a r t i e


artie would be so pleased
that we scored some new material
at his funeral today

the reverend reverend clay pheenspurgen
laying on the jesus maximus
how he raised the dead and his own dead self
healed the sick, freaked out the romans
and just generally made a clean break
with the laws of physics and biology and causality

artie could've perfectly impersonated
reverend clay pheenspurgen
artie would have done pheensburgen
better than pheensburgen
his sonorous pompous baritone explicating the miracle of it all and
life of course is a miracle but he has no clue why it is
the reverend talking jesus cause he never met artie
but wait - he never met jesus, either
so there you go

but that didn't prevent his accusatory stare
as he spoke of christ's perfection
we all knew he was looking at calvin who was sittin right next to me
calvin shifted a tad uncomfortably in the "bleachers"
and I shifted away from him, just because

the reverend reverend clay pheenspurgen
insisted that artie wasn't really dead
even though he actually was really dead
that's why we were all in the room together
and pheenspurgen didn't know artie
but we did

artie loved cats
was the best pheenspurgen
could conjur
but we all knew artie loved guitar
cats and guitar and the way things are

eternal life blah blah blah
paul on the road to damascus blah blah blah
but when the rev finally wound it up
and looked to the side for the music to take over
artie's wife Barbara flipped the switch
and the loudspeakers blared, "everybody must get stoned"
and artie was, yeah, there and over there too

we noticed smiles in the crowd
the first fully human response
noted in patterson & sons funereal home
in a long long time

thanks, artie, we owe ya' one
or one more, we should say
thanks for the music you made
thanks for the harmonies
thanks for battling demons
to the death

gag reflex

you'll thank god later
for this effective reaction
to gastrointestinal adversity

it's so easy
to learn through heaving and hurling
blowing chunks has taught us more
than spinoza, descartes or larry the plumber

however, we should further study
the speed at which some
from deep pleasure learn
they seem so very eager
to learn
and learn
and learn
some more

the first thing
number one
the top of their list
conduct a lot of sex
the second:
avoid the
gag reflex

I Got a Bullet in My Brain

Giant Women of Sandusky, Ohio

The horses are normal size
12 hands high
The women are giants
48 hands high, legs long and strong
It’s not a trick of the lens or the light
The females grow LONG AND STRONG in ohio

THEY outfox men on a regular basis
MAYBE IT HELPS THAT THEY TOWER OVER THE MEN
IN OH-HIGH-OH

Tall women Residents of sandusky ohio
Tend to their twelve HAND
clydesdale stallions
PRANCING HANDsOMELY
in the women’s large palms

THE LARGE WOMEN DWARF THE POWERFUL STALLIONS
THE WOMEN SEEM QUITE PLEASED
AND SO DO THE STALLIONS
THOUGH NEITHER PARTY WILL SAY
I AM QUITE PLEASED

The AVERAGE-SIZED Clydesdales
TWELVE HANDS HIGH AT THEIR POWERFUL SHOULDERS
Obey the WOMENS’ whimS
March! Stop! Whinny! Laugh! SNORT!
Show your teeth! BITE YOUR ASS!
The SUDDENLY tiny horses do as they are told
And like it when the women
Pat their behinds and stroke their long necks
THE CLYDESDALES LIKE THE GIANT
WOMANLY FINGERS ON THEIR LONG NECKS

In the evening the gigantic women
Read large print books
About asteroids and quantum physics
THE HORSE NEBULA AND SINGULARITIES
THE GIANT WOMEN GET all the inside cosmic jokes
THEY Wink knowingly
At each other
Not wishing for anything
Being everything
PALMS OPEN WIDE, FINGERS OUTSTRETCHED

Shunya at the Krog

A series of still photographs put to music. In this one Shunya makes a cup of tea that transports her to the Krog Tunnel and back.

continental breakfast is not real breakfast

continental breakfast is supposed to be refined and cultured
the very best your continent has to offer
in the form of a splendid breakfast

like if your breakfast was a car, it would be
a 1948 double cowl phaeton lincoln continental
with air-conditioned-deep-flow-rubber-leather seats
and an ultrabore hyper-tuned solid sandog v-16
algonquin condor matador motor
it would be all that plus you could eat it on your knees
a grand continental breakfast should be
a lincoln continental divide yosemite canyon experience
and of course, complimentary

unfortunately, on our continent
a continental breakfast
is presented in the corner of the lobby
the innkeeper, as they call her, stares at your back
you pour coffee in your styrofoam cup, it’s way too loud
you spin to catch her looking but she won’t make eye contact
you turn back to the three foot display in the corner
pink slices of chilly coldcuts, rice krispies, bananas
a bright red strawberry
several nice dry donuts . . . what if you take them all?
the innkeeper drives you crazy
you rage in silent loathing at each item on display
everything’s on a goddam lettuce leaf
she’s still staring at your back
but this time you refuse to turn around

if you have a continental breakfast
in the lobby of our continent
you will not need a real breakfast
on our continent
a continental breakfast
is not a real breakfast
but it’s a real continental experience


by the boy poets and a glazed donut

i have a great idea for a movie

opening scene everybody would die except
just two or three would survive, to live
gruesome scabby yet riveting lives
the survivors would have cleft chins
and perfect breasts that heave on command
or off

and they, the stars, the beautiful stars
would repopulate the earth in 90 minutes
make it a better place for kids and golden retrievers

the movie crests into naked euphoria
in the first two seconds
when bill o’reilly explodes in a deluge of magma
surging up from the earth’s core
directly into fox studios

the remaining eighty-eight minutes
with the movie’s perfect pacing
of cliffhanger rescues followed by frenzied fucking
feature nancy grace, the former prosecutor
whose southern accent
with its bitter yet come hither edge
makes me and all other female cinematic
dorky ass viewers of cable tv cringe
and lust mightily at the same time
her full lips feverish and shiny
her open thighs ready to receive
the burning priapus of the sub-plot

anyway i digress from my movie idea
of the people who recopulate the world
and for a brief time live happily, so happy
in utah, where the mormons used to practice posture
before my movie sent them all to kingdom come


in the denoument, just before the climax
a really horrible thing happens, finally
after reams of crazy deaths and ecstatic coupling
but strangely, it seems rightly horrible
you might even say – apropos of
all the things, the death, the life
the well-hung dialogue, the rippling tears
the crippling laughter laced in the sacral bone
the very emulsion of the film itself
all melting together – beguilingly
a strange comic relief, a last straw
in the unending beverage that is my movie

by the stunt boy poets, recopulating

loose words

SHAGGY, JUICY, GROOVY
SHANGRI-LA AND SAN FRANCISCO
MEDIUM, LATER, SWAMP

FRENCH, JAZZ AND JERSEY
BARBEQUE, CRAZY, NEATO

RIGHT-ON, MAYBE AND MONTANA
FUNNY, SURE, SOON

THEM, THOSE AND TEXAS
ANTS, PANTS AND FRANCE

SAUTEE, PARTAY, LANGUID
SQUID, BIDNESS AND SHAMPOO

FULMINATE, SPARK AND ARMADA

LADY GODIVA, SALIVA AND UNCTIOUS
SUMPTUOUS, BUMPKIN AND BUPKISS

TREVOR, TREMOR AND TENNESSEE
STYLE, SUAVE AND SHEMP

CARTILAGE, CABBAGE AND CANADA
LOSER, LANGQUID AND DJ

TONE, TREBLE CLEFF AND CALIFORNIA
GOOSE, GONG AND GLEVELAND

FLORIDIAN, QUOTIDIAN, ROUSABOUT
TAXES, FAXES, SNAPS AND PABST

MARMALADE CLICKETY-CLACK
ALICE IN WONDERLAND SCRATCH MY BACK

BOARDWALK, BLATHER, BE FREER
MOON, SWOON, JUNE FREE BEER HERE

BASTIONS, FASHIONS, DAGGER AND SHEATH
CASTLES AND KINGS, RIVER RUN, RIVER BURST

BOARDWALK PLANKS AND INSULATION
HELLO SO SLOW, LAMINATION

Researchers from Cloyola University, in Huffakers, NV, divide themselves into control groups and found out that crankiness is no more than suppressed horniness.
After months of constant pounding sexual gratification, one group of volunteer researchers found themselves engaged in dry yet disturbing discussions of profound intellectual and moral fetter. While able to disagree about the swampier aspects of global warming, prayer in school, flag-burning, abortion-bashing, bush-busting and other bombast, the group did nevertheless maintain a degree of civility not found outside over-priced restaurants.
The placebo group of researchers, who were told to discuss the same subjects but without the raunchy, compelling and fulfilling sexual activity were soon mired in dead discussions that soon lapsed into recriminations and for some, loss of tenure, or even better, loss of life.

