Observations
of the Land
of Godz,
Cars & Cannon
I scribbled a few now-forgotten notes,
before I jumped with no parachute
down from Satanic skies above New York,
with nothing but a Chinese-made compass
and somehow I found myself up a tree
in Concord, Massachusetts, and I crawled
to the Milldam cobblestone street square,
head aching, General Gage on my tail,
too much God & cannon coming up the road,
I scourged for food sleep love, my long-lost
head aching, General Gage on my tail,
too much God & cannon coming up the road,
I scourged for food sleep love, my long-lost
treasure trove, my cannonball tea, my peace,
in the spoiled woods of fabled Walden.
I made a roommate of the DNA daughter
of Henry David Thoreau. We shared bed, bread.
We were in love at Thanksgiving ...
Now Plymouth Rock leads to
a bloodline of highways with no horizon,
A string of tree-lined tunnels, dirty snow,
beer cans and cigarette butts
sans a sniff of smoke for a soul.
You, the cool clear impossible place of my desire
became my jumbled and jumpy New Jerusalem
of steel and stone. The pond was surveyed and sold.
Henry David's daughter, she became a bit of a bore,
What's worse, she snored. Now she's a new shoe style,
Sturdy and rubbery and oh so dysfunctional,
just a cautionary tale sold over the electronic Web of Life
via a mass major national megastore
From sea to shining shore.
Came and went, she did, as an angel of light.
So I moved West, following a tattered map:
Where the Tasty Freeze is going to be,
next to soon-to-be the Banco de Post-Democratica,
next to the next nouveau salon of old Saint Lou,
next to the yet-to-be named municipal zoo.
Still I trudged, and entered a golden Anasazi ruin,
sun-baked brick and clay, a chimney for a tomb,
a below-ground tunnel temple to the last great escape
for threadbare me, impossible though rational you.
Somebody, some angel, fell right off the map,
and left me here to consider both an arc of light
& the fly-shit tempest of a teapot domed scandal.
They left no other marker, but a megalith of rubble.
My compass spun wildly, and the wind swirled up a scare.
And now we pass through a narrow port.
From Concord to discord ... eventually ...
Ah, I know this much: There's no such thing.
There's a long-running song on an ever-running string.
All ripples, soft or made of jade, will eventually still.
I moved further up the hill, following a wire.
The wire led to a hook, and the hook led
to a phone. But the line was dead.
Finally, I thought: Paradise, silence.
This last great emptiness is my consolation,
This last dime I spend, a mere dollar in a donated nation.
So let us learn from our mistakes
on lands south, over the range, down the road past
Ralph Lauren's ranch, the sandblasted expanse,
the holy lands ... Arizona looms ...
a dime in a dollar nation.
Hear the rumble of cattle trucks at 3 a.m.,
the tumult of Ohioans fleeing tornadoes,
bankruptcies, divorces, economic forces,
see nickel-made cowboys on false horses.
In Chicago they read magazines about Sedona roads
and they run there, trampling the Navajo, the Apache, the Hopi,
who are holding back the end of the world.
Feel the hot winds smooth the sandstone,
the cold river California drinks.
In another time, they'd be a happy, redoubtable people.
Count the three million men, women, children,
dogs, llamas, circus elephants ...
When the army came to imprison the Apache
they left experimental camels
to wander from here to Harqua Halla.
Get a good price for a skull
in Skull Valley. See the hollow nostrils,
blood fright, little white lies
about real estate & the fourth estate.
Touch the bomb trigger that killed Don Bolles.
Feel the dying pulse of Goldwater Republicans,
the furnace of God that makes churches and cannon
Glimpse the ancien' regime, the descending gyre
of infused Northlanders from New York, Minneapolis,
Acropolis, too (by two, by two ... Hey, buy two!).
See that man is a city
& the city is a man.
Kiss the fine girl there
with a Greek name, buttery desires.
Read her awkward green eyes
on the way to her dead-end job
in the half-filled office complex.
Analyze her weakening resolve
at the touch of my hand
on her smooth brown knee
-- her shudder engendered there.
Then see her drift away,
seeking younger men,
who keep coming, coming
from California,
which is pushing east now,
which is pushing pestilence
like a salesman,
carbon monoxide in winter,
the angel's breath in spring.
~ Douglas McDaniel
Meteor Crater, Arizona
I made a roommate of the DNA daughter
of Henry David Thoreau. We shared bed, bread.
We were in love at Thanksgiving ...
Now Plymouth Rock leads to
a bloodline of highways with no horizon,
A string of tree-lined tunnels, dirty snow,
beer cans and cigarette butts
sans a sniff of smoke for a soul.
You, the cool clear impossible place of my desire
became my jumbled and jumpy New Jerusalem
of steel and stone. The pond was surveyed and sold.
Henry David's daughter, she became a bit of a bore,
What's worse, she snored. Now she's a new shoe style,
Sturdy and rubbery and oh so dysfunctional,
just a cautionary tale sold over the electronic Web of Life
via a mass major national megastore
From sea to shining shore.
Came and went, she did, as an angel of light.
So I moved West, following a tattered map:
Where the Tasty Freeze is going to be,
next to soon-to-be the Banco de Post-Democratica,
next to the next nouveau salon of old Saint Lou,
next to the yet-to-be named municipal zoo.
Still I trudged, and entered a golden Anasazi ruin,
sun-baked brick and clay, a chimney for a tomb,
a below-ground tunnel temple to the last great escape
for threadbare me, impossible though rational you.
Somebody, some angel, fell right off the map,
and left me here to consider both an arc of light
& the fly-shit tempest of a teapot domed scandal.
They left no other marker, but a megalith of rubble.
My compass spun wildly, and the wind swirled up a scare.
And now we pass through a narrow port.
From Concord to discord ... eventually ...
Ah, I know this much: There's no such thing.
There's a long-running song on an ever-running string.
All ripples, soft or made of jade, will eventually still.
I moved further up the hill, following a wire.
The wire led to a hook, and the hook led
to a phone. But the line was dead.
Finally, I thought: Paradise, silence.
This last great emptiness is my consolation,
This last dime I spend, a mere dollar in a donated nation.
So let us learn from our mistakes
on lands south, over the range, down the road past
Ralph Lauren's ranch, the sandblasted expanse,
the holy lands ... Arizona looms ...
a dime in a dollar nation.
Hear the rumble of cattle trucks at 3 a.m.,
the tumult of Ohioans fleeing tornadoes,
bankruptcies, divorces, economic forces,
see nickel-made cowboys on false horses.
In Chicago they read magazines about Sedona roads
and they run there, trampling the Navajo, the Apache, the Hopi,
who are holding back the end of the world.
Feel the hot winds smooth the sandstone,
the cold river California drinks.
In another time, they'd be a happy, redoubtable people.
Count the three million men, women, children,
dogs, llamas, circus elephants ...
When the army came to imprison the Apache
they left experimental camels
to wander from here to Harqua Halla.
Get a good price for a skull
in Skull Valley. See the hollow nostrils,
blood fright, little white lies
about real estate & the fourth estate.
Touch the bomb trigger that killed Don Bolles.
Feel the dying pulse of Goldwater Republicans,
the furnace of God that makes churches and cannon
Glimpse the ancien' regime, the descending gyre
of infused Northlanders from New York, Minneapolis,
Acropolis, too (by two, by two ... Hey, buy two!).
See that man is a city
& the city is a man.
Kiss the fine girl there
with a Greek name, buttery desires.
Read her awkward green eyes
on the way to her dead-end job
in the half-filled office complex.
Analyze her weakening resolve
at the touch of my hand
on her smooth brown knee
-- her shudder engendered there.
Then see her drift away,
seeking younger men,
who keep coming, coming
from California,
which is pushing east now,
which is pushing pestilence
like a salesman,
carbon monoxide in winter,
the angel's breath in spring.
~ Douglas McDaniel
Meteor Crater, Arizona
Trespassing in America
Walking toward the phony duck pond
made in a one-pony subdivision
in some desert in Southwest America,
pit, plotted, planned, cheaply
pit, plotted, planned, cheaply
made by a dishonest developer
who eventually rotted in a jail cell
for a lie told to rich old maids in NYC
because he had promised lakes
pumped from a river, rotting dry,
like the pond now, where geese
have gathered and school busses pass on by
along winding roads
along winding roads
lacking sidewalks, lacking
thoroughfares for little children
who would be O such a shame
if run over by said same school busses
because there's only one pond
now and empty electricity boxes
still haunt the highways lined
by properties illegally lot-split
by old Ned Warren; he who
made a mint, who sent postcards
back East promising paradise
to a lie, no, overstating,
but nevertheless sold out by some
now laying duck in Washington D.C.
