George, Don’t Chop Down the Cherry Tree!

Other than my closest friends,
why should I give two fucks what anyone thinks?
Who'll be with me when the story ends?

I’m tied together with rubber bands.
Knees and elbows make imperfect links,
but I'll dangle here until the story ends.

Just a puppet carved of wood.
I’ll dance the limberjack,
clacking until the music ends.

I'm glad I don’t yet wear Depends,
but why should I give two fucks if the furniture stinks
because I've got a wet hind end?

I’d as soon take as give a fuck,
but my nose pivots like a periscope,
standing up to suss out how the evening ends.

God, this scene is rinky-dink!
Who’ll blame me for climbing my beanstalk,
not caring what the Giant thinks?
How does Jack and the Beanstalk end?

The Voice of Athena

I’ve gotten to be dependent on Heather Cox Richardson.
She reads the news, so I don’t have to.
She keeps me from panicking

about all the reappointments in the Pentagon,
for instance, or all the abusive lawsuits
to keep Biden out of office. Heather Cox Richardson

sets me straight on everything—
like, is there going to be a military coup?
I’m just on the verge of panicking

when her fearless, reasonable
voice is right here, showing how we’ve gone through this before:
way back in Reconstruction

times, “socialism” already meant bailing out
urban folks whom rural and suburban folks don’t like,
right-wingers always in a panic-fit

that the government will take away their mun.
If we don’t like you, it’s not fair for you to vote.
That’s why I'll listen to Heather Cox Richardson
until our Nazi President is finally gone.

Don't Let the Devil Drive

It’s exhausting to hear the yammering of a narcissist.
(Please wake me when it’s over!)
A narcissist makes you settle for less

than you’d otherwise
have settled for. But you’re sleeping in clover,
and, except for the constant yammering of the narcissist,

you feel you’ve been blessed by fate.
But get out the nail polish remover
or you’ll have to settle for nothing less

than black pen stains on your lamb-white shirt.
You want to find another lover
to help you escape from your yammering narcissist,

but you’ve started to feel your very right to exist
is under siege. So, you agree to send the Jews to Poland,
settling for the very worst

bargain—letting a narcissist camp in your bailiwick.
The slippery slope goes all the way to
hell, when you’re enduring the devil’s bailiff’s
unmasked kiss.

Identity Poetics (Remembering the Dead Kennedys)

It’s nice to claim our identity
as south-European Renaissance yokels—
kind of sassy and uppity.

Folks’ll say it’s just our insanity,
but the joke’s on
them, because we’ll claim the identity

of one or all of the three dead Kennedys,
whose ancestors ploughed the rocks of
Bawn, then got sassy and uppity

and came to the USA—
and Joe put up a hotel. Their kids are broke
now, but they still claim their Kennedy identity.

Our only claim
to fame is, we never left the farm—loyal
villeins that we were and are—but still too uppity

to work on the same estate for more than a century.
We rise in the morning and soak
our feet in cider, love—flaunting our identity—
never not sassy and uppity!

The Villeinous Dr. Yokel

Why would anyone be interested in an old white guy with a PhD?
Are people supposed to be impressed?
But if you have some kind of a degree,

isn’t it dishonest not
to mention it? Even in my days
as a tech writer, I knew people thought my PhD

only meant I was
a big prick. It was tough to confess
to the degree,

actually. I had a job in an excelsior factory
quite a few years before I had amassed
the credits for my PhD,

but I had to leave
when a workmate sussed
out I had a college degree.

Not at all surprising that people are skeptical.
Beauty is as beauty does
if you’re an old white guy with or without a PhD
degree.

Elephant-Colorings of Tires

If a poem’s not a striptease,
It’s just a dry hump.
Please please

me, my sweet sweet!
Shake your rump!
If a poem is a striptease,

we’ll feel the breeze
as we hunt the Heffalump,
Piglet and I—aiming to please

ourselves alone. Hear the trees
in this hundred-acre dump
shaking so’s to tease

our tender soles,
footin’ by the old mill pump.
It’s only about pleasing

each other’s hearts—
and especially ears—with songs
strutting tuneful
Pretty please!

Quality Over Substance

Do I want to see myself as others see me—
an annoying old white guy?
I’d rather see than be me.

But I’m my own best bestie:
I’m cute, and I’m eight miles high.
I’d rather not hear myself as others hear me—

just another dreary
droner. Why
on earth would you want to read me?

But I’ll lay claim to the catbird seat—
my attic swivel-chair, with the southern sky
beaming on my belly and my carpe

diem feet. Talk about a striptease!
Never thought I’d be so lucky:
I can both see and be me.

Must I submit to orthodoxy?
Maybe I’m obnoxious, but I’m happy,
choosing not to see myself as others see me.
I’ll be what I see!

