“And the Beat Goes On” (originally published at littledeathlit)
Dropping from the air
upon ears like paper blotters on willing tongues,
raging at the bloodlessness of cardboard cutouts against a shrinking sky,
through psychedelic lenses
let me seeeee, let me beeeee the pulse of silent rage
that rails against the vulgar machine
with words
that organize, legitimize, minimize, super-size, tranquilize, proselytize, tantalize, infantilize,
sexualize, stigmatize the suckled teats of long-conditioned truths.
Poking the bear, disturbing the seas of featureless beige,
stirring the comatose anima with battle-cries of sight and sound
that pierce dusty eardrums like sterling icepicks,
repressed wants teeeeem, solemn faces beeeeeam,
liberated in the warmth of a sun that breaks just beyond the horizon on coffee-house stages,
rousing thoughts
to gestate, ruminate, conjugate, propriate, sublimate, fornicate, obliterate, determinate,
propagate, exfoliate dangerous visions, birthed from the unfetteredness of a purple haze.
Fueling the scribblings of furious hands upon white sheets with whisky and cigarettes,
Making, naked, ugly underbellies of the angst-ridden and inflamed
with the glorious promises of their ecstatic treasure-trails,
let’s revel in the coolness of poetry’s heeeeeat, indulged in pollen-dusted skin so sweeeeet
within the honeyed tangles of poets’ asymmetries
to detoxify, dulcify, intensify, demystify, purify, glorify, magnify, beautify, electrify, sanctify
our bodily streams of light that sugar lips and candy the fingertips.
Tearing away at the fabric, unraveling, woven from Gloopstick youth and plasticine smiles,
repulsing at the hoards in their mindless quests for extra-flavor and double-coupon days,
looking for a steeeeeal, wanting to feeeeel,
as hollow dollars crumble to coins when plopped upon unsated palms and countertops.
Think! Think! Think! Think! Think! Think! Think! Think! Think! Think!
We are on the brink
of the Fall of the American Empire.
Dig.
“Damn, God’s Got a Fucked-Up Sense of Humor” (originally published at Headline Poetry)
I was born a criminal
and mentally ill
on a sunny April morning in 1969.
The sky was blue,
God was in his Heaven,
and I was fashionably late.
My parents were hopeful—
father swollen with pride,
mother already counting grandchildren.
Damn, God’s got a fucked-up sense of humor.
Who else could make a sexual predator
look cute in purple Garanimals?
An abomination rock a school Christmas play
in a pair of make-shift, white feather wings
and glittery Converse high-tops?
Good ol’ St. Mary’s,
where brown (OK, sorta brown) boys like me
go to learn the three Rs,
fade away
into a sea of beige, and
find shame in their bodies
in the process.
Where fear is the heart of love
and there’s a special place in Hell for me
‘cause God hates sissies—
So sayeth Sister Clair Veronica!
Damn, God’s got a fucked-up sense of humor.
Interesting how the tides have changed.
Popstars and Hollywood
with their puppy dog eyes and bleached teeth
telling us how “It gets better”,
promising unicorns
and pots of gold
at the end of colorless rainbows.
Too bad Matthew Shepherd
couldn’t stick around
just a couple of more years
to hear those sweet words–
no leprechaun’s treasure
at the end of a pistol grip
or the bottom of fence posts
on cold October nights.
Damn, God’s got a fucked-up sense of humor.
Turn on the radio.
Turn on the TV.
We are everywhere
for all to see
and have a chuckle.
Walking, talking stereotypes of
who The Unbroken still think we should be.
Am I “Just Jack”
or the Stanford Blatch—
the quippy, queeny best friend,
a comic relief.
Stand back and clap!
Watch the pink monkey dance!
(Are they expecting me to pull a string of banana-colored
anal beads out of my ass?)
So nice to be finally wrapped up
in America’s embrace.
Too bad all I want to do
is tear at the fabric of all that is good and holy
like some twisted moth
with an appetite for family values
and holy sacraments
that straight folks don’t seem to have a problem
shitting all over–
So sayeth GW Jr!
Feeling a little like my birth day today.
Damn, God has a fucked-up sense of humor.
“Nothing Lasts” (originally published at Terror House Magazine)
Stars fall
against the murk
of the night sky,
a rain of fireflies,
dying in mid-flight,
hurtling,
heralding,
upon gentle heads blow,
cruel truths.
Nothing lasts. Nothing lasts.
Listen to the harmony,
that inaudible peal
(Ong)
that sets heavenly bodies to spin,
amidst everchanging kaleidoscopes
of the Void’s sacred geometries,
pulling,
tugging at Fate,
with the waxing
and waning
of single points of light.
Nothing lasts. Nothing lasts.
We,
the kings and queens
of planets and moons,
tread upon paths
of celestial dust
wishing, searching
to join hands in communion
with the witnesses
to our ignorant freefall into The Bottomless.
Nothing lasts. Nothing lasts.