But you are that walks, talks tax-paying duck
now, that Walmart greeter,
and today I found
the most previously
nasty thing I'd ever written:
That senior citizens
were considered to be
the most dangerous
creatures on Earth
because they have
a piece of paper
from some laying duck
in Washington D.C;
but this book, see,
Freakanomics,
(so now I have independent confirmation)
(so now I have independent confirmation)
also made a mint
with such carefully
rendered lines
as "superpredator
versus senior citizens,"
thus making its mint
and, of course, target market
thus making its mint
and, of course, target market
We walked toward the duck pond
wolf hairy, feathered, lined with brown scum,
candy bar papers, car parts,
beer bottles, broken plastic
parts of Pez dispensers,
left by school children
who could now give a fuck
because their daddies cheat
on tax returns sent to other
cheating fucks who could
also give a shit about you, me:
I've got one blank sheet of paper
downloaded from a Web
made of ether, all created by
one lying duck in Washington D.C.
The pond is peaceful now except
for honking echoes of bright green mallards
who haven't yet turned greedy by little old
ladies who run the world,
throwing out bits of bread from porches
throwing out bits of bread from porches
overlooking fenced in portions
of an artificial landmark, made of water,
promised to them, or, people like them,
who were once promised refuge
by long-dead Ned Warren
that such villages along the Verde
lined with steppes still cluttered
by Apache hand bones still clutching
single pieces of paper signed by
some laying duck in Washington D.C.
Property. Property. Prop. Prop ... er, Tea.
II
I've got a stack of papers
I can't get to because the one
I love goes into fits of grief and rage
over invisible digits of cash
that disappeared into said same ether
and now those lone gone meat locker loins
must be beefed up again to make up
for the losses caused by greed-head Bernie Madeoffs
who lied to little old ladies and mere millionaires
also rendered lifeless by empty promises made
on eight-by-eleven sheets of paper
signed by laying ducks in Washington D.C.
and not one damn sheet on the dirty old paper pile
will ever work in my favor, so why bother?
Property. Property. Proper tea.
And turning off the rounded lanes,
we have ourselves a polite little party,
laughing ourselves into parties
celebrating the quail who slip in and out
of artificial worlds
we have ourselves a polite little party,
laughing ourselves into parties
celebrating the quail who slip in and out
of artificial worlds
lacking sidewalks, where we find a well-worn
trail trod by anarchist atheists misled to believe
there is no god when in fact there is, but, hell,
they are actually referring to the demiurge churned
into trash lining the bone-dry portions of the pond,
perfected into a beautiful life-saving reality
made easier to believe by some duck who lied
in Washington D.C. ... but the dead can be brought
to life no easier than the muck can be raised
to rinse the once-clean waters of the Verde
And off the road, where the Mustangs and Escalades,
made mavericky,
made mavericky,
speed on by,
rolling on gasses, endangering
rolling on gasses, endangering
school children, lacking sidewalks; who run
home to play on point-and-shoot games
because there is no place to play
in the faux hopes made by grey old men
who promised paradise to little old ladies
in Washington dee see of we sing ... off the road
there's this well-worn trail only misfits
like me can see or be and she now crouches
to peak into the weeds and sage to hear
the cackle of pheasant hens rendered
accelerating life force made mad by the Sun,
which is overheating now, in mad pulse paces,
mixed in with Venusian skies, pitiless star gazes,
and we move on between properties, made proper,
by little pieces of paper, now lining cages,
feeding parrots who repeat perfect truths
made so by Madeoffs advertising safe acres,
security mom spaces, relying on promises
made perfect by little pieces of paper kept sacred
by men who lie daily from remote high places
in Washington D.C. ...
Property. Property. Proper, E.T.
III
Among the many mistakes I've made
in my life is turning right, instead of left,
up this well-paved hill leading to
a manicured driveway ... So she,
who hasn't been outdoors for a month,
who might start screaming at any point
of the day because she, made of soft flesh, saintly blood,
is roiling with so little electricity in her head
her once-brilliant mind can only meekly protest
my attempt to blaze a new trail up this steep incline
leading to a canyon, along the steppes, along the Verde
And this Walmart greeter pops out from behind his usually locked door,
now doubt interrupted from watching Poppa rail and bleat
about how property is the momentary might ruining
the likes of me because only I ever saw the truth of a possible
pathway that, if placed into the hands of currently more
enlightened civic minds might form task forces
to imagine places where children might play
and both little old ladies in electrified golf
carts might pass as easily as javalina family trios
and rolling hungry hordes of courtly coyotes, but no,
the Walmart greeter has to pop out, a Jack of his box,
to ask me, "May I help you," inferring later, in review,
masked hostility, happily rendered now at me, a happy target;
and now I turn my back on his perky little puppy
barking out orders made possible
by a little piece of paper signed by,
this shit little paper signed by ...
this fucking shitty lie made perfect ...
I turn, the sudden wolf, and Toto runs away,
and big Him me, who saves the day
has his own damn sheet of ether now
along with the memory of this proper path
where there is a canyon made of crayons of what I know
about eight-by-eleven sheets of paper
signed by ducks who lie daily
in Washington D.C.
(Editor's Note: This guy above, in addition to serving as the perfect pictorial segue, is also pretty damned mad about the fact he has a $250 water bill when he, just a month before, was paying maybe a little over a tenth of that per month ... but he lives in some Southwestern desert, too, and he is indicating in the photo how angry he is that the last water he'll suck down in America is going to, in the future, going to cost him more than a pretty penny ... See inspirational story ...)
Piggy Taking Inventory
Thou earth mother
whose art made a heaven,
hollow is thy name,
hollow as a doughnut hole
downed by Dunkies sugar suckers
Across this dirty BVD
they come in, unsalted and mean,
sucking dry for purple and orange
styrofoam cup containers,
cattle car crates of doughnut holes,
great salty sea-vats of caffeine,
alkaline and molten H20;
See their blood boil
Tremble at the knowledge:
To know is to burn
High blood-sugar zonks
the dust of freedom
moldered in solo doughnut hole
clusters. They cram their gassy
gutter rollers up to the bar,
slamming their BMW brakes,
coming to a halt, dead-walking
out of the morning light into
the Orange Coated Cluster Pill,
pulling Dunky air in behind them
in gentle whorls of ache ...
Piggy needs to take inventory, Piggy needs to take.
Not so lean and snaking mean, she sucks down
a doughnut hole as her last breath
and testament to the desert ...
II.
I dreamt of your skull & crossbones
and it read me like an X-ray machine
as you lay there, the master,
in our silence and slumber:
I skulked about the place
Lightning last night;
It licked the world mean
and Piggy called six times,
six! Just as we had discussed
the ghost dancers' return,
the rent of the buffalo,
the assassination
of Sitting Bull
Just as plasma fields, unified,
rippled in the chemtrail orange sky
as it tumbled up and angry roll
of pressure and purity
friction and dread.
Piggy called six times, six!
III.
You said the desert sheds
us of our vanity
as the wind blew a scare
up the trees.
You awoke in a stir
of anger and vengeance
raving about "The Law Of 3s."
You awoke in a stir
and everyday I wonder,
why Gaia? Why? So nurturing,
so pure. Why so angry? Why!
Tremble to know the angel
of vengeance: To know is to burn ...
You said something about the dark,
but light was everywhere
in a system of pretty pearly stars
IV.
Piggy crossed the desert in a Humvee
moving eastward fast, loaded down
with software and stolen sacred relics,
as her brother Jacob threw beer cans
along the long, twisty road, northeasterly ...
Piggy crossed the desert
and the mirage followed her:
A man made of metal, in a mod
fright wig, shreeking laugh,
a blast of gunmetal, modal fire,
schist, plaster, a blast of rock.
O man, you left a mess,
tore it all up out of spite,
what a waste, this scorched earth,
bedding tossed like a body
into the garbage pail pile
V.
Knocked to my knees
but bleeding clean,
Man rises and thunders!
Three a.m., O son of Sam!
She didn't consider
that castle re-enter
When all is dark.
The message:
Clear. Clear out!
Gaia scooped me out,
sucking the cold, even,
out of the refrigerator!
VI.
Piggy needs to take inventory,
Piggy needs to take.
She leaves Ulysses on the shelf
a misquote from Sir Thomas More ...
flower petals on the white tile floor.
Then you hear that sucking sound
Then your hear
that sucking sound
Coming down the highway, Whoof!