Eau Claire Defendant Cites Intelligent Design
Judy Wanamaker, accused of first degree misdemeanor assault, claimed an Unseen Hand or Spirit Force or Something Weird was responsible for a major melee knockdown catfight with neighbor Judy “Moody” Huff.
"I knew she wasn’t sleeping with my husband", explained Wanamaker, "but the combination of the love letter signed in Moody’s name, her lipstick on Harry's strange penis, and the way he, in a swampy sort of way, shrieked Moody’s name during our yearly scourge of love-making . . . the strange combination directed me to her kitchen where I linserted into her left buttock a swiss army fondue fork accessory.
“I knew nothing’s going on,” continued Wanamaker. “I have utter faith in Harry and Judy. I mean he's my husband, she's my best friend, so all I can conclude is that an Intelligent Designer arranged the evidence in such a compelling fashion to teach me a much deserved lesson in humility and love and some things I may never fully know.
“I apologize to everyone involved from the bottom of my heart. I am sorry for the pain I caused to Harry, Judy, my children and the community, and most of all, to Calvin Klein. He is such an intelligent designer.”



Homeless man refuses to work for food
Jethro Tullnitz, resident of Ponce de Leon boulevard, Anywhere, USA, proclaims, "I'm a bum and proud of it. And as they say under the Auburn Ave Bridge when the mood strikes, if I may paraphrase: Fuck you and Fuck working and Fuck the fucking do-gooders. . .but in a good and life-denying sort of way, of course. . .”
Tullnitz, who claims to have a resume “as long as a donkey’s stiff dick,” offered to appear in “meaningful or erotic independent films for a modest stipend and some decent personal grooming services.”
When asked to comment on any personal philosophy that sustained him in his endeavors, Jethro just smiled and took another swig of Thunderbird before muttering, “Trickle down, baby. Trickle down.”

a red orange horizon sunball
torches the cirrus clouds
in norway golf is played 24 hours a day from may til august
i read it in the ny times and saw pictures
labeled “teeing off at 3 am”

reminds me that i watched my dad
play softball at midnight
in the land of the midnight sun, sunny alaska
just past midnight the sun dip-punched the horizon
and my whole being was saying…..dusk
a few minutes later the sun began climbing
some superbig super-slow motion superball

midnight dawn, dad clobbers a supersoftball
one side spinning gold, the other chilly still purple

confusing to a confused boy of 13
still confused about
certain strong feelings surging through
his adolescent bloodstream
still outstreaking comprehension
still driven wild by kathy mozena
her scent her unforgettable scent

in norway golf is played 24 hours a day
i square up to the superhardball
dimpled ball in a stony dimpled northern land
my thought-swing happy, thought-free
at 3 A.M. I connect, a crisp icy thwack

sharp sound wave penetrates cool north air
sound wave floats across the pole
sound wave settles on a certain overgrown ball field
just across the top of the world

reverse-o-lution

• spinning
• the
• beginning
• never
• explodes
• like
• spelling-bees
• and
• beer
• hot motorcycles
• with hot vibrating women
• dogs barking naked
• like you
• barking at hot
• city lights
• two words
• keep vibrating
• centrioles in anaphase
• mitotic tension
• bristling
• just two words
• waiting to fill oceans

this poem is like open source software
it’s open to public debate, public improvement
subject to change

it started with the strictest of rules
you could write only one word
then later you could write two words

now it has no rules

that’s the whole idea

everything else
from zygotes to corporations
grows in the opposite direction
they have to I know but

they should try this
reverse-o-lution

maybe it is a little easier
maybe it’s a little more fun

rose against white

asleep
wrapped in white in the white attic
looking over the weekapaug salt pond
light, white, a window
in a white room
in a wide world

the only color
the orange sunglow of her skin
a blue boat in the window
two blue men in blue water
raking the bottom of the ocean
for mollusks curled on the ocean floor
two men dreaming about a white room
where a rose lies wrapped in white
a shock of hair black

she almost sleeps
she is lucid, imagines driftwood
dreaming her awake self awake
combing the beach
white with sun and salt and

driftwood
planted in the white sand
rose in black
scales the smooth white plank












by the boy poets drifting above the driftwood

The Claim: Chiggers Attack Humans by Burrowing Under Their Skin - New York Times

just when you think

just when you thought you finally knew roy
he leaves town without a word

you find out from a buddy
that he’s in boise working
working like he never worked around here
living in a yurt by the river and
cooking catfish over an open fire
it’s great in the summer he says
but you know better

he never said goodbye
he just left all of a sudden

so all the filaments that bound us
tear and twist in the sudden distance
throbbing in the jetstream

we’re in kind of a limbo now
stretched out beyond our limbs
on the rack
somewhere between
here and boise where
neither of us actually live
……but

because it was
so hasty
so sudden
so goddam quick
limbo became the only place
we share
a silent space
but not quite empty
who knew limbo
hurt like this, roy?

remember that photo?
at 6 feet under on memorial drive
you sitting on the upstairs patio
looking over oakland cemetery

we drank and laughed and talked
about what happened in april
about what it meant
we talked about these filaments
and what binds us together

it took a while before we both agreed
the waitress took our picture
we split the check
and everything was all tied up

your front view mirror

i glanced in the rear view a moment too long
found myself off-road heading for a brick wall
i could have panicked but instead
i consulted my trusty
front view mirror
a future bent by the soft mercury curvature
all things appear closer than they are
don’t know why or how but
something shifted, i saw
truth and fiction softly intersect
what is and what could be
and what should be
time and space turn smoothly,
i planned it that way
room to spare
time to document
an era to imagine

you never looked so good
we never looked so good
in your front view mirror
we never saw so much
texture
bricks pocked from the kiln and the weather
the sweat and the heft of the masons
you see the universe in the mortar
etched by time and lime and portland cement
you see dave
his name carved in the wet aggregate
flying to morocco for the summer
tells wild hashish tales
of true love and false imprisonment
drunk on beer and martinis
he’s hard to resist

truth and fiction intersect
scrape on the sleek refracting camber
of the front view mirror
in this one way
your front view mirror is a lot like
your rear view mirror

i have a great idea for a movie

opening scene everybody would die except
just two or three would survive, to live
gruesome scabby yet riveting lives
the survivors would have cleft chins
and perfect breasts that heave on command
or off

and they, the stars, the beautiful stars
would repopulate the earth in 90 minutes
make it a better place for kids and golden retrievers

the movie crests into naked euphoria
in the first two seconds
when bill o’reilly explodes in a deluge of magma
surging up from the earth’s core
directly into fox studios

the remaining eighty-eight minutes
with the movie’s perfect pacing
of cliffhanger rescues followed by frenzied fucking
feature nancy grace, the former prosecutor
whose southern accent
with its bitter yet come hither edge
makes me and all other cinematic
dorky ass viewers of cable tv cringe
and lust mightily at the same time
her full lips feverish and shiny
her open thighs ready to receive
the burning priapus of the sub-plot

anyway i digress from my movie idea
of the people who recopulate the world
and for a brief time live happily, so happy
in utah, where the mormons used to practice posture
before my movie sent them all to kingdom come

in the denoument, just before the climax
a really horrible thing happens, finally
after reams of crazy deaths and ecstatic coupling
but strangely, it seems rightly horrible
you might even say – apropos of
all the things, the death, the life
the well-hung dialogue, the rippling tears
the crippling laughter laced in the sacral bone
the very emulsion of the film itself
all melting together – beguilingly
a strange comic relief, a last straw
in the unending beverage that is my movie

we didn’t do what we wanted tonight

we wanted to ride marta without stopping
screaming all the way down the line
to the west end terminus and beyond
blaze new tracks for the good of the community
but the goddam train broke down at MLK
left our boots twitching
us murmuring incantations
over copper tokens—what good’re they now?

