Information Disease (for Vladimir Putin)

After seeing the morning light
through three motel room windows
the dog came out, trained by a member
of the Select Committee to Keep Me
From Doing Anything But Writing Poetry,
and in that morning blight, the red and yellow haze, 
degenerated all of mankind
into a dumbed down Cromagnon electric gun, 
that, blossoming into Cambridge Analytica,
into access to too much information, 
imagined itself into a slick of lies,
And just as fast, although less permanent,
in the corner of my eye, the painful strain of the deep,
caught up with conversation with the Russian ambassador, 
who sent a secret heiress donation for the Grand Old Party
and the NRA's unpleasant grip on the dominion of sin quaked, rattled, rolled and water vapor seeped up, toward the surface,
from underground and flowers, and idiocy was born,
it had a face and a name and an opaque plan to rule,
and then, booming louder, we all got younger, 
and the wind softened and the internet sent sex sighs
into the fog, thus metastasizing its own enemy: truth

Bermuda Triangulated (for Robert Anton Wilson)

For those about
to wake up
for their next
tropical depression:
I blow a kiss
and an antidote
loaded with Vitamin D

For my brothers
and sisters,
weak, picked on,
flipped on their backs
like doomed sea turtles
for the past twenty years:
I push a little blue button
issuing a satellite beep
causing instant pain relief

For a phony Noah's Ark
full of pixilated African animals
diving deep into twin lakes,
moving slow or fast,
enjoined at their hips:
I call up a might cloud,
concealing a thunderbird

For illegal immigrants
(as well as half-human aliens)
hiding like Apaches
in the motel rooms
of America: I send
a silent warning,
a three-hour head start,
initiating a two-year
launch sequence before
the power all goes off

For dangerous rip currents
building something together
in cascades of waves,
the top one silent, deadly:
a unified nomenclature,
be you rogue waves,
sneeker waves,
baddass high tides,
a roiling, boiling
but quite sexed up
good egg project
shaping smoother shores
so we can all learn
just a little bit more
under mostly cloudy skies

For all of the supposedly poisonous
under toads, intelligent horny toadies,
a tinted glass manufactured
by mere mortal men,
to hide behind
and therefore
to evolve anew
and grow

For all of the rest
of you angel hatchlings
in your fleshy husks:
for each, a single ticket
to ride, to sink and then fly,
riding high up in wood coffins,
rising up to the sea's surface,
like the meek in the Hopi bible
swimming with the shore

My Morning Moo

Fog rolls me out, then back in
dropped down the drain,
my brain, civically insane

Tide rolls in, then out
Listened to "Tainted Love,"
wondered what it was about

Amber alert
revolver
burnt toast on a rack

Tangiers, tiger,
stoned and stunted,
pacing the gated isle

Don't connect
to the music of regret,
not much hope for that yet

My eyes shine this way,
got dark at that,
some authority issues here

The marshmallow sky
seen only through a window,
to lie would be unwise

She is pretty over there,
in her green smock,
never meeting my mouth

Wish I could
go to sleep
touching her summer hair

Ode to the Homeless

Trying to kick the cigs
but the patch led to paranoia
as the watcher of my sleep
snoozed secretly as his cell phone
slipped from sad to sick,
every regret slipping into the dark
of my toss and turn,
rationally revealed
as the merely impossible existence
of mountains to be climbed
as the lady in leopard pajamas,
waiting for the transition light to change,
for the Latifa queen who left
telephonic computers
in the motel room
of her only friend
for the easy free electricity recharge,
moving on for another bus ride
to the Greyhound bus station
and the big bellied man with no shirt
sunned himself atop the highway overpass bridge
and a cluster of birds sang sweet warm winter songs
as the rising tide of crypto currency sank their boats,
the rising tide lifting some,
but all others drowned
and left behind in the tide