The missing inventory includes
but is not limited to:
Three red maple leaves from Walden,
one copy of the Grapes of Rats,
one moonbeam, one bolt of light,
lots of lights ..
"I am the light taker of the world!
There shall be no
interior lighting
without me!"
Light bulbs missing. More than just three.
VII.
Ozo sam
Urizen Man!
Christian saint,
O, house full of pain
Twisted rock
upon the oak
the river bends,
it bleeds and dries
See them, over the expanse,
the hot rubber wheels,
the Holy lands:
Of e-mail shouts,
the doctor is out
Piggy has left the building
crossing state lines,
crisscrossing America
O house full of pain!
Urizen man!
O Christian Saint!
A road made of sand!
From, Angel of the Avenues ...
She awoke
shapely but shaken
And I watched her bathe
In blinding electricity
Beneath the solarized sky
Tiamat met Zeus
Were unable to reach
The porch to punish her
And over the cornfields
Of Republicanated Iowa
Thunder a’ trumpeted,
And Tesla’s lightning
Failed to defeat her,
And solar light bounced
Off the feet of her
Bouncing upwards
Off the earth, to fire
Up the weaponized,
Quite culinary clouds
On the ninth
anti-anniversary
Of September Eleventh
She awoke shapely but shaken
As the neighborhood watchers
Faded away like gargoyles,
Draconian unbeings,
As the Ta’ Iowan
dawn made
The winds sing
A new day, and all
The old fucked up
Old ghosts all
But ran away
I watched her bathe
In electricity last night
As we watched the watchers
And then all of the watchers
Started signing in Morse Code
And before dawn we chased
Each other around
Wondering which one
Was pretending to be
The scariest and smartest
of them witches on
the mirror ball wall
And internationalist
Viagran huntsmen fumbling
For newsy spells to foul
The electrician’s switches
As the shapely but shaken
Wake up call doomed up
A first breath of hurricane fires
Churning up in the earns of the earth
And I imagined how the tectonics
Of the globe might burst
Sending more seawater, yes,
Up from down below,
Way way way down below
More even than
the moon can send
if Zeus ever came back
to toss that old rock
down again
And before dawn she bathed
In a lake of fire
Sent down from the sky
And we all chased down
The shapely but shaken
Without causing a ruckus
Or a Venusian star
to start screaming
About her long lost
Gothic Civil rights
~ Morning Sun, Iowa
Gothic January
Two lovers shared
a broken tree
to burn a fire
to stay warm from thee
while the knight
took the queen out
for a dance
beneath the sun
the military marched
to the frozen One
and success, and strife
rode a chariot
to a star
to make happiness
a drink
at the oxygen bar
and I told you,
"I can't boil oil now ...
I'm kinda in the mystic
just a little bit;
in circles, in pinwheels,
in cyberstazi
and the FBI,
in the lLamb
who walked
beneath January's
darkened agnostic sky ..."
as the lovers dreamed
and the gargoyles stood
in summer corn stalks,
in frozen wood,
within a circular steam
within a steam
and you laughed love,
come back to me
~ Iowa City, Iowa
By Douglas McDaniel
http://mythville.blogspot.com/
Hermit By the Sea
Were I but a byte hermit
I'd sing of thee from distant shores,
but God was just a comet,
no Martian, no comment,
nor mere baseball dream
...from some Elysian Field
of Soprano Land, Idi Amin,
but a stellar dark star dwarf,
who rules now like an oaf
on Egyptian soil, living off
your sweet sugar's gasahol,
your machine asp ass sugar loaf!
~
Douglas McDaniel
Mythville, America
http://mythville.blogspot.com/
Serotonin
How different
might history be
if Hitler is able
to take a three-hour
nap on a certain
New Year's Day
of America's choice?
If he had been able
to feel the cool alert
behind his eyes
that his view
had been a bit
cross and yes,
maybe a bit more
blue oil paint
would do and yes, yes,
that Leonard Bernstein
cat is groovy
and yes, Custer,
that guy, had turned around
to let the sea
of the dispossessed
catch up on their own cruelty
and consider to let just
a few of those bastards
live to tell a real story
of mercy to the newspapers
back home, that to win
a war of genocide
was no mercy
and the cornflakes
in my own head
were nothing but alcohol
stains upon daylight
clouds of peace?
Bombing Run
Say what you want
about the low lifers,
tyranny begins
at a very high
altitude
because,
gosh darn it
beating my guts
in Oppositeland
is very high praise,
because what you call
a Tea Party is really
not even dinner,
because ancient drums,
the many tom tom toms
are just the steady
pound on a tenderloin
of the mind
turned into a tender drum
sweet and kind and pure
and even if Walmart
broke the place up bad,
one more purchase
at the near-dead
country store
just might
make just enough
difference
Where Sir Freudo
Lost the Ring
The morning began
and never ended
quite unlike many others
as I stood like
one of those granddad old
palace sentries
who guarded monarchs
at their pearly gates,
expressionless, zombiefied
in next to last Templar mode,
poised and posed, metalurgy
realized to be hurtful treasure
for TNT people, useless as they
come and go, now rendered,
once again, quite pointlessfully,
as a word picture with a blue sharpie,
purchased in San Francisco
by Saint Francis of Assissi ...
upward, turned back toward Zeus,
his challenger ... Him who once
maintain in Spain great
bloody mountains of gold
taken from small brown men
who knew of nothing more
to see Sheriff Joe Arapaio
as nothing less than
an avenging Lord of Death ...
He from across the sea
failed to learn more beautiful
things than bad code scrolled
by a false fundamentalist God,
false single immutable sword,
a word that can't be weighed,
edited, reconsidered,
in a Bible black brick
by burn barrel people
who, iron cast, in their rejoicing,
instead deciding to send
the Ring of Doom
back to his maker
at the foot of Father Washington
in a statue beneath the snow
~
Douglas McDaniel
Washington, Iowa
http://mythville.blogspot.com/
Penumbra
This is about the word, "Satan"
This is about "Jesus," chased by light
This is about the demarcation zone
moving on the moon
This is about the sun
This is about the earth
This is about the material world
shaking like a ghost in the machine
This is also about Elvis and JFK
and Herbet Hoover and Sheriff Joe Arpaio:
This is about all of the snakes in the grass
hunted down by electronic kittens
This is also about, but not limited to,
the undefined demarcation zones
of the infinite, worlds within words,
rescued by the rational real mathematics
This is about the question of which is better,
Driving to make good "time," a joke, distance ...
This is also about noticing more details
by walking to your mailbox
This is about the frequency, Kenneth
This is about the code for those in the know,
and the great whole planet of supposedly
lesser souls, who don't get the signal, yet ...
This is not about banks
This is not about tanks
This is also, but limited to
the narcolepsy of football
This is not about the eye
in the pyramid, nor the AOL
of the mind's eye
This is about the eternal robust
engine of change and the need to conserve
the present in its proper place, lacking time
~
Douglas McDaniel
Mythville, America
http://mythville.blogspot.com/
Devolution of Arizona
Arizona, I don't recognize you anymore
Your creosote roots lie beneath
the perfect piles of McDonalds parking lots
Arizona, an unequal symmetry
of rubble piles collect
Ten thousand miles from here,
the angry sun awakes, a lion,
the wind pulls sacred smoke
around the window
and out the door
I scream into silence
Arizona, you are responsible ...
The middle-aged businessman
with expendable income
sweats for pleasure
and I feel
"pretty peppered"
by it all
Arizona, when can I stop swearing?
I swear in the heat like a pizza oven
Arizona, you are a car part store
but you got no glass to see through
and the beige collection
of air-conditioned caves
are conditioned to respond
in all the right meets wrong ways
The forests are in ashes
as the governor gapes
from a helicopter high
for the diversionary tactic
of the the unrael politic
and asks the spotlight
to "move on"
The spotlight will not
"move on," the world
is watching
Arizona, I can find no fluid,
no friend, nor car phone
to lean on
for company ...
The wolf is watching
By GPS, without your bullets in fistfuls
you can find me in the living room,
darkly lit, with rayolight flashing
bible black blurbs
on non-violence
cursing your name
Arizona, not even Ginsberg
would gripe about your tripe,
so blurred with anonymity
hell hardly matters anymore
Arizona, my life's belongings
are melting in a storage facility
and there are more things that beep
here than I can count
my frozen assets
of the heart
Arizona, you haven't hassled me for a while,
though I'm a loose cannon at the mousy mouth
... The world is flooding, bleeding,
burning blinding in high winds from above
as you dry up and blow away
Arizona, heart patients are being denied,
a kid got crushed in your parking lot
and I went to one of your social service buildings
and was amazed about how many homeless lurks
were sleeping in the lobby,
dreaming of Mississippi burning
Arizona, I can't get assistance at the cash register
and the mountains are closed, cats run free,
the lizards have disappeared,
to plot secret revenge
to assuage denial
Arizona, you are sucking in souls,
eating them, spitting them out,
at very low wages ...
of sin ... I suppose ...
and six are dead now,
six!