Camp Chase

Do I wish I were less ambivalent about poetry?
Can I be a god-mouth after all?
Seems like emotional sophistry

when I or anybody
responds to the call:
“Please seduce me,

“feed me heart pie,
“speak in my ear and help me have a ball!” —
diamond-studded piano-ring

presented to Liberace
by Baron Hilton with a three-mil contract. What a tall
man Liberace weren’t! But they played Vegas

(sometimes making their entrance on a trapeze),
AND they always kept all
their clothes on—a modest guy,

but who can tell their playing from striptease? —
taking a brave self-loving stroll.
Don't want to be lackadaisical about my dreams.
Soles, you’re free!

Tourist Destination Near Eads, Colorado

Do I need better resolution on my phone camera
if my quarry is a moment not an object?
The Cheyenne and Arapaho

had no cameras
when they were slaughtered at Sand Creek,
but I was able to document

a couple of the moments I was there
using my crappy old Samsung.
Some of the massacred Cheyenne and Arapaho

(or pieces of them) are still lying in that shaded earth.
Not clear if it was hundreds or more than a thousand,
because we have poor resolution on our historical

perspective. Remember the Alamo!
we holler, as we trample
all memory of the Cheyenne and Arapaho

beneath our sandal soles,
camera resolution good enough to hide any moment.
We don’t need no stinking cameras
to photograph those Cheyenne and Arapaho.

I'm Pretty Sure Something Joyous Happened This Month

     to see eternity in an hour

My irrepressible joy seemed to be funneling away,
making me wonder
how much joy I have in an average day.

But you can’t count joy,
because joy isn’t money.
I know I’ve watched my cash funnel away,

not to mention my bag of marijuan-y,
and every single other
solitary good that might sustain me

for a year or for a day. What can I pray
for or to besides my legal tender,
which nothing will prevent from dwindling away—

especially if I plan to never die?
But in Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania,
the ballots spoke with counted joy

the hour that our ship came in this November—
an entire eternity for our trouble!
My irrepressible joy is rising today
to a total that’s a plain absurdity.

Action at a Distance in Henry James

How my desires inhabit others!
Creepy entanglement!
But I don’t want to be a bother.

Thinking about old Lambert Strether
He says good riddance
to his youth, after inhabiting

the sex life of his boss’s
son. Though sensible Maria Gostrey
doesn’t think Strether a bother,

he doesn’t cop to her
charms but retreats to the USA,
leaving the sensual ghosts his desires had blooded

to savor forever
their dispatriated dalliance—
bother to no one but Chadwick Newsome’s mother.

And poor Daisy dies of the Roman fever
after we’d all despaired of her innocence.
How my desires inhabit others,
especially when I’m not the slightest bother!

 

Begging Aphrodite's Pardon

What, other than myself, do I enjoy?
Love is such a pumped-up word!
Using myself as a boy.

Fun to have myself for a toy!
To ignore or belittle me would be absurd.
I’d have to find something else to enjoy,

or somebody else. Why am I so shy?
Because I don’t want to be a turd,
I guess, courting you as a boy—

am I cute or am I icky?
I suppose I’ll have to leave the herd
and wander off and enjoy

myself in my own private way,
tending to my sweet bird
of paradise—myself as a boy,

but knowing in my heart a girl would be prettier.
I’d rather use myself as a girl.
What, in my own stead, do I enjoy?
Only you, my precious Joy!

Bashful Busker

Preparation for performance
IS the performance,
because performance-

day may never come. Performance
implies an audience—
so, let me dedicate my performance

to you (ignoring your reluctance).
What can be said in my defence?
Only that performance

is a full-time job, dogged persistence
what pays off in the end—
perpetual preparation for performance

a tough mistress
of time and circumstance,
supplemental performance

that creates no annoyance—
viz., by wailing on my saxophone
in the wee hours. Stop the performance!
I’m too out of practice!

The Laugh's on Us

Here’s one, folks—
does erecting a nude statue of Donald Trump
in Central Park make America more of a joke?

T appears to be awaiting strokes,
and he has a pink rump.
“Here’s one, folks,”

he seems to say while waiting for all the other dicks
to have their hump,
“America’s no joke:

“here, if you dare to look,
“is my fully inflated MAGA-pump.
“Have fun while you can, folks,

“before you get whacked
“and sprayed with goo.
“America’s not a joke

“like Nixon was not a crook.
“Thank me for taking off the emperor’s clothes!”
Face it, folks,
America was already a joke.

Thanks to the Muse

I get anxious when I haven’t written a poem in two days.
What if I’ve lost my grip?
But I’m always amazed—

I just sit down, and my poem flows like praise.
So, can I drift
off once again and write the poem I haven’t written in two days,

whatever poem it is?
The ghost of McCulloch can say whether it’s like his long leap—
amazingly,

I’ve landed safely beyond the precipice.
Now all my waking thoughts are counted sheep,
assuaging my anxiety that I haven’t written a poem in two days.