we didn’t ride where we wanted tonight
we listened to the same four songs over and over
Captain Beefheart, Boz Scaggs. Penguin Café Orchestra and Whodini
they’re good songs but they don’t mix so well
- - like drinking skanky beer
after a sleek lemon drop martini

so we got off the broken down marta train
its not what we wanted to do tonite
good thing we had our boots on
and a shiny sense of the impossible
otherwise we wouldn’t have walked all the way
to Ponce de Leon
visit Marlene and Kathy
who both work at the Majestic Diner
on Sunday afternoon

we ordered grits and implored them
we said we’d do whatever you want, Marlene and Kathy
we’ll call you Hepburn and deitrich, Kathy and marlene
we’ll fashion a Balkan ferris wheel
from a strand of pearl hominy
we’ll take you
to where we really want to go

but actually, what we really wanted
maybe all we’ve ever wanted, really . . .
is to blow up the marta train that broke down on us
blow it to kingdom come
pieces of aluminum and chrome
raining down all over marta repair yards everywhere
and after that, all we really want
is to do something else
something its hard to argue with
ecstatic coupling would be ideal, for example


by the boy poets, jumping the turnstile

I Cracked Up at City Hall Today
i needed five signatures
so i could sell the house
the house we just finished building
five quick little scrawls
from the bureaucratic maze
and i could sell the house

i got one signature from zoning
and another from the lady around the corner from zoning
the third from the lady with nine diamond rings at site development
and the next from the guy who drooled on the form
i guess he was tired
but i got four signatures
by 11:30 in the sunny spring morning

and then i walk up the stairs to engineering
clutching my paper with 4 john hancocks
and was told that stephanie was outa town
down at the gulf
with her boyfriend stefan
i know stephanie,
she would’ve signed it with a grin
but no, you see, she’s “gone all week”
goddam stephanie
we need the plans signed by tomorrow
and now its lunchtime
and they’re all gone

I waited alone, eating my pride on white knuckles
i’m sure they had a nice, long, wide and sweet
tuna sandwich with dill pickles lunch
while i sucked on antacids for dessert
i paste on a smile as stephanie’s boss ms duckworth comes back at 1:15
and settles her wide sour ass on the swivel chair
she looks at the piece of paper i hold out
that just needs one fucking signature
her signature
and says yes I see
but she doesn’t look at me
your plans go in the queue, she says
along with everyone else with
problems as bad as yours
shouldn’t be more than six weeks
ten tops and you’re good as gold
and that’s all there is to it

i go dizzy, her face fills
the scope of my rifling perception
i strangle her in my mind
and then smile, thank her
for her time and consideration
and while i begin to crack up
i smile some more

so i cracked up today
at city hall
you know, loop de loop
nutty as a fruit cake
lost a year of my life
in the time it takes
to say thank you ms. duckworth
thank you and your very extensive, yet useless, ass

i staggered down another hall
still dizzy, the hall warped like junk carpet
when I saw an office nearby
I walked in on mr. dennis morris
he’s not even in the department
he doesn’t even like me
but i know his name
and he knows mine
and he has a pen
and he works here
for the love of god, man, have pity
I didn’t say that to him, not in words anyway but
sometimes you just have to play the card
the card of common humanity
i know you exist, and you know i exist
we both know the playing field is lumpy and twisted
varying in thickness and warped like junk carpet
and i am crawling on it
on my knees

for the love of god, man, have pity

dennis, i said softly, like we were the drinking buddies we’re not
if you don’t sign this i’m outta business
my life a mere reflection shattered
the unspoken plea
a pause
and he shakes his head
jon, if i could i would but
i’m not even in the department any more
said dennis
i can’t sign it
and he pushes the paper with 4 signatures
back to me

i didn’t say a thing
i just looked at him
all my desperate need broke the surface
spilled through my eyes
when he tried to look away i pulled him back
back into the pure pathos
the tragedy of an unsold house
an empty house for the ages
i just looked at him
held him in the pure gaze of desperate innocence
across the oak desk, stained and carved with the passage
of bureaucratic snafus and tapping fingers
i handed him my favorite pen
he held it for a moment
savoring its shape and fine weight
placed its tip on the form
where the line says sign here
and he signed here

I cracked up at city hall today
But I got 5 signatures

The Sheriff’s Wife

The sheriff’s kids race around at the bottom of the stairs that lead up to a darkened hallway. They’re playing cops and robbers and shout bang bang you’re dead as they pile into the kitchen where their mother places battered bits of chicken into a pot of boiling grease. A tow headed boy squeals to a stop against the back of her legs and sets off a chain reaction: first, the chicken breast slips from her fingers and falls, then the drops of hot grease spurt up to splash against her wrist, then a hiss like steam escaping from her clenched lips as her body stiffens against the pain. She turns slowly to the kids who are staring up at her in surprise and shakes a finger white with cornmeal in their faces. She’s in no mood for games and plays her ace right away: Put away your toys and wash up for dinner RIGHT NOW… she pauses… or you’ll be spending the night UPSTAIRS with the rest of the misbegottens. Now SCAT. Which they do, exiting the kitchen with much the same energy as they had entered.

She busies herself, dabbing margarine on her scalded wrist, wiping down the counters, taking now-fried chicken out of the oil to dry on paper towels. She begins to hum softly to herself as she moves from fridge to table to stove. She seems content, and would say so if asked. She has no real complaints that she can call to mind. She’s still young, but has settled into her life, such as it is. Married to the sheriff, a large home on a corner of the main street, a certain status and respect in the town. Whatever restless dreams she might have had are now still and mostly unrecalled. Rebellion, when it comes at all, comes in quick departures, with no thought given to the act itself. She waves out the window to Luther Johnson, passing by on his way home to his own dinner waiting up the street. Things like a bottle of perfume slipped into her purse at the drugstore. A day trip north to the city when she was supposed to go east to visit cousins. A casual lie when the truth couldn’t hurt. There was never any guilt over these sudden events. How could there be? It was just a little valve somewhere within her that sometimes opened and then closed of its own accord.

The tune she’s been humming is an old gospel and she puts the warm plates on a tray and covers them with a checkered cloth. Dinner in five, she calls to the kids. I’ll fly away, she hums to herself. She stops at the foot of the stairs to adjust the cloth over the tray and begins to walk up. The carpet stops about three-quarters of the way up the flight as she ascends into the darkness. She can hear her slippers slide over the bare wood. At the top she stops and turns to see light spilling into the hallway from the older part of the house, the part that stood by itself, before the jail and the sheriff’s residence became the same thing. A shadow grows over the floor and crawls up the wall as a figure approaches and stands in the doorway. Her humming stops and she shuffles forward carrying the tray, her feet feeling the way. The shadow moves and there’s a click and the hall light goes on. She blinks and then smiles. Evenin’ Jimmy. Evenin’ ma’am, he says, lifting his deputy’s cap and smoothing back his hair. His eyes drop to the tray and he picks up a corner of the checkered cloth. What do we got tonite? Fried chicken, she says, balancing the tray in one hand and pulling the cloth up onto her arm. He makes an appreciative noise and reaches for a plate. Not that one, she says and laughs. This one’s yours. No never mind to me, he says, and unbuckles his gun belt to hang it on a hook. And how’s our guest doing?, she asks. Praying, if he knows what’s good for him, he mutters. He’s only got two days to get right with the Lord. He looks up at her as he lifts the plate off the tray. Hanging’s too good for him if you ask me. She sniffs and shrugs, Well I’m sure I wouldn’t know about that. Enjoy your chicken Jimmy. Thank you ma’am, I will, he says, and walks slowly down to the table at the end of the hall.

She takes a deep breath before stepping into the brightly lit chamber with the maze of metal cages built within it. She can’t help but glance up as she passes beneath the small trap door in the ceiling above her. She knows that directly above that trapdoor there is an iron ring bolted to a rafter and a length of rope coiled nearby. She turns a corner and heads for the rear cell, where a man, a boy really, rises from a metal bunk as she approaches. His fingers wrap around the bars as she stops in front of him and pulls open a slot in the cage door. Brung you some dinner she says without looking up. Looks good he says without glancing at the food. Looks real good. His face breaks out in a wild grin and he says too loudly, Hey I’m a condemned man, y’know. I’m supposed to be able to choose my last meal, that’s what they say. And I wanted to tell you, to ask you, for my last… He doesn’t seem to be able to finish his sentence, like it was a rehearsed line that hadn’t come out right, that ran away as soon as he opened his mouth. She looks up at him for the first time and pushes the plate thru the slot. Maybe you should consider this your last meal, she says. One of his hands slips off the bar and his eyes fill with confusion and fear. She doesn’t look away and doesn’t say anything more but reaches thru the bars and places a hand on his chest and pats it softly. He starts to shake. There’s so much going thru him and suddenly he pushes forward, face first, bending his head to kiss her thru the cage. Her hand stiffens against his chest and he stops short, breathing hard, their eyes locked. For just a moment. Then, with a final pat of her hand she steps back and pulls the cloth back over the tray and walks away without another thought or glance back.