How long? How many more?
Arizona, I think you should
battalion the borders with snow
and big bad bars of soap,
painting you headless
telegraph cross with wires,
tin cans of TNT
and a sacrificed fox
also known as "truth"
~ Douglas McDaniel,
Iowa City, Iowa
Beepee City Blues (Forgive But Don't Forget)
Awake in a captured American city,
wide awake, uncommon and conquered
by Beepee, of thee I sing: see the greenish
star sign, flag of my new queen, no king ...
And so this is the new valley, forged
by a poisoned sea. You see? I stared
into your dark and bubbling gurgle
of gore, too long, and now I have lost
my heart, owning my death, drowned
and alive, in little bubbles of grease ...
And yours, in these hours, drifting back
into sleep now, uncovering the brown loam
of anguished grief, in the Paris of the prairie,
dreaming of the fairies, who bleep my name,
cursing my overdone disinfected dysfunction ...
but I'm awake now, pumping into function
At discourse with the junction of light and dark,
on my electronic ark, loading the animals now,
my music, your now now and my then then, to thine
angels we seek truth, cruel, my belly, your barrel
of hell, spelled out now in the sweetspilled spice
of good medicine, served in a box of Davey Jones,
containing my heart at the bottom of the Gulf,
and birds drop out of the sky
between me and you ...
crashing, singing,
"squeak, squeak."
~ Coralville, Iowa
By Douglas McDaniel
http://mythville.blogspot.com/
http://mythvilleondemand.blogspot.com/
http://mythville.twitter.com/
mythville@gmail.com
Eyes Wide Open
America, your Tombstone, Arizona,
stands out, in memorial balloons,
talking heads of post-gunfire analysis,
in anguished memories echoing
gunfire, in flowers left upon
the furnace of revolution,
in the mixed up mindspace
of mistreated man-monster
assassins, in creature comforts
shaken like broken tablets
given by Moses, by the mere
shattered jerking around
of horrifying images
to television commercials
where we are asked
to ask our doctors
We the people are capable
of so much more: Capable
of surgeons able to render
miracles far more healing
than moon missions,
predator strikes
from deep in the sky,
from quick stock fixes,
dialing up foxes,
connected by two-year
contracts on cell phones,
by unholy secret armies
unleashed upon the world
but now rendered
in one sick sad baldface
mad hatter joker fuck,
who decided to make
history by shedding
your blood, and your children's
children's blood, to make
that point, old pointy,
that no one else could give
a hearing to because,
old shriner shiner,
it pays too much
for the talking skull,
to answer the one question
it can't answer for itself: Why?
The map is fully dotted now,
with hands holding hands
and yet we can't all seem
to becalm the energies
flowing from the angry sun
because, dear masters,
the amplified drug lords
of commerce, offer more
ailments, sick sad treatments
that have nothing to do
with love, just money,
just time for bull markets
and disinformation
We can dream,
point to our heroes,
and tolerbrate
a forgivenness
of our sins,
sometimes
only as long
as the car ride
home
Clearly, nature
is doing its damndest
to show us our faces,
our spewing missed
places as fomenters
of foul foams
guzzling up
from the bottom
of our beer bottles
and polarized teas
Listen to the water,
America; listen
for gentle silenced
sounds, in cattle cars
racing by, in delivery
trucks chasing us around
with backwards beeping
to greet each morning,
to failures to answer
the myriad echoes
of grieving sisters
for suicide cults
set too hard
on logic chopping,
on passions, on reason,
to the revolutionary
flavors of the season,
to rocket ships made
for secret mission masters,
to lies sold as truth
in penciled in televised
image makers, harbingers
of false light, false words,
false perpetrators
of plans against you,
America, plans beyond
pure reason, just plans,
authority zones of controls
intended for our sponsors
of capital gains, tax dodges,
miniscule media channels
to jail up the Jonahs,
the Joans, arching , marching,
moving forward to nurture us,
to set love right, for Job,
so he can no longer suffer
in the error of St. Paul's
jealous rage and error
Fear, no mind reader,
can open our eyes
for the first time, America,
open them, now, read see feel
your own bodies, connected
to the whole earth,
not just your slicing borders
for the first rotten time
~ Douglas McDaniel
Iowa City, Iowa
http://mythville.blogspot.com/
http://mythvilleondemand.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/mythville
mythville@gmail.com
Thou earth mother
whose art made a heaven,
hollow is thy name,
hollow as a doughnut hole
downed by Dunkies sugar suckers
Across this dirty BVD
they come in, unsalted and mean,
sucking dry for purple and orange
styrofoam cup containers,
cattle car crates of doughnut holes,
great salty sea-vats of caffeine,
alkaline and molten H20;
See their blood boil
Tremble at the knowledge:
To know is to burn
High blood-sugar zonks
the dust of freedom
moldered in solo doughnut hole
clusters. They cram their gassy
gutter rollers up to the bar,
slamming their BMW brakes,
coming to a halt, dead-walking
out of the morning light into
the Orange Coated Cluster Pill,
pulling Dunky air in behind them
in gentle whorls of ache ...
Piggy needs to take inventory, Piggy needs to take.
Not so lean and snaking mean, she sucks down
a doughnut hole as her last breath
and testament to the desert ...
II.
I dreamt of your skull & crossbones
and it read me like an X-ray machine
as you lay there, the master,
in our silence and slumber:
I skulked about the place
Lightning last night;
It licked the world mean
and Piggy called six times,
six! Just as we had discussed
the ghost dancers' return,
the rent of the buffalo,
the assassination
of Sitting Bull
Just as plasma fields, unified,
rippled in the chemtrail orange sky
as it tumbled up and angry roll
of pressure and purity
friction and dread.
Piggy called six times, six!
III.
You said the desert sheds
us of our vanity
as the wind blew a scare
up the trees.
You awoke in a stir
of anger and vengeance
raving about "The Law Of 3s."
You awoke in a stir
and everyday I wonder,
why Gaia? Why? So nurturing,
so pure. Why so angry? Why!
Tremble to know the angel
of vengeance: To know is to burn ...
You said something about the dark,
but light was everywhere
in a system of pretty pearly stars
IV.
Piggy crossed the desert in a Humvee
moving eastward fast, loaded down
with software and stolen sacred relics,
as her brother Jacob threw beer cans
along the long, twisty road, northeasterly ...
Piggy crossed the desert
and the mirage followed her:
A man made of metal, in a mod
fright wig, shreeking laugh,
a blast of gunmetal, modal fire,
schist, plaster, a blast of rock.
O man, you left a mess,
tore it all up out of spite,
what a waste, this scorched earth,
bedding tossed like a body
into the garbage pail pile
V.
Knocked to my knees
but bleeding clean,
Man rises and thunders!
Three a.m., O son of Sam!
She didn't consider
that castle re-enter
When all is dark.
The message:
Clear. Clear out!
Gaia scooped me out,
sucking the cold, even,
out of the refrigerator!
VI.
Piggy needs to take inventory,
Piggy needs to take.
She leaves Ulysses on the shelf
a misquote from Sir Thomas More ...
flower petals on the white tile floor.
Then you hear that sucking sound
Then your hear
that sucking sound
Coming down the highway, Whoof!
The missing inventory includes
but is not limited to:
Three red maple leaves from Walden,
one copy of the Grapes of Rats,
one moonbeam, one bolt of light,
lots of lights ..
"I am the light taker of the world!
There shall be no
interior lighting
without me!"
Light bulbs missing. More than just three.
VII.
Ozo sam
Urizen Man!
Christian saint,
O, house full of pain
Twisted rock
upon the oak
the river bends,
it bleeds and dries
See them, over the expanse,
the hot rubber wheels,
the Holy lands:
Of e-mail shouts,
the doctor is out
Piggy has left the building
crossing state lines,
crisscrossing America
O house full of pain!
Urizen man!
O Christian Saint!
A road made of sand!
From, Angel of the Avenues ...
Don't Talk About the Weather
Looking down a stream of broken chocolate
in the twilight, summer roads and heavy loads,
tipped, from their gravitational thrones,
asking the sky for answers ...