How I do love you! Let me count the ways.
I love you because we help each other sleep.
We’re both amazed

at the deep slumber-realm we’ve strayed
into, hearing only the faintest peep
of a boast that I have written a poem in the last two days.
Let’s stay amazed!

Camera Obscura

If I want to still my voice, might I try haiku?
Well, I take photos as I hike round my hometown.
Will they do?

Why do I have to write poems too?
A photo, like a haiku, is a found
thing made. So, to still my voice, I could try haiku.

What’s missing, then? Not point of view—
the eye itself having a shoot-around
with the sky,

inscribing not a single word—
not even a blue graffiti tag on a traffic
sign. Can something be a haiku

and not be articulated language? Who
says a poem must be uttered sound?
What might just do

could be nothing louder than boot marks in the snow,
my own brown shoes
trudging in the field of my quiet haiku-
view. Anything will do.

Not Silence but Just Another Poem

Bene facis, Leonard Cohen

What could make me happy except
for writing another poem?
Sometimes even a God- (or self-) appointed bard shuts up,

gets to where they can accept
the prompt no longer. Heaven feels close
to them then, but nothing makes them happy except

for lying with bated breath
in their Satipatthana pose,
feeling their bones dry up

and crumble into dust. Always the marvelous adept—
the boy who’s risen from the foam
like Venus, true to life—except

for missing some certain glamor—bankrupt
of true cred—Queen of the Prom
dancing with a pumpkin. OK, then, I’ll shut up

and take a long, long nap.
I don’t know how far into my weird dreams I’ll roam,
but nothing will make us happy except
for me shutting the fuck up.

Grasshopper in the Time of Covid

Trump lost and I’m still scared.
Is scaring us to death what Trump does best?
Are we prepared

to hear more brazen lies he'll tell with bared teeth—
intended, at least, to deprive us of our rest
for the next two months. I’m scared

he won't stop mouthing his fraud
until the courts accede and agree he's blessed
of God. Are we prepared

to learn that American law
and tradition count for less
than the spewed words of a clown who really knows how to scare

us to death, at least? He’ll assume the prerogatives of Lord
and have us old hippies impressed
into his new model army for having our rights impaired—

stealing from us our social safety net, for sure.
The rich won’t be taxed
to help feed the rest—that’s the biggest threat I’m scared

of. I’ll have to live by my sword
then—sword that ne'er before was struck in such a test.
Am I prepared

to bust down and deal my share
in battles I confess
I never dared imagine I’d ever have to fight? That’s why I’m scared.
I’m ill-prepared.

Cold Heaven (Going Across the Sea)

The wind is howling low.
The wind is howling high.
It’s too windy to sit on my back porch.

I don’t have far to go.
My home is in the sky.
The wind is howling low.

I’m ready to pack and go,
but I sleep through the night.
It’s too windy to sit on my back porch -

damn windy, but I won’t drop my torch.
My hair is a fright.
The wind is howling low,

but see me rocking to and fro,
riddled with light!
It’s too windy to sit on my back porch,

and I’m broke but I’m flush with cash.
I walk upright on two feet.
It’s too windy to sit on my back porch.
The wind is howling low.

November 7 2020, 11:58AM

I’m approaching something that looks
Like a gang of people
There’s an American flag
There are a whole lot of people
Honking
So
My supposition is that this might be a Trump rally
It’ll be interesting to see
I’m going to find out pretty quick
Loud loud loud
Honk honk honk honk
So yeah very loud
Nope
It’s bad when you see an American flag
You immediately think it must be right-wing thugs
But it’s not
Some people in this group have an American flag
AND they have a Biden sign
So it’s just more sweetness
Sweet exciting enthusiasm
It’s wonderful to see
It’s fantastic
Woo-hoo
Ha ha
Honk honk honk honk honk honk.

Moonshine Liquor's Been Corrected

There was an election yesterday, but no one was elected—
absentee ballots slow to be tallied.
Waiting has been enacted.

There's doubt that all the ballots were collected—
some may have been illegally
tossed out so that Franklin D. Roosevelt couldn’t be elected

again. I don’t think our rights have been respected.
The state rejects our agency
(we’re passive tube-watchers). Waiting is expected,

while we see if our national cathexis
on a perfervid bully
can be dissolved, so that a kind person can be elected.

I had fair hopes for Texas,
but it’s Arizona (and will it be Michigan?) for the
EC majority. Waiting is exacted

like a tax. Let’s go out and walk in the precious
autumn sunlight, while we weep for humanity!
There was an election yesterday, but no one was elected.
America redacted?

Tales of Brave Ulysses

Reviewing my storied gigging career.
The time someone dropped a brick on me
while I was loading the car. It missed. I had nothing to fear,

even though I’d just ridden down a long stairway
on top of the big Fender amp I was trundling—
black eye just part of my storied gigging career.

