Western dog-man
Made flesh
"Real cool mother, once you get a feel for that Cadillac ride
You'll never drive another"

Walking feet will talk a legend
Of the "coupe," the '69 Coupe deVille
Living trashpile of classic steel
Hear me, mate me, nurse me
Forgive me, yeah
She once was mine
She once belonged to me.


July 21, 1989/ Berkeley, CA

I'LL NEVER OWN A LEAF BLOWER

I'll never own a leaf blower
I'll never rake with noise
Or drive away God's tiny mole
By blasting at his tunnel hole

I'll never own a leaf blower
I'll never scream my task
Or trample over village green
With monster-wicked shit machine

I'll never own a leaf blower
I'll never ramble like a jackass
Or toss around some screeking wand
With "hi-tech" sneer o'er walk and lawn

I'll never own a leaf blower
I'll never drown out little birds
Or shirk a weary autumn ritual
By flaunting such an obscene tool

I'll never own a leaf blower
I'll never roar at leaves
But I'll admit I own a loud lawn mower
That I keep beside my big snow blower


Chevy Chase, MD/ November 20, 1994

THE PLUNDERERS

Meanwhile, in the psycho-netherworld
Of scarcity thugs,
And ideals gone awry
Of butchered, dying poets,
There lives another breed
From the barrel of a gun
From a barrio-world
Of left-behinds,
Unlucky to be born
Putrid pock-marked "big suits"
Whose haircuts reek of barbers' lime
Who bully to make their bank books full
Who kill and hurt
Who hold tight
To memories and destinies
Of fear and hate
Of mongering, hungering
Bureaucracy,

They start on a slab,
A corpse slab cold
Concrete, steely and
Tiger-eyed crews
Build tower after tower,
In a bleak, bird-boned ugliness dream
And they force-feed multitudes,
Those downtrodden others,
Non-related, in their otherness
These are the fractured,
The skeletal remains of blank hearts.

Fat, overgrown vodka eyes
Loom over desks from cages,
Stalking in dossier files
With their upper edge stealth
They're there
The new power ethnic cleansers
Working, cleaning, killing,
Doing the bang
Selling mushroom cloud casements
In back-alley sprees
Or grandstand posturing
With their repressive creeds.

Having the precision of former blackboots
But in hi-tech rank and file
The sinister, vapid
Con-men come-ons
From Planet X
With their meat-packed bellies gorged
They fall, distended
From abuse and now
Abusing
Plunder us, plunder us all.


June 9, 1995/ Nonsan, Republic of Korea

AMERICAN KULTURE: Dead On Arrival

And your mind broils

Up sights and sounds

Of Amerika

Reveling in its kulture.

And it’s D.O.A.,

But doesn't know it.

The neon, glitter

Hollywood trash-action

Sitcom capital of the world

Has seduced its own idiot mind

And become faceless, soulless,

Vacant in its abundance;


With its core of genius

With its mass of waste product people

It cranks out an adolescent

Naiveté doggy biscuit pet bowl

Gruel to a world that props it up

In a perfect macro-model of co-dependency

One –weaning – the other



In sycophantic disco rhythms

Or bubble gum pop

Imported Negro beats

Of the fashion-frayed,

The monster egos prance and swoon

And stare in mock violent

Attitudes

With sex-laden bumperoo TV souls



They mask themselves

They cheat youth's vigor

In solipsism, vacuous,

Spreading self-worship

Of an exuberant nullity

It latches like a canker sore

To the lip, in the cancered hearts

Of the countless

Where – in all-accepting ignorance,

Of “Western” “modern” ways –

The GLARE grows

Lichen-like

In the shadowy festering hopes

Of the many who yearn

For fame and glory and fancy fun



Amid a quasi-fabrication,

Inside the franchise of arched temples

Where “hamburgers, fries and a Coke”

Ring and echo as the holy mantra,

Amerika has risen and fallen

Just needing its face bloodied a bit.

But while it rights itself,

Its nation-clones will bungle on

And fall, like red-faced dominoes.


June 9, 1995/ Nonsan, Republic of Korea