Feverdream Masque
Misbegotten Nosferatu took the subway south.
Esmeralda twice his elder kissed him on the mouth.
Jack incurious Jill still furious came back from the well.
Flo and Eb seduced Del Webb and he came up from Hell.
Dozens more with masks they wore assembled in the hall.
Porky P buhdee buhdee buhdee buhdee that’s all.
wither, thou goest
all over my body
make crepe-scapes in skinfolds
and fishflesh so scroddy
thou growest in nostrils
a junglish forest
make innocent toenails
into quasimodos
make brown hair albino
put ground glass in elbows
install in the brain box
a dense fog machine;
we are walking freak shows
who live unto ninety
reward for unrecklessness:
age wreckfully–
but it beats oblivion
if we get coffee
so bring it on, Old Age,
i wither with glee.
your mind: trapped in a decaying brain.
brain: trapped in a body hurtling toward decrepitude.
body: in a creaking bed in a crammed apartment in a chancy neighborhood in a corruptible city.
city: in a state in a state of chaos, in a country that has lost her way.
country: vulnerable and hellbound, commandeered by a tantrumming madman whose deceit is enabled and championed by “very good people,” betraying allies and making flinders of “liberty and justice for all,” becoming an enemy of the civilized world.
world: wars and rumors of wars, famine, pestilence, death and destruction.
what does this trapped mind in a defective body in a rude and barbarous country in an apocalyptic world do?
it remembers and finds heroes, gathers friends, sounds the alarm, petitions a kindly Universe for redress.
fights with every fiber.
loves in the face of the Beast.
it would be charming if he were a little boy playing the world-domination game known as Risk and popular in my own childhood
where patience gains you armies and positioning gives you a defensible base of operations and dice-throws are used to conduct warfare
but history records the great injustices and sufferings that accompany empire-building
and reichs and manifest destinies and conquer-we-must correlate with genocide
but this not-a-little-boy anymore says “even bad publicity can be good”
and he casts his acquisitive eye on twenty-first-century turf
because his idea of positive thinking is “we wants it”
and his armies and armaments are a little boy’s toys
1
mister chairman/jerking off is not a crime/but since you ask/yes/repeatedly
much less so in recent years though/i mean look around/it is downright apocalyptic
but yes/in the last 46 years/5000 times is a conservative estimate/nowhere near the record/but indicative of either compulsion or unrequited love
may i be excused?
what? could you repeat the question?
to the best of my recollection/four days ago/in the restroom of the urologist’s office/to obtain a sample/to test sperm motility
may i NOW be excused??
thank you.
[headline of ny post: FORMER AG COMES CLEAN]
2
“he annoys me. destroy him. go all the way back to his childhood. there is a fact that will lead to many facts that will lead to his downfall. get it and get it by midnight.”
“already done, boss. sworn affidavits, photos, audio.”
[file is opened and perused]
“oh, man. great stuff. can’t wait to use it on that greek bastard. who did this excellent work?”
“an algorithm, sir. calls itself a. i. buddie.”
“give the coders a bonus.”
[awkward pause]
“boss, the coder was also an algorithm.”
3
trim your eyebrows lose that paunch/make a splash sartorial/gussie up for they’ll soon launch/your not-quite-dead memorial.
even thoughts expressed online/make you someone’s foe/this our culture’s in decline/as down the drain we go.
Lightning strikes a tree/Superheated sap explodes/Splinters burn to ash
Fat Tuesday then Ash/Wednesday then Lent then Easter/Rain or shine, bright Eggs
Relationships burn/To ash sometimes. Sometimes it’s/A clean cremation.
when poets collide
sara teasdale
met edna st. vincent millay
near the front desk
of the martha washington hotel
in new york city
in february 1913.
they had tea and hit it off,
later cruising 5th avenue on the top of a bus.
sara was established,
vincent had just won acclaim for “Renascence,”
and yet though sara was eight years older
they were both in their twenties.
later vincent wrote her mom
that “I call her Sara and she me Vincent”
and “. . . I love her . . .”
and quoted these teasdale lines:
“I hoped that he would love me,/And he has kissed my mouth,/But I am like a stricken bird/That cannot reach the south/For tho’ I know he loves me/Tonight my heart is sad,/His kiss was not so wonderful/As all the dreams I had.”
and sometime near the end of 1917
vincent wrote “First Fig”
which contained what her sister norma said
was “surely the most quoted and mis-quoted quatrain in America”:
“My candle burns at both ends;/It will not last the night;/But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—/It gives a lovely light!”
the meter and rhyme
are strikingly similar to teasdale’s
and so these lines of mine humbly suggest
that the one would not exist without the other.
Monday I made these four mugs.
Tuesday I had an appointment with the urologist.
Wednesday I set about trimming the mugs.
Not all of the mugs survived trimming. I went too deep with one and cut through it. So I reconstituted the trim scraps and remade a fourth mug, a sort of big brother to the others.
I had enough reconstituted scrap to pull four handles, and one by one I affixed them to the mug bodies via the Slip&Score method.
This went well with the three smaller mugs, and I still had session time, so I carefully trimmed the still-soft larger mug and put the last, largest handle on it, completing the quartet.
The NCAA’s annual basketball tournament is colloquially known as March Madness. For one who strives to be One With Clay, March Mudness is a better fit. 🙂
once upon a time certain honorees
were given a key to the city
by the city’s grateful mayor
in phoenix arizona where i now live
my town waited till 2019
and gave its first key to randy johnson
johnson has become a photographer
but in the fall classic of 2001
he won the world series for the arizona diamondbacks
he was our paul bunyan
stilt-leggedly striding to the pitcher’s mound
a lawnmower mowing down the opposition
he killed a pigeon once
fastball turning an unlucky bird to feathers
the ball he threw was also ruled dead
so we gave this freak of nature a free key
and phoenix became the land of the freak,
home of the bravo, in the key of d-backs
Disorganization
Has made such a mess
Solution? Sedation
And Hydraulic Press.
Our life burden’s pieces
Of angst pranks and clay
Press Press and praise Jesus:
Pull cord–Bombs Away.
All those cubic meters
To smithereened flatness
The roaches and skeeters
The Physical Fatness
Made thin as a flapjack
Through huge PSI
Fold, stash, take a nap, Jack;
Wave Troubles goodbye.
One with Clay, Image and Text 