Abundant Encumbrance

How bout that wizard? Don't assume he is one.

He could just be the creepiest guy ever - fake wizard costume, owl and a pipe

Mushroom monsters ! They sure don't look happy

Encumbered Abundance

Food in the halfway kingdom
is always equally close
as it is from far-a-way.

Meaning: some frail colt
will whinny a cold wind
toward the North, a salmon's march
and so bestowed we were with grain
we couldn't fit out the city's gate.

That's right I build granaries
with spare tires and light fuses
of bombs here & there. I cannot say
I know what I'm doing, but I can say
that I'm making a difference.

Airs

in the night
slowly white sulfur lights
ooze commercial boobs
& make slants of neon sun

lurid aristocratic cigars speak --
only as suggestion, not the acrimony
of --  her airs to us;
we know how Hemingway died.

same as cousins
we have all held but not known
or taken the time to believe in

a clown tattoo;
the hose you bought at Home Depot;
wish i could have helped.

Ribosomes

Corns and lima bean suffer, as does succotash in the beseeching rain. Beseeched rain never stops and I'm giving up overcoats for Lent. Walking out into the ether saloon, sleety rays of moonshine breath blowing. The curtains match the drapes. There are certain grapes but I am red/green colorblind. I see traffic lights: high light means stop and low means go and Christmas is totally colorbland. Can you be deaf to only some sounds?

My guru is a gnu, a mountain goat. A zephyr among peasant animals, rooting for rutabagas in the neon jungle. Beards make even the goatiest-looking creatures look distinguished.

Go Fish

3.
This wasn't just any kind of
--how to say-- ceremony,
but merely the act of exploring
become an act of mercy.
The nothingness wants to be
divested, if only because
the jungle will not eventually lose
only question being: where are we?

On a cloud of pugnacious sky
was Drake, leafing through his fish guide,
informing Robert about smallmouth,
perch and crappie.

They were too proud to turn around;
they went fishing.

Men Nearing Shelter

1.
What was it
about the fountain women
les phantoms du fonte
of whom their shapes were cast
(in inky lead, as if metal were
the matter to address);

had been cast, as the actor,
or the fishhook dangling
just beneath the surface.

"This simply ain't
no place to fish,"
had said Drake
over morning coffee. 

2.
Of course Robert did not listen
he who believes less and less
to know a thing is
to touch it.
Rather to move on is
to have trod upon;
no other way.

Don't read about the fountain women

The beechwood canoe was smooth on Maura's skin. She was ailing. But the pleats were nice. And then I looked in the garden. Rain on the grass. The smooth temperature of something soothing... something becoming loss. If you've got the blues get read. Red by whom? By them, the scarlet women swimmin in the fountain.

The Terrible Blues

I've got 5000 dollars
but that can't buy shit
I've got cable TV - who gives a fuck?

I've got a laptop computer
but it's not a mac
I have a space heater but it's small

Cereal and milk,
a mug. no dishwasher.
some books, which I would read if it was 1995.

I've got the terrible blues
the three-pronged
eight stanza blues

Prong's not the right word
I just can't get it right
I'm even saying "right" too much now

Writing the blues... I can't sing more blue
if I was actually depressed
this would ring more true

I'm not blue I'm not black
the hardest potato in the sack
not bruised in the least homey, bitch

I propose a heart attack
but more serious: Iraq
Bitch, homey - I'm back

I speak for the trees

Officer, an impostor
quick - accost her
beat the shit out of her
she stole my purse

it's called Dignity
I'm taking back Sunday
Monday too
fuck it

all of this
was all your fault
Olive, this
was all your fault

Popeye's Chicken
a can of spinach
equally tepid
good for muscles

disjointed phrases
this joint is faces
smile like you like it
scowl at the moon

I thought Wolfman would be awesome
It's getting terrible reviews

American Impostors and/or Two Dogs

Which is better for America? Our hounds eye us
up & down but we won't quit lathering them with praise.

IMPOSTOR or NATIONAL HERO? --The American Foxhound.

WELL-MEANING BULLY or HAPPY BUFFOON?

The Bloodhound.

...

... You be the judge.

Dachshund At The Dog Parade

At the dog parade there were the
Whippets, the Deerhound, Harrier,
Plott, Saluki, Ibizan Hound, the
Greyhoss, Basenji, Bluetick Coonhound,
Borzoi, Coon-Nosed Fibber, Petit Basset
and !!  DACHSHUND !!