Or earlier when big kids took over our guitars—
pretty humiliating, I’ll say.
But I had nothing to fear

going forward, except the matter of all the gear
I had to schlep around. The time I left Houser’s waa-waa
behind in my storied gigging career.

Stage-sick before shows started,
I always felt fine when I started singing.
I have no fear

when I’m in the moment—I play with heart,
I can at least say that for me
when I review my storied gigging career.
There was never nothing to fear.

Please Stop!

I won’t give up,
but we can’t win by waving the devil’s face around.
Please stop!

Enough, already! Go do your yoga!
Your worrying is bringing everybody down.
We won't give up,

but it doesn't help
to fixate endlessly on that evil clown.
Please help me stop!

We have fair hopes
we’ll put that dude in the mad-dog pound
in a few days. I say I won’t give up,

but—listen to me—I’m making myself throw up!
Luckily, Joe Biden’s sunny dachshund
face will help us stop

making ourselves sick,
join hands, and take our trip around the sun
a few more times before our race gives up
the ghost and stops.

The Television Has Brainwashed Itself

I just slept for what felt like a long drink of water,
but I still feel sleepy.
Why doesn’t matter.

Don’t ask me why I keep on getting fatter,
nor yet why I've become so scared and weepy.
I just slept for what felt like a long drink of water,

but my Fitbit didn’t count it because it was less than an hour.
God, this American time is creepy!
Why doesn’t matter—

just a lot of mansplain-y chatter,
soporifically drony and grindy.
Meaning drains through the media like sewer water—

not truth but just signage.
The remedy's to turn off the TV.
Words like “socialism” and “fascism” shouldn’t matter—

we don’t know one another by deciphering our blather.
I’m just wishing for a friend who’ll understand me.
We were thirsty, so we slept for what felt like a long drink of water.
Only our dreams matter!

Cloned Female Mutant Crayfish

Cloned female mutant crayfish
(seemingly with nowhere else to go)
have invaded a Belgian cemetery.

Crawfish can be delish
when caught down on the bayou—
multiple-gendered (natural) crayfish.

They look like smaller lobsters,
or nice big scorpions. But crayfish don’t belong
in a Belgian cemetery because crawdad

po-boy sandwiches aren’t eaten there
(crawmama po-gals if you’d rather).
Does binary gender come with being cloned?

Those mutant crayfish can’t be pleased
with what they’re finding
(nothing but dead meat deeply buried)
in that cemetery.

Covid Coffee

It’s been too freaking
cold to walk outside much lately.
I just drink coffee,

seldom seeing
anyone because it’s plaguey.
I’m not too freaking

slow to show my feelings,
though—my lovings and my hatings.
I just drink my coffee,

and they all spill out of me—
tag lines
made of my own freaking

tears that come oozing
from my crossed
eyes—like coffee,

but more colorless. You see
how it is with me.
Too much freaking
time to lie here drinking coffee.

Television People

Ghosts can’t be smelly
because they’re colder than the clay,
not of the earth, earthy.

Does a ghost have a belly-
button—ectoplasmic remnant of its navel?
People seen on TV

can be ghastly,
snowing us with their jabber-dazzle,
so we can’t tell if they’re earthy

or if they’re the ghost of Rockefeller.
If it’s stinkier than the offal,
you know it’s neither fish

nor flesh, but something really, really
gross. Will this TV show fizzle
because it pertains to nothing earthy

or spiritual either?
More lethal
than the most ethereal ghost—
of the shit, shitty.

Come and Play in My Band!

I play all this music!
Do I feel I should give concerts?
For whose sake

do I play it?
For my own sake, clearly!
I play all this music

because I feel it
best in my own digits.
It’s for my own toes’ sake

that I shake my tuchus.
I get better and better
at playing, but my music

still feels for naught
sometimes. Well, when the weather
improves, for my own jollies’ sake,

I’ll set up shop
on some street corner, and you
can play with me because
it's for your sake.

Kitty Accident

Teff-kitty is sleeping
in the cat-tree in the sun.
He pretty-well swallowed

a long sharp bamboo skewer
last night. Robin chased him
into the basement. Now he’s sleeping,

and I think he’s eaten
and lapped a little water since
he pretty-well swallowed

that skewer. Somehow
it came out, but I’m
worried that the poor sleeping

guy may have the tip still lodged
in his throat somewhere. He seems
better, but his tail is twitching.

How much pain is he actually in?
It happened on a late Saturday
night, or we would have taken
the now-sleeping beast to the clinic.

Who Will Drive the Car?

What happens when the dream I’ve kept alive
starts to have a been-there-done-that feel—
not to me, maybe, but I'm afraid I’ll drive

my friends away with too much longing—
me, geriatric orphan child wandering in the snow?
The problem is, the dream I’ve kept alive

is my own dream (the dream best worth having,
as far as I'm concerned). I’m an old
imbiber, but I always drive

the car. And I work nine-to-five (or maybe
two afternoons a week) so I'm not down-at-heel.
What happens when the dream I’ve kept alive

turns out to be just me talking and you listening?
If that happens, can I keep my reel
spinning and let the river drive?

