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.

Rocks in the Stream

Defer to rhyme!
You can make any word you think of work.
Half the time

the rhythm’s broken
anyway (you can speak American vernacular without being a jerk).
Defer to rhyme

if you want lime
in your daiquiri. The biggest perque
of poetry is time—

time lost and time gained.
OK, we’ll exert the torque
that’ll turn the whole tune upon a rhyme,

weaving whimsical designs.
“Let me have my fun and don’t fuck
with me,” it says. “I’ll use time

to fry the fish and to pour the wine.
It’s blind luck
that my wild rhymes
always defer to, beating time.”

Fluffer Death

Is death like an orgasm?
If so, I can’t wait.
Just disappointed when it's over

and I’m done with all the razzamatazz,
entering the pearly gates
and greeting death with a big orgasm.

It’s all just inclusion or exclusion
of what’s to be declared as fate—
disappointing when it’s over,

indeed—when I've slipped into the crevasse
of nothingness like a hot date,
having an orgasm

first thing when the gray phantom
wraps me in their arms of clay.
Now ain’t I disappointed that it’s over

and I’m drained of every ounce of protoplasm!
I found love, just a spasm late.
Death’s like an orgasm—
I’m already jonesing for another!

Villanelle for Terry Jacks

I love what builds toward an easy end,
neither shirking existence nor denying oblivion—
the way all life must tend.

No sentimental “death-is-a-friend,”
but water in an artesian spring
building gentle pressure toward an easy end

when it bubbles forth again.
Perfect equilibrium—
the way all life must tend.

We the storm-tossed finally struck land
where we had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun,
as we built slowly toward our easy end

(sweet company befriending
us at every turn—earth’s beautiful illusions)—
the way all life must tend

as it builds to a relief we can’t withstand.
Finally, our time is done.
I love what builds toward an easy end—
the way all life must tend.

Woodpecker Four-Bagger

Going through life as a relatively shy woodpecker
(my wings are tipped black and my head is red),
expecting every peck to be a beetle-flusher.

There are no tasty bugs in this forest sector,
but I still clutch a limb and bob my head,
going through life as a relatively shy woodpecker.

Too bashful to be a nest-wrecker
(I’m quite discrete),
but I still expect every peck to be a beetle-fetcher—

wanting to be a hummingbird sipping nectar
from a flowerpuff named Buttercup,
instead of going through life (as I do) as a relatively shy woodpecker.

But it's too daunting to be a bold flycatcher—
I’ll be a brown thrasher (or a darkling thrush) instead—
but when I finally peck my beetle-gusher

I’ll be swinging on Polaris in the Little Dipper
just when I’d given myself up for dead.
Going through life as a relatively shy woodpecker,
expecting my last peck to be a walk-off homer.

I Am Worry-Wort

Am I a worry-wort?
What’s a “wort” pray tell?
Hey, buddy, have a snort!

Probably, I’m a worry-“wart.”
You get warts when your skin cells
go haywire. “Wort,”

on the other hand, is pure maltose
oozings from your kettle and your coil.
Hey, buddy, have a snort!—

as we lie here in this house Jack built.
Jack had jugs to sell,
distilled from sour-mash wort

(the gear takes up half Jack’s car-port).
I worry plenty, but I worry well.
The proof’s in the retort

that I’m the rat that ate the malt,
always dodging the fell
feline menace. “Wort” is non-count.
I am worry-wort!

Here Also the Unknown, Anxious, Brief Thing, Life

    Jorge Luis Borges, “Texas”

How worried am I obliged to be?
I worry to the max.
Everything bad we can foresee

will happen, they say.
I’ve paid in taxes
all the worry I was obliged to pay,

looking forward to a calmer day
when I could relax
into a future I could happily foresee.

Now it sucks to be me,
surrounded by electronic gadgets
that bombard me with images that worry

me to death. But by God I’m free
to be a slouch and rely on cheap fixes,
because I can’t foresee

a day to beat the day
when Davy Crockett died for me in Texas.
How worried am I obliged to be?
How much bad can I foresee?

Don't Blame Narcissus

Narcissus gets a bad rap.
(What would Narcissus’s preferred pronoun be?)
It’s time for a nap.

Some adults never escape the trap
of infancy, always expecting to be loved like babies,
but Narcissus’s bad rap

mainly came for being mean to that Echo chick,
not caring much to be seen by other eyes
(before Venus made them take their long, wet nap).

So... am I on the hook
for owning charms that you can’t see?
Narcissus got a bad rap

for just wanting to get down to wraps
with their very own reflected body—pretty!
It was time for a nap—

The mirror’s glow was in my lap,
like right after sharing a bourbon toddy
with someone who got a bad rap

for behaving in a madcap
manner, and for having kind of a potty-
mouth to boot, and finally for stealing many a nap

from financial death while working for high-cap
tech companies from nine till three.
Narcissus gets a bad rap
for their trans-queer selfy-nap.