But there is "None," says the infant in the rain,
"Go," says the angel in disdain, "give yourself away ..."
The sublime country of ownership
is now in possession of the Mutual Dread Inc.
angel of the night, who mouths out the sorrows
with avowals of "How?" and "When?" and "Why?"
Agent of ill winds
Angel of Anxiety
No matter how bright angels beam
We can't stare down this melt
of frozen stone nor satiate
the silence of the sun ...
Energy is fire and fire is everywhere ...
You are afraid of fire, but do not worry:
A fire hydrant stands nearby
Controlling mechanisms are everywhere
and public safety is ubiquitous
The fearful want to burn us both
Hot and cold is the Way.
No matter.
No blame.
Walk the stones, simmer down,
walk the soured broken grounds
weeping, sweeping up categories
as well as the lies swept away above
these basements of regret,
these closets full of tough old rules
forever present on the earth
Stripped to the bone,
The endless reductions
You make of me,
Rendering sand
Becoming time, money,
The pain becoming sheer
Needless fumbling in the morning
For meaning
If I spend another minute
In your hallucination
I will dissolve into many planets,
Tiny orbs ready for wars
Against the windA Brief Visit
to Ballpark Earth
First thing I've got to say is this:
I'm pissed I never got to play
Major League Baseball
Second, and this is a big one
She looked so good
in her fishnet stockings
and we were in sixth grade still
and I still haven't
been able to keep my eye
on the ball
ever since
Third ... sure,
the psychologist
apologized
for getting
the whole thing
more than half wrong
and these are bad
percentages
and you paid
the bill to guard
the lunatic asylum
and it sure doesn't
bring all of the dead
dead doggies all back
Fourth, equally unimportant ...
Just who is keeping
score, Dear Lord ...
Who has all of the stats,
Stan the Man,
and who is keeping
the big statistical
law book of life?
I mean shit, shit, shit ...
I can't even spit here
and I have not looked
at a box score
since last spring,
when I still had hope
for the Diamond King
and sure, forty thousand
princes and queens are seated
in the stands now
text messaging, waving
to their kids back at home,
but they aren't watching anyway,
since fishnets are back in style
and so are their fuck me
I'm a ho tattoosies
on the telly and the Jumbotron,
which caught them kissing
doesn't even record,
just flashes,
then flies on by
Rain Station
The hurricane journal colonel
meets the wind at the Porterville
train station as birds fall
out of a fallen tree
Shoeshine wet steel along
a busted up railroad line,
heading to nowhere
in the eternal now
Isaac Smith took the first
bullet train away from the coast
and the pellet is a richochet
from sea to sinning sea
Storm riders in white robes
lost the battle but won
the water war: The one-eyed leper
watches the stain running up
the wailing wall ...
Meanwhile, back at the submarine
boat show of snakes running
beneath the floorboards of Boston
to the Milldam corner of Concord,
discord cannot carry any cannons
across the creek as history repeats
each and every morning, twice,
and the ripples still by morning light.
The Secret Report
of the Night
of the Last Knight
He was once
a young man, dressed nice, in a blue shirt, red tie, driving a green Jag straight down white lines, but the T-shirt underneath wore a pirate skull which he only threw into a laundry bag maybe once, twice a month, and his pockets were only full of change.
He was the last knight last night. He was swept away in a summer sandstorm. He was a seven-tweet non-talker. He was definitely not the lady stalker. He was more of a pre-planned thing.
He who came to get one key, was found to be missing, like dinosaur chasing a lightning bolt gone crazy in a Twenty-first century schizoid void.
And we were all watching the war. And we tied ourselves down and faced the wind. And we were all watching what water does. And we were all claiming the key was gone. And we were all eating the Tin Man's heart. And we all threw the bones to Toto, too.
The sea was dumped into a pail and then wifi came, he began to sail ... and then whiff, whiff, whiff, the water sank ... and whiff, whiff, whiff ... wifi sank into cracks in the earth, and mud gathered in the corners of the earth, and the high school peak of alchemical man all fell down the hill.
A detective was hired by a private firm. A detective was hired to learn all he could learn. A detective returned with ashes in an urn. A detective said sorrow was a golden tax return, that the guardian was gone, had run away, and it definitely was not a pre-planned thing.
So we rebuilt the modern world. So we went up and down, burning it all down. So we fell in love with the dragon girl. So we stole the thunder and lived in rusted ruins. So we made the waves to make steel shudder. So we served the sheep dog meals of bones. So we drank the waterfall down to fountains of dust, stunned to sleep before the golden dawn.
It was O so definitely a pre-planned thing
In Memory
of
a Lady Judge ...
Met her once at the end
and beginning of a solar cycle,
and now I'm humble, in awe
at the news of her passing.
It was thirteen years ago.
Her vehicle had slipped
off of the ice between
Ridgway and Colona.
I had just arrived
on the accident scene
from New England,
in a white truck after
hitching a ride to T-ride
from a well-loved Ute leader
who seemed to know everyone
in Montrose and my phone
worked and hers didn't
and she said she was thankful
for the rescue and it seemed
so ironic then that a judge,
under those circumstances
was thanking scrambled brain me,
who at the time, needed more rescue
than I could ever explain:
Though I tried. She thought me odd.
Later, after the Chocolate Lover's fling,
we spoke again, but never after that.
But she tolerated me, kindly,
and I thank her for that.
Can't imagine why events
take us so young,
at fifty eight,
in Baja, California
while doing what we love:
Tender consolations,
to all of the Telluriders
who are able to pass
while on international
adventures because
that's what we always say.
Humble, in the mystery
of her passing, at the ending
of yet another sun cycle ...
Humble in the thought
of how difficult it must
have been to be
a judge in a small town,
a fish bowl, where you can
walk down the street and meet,
you know, the accused, damned,
and so on ... humble
in the beauty of someone
you never spoke to again,
because I was odd then,
I'm different now,
so was she, must be ... but I
remember, every now and then,
we'd pass each other,
and we'd sort of just
acknowledge the passing,
and in acknowledging her
passing now, I am quaking,
in deep sorrow that more
wasn't spoken
between now and then.
of the Night
of the Last Knight
He was once
a young man,
dressed nice,
in a blue shirt,
red tie, driving
a green Jag straight
down white lines,
but the T-shirt underneath
wore a pirate skull
which he only threw
into a laundry bag
maybe once, twice
a month, and his pockets
were only full of change.
He was the last knight last night.
He was swept away in a summer sandstorm.
He was a seven-tweet non-talker.
He was definitely not the lady stalker.
He was more of a pre-planned thing.
He who came to get one key,
was found to be missing,
like dinosaur chasing
a lightning bolt gone crazy
in a Twenty-first century
schizoid void.
And we were all watching the war.
And we tied ourselves down and faced the wind.
And we were all watching what water does.
And we were all claiming the key was gone.
And we were all eating the Tin Man's heart.
And we all threw the bones to Toto, too.
The sea was dumped into a pail
and then wifi came, he began to sail ...
and then whiff, whiff, whiff,
the water sank ... and whiff,
whiff, whiff ... wifi sank
into cracks in the earth,
and mud gathered in the corners
of the earth, and the high school peak
of alchemical man all fell down the hill.
A detective was hired by a private firm.
A detective was hired to learn all he could learn.
A detective returned with ashes in an urn.
A detective said sorrow was a golden tax return,
that the guardian was gone, had run away,
and it definitely was not a pre-planned thing.
So we rebuilt the modern world.
So we went up and down, burning it all down.
So we fell in love with the dragon girl.
So we stole the thunder and lived in rusted ruins.
So we made the waves to make steel shudder.
So we served the sheep dog meals of bones.
So we drank the waterfall down to fountains
of dust, stunned to sleep before the golden dawn.
It was O so definitely a pre-planned thing
In Memory
of
a Lady Judge ...
Met her once at the end
and beginning of a solar cycle,
and now I'm humble, in awe
at the news of her passing.
It was thirteen years ago.
Her vehicle had slipped
off of the ice between
Ridgway and Colona.
I had just arrived
on the accident scene
from New England,
in a white truck after
hitching a ride to T-ride
from a well-loved Ute leader
who seemed to know everyone
in Montrose and my phone
worked and hers didn't
and she said she was thankful
for the rescue and it seemed
so ironic then that a judge,
under those circumstances
was thanking scrambled brain me,
who at the time, needed more rescue
than I could ever explain:
Though I tried. She thought me odd.
Later, after the Chocolate Lover's fling,
we spoke again, but never after that.
