poems 3

those students are damn lucky 

when the Athenian peltasts
defeated the Spartan hoplites
at Sphakteria
Bettany Hughes was there to
hold my hand during
the whole messy bloodbath

she's a professor of Classics
at some British university

face like an angel
and a body made for porn

she told me the story of
Menelaos finding
runaway Helen in Troy
and he was gonna kill her
but then she showed him
her tits
and so he forgave her

so the story goes

Bettany, I wish you'd show
your tits

now that'd be something
to see on PBS.



somewhere in your back pocket 

death is a man's head on a dog's body;

death is the Germans hanging people in Belarus;

death is 3 crows on a telephone wire;

poverty will be the death of Eastern Europe;

death is stock brokers trading money;

death is not waiting for you:

death has her hands full counting gold teeth;

death is Akira Kurosawa drinking tea in a garden
with snow on all the bare branches.



afterbirth

there’s nothing
to do in this town but
scream

… (angels of blue sky
where the clouds are
gutted) ...

I don’t like children

I like empty yellow
cardboard cups
that people leave
standing
beside lonely walls

sometimes
there’s a kind of soft
grey light falling—

tricks of light are
illusions
from the Gods

and maybe
none of this is real.



fuck you, Dow Chemical

they say some of the dust of 9/11
made it all the way to Ohio
I remember coughing a couple of times
that day
but that was about it
they say when NATO bombed Serbia
and destroyed all of that country’s chemical plants
a chemical cloud spread over Bulgaria
and the people of Vietnam are still
suffering from the effects of Agent Orange
Agent Blue, Agent Green
and whatever other monstrous crap
the American war machine
invented back then
tears for the sufferings of the past
are as numerous as the
millions of dead Indians buried
in mass graves under the soil
of this nation
I’m not fool enough to think
the future’s gonna be all rosemary
and bluebells
but by the Gods
don’t let it become
another American century.



trinity

the veterans
are coming home
again
as I put a quarter
in the soda machine
and remember a poster
I once saw of a
gorgeous redhead
in a black dress
the veterans
are always coming home
from the latest war
and God must spend
a lot of time
jerking off
while people are busy
killing each other
and giving each
other medals
and somewhere
out in the desert
lies the hollow skull
of a yesterday cow
as dull and oblivious
and dessicated
as the bull-brained
mob parading
down the street
behind me
a Georgia O’Keefe
cow skull
a sacred-cow skull
with a yellow rose
in one hollow
eye
calling out
across
the desert night.



we’ll be on our way home when the smoke whispers in the sky

these red brick walls
these grey streets that I’ve walked up and down
for so many years
with the sparrows at sunrise
under afternoon drizzle
with sunshine falling on blankets of snow
and I remember the last 20 years
like an old great river that never stops
like a short walk to the end of the street
and I remember that old hobo
who asked me what time it was
and I told him and he said
Is that all?
and then like Bob Dylan
he walked away and disappeared
among the streetlights
and the dusk.



propaganda of the deed

I see the ghosts of dead anarchists
who took their outrage
and fired their guns and threw their bombs

I see the ghosts of 60s radicals
marching and fighting in the streets
of Chicago ‘68

those were people who got out
and took action
so everyone knew they really meant it
instead of just writing it down
like me and Langston Hughes

the fire and rage of revolutions
that lit up the nights of bygone days

that set the rich trembling
so they called out the riot police
and if that didn’t work
they got out the troops and their boots

and if those revolutions failed
well they came damn close
and the intent and the effort were noble

all those wild dead revolutionaries

I’m just a pale reflection of their
sainted shadows.



orange with a yellow center

they call me
Commie piece of shit
asswipe
and the rest of it
I recall the footage
of Allen Ginsberg
holding up a fistful
of Buddhist orange and
yellow flowers
in the dimming light
of Chicago 40 yrs. ago
the yellow for the light
of the world
the orange for all
the knowledge of all
the Buddhas who ever
lived
give us back
the young man
who punched that cop
that night
when the police riot
broke out
give us back the
Weather Underground
blowing things up
and never killing anyone
give us back Uncle Ho
tearing America
a new one
so the light could shine in
give it all back
and I will forgive all
and everyone
I will set fire to
the clouds
and spread
psychedelic flowers
on their ashes.