And So - For God’s Sake - Hock and Soda Water!

Something either will or won’t happen
in the next couple of months—
is it worthwhile planning?

Well, whether it happens or not is mostly my decision,
but I’m stumped—
will it happen or won’t it happen?—

which one will be the champion?
The hopes I’ve lumped
on foresightful planning

were tragically misplaced, since some misshapen
abomination with five humps
has now taken over the prospect of what will or won’t happen,

while I rest, abstracted, in the lap of fortune
(Ok, should I run or should I punt?)—
engaged in planning

important aspects of my future,
(assuming I don’t come down with the covid mumps)?
The future either will or won’t happen.
No point in planning.

When Such as I Cast Off Remorse

 I am
(and I’m not modest)
the most beautiful thing under the sun.

(“Lorazepam”
has a nice ring
to it.) I am

an unsheared lamb
bleating in the spring,
cutest thing under the sun.

I can
dance and I can sing—
I am

quite sure you can do the same
when harvest
time comes and you chirp in the sun

your grasshopper song.
(But my rhyme’s misplaced.)
I am
the most beautiful thing under the sun.

The Blessings of Mail-in Voting

Annoying Times column by David Brooks this morning—
what if the Repunklicans declare victory before the mail-in votes are counted?
Did anyone have misgivings

about all that campaigning
the Democrats did for vote-by-mail? Now we’re not sure how we
plan to vote; plus, for a bonus, we get to read David Brooks’s column this morning

projecting white-supremacists on our front lawn
because the mail-in votes for Biden
were counted later than the regular ballets (or never). I’ve had misgivings

all along about the wisdom of warning
people not to go to the poles (to avoid covid and intimidation);
and now Brooks’s annoying Times column this morning

makes me anticipate Repunklicans in Wisconsin, Michigan and Florida
celebrating early (so will the mail-ins ever be counted?).
We remember with huge misgivings

the debacle that happened
in the year 2000, with the hanging chads and all, when there had to be a recount.
The Brooksster wants us to plan for such a scenario,
but when I think of the courage that will be required, I dare say I have misgivings.

Soap Opera

Hesse dubbed our time the Feuilletonsperiode.
I guess he just meant the “newspaper era.”
He wasn’t thinking about Facebook,

though feuilleton’s French slang for “talk of the town.”
There was plenty of hilarious
stuff in Feuilletonsperiode

periodicals, I promise you—
even funny cat pictures
just like on Facebook.

What happened was, there was a war,
and certainly also a plague—
discussed endlessly on feuilleton political pages.

Then civilization as we knew it ended—
human culture preserved only in pearl-like holograms
like Princess Leia in Star Wars:

every remaining thing an exaggerated simulacrum
of whatever it might have been in real-time.
That’s what you call a Feuilletonsperiode.
Welcome to Facebook!

 

Right on the Edge of Eternity Waiting for the Cork to Explode

Awake for half an hour at around four.

Is it really possible we’ll have to watch this maniac for four more years?

The virus and the police make it hard to organize in the inner cities.

We hope we can vote by mail, but we’re worried he’s destroying the post office.

Everyone who owns corporate wealth has every reason to be pleased as punch.

His next move—to destroy social security to make retired people sell low so he’ll have all the money.

The old yokel plays music on the back porch and takes long walks.

Throw Away Your TV

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (Gil Scott Heron)

I grew up in the land of the brave.
Why did George Washington chop down the cherry tree?
Those who think they’re free are easy to enslave.

In school, I was taught the faith
that we Americans are the only ones who’re free.
Yes, I grew up in the land of the brave,

but I never really did believe
all the hokum that I learned in my History
classes. Those who think they’re free are easy to enslave

was never an architrave
in the temple-myths passed down to me
growing up in the land of the brave.

Are we content to let presumption stave
off the truth of what our eyes plainly see,
that we who think we’re free are easy to enslave

with our own greed and the terror spread on the air waves
unless we have the sense to turn off the TV.
We grew up in the land of the brave
thinking we were free, but we were easy to enslave.

Whirl Your Liquor Round Like Blazes

I was OK till I reached the mirror stage,
happily following my desires and instincts—
shillelagh-law not yet the rage.

But I had to turn a different page,
hang out in somewhat different precincts
when soon-enough I reached the mirror stage

and directly started to amaze
myself by rehearsing a different style of oink.
Shillelagh-law became the rage,

my pretty face left in the lurch,
all blurry and punch-drunk—
I was OK till I reached the mirror stage.

I wasn’t smart, but I caught on fast
that my life was now all about packing a trunk
of camera-shots—my own images played

like disco lights on a dancer in a cage
who can’t stop thinking they’re just a doink—
barefoot-clogging on their mirror-stage—
since shillelagh-law became the rage.