I’ll be able to save the dream,
because the Lord Jesus saved my soul.
What happens when the dream I’ve kept alive
is no one’s dream but mine? Please! You drive!

Erato's Geometry

I try to grab life by the throat.
I never quite die and I never quite live.
That’s why I’m called the everloving asymptote.

My numerator and my denominator are both fucked,
but I still feel I have a lot to give.
I try to grab life by the throat,

but that’s a rude way to treat your mate!
OK, so I’ll just let up a bit.
Being an everloving asymptote

means trying to learn someone else’s song by heart,
even though you know you’ll never sing
it right. I can warm my throat

with your sweet voice, my love—
how we’ll get to be a smash hit:
by being one ever-loving asymptote.

If I had a pony, I’d ride it on my boat.
God, we had a lot of fun with that one!
Trying to feel the breath of life in my throat—
always the just-wide-of-Prajna asymptote.

Refusing to Feed the NBC Beast

I can’t seem to write,
but I sure don’t want to watch the big town-hall.
I’m good for nothing tonight.

I’m tired and my mind is a fright,
better equipped for a pratfall
than to write

any words at all. I’ll put on seamless tights
and stand on my shoulders with my feet up the wall,
doing my Iyengar yoga tonight.

My consciousness alights
on any howling baby at this witch’s ball.
How its shrill bawling spurs me to write! -

always the everloving asymptote,
hearing but never receiving the call,
approaching zero and/or infinity tonight.

I won’t give up the fight,
but I’ll hear better if I have no ears at all.
I can’t seem to write,
but I'll be all smiles tonight.

Hamlet at the Comedy Cellar

My natural state is to be beloved.
Who loves me, baby?
What must I do to prove

myself worthy? I’m loved the world
over, although I always cling to the safety
of my own skin. Still, I feel beloved

of God because I'm well-behaved,
just trying to be funny
enough to prove

attention-worthy to the smartly hooved.
Hamlet pretended to be loony,
forgetting his natural state (to be beloved)—

but when your dad’s killer marries your mother,
you may well be driven batty
by the need to convince yourself you’re worthy

to wear your father’s
sword and armor. Now you know you’re crazy.
Maybe your natural state is to be beloved
by yourself only.

Trying to Let the Wild Animals Run Free

I dreamed I was deprived of food by my own father.
(Who’d think it, or would a-thunk it?)
What I needed most came from my mother.

But my dream had no mother
in it. I was a teen spelunker;
my own father

accompanied me into the caverns.
I always drove his junker
Plymouth Cricket, even though I druther

drive my mother’s Toyota Corolla.
That’s how I acquired my bunker
mentality—deprived by my own father

of my full gastric potential,
I had to hunker
down into my rather

feckless posture as the other
of Orion the Hunter.
Deprived of food by my own father.
What I needed most flowed from my mother.

When We Can't Sing Together

We’ve kept the dream alive for six months now.
What dream was it?
Our (my) dream of love.

Our (my) plans were never practical,
and now we can’t meet,
but we’ve kept the dream alive for six months now.

In former days, we had a lot to show
but always chose to stay in the closet
with our (my) secret love,

hotter than a firecracker;
but our (my) desires were sublimated
into a dream that we’ve kept alive

with music. Only God
themselves has a clue what we’re about,
keeping our jams alive for four years now—

as much joy as time allows,
but who measures?
We’ve kept the dream alive for six months now—
sweet dream of love.

"Good Poem" - Oxymoron; "Bad Poem" - Tautology

We play the good-poetry/bad-poetry game.
Is our poetry bad?
Everyone whose poetry is good gets to go home

early, while the rest of us have to stay until the bell
rings and be glad
of it, playing the good-poetry/bad-poetry game

until we drop. OK, so who’s to blame
for this smarmy poetry trad?
(Whoever it was got sent home

for good.) Old MacDonald had a farm,
and on that farm he had
a sad bull-steer who played the good-poetry/bad-poetry game,

when the truth was, nobody’s fuzzies are warm
about whether their own poetry is good and not bad.
Let’s all take our rhymes and go home

and not worry if they’re worse than everyone
else’s. Maybe someone will enjoy reading
them, but the good-poetry/bad-poetry game
leaves the audience at home.

Phaedrus

I’m scrappy and my feet are naked.
Too hard to be exemplary.
A naked yokel is a happy yokel.

Different strokes
for different folks, they say.
I’m knappy and my feet are naked.

I really get faked
out sometimes when I encounter the way
others respond to a happy, naked yokel—

surely a radical
approach to living in society.
I’m rappy and my feet are naked.