His breathing slowly returns to normal as he stands alone in the metal chamber and he finds himself staring down into a plate of freshly prepared food. His other hand slides from the bar and picks up a piece of fried chicken but it stops just short of his lips. He lets it drop to the floor and stifles a shout by clapping his hand over his mouth. He squeezes his eyes shut and is filled with such an unexpected fountain of joy that he thinks he might just shatter on the spot. Because there it was, the key to his heart, or at least his freedom, just waiting there, under a battered breast, right next to the butter beans.

News Item:
Neighborhood sheetrock finisher spills fancy drink all over formica countertop. Miles “Smiley” Flemister, native of the downstate hamlet of Blodona, Alabama, watched the iced shaker slip from his lime-tinged fingers and quickly considered all his options while the expensive ingredients of a “Bahama Schooner” burst forth and sadly spilled in slow motion, like the Wild Bunch in their death throes, spreading out over the counter like only a chilly, over-priced yet quite fruity beverage can.

The State of Disunion

The enthusiasm is electric to sell your social security. All of us are privileged to be placed in office by the voters we serve in a free and sovereign Irag. I returned you to the guiding light of liverty around the world. It is strong and it is free, so free, with hidden costs. I might have farted but I’m not sure.

They will get their due and their grandchildren in Wyoming, I mean Nevada. Free people pay less taxes, add a million new jobs, shoot their dead, and now we must add to these achievements. We will keep America the economic leader of the world unless the insurgents refuse to make tax relief permanent and cut the deficit in half.

We are closing the achievement gap between high school graduates. Especially Ethno Arctic American women under 4 feet 11 inches in height and over 220 pounds would not qualify. It’s all because of the frivolous asbestos claims and bad health decisions. They wouldn’t get sick if they would just meet their maker. I believe in associations for small business and frivolous activity that is not customer-based, including the needs they may have. I might have farted but I’m not sure.

Alternative sources of weird nucular energy will improve the health debate of our citizens. My budget believes in ethanol. Four years of debate – enough, enough. We need more independence from the freedom we have promised.

Our economy should not revitalize hard-working immigrants who would close the border to drug dealers and terrorists. They work so hard. I have a message for everyone past the age of qualifying. For younger workers, you have serious problems that will grow worse with time. It used to be sixteen to one, now it is two to one. It will be paying out more than it takes in. That is so negative. You cannot keep it afloat. By the time the world explodes, you will be massively, horribly, wretchedly in debt. It will collapse on your head like that statue of saddam.

You and I share a responsibility to review the benefits to the retirees. The free world depends on it if you are helpful or a terrorist. We must be guided by principles and leave that for another day. It is about dignity in your retirement, and it is gradual. The best way to reach that goal is voluntary yet personal. You will build your own nest egg at a better rate over and above the check you will receive in a personal account if you wish and the government can never take it away unless we want to.

Of course this a personal account. Not a private one. This is a broadly based expensive fund for young Americans. We will honor the values and take us a long journey into the twilight.

The weak and vulnerable will die and create a culture of life. This is a scientific advancement, for the benefit of others and human embryos grown for body parts. Ambitious. Aggressive. Men and women and stem cells are a constitutional souffle.

Our government is harsh and faith-based, along with gangs and those who respect violence. Gang life is an outreach to disadvantaged youth. The first lady will spearhead our efforts, because of HIV and besides, what else has she got to do? I might have farted but I’m not sure.

We must focus our efforts on our fellow citizens, to make sure we all have backgrounds we can use for DNA evidence for wrongful convictions. Competent lawyers must have people on death row by their side. Freedom from fear and the FBI and intelligence and biological first responders and homeland security. We thank them all.

Allies and friends are seeking weapons of mass destruction. We will keep on the offensive until we offend everybody. The tools we need are the tools we are. The war on terror, the dangers of time, in the long term, is peace. Human freedom is stalking America.

Brutal, free and independent nations that deflect their own cultures, momentum and women in Afghanistan that love the idea and the power and secretary of state Rice Krispies. I’m asking Congress for around 350 gabillion dollars. I can’t tell you why. But it is within reach, and we can achieve that goal.

And to the Iranian people I say tonite, “as you stand for liberty, we will make you the vital front in the war on terror, with our own children and grandchildren”. We are the real occupation, like sofia said to saddam Hussein here tonite. We will continue with these powerful myths of free elections. A small group of extremists can overturn the will of the people. We will write our own history as quickly as possible.

One name we honor is Byron Johannsen of Deblibits, MA who guards the border between Michigan and Canada. He will keep out the bad seed seeking to feed our tired poor people who work steadily for our rich people so they can take long well deserved vacations in a warm tropical climate of their choosing.

Our third responsibility as a major generation is freedom from fear of inaction. Broken up terror cells across the country have trained a billion first responders to make our homeland safer from the insurgents, without terrorists. We will stay offensive until the elections are over. Our service men and women have given so we must support their tools. Everyone around the world supports us in this. There are over 27 Kuwaitis and 4 young Turks with us in Iraq.

The French have to bring more hope and stinky fromage to a troubled region. The Russians elected 275 men and women who awoke to the sound of gunfire last Sunday. They voted together and when their candidate lost they killed him. (Applause.)

Byron Wendermoot of Cooterville Texas is here tonight. Both he and Janet Nolan are dead. (Sustained applause and cooterville cheers.) We have seen large threads of purpose and unite us. We’re all part of the values of that freedom, which lets each dream die, until it is fulfilled until one day our generation looks forward to the bumpy road.

The attack on our world has changed our world and set us on a new adventure like that of Huckleberry Finn or Flash Gordon or Buzz Aldrin, who all went down the Mississippi River and fished for fish and caught the gilled swimmers and ate them and that is what we know for sure. Thank you. I might have farted but I’m not sure. May god bless America.

Green Light Green

it’s so great i made the green light
or at least the last part of the yellow
thick jazzy molasses horsepower joy washes over me
its so great
the motor hums freely
as my very excellent coach
just tenderly tuned, sweetly serviced
rises once on the gentle camber
of the intersection, under the light
and falls once as I accelerate smoothly onward
hoping that this limitless green light world
and all this joy
all this thick jazzy molasses horsepower
will get me through
the next green light

without slowing down
man, metal, oxygen, photosynthesis
my bank balance, my mood
the blazing golden sun
pouring down thru the windshield
a distant switch
in the centralized traffic control computer
all working together in perfect green agreement

The Staging Area

what's missing in your life
- if I may be so bold -
is a good and proper staging area
don't just take clothes out of the dryer
fold 'em and put 'em away in their proper place
that's for losers
they belong in a good and proper staging area
an interim area, so to speak, where they lay
undefined and free for a while
waiting for a drawer or closet or body part
sometimes the wait is very long

we, and I mean the royal we, wouldn't be where we are today
without a staging area
to buffer the friction between
a machine and a closet
between the known and the unknown
earth and sky
action and inaction
and those places in between
like inertia, nebraska
languor, maine
torpor, ohio
keg, georgia
now and yet to be
we and they
and apathy, texas

cushion yourself, my good man
with a good and proper staging area
it will temper your quills
resonate your sexability
magnify the unknown
and hip-ta-phi your Christmas music

this free advice, this poem
is offered to you
from the depths of the staging area
don't file it away just yet
just let it hang loose for a while
still warm from the tumble dry

The UnderGod

I pledge allegiance
to the mags
at the checkout counter
Carmen Electra in a red white and blue thong
pulled down as low as you can shave
what a culture
it makes me want to be a better person
whatever is offered up
I want to fuck it
or buy it
kill it or eat it
and lately, salute it
it all makes me think
briefly, with commercial interruptions
and that's a good thing
I'm american
I forget myself
every thirty seconds