Boy oh boy, my boys and girls,
boredom is the devil to keep at bay,
and overstimulation rocked the nation
stunned into checkmate, mates,
and I gave my brown spotted black
Depot Bay pirate T-shirt,
stating, "The seas will be our empire,"
was given away to the lost Navajo
two days into sobriety
Boxed in illusion. Illusion boxed.
the citadel of concrete cracked
in harsh Southwestern light
filtered by the dust
of dinosaur remains
Got the psychiatrist on the line
as the eavesdroppers listened in
as they honed in for thought crimes
of me giving all my clothes away
and the arrogance
of the Brahman innkeeper
spun dry the mourning morning
Daylong you can her the la de da
of motorists passing buy
in the moving tombs
of wheels and metal and chrome
Horseman, pass on by,
since the walking dead
refuse to meet our eyes

Before the Wall

Winning fame through fine language,
clever as a fool outside the castle walls,
somewhere between windswept Winslow
and grey Purgatory and dapper Dante's hell,
I watched the petrified forest sink and melt,
the sun sank and the sea turned back,
then returned as a tsunami,
swallowing the entire cities
of Periander, Segeum and Cleophon,
leaving to float the caskets and tomb flowers

We spoke in epithets, cursed spells in cursive,
ran from the lion, speaking in tongues, no verses
for Eve or Adam, up a tree, down a canyon,
hiding behind browned and heat-burdened leaves,
making a special dinner for the snake,
jumping Jake Satan, who was not so bad,
once you got to know him,
his cup running over the brim,
and we, forced to be deaf,
suffered in the silence
of the One True Lord!

Before the rhinoceros was made white,
before Eden was made less recognizable,
before the first stones were cracked and stacked,
before the animals lost their voice,
of the first drum, the musical tones,
before the first sunset was made diffuse by dust,
and the double-hearted angels
made portals for rights of passage,
I walked lonely and isolated,
down rows of bright tulips and roses

Fortified against the relapse,
leaning toward resistence,
nontheless surrendered, rested,
before the precautionary comfort
of the pill yet to be invented

Thy Father's Needs

In the secret agent shades
along the dirty boulevard,
the disquieted boys try
to hunt down new divas
with energies circling,
tryin' not to rust

As the shadows get longer
no longer rough
is no longer enough
and the divine fems
keep in their corners
reportin' on their formers

Thy father's needs
Thy father's needs
Thy father's needs
cause the earth
to bleed

Who is left or right
of the center
keep untying hearts
and poisoned darts
together feelin'

funny about the weather

And the Overlord plays
his fiddle to bards split
right down the middle
letting the dust of fast
polarities just plain settle


Thy father's needs
Thy father's needs
Thy father's needs
just suck the rust
off the gristy griddle

There's a guy here
waitin' for the gals
to complete their
conversations
dreamin' of their
own truths to private
Cherokee nations,
Cherokee people
as wedding bells ring
and a divided nation
fails to swing or sing
on either wing

Thy father's needs
Thy father's needs
Thy father's needs
boilin' up corn seeds
to cut all those Joans
of Arc but deep

Don't you feel
O so incomplete
due to thy Father's needs

Thy father's needs
Thy Father's needs
dryin' corn seeds
O so incomplete
to his dirty deeds
his dirty deeds
crossed up
cotton seeds

Ozo incomplete
Ozo incomplete
Ozo incomplete
to thy father's needs
thy father's needs
cut down those weeds
let it all just bleed
for Thy father's needs

Thy Father's needs
Thy father's needs
the whole damn earth
plain gone to seed

Daydream While Standing in Line at Starbucks Blues

The trouble
with complaining
about overpopulation
is the failure to admit
your own existence
is part of the problem

We who are so intimately
attuned to the primacy of words
may be falsely misled
by the callousness of those
who are not, since they are
distracted by the looming
or evading orb of dark before them,
and, lacking more time, are merely
enforcing their seasons of regret
upon us; see and being, darkness,
no light, except for the kind
that appears with heavy, closed,
lidded eyes, searching for the one
true source of the sun, finding none