I guess I shouldn’t be that
surprised that the world wants to fuck me—
a cute, flappy, naked yokel.

Nothing at all to be a-scared
of, trying to be a model citizen like Socrates—
yappy, and their feet were naked.
A naked yokel is a happy yokel.

Trying to Stay the Course

Hard to remember what I’m trying to do.
I’m documenting my time (who isn’t?),
trying not to come down with the covid flu.

I don’t really know how to do that, do you?
When you're quarantining in your hazmat suit,
it's hard to remember, so I'll ask you:

have I succeeded in mentioning all we’re going through—
worse than the last chapter of Ulysses?
So far, I’ve succeeded in avoiding the covid flu

alright. The covid flu would knock me for a loop—
I might not manage to be a happy peasant
ever again. I’d forget what I was trying to do—

namely, cut some rugs and have fun with whom-
ever is brightly present yet so distant
as not to catch or carry the covid flu.

In a strange way, covid keeps me on cue,
as distance somehow keeps me in touch with you,
helping remember what we were trying to do—
in the face of the covid flu.

How Often Does an Atheist Say the Word God?

I’m an atheist who believes in God—
a stealth pray-er.
Do I contradict myself?

I’m two opposite peas in a pod,
one of whom is not a naysayer—
I’m an atheist; I believe in God.

OK, I think God is a fairy-elf,
AND I’m no sin-slayer.
Do I indict myself

if I best love to walk unshod—
atheist and elf-believer,
atheist who believes in God?

Bless the child and spoil the rod,
one of us has said before—
so, we repeat ourselves.

What does it mean to believe
when we look for God in our lives?
I’m an atheist who believes in God.
I seldom contradict myself.

Covid Shenanigans

Greatness has gone AWOL from the United States.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff are getting covid now.
The line is drawn, the curse is cast.

Will good things come to us who wait—
seeds of the future being planted now?
There may be no future for the United States.

I’d like to return America to the past by freight,
but I doubt if the UPS can be trusted now.
Good faith has vanished from the United States.

The most visible person has the most loathsome face.
America is totally embarrassed now.
Veneration has died for the United States.

America has expired intestate.
No one can inherit now.
All the gold has been drilled from the United States.

America, the famous head case—
we’re being punished for our smugness now
and our unrepaired rapacity in these and former days.
The wheels have come off the United States.

Muladhara

I’m working on my Root Chakra
this morning. When you give me a back-rub,
I always hope you’ll get down to the tailbone.

So, how sweetly my garden
grows when I give myself a tailbone-rub,
as I stretch out all my bones

supine on my foam bar
(raising and lowering my sacroiliac twelve inches
through the mystic leverage of the Root Chakra);

or raising my feet to the ceiling
because I’m on a date with Beelzebub,
the tutelary demon of the tailbone

(they neck and grope up there
like teenagers in love);
now standing on just one foot, spreading my toes—

hands together in praying
(or else reaching my arms wide
and spotting for balance with my wonky eye).
So sexy when the floor gives me a foot-rub!

Elegy

     If you can't eat you got to

     smoke and we ain't got
     nothing to smoke:come on kid   E.E. Cummings

Should I write even though I don’t have anything to say?
Well, did I ever have?
If you’ve got something to smoke, smoke it, they say.

Should I stay even though I don’t have anything to stay
for? You thought I’d never leave—
leave off writing, that is—even though I had nothing to say.

But I’ll keep on marching in the good-old way.
I’ve got nothing to prove,
but I’ll prove it. I’ve got nothing to doubt, but I’ll doubt it.

Should I pray even though I’ve got nothing to pray
for or to? They tried, but they couldn’t save
me from the sin writing with nada to say.

But I won’t forget the day
my friend Steve’s heart blew up in Tennessee.
He had something to smoke and he smoked it plenty.

So I know that even if I had nothing to love, I’d love it anyway.
But I wish I’d been with him further toward the grave.
Should I write even though I don’t have anything to say?
I’ve got something to sing, so I’ll sing it.

The Red One

As I walk around town with my phone camera,
almost anything could make an OK picture.
I don’t need no Alhambra

to deliver me some light and glamour—
maybe just those stove vent fixtures
on that restaurant roof my phone camera

glimpses; or the United soccer stadium.
I impose no strictures
on my subject. What the hell was the Alhambra,

anyhow?—a fortress in Grenada,
built in the middle ages by the Moors
(if I go to Spain, I’ll shoot it with my phone camera).

Ferdinand got it in the Reconquista,
and he and Melania lived it it for much of the year.
That was the Alhambra.

And how about the Roman Colosseum,
flooded to depict bloody naval battles?
As I walk around town with my phone camera,
everything I see is my Alhambra.

Michigan J. Frog’s Pharmacy

It feels so good to be alive in the world!—
because my body makes drugs that let me respond.
But, about that, mum’s the word.

