dummy

the Patriot

tumbled down from Pike’s Peak
like a clown in a clown-car
steering before pissed-off electric spiders
that ran around with baby-doll heads on them
bobbing up-and-down going to “kill somebody”
god-damn this country
who listened to mildew scream in the pipes
who saw George W. Bush in the shower-steam/
curtain/god bless
& frothed & spat & hissed in the
in-and-out of the courtyard
disinfected body
the bathroom parading before
everybody / the bright electric
rubber buggy bumpers
who said “pristine” & the evidence / spilling
a sticky foulness before
Abu Ghraib Guantanamo Baghdad / once more
grown intoxicated by the altitude / pushing us
too low, too low

Coke Bottle Lens

Poor eyes do you watch
who has the authority to make you watch (anything)     he says
watch your eyes

But can it be really
damn

No, but you don’t suppose it is
It is the way that you have when you recall something and it’s not like it really was

The brain is like some hamburger but it’s liturgical

So what was I talking about oh yeah my third grade teacher
And once in the third grade, ….
Or later

I had a camera
In the third grade
And when nobody was looking at me I was looking looking

Looking at the back of her
(Neck, basically)
And (her knee)
And her hair was quite long in those days
so I thought that I might have to pull it

I had a good grip
Then

I saw her her face red
her red in the face and the face the face of Mars
The face the face it was the face of a planet but which one I forgot

(Mars)

Oh yeah
But I forgot

______ had gone away that summer and left us
My tree hadn’t grown like the rest
It was weak
I needed time

Nonetheless
I had pointed my camera at her
She couldn’t see me

The sun was so bright

It fell on her shoulder

(That’s my shoulder she said)
(Oh don’t touch me there
she said)

There is much trouble in this classroom

I think the wise voice coexisted
And then

And then my eyes wouldn’t hold the image…

From the Archive:
Berlitz Primer

*

Body dither romance

****

Dust bowl prodigal

Lucky white thingamabob
 jalopy new moon

The face at the window is the face of a man who likes to make lists

Hera, Ezra, Esther
etc.

He says fa la la
Fiddle-dee dee dee

He has come to take you with him

***

Five time I tried to go back and fix the corruption

Four or five
Twenty

I am liars about sex

***

I am a child of the seventies

This poem made the carrots sad
They said, we can’t repeat it
We absolutely can’t repeat it

They took to jumping up and down in the stew making the potatoes and
meat very upset

They had to call in bugs bunny with a fire truck

Yabba dabba doo
And fred flintstone

We don’t know what is necessary

***

Wind or campaign

Intense map of the north
White heart
Sobriquet

***

Soren kierkegaard becomes a robot

Merriweather is a force
Is brains
She left my last sandwich on the windowsill and told me the magpies ate it

****

I want to make love to you on the back of a school bus.
This can’t be good.
What would our parents say?

***

Chitty chitty bang bang
Pink panther
Oz

****

The world is a different place, full of motors and spitches. What are spitches?

I don’t think my children will understand these poems I write.

Neither do I…

******

Daguerreotype: sleep

This shading shape should be your
Elfin grot
Should be your
(well-consuming)

Bit of fur

When you shaved it off for me, I thought it was an act of romance

*****

Today you are in electric barns

O hayloft here
Hayloft there

Macdonald

*

F Fellini the film director
Cast his wife
In the film la strada

She plays one good hooker
Baby

*
(Conviction, etc.)

Are you exicted
I’m excited

Maybe you don’t fit inside
the grandfather clock

*

My grandmother lived in the mountains

The poke salad
The poke salad
The poke salad

Sparkles with beauty

*

Poem for the old owners

I want to get Thai from the thai place

The green curry it’s the best ever

Bet you didn’t know that
Or did you

Guess what

I can play chopsticks
On the piano

****

(My lover as a Dressmakers form)

Time was, sleep made us all a little more hoary
We didn’t worry about the outcome, we worried about the income.
What the news from the war would be,
what the tendre sun

But the truth is, I didn’t want you
 To follow me
I hid you under the mattress and said that you fell

You said, I am a white foamy carcass

I said, could you Pop your shoulders in and be a little more real

The suspense here is killing me.

***

(My lover as Velma from Scooby Doo)

Idiot song

Come and rescue me in your van

***

My lover as a militant bitch

Like a child prodigy you could cut your fingernails short and bang
bang bang on the piano while Real Madrid played Arsenal in the
Champions league or Gordy Howe with the slapshot puck up ok
yeah ok

Flick-cigarrette-eyes

Saying it isn’t so doesn’t make it so/not so

***

Fists in your gown

The alternative poem
The derivative
Desire
Always exists beside you

Behind you

Lick me
Lick me there you say

where?
You say

**

I’ve forgotten where

aimless walk

butter the sidelines with grilled
cheese and baloney, honey / she says
Hurry home I want you to fuck me
hard tonight / I don’t want you to run away

she has gray streaks in her hair
& she’s a soccer mom
but she looks good at the PTA meeting
& she hands you a brochure
& there are the girls with the same ribbons

you like her eyebrows / so
why shouldn’t you want to kiss her?

A Mississippi of the Blood

A M-I-S-S
I-S-S
I ate too much tomatoes
Bought a new house and moved everything
Stubbed my toe
Contracted a contractor to fix the things I couldn’t fix
(Then I shocked myself wiring the diningroom chandelier–
Added a new item to the list)

But I thought about you and I missed you
I dreamt that you bought an RV and you and the bird
Travelled the 4 corners of the country giving poetry readings

The people adored you
(Almost as much as I did)

They lit an American flag in your honor

I burnt my finger lighting a fire in the fire-place