Oh, sorry, didn't want cream,

and I don't need to suck on a straw

for that

Dinner Time at the Deluge

She looks out the window
while doing the dishes
Through curtains purchased at Walmart
Through a window during the shifting seasons
of spring and fall she can look across the great corn fields
of  southeast Iowa and view the funnel clouds
moving in from the west
Through to creatures great and small,
as well as straight toward a field,
across the wide driveway,
covered in dented, smashed-in, rusting,
demolition derby vehicles,
without tires, up in blocks, or, on their sides,
the prized possessions of the experienced, the unafraid
Gear head men
with minds for growing maize and working the system,
Martian farmers and their silos that moan
and wail on into the day and night,
their great insect-like machines
mulching and churning and harvesting the land,
From any direction is nothing but cornfields for fifty miles
And up that driveway, a kind of truck stop for the locals,
since she makes breakfast
for banana bunches of the good ol boys every day
She's still got her figure, you know. In fact, she's pretty fine.
With long brown farm girl hair a bit shreddy
from ceaseless moving
for a couple of decades now,
since the kids were born.
Just as the hammer
is pounding red steak chops,
tenderizing it.
There she is, looking out that window,
noticing a raven on top of the little house on the prairie,
Okay, Okay, it's just a barnominium:
She'll never get the word
that her neighbor's daughter died
in the opiod epidemic
after a bitter cold night
walking the street
in West Virginia

Death of a Newspaperman

Dream of dying at the desk,
after a couple of decades
of walking out for a cig
as the main form
of exercise

Dream of winning the Pulitzer
due to the accident of history
of being at the wrong place
at the right time

Death of Ben Bradley
hard boiled but suave,
better as Jason Robards
than Tom Hanks,
long in the tooth
for the truth,
yelling from the elevator,
"Get it right!"

Dead while typing a word,
head dropping on the keyboard,
responding to a thank you note,
that rare thud of recognition

Fired up by Lou Grant
and the Pentagon Papers,
the thought of making a difference
in need of nicotine, ink stained
into delusion by the deadline

Born to be the private I
in the public eye,
slouching into the grocery store
for a freeze-dried pizza,
pressured by money mad spouses
to go into public relations

The spinning around of coworkers,
moved on to puzzle piece places,
chasing the fantasy, used like fuel,
used like verbs carefully considered,
spit out nouns sticking on the concrete

Friend of cops and criminals,
a lifetime of naked fearlessness,
with an ear to the ground
worried into a cadaver
over concerns it rang real

Channeled into a narrow closet,
in the White House briefing room
listening to a huckabilly
yawl denunciations and falsehoods,
mostly for cable teevee

The reporter died here
in the desert of the destitute,
during the electronic swarm
of hive bees and mad bloggers

Woodstein and Orwell and Animal
and Sally Field and rushing
to the office for the single fact
that makes it all worthwhile

Ghosted into a low groaning hum
like a coal miner or puppeteer,
the obituary was quite kind,
the mundane tick of the clock
is what he survived

Guess I Missed the Political Shows (For Chuck Todd)