I’m perching with my toes curled
around a twig. I’m a frog in a pond
who's feeling good, because they’re alive in the world!

I can stay here permanently, because I’ve unfurled
my frog-flag for a long contented ride.
But, about that, mum’s the word.

It’s hard and it’s hard, ain’t it hard,
to keep loving my tried and tempted life,
but it feels so good to be alive in the world!—

old yokel reprobate, ruled
by dependence on their own dopamine jags.
But, about that, mum’s the word.

My life will never be justified,
but I’ll pull out my bowie knife
and whittle my keenest pleasure to be alive in the world.
But, about that, mum’s the word.

*M*A*S*H* 4077

Fun to write a poem now.
Don’t know if I can.
I ache, and how!

I’ll *M*A*S*H* down with my fiddle bow
and make like to skin a cat.
Fun to scratch a poem now—

whatever it takes to wow
the crowd and get a hand.
I ache, and how!

I ache with (what else?) love—
a flower by a watering can.
I’ll weep a poem now

about the day they drove
the nymphs out of the hinterlands.
An ache was all

that remained, buried under snow,
to show that anyone ever cared.
I’ll cast my poem now
to patch my brow.

We Don’t Need No Riley Boys

The Proud Boys won’t let girls
into their organization.
But it’s a shook-up world,

and we're abashed churls,
camping in the middle of our transgressions.
We want girls

to join our party, because they know the rules
for mixing a victory libation.
It’s a shook-up world

(martini-shaker of pewter),
our transcendental federation
of girlish boys and boyish girls.

Most of us are girls, and we have a little curl
right in the middle of our determination.
It’s a shook-up world.

So, going with how most people feel,
we’re hereby resigning from Boy-Nation.
Not interested if it’s just more boys.
It’s a shook-up world.

Antifa

The President told the Proud Boys
to “stand back and stand by.”
Will the Proud Boys hold their noise?

I heard the President say that, anyways.
In fact, I’m lying—
I didn’t listen to the Joe- and Donny-boyos’s

shillelagh-joust last night. I knew the noise
would be loud and nauseatingly
dreadful. It’s amazing how “noise”

is always the best rhyme for “boys,”
whether it’s the Proud
Boys, or the Ulster Boys, or whatever boys

you like. They show no poise
in a debate. “Shut up, man!” you'll say. And it’s by
the hush, me boys, and listen to me noise

concerning of poor Paddy’s
lamentation.” If the Riley
Boys were here, the Proud Boys—and especially 
the President—would have to shove their noise.

Approaching the Edge

Horny as hell, but I didn’t ejaculate.
I don’t want to come when I’m alone.
I can self-stimulate

all day if I always manage to hesitate
on the verge, within sight of land.
I’m horny as hell. Sometimes I ejaculate,

but that’s disappointing, because I’ll have to wait
a day until I want to come again.
If I don’t self-stimulate,

I can at least dust off home plate
and take practice swings before it’s my turn
to bat again. Maybe this time I’ll ejaculate

right over the center-
field wall, round the bases, and trot home—
just a self-stimulating

fool, while the crowd ululates
and my mates cheer and spray me with bubbly foam.
The whole world ejaculates
when I self-stimulate.

Brain-Eating Amoeba

More bad stuff from south of the border—
brain-eating amoebas in Texas.
But they’re just part of the natural order,

like poison rattlesnakes and spiders,
residing somewhere in the hierarchy of Linnaeus,
a bit south of Eden’s border.

The amoebas live in the Latin quarter—
just more devil-spawn to tease us.
We’re the kings of the natural order,

appointed stewards of this former-garden,
so we must rid our fields of weeds,
unspeciated, from south of the border.

God told us the ground would be harder
here than it was in Paradise, but He never intended
brain-eating amoebas to be part of the order

of nature. But I wonder,
does God love us, or do the brain-eating amoebas love us
more? Bad seed from north of the border,
elected with Linnaeus’s ballot-sorter.

The Game of Law (Come on, Baby, Let’s Play)

The rule of law
can’t be in force if we don’t play
the game of law.

Law is a game we agreed to play
(like Keep your laws off my body!),
but what if someone steals law’s ball?

Granted, the Mosaic screed
and the code of Hammurabi
had a force of law

no one could steal or sell,
and tooth and claw
have force of law

precisely because life is not a game. High hopes for a ball,
but a demon stole circularity away.
Now the game of law

can’t be won or lost, because every line’s
a curve—we can break laws and go free
because the rule of law

has been declared to be null and void, y’all!
Will we live to see the day
when we play by the kinder rules
of the game of love?

Straw for the Fire

Am I tired
of embodying the dazzled gaze?
No, I’m still all fired-

up!—I retired
young so I could spend my days
making myself tired

with my indefatigable lyric
pen—its searching rays
that illuminate the sky and fire

the mountainside. I admire
everything I see, especially my own lazy
limbs stretched out tired

on a porch chair.
Not looking for praise
(I fired

my publicist on a warm dare).
Just happy that my eyes
and ears still work—I’m tired,
but I still catch fire.

