Saturday, January 7, 2017

poems 6

the future is here

yes, Uncle Sam is spying on yr Internet
when you're surfing porn
or visiting the website of the Communist Party USA
they tell you it's to keep us safe
but the greatest threat to the American people
is their own Government
so the only safe thing to do
is visit cooking sites
email anything but porn
and post all yr shitty poems to Facebook
so yes, America is still #1
if you go by the size of the prison population
or the number of people killed abroad
but whatever you say
make sure it ain't something that Uncle Sam won't like
I'm not even sure about writing this poem.



generosity from strangers

one cell of the Weather Underground
was planning on bombing
an officers' ball
but it went off prematurely
so the townhouse got destroyed
and the only people who got killed
were the three of them

they freed Tim Leary
with a commando-style operation out in California
but Leonard Peltier is still in prison
and so is Mumia
and Abbie Hoffman is dead

the Vietnam War ended almost 40 years ago
and maybe the dead at Kent State have
attained Nirvana by now
so there's all the time in the world
for prayer beads
meditation
opening the doors of consciousness
but no one's interested anymore
cuz all the jobs went to China
and people are struggling nowadays
just trying to survive

but at least they're starting to legalize pot now
so if you're holding
don't be a selfish prick.



testament

when this body dies
I hope someone'll scatter the ashes
among the weeds
beside the dumpster

then I'll just be a spirit wandering the woods
which is the only place I ever truly loved

and yes, I'll remember all of you
and yes, I'll be cursing all of you

just like I did in this life.



all the king's horses ...

yes,
I was the freak
the weirdo
the retard with crooked legs
who stammered;
I stopped showering
or brushing my teeth
cuz I didn't give a shit anymore;
I'm a bum and a loser
who doesn't wanna work
who got fired from almost
every job I ever had
sometimes after a few days
sometimes a few hours;
all I wanna do now
is kiss the rising sun
and talk to the white clouds
while the bankers steal
the reporters lie
and the idiots go off
to fight for their rotten country
in Afghanistan.



metaphor of what?

the head rests on the forearm
the head is limp and mostly empty
awash in morbidity
contemplating the emptiness of the cosmos
or at least this corner of it
the head curses Bulgarians
and people
remembering the screaming
the insanity
the loneliness and despair
remembering marianne faithfull
and her sweet voice as
ophelia
the head is reborn each morning
only to die slowly over the course of the day
the head repeats to itself, silently
namu amida buddha
namu amida buddha
namu amida buddha
the Pure Land is the place full of sun
where the trees always sway in the breeze
and maybe it's
the only place that's real.



skulls

night crawls on its belly
and somewhere in Cleveland
a young man gets stabbed to death
in a parking lot—
the bottle is empty
the doors are locked

headless mice lie in the yard
I'm starting to understand leeches
and serial killers
I try to cheer myself up
thinking of lipstick lezzies
yellow warblers
and the foreign occupiers getting slaughtered
at Ong Thanh
but the light at the end of tunnel
ain't no on-coming train
just a neon bulb that's flickering out.



the ride

it's slow walking
when yr hands are cuffed behind yr back
and even yr ankles are cuffed together

the blonde policewoman was nice enough
making sure I didn't bang my head on the roof
of the squad car as I got in

I wanted to compliment her
on her big round beautiful ass
but I thought better of it

it was a hot summer night
hot in the back of the squad car too

I remembered the idea
that the whole world is only a dream

but the handcuffs and anklecuffs were real enough
as I watched the full moon rising
through the window of the squad car

I thought about what a million other people
might be doing at that moment
while I was waiting for my ride to begin

at the station
they took away my belt and shoelaces

I found out later that the guy in the next cell
was a co-worker I barely knew

it's a small world.



the orchid

reposing
in poverty
and
despair

sweet
as an orchid
in the summer
rain

as a girl
in the madman's
web

the angels
wander about
with
dopamine
eyes
feeding on air

and who
will save us
if not
the atom
bomb?

hope lies
bound and raped
in the corner

and something
crawls
into what's

left of my brain
with
the voice
of a small
child.



what to do besides hanging yrself

in the summer light of inbred little towns
the dead birds tell you secret things
you must navigate the minefields of white trash
walk in circles and talk to yrself
as the clock-towers look down in wonder
you must inject yrself with the sweet nectar of yr own mind
and then you're free as the spider or the wasp
you wave yr silken hand
leaving trails of ghosts in the sky
and then you can brag aloud that you alone know
and when the old hobo asks you what time it is
you can laugh at the sky like a madman.



grey

red and yellow leaves
falling through a grey wind

it's Veterans' Day
so the parade outside must be for the babykillers

they woke me from a strange dream
that I've already forgotten

I close my eyes
imagine a gold Buddha and the sound of waves

anything to get me away from where I am right now—

I know why caged animals scream.



you won't read this in the papers 

I shoulda been a 60s radical
throwing rocks and bombs
punching cops between acid trips
at the '68 Democratic Convention

my only weapon is my computer
the words I type are Molotov cocktails
that I hurl through the windows
of the empty rancid skulls
of the American Right
(I know it ain't much)

congenitally stupid nation
might-makes-right
kill-the-poor

social Darwinist fascism
iron-fisted police state
that woulda cracked even Lenin

this country needs a real revolution

not another Founding Fathers
bullshit revolution

a real revolution
led by someone named
Castro or Chavez
or maybe even Trotsky.



end of days 

we saw an old
homeless guy with
a slit in the back
of his pants
we laughed
we were kids
we thought it was
funny at the time
I don't think it was
so funny now.
it was a chill windy
night in New York
Reagan was President
already senile
the first lady was
blowing Frank Sinatra
and consulting
astrologers
on foreign policy.
we didn't know it
at the time but
the Soviet Union
was on its last legs
and America was
only 20 years behind
and soon nothing
would be funny at all.



Honduras, 2009 

drifting like the ghost
of Trotsky
in the nebulous white dawn
the white sky above me
is the same over
Tegucigalpa
where the U.S. just
overthrew democracy
again.
the generals were all trained
at The School of The Americas
in the state of Georgia
the school where
they instruct
pro-American terrorists
in the dirty work
of empire to protect
“our hemisphere”
as the Norte Americanos
call it. the coup took place
a week ago.
we'll see what happens
next.



turning on the light of learning 

well, there were the dyke gym teachers
the dyke English teachers
and the ex-Marine who became a teacher
cuz he couldn't find a real job
most of them were unambitious
content to rot their lives away

surrounded by the dumb teenage mob
the worst were the teachers
who tried to inspire the kids
but it's your parents and the kids
who'll crush you
the teachers don't count for shit
and to all my former teachers
all I have to say is:
you're less than the acne on my neck.



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