Sick morning birds in the Sonoran Sunrise

during the Sunday dawning season of the tweets

in anticipation of the endless end of the world

that begins tomorrow consistently amplified

by the bats and thirsty ants disturbed by daily radar,

by the Green Belt ducks by the pool sipping on chlorine

Back East the ice is softened, the ground is soaked,

as the talking heads put on their pancake batter,

try to memorize talking points on single sheets,

pouring sugar and syrup

down blue and red breasted throats

while the birds of this southwestern city

chirp in the symphony of monkeys

falling from the sky

and mating season

is thrown off the rails

in the human quake

Morning now and they are loud

coast to coast, harmonizing, slow roasted,

in the cacophony of disconcertment

and the polar shift of wind

sucks the sweat of all labors

into the air and drops it down from a cloud

on the Kansan plain, shredding a trailer park

as the insurance agents turn off their phones

and wounded sailors sigh at the sound of basketball

The canopy of trees we seldom look up to see

The aviary of green leaves, thick trunks,

grown around the walls, despite the apartment complexities,

as suburban Thoreau picks on orange from a front yard,

wondering how long it takes the peel to decompose

if dropped for the next sixty years of ever cracking sidewalk

And the tweet goes on as the coffee dreams us awake

And the eyeliner girls doze in weekend hangovers

And the casino lights have all gone cold

And the lonely lost shepherds chase their scattered sheep

And the personal items, lost lighters, broken bracelets

are discovered by the sunrise, as the day's new wheels

grind the leftovers into a glittering of everlasting dust

They are on now, the clattering news champions

but the coo of the white owl in the trees,

the panic in the swirling electronic hive,

is a found then lost in a transcendent moment of rest

Soon enough we wonder how will we fill our day,

will our shopping carts be filled in the land of plenty,

with plastic bottles destined to float in the sea

on an island the size of Texas, but now, just now,

the dot of love is connecting to the eternal line,

the spring is working overtime

The rumor is the raspberry has no soul

The rumor is mankind only knows heaven

Yet precarious life up and down the food chain

knows nothing more than the dome of God

fading blue to whitewash, then back into stars,

and that is more than enough from the beginning

to the end of the next night, when the chorus of conceit

blows on smoking wings to pat down the dumpster fire

we like to call Monday, as the highway roar rises

stirring the dirt into the dumb light

~ Scottsdale, Arizona

Please Write Us a Greed Poem

Suds in the spotty water
painting the sea with pee
Moby Dick chunking out the air drain
Melville stolen blubber beast into fiction
then oil was discovered underground
Whale ships became museums, so did we

Dissolve the fat in smoothie drinks
the sugar is the antidote the past
the dream is the screenplay
but what the fuck is the third act
Can't write the word "penis" but there it is
the womb always runs toward the money

Can't fault the soccer mommy
for escaping into the security state
Her secret is back there, at the pawn shop,
in rows of red, white and blue guitars
Living on the edge of Brit TV detective
amusements upon the intimacy of strangulation

Poor Laws re-enacted, the "Lion King" redacted
The guns of London and the industrial revolution
She cradles us in liberty as the lathe cuts and runs
Genocide fences for the hunt, the machine hums,
trickling up the U.S. Stock exchange, tisk tisking
the rising crime rate on the smart phone, ringing

Revolution, evolution, auto-tuned into resistance
Who would ever risk losing the anti-tax clicks
when somewhere in the dark, baby kicks,
behind the wooden door without a nob
Teilhard de Chardin is knocking from the Noosphere
in the white blanks enveloping what we call poetry

The Eponymous Economist (for Paul Ryan)

Might as well call it a day

as in punt

run to the sidelines

Got a place to hide

eat the cheese

There's always the Packers

The horse has left the barn

None of the mavericky said nay

Why should I?

Marx was right

but his followers had guns

Engels is left but Stalin blocked the sun

They are clapping at the end of the day

at the American stock exchange

because a stately mansion

in the remote Rocky mountains

sold for millions and billions

of barrels of red ink

Currents of rust

rivulets of plastic

a trickle down economics

runs to the ocean

but sinks in the sand

in the Rio Grande

Deregulation is a vial

in the Book of Revelations

Only thing you need

are fewer words

to resonate the dumbing down

The lord laughs with the rich

which is why it's okay

For the esteemed Senator from Oklahoma

to look away from the homeless man

sleeping by the stairs at Washington Square

as the limousine passed on by

Look away

Look away

The land of cotton

Look away

No land left to give away

Property is theft is superior violence

We can get fries with that

but your going to have to pay

out of pocket for your heart attack

Don't answer the phone

It's only a robo call

The Gipper is clutching a mean memo

from David Stockman

who reinvented

English Poor Laws

So Tiny Tim

can't get ruby red slippers

Pawning his crutches will pay for a forced drug test

The player piano has gone out of tune

Money is a green cloud

passing over the head

of Milton Friedman

paid in cash by artificial intelligence

beaming a bribe passed

beneath an Italian mob marble table

passing through the sky

a digital sea of endless greed

Who the fuck is Dickens?

