waitress from heaven

yes!
i’ll have the grapes and wine special
with some sleep and a cool pillow
some aloe and a sunburn aperitif
for dessert i’ll have an island
with some palm trees and sand
for my entrée please give me a line
that’ll work on you
and i’ll take that line to go
to go with you after work
yes everything is divine
no i don’t want the bill
just give me some wings
and a ride on the sky

oh! the web of life

the tourists go to africa
pay big bucks to watch lions slay gazelles
snap pictures of jackals and buzzards
wheeling over the remains
they speed through dung piles packing exotic spores
that in two months will bloom briefly from the treadmarks
into interesting incandescence

the tourists will dine on imported salmon
on a boat the crocodiles disregard
and they (the humans!) will talk excitedly
of the web of life
the oneness of it all
until the talk turns to politics
and how the world's going to hell
they will argue about what's right and what's wrong
and how much to tip the locals
whose brothers appear on the banks
armed with guns the tourists' fathers sold them
they (the locals!) are scared of the crocodiles
but shoot the tourists nonetheless
and the buzzards flock above
waiting to pluck out the eyeballs
after the leather wallets have gone
oh, life! The oneness of it all!
where everything causes
any one thing
and words point fingers towards the wake
and on the boat all the people are dead
the white people dressed in black
and the black people dressed in white
while those in camouflage go thru their pockets
a white girl is still breathing
she is raped by a black man who says
he is repaying a debt
but thinks of a movie star as he shoots his wad
she survives and gives birth
she turns all her hurt into love for her child
he grows up to be the first black president
of these united states
he goes to africa on a fact-finding mission
and sees a lion take down a gazelle
he is filled with the spirit of his unique human task
we are all one race! he says in the microphone
on the boat on the river at the source of the Nile
not scared of the genengineered crocodiles
while on one bank a white man holds him in the crosshairs
on the other bank a black man does the same
each wants him dead for different reasons
so they would say
and on the television all the people of the world
watch the assassination in beautiful slow-motion replay
bullets and witnesses merge in the middle of the president
all the fingers are pointed every which way
each accusation incorrect yet true
the flower of life blooming yet again
from the digital red hole in his chest
as the buzzards wheel above, tho
one turn higher than before

I would like to wrap my mind around my mind,
but I can't.
It's either too big, too slippery, or too fucked up. . .
. . . one of the two.