A Day in the Life of a Mountain Lion and a California Girl

She wakes in the morning, brushes her teeth and does her yoga
He rouses himself from sleep, opens his mouth and shrugs into a lazy catstretch, canines extended
She slips on her Nikes and walks to Starbucks with little barbells in her hands
He strolls to the creek for a drink and chews on the wheatgrass that grows on the bank
She considers the almond soy spirulina smoothie
but orders a double latte in a large glass
He pees round the the rim of his territory
She opens her philosophy book and wonders about the mind-body problem
and if she has free will
He licks his paws. He doesn't have a mind, so he has no problems.
She goes to her job at the non-profit institution,
fighting for endangered species
with fax machines and paper clips
He stares idly into a pool in the creek
and watches the snail darters flit to and fro
but is suddenly alert when a female appears
Hank comes by to flirt, but she rebuffs him with a smile
certain that he will redouble his efforts tomorrow
He grabs her by the scruff of the neck with his teeth
and does it doggy style
even tho they're feline
She takes off early and buys a loofa sponge, a lottery ticket
and non-indigenous vegetables for dinner
He scratches his hide against a loblolly pine
and gets fooled by a possum, outrun by a deer
and stood down by a wild dog.
She eats and watches Dances with Wolves on TBS
for as long as she can stand it and
grabs her bike as the sun goes down
He is hungry and ventures outside his territory for the first time
They are both headed for the same hills outside of town
where noone lives now but they used to
a fragment from an arrowhead crunches unseen beneath her wheel
he passes a rockface where there is a small picture etched by ancient flint
he does not recognize his own ancestor there
stalked by a stick figure with a spear
The moon is almost full tonite
she turns on her headlamp and thinks about her niece
and if she wants children of her own
He sits on a bluff and smells her upwind
She thinks about Hank and Kevin Costner
and notices the air flowing freely from her lungs
He leaps as she feels newly confident about her future
She tries to figure out what is happening as his jaws wrap around her skull
and suddenly they are joined
in the same wordless language of immediacy
She is not thinking and neither is he
Her friend is pulling at her heels
He is pulling at her head
She weighs 110 pounds after the Atkins diet
but so does he
Her friends beat him over the head with their bicycle pumps
they scream and throw rocks and dial 911 from cell phones that are hooked seamlessly thru the blinking tower on the next ridge
She hears his growl coming from his throat
down his fangs
and into the bones in her head
For some reason he does not let go.
No, not yet.

the fifth second

normally in five seconds
you can’t get the job done
but here at the rodeo
five seconds means you’re losin’

ice cubes and elizabeth taylor
don’t care about the rodeo
but they care about the kind of five seconds
a rodeo takes

in that kind of five seconds
ice cubes could get too warm
and elizabeth taylor could get too hot

if i were the bullrider
i’d spend the first second
talking the bull into throwing me
at elizabeth taylor

the second second
i’d spend flying flying

the third second i’d spend
making love to elizabeth taylor

the fourth second
i wouldn’t care
if the ice cubes melted or not

getting ready

glad you’re coming to town
but a day early?
what would jesus do
if god popped in ahead of time?

maybe the messiah's dining room table
disappeared under three feet
of last week’s silt
what if his garden looked like
a weed testing station
and what if his refrigerator
looked like mine did in college?
would he try to misdirect
the lord of all creation
the ubiquitous omniopunchibus
or would he strut his latest
mystical experience and ask god
wouldja like that scattered, smothered or to go?

maybe he would turn the loaves and fishes
into a chevron algonguin V-12 double dooper
he'd jump in the driver’s seat
without even opening the door
yeah jesus would open the throttle wide
and go for a long fast ride
before he speedolated back
to clean up

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.

looking ahead with your favorite vegetable

looking ahead with your favorite vegetable

if the people
who never liked you
don’t show up
at your funeral
your funeral will
be a total drag
it'll be no fun at all
we couldn’t argue
about your life
and its myriad flaming failures

i made a wonderful
tape about the people
who don’t like you
they were so chatty
it’s got a ton
of painstaking crap
about you

didn’t you make a tape
all about your zucchini farm
and how to ship
zucchini so it won’t get squashed?

why don't we
since we're still
both alive
look at those
tapes now?
we could get really gassed
and finally admit with a toast
that you really weren’t such a bad guy
I’m looking forward to it

without this

without the space between our ears, we would have no
• motorcycles

without a larynx, we would have no
• taxes

without a medulla oblongata, we would have no
• arguments

without cheez whiz, we would have no
• crackers

without a bunch of arcadians in a swamp, we would have no
• new orleans

without new orleans, we would never
• sweat confetti

without mexico, we would have no
• mexican women

without pheromones, we would have no
• rhinoplasty

without a frontal lobe, we would have no
• difference of opinion

without the us treasury, we would have no
• change for the bus

without the isle of langerhans, we would have no
• pancreatic jazz

without webster or roget, we would have no
• synonyms for skank

• without texas, we would have no
alamo or drunken hell-bent bravado

• without tears, we would have no
metaphors for flowers

without laughter
you'd have nothing to laugh about

• without us
you wouldn’t have this poem

so yeah, let’s get behind the mind
because once you have it
you really pretty much need it!

we ran out of cantaloupe

the cantaloupe
what a boring subject
it’s giving me a headache
it’s the last thing
i want to talk about
i really hate it
if we didn’t have cantalouspes
we wouldn’t hafta
figure all this crap out
then we could just
have fun all the time
until we ran
out of money

multiple choice poem

the japanese have a word, hanami
we who get by on ingrish
we have no single word to fit hanami
what does it mean?
1. a mexican word that means “lodestar bodestar”
2. when a bee gets pollen on its ass
3. that which can’t be said in one word
4. I want to hold your egg mcmuffin
5. none of the above
OK, number five, “none of the above”
happens to correct
perhaps because
the Japanese meant something elegant
perhaps beyond
the scope of this poem

hanami means flower viewing
hanami
elegant enough
to stretch the scope
of these multiple choices

Erratadati Roy stared down his catcher and shook off the sign for a curveball. Sure the world was going to hell, but noway was he going to throw this meatball a junk pitch. He was in Rome, Georgia, two weeks out of the Inter-Asia Development League (.025 era for the Bombay Bombers), and here he was in the class A promised land (temporary resident alien work visa) facing a burger fed tobacco spewing hayseed with a 3-2 count in the bottom of the seventh (back end of an abbreviated doubleheader) protecting a 10-8 lead with two runners on base (not his fault). He was gonna strike this motherfucker out, so help him shiva. He called upon the head of the hindu pantheon to help gird his loins for the upcoming pitch, even though he considered himself an adherent of the even-tempered Buddha, but seeing as how the Buddha didn't have no pantheon, and (also and to boot) the situation called for a distinct and sudden disruption of his serene equanimity, he figured he needed a little extra juice, and he didn't care from whence it came. He waited till the catcher rolled his eyes and set a single digit down between his legs and then he (Erratadati Roy - "Errah!" to his snickering teammates) stood up strong, grabbing two seams cross the ball in his glove, and with a final glance towards second base (and, coincidentally, towards Mecca, even tho he didn't give a shit) hurled the ball towards home plate to a destiny he knew was predetermined but hoped would be strike three. It was a good pitch, but a microsecond before the thud of ball against leather and the confirmation of his amalgamated cultural zeitgiest came the crushing crack of ball against ash and a mild "Fuck" uttered by Roy as his head swiveled to mimic the arc of the ball headed out to straight centerfield. There were two outs, and he could tell from the sound of the contact, the speed with which the ball soared into the sky, and the general tenor of his own recent fortunes, that this would go right to the fence, and that he had no idea if he would ride out with the win or be saddled with the loss. He watched the white ball slow as it reached its apex against the night sky and as it seemed to stop still in brilliant equipoise he suddenly became aware that all 1,327 pairs of eyeballs in the Coca-Cola Rome Braves Municipal Stadium were locked in with his, watching the ball as it began its descent, those eyeballs directly hooked to brains suddenly quiescent and silent and joined in the common spectacle of watching something inevitable but not yet apparent, and in that moment, Erratadati Roy (who, he quickly admitted to himself, had never deeply considered the application of buddhist truths to the vagaries of baseball) felt his mind suddenly snap free from its self-reflective gaze, and found himself in the extremely unusual, salubrious and panoramic state which he immediately recognized yet reflexively (to his credit) refused to identify as that condition which the noble Gautama had termed, in many unimpeachable translations, as "detachment".

