Sicily, 1932

Colluding on the pleasant beach
With three well-known Italian murderers,
I, haloed, spiteful, gazed at the vermillion
Wonder, Italian sunset. Wandered, I,
To foreboding palace, breezy hotel lobby,
Loitered, went off praying in evening tones,
Head bowed, I - listen for sun-dried tomato
Seller, homeward, solemn, saintly. Saintly,I
Am my knife: deadly, waiting for the Lord.

My Side Of The Mountain

Sam Gribley is
very clever because
he figured out how
to burn the tree
to make more space.

He was also
clever for training
Frightful. Sam was
clever for not getting
caught.

Sam was
independent for living
alone with a
few people once
in a while.

He was independent
for being able to
live alone
which
for some
people is
hard.

Sam is
very
adventurous for living
in the woods with all
the animals.

He was
adventurous
for having
such an amazing
adventure.

Reanimate Me, Friend (A Plea From The Dead)

If you should find me rotting in the wood,
Beneath a moldy mound of brown decay,
My head a mushy ball of nothing good,
A'mingling with the earth on which I lay,
I pray that you would sew me up with string,
And stuff my corpse with meat to make me full,
Devise a voice machine to make me sing,
When on a tiny rope your children pull.
But if I should begin to fall apart,
Or stir some mental sickness in your wife,
I hope that you would hold me in your heart;
It's hard to keep a carcass in your life:
But know it's harder to forget the face,
You melted in your family fireplace.

Martin J. Legrande Tours The Old Museum

Sun go up, Sun go down,
Martin J. Legrande's in town.
Stepped off the train at twelve o' three,
A cape, a Stetson, so carefree,
He saunters at a stately pace,
With haughty grin upon his face.
He's off to tour the old museum,
But first some coffee – sugar, cream.
No modern art, far too obscure,
His love for nudes just can't be cured;
He eyes the privates, length and girth,
His hands are shaking, full of mirth.
But Martin J. cannot resist:
He gives the marble crotch a twist,
And snaps the sausage clean in half,
And pockets pieces, for a laugh,
And laughing through the city streets,
So light and airy on his feet,
He puts the marble in his mouth,
As he wanders, wanders South.
Sun go up, Sun go down,
Martin J. Legrande's in town.

Alien Outlook

Forty Years from now
Will I have enough soul to lift one leg
High above the other
And kick
At my greatest fears?
The forecast calls for aliens
Or so says the bald astronaut
On my alabaster television set.
Wonder if they'll bring treats.
Barks the dog.
I haven't an answer
A single clue.
A single drop of creativity in my rusty
Lusty bones.
I don't questions anything anymore.
I simply follows my gut.
Follow it down the hall to the kitchen where I
Eat shit made out of skin.

It won't be until I scramble all the meat
Out of my hot iron stove
That I shall return to my alabaster television set
And find
That the bald astronaut on the television,
He was an alien all along.

Alien-Abraham

Star-craving Scientologist,
starving, raving
mad lover in bed,
stabs his son for Abraham, the alien
from an adjacent
time scheme.

This is my home planet;
my porch is scorched
with liquid fire from
alien-Abraham's molten mouth.
In Him we are unfazed,
unafraid of human lazers, eyes.

Abraham is framed
on the running wall,
running red with blood.
Gravitationally inclined,
walls fall apart and time
expands, relatively speaking.

De nada 23 In E Minor

Skin suit
zoot suit
Laundry chute
Old red boot
Grandad's panflute
These are the things that will kill you.