But she tolerated me, kindly,
and I thank her for that.
Can't imagine why events
take us so young,
at fifty eight,
in Baja, California
while doing what we love:
Tender consolations,
to all of the Telluriders
who are able to pass
while on international
adventures because
that's what we always say.
Humble, in the mystery
of her passing, at the ending
of yet another sun cycle ...
Humble in the thought
of how difficult it must
have been to be
a judge in a small town,
a fish bowl, where you can
walk down the street and meet,
you know, the accused, damned,
and so on ... humble
in the beauty of someone
you never spoke to again,
because I was odd then,
I'm different now,
so was she, must be ... but I
remember, every now and then,
we'd pass each other,
and we'd sort of just
acknowledge the passing,
and in acknowledging her
passing now, I am quaking,
in deep sorrow that more
wasn't spoken
between now and then.
Thunderbolt
The Reformed Presbyterian Church
was hit by a thunderbolt
and Morning Sun, Iowa
was rendered back to the year
Nineteen Fifty One
And brother Jesus
sat on his Cardinal corner
with the ghosts of three gauzy
British colonial columns
behind him, more than twice
the height of the man
commanding them,
who lives four or five
times more often in life
than in death,
but who's counting?
Meanwhile, the local fire captain,
Tom "Torch" Lawyer
sits as the Grand Poopba
in the unmarked Oddfellows Hall ...
He, a Big Brother, of the weather map
and he sings, "O Hey, Gaia, what did I do?"
"O yeah, there was that, and that and that ...
I'm so sorry angry sun, sorry for this,
sorry for that ... O Kracken King Igor,
heavy weather hanging from across the plains
to the mountains once made pleasant
from Denver, Colorado
to Bloomington, Indiana:
Where John Cougar Mellencamp
is still wearing his hard hat ...
"Please, O Kracken,
spare me your change
and please spare
me some of my favorite
old mason bricks,
and spare me
from my brats
"Leave me one
Rosetta stone
and at least three
favored stocks
for six hundred
and sixty six
and please sponsor
my one last storm rider
so he can broadcast,
like Paul Revere in silver
my long last broadcast
on the Weather Channel
on Ruppert Murdoch's
Blue Ray Disc-shaped
magic Thunderbird carpet,
so that music can still be
piped in like rock'n'roll
in a cowboy hat
at the local Wal Mart
"And spare me your golden
spike in natural gas,
your January jolt
in coffee prices,
and spare me your sanguine
advice on what to expect
and spare me your photo radar
lanes used by Fed Ex,
and spare me your
weaponized Pineapple Express
as it tingles a trio
of water spouts
across the forty eighth parallel
"But please remind me later
to use a higher quality
white ashy paint
so I can smile upward
with a stun gun kept
quite safe behind my back
as I move beneath overhanging
chemtrail inspired clouds
to keep my doormats dry
when you try to reclaim
your honestly inward saints
"And tell that bastard
Mr. Ringo, he's running
out of time, and though
he bought a Wal Mart sold
Chinese-made plastic compass
that we have him lined up
in our electronic eye sights
and he'll never get across
King Henry the Eight's
magical river line
"Because, you see,
Medicare doesn't cover
everything,
especially his supposedly
secure bright and sunny
horizons, or bullets
or my elitist religious conceits
because he can't use his cell phone
or even mark a fully mastered retreat
with the sunspots buzzing up auroras
against his great hope for liberties
because they will always cost him more
than his lonely Roosevelt socialist dime
"Say a big hello
to that second toughest
man in America,
that next-to-last Templar
because I can see, feel and read
the second coming of Joan of Arc
sleeping in her shrine ...
'Coswe all know there's nothing
more exhausting than inaction
and his sacred pen as shotgun
won't bring his dead doggies back
"So hey! Angry Solari,
let's just say it was all
a good old boy's
misunderstanding
and even if the anointed We
run the risk of getting heart arrested,
or if sanctified gloomy We
speed through our Freemason made
towns, rocket launched
at the speed
of thirteen million
miles per hour,
and even if Johnny Ringo
can teach himself
to silence the two stormy
coasts in the centered
silences of his mind,
we can cut off his touch
to Taiowa her in Iowa
in order to remain in Tombstone
to review the cannons loaded,
in the late afternoon aspenglow,
as they are pointed
at Cochise's last stronghold
so that we, alone, can enjoy
the bonny bones of Norteneo
from our weaponized
plastic transistor radio,
nor can he enjoy sweet
Maggie Marlowe, sleeping
in nicotine terrified migraines
without a tweet in our jail-baited
basements humming up thunder
from our cold dark basements
down below, so we can
keep up our plans to sell off
glassified dead scorpions
to the last of the plutocratic
touristas at the high noon
military movie show."
Shyla is Blue Love Now
for Shyla the Sheriff, 1998-2011
You will find her
beneath the stairs
staring at your feet,
but seeing your head,
all white-masked and wolfie
Ordering in, ordering out:
You'll find her naked,
running mildly about,
rocking chair and bouncy
When the pizza man
Arrives at our doors
You'll find her lighter,
mightier, than the most devout,
far better than fighters and dividers
in Las Vegan, New Mexico,
Keeping me company
When you, my love,
Have gone insane and winds,
Solar in nature, terminating
The phones with crackle
And invisible light,
Make it impossible to speak
They find her in Las Vegas,
at two a.m. times two,
turning toward the TV,
With ears for radar absorbing
The stirring sounds of the Earth
And growing sicker, each day,
For debates about the deadbeat,
For laughter on the sell-out shows,
Her old lady fur coming out in tufts,
Ready for the door to open,
Mouthing the words, “out, out, out.”
You find her brilliant, lit,
deviate with experimental DNA
and sane, still as death: listening
for the Jefferson Airplane
To land on ice,
for the sound of scraping,
for the blue-shift echo
of the first sounds of defeat,
for the skeletal sleds
Off-shore, behind
Snow-dabbed trees
in British Columbia
You'll find her in forty eight
states of being on forty eight
motel room keys, thumbing dumb,
The door monkey: O, if she can
Only solve that one riddle,
The door nob, then she
Won’t need you … we, us;
Because she only needs
The scent of roses,
The yellow pedals, in a slow,
Elegant walk, a well-timed
Roll in the grass,
The one thing you can depend
On, like the rising Sun, the spring,
The Malamute shepherd wolf-bred
version of the moonlit Angel of Mons.
The Solar Bath
She awoke
shapely but shaken
And I watched her bathe
In blinding electricity
Beneath the solarized sky
Tiamat met Zeus
Were unable to reach
The porch to punish her
And over the cornfields
Of Republicanated Iowa
Thunder a’ trumpeted,
And Tesla’s lightning
Failed to defeat her,
And solar light bounced
Off the feet of her
Bouncing upwards
Off the earth, to fire
Up the weaponized,
Quite culinary clouds
On the ninth
anti-anniversary
Of September Eleventh
She awoke shapely but shaken
As the neighborhood watchers
Faded away like gargoyles,
Draconian unbeings,
As the Ta’ Iowan
dawn made
The winds sing
A new day, and all
The old fucked up
Old ghosts all
But ran away
I watched her bathe
In electricity last night
As we watched the watchers
And then all of the watchers
Started signing in Morse Code
And before dawn we chased
Each other around
Wondering which one
Was pretending to be
The scariest and smartest
of them witches on
the mirror ball wall
And internationalist
Viagran huntsmen fumbling
For newsy spells to foul
The electrician’s switches
As the shapely but shaken
Wake up call doomed up
A first breath of hurricane fires
Churning up in the earns of the earth
And I imagined how the tectonics
Of the globe might burst
Sending more seawater, yes,
Up from down below,
Way way way down below
More even than
the moon can send
if Zeus ever came back
to toss that old rock
down again
And before dawn she bathed
In a lake of fire
Sent down from the sky
And we all chased down
The shapely but shaken
Without causing a ruckus
Or a Venusian star
to start screaming
About her long lost
Gothic Civil rights
~ Morning Sun, Iowa
Gothic January
Two lovers shared
a broken tree
to burn a fire
to stay warm from thee
while the knight
took the queen out
for a dance
beneath the sun
the military marched
to the frozen One
and success, and strife
rode a chariot
to a star
to make happiness
a drink
at the oxygen bar
and I told you,
"I can't boil oil now ...
