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.