target practice



we shot a film
in philosophical black
we shot it full
of philosophical holes
we shot gnostic smoke in the lens
it smoldered frame by frame
we shot film
chock-full of stars and pop-up targets
we shot film
as if film and philosophy were free
we shot clocks
like there’s no tomorrow
and spent the time
shooting the night away
we shot clint eastwood
bit players and slim pickens
we tamed horses
burned mesquite logs
guns blazing
riding high
across a howling bullet moon
over the roiling ribbon
of the rio grande

fat gobs of money

my bitter mood suddenly mitigated
by the unexpected receipt of 59 million dollars
i paid my neighbor 2 million in quarters
with instructions to disappear
by lunchtime
and told him lunchtime is
when i say it is

enough money
to do whatever the fuck I wanted
like buy a printing press
and the treasury secretary
and make more money
fat gooey dripping gobs of it
so i did
I printed fat gobs of money
i gave all my friends 59 million dollars each
we had a big party
exactly like the big parties we had before
only better, brighter
because money buys arc lights, exotic hallucinogens
and that certain “sheen”

but mainly because dollars make a great
bonfire
great fat gobs of burning money
sparking floating blazing
riding the heat of their own conflagration
curling crispy into the nite

english poem made with words we know in español
mi salsa es su salsa
aqui está una tortilla
con queso, baybee
we mango a tortilla con salsa rhumba meringue
we drink cerveza and mas tortilla con tango
now more beer, more beer now
we do this every day, it is good
this table, this mesa, is very strong
many beers and many tortillas
and you and I are tu y yo
on this table, this mesa, baybee
with cold cerveza in the frosty bucket
I like it a lot, this tableau is muy strong
Gusto con gusto

we just figured out why human beings are so content to waste time
1.) Because it saves them from the horror of doing something useful.
2.) Because they think they're god, so what's the rush?
3.) Time is so utterly priceless! And it's irreplaceable!
4.) Time wastes them.
5.) Who cares?
6.) The good news is – you don’t have to be this way.
7.) The bad news is – you are

Don't worry, it's only 11:11

random notes, annual national night workers’ appreciation day

shouldn’t we appreciate national night workers
tonight ?
let’s write a poem
in the daytime
while nightworkers sleep in the sun
that’s nice
that’s special
special enough
for a national nightworkers appreciation day

herbert kornfeld is sleeping
after his graveyard shift
down at world hq’s import export wholesale conversation warehouse
snoring gently through well-earned
sun bright
sun day
dreams
a poem written on his behalf
dark infrared poignant pictures
he may never know he’s in it

let’s celebrate at Daddy Z’s
pickin’ parlor on the edge of town
fingers flicking frets faster than sound
the long appalachian howl
of east tennessee
shatters
a staccato blur
flashing the nightworkers
into still stanzas
verbal strobes constructing
visible profundity at Daddy Z’s
pickin’ parlor on the edge of town

nightworkers (not dayworkers)
guzzle booze, nicotine, possibility theory
gasoline, billiard games, rank speculation
night things belong to the nightworkers
a slow warp speed
speeding toward
arc lights on Gastonia Avenue

you get more than you bargain for, and less, at night
whispers echo louder longer, howling in the hangtime
clocks slow down before they stop
at closing time
but don’t we all
we and the nightworkers
streaming into a scrumptious dawn
as if every night
is national night workers’ appreciation day
they deserve a nightworkers nightwords poem
and we’re just the guys to give it to them

by the boy photons

the cape at the end of first

we fought our way onto skull beach
wrestled a hermit crab
into the muck
damn you wet sea!
I dare you dampen me again
hablamos español
con la cerveza y el sol
we read what’s forbidden in the dunes
we take a picture of the sign
we take pictures of the dunes and how we got there
we take pictures of the sky and how we look under it
we take pictures of shells and the road
and pine rows we saw from the road
we take pictures of the spirits
of people who lived in Florida before air conditioning
the crusty sun baked maniacs who lived there
because nobody else could stand it and because
they know their inner crickets

it was a day full of seconds
and firsts

This just in from our science department: the air around here is filled with invisible smoke. We're working hard to clear this up. Maybe we shouldn't have told you.

Kayaker falls off dock while explaining how he fell off dock. Cape Ah San, Florida. Clavin Urgam, the unpredictable Irish sportsman, was explaining to kayak repair shop assistant Gator Bean exactly how he fell off the dock and landed head first in the shit-colored bog. “You see I didn’t have the best angle on it, so to pull the kayak onto the dock I threw all my weight against the tow rope and just as I did, the rope knot gave way so I went pitching backwards across the narrow dock and landed belly up on this canoe which was precariously balanced at the opposite side edge of the dock. So of course the canoe decides to . . . ” As he was showing Bean exactly how the canoe lost contact with the dock, Urgam fell belly up on the canoe and rolled softly across its upturned hull, just as he had done the day before, which caused the canoe to tilt off the dock just as it had done the day before, resulting in Urgam’s headfirst tumble into free air until his head disappeared, once again, into the shit-colored bog beneath the dock. The now-dusky-hued Irishman emerged with a fine damp peaty dribble obscuring his rosy countenance and muttering, “Just like that,” but his final comment was lost, inaudible against the engulfing howls that emanated from Florida native Bean.

Thanks to the oft-underestimated communication skills of Gator Bean, the "event" rapidly yet eternally became known around Cape Ah San as, "Clavin's boo-boo."

Didn’t know it had an “h” in it. The administration was embarrassed to admit that despite his decade-long obsession with The Cradle of Civilization, culminating in a trillion dollar war, Maximum Leader W. Bush did not know that “Baghdad” has an “h” in it. Spokesmodel Ari Fleischer defended, “No, he did not think of it as 'Dad's Bag' and Yes of course he knows it has a “B” and a “D" and an “A.” Journalist Helen Thomas sought to clarify, “Is that because Saddam is BAD?” Spokesmodel Fleischer snorted, “Helen, this is why we don’t call on you more often.”

Stay tuned for an upcoming report on "Baghdad: Two A's, Two D's."

Sheetrock finisher experiences moment of intense "somethingness". “You know where you always see a seam? But now there ain't no seam? lt's like the mud and the gypsum and the paper and the ambient vibe and the whole throbbing universe had done become one endless single smooth wall and you just want to run your fingertips down the wall straight to infinity . . . the one, seamless wall . . . fingers gliding down the endlessly smooth and seamless wall with no bumps, humps, dips or ridges and for one small moment you know the wall, the truth, the meaning of truth, the lie of the truth and it makes you want to sit down and pop the coldest Bud possible and lean back on the long and flawless wall stretching infinitely to your right and infinitely to your left and take a long draw of that beer chilled to absolute zero Kelvin and just say, "Wow! That's one fucking smooth ass dry wall."
The sheetrocker affirmed all queries with a nod, a wink and a knowing smile.

the point is a funnel

so what’s the point ?
we were born to live
let no scholarship
get in the way of that
but heck let no
gluttony laziness industry
morality or the absence of morality
oligarchy or experience itself

get in the way of living

what’s the point?
the point is
a funnel

Cape San Blas, Florida
March 22-23, 2003



World HQ took a trip to the gulf to gather raw material for our ongoing top secret research project.
We had cameras, video, audio, pencils, four wheels under a V6 and 40 hours to get to the bottom of things.
Here's a partial log of our observations. Twigs included.

