AN APPLE IS

 

An alternative

To the doctor,

‘Twas given by Eve

To Adam

Thence known as

Adam’s apple.

As for me,

I once ate

Eight

Apples

On the way to

Annapolis.

 

Not known as

Particularly

Pomaceous,

Still,

An apple is

An ample capital.

 

        

   Sugar Tree, TN

   Sept. 30, 2014

FROM ADOLF TO TULI

 

From power to piss

The fall into

Degeneracy by

The science of

Manufacturing

Public opinion

The world's demon

Transmutes us all

Into diversified multi-

Culturo pack mules

And we do the bidding

Of our brainwashers,

Loving the resistors

To striving fools

Like those who would

Set straight that

Hissing lie.

 

 

Sept. 12, 2014

Mt. Vernon, TX

 

 

YET HOW OFTEN

How I howl and rage inside!
Yet how often I must hold back
The flood of feeling
Of action,
And cool the kerosene
That runs within my veins.

How I yearn to scream my song!
Yet how often I must bite it,
That wild horse – truth –
That frantic one
That bucks the walls inside
Its cranium corral

How often I Don't Live Today!
Yet how often this morbid worm,
This bringer of light
Expiates my all
So that I lay it down
To let go my blue condition.


June 8, 1995
Nonsan, ROK
 

THIS BURDEN, LIFE

 

This burden, life

So weak

So weary

Lovelamp’s shadow

Crystalline

As before

God awful

Pitybrain

The loveless love

Gone static spirit

Blackened soul

Cursed by Thomas curlews 

This burden, life

Oh weak

Heavy heart

Go

Where magpies nest

In the deep well, the

Underwater trench

Forgotten

Meaningless good works

Buried

In time

And lost to the mind 

This burden, life

Unhinged

Meandog town

Stay

Unrecognized

Vented and bleeding

Clasp the vacant gaze

To my dumb bosom

Hold on

Failing sight

Medicate me

Unwanted unlover.

 

August 1, 1992

Santa Fe, NM

 

 

I FEEL THE CRUSH OF FOOLS

I feel the crush of fools –

Claptrap jingo-man at the door

Wrapped up, canned and packaged

I know the cheap sugar high

The flame-tipped donut dunk –

All iced and swirled and sappy

I know the fat-laden drag

Sizzle mound chunk munch,

Blocked and draped and lumbered

I see a mad world driven

By money-comfort reptile bloods

With coffers lush and brimming

I hear the bloat and blather

Info-communication-Techno show –

Those boring, bickered strains

I smell the smacking funk and stuff –

Ghouls that guard progressive ways,

Are fragranced, leached and stagnant

I taste dull fruits from strangers’ hands –

Spoilage/life preventative, additive

Homogenized dyed-out glop

I cry, and cry, for infants’ souls

For cold-stiff-nipple baby wants

Alone, apart; apart, insane

I feel the crush of fools

A knowing void, the black abyss

Odd doings on the silent hush.

May 6, 1992

Santa Fe, NM

I KILLED MYSELF WITH A PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICH

I killed myself with a peanut butter sandwich

Right between the eyes

Down below the nose

I crammed it in my mouth

I ground it in my head

Where it snagged in my throat

But hit its mark – the belly-belly

Which was warmed by the downrushing

Lead-weight blood

“The suicide resulted from a heavy ingestion of Haagen Daaz,”

Said the attending guru

With the white flowing coat

“I can see by the smile

On his double-chinned face;

He was very out-of-balance

And a little insane.”

Perhaps it might have been a small piece of undigested beef

Clogging me up down there, you fool

Making me see ghosts of myself

In a naked mirror of doom,

And what of those psychic suck-down needs?

Like a stuffed potato –

Maybe I drown myself by the refrigerator door

And slit my throat with a sweaty chug.

No, I killed myself with a peanut butter sandwich

To stop the pounding energy

Of whirring, buzzing, heightened awe

To slow me down and calm my nerves

I lost my soul to another round

Returning as I've always done

To this lower life form I've become

"Resuscitate me, please! oh heavy one."

November 15, 1995

Nonsan, ROK

BALLAD OF A DISGRUNTLED GRAD STUDENT or HOW ST. JOHN'S WENT ABOUT GIVING ME THE BOOT

I am the first to admit
That my work may be stilted
My knowledge limited
And prose a bit wilted.

My purpose in coming
To the halls of St. John's
Was to flesh out such failings --
To unshackle my bonds!

I started my task
By doing the reading
By talking and listening
And writing and meeting.

At the mid-term conference
Remarks were made
That favorably showed
I had made the grade.

But lo and behold!
The first day of Spring term,
A call from the office and a
"Please don't return!"

I suspected what happened --
I thought I'd been bushwhacked
By a tutor with tenure
And a hot randy member.

This tutor was "gay" --
He was quite proud of the fact.
Innuendos in class
Showed clearly his tact.

The tutor grew fonder
Of a classmate buddy
And he approached him to see
If he might fondle his ruddy.