Little black creature of the dog meteor
become the dog meteorite when it hit
on it's interplanetary journey from the Danube Plains
distributed by magic to Park Avenue,
the Palisades, the Hilton back-alleys,
where the small prancing German princedogs
dash and hound and snuff and pose.

The PLAN for

the DRESS-AS-A-COUNTRY PARTY:

"Let's get piss drunk, dress in bloody tatters, and walk around running in to people, blathering, 'I am HAITI, HELP ME!!!'"

Whodatsaydeygonbeatdemsaints

I wear my flag to class
I swear it's making me bald

Like an eagle, but flyer (more fly)
bald but not bold

Italicized = to become more Italian
Germophobe = afraid of Germans?

Where did I leave my gun?
Oh, that's right. At home. Fuck.

Hope my dog doesn't find it
he has suicidal tendencies

Once ate a poison frog
then ate another one

Ever pumped a dog's stomach?
It's fucking weird.

Dust / Change

This is my flag. I wear it to class;
I swear it's gonna get me laid.

This is my shield. It's more than sun
glinting off water. It's the ocean.

Oh--them? She asked, like a man
exacting revenge upon a half-pipe
with a hammer.

"Ain't got no glue guns around here,
son," he said, smoking a cigarette and
motioning toward the snow planks on top
his auto, which hadn't been driven in a while.

Sometimes I'm a cat underneath the rug. I
make tunnels out of folds. A whole unruly apartment
is my whole world. Clean it and I become extinct...

said the mouse to his flock. "Father Mouse," one
began, "Please forgive me. It's been... seven minutes
since my last confession. I have to admit... I like
smoking plants, sir. Father, sir, that is, sorry. Harrumph.
Um, I like to get high."

And meanwhile, the mouse tries to get clean
all the rats in the alleyway oblibiously smoke tar
strangle the ashes and let loose on some
hobnob bicyclists.

"Where' your vitamins now, fags!" the looters
chirp, not unlikely mad crickets, at the ponies
as they snork and bury their hooves in the dust.

But it's not because they're lazy or ashamed. Sometimes
dust behooves us, no? We look at it and realize
that we don't realize what's going on. Just now,
dust collecting. Perhaps it's more certain even than
change. The austere wooden paneling remains the same,
but its appearance grows more weary every day.

Snails

Assassin snails are totally fake.

Just-Got-Paid Haircut

The ultimate pudding snack. Love

can move mouses. The situation

will never be the same again. I wish

these words weren't so, General, say

it ain't so. Flashing, lights. Raw cane

sugar, door double-latched like a mother.

Assassin Snails

I've got some assassin snails in my tanks.

I too yearn for a covered wagon. These guys

are new to the hobby, the old town aquarium

man with the rimmed glasses (they all have em),

deadpans. Buffalo ringed wonders. Black Lotus

and the Thunder rained peppersnacks upon

the pilgrims. Ringed and horned I might emphasize,

if I where a rhincoeros. All the streets I'll ever

speak with will be sequins in this sequence. Penguins.

Black Lotus

I allotted a little
on a rainy day
there was bound to be
another one soon

Tropical Storm Tyranny
coasts, shoreline,
lighthouse, porthole
Can't see, dark wave

Hello
briefly
Goodbye
lighthouse

Out the window
onto the door
floating
to danger

the movie Titanic
but quieter, simpler
no women or children
to save

No boat
that was unfortunate
the sale was set
for last Thursday

Todd's Half-Brother

When it's cold outside, I make myself hot cocoa
and blog. Sometimes, Mathilda comes over.
I tell her to change her name. She refuses.
Usually starts crying. Then I console her,
make her a cold compress with some fennel
(and, without telling her, sprinkle a little foxglove
into the poultice). Man, it makes her woozy
at first, but then she starts to feel warm and
enervated. That's usually when the sex happens.
In my head. I don't actually touch her; my hands
are typically cold and trembling, and I have a
fear of skin. It creeps me out. I can't look at it
without imagining the blood vessels and vast
architecture beneath. Someday, I'm going to
build a replica of the great pyramids. My half-
brother is in prison for learning too much about
the ancient Egyptians. His name is Todd. Just
lied again; he was stealing computers. But he
showed me a video that proved aliens enslaved
humans to build Giza. This great documentary
called Stargate.

Watching Out For William

One time William was a problem. This was most extraordinary. Because usually, William wasn't a problem. But Today He Was. Today he Was a Big Problem. William Is Becoming A Most Vexing Young Child! William May NOT MAKE IT OUT OF THIS PLACE ALIVE!!!

Palm Beach guys like to do drugs

a clamshell bucket;
your courdiruy bananas;
Brad's spell with chlamydia.

i used to be a species
before the genus,
was part of the pianist
played with the fingers.

everything not a joke sways;
our mind lingers.

