“When The World Comes Crashing Down”

The purple bikini bottoms of Pattaya Beach,
John Pilger’s “The Coming War on China” teaches me the history of the article,
Palm trees sway in my adolescent mind from napalm bomb winds.
Rather than read Heart of Darkness in school I opted for Apocalypse Now
Depreciating my grade on the test.
Later the article sits deliberately left behind in my Xi’an apartment
As a kind of sign,
Like the drawn sixties girls in a Thunderball poster,
Hearing her rolling luggage still echoing out the door.
It was named for Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands,
A nuclear testing site for the United States for over a decade.
The imperial yellow high-rise looks over centuries, millennia of city layers
The flying eaves of traditional Chinese architecture
Some sixteen blocks back
Amid bewildering density of urban sprawl,
One might feel a smidge of vertigo like Frank Olson. As
though not even the most towering, unmovable authorities,
Especially them,
Could ever be trusted. 

Our World Gone Wrong

If our world has gone wrong
How shall we survive it
Drink coffee as usual
Or start protesting somewhere

What actions to take
That matters the most
If votes can be altered by fraud
What effect may an individual have

How can we act together
If no one comes out as a leader
With credibility in moral
As well as ability 

Where can we get news
Reliable and trustworthy 
If the source speaks more than the content
No need to listen anymore

Coffee still warm on the table
Feet standing on the same ground
How could we survive
As our world gone wrong

 

“f-word war”

 
father and
family
fill out
at five
and follow in file their
fourth child
to the final call
for the
five-minutes
to follow your fantasy
to a foreign field

they formed a fan ‘round
their favorite son
then, with feigned frivolity
they forced their fond farewell,
their familiar fanfare
for the frail and fragile one
who, filled with filial favor
and fervent, focused valor
would fight the formidable foe
with fortitude,
for friend and family
and freedom forevermore.

father cried his
few tears
framed by sorrow
flamed by fear

for
flesh he bore
finally would face
the f’in war
like his
father before -

f’n war.

forevermore

f’n war.

Oh, Lord, Hear Me

Oh, Lord, hear me, for I am a sinner.
I am a greedy bastard full of want.
There is no end to all that I covet.
I am a  lazy slothful creature heartily
Inclined to gluttony gorging myself
With delectable delights 24/7.
The bar has become my man cave
And strong whiskey my elixir of life.
I am vain and boastful of the wrath
I have inflicted upon mine enemies.
Yea, Lord, I am, indeed, a fornicator
Par excellent.  I have buried my bone
Most freely.  I have paid the guilders
For poontang and couched with
The wives of men, and some women.
Truly, I am a sinful man and yet,
Come to think of it, most proud of it.
Hell, Lord, I've had some great times,
Fantastically great times.  So, say, um.
Ignore this confession for right now.
I've got more sinnin' to do.  Thanx.

The Syrup in Me
 
I sing a song to the muck that is in me, to the birds, the tornado, the evil, the fleshy strong part, the guitar, the body, the mind, the syrup that pours into my head and drips out my mouth as sludge.

I sing to the lark in the tree, the worm on the road, the muskrat in the woods, the whale on the beach.

I sing and traipse through gorded canyons and flower beds, licking my bootheels in rapid succession.  Angst rains over my body and climaxes in chunky slices of vomit on the computer screen.

When the stink of puke is off me, I am free.

Second Mouth:
What's worse than a full house?
An empty house.

And what's worse than an empty house?
A full house.

Same goes for bottles, lovers, and pistols—

if humans had three eyes
we'd think only having two
meant we were blind.

Mannequin

I am coral surrounded by fish. Stationary among movement. They walk and they talk they look and they touch. I can only watch. I can't even scream as foreign hands undress me. Even Venus was drawn with tresses and nimble fingers to shield herself, while I bear Medusa's wrath without even having stolen a glance. It’s injustice to crave normalcy in the Uncanny Valley. To show them what they could be in a mirror they still call distorted. Yet I should be grateful. Unlike some of my kin, I still have my head.

OUR STUPID RULES ABOUT GETTING HIGH

Sitting here now blazing on just
Another high in this lifetime of
Highs I call out our draconian
Laws!  Why, when I just want
To get high, can’t I go to a shop
& buy my stuff & get out without
Recourse to chat shit or worse yet
Hang out with a dealer when I
Could be here working on my
Words & getting high just how I
Like it.

Fuck This Shit

Everything is just a god damn fuckin' nightmare.
When you're computer illiterate.
I can e-mail, search the web, order stuff
but don't know shit beyond that and
there's no way to find out.  In school,
We had fat crayons in kindergarten,
learned the ancient art of cursive writing,
learned our way about on a typewriter.
Now, I'm limited in what I can do
because I wasn't born with a computer
up my ass.  there are no basic  classes anymore
Local college official says they're not needed.
People that know don't want to help like
it's some sort of burden on them.  On-line
tutorials are crap, they don't make sense.
What I need is supposed to be so laughably simple
Yet I don't know how to do it.  And end up stuck.
And they wonder why people go 'postal'.



Underground

So, I find this poetry site
On-line 'underground',
That's the claim anyway.
By 'underground' I expect
Something hard hitting
And bold, life in the real.
Maybe some play on words,
Colorful vernacular, shocking
From the gut observations.
Hell, the stuff they got
I could read to granny or
At Sunday school.  It's like
What Ms. Prissy would write
For the ladies' garden club,
Everything as dynamic as
A cool summer breeze.
But they're 'underground',
As 'underground' as an old
Squirrel's nuts. 

"Let’s make a deal, night’s falling…"

 
Jesus took the stars
outta my eyes,
‘n’ traded ‘em
for a blood-crusted nail -
impalin’ my mind
on the same crude cross
          road
where Robert Johnson
made his deal
to save his soul –

and,
ever since

the blues been runnin’ thru my veins,
promisin’ true-blue,
blood-red afro-americana
down to the walked-out soles
of my Jesus-born soul –

but,
          truth be told –

there’s a flea market for souls
on the edge of town
where only strangers
drop their dimes:
with wiggles of rhythm
and waggles of rhyme,
their hearts completely out of time –
one hand clapping
in the silence of my mind.

 
maaan,
I gotta get out of here
before the angels hear
my life’s on sale
for under a dime,

damn!

it’s getting close,
close
to closing time…

 
NOTE: They say that R.J. “sold” his soul to the devil; this is an alternate version of his conversion.