Sharing Is Caring

Hello my name
is Cpt. Hank Johnson
I am here to destroy the universe
I am the Destroyer of Worlds
and the maker of pizza pies
hark hark here comes Roger Minderbilt
Prince of Darkness and Roast Ferret
Shh – silence in the presence of a king.
Castle walls – high castle walls
dark cold night and the ghost sounds
drifting through the oak door crevices
holy sword stab me through and through
trunkate the masses and chortle with
the best of the dunces.
True story:
painting a landscape of the Queen's
naked body. King comes in
shout and violence, bloody
and sharp I stabbed and fall
I call it:
Landscape In Red (Blood)
Face your fears
these years are tense
night feels eternal
I'm not quite there – the transit
ional period – quite a
reversal
no doctor: I am
not here, but can I be
with a little practice perfect
practice? Nuclear war and the
war of the roses – which came first
Manta Rays or the Deadly Shark?
Beached whale stinks like rotten
human skin, roasted flayed and
under your bed. Bump bump
night is dark and cloudy cloudly
see the wind it's red and heavy with
blood spray vomit vomit vomit in
Yosemite. High class high walls
scale the wall of dignity, Royal Sir.
Share with me your inner secretions.
Blast my preconceptions if you will.
Prejudice is poison poison poison
and I am the golden cup of sleepy
drink. Heaven help me Lordy Lordy
this cabin is cold and cramped and shackled.
Prince of Darkness, Old Uncle Lucifer -
take me to your cave cage and unloose me.

Two-Line Poem

Martin Scorsese -
         speaking in Morse code.

Deuce Buffalo

Deuce Buffalo is greater.
He doesn't fuck. He's way too good for that.
He stands. Miles above the sobbing masses;
head in the clouds, he stomps his steel-toed boots
straight
down to hell.
He stomps his steel-toed feet
straight
down Satan's grimy throat. Satan cries
for the first time since college.
Deuce doesn't pay his taxes. He is his taxes.
When He drinks. The world spins itself
while Deuce stands magnificently still.
His leavings smell like glory.
His tears taste like joy.
His cologne is triumph.
His suits are made from success.

Deuce Buffalo is better than us.
He is us.

Minamoto no Yoritomo

Shoguns!
Assemble
and fall.
Your training is
Like the rising
And
Groaning
Of a grown man's
Chest. Hair should be
Shoulder-length and
Sophisticated. Hot fire,
Burning hearth.
Home.
Grandmother pours
Sweet tea. Recover.
Long day. Back
Break. Day -
Break. Steam.
Bath. Warm.
Urine.

Admit One

I saw a dead man
on St. Bernard Boulevard.
He had a big pair of pants,
pulled up to his nipples,
and he was coughing silently
in his own damn blood.
Mind your own damn business.
I said to myself.
Mind your own damn business.

Nocturne No. 20 in C-Sharp Minor, Op.posth.

Sealed behind a wall
like Cask of Amontillado.
I amount to a lotta nothing.
Big deal big deal.
Hey man watch
where you’re going there’s a
Cadillac full of dead
bodies heading for Mexico.
40 more miles until
the next filling station. BOOM.
Nuclear explosion.
Heavy headed man cries
alone in truck stop
bathroom.
He hates himself because
the road is too full
of cars. Too many
cars. How do we
deal with all these cars? We don’t
we don’t we suck it up
and drive until we
crash and burn and rot
a million deaths.

Memories of Childhood

I imagined the murderers were at my door those years before the stalkers stalked the stalk.
Plant life is eternal – growing, growing, growing – owing it all to the man who loves them.
Calamity strikes again! Stronger than when we drenched ourselves in hot acid and burnt through the floor.
We’re all made of melting clay and our beards, scarf’s wool. Sheep in a heap, gone to sleep.
St. Martin’s School for the Terminally Legless taught me how to read novels and dirty textbooks.
You, the Taiwanese government, taught me how to face the facts, screaming like a man machine.
You, the huckster with an iron clasp, beat me into shape before we dined in the Earth’s core.
You, the man with a torn down face, breathed hot vomit down the length of my shirtsleeves.
You, ribald giant of the poetasters, tasted my magnum-open faced sandwich with a sour face.
You, erotic soldier of the Phallic Coalition, smoked a cigarette in the alley after the award ceremony.
You, proprietor of this Satanic honky-tonk, threw the haughty bassist out the door for not grooving.
You, Sultan of New York, served the Cornish game hen on golden plates but only had plastic utensils.
Is this Los Angeles?
Are we the graying bodies of two old men listening to talk radio somewhere in Vermont?
Is this Pine Ridge, Oklahoma?
Where we played with our bodies in the damn near deadly sunlight?
Of course it is.
Of course it is.

Telescope Problems

Lucifer, Giant of the Styx,
Sneezes on my West Coast breakfast.
Heaven help me,
This is no way to eat.

Dr. Ben Gibbons
Makes his money
Selling health and putting
Names to the demons
In your skull.