Caissons

Groundhog is slang for brakemen who work with caissons,

which are constructed such that the water can be pumped out, keeping the working environment dry.

[Schematic cross section of a pressurized caisson]

Shallow caissons may be open to the air, whereas pneumatic caissons, which penetrate soft mud, are sealed at the top and filled with compressed air to keep water and mud out at depth. An airlock allows access to the chamber. Workers move mud and rock debris (called muck) from the edge of the workspace to a water filled pit, connected by a tube (called the muck tube) to the surface. A crane at the surface removes the soil with a clamshell bucket. 

Five Musings

1. Perusing
Alabaster halls, spatter
along the walls

2. Drawstrings
Pulled them shut
a certain curtain

3. Italiano
"Quanto tempo par una pizza?"
Don't answer. I won't understand the response

4. N/A

5. Slaughterhouse
Vonneguts curled up
in the cradle like cats

9. Stories by Salinger
I go to school but
for a different J.D.

A joint degree
A joint decree:
Smoke two of em
in the mourning

Three Gatherings

1. Penury

In the funhouse on the river
bald lizard men discussed smoke
and Russian women, whose bodies
are shaped with plastic, like dolls.

2.  Trial

The Catholic boys in the courtyard
tossed a football and ducked
their father, who kept giving them
chores about the family restaurant.

3. Joy

There was a gathering of egrets
waiting shyly out in the cold...
they knew nothing else.

Exclamation points are disingenuous

Question marks??? Not so much!

Elegy

The need to give names to these parts:

trachea, larynx, cochlea, sternum, to give

you an idea of fullness, the body not being

enough anymore, not just in the body,

not just being full of it. Being an inside

that can be turned, like a lip pulled down,

like a snail pulled out of its burrowing place,

like a burrowing place with a name, and nephew,

whose conversations emerge from the hush.

We are convinced there are treasures, further,

things to be found undoubtedly at least, diggers

only fools for picking any one spot. The non-rot

of arrowheads, a riot of artifacts. The ruthless

tracks with intestine logic; turns become paths

beyond where we were supposed to wait,

wowed by what’s sheer. Some magnitudes can only

be put in words of weight. So loss becomes heavy,

silence pregnant with the absence of what was there.

You were there. Perhaps you can feel the thickness

of your cartilage, sense a kaleidoscope of valves,

murmuring. The personal ocean hypothesis. So many

glowing orbs, they could certainly be beautiful,

in the right darkness. I’ve felt numerous. You are

more than just anything. An absence of proper places

belongs here, too. We would hold anything to let go.

Corporate Scones

grey-green eyes
hazelnut hair
Solid gold jams
pajama man

troll part II
the goblins attack
runnething over me
like goblets
of peach cobblers
cops robbers
indians cowboys
mexicans blacks and jews

Simon Says be accepting
be equality.
Simon Says be equality.
You're out

Horace Spoke

Red indeed to whose shade I turn.
Like oats out of the grasses freshly
mown with careful blades.
Yes, I said, oats. Those cereals right there!
Where you lay, I say! Expose your face to the sun
and only the naked will know your name!

The Stone-Scone Tragedy

To each his own; saying thus,
the Prince ate the Pauper's stone.
That is my own, said Prince.
That was a stone, cried the Pauper.
Twas a scone, Pauper!
Twas a stone, right proper.
Deny it or I shall slay thee, said the Prince.
Twas a stone, knave, spoke the Pauper.
The Prince slayed him
and, thinking he had a stone in him,
got a surgeon to take it out.
Turns out it was a scone.
Then the Prince died.

Midsummer daydream

Solstice, Equinox
Shining shoes like the sun
Coney Island ponies
Shetland and his cronies

Somewhat of a disjoint
the King broke his crown
gotta smooth it over
and get a new one - gold

the better to eschew with
to scold the prince
He wants to be a pauper
what an idiot

Ensconced in velvet, he'd rather
be lathered in royal soil
using an outhouse
and bathing only occasionally

To each his own, so I
Impeach his throne
and appoint Barry
Duke of North Carolina

Palindrome Assholes

iknow wonki
she said, out of the side of her mouth.

excuse me?
i said, in the same snarky tone of voice.

I know Wonki!
She said, with normal punctuation
and oh wow! straightforward bliss.

Fuck you! 
I said.