We left Atlanta heading south looking for a cuppa joe at 6:23 A.M.
Here's how
We got
There . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


Flat Shoals Creek 7:51 AM
Dennis Smith Road 7:53
Mountain Oak Creek 7:59
Chet Atkins Parkway 8:01
Mulberry Creek 8:05
Mountain Hill Road 8:06
Standing Boy Creek 8:08
Samuel Franklin Morast Jr. Memorial Parkway 8:12
Chattahoochee River 8:29
Welcome to Alabama 8:30
Dirty Dog Park 8:42
No Name Creek 8:43
Three Blondes Creek 8:45
Heavy Yellow Equipment Creek 8:46
You Want Some More Cheese Creek 8:47
Possum Trot Creek 8:48
Ogle’s Trading Post 8:49
The Swamp 8:50
Historic Marker 1500 Feet 8:51
Hurry Up Creek Rapids Shoals River 8:51
Historic Marker 8:52
Pittsview, Alabama 8:57
Alabama Don’t Name Its Fuckin Creeks Creek 8:58
And There’s Plenty of ‘em Creek 8:59
No Creek Creek 9:00
We’re Makin’ Up Names Of Creeks Creek 9:01
Continuation Street 9:03
Junior Drive 9:04
Lake Eufala 9:11
Fish World 9:12
Fireworks Half Off Year Round Buy 1 Get 3 Free 9:13
Airport Restaurant Lounge
Chewalla Restaurant
Town Terrace Motel, Best in Town 9:14
Walter F. George Lake 9:16
Gala Gas
Chew On This Restaurant 9:17
Bluff City Inn 9:19
Cheneyhatchee Creek 9:31
Automatic Gas 9:32
Hair South 9:32
White Oak Creek 9:34
Mrs. Maria’s Psychic Reading
Repo Depot
I Didn’t Hear a Word You Said Creek 9:45
Newville 9:51
Fred’s 10:05
Emu Oil, squeezed from the spleens of fresh emus 10:06
Dusky Hue, Alabama 10:25
Big Creek 10:23
Mad Dog Fireworks 10:29
Sadie’s Flea Market 10:30
Medford Ford
Junior’s Fireworks 10:31
FLORIDA STATE LINE 10:33
Marianna Beef Unit & Bull Test 10:56
Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys 11:07
Motel Sandusky 11:11
Chipola River 11:12
Spring Creek 11:15
Sniffy’s Cleaner’s Don’t Mind Us 11:28
1001 Uses for Mobile Home Parts 11:30
North Florida Rock 11:40
Sink Creek 11:41
Overdue For a Tornado Trailer Park 11:42
Altha City Limits 11:45
Altha Other City Limits 11:45
Stafford Creek 11:46
Chipola Church Grilled Chicken Dinners 11:50
Flowing Water Creek 11:52
One Stop Career Center 11:57
Bob Pforte Dodge
Last Stop Career Center “We’ll Take You Down With Us” 11:58
HIGH NOON
Hicks Creek 12:02 PM
Extra Horny Cows 12:03
Chipola River (again) 12:20
Creepin’ Water Creek 12:23
Gulf County Line 12:26
Dead Lake 12:27
West Arm Creek 12:38
Jehu Cemetery 12:39
Swampy’s Restaurant & Motel 12:40
New Hot Bulbs, Tan Now 12:41
Comforter Funeral Home
U Should C What I Saw 12:41
Howard Creek 12:54
White City 12:55
Five Points Landfill & Wildlife Refuge 1:00
Gulf Rifle Club 1:01
Port St. Joe City Limits 1:02
Rish Park 1:05

J.D. Bow Hunting Supply 1:08
St. Joe’s Bay State Buffer Preserve 1:10
Fooldja Creek 1:11
Broken Toe Kayak Shop 1:12



CAPE SAN BLAS, March 22 - 23, 2003

Helen Thomas embedded in Infantry Platoon. By presidential fiat, White House Senior Correspondent Helen Thomas has been embedded with the "Screamin' Shockenawequanawks" 901 Infantry Squadroon, heading overseas in a stripped down C-130 transport along with 312 recent graduates of the Mohawk Nation Community College and Casino Management ROTC program to reinforce the seige of Baghdad. Said Ms. Thomas, struggling into a biochempreventive body condom during onboard training exercises, "Yeah, he's the worst president in history. I said it. Yep. Me and my big fucking fat mouth.Got any astroglide?" Back on the ground in Washington, Ari "The Mouth of Bush" Fleischer uttered a meaningful no comment while the Dubya treadmilled in the shadowz, smirking silently to himself, eyes darting.

Construction superintendent fucks up idiot-proof timesheet. According to Buzz Sawyer, owner of Quando Quando Condo Inc., “We made it so any idiot could do it. On the left side of the goddam time sheet is the day of the week, and across the goddam top is the address of the job. All you gotta do is take two perpendicular fingers and run’em down the row and across the column till they meet up in a nice little empty box. And that’s where you put in the hours. It’s simple-ified, right? You just hafta think “inside the box”, right? You don’t have to speak English, you don’t have to engage in abstract thought, you just hafta find the right box and write down how long you, oh never mind. . . We paid a lot of money for this level of simplicty. . . ”

Apparently, the job superintendent, one Horton Maples, the very person in charge of filling in the time sheet for others who were in fact unable to speak English, managed to royally fuck up the entire timesheet so badly that not even the crusty Maples himself could decipher the apparently random numerals, chicken scratches and other perhaps Navajo-type or Sumerian symbols he himself had inflicted on the body and margins of the timesheet. Maples pointed out that otherwise, things seemed to be going pretty well, but Maples was forced to admit when pressed by Mr. Sawyer (the owner) that IF the workers were NOT paid in a timely manner due to a royally FUCKED UP time sheet, perhaps “THINGS” would come to a RAPID HALT, which would benefit none, least of whom his own self.

Our reporters indicated that at press time, Maples was grappling with a scratch-n-sniff LotsaLuck Big Three Blotto ticket.

people don’t call so often any more




my answering machine blew a head gasket
its steering wheel fell, spinning on the floor
plus it reeks, smell wafting through the house

at the telephone answering machine repair shop
in gothic downtown Helmer, Georgia
spare telephone answering machine parts,
plastic ribbons, rubber pulleys, micro tiny shiny metal barrels,
thin aluminum rings piling to the ceiling
I said to helmer with all these piecemeal answers

sprang instead for a questioning machine

now when the phone rings
it jumps to life and asks

what’s the capitol of missouri?
why is there so much mud in the world?
how long were you at the rave?
did you get that picture of me saving your life?
why do billionaires want more money?
how do you re-fry beans? do you re-eat them?
does your dad have an F-16 I could borrow for the weekend?

people don’t call so often any more

what’s up with that?

Rumsfeld, Cheney caught blowing chunks in White House Rose Garden. Yes, even two of the president's most trusted and powerful advisors have panic attacks, dark feelings of remorse, wild eyed heart stopping fear and irritable bowel syndrome. Just yesterday, whirled headquarters dot com's intrepid field reporter, Sdji Hvartic, was cruising the White House area looking for personal interest stories when she spotted the two politicos bending over behind a rose bush and "hurling bigtime". Cheney was heard saying, "Fucking French are making me sick!" Rumsfeld--"And those Turks------BLEEECK, RALPH!!!"
Sdji said it got pretty gross watching a couple power mad men relax their cardiac sphincter (see diagram) so she went to get a pack of mints or something.

President’s daughter caught masticating in public. Jenna Bush, who could have gone anywhere in the world on her spring break from Yale, chose to stay on campus, drink beer and chew with her mouth open. Observers, who wish to remain unnamed because Jenna’s daddy is dictator of the free world, indicated that the younger Bush particularly resembled the President when stuffing her face with French Fries and foie gras and playing “Show and Tell” with the Secret Service agents hovering in the shadows.

Free electrons thing of past. Physical physicists, as opposed to mere theoretical physicists, have determined that what’s "fucking everything up" is that we have enslaved too many electrons. “Before Edison, electrons could zip around from atom to atom, according to their supernal preferences,” propounded Clik Munderheim of Cal Tech. “But now, quizillions of electrons are stuck in chip circuits, beef fat and marital aides, such as the Hitachi 500 Rodeo Phlange. It’s just so sad. Isn't it?” Munderheim explained that a new tax on electrons would fund a program to pay for free electrons. He thinks this would really un-fuck things up.

Small things have a disproportionately large effect, according to government study. “Small things affect big things a lot more than big things affect the small. Or is that effect?” inquired Dr. Bruno Yasski of NASA. “For example, mountain ranges,” gesticulated the nervous Yasski. “Mountain ranges, which are pretty damn big, rarely shut down the international banking system, but computer chips often do. And those chips are quite small,” spluttered Yasski. When told he had a small piece of spinach lodged between his teeth and that nobody had heard a word he'd said because they were so distracted, the good doctor further proved his point by running head first into the wall, with no noticeable effects whatsoever.

the laws of thermodynamics, applied:

first law: energy can’t sit still
second law: free time is somebody else's work
third law: it’s cool to make heat
objective conclusion: energy can’t be lost or found
subjective conclusion: yes it can
corollary: it stings a little

hot stuff becomes cold stuff quickly
inside space there is a molten chamber
and a one time
one word
one pass word to enter
it is recognized
or re-codified
in the heat of the moment

where does heat go?
heat lost on pluto
pauses briefly in your kitchen
to fry your onions
your sweet chipolte peppers
on the front left burner
before continuing on its way
to expand a universe
just dying to cool down

friction
fiction
cold hard facts
hot romance novels
life is like an ocean
icebergs and thermal vents
might sting a little
and sharpen the senses

. . . the laws of thermodynamics, applied


by the boy poets riding thermals

This just in from our literary criticism department: The good thing about fiction is it's a lot more believeable than the alternative. Plus the fact that there's no such thing as non-fiction.