After being rebuffed
In no uncertain terms,
This tutor turned as spiteful
As deadly ass germs.

In class and in papers
His remarks made to me
Were demeaning and crass --
A sort of fiddle-dee-dee!

I formerly approached him
With honest intent
For help with my studies
To avoid time misspent.

But instead, I found,
I got stabbed in the back --
I got only dejection
From this sodomite hack.

Meanwhile, a second tutor
Took offense -- got all uptight
During an open discussion
Of Jacob's jewiness one night.

The political incorrectness
Of the statement I uttered
Horrified the tutor
While classmates shuddered.

I heard an unfounded rumor
Right after that, about
Me, the "anti-Semite bigot"
Spread by some unknown cat.

Alas! It made sense
When I looked at my grades --
They'd been grinding their axes
All during the classes.

So I went to the Director
Of Graduate Studies
To say I'd been wronged by these
Two butt-head "buddies."

I had no reason to think
She would not intervene.
(Instead she did something
"In-between.")

She talked to these tutors
(At least that's what she tells me)
And agreed that they acted
Perfectly wonderfully.

The remedy offered was
To let me stay, if I would
Rewrite the precept and
Retake the class -- but in the "St. John's way."

I struggled to get her to
Reflect on the effect,
But instead she applied
A benign neglect.

My letters to her
Asked for students to check
The findings, and her reply
To me was a stonewalling silence.

Then lo and behold!
I went to President Agresto
Who admitted, like her,
The gay tutor was pesto.

I presented my findings
And asked for relief
He promised to check it
(He seemed to agree with my beef).

The next day he called me
And in a tone not-so-mellow
He chastised my work
And called me a "Jesuitical fellow."

I then got a letter
Which had long been awaited
From the director, who
Now must have felt vindicated.

She twisted the knife
And repeated her offer
To let my poor soul remain
(As their court jester pauper).

I've been thinking it over
And over and over
And I've made up my mind
To let them all know --

If I could learn by aping words
Of the Great Western Way
Be not controversial
But be petty and gay,

I would not only go there
To learn but to teach
For it seems that rewards
Come to those who can leach

The great truths of time from
Those grand, noble works, while
Thinking you a "cretin" or "ninny"
And all students jerks.

Those whose vocation in life
Is to wrestle with words
To wrangle and wallow
Like well-cared-for birds,

Who delight when another
Gets lost in the battle
Of learning detail
That's so important to rattle.

When in my mind's eye
The search for the truth
Is not gained from nitpicking
Or from being uncouth,

But attempting to master
The great books of time
By trying and trying
To make of them mine.

Something within them
Deserves our attention
And something outside them
Is more than pretension.

It's the hard-won fighting
In life's muddy trenches that
Allows the mind to discover
A learning that quenches.

It's praised highly in books,
Learning's virtue and grandeur
And it's not off the mark
Whatever your stature.

But I'd rather go it alone
Through the bloat and the blather
Than try again to swim in this rank
Cesspool of soulless prattle.


May 25, 1993
Santa Fe, NM

MEMOIRS FROM THE DOGHOUSE

(NOTE: Penned after a gig, just after breaking up with the fiancé from hell.)

Pulled my last trick.

It was late

And I had to make up

A standby shuffle.

A cool blue menthol haze

And I was gone.

Dogs were barking.

I asked the bartender to

Shut the hell up.

What can be the matter?

And what is the point of it all?

It was over.

Beads of sweat reflected off the mug.

My forehead was a mile high –

Lips were dragging down to the ground.

The sky was swallowed in the sight.

A big orange bit of nothing

Came forward like a lump in my throat.

Soon the place was not to be

What I remembered.

The flat, ordinary people I knew,

Knew me no more –

  but I didn’t care.

The cigarette, limp and smoking,

Dangled there.

I tried to stop

The ringing in my eardrums.

While I couldn’t be there

I at once imagined a collision.

Crazy scenes danced before me.

My mind kaleidoscoped into a deep funk.

Tomorrow, doors and corners of his room

Laughed out rhythms

And he sighed.

            “What use, this place, oh Lord.  If you only knew.

              The saints and gilligan mews can help.”

World far from me –

Speak and my little life

Will spring

Like twigs, insatiable,

Craving frost.

Branches.

Salad things.

I keep my quiet vigil in the night,

A southern breeze does not stir.

My soul waits.

Buzzers in the moonlight,

Obtained at the trick shop,

Really made a hit.

Can the feel of this

Momentary tragedy

Fill up space while

Nothing I do makes sense?

No, thought I.

For the world to be

Against the wind

  (five preachers might wail under the moon)

But I will not try tonight.

Next in the liner

Was a man named Izzy.

Hell became

A divan

In a sunken living room.

How long pieces of flesh

Got here,

Unseen,

Creeping and then forgotten

Bothered him.

No matter.

One man tried once.

He failed.

He was not sad.

He tried on big coats.

People boarded.

A whistle blew and blew.

Someday

A young press correspondent will

Know you.

The print was

His kind of font.