Shoshone women,
Weaving buttered baskets,
Which, later, much later,
Will carry your battered brain
To Skull Tower Hill.

Bilingual hedonists,
Stroking in the languages
Of hate and love.
It's all so ugly.
Dr. Satan, help me,
This is no way to eat.

Artsy Whore

Artsy Whore, everybody else is gone.
So get in my car (Nobody ever said I had principles).
Artsy Whore, I know my flat isn't hip enough for you.
I don't have enough full-bodied tomes or obscure cutouts of
Sartre and Welles. Don't even bother asking
where my meditation pole is,
I don't have one...

Please, Artsy Whore,
be open to new things (I'll pay extra), the
unhipness of my room is, some would say, hip.
Just take off your glasses so you won't have to see it.
What? The'yre just frames? Fuck. Fine,
I'll just turn down the lights. No,
Artsy Whore, these bulbs aren't vintage.
Vintage bulbs are dead; they don't work. Shut up.

Arsty Whore, please
stop quoting Camus, you're
ruining the mood, and it's quite rude
to talk with your mouth full.

Can I pay you in records? What about clove cigarettes?

You know what, Artsy Whore? You're pretty chill for a whore.
I'm sure Hitler could be chill sometimes too;
alone in his rumpus room...

Meditation 1

The leaves will be fanciful,
Tonight, and the meaning
Of the foghorn, blaring
And dense will be lost
On those who are lost.

Let's walk down, dead,
To where the man,
Guardian, stands reserved
And reserves his judgement
For the gray savages of
Nightmare alley.

Holy, holy,
Self-reliant forester,
Pounding at the oak
Of uncertain significance;
Innumerable attempts
At building a holy home.

Frustrated,we cry,
Oh, holy life,
Take me with you!

The Great American West

My brain feels like a lumber mill,
But I'm delighted to be here.
And opportunity to speak.
Speech now:
Boys, Boys, Boys!
Keep your pants up!
Walk softly,
But eat a big stick -
Hot dogs, I mean.
Hot. dog.
Sausage of America.
Tremendous sacrifice,
Those salty pioneers.

On This Day

A hundred years from now,
they're gonna look back on today and say
"October 24, 2010 was the greatest day."
On this day, the greatest
St. Dogface day talent show that ever was held
was held in Ola Arkansas.
On this day, Old Gerty Shoehorn next door to
the Stevesonnes's emerged brilliant.
On this day, Lonnie had his first lemon, and it was.
On this day, the locals beat down the tourists in Istanbul,
and the tourists beat down the locals in Ankara.
On this day, Angels in the Outfield was on Starz.
I watched half halfheartedly.
On this day, shit spewed from old faithful, but only the blind caretaker was there
to smell it happen.
On this day, our king was born to a demigod in the Harlem palladium.
On this day, Julia first made love to
a truckstop bathroom.
On this day, mankind first felt true love.
On this day, the tailor learned what hate really is.
On this day, the world turned off, and never
was again.

Leave Me Be

Leave me be, for I have died.
Please, don't come knocking. Don't
come stomping...
How would you feel, if someone
stomped six feet 'bove where you slept? Yeah,
I thought so.
Just leave me be, that's all I ask. Don't, for
fuck's sake, pee on my marker.
It says "Rest in Peace", not "Rest in Piss".
Thank you. Please, don't try to Frankenstein me.
Unless that's some sort of new position...
Dead people have feelings too....
I've spoken my words, now
Leave me be.

The Witchita Strangler

The whallonganon tortted along
The entirerty of the cargoleet river
While the hispratcher sprayed it's knees
With vorpe bowols.
Risenads the Intelligent warned of such things.
Retort! Retort!
Midney ghoristky and farmer balbopulous had whip to snatch with that young man, and the party ends when corn husky the third gets back from work and backstratcher the fitfth comes from the shadows and worries the wissel out of Marty the Magnificient. This was all before Randy said loudly "Girls Girls put down your pearls". In any case old slack jaw got in the way of it all and fucked. As the worry warts carried them into the cool blue of a summer breeze through a palm, they began to whistle this song, till the break of dawn:
Mandrake, oh Mandrake, Wake your tremblers, start this quake...
The dropline is funny, and we're cavitate.
No more men to sing it,
Just a hound to wing it,
Floor the gusters and sensuate.
Mandrake, oh Mandrake, break the cars and scrub the slack
The Witchita Stangler and his mom are back.
Huji!
Safarti!
Loingrog!
Stix!
Sisiliche!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Takin' the Time

Takin' the time to do my thing all right
Strut in the lime-light,
Get in a big fight,

Call out my foes
And make them regret
The times that they lied and cheated and yet

When I take a good look in the mirror and see
What can happen to good men who look quite like me
It's easy to see what it means to be free.