Ayn and Benito and Adolf

retrofit the classics

for planet tipped over

by a zillion brain dead end jobs

building a white yacht

for Noah at the nosh

roasting endangered species

instead of a safety net

for the looming flood

of Koch addict funds

When it all comes crashing

I told you so

will be a good

presidential

campaign

slogan

The Report from New Oblivia (Verde Valley Blues)

On the fringes of Cottonwood, Arizona,

along the dusty steppes 

of the car part end of town,

the red and black winged wasp

charges into its three-door bunker

pulling out chunks of red dirt

made of iron old as God

as grasses dry in cutting wind

and ants go one-quarter across

the cracked sidewalk, that mad world,

our mutual hallucinated nation,

hunting hard for fresh water,

finding none, needing more,

scattering wild at the country store,

and the black hawk call down

from the north reels from burning

scents of summer breezes

hurled from solar salts

from down south, the Baja,

the whistle through the window

indicates the Wednesday Mad Hatter

is going to wonder from behind insulated

chain stores with diminishing returns:

Maybe, today, tax forms will arrive

in time to beat the trucks

loading for a flood

Too Many Horses (Why I Don't Drive)

Automobiles owned,

driven and reacted to,

starting with the one

that ran over my dog,

but not limited to,

includes this mortal list

of mechanical turmoil:

One 1965 Ford Mustang,

which my dad owned

as a shiny Great Society driver.

We put ice in the air conditioner

and it melted into cold air

from Texas to Arizona.

One green Oldsmobile stationwagon,

my mom's, which we drove from Dallas

to the far west corner of Wyoming

right at the dawning of the Age of Aquarius

into the denouement of a late 70s green bomb,

a handover in high school. Mark Hirte,

my so-called neighborhood friend,

put dog shit on my windshield once,

but I forgave him after he died

in a restaurant robbery.

I pass by all apparently random,

thoughtless acts. Not my job

to write people up for transitional,

indiscretions.

One highly efficient blue Toyota Corolla,

four-door, another hand me down,

which I drove to college in Arizona,

then to a grisly death toward a U2 show,

where the real streets have no name,

then got married, went off the edge

of the financial world. Oblivion bound,

oh, the vast emptiness I have found.

One hitchhike out of that desert,

home in somebody else's white truck,

the wind in our hair, grit in our teeth.

In other people's cars I get careless and free.

Though, at times, my century makes me

go for the brake on the passenger's side.

Hard to trust when your are co-commuting

on the drag strip of fools.

One series of turnover cars, gas guzzlers,

four-door, family friendly, snow weary,

lacerated dents over one wheel well,

chains coming apart in a storm,

the motor a drum of pain on the paint.

One red Nissan truck, a mighty steel stead,

drove me from shifty Phoenix to New England,

out of danger I, the rising Phoenix, out of danger,

into trouble, into a world of need.

One silver Datsun, sporty, or so I believed,

kept me well until the ghost in the machine,

the Kachina spirit of my dead mother,

blew a motor for lack of oil. Death to husk,

no oil to very little soil. Sold it for one-hundred

single dollar bills.

All the high-end hijinks

of Porches and Jags,

all rented to deceive me, so I bought

a Volkswagon Rabbit, with plates

that rang, "Live free or die!" May oui!

Part of my mapped-out plan for eternity.

Bought it for two hundred dollars

as an act of rebellion against

the smog-belching stink.

One Taurus, circa '94,

forty miles one way to work,

a lifetime to get back,

the stereo blasting a skin

to shield me from the world,

until the day that I,

a red bull in a colonial china shop,

got too many horses spinning

in my head.

Oh, the little hobbit hole

expectations of me.

One two-thousand dollar Honda Civic,

belching smoke because, truthfully,

I know nothing about engines,

only the high-beam up ahead.

