Mythville

From “Ginsberg Rolls Over,” the latest book by Douglas McDaniel






West Coast Storm Warning

The world’s end wind
is just a frantic curtain call
of polarizing sun, oceans
rising before the fall
The world’s end wind
is you, watching TV,
swearing me away
as if tea and Tiffany
were a mortal plug
I know I’m going mad
The world’s end wind
is shaking sense into the house
The world’s end wind
has blown me off the tracks
The world’s end wind
puts the cat in heat asleep
The world’s end wind
is you on a bucking final horse
breathing sweet acetyline

What Would Water Do?

The water would run to work,
but turn, gone amok at the work corner,
toward the One-O-One
to drink a red eye and puff a smoke
in the early morning Ra
The water would pick up
trash along the way
but wait for more force
to finish the job
The water would arrive
on time and unplanned,
feeling out each empty
bottomland space
since every handmade
space is disorganized
differently
The water would percolate
in the apocalyptic heat,
catch the wind
and go fly a kite
The water would commit
murderous rage and recede,
unpleased, unsatisfied,
moving on the moon

Thankful for the Tankfull

I thank the sky lord
for clean water to drink
Thanks
I thank Tom Clancy
for providing so much
damn PR for the military
industrial complex
Thanks
And a special thank you, too,
to the clown in his flight suit
sky bombing us in his dreams
And a special fuck you to
the apocalypse for being
such a damn Good Book
and making it so hard
to get clean water
in Beiruit
and for the passing
of fluids through
his oh so cool
heliopadster suit
And thanks for a hole of hot sun
stretching toward the East,
causing a bubble that burns
little words into a diplomatic urn,
and thank the world
for what the devil would do
His imitation is your mastery
as the nations fold and unfold
and the bailiwicks bawl
about the rule of law
And thank you money for your energy
passing over the world like a green cloud
being and for hell being all filled up,
by the counting of your digits
Thanks a lot for my sanctuary box
Thanks, thanks a lot
Gift thanks to this gift, this square
where I stand with my porridge
and my cash register or gun
Oh, so much thanks for this taste,
for melancholy and sleep
to keep me not so much
sane but at least in a state
of palatable paranoia
Thanks for allowing me
the rather obvious conceits
of always wanting more
and giving me a way
to step out of the circle, hey!