I'm kinda in the mystic
just a little bit;
in circles, in pinwheels,
in cyberstazi
and the FBI,
in the lLamb
who walked
beneath January's
darkened agnostic sky ..."
as the lovers dreamed
and the gargoyles stood
in summer corn stalks,
in frozen wood,
within a circular steam
within a steam
and you laughed love,
come back to me
~ Iowa City, Iowa
By Douglas McDaniel
http://mythville.blogspot.com/
Hermit By the Sea
Were I but a byte hermit
I'd sing of thee from distant shores,
but God was just a comet,
no Martian, no comment,
nor mere baseball dream
...from some Elysian Field
of Soprano Land, Idi Amin,
but a stellar dark star dwarf,
who rules now like an oaf
on Egyptian soil, living off
your sweet sugar's gasahol,
your machine asp ass sugar loaf!
~
Douglas McDaniel
Mythville, America
http://mythville.blogspot.com/
Serotonin
How different
might history be
if Hitler is able
to take a three-hour
nap on a certain
New Year's Day
of America's choice?
If he had been able
to feel the cool alert
behind his eyes
that his view
had been a bit
cross and yes,
maybe a bit more
blue oil paint
would do and yes, yes,
that Leonard Bernstein
cat is groovy
and yes, Custer,
that guy, had turned around
to let the sea
of the dispossessed
catch up on their own cruelty
and consider to let just
a few of those bastards
live to tell a real story
of mercy to the newspapers
back home, that to win
a war of genocide
was no mercy
and the cornflakes
in my own head
were nothing but alcohol
stains upon daylight
clouds of peace?
Bombing Run
Say what you want
about the low lifers,
tyranny begins
at a very high
altitude
because,
gosh darn it
beating my guts
in Oppositeland
is very high praise,
because what you call
a Tea Party is really
not even dinner,
because ancient drums,
the many tom tom toms
are just the steady
pound on a tenderloin
of the mind
turned into a tender drum
sweet and kind and pure
and even if Walmart
broke the place up bad,
one more purchase
at the near-dead
country store
just might
make just enough
difference
Where Sir Freudo
Lost the Ring
The morning began
and never ended
quite unlike many others
as I stood like
one of those granddad old
palace sentries
who guarded monarchs
at their pearly gates,
expressionless, zombiefied
in next to last Templar mode,
poised and posed, metalurgy
realized to be hurtful treasure
for TNT people, useless as they
come and go, now rendered,
once again, quite pointlessfully,
as a word picture with a blue sharpie,
purchased in San Francisco
by Saint Francis of Assissi ...
upward, turned back toward Zeus,
his challenger ... Him who once
maintain in Spain great
bloody mountains of gold
taken from small brown men
who knew of nothing more
to see Sheriff Joe Arapaio
as nothing less than
an avenging Lord of Death ...
He from across the sea
failed to learn more beautiful
things than bad code scrolled
by a false fundamentalist God,
false single immutable sword,
a word that can't be weighed,
edited, reconsidered,
in a Bible black brick
by burn barrel people
who, iron cast, in their rejoicing,
instead deciding to send
the Ring of Doom
back to his maker
at the foot of Father Washington
in a statue beneath the snow
~
Douglas McDaniel
Washington, Iowa
http://mythville.blogspot.com/
GNP
Gone Nuts Planet
is outta sorts
every thirteen years,
the sun says
Unreadable tattoo,
from the men made
of bamboo
Railroads are nice
But I can't pay the price
Is it too late to lie
or become a ballerina?
Networked society
is seasoning anxiety
and for all of our
dispassioned new
sobriety, we missed
the point, entirely
~ Douglas McDaniel
Mythville, America
http://mythville.blogspot.com/
CC: http://cccomeseejerusalem.blogspot.com/
Gone Nuts Planet
is outta sorts
every thirteen years,
the sun says
Unreadable tattoo,
from the men made
of bamboo
Railroads are nice
But I can't pay the price
Is it too late to lie
or become a ballerina?
Networked society
is seasoning anxiety
and for all of our
dispassioned new
sobriety, we missed
the point, entirely
~ Douglas McDaniel
Mythville, America
http://mythville.blogspot.com/
CC: http://cccomeseejerusalem.blogspot.com/
Penumbra
This is about the word, "Satan"
This is about "Jesus," chased by light
This is about the demarcation zone
moving on the moon
This is about the sun
This is about the earth
This is about the material world
shaking like a ghost in the machine
This is also about Elvis and JFK
and Herbet Hoover and Sheriff Joe Arpaio:
This is about all of the snakes in the grass
hunted down by electronic kittens
This is also about, but not limited to,
the undefined demarcation zones
of the infinite, worlds within words,
rescued by the rational real mathematics
This is about the question of which is better,
Driving to make good "time," a joke, distance ...
This is also about noticing more details
by walking to your mailbox
This is about the frequency, Kenneth
This is about the code for those in the know,
and the great whole planet of supposedly
lesser souls, who don't get the signal, yet ...
This is not about banks
This is not about tanks
This is also, but limited to
the narcolepsy of football
This is not about the eye
in the pyramid, nor the AOL
of the mind's eye
This is about the eternal robust
engine of change and the need to conserve
the present in its proper place, lacking time
~
Douglas McDaniel
Mythville, America
http://mythville.blogspot.com/
Devolution of Arizona
Arizona, I don't recognize you anymore
Your creosote roots lie beneath
the perfect piles of McDonalds parking lots
Arizona, an unequal symmetry
of rubble piles collect
Ten thousand miles from here,
the angry sun awakes, a lion,
the wind pulls sacred smoke
around the window
and out the door
I scream into silence
Arizona, you are responsible ...
The middle-aged businessman
with expendable income
sweats for pleasure
and I feel
"pretty peppered"
by it all
Arizona, when can I stop swearing?
I swear in the heat like a pizza oven
Arizona, you are a car part store
but you got no glass to see through
and the beige collection
of air-conditioned caves
are conditioned to respond
in all the right meets wrong ways
The forests are in ashes
as the governor gapes
from a helicopter high
for the diversionary tactic
of the the unrael politic
and asks the spotlight
to "move on"
The spotlight will not
"move on," the world
is watching
Arizona, I can find no fluid,
no friend, nor car phone
to lean on
for company ...
The wolf is watching
By GPS, without your bullets in fistfuls
you can find me in the living room,
darkly lit, with rayolight flashing
bible black blurbs
on non-violence
cursing your name
Arizona, not even Ginsberg
would gripe about your tripe,
so blurred with anonymity
hell hardly matters anymore
Arizona, my life's belongings
are melting in a storage facility
and there are more things that beep
here than I can count
my frozen assets
of the heart
Arizona, you haven't hassled me for a while,
though I'm a loose cannon at the mousy mouth
... The world is flooding, bleeding,
burning blinding in high winds from above
as you dry up and blow away
Arizona, heart patients are being denied,
a kid got crushed in your parking lot
and I went to one of your social service buildings
and was amazed about how many homeless lurks
were sleeping in the lobby,
dreaming of Mississippi burning
Arizona, I can't get assistance at the cash register
and the mountains are closed, cats run free,
the lizards have disappeared,
to plot secret revenge
to assuage denial
Arizona, you are sucking in souls,
eating them, spitting them out,
at very low wages ...
of sin ... I suppose ...
and six are dead now,
six!
How long? How many more?
Arizona, I think you should
battalion the borders with snow
and big bad bars of soap,
painting you headless
telegraph cross with wires,
tin cans of TNT
and a sacrificed fox
also known as "truth"
~ Douglas McDaniel,
Iowa City, Iowa
Beepee City Blues (Forgive But Don't Forget)
Awake in a captured American city,
wide awake, uncommon and conquered
by Beepee, of thee I sing: see the greenish
star sign, flag of my new queen, no king ...
And so this is the new valley, forged
by a poisoned sea. You see? I stared
into your dark and bubbling gurgle
of gore, too long, and now I have lost
my heart, owning my death, drowned
and alive, in little bubbles of grease ...
And yours, in these hours, drifting back
into sleep now, uncovering the brown loam
of anguished grief, in the Paris of the prairie,
dreaming of the fairies, who bleep my name,
cursing my overdone disinfected dysfunction ...
but I'm awake now, pumping into function
At discourse with the junction of light and dark,
on my electronic ark, loading the animals now,
my music, your now now and my then then, to thine
angels we seek truth, cruel, my belly, your barrel
of hell, spelled out now in the sweetspilled spice
of good medicine, served in a box of Davey Jones,
containing my heart at the bottom of the Gulf,
and birds drop out of the sky
between me and you ...
crashing, singing,
"squeak, squeak."