Now I have to fix it. That's my responsibility.

The heart burns fuel, and it's expensive,

the engine wears down with each little decision,

each bump, each turn, cracking the crankcase,

chipping the paint around the chrome,

the crunch of each microbe

cracking the windshield

in a terrifying roar

only mites can hear,

the mirror getting dull,

dislodged, dangerously so.

Then the door handle breaks.

I mean, it's cheap stuff, this flesh,

The tires will eventually go flat, or worse,

and before you are there, here, or anywhere,

this thing, this life is just a shell of scars,

reminders of cautionary tales to tell.

An Official Statement from Rodrigo et Exciso Industries

We most humbly apologize

for the series of unfortunate events

leading to the catastrophic batch

of pancake mix products

used to sanctify your

national rituals

Although, for reasons

beyond our control,

as well as those we can,

we cannot fully divulge, recite,

enunciate or simply explain

those circumstances leading

to the incidents in question,

our hearts got out to the families

of those who experienced

death or discomfort or both

from the clearly overzealous

applications of our potions, mixes

and accessories

We also thank your priesthood

and supporting public officials

for their patience and continued

business

Those relationships mean everything

to us because Rodrigo et Exciso Industries

is, if nothing else, a people place

We are proud the many denominations

of your faith have chosen our pancake mix

and asundry gifts and necessary toggles,

brushes and rubs are so much a part

of your holy houses

Your worship means the world to us

As you can imagine

those behind the so-called

“pancake plot” have been

severely punished

You can trust us on that score

While, certainly, the regrettable fallout

over the unfortunate event has been

trying for both of our nations,

our methods against the miscreants

were for more painful, and, long-lasting

than those horrors felt, in the last hours

by their victims

We at Rodrigo et Exciso Industries

remain supremely satisfied

with the high quality of our

pancake mixtures, creams

and agents for fast relief

Working closely now

with your priests and personages

of high renown who have paid us,

handsomely,

for your patronage,

we have made great improvements

to our mixtures, creams, fixtures,

accessories and agents for fast belief,

as well as our security measures to ensure

the purity of our products and applications:

The Make-a-Mix Spirit Cleanse causes

no more moaning excess, rapid heart rates,

vomiting, heaves, sores

and so any further anxiety

is no longer necessary

Which means our products

can be used in your rituals

without any more tumult

or torture than is

absolutely necessary

No more stigma

No more stain

Blood is no longer

needed as a substitute

for milk, whiskey, or water

(depending on the denomination):

A graft of skin will do

And when it’s time

to put your ass in the air

to receive our golden spike,

there will be plenty of time

(and advanced notice)

for you to become mortal,

wounded, of plaster and still

Flat Earth Theory (A Round Table Discussion)

The fact is, the Earth is still. Stunned, in fact,

there is no wind, another than the big fan,

since your argument indicates nothing less

than the coming of another dark age

What can we ascertain of love?

A survival drive, a spark of a star

seeking a guarantee the light

will never die

What we don't know

is everything surrounding

the fractal of what we do

I cannot upload

fifty thousand years

of learning fire burns

and water cools

in a moment of you

closing your eyes

only to deny

the sun of Osiris

in the magical gauze

of the orb beyond the lid

You are quite insistent

but persistence is not proof,

only the tyranny of celestial skys

where the glint of light off a leaf,

relatively speaking

is more profound than Saturn

Hardly fits the pattern

of even the sly screen

we peer into

as our minds go

softer, glowing less,

in the shrunken universe

of the disembodied

voices of doubt

Departures (Don't Wake the Landlord)