All the day long

Ministrations were applied

But we lost him.

Does maniacal fun

Bring back memories?

Yes, yes.

Don’t make me think right now.

The filler pump back break

Simply makes me nervous.

On went the flotsam monogram –

Mindful of junk I never wanted

But needed to hear.

I was gone.

Slip and bra

Might have turned our family senses,

Yet inward went the mug.

He wowed them.

His magnificent thrasher

That took ordinary potatoes

Down the way

            “Stop, yengling banchees,” I screamed, “drop it now!”

Lemon drops stared out the bowl.

He took one in deep man-mouth.

Such antics are a no-no.

Scold me if you must.

My jar was filled with worms.

You know,

They were snug there.

Fishbones replaced our

Lost hopes

And ashes left me

Winsome

And blue.

Pencils outlined

Over the stained-glass.

Until and unless

Things start making right-angle

Sense

I won’t be partaking.

Deep beyond her wildest forays

Was a place we could go.

I stopped for a second –

Fan me a while, will you?

Consider this:

Two sartorial bigamists

Cannot sleep

While outrunning

Wallpapered and tinseled

Gremlins.

Hark, fiends!

Smacks of deceit.

Are you him?

Our audience sinks in

Fluid dreams.

Beyond ourselves,

Images take light.

Market’s closed.

Pom-pom boxes stacked.

This day’s garage sale was

Postponed.

Yesterday

Came on like a dream.

I was tired anyway.

February 28, 1988

Baltimore, MD

THE HOUSE OF CONSTIPATION

The fridge sat fat and stuffed and dirty

In the kitchen where its door swung wide

Where food excesses often started

With a swinging, revolving, revolting

Door of bad eating habits

In a house of dust and grime

That clings to window blinds

Or pools in places barely traipsed

Like pooling oceans,

Dustball oceans

In that house bereft of ventilation

Known as the House of Constipation

Where tables are for piles of things

And things take up the walking space

Where clutter abounds from wall to corner

Impeding movement of mind and matter

Where cabinets are filled with things not used

To displace the space left for those things used

In a kitchen waiting room for dying foods –

Yet where foods don’t die, but mummify

In a graveyard filled with left-behinds

Of left-overs put in fridge, or on countertops

Where heels of bread forever sit

Imprisoned in their plastic bags

Or end in a fridge of small plastic coffins

Filled with rotting bits and morsels

Dried or slimy, and growing putrid

All food just molds and wastes away

For the hang-up of a silly rule

Known as “waste not, want not.”

Yet stay it does on the morgue-like shelf

In this self-deluded monstrous way

A “sin avoiding sin”

While awash in fat-laden sugar goodies

Which tower over all food groups

In cellulite-producing, artery-clog

Shaming wholesome food

It shames these eaters too

Who live in this house

Who don’t eat right

Who snuff out life in this constipated house

Just as they would to the body temple.

January 3, 1995

Chevy Chase, MD

HALF A MAN

His steel encased

Plush cockpit

Meant to cut space/tame time

Is pawing at the curbside lane.

For what is a man without a car

But half a man?

His worsted wool

Exec-body armor

Fashioned by haberdasher’s hands

Sets him as a sharp-dressed gent.

For what is a man without a suit

But half a man?

His eel-skin

Brass appointed carry-all

Envied by the polished elite

Completes his authority aura.

For what is a man without a brief case

But half a man?

His position of power

As a money-influenced desk merchant

Will shelter him from the glad-hands.

For what is a man without a job

But half a man?

His Sunday-style prayer

At his once-a-week hour-long

Reassures for now his deeper self.

For what is a man with half a whole

But eternity’s wandering-wanting soul?

January 26, 1994

New York City

SURREAL DOMUS FAMILIAE

A ton of muscle

Crammed into

Makeshift levers

Made out of

Bobbing saints

Who eat

Chocolate mints,

Was grooved into

Etched glass

As daddy died

And svelte cotton

Pickers mourned

Like jerked chickens.

Cracked riding helmet

Stuffed with

Spent cartridges

Ruining mantled

Pierced porpoises

That smile,

Was interred along

Dirt-laden shelves

While brahma cried

And sleek muddy

Bottles laid up

Like mottled hake.

Rusted slater’s hammer

Peeling up

Hide handle grips

Stuck onto

Bagged celery

That flopped,

Was selected for

Transparent battle

As sissy shrieked

And tarnished nimbus

Crowns came alive

Like baking prawns.

Sept. 8, 1993

Queenstown, MD

KNOTHEAD

Pan Dried crust meat

Enlargement of brain

Stomach, heat on,

Whirring time, bleak

Place of endings

God forlorn, empty

Hopings and liquid

Takings by beings

Infrared, blue

Gold-buzzing zonk.

Monks brought us

Mud.  Our crunchy

Path mashed,

Lost

Demon blank and

Large looming figs

Dripping sap,

I silenced the

Melting. the molding

Breadcrumbs, the

Gone night – the

Wasted day.

March 28, 1992

Santa Fe, NM

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