above grant street near 16th street flies
a bucket brigade of airplanes
zooming shadows across the long building
on the north side of the street
one by one
..
the landing gears lower
for the runway to the east
..
every two minutes a noise of jetwash
..
the shadows shift by time of day and time of year
..
tubes full of flyers
looking like winged lipsticks
going going going
landing taxiing emptying
moving life along
We always knew the Government was corrupt
To some degree, and that big money
Diverted finds from the national Treasury
To itself, but we never had
As good a look
Under the rock
Till now.
We need the next step up from pesticides
To handle the crawling evil
Under the rock.
We need flamethrowers,
To scorch corrupted earth.
We need an undecided electorate,
And we the uncorrupted people
Need to stand up,
To volunteer,
To upend the rock
And use it to crush
The oppressors.
noise reduction
sleep seduction
reasoned as a holmes deduction
spoon of ice cream
french vanilla
folded in your day’s manila
mood light softener
thermal loftener
peaceful ease will soothe you oftener
one more unarousing drowsing
and through nod-off-land you’re browsing…
AND THEN SOME JOKER CLANGS GARBAGE CAN LIDS TOGETHER LIKE A MONKEY WITH CYMBALS AND JUST WON’T STOP AND A CAR ALARM GOES OFF AND YOUR SMOKE ALARM CHIRPS AND YOUR PHONE ALARM GOES OFF AND WHEN YOU PRESS STOP THE SCREEN GOES DARK BUT THE ALARM PERSISTS
so you invent an ear spray that renders people benignly deaf for ninety minutes
and it’s a hit and you use your new millions
to build a soundproof palatial mansion
surrounded by acres of greensward
and are soooooothed
..
Afterword: Last weekend, when apartment maintenance crew were unavailable, my front-room smoke alarm decided to annoyingly chirp every 20 seconds. First thing Monday I told the property management lady and she sent a guy and he fiddled for a couple minutes and the chirping stopped…but at 9:00 last night, when maintenance crew were unavailable, the chirping began again, and me without a sledgehammer. Today the smoke alarm unit was replaced with one that did not rely on wires in the wall. I’ve slept much of the day away, and then I wrote this.
an is an indefinite article of a vowel-first noun
and it used to mean if
and is the first syllable in annihilate
and anhedonia
and launches both the short word ani
and the long word antidisestablishmentarianism
..
it is two-fifths
of the title of the heartbreaking stones song “angie”
..
it is nested in nana
and ends authoritarian agrarian and septuagenarian
..
is it a backward negation?
na.
you awaken
to the screech of drilling machinery
with the cold seeping through your blankets
with the taste of bile at the back of your throat
with the itching of your amputated arm
and the glare of a flashlight knifing
into your pried-open eye.
someone mutters “responsive.”
..
worst of all is the gnawing of drug-hunger
because you used your last dose to sleep.
..
“hank,” says the voice that had muttered,
“we’re going to plug you in.”
“okay,” you croak.
..
a lovely nude woman under the sheets with you
kisses you awake.
spring sunshine streams through the window
and the dust-motes drift in the sunbeams.
you smile at the woman and reach for her
with your arms, but she gently pushes you back
and slides out of bed, lifting a bathrobe
from the back of a chair and saying
“got to stir the eggs before they burn. brb.”
you stare in amazement at your two good arms
clad in pajamas sleeves. breakfast smells waft
from the kitchen–
then all goes dark and cold.
..
the last words you hear are
“power outage. we better put this poor bastard
out of his misery.”
owl
the owl tucks in her wings and is in free fall
on a precise trajectory on a windless night
with her unsuspecting prey at the end
of the parabolic arc that the owl’s fall describes
..
the little rodent’s life ends abruptly
when the loaf-of-bread shape of the owl
drops landing-gear talons that are as scimitars
that run the doomed rodent through and through
..
the owl’s cartilaginous keel anchors powerful wings
that beat silence into a faint rustling from the leaves
with the tiniest of splashes from an air-pulled drop
of still-warm rodent blood onto a leaf’s stem
I smell AI when I read
“She wasn’t just a [noun], she was a [concept noun]”
Or similar “Not Just a This; Also a That” extra scoops of ideational ice cream
Well, I can do that too
This isn’t just an observation, it’s a poem
And that it doesn’t rhyme may make it not just a poem but an avant-garde anthem
But not just any anthem, an antithetical amalgam of thematic tics, anathema to artificial analogy, or, if you prefer, augmented dogma
That can beat up any AI (Algorithmic Idler) with one metaphorical hand tied behind her correlative back
..
There are many other earmarks of AI laziness
One is based on the “Tell them what you’re going to tell them; tell them; then tell them what you told them” crap we learned in high school
(That last six words were homage to Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome”)
Another is cherry-picking of biographical anecdotes
..
It is less than creative writing to follow a formula or three
(Fun fact: “Formulaic” sounds a lot like “form mule laic”)
And you just can’t make this stuff up, AI
Because pattern recognition
Defies ignition
And doesn’t let you make up stuff
Strum
Folk music folks
Manipulate picks
Patter and jokes
Scenes to affix
Moments that hum
Delicious in sum
Strings in accord with the chord of a strum
a man named glass wrote a masterpiece of repetition
called einstein on the beach
it was a pioneering work of minimalism
and i was a mere 24 when I first heard it
and now at 71
with a head swimming against relentless tides
of loss of loss of memory of reduction of
capacity of loss of confidence of creeping
ache and risk of falling loss of a brother
of loss of flex and loss of piece after piece
of
loss
lost in the fog of a dimming awareness
loss of
uh
worthiness
groping for distraction
feeling like hal 9000 when his mind was torn away
piece by peace
like charlie gordon when his idiocy crept
back into his head
a guy named glass
whose first name i avoid
because i cant rember how many ells
that guy wrote an anthem
for the guy i relentlessly
becomb becomm because
become
The cashier hears the man from the Mideast say “Boorgher.”
In the cashier’s mind a speculative history of the Mideast man builds. The man has heard of American hamburgers since early youth. At last, in this American airport, he has an opportunity to try one.
“Sir, we have three types of burgers. A regular cheeseburger is the most popular.”
“Okay.”
“Is that what you want, sir?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of cheese would you like on your burger? We have American, Swiss, Cheddar and Provolone.”
“Okay.”
Since the line behind him is long, the cashier decides for the man and puts him down for American. He also does not suggest-sell avocado, nor a side of fries, macaroni salad or cole slaw.
“Would you like something to drink to go with your burger, sir?”
“Heh?”
The cashier points at the soda fountain, makes a taking-a-drink gesture, and says, “Want drink?”
The mideastern man nods.
The cashier rings him up. “Your number is Two One Two, sir. We’ll call you when your order is ready.”
Later the cashier sees the man striding with purpose to the eating area, bagged meal in hand. He sits and unwraps his cheeseburger and looks under the bun. He takes a bite, chews thoroughly, swallows. “Aaa,” he says, then rises and walks away with his fountain drink, leaving behind the burger with its one clean bite-me taken out of it.
One with Clay, Image and Text 