The first time the mining boss

had so choked us off, after the ranchers shot our dog,

that we loaded up the truck and headed down the hill,

racing into hell for safety

See no evil in listening to my desert noir

Since I'm asking the Lord for safety

in the mercy of the miracle film score

Another time she said

I was possessed by the devil

and we escaped the seaport town

racing to hell for safety, again,

since your mind was gone

and I had to lose everything

to fill our days with broken glass

and the beads of trust

scattered in the sand by the sea

Then there was that time

you pissed off the landlord

Said you were leaving since

he couldn't keep the trains passing by

from shaking off the paints chips

and plaster from the ceilings and dingy walls

The sheriffs came from miles around

trying to figure out that money you'd found

We tried to get out of town without a sound

but the cat scittered up into the attic

in that long forgotten plains Iowa town

So we had to return the very next day

but where the cat had gone no one could say

Churned by the Mill the Hunter Takes His Aim

Pulling back on the bow

hidden from the self-imposed

exile from the world,

ground to a halt

the pillar and his salt,

feet burning

from the endless day

at the wheel

Now comes a song

etched in the dirty air,

the invisible wall

The typo for the point

about many brushes with death,

the mistakes to attest,

a thousand victories

over the orb,

a thousand losses,

and so he's even:

One kiss to come

to forget about her flesh,

or I can lose myself

in the hourly astronomies,

I guess

That an arrow finds its aim

once or two or three times

in a man's life,

is the star we do annoint

in the refracted light

of second sight

Tornado Food Towns (The Prophecy)

We navigated the great wide American plains

avoiding the chimerical swirl of the turbulence

by taking the back roads and byways

of the sky, running from the grief, you and I

With just enough gas to make it to

some cantaloupe country town

to sleep in a dirty motel room

as the sirens twisted on by

No we were not making good time,

instead killing the moments

and by the time we got to Sioux City,

you tried to kick your way

through the U-Haul door

in the madness of the memories

you never could embrace

The sky was red and green as my genetic memory

fed the agonized stress of the magical marble:

So hell, I was swirling, too

thinking of Dorothy knocked silly

by the door and the way

my grandfather's family

was annihilated in West Texas

This fear of storms is just a test, I guess

We ducked for the basement

and hoped for the best

The Dog Park (And Other Rules of Cyberspace)

You hurl out the door

sniffing for rabbits,

for the Alice in Wonderland hole,

dark in scent, stopping

to make your mark

in all of the usual places,

the parking lot covered

in candy wrappers,

the broken foolery of people

who never knew any better,

who when the black age broke

they hid from the spotlights

of the tigers hunting

for human flesh

of code that is their law

We'd get to the green embankment

and there would be a pause

and all I could think of was

getting to the ritual gate,

the tricky passage way,

the metal see-through bolt

we negotiated,

each man and animal

with their own interpretations

with their own explications

of the same light of the day

and then I would set you loose

and you would set me free

and you would run away

in that see-saw way of yours

while I sat on a bench,

had a smoke and then a prayer

Then would day the wagging whisperer

told me the multiplication tables were coming:

The organizers, the lawyers, the invisible watchers

The orange cones appeared first,

then yellow tape, spikes in the ground

mindless indicators, stunning our speech

into the silence, little hand held devices

saying you can walk here

but you can't walk there

but the shepherd

doesn't know how to read

and angels will do what angels will do

and this seemed funny to me

and my sense of anarchy,

as I shook my head,

laughing, mocking them,

living in the dream

and the nagging feeling

my brothers and sisters

would never get me,

delineated me, the vessel of

dualistic half empty

as you crossed the lines,

since dogs will do

what dogs will do

There was some beef

about grass,

the fenced-in yard

of social control,

and one day thinking

outside of the box,

looking in,

across the field the sprinklers

set the place on fire,

and all the beasts began to run and roar

and the guys with bald heads

leaned into one another,

pushing for a fight,

since the swirl of fangs

turned the blocked out space

into the wrestling cage:

Too many canine cannibals

scratching in their corners,

unyielding into the waste

of the iron-cut lawns,

the broken sprinkler heads,

the bashed in mesh of bent fences,

the spiritual need

to break through the bough

Nobody told the creek in the cave

it couldn't keep on running

or the wind to stream

through the mesh
or that amazing
radar nose of yours
giving it the sniff test