I’m Putting My Money on the Whale

I admit, I’m a maniac.
But am I actually a monomaniac,
like Captain Ahab? (It’s a sober fact

that I AM the Resurrection
and the Life.) What kind of maniac
was Jesus, slurping their similac—

all those learned-doctor brainiacs had to take a back
seat to the baby maniac.
It’s a sober fact

that each of our souls is jam-packed
with a parasitic demon who can tell a maniac-
God-child when they see one. (Insert one-take shot

of sheep stampeding into the Galilean lake—
“I am legion,” baas each wooly maniac.)
It’s a sober fact

that we just need to keep our blessed madness intact
and stop paying attention to the Donny-maniac,
who wants to be the only maniac
in town. Let’s give him the sack!

Waiting for the Big Shoe (When the Rooster Crows for Day)

Different kinds of birds roost on the same clothesline—
chickadees, white-throated sparrows.
They seem to get along fine.

Different-believing people stand in the same check-out line.
Do they have the same joys and sorrows
as one another, different bums in the same breadline?

It’s the end of the world as we know it and we feel fine.
To hell with our apprehensions and our worries!
I hope we’ll get along fine

whatever happens, however God’s thumb inclines.
Soon enough we’ll be resting with the dead Pharaohs
anyhow, hanging on the clothesline

of history, with our jeans and our socks hanging down
(before we went back in the house and shut all the doors).
OK, we're cashing in our get-along

for a new kink in the evolutionary chain.
Is that Clarence Darrow or is that Ed Sullivan
himself up there on that clothesline,
crowing the sun up fine?

Caprine Felinophile

Would my life be better if I raised goats,
or even if I just had goats around?
Instead of goats, I have cats.

I could always drink my weight in root-beer floats—
water displaced at 163.8 pounds.
Or, I could raise goats.

A goat’s a dolly who won’t hog the remote.
They don’t get along with hounds,
goats don’t, and neither do cats—

though I know one particular cat
who’s besties with a pit-bull hound.
Hell, my life might not change that much if I raised goats—

I’d still wake up late and microwave whole oats
(three minutes) for breakfast, and hear the loving sound
of importunate, surly cats

lobbying for snacks. So I don’t need more goats than what
I’ve already got, having myself for a friend.
My life’s already good because I’m an old goat
who digs cats.

Childish Finger-Game

If we can’t depend on the decency of the American people,
all bets are off.
Here’s the church, here’s the steeple,

I open my hands backwards and see all the finger-people
waving and taking their hats off.
Those are the American people,

as ardent and innocent as apple
pie with its crust off.
Here’s the church, here’s the steeple—

when you count them all up on election day, you see a heap of 
mighty-good folks who stood the test when our leaders were off
their rocker—trying to prey on silly people

who'll shut up and cooperate when they get a spoon of maple
syrple in their gaping cake-holes. It’s a bake-off,
winner to be announced in the basement of that steepled

church, where the cake’s all dough—no baking soda.
Time to complete the sell-off.
Sell the church, sell the steeple,
open the doors and sell all the people.

If You Admire Me, Hire Me

Should I pay myself the respect
of assuming someone else could love me?
To listen and connect

would then be possible for me,
proving me worthy
of your respect.

I don’t want you to genuflect
before a graven image of me
and let me serve and protect

you, while you suspect it’s
secretly all about me.
I’ll only deserve respect

if I whistle “Paddywhack”
and dangle my feet from my knees
to embody and project

the impersonal dance of life. Just a limberjack
(gigolo?).
Worthy of respect?
We’ll see!

Antithetical Me!

There are things I never get around to,
no matter how much I urge myself.
Those are the things that I should do.

When it’s a standoff between me and guess-who,
it’s invariably myself
that wins, so I never need to

buck up and hide away my blues.
Why?—because I’ve learned not to expect myself
to do the things that I should do,

like submit poems and wear shoes—
always favoring my naughty self,
who lives only to

sling rhymes and try to please the muse.
“Oh, you incorrigible self!”
I plead, but I still won’t do the things that I should do.

I only do what I want to,
so I’m in perfect harmony with myself.
So many things that I should do
besides sing love songs to myself, that’s who!

Poorly-Remembered Dream

I am in a large house.
A little stairway in the dark
is what I remember best.

Neither better nor worse
than a silly lark.
The large house

smiles to itself, tickled by a mouse
scuttling in its dark
basement. What I remember best

is first the heat and then the thirst.
No larks
fly through this stuffy house.

I’ll wear the curse,
but not before I’ve sucked
a jujube—tasting most

like buttered toast.
Honey bees suck
on a big sunflower behind the house—
sticky disk-florets.