Accountant disturbed by inflating universe. No other details available at press time other than the general advice of "don't hold your breath".

High Alert: Department of Homeland Security declares that most people employed by the US government are "High". States Tom Ridge, Secretary of the Dept of Homeland Security, "About 12 people in the CDC in Atlanta ( CDC employee, Chief of Toxicology, Biff Glenn, in photo on left uses beaker-bong to get "High" ) lit a sizable "bong" in the beaker washer room and that was enough to put the total number of government employees who are "High" over 50%. I think the alert color for "High" is orange or red-orange, isn't it? Very pretty and look at the trails!"

Cat claims ninth area of man's home exclusively hers for napping. Bijou, a prominent Atlanta, Georgia cat, in the home she shares with Moe Nuffy, a human being, today laid claim to the green wool blanket atop the northernmost cushion on the living room sofa. Bijou staked out the area at 6:13 P.M. today and remained ensconced there throughout the eveing, impervious to the carefully reasoned arguments by Nuffy that he was left with only three sitting areas in the household--none of them cushioned, compared to nine for Bijou--all of them cushioned. At long last, growing weary of Nuffy's repetitious whining, Bijou stated flatly that the ratio of seating area distribution obviously and accurately reflected the respective hours of sleep logged daily by the two members of the household.

New government study describes ideal roommate. According to an extremely thorough and timely government examination of "roommates" as we know them, the ideal roommate is super-depressed and feels really bad about it. That way, the roomate is usually all crapped out so you can do whatever you want without asking the roomate if it's "all right", and the roommate really doesn't care when all the junkies and fallen Unitarians you know come over for an early lunch around midnight, and spill all their resinous illicit stuff all over creation.
Most of the rest of the study was devoted to explaining how this would help the goddam president's fucking tax plan.

Tom Ridge identifies next terrorist target: Tom Ridge ordered the Decatur regiment of the Sons of Daughters of Confederate Veterans onto 24 hour and a half guard at the Cyclorama (a bunch of dummies in a circle) in Atlanta, Georgia. The chintzy and dearly held painting of Sherman's march through Atlanta was under a code "triple deep red" threat level. Tom Ridge also urged Atlanta residents to participate in a "drive-on-the-left-side-of-the-road" day to foil terrorists and other nimrods. Tom Ridge said, "Hopefully at least half the people will participate. We're betting it will be good for the economy."
Tom Ridge also mandates that all anti-terror sentences will start with the words, "Tom Ridge."

Baby Jewish girl named Jesus gets solid chocolate Bible at naming ceremony. Our reporters said the chocolate was really, really good. And it was very long. Because after all, it's a Bible.

Middle manager seeks salvation through cloning. Guy Mann, Middle Manager at Lefty's You Can Em, You Eat Em and Shoe Repair, has chosen to "straighten out my bass ackwards karma by raising my cloned self. That's right, what I got here," pointing to mass of protoplasm in a kleenex, “is me all over again." Guy Mann Sr. has adopted Guy Mann Jr., a not-yet-human being on whom Guy Mann Sr. pins his fraying hopes for salvation.
"I tried everything else to fix my bad self, you know, the army, the navy, the marines, religion, the lottery, ouija board parties, free association, acrimony, lightness-of-being, the U.S. Patent Office, auto repair, cross-dressing, a starter marriage, my gun collection, selling my gun collection, starting my gun collection over, you name it, nothing worked. My karma was still skanked out."

Despite mostly countervailing opinion from a panel of experts, Mann insisted that his grouchiness, bad taste, rampant god complex and a diet heavy on the mayo did not represent his true self. "Indeed," argued Mann, "who better to rectify these unfortunate warpages that tarnish my genome than me my own damn self?" Mann fumed, "The universe got us into this mess. You think the universe is gonna get us out?"

Man fabricates diary. In a tortured rush of quasi-coherent prose, Herman Thurman of Thick Thistle, New York, lost his firm grip on what is commonly accepted as the "Truthful Diary Principles," in which the diarist limits entries to stuff that actually happened: not a difficult concept to comprehend. "I got over-excited because I was so close to the end of volume 5," stammered Thurman, "but nothing had happened to me in 122 days. My whole life was was stuck like a frozen corpsicle so, yeah, I panicked. I thought if I could just get to Volume 6, maybe things would loosen up and flow for me." Thurman filled the last 21 pages of Volume 5 in a frenetic script detailing how, in November, he made love to all the spokesmodels at the Huffakers, NV Locomotive Trade Show and then in December he gave away, in a mad phit of philanthropy, 60 billion Euro dollars to needy children in the Fiji Islands and then because the weather was nice, went scuba diving 1500 feet down into the Marianna trench and wrestled with a ghostly pale deep water shark but let it go in an act of pure love; and finally how, just yesterday, how he, one Herman Thurman, single-handedly engineered the bankruptcy of Microsoft and drove Bill Gates into an ocean of quicksand and utter madness.

The Daily Forecast South of the 40th parallel, from noon to nine: propitious if not downright encouraging for outdoor oboe concerts. Fortunately, one was scheduled because of the snappy forecast and on a lawn somewhere in the region citizens were regaled -- the “interesting” sounds of a single oboe’s plaintive and haunting cry deeply stirring the memory centers of the brain and causing, simultaneously, deep expressions of love and bitter recriminations throughout South of the 40th parallel .

John Asscroft, General Attorney of NUSA (New United States of Amurica), unilaterally deploys revered early American anti-terrorism methodology. "I am going to revive the The Witch Trial," announced the murder-loving Kompletely Kracked Khristian flourishing a rare grin and a fistful of extra-long old-fashioned lamplighter style matches from the 1943 Sears catalogue. "I believe in the power of hot flames to lead us to honesty in America. Only wine inspires greater candor, but drinking is immoral. And besides, the smell of burning sin is a lot more rectifying than a coupla brewzinskis."

Powell Declares Vial of Simulated Sperm to be "Evil": Holding the opaque milky substance aloft in front of an eagerly revulsed world, Colin Powell explained archly, "We got it from swabbing down the insides of those shiny spent aluminum tubes we found outside Baghdad. I mean, just use your imagination...you gettin' it?...you see now?...that's right. That's just evil. Pure axis o' evil." When pressed, Powell admitted that the disgusting vial contained only a "simulation" of the (axis o') evil sperm, not the (axis o') evil sperm itself, but noted, before winking out in a deliquesced puff of degaussed ions, that he, himself, personally was not "actually" here at all.

The world report today. A synopsis: Cheese, a slight chalky taste in my mouth, terror, fizz, hubris, the dali llama, felching (or is it phelching?), leotards, crunchy stuff, Brigadoon, bad haberdashery, the word "puff", the Clovis site, meatballs, rattatooie.

The world report today. A synopsis: Fire, death, weather, sex, remorse, futility, rue, smig hupness, denial, appreciation, beauty, giddiness, Cape Horn, sleaze, markets barking, puffed upedness.

I just walked headfirst into an asstral projection.

I just walked assfirst into headstral projectile.

Notes From Mulligan’s Bar The Night Jason Left
Us For DisneyWorld

don’t go there
the whole idea is
way too goofy
they make you wear
the big Mickey head,
don't they?

four in the corner pocket
off the seven ball
yes its an impossible shot
a fantasy

are we stripes or solids?
never mind
we’re all stripes, all solids

we can talk about the Magic Kingdom
and the weather in central Florida
or we can talk about
something solid
or striped

may I remind you:
if you have to ask
what’s in a fried twinkie
you never ate
a hot greasy twinkie

the best billiards
is a torrent
of angles eyeballed and
submitted to physical law
sent back as audible thunks of truth:
corner pockets, beer, women,
sticks, cues, chalk
and vodka martinis

this is a three cushion shot if
you’ve got the power
the liquid
billiard ball juice power

we’re not stripes
we’re not solids
we’re the color
of a deep blue sky

we will never visit
Mickey Mouse
unless his head is ablaze
with holy fire

I don’t care if I’m crazy as hell
just listen

or do what I say