A cousin and muskrat a lichen a bust
A tendril of ivy the symbol of lust
These are the things that remain in my mind

You can find me in Omaha-
Still on my grind.

The Fish

Look at an ocean

See the fish

Saying grace and

Swimming for

Swimming’s sake.

Swimming is.

What he knows.

What he does.

What he is.

Look at that fish.

Or is it a man?

Made of bone.

Looks,

I'll Be

Adobe

Carving out a home
In the Desert
Is like
Fornicating with a thousand suns

Whitewashed women
With weathered
Smiles soothing
For four
Hours.

No more
Can't take it.
Taj Mahal never had it so bad.
We will finish when autumn returns.

And to the desert with it's arse agape,
I bid thee farewell, and good luck...
The last storm is always the worst to bear.

Come

Come here. Stand By Me.
Hold me tight, baby, but not too tight.
Kiss me strongly, like fine whiskey.
Freeze,
just watch. Intently, eyes agape
and wrap yourself 'round me.
Statuesquely stand by my side,
and be mine forever.
Picturesque, isn't it all?
What we wrought on mankind.

Come over here, babe.
And we'll watch the world go to hell.
Together, on my balcony.

The World Kinda Blows

Say what you will; curse me
under your mustachioed pistachio breath you old git,
but the world kinda sucks.
I mean, what's so new about this New World?
It's mostly heartless I guess,
but what isn't nowadays? The North half is
pretty mean(ingless), 'Satan's abode' to use
bogus terms.
Southward it's Christland, but it's still
just as mean.
The Mysterious Orient isn't
mysterious anymore.
I'm not touching Africa.
Europe's pretty cool I guess.
Western Europe I mean. They've been doing
crazy shit to each other for a while now.
As far as I'm concerned, this is the world.
And it kinda blows.

Hump Day Haiku Vol. 17

Hot dogs on the grill.

The ladies? Even hotter.

I love Groundhog's day.

Hump Day Haiku Vol. 17

Strap-on Joe fucks up
His gun fires and the cows halt.
Looks like rump for lunch.

Hump Day Haiku Vol 17

Vague stench fills the air...
An evil wind is blowing...
I blame the neighbors.

Tendulkan Takes Aim

Tendulkan takes aim
At the fellows in the rear
The edwardian pillow shapes
That drab the landscape into a
State of norabarium carnage.

Rickshaws fly by his vision
The nuclear jargon
Was thrown by the wayside
And lost on these men
They only know fate.

Piano Cat

poor old piano cat

smoking the night

away

caressing the white and black

with a cool rain attitude

"Blue Moan in C"

hazy eyes focus unfocused

heat rises pavement simmers

poor old alley cat

told the people

"things are gettin' mighty hot"

over the hot blue telephone

dissonant and wise

poor old piano cat

he's thunder

he's jazz

My Meat

Roll my eyes in silence,

down a rusty, dusty stairwell,

into the lower depths,

do it with panache, please.

oh -

and make sure the basement dwelling dogs

are hungry for my meat.

Killer Apples

screams like hellfire.

women like whores.

the moon is a swamp.

killer apples.

don't eat them.

Hump Day Haiku Vol. 16

Knock thrice for great friends.
There's Ralph the Sleaze, Erne the Eel,
And Nate the Strangler.

Hump Day Haiku Vol. 16

pumpernickel bread

slide ham between the slices

hump it on your bed

Sailing

Through the corbeled arch of slime

I suck upon a wild lime

an old man greets me at the shore

opening a Golden Door.

He slams my head upon a pike

and shanks my body with a spike

he shakes his beard into my face

where is this place? where is this place?