frag the pigs

when American soldiers
killed their officers
in Vietnam
they called it “fragging”
cuz they often did it
with fragmentation grenades
but one GI wrote a letter
to his congressman
complaining that his M-16
jammed when he tried
to shoot his CO
an honest letter of protest
while blacks were rioting
in America’s ghettos
and Israel seized the rest
of Palestine and
Che was being murdered
in Bolivia where Evo Morales
was still a boy
with boyish dreams of
leading vast brown-skinned
armies of liberation
against
the White Conquistadors
after 500 years of plunder
and slavery and fuck,
when you least expect it
sometimes even
the wildest of dreams
come true.



levitate

I've got
a broken clock
for a head
and these
2 white doves
coming out
of my sleeves
they always
seek out
the Dali sunlight
where
dead soldiers
mutilate
themselves
under
the sweet
white flags of
endless summer.



fun in Cambodia

for Randall Rogers

he writes me that he got busted
for various alleged offenses
including threatening someone with a gun
he denies everything, of course—
as Bukowski learned from a cellmate
everyone's innocent in here—
he writes that he made friends
with his Cambodian cellmates
and with the guards
telling them all the jokes from
Jimmy Cagney movies
they laughed their asses off
cuz it was all new to them
all charges eventually dropped
now he's free again
back running that hotel in Siem Reap
complete with “Full service cocktail bar.
In-room massage ....”
(read between the lines)
a big round of joints and applause
for the poet laureate of Cambodia!



love song

I should get a job
become a productive citizen
and salute the flag

I should buy that calendar
with Marilyn Monroe
showing her tits

Marilyn, you're a cum-stain
on the red red rose
of my heart

I should write love letters
to Joely Richardson
and Morgan Fairchild

I should write my name
in the hallowed ashes
of d.a. levy in Cleveland

I should write pornography
on the skulls of the raging
American war machine

I should write to old Tim Leary
guru of the tripping stars
in the 7 seas of Buddha

I should write to Pete Seeger
who performed at
Obama's inauguration

Pete,
democracy in this country
is a goddam lie

Obama ain't no different
from the rest of 'em
ain't no hope

just ask the asphodels
that shrink away
from the bastard in horror.



indefinite detention

the government
can arrest
any American citizen
and lock them up
without trial
for life
and if you think
they've never done it
it's cuz the media
won't tell you
and maybe
the best thing to do
is lock yrself in the basement
with an AK-47
and a gas mask
and wait for it
but who wants to live like that?
it's better
to walk down the street
with the yellow leaves falling
through the sun and wind
and hope those sirens in the distance
ain't coming for
you.



bile

I jump in terror
from the nightmare flies
and the worms gnawing at my heart—
the stars glow faintly
and I'm still fighting
the demons in my head—
maybe the moon will show her
bald pussy tonight
or maybe the Gods will rise
in the candy-colored dawn
but I'll settle for
what's the frequency, Kenneth?
and a warm breeze
and hope the razors
will lay themselves down
tonight.



sputtering rage

my cousins
they've mostly left
Bulgaria
to find work abroad in
Spain, Greece, wherever—
Communism
was the lost good place
lost forever
when the pigs from the West
came over with their filthy snouts
when they came over
and put the other pigs in power
and many of those pigs
were the same pigs as before
only worse—
you maggots
filth
scumbags
whores
who're always crowing about
yr so-called democracy:

fuck you.



near perfect 

sitting at
the window
as the night
pours in.

a frantic
moth rattles
the net.

I can see
the burning
lights of
cigarettes
from
the porch
next door

but not
the people
which is
good cuz
they’re
assholes;

otherwise
the world
is just fine
tonight.




green horse

out walking the night
cuz I can't sleep
cuz the demons won't let me be
my shoes burn holes into
the echoing sidewalk
the stars are dumb and faceless
cats slink in the shadows
and it's good to be alone
out here in the cold
better than wrestling with the demons
though I tried imagining
red roses sprouting from the walls;
this town is big enough now
to have its own homeless
the last of the drunks stagger home
I remember one time
when I was on this same street
on a winter afternoon
and the sun was gently
burning through the clouds
like a smoldering cigarette
I saw a dead blackbird
with its black eye staring up at me
as if to say
here's where the body ends;
yes, I was always the freak
the weirdo
riding the green horse
on the carousel of eternity;
Time is a fat drunk witch
with the face of Buddha
and the hands of the dreaming clock
keep ticking in my brain.