~ Coralville, Iowa
By Douglas McDaniel
http://mythville.blogspot.com/
http://mythvilleondemand.blogspot.com/
http://mythville.twitter.com/
mythville@gmail.com
Eyes Wide Open
America, your Tombstone, Arizona,
stands out, in memorial balloons,
talking heads of post-gunfire analysis,
in anguished memories echoing
gunfire, in flowers left upon
the furnace of revolution,
in the mixed up mindspace
of mistreated man-monster
assassins, in creature comforts
shaken like broken tablets
given by Moses, by the mere
shattered jerking around
of horrifying images
to television commercials
where we are asked
to ask our doctors
We the people are capable
of so much more: Capable
of surgeons able to render
miracles far more healing
than moon missions,
predator strikes
from deep in the sky,
from quick stock fixes,
dialing up foxes,
connected by two-year
contracts on cell phones,
by unholy secret armies
unleashed upon the world
but now rendered
in one sick sad baldface
mad hatter joker fuck,
who decided to make
history by shedding
your blood, and your children's
children's blood, to make
that point, old pointy,
that no one else could give
a hearing to because,
old shriner shiner,
it pays too much
for the talking skull,
to answer the one question
it can't answer for itself: Why?
The map is fully dotted now,
with hands holding hands
and yet we can't all seem
to becalm the energies
flowing from the angry sun
because, dear masters,
the amplified drug lords
of commerce, offer more
ailments, sick sad treatments
that have nothing to do
with love, just money,
just time for bull markets
and disinformation
We can dream,
point to our heroes,
and tolerbrate
a forgivenness
of our sins,
sometimes
only as long
as the car ride
home
Clearly, nature
is doing its damndest
to show us our faces,
our spewing missed
places as fomenters
of foul foams
guzzling up
from the bottom
of our beer bottles
and polarized teas
Listen to the water,
America; listen
for gentle silenced
sounds, in cattle cars
racing by, in delivery
trucks chasing us around
with backwards beeping
to greet each morning,
to failures to answer
the myriad echoes
of grieving sisters
for suicide cults
set too hard
on logic chopping,
on passions, on reason,
to the revolutionary
flavors of the season,
to rocket ships made
for secret mission masters,
to lies sold as truth
in penciled in televised
image makers, harbingers
of false light, false words,
false perpetrators
of plans against you,
America, plans beyond
pure reason, just plans,
authority zones of controls
intended for our sponsors
of capital gains, tax dodges,
miniscule media channels
to jail up the Jonahs,
the Joans, arching , marching,
moving forward to nurture us,
to set love right, for Job,
so he can no longer suffer
in the error of St. Paul's
jealous rage and error
Fear, no mind reader,
can open our eyes
for the first time, America,
open them, now, read see feel
your own bodies, connected
to the whole earth,
not just your slicing borders
for the first rotten time
~ Douglas McDaniel
Iowa City, Iowa
http://mythville.blogspot.com/
http://mythvilleondemand.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/mythville
mythville@gmail.com
Sputnik Moment
Spoken like an angel of light
in the halls of Pandemonium,
purple ties, in harmonium,
Robespierre without peers,
silver tongued saint,
to the tainted, with silvery hair,
shadows taller than wind,
caught in corners,
making loud old sounds,
growing louder,
making the case, without debate,
as the illusive image flickers,
without debate,
mixing the media-phors
about nothing being funny,
about peace love understanding
holding hands across America
to all the sweet voices of nobodies,
silent majorities, loud-mouthed
minorities, frozen out, surrounding
blue-lit burn barrels, yearning
for the golden ghosts of yesteryear,
receiving instead, this Plutonic tonic,
with nothing but their imaginations,
all beer-soaked and dumbed down
to go with the drifts of currents,
mountains, prairies and stars
In the woods the mind
has much mistaken,
the currency of the re-awakened,
all mankind peering inside his apple,
his words written in two mirrors,
written down twice, eyes sympathetic
to the two faces of citified man,
Luddites locked out, being the divided
electronic icicles, turning red or blue,
waiting for the mail gone paperless,
to poets seeking heat from cornstalks
covered in snow, to laughing waters
flooding now, measured in GPS miles,
in cool and sleazy breezy smiles
And this perfect image,
with a different vision
for the Everyman, offers
an acre, a plot, a carnage
of a green and pleasant land,
where the clean air is unclean,
and the last waters, thundering mean,
with books to burn, words in earns,
facts gone to myth ... blown this kiss
with posts on the wall, unreadable
mega-bit tattooes and star bright
Twitter accounts, in aeons, gurus
keeping track of stock options,
riding in limousines, praying in their pines
of a dim-lit Sputnik rendered into far stars,
wishes in dreams gone to daylight footballs
in darkened Sunday afternoon bars
as light and time shines in two suns so bright,
not a dead star but a man made overflight,
searching for reasons, for something to say
they stuck around for ... a last tree,
a bit of grass, all caged behind bars
in this house of infinite mirrors,
the Saint has joined the sinners
~ Douglas McDaniel
Iowa City, Iowa
My Own Private Elbaho
Going down periscope
to chase away the snakes
I dream of an island
where the beautiful
muses wake
a sunny volcanic
spit where the blood
is washed from stones
and cloud-buffed skies
are imaginary tomes
for paupers, princes
kings and queens of old,
a place I'll now call
my private Elbaho
She dreams of green
magic mountains
where Solznenitzen
once roamed
and growled
about peanuts,
salt shakers,
peppers, pie and tea,
angry and set alone:
"She's a sweet muse
who seldom comes
to me, her hurt,
mere words,
mere soundless
bytes of sea,
mere thought,
faceless as
facelessness
can be ..."
She of mad hills,
winter thrills,
billed to gravity,
She who hides like spring
a secret Persiphone ...
The flowers on her
her breasts fuel
perfect company
as mourning mad
mountains, sunless
SAD disease ...
Buried in silence
beneath baddass
endless snows
she lives now happy
in her private Elbaho
~ Douglas McDaniel
Iowa City, Iowa
Not Another Parking Lot for Words
Made sure the windows
were all wide open
for this brittle haus warning,
God forbid the warming, should we
ever break dead with reclaiming
witches reclaiming their food
for thought and kindness I offered,
them never tasting the bread ...
They insisted they could save me
and then, the saving being done,
called me the devil, the devil,
the devil, three times,
before they were One ...
And compassion is a virtue
sold out in short supply,
gathered in plenty
And there you were, with my backlit
ghost behind the suffused
dark arts behind the computer
screen’s white apple byte light,
the difference between innocence
and knowledge being sub-atomic,
it’s positively Platonic,
allegorical, hysterical ...
when you ask for a cigarette
since it’s my personal policy
to only give out one Spirit
per hour to the hopeless ...
(I mean homeless) ... and if they
claim to have hope I give them three:
That’s how homeless hopelessness can be.
So it’s back to my parking lot for words,
worlds within worlds,
but way far from the gypsy cafes
as Napoleon, fresh face-i-fied,
sleepwalks into Starbucks to be reborn
in its iconic cup of Gaian
corporate glee, which may be good news,
just maybe ... since I saw
a Thunderbird in my dreams,
then his shirt logo of the same
damn military echelon of wings,
eagle spread winking,
he, a soldier sure, retired, moneyed,
yes, a super serene Baby Bomber ...
A crier of you know what? ...
Can’t you hear their birdseye cries,
they are, bling-winged batbirds who cry,
repacking themselves, after landing,
in their imperial cruiser esuvees:
I saw a documentary
on their disappearing, once,
on mah MTVeeee! I guess I need
them more than they need me.
Then one more comes in,
a walking zombie cell phone call
after parking a black hawk
Land Rover, gee ...
she has camo flag pants in tune
to those photos on the big electronic
BBS .. SBB...Bss...BS...Bs...BS...
of Iranian missile launches
all doctored up to be seen
by this property, this land
for you and me ...
(Hey man what’s the plan
what was that you sai-i-i-d
sun tan, sun man, drinking head,
lying there in bed?
You who tried to socialize
but couldn’t seem to find
what just what, Jethro,
you were looking fer,
that sumpin’
on your mind)
But a big heron circles
over Starbucks, wide white
sailing, neither failing
nor flailing
with black-tipped wings
... and just as strangely
I almost missed, the ponytailed
programmer in a Prius
as a potential friend
to send this give up, this smoke,
this one-per-hour cigarette of hope
to a guy wearing a turqoise bracelet: Hey! Hey!
Hey ...
I just got a medal in my dream:
A Thunderbird re-e-e-e-ward,
and another laugh, a smile,
from a strong blueish blonde blondee
bird driving a white trash Ford.