My spirit floats above the world

answers questions doubts unfurl

my head exploding fifty-fold

I am the sky so I've been told.

And back into that dreadful cave

I make the bearded man my slave

build me fifty-thousand men

And I will spin the earth again.

LeGrande's Last Dream

It wasn't just a different kind of food,

It was a different kind of man,

lying on my candlelit table,

gasping for breath, 'c'est la vie'

because it's his God-given right,

to resist the air of oppression,

and the suffocation,

of a good night's eat.

Martin J. LeGrande

I.

Martin had a hand

but he cut it at the bone

he threw it in the fridge

so when his wife came home

she thought it was a turkey

and served it on a plate

when the mighty mighty Fergusons

came over for a date.

II.

They all began the feasting

Madame Ferguson proclaimed

'the swine - est savoureux

but the turkey - molto strange!'

Colonel Ferguson concurred

spit the meat out on the floor

'it's a crime against humanity

this turkey is piss poor!'

III.

Martin J. Legrande

raised his stump into the air

his bloody bleeding wrist

made him look so débonnaire

he bled all over Ferguson's militaire tuxedo

as all the dinner guests

spewed forth beefy meat torpedos.

IV.

He bled out in the corner of his finely furnished basement

Martin J. Legrande's last words

'enfin, I've made my statement!'

Tobacco

Give me a field, I'll grow you tobacco.

Give me a tree, I'll carve you a pipe.

Give me a chair, we'll smoke it together.

Don't treat me wrong or I'm bound to take your life.

My Library Valentine

Will you be my Library Valentine?
Neither one of us has dates, non-literary ones I mean.
I see you over there, in the romance novel section
busily scanning lovers' texts.
You're pretty cute, I guess...
I'm over here in the manga aisle, watching oriental automatons fight.
Let's meet halfway, in the romance manga section;
we can watch oriental robots love.
Together, you and me.
I heard Hemingway met Welsh in a library.
He browsed the Vaudeville papers, she the Blues quarterlies.
So, will you be my Library Valentine?
We can finger each other's pages all night long
Behind the reference desk.

Chapter 1: I Love You

The Arnold T-Bone Wailer Experience Night Club

Restitution was bestowed upon me
And here I thought my soul was lost
The whole of yesterday’s night alleys
Were but a fragment of soft yellows
And the yellow greens that plague the meadows.
And that of her majesty’s skin
And what of her majesty’s skin?
Does it belie her ghostly contract?
The ocean, blue, but only in remembrance.
The sky, purple, pink,
Yet only in memories,
Which are memories themselves.
No questions can go unanswered.
But all questions will go unanswered.
The machine on which it was built is locked.
And it will be locked.
For always.

Observations 2

I don't know If I'll ever find
what there is to do
in this one-horse open town.

Observations 1

You know, it feels good
to cover your little soldier
in someone else's flesh.

Teleology of Flesh

You took my soul with you
when you left.
On the corner of thirty-eighth, and
at the bottom of a plastic Rite Aid bag,
they haven't banned those things in this town yet,
you thrust my soul.
We're all just fleshy vessels I guess.
Set drifting on some odious course to a disaster-paradise.
Some crash into each other, board each other's vessels.
Some go undisturbed, uninterrupted.
You took my soul with you
when you left.
You ripped the vessel's captain from the helm.
Now I, captainless, have no idea where I'm heading.
So I'm going to the necropolis tonight
to catch my vessel a new captain.

Possums

I ate the licorice because I wanted to die

because I wanted to see Mr. J.F. Godsman

and give him a grand old pat on the back

"I've always thought possums were your best work"

people are scary

three bright young men on a trampoline

went up and down

and bounced again

when they came down

they walked downtown

to bag a snack of steak of lamb

full of lamby steak I am

the men bespoke to farmy owl

and beat a drum to noise all off

scarf me or be damned

The Giving Tree

Come fathers,
and sit aroundst the Giving Tree.
Moan to it softly. Entwine your tongue betwixt it's spindly branches.
Tell it what you want most in the world
and then offer it something in return.
I gave the Giving Tree my heart,
and it gave me an unopened bag.
I opened it.
And there was Hoggle,
all stiff and lifeless.
That's when I knew I was in love

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, An Essay Concerning Eleanor