Thus Began A Beautiful Friendship

"I hate writing papers," Julie said.
"I'm quite a great writer actually," replied Cameron.
"Oh really..."
"Yes, I'm excellent. What are you excellent at?"
"Besides giving head? Not much." She blushed. "I'm sorry I was totally kidding, I just met you."
"No, that's okay. Please continue."

I have lots of dreams

Waxing- that's poetic
like Martin Luther was King
upon a proper gander
it's not propaganda

And no I won't spell check
just tell Beck odelay,
pendedor
rhododendron odor
Spicy

Mad spicy
like a chocolate chip
a chipper, a roundabout,
a cinnamon blunt

Take a hint
I don't know about wax
but ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL
I sooo do know about civil rights
Harriet Tubman

Underground Railroad
Hear my cry
I dream of fields, and jeannie

Hair and Vitamins

It's a Friday night, so naturally you'll find me going to CVS after work to buy some vitamins. Pretty stoked out high-voltage vitamins, vitamin D, calcium... I had a real freaking vitamin party at CVS pharmacy.

I also purchased some baby shampoo (for myself) and milky conditioner. During my junior and senior years at school in St. Louis, I went to this pretentious, gay-friendly (redundant?) salon. They examined my hair and said it had a bunch of wax on it. But how'd it get there? Supposedly it got there from chronic use of cheap shampoos and conditioners, which contain waxy secrets that eventually build up and cause your hair to be all dead and waxy-like. He illustrated his case by literally scraping a white substance off my hair. Then he put me in a cap and sat me under those hair-heat-lamp things that women salon-goers use. I was embarrassed but I got through it, and after I dare say my hair looked great.

I broached this conversation topic with a "brother" in SAE at the time. A totally dickhead, this guy said, "Are you talking about your hair? Are you fucking gay?" Or something like that. A real winner, that guy.

The reason I bring up this story is because whenever I buy hair products now, I am conscious -- I worry -- that they might contain waxy stuff. My gay "stylist" (not barber) said that all mass-produced products (i.e. those not bought at a salon) have wax. Although I don't usually bother making it a point to purchase my hair products at the salon (have I overused this word yet?) I still think about it and hope that the thought will propel me toward a wax-free future for my hair and all my loved ones. That is why I got the baby shampoo -- They wouldn't put waxy shit in BABY shampoo, would they??? -- and the more-expensive-than-I'd-normally-be-comfortable-with milk conditioner stuff.

Any comments regarding my well-being or shared knowledge about shampoo wax, please share. 

Barbecue

"Today is so salad,"she said.
You might think she misspoke
but I'm not so sure

"My life is a salad," I responded.
To my surprise, she laughed.
What the hell I was talking about

"Have you seen my stapler?"
she asked, but not like Milton
"It makes me feel British."

What? Pardon???
"I have not"
I retorted, dumbly.

I cant think of how such an inane conversation would end
so that's gonna be it for this one

not a mistake; a wish (about eaglets)

The eaglet chatterly sisters
are weaving with threads of dace.
Literally that means carp.
Take a step back. They aren't sisters.
In fact the name is fictional and they
aren't juvenile raptors.

The whole things was a mistake.

Getting Bi At Barnard

I have rolled the dice at Hofstra,
played cemetery tag at Carnegie Mellon
and taken shots with hipsters at Smith.

But for all the world
your pipe looks like the penis
of a Laotion I met while abroad,
who looked a bit like a hairless rodent
and equally small.

Still, I'll wrap my lips around it
anyway, as I did then, not because
I want to, but rather so I cannot
say I didn't give it a try.

Currant Events

There's actually a book with this title. It's Wikipedia description:

Currant Events is the twenty-eighth book of the Xanth series by Piers Anthony. And the first book in the second Xanth trilogy. The plot follows Clio the Muse of History as she finally leaves the mountain where she and her sisters live, to find the currant that can clarify her volume of Xanth's history.

Pretty weird. In fact it's so weird I can't really add anything to it. I was planning on making some absurdist list of events for currant berries at some unimagined fruit festival, but I no longer will. Thanks a lot Piers! That plot doesn't even sound remotely interesting.

The Busey Lot Tonight

Cold terrain and broken promises. The car
is parked nearby. I feel like a coal-repairmen
sent on high for the bituminous,
the luminous legislature, the
brunt beauty of architecture
climbing one wall, then another,
then disappearing altogether
in the night.

An Actual Fact About Mahmoud

A Tunnel Expert

Mr. Ahmadinejad began professional life as a transportation engineer with close ties to the Revolutionary Guards and an abiding interest in tunnels.

He helped found the Iranian Tunneling Association in 1998, according to the group’s Web site.

THE MAN LOVES TUNNELS.