Death in Motion

We met there,
In a forest of others.
I closed my eyes and reached for a black stone submerged in the dark water;
Sometimes black is so delicately constructed.
But with my touch the explosion of gunfire flashed.
Then I could hear and smell more clearly the death and life of shotgunned ducks,
of the disgusting jubilance of destruction: when the hunter injects the heroin
of the not-being-prey.

let them pretend but not us:
the animal trembling is all around us,
in between the air of each shared breath

and no amount of canyon-yelling or
other-killing will quench it

the dark forest world:
the rush of birds flushed out
just before the death-dive

what is it like to be comfortable in flight
then to plunge half-dead where nothing is centered upon you
like leaping into the pavement
from 20 stories but when you hit it is nothing but ordinary;
cheers even erupt - it's a celebration

and something beautiful has died in full motion:
nothing a photograph could hope to capture
but like a bird's beating heart,
slowly arcing downward to towards death.

you are beautiful you are beautiful

that is why they kill you
isn't it?

-Thomas Goss

Stones Speak of the Earthless Sky

Memory hasn't a chord of what the family has lost.
For centuries village ancestors potlached salmon's
return so we could dance on the water like bugs.

Today the stones quit asking not to betray
their ceremonies, our ears deaf to their winter
story of mountain, river, cormorant, red-flowering

currant. Our car tracks trample their children
who vanish down the street like moonlight
into gutters, our abbreviated hours.

Topaz stones brought us dream circles in order
to never forget where the earth's heart cracked,
our shadows became ant fodder; we laughed

like flies and drank the blood from mirrors.
Flint raised his arm to the hummingbird's
fragrances, healing our eyes, spiky as sea urchins.

We ground Flint to a machine that exploded
with roadkill floating in toxins.
From a cave, ancestor stones gave us the cells

of trout, madrona, butterfly, eagle and grizzly,
gave us our birth song born of the sea,
gave us eagle feathers for the sunrise dance.

We chose instead to shoot the spotted-owl
from its borderless clarity,
turn off life like a video, including ours.

-Duane Niatum

you're too far away

Did I get to sleep today?
didn’t i?
Is there enough light?
I can’t see
i’m tired or i’ve misplaced my glasses

I can’t sleep
it’s dark i think but
theres light inside my stomach
and it shines on the back of my eyelids
or else someones making noise
are you making noise?

No, you’re too far away
and any noise you make is irrelevent
or strange when it reaches me
or at least
i couldnt dream of responding
its too tight or narrow
it wasn’t built with someone of my size in mind
how about my size? everythings changing and i cant tell a nickel from a dime
How should I remember what it looked like?

You’re too far away and it feels like arrows
I’m not at home
I have no home.
Are you home?

I met a nice woman with a nice ass
She winked at me and not too many people wink
my hands hurt they’re covered in splinters
wrapped in gauze cut bandages and packing tape?
no
some blisters and some bleeding only
but they feels like im not there for you

where are you?
are you home? where should i put these beauty supplies?
you’re BEAUTIFUL
god damnit you’re so fucking BEAUTIFUL
theres no words i couldnt tell you
im slipping from the page
theres too much
i want to get fucked up and forget all about this but tomorrow these words will still be here

I’m the most important thing in the world to you
and to my body
its too late
its personified
its eating me away im rotting like meat
im meat like rotting

im too much concrete in too little space
and im starting to set

my chemicals are punchlines and it hurts my feelings
my punchlines hurt me
ow
FUCK
SHIT
UP
i wish i was drunk i wish i was stoned i wish i was fucked up i wish i was trashed i wish i was wasted i wish i pissed myself
my stomach is full of piss and my bladder is full of lead
Help me!
Call a doctor!

pens scratch itches
i have nothing to write down but
i think the sound of the pen against the paper is
keeping me from killing myself
so instead i use words
even though words and scratch pen noises
are entirely different things

I don’t know if the average person could tell the difference
even if their life depended on it
like mine does

I don’t want music
You’re too far away
I don’t want a cigarette
You’re too far away
I don’t want to eat fish
its flakey and it tastes like sedimentary rock
You’re too far away
I dont want to make toast
You’re too far away
I don’t want to put sandals on
You’re too far away
I don’t want to spend my money
I don’t want to save my money
You’re too far away
I don’t want to miss you
You’re too far away
I don’t want to do pull ups or shovel shit or split wood or drink coffee or smoke a cigarette or play guitar or laugh in your face
You’re too far away
I don’t want to have a cigarette
You’re too far away

You live like me I think
in boxes and in between walls
we’re human being insulation
insulating human being bones
my bones will not give my body up
it comes off in strips like boy jerky
kid fabric
waste product

metal is sick
the stainless steel is ill and
ceramic tiles are filled with disease when they get wet

Are you sick?
I miss you
come back
im sorry
im sorry
i cant believe im doing this to you

does this count as fabric? i still cant tell but
this time i still dont care
i mean
this time it seems like it might be glass
or plastic
or maybe it’s water or a cricket
or a stream or a peice of paper
loose leaf like autumn

why am i doing this?
it makes me feel cold
its cold in here and its not worth it
you’re too far away

When I read these words tomorrow
some of them will be good words
and some of them will be bad words
and none of them will be true
that’ll take years

It’ll take a year and a half for you to live with me.

in half a year it’ll take a year
and in a year it’ll take half a year
how many years is this going to take?
you’re too far away

now I’m starting to feel as if
I’ve brushed my teeth and I’m heading for bed
you’re still too far away
but if you arent here today
you might be tomorrow
I can’t prove otherwise
I’m going to brush my teeth
and take off my pants for you
roll a cigarette for you
close my eyes for you
all it takes is eyelids and the years arent even there
the miles arent even there
and its not too dark to see
or too bright to think
the music turns off and the lights go out
the animals all stop
and you’re too far away
the lights all go out
and you’re too far away
I love you and
you’re too far away

but at least you’re somewhere
i’m always losing important things
because i forget all about them
but i know where you are

-garbage juice

Havasupai Medicine Song

The land we were given
is right here,
right here.
Red rock
streaked with brown
shooting up high
all round our home.
Red rock
shooting up high
right here.
A spring will always be there
down at its foot.
From way back
it is ours.
Right down
the center of our land
a line moves,
bright blue-green.
This is what I'm thinking.
At the edge of the water
cattails appear,
bright blue-green,
all round the water.
This is what I'm thinking.
At the edge of the water
silt is being laid down
in ripples.
This is what I'm thinking.
Water skaters walk,
gliding, gliding.
This is what I'm thinking.
Water grasses growing,
bright blue-green
under the water,
waving, waving
This is what I'm thinking:
Under the water
tiny pebbles.
Flowing over them
the water we drink.
The water is gliding toward the north,
into the distance, beyond our sight.
This is what I'm thinking.
We have arrived here.
An illness.
I sit down,
I sing myself a song.
This is what I'm thinking:
A medicine spirit,
a healer,
I am the same.
An illness.
I sit down.
I sing myself a song.
The things I have named
I leave behind.
This is what I'm thinking.
We arrive there.
We are leaving the canyon.
Out on the rim
horses that are mine.
They roam there
at the junipers,
where the junipers are straight,
and low.
They are right there,
horses that are mine
are gathered there.
This is what I'm thinking.
Here we arrive, then
we swing back down,
moving back down the rocks,
white rocks streaked with brown.
Down at the foot
a spring will always be there,
a spring that heals,
it is right there.
My horses drink the water
that is there.
White rock streaked with brown
shooting up high
is right there.
There is my horses trail,
zigzagging right down the center,
the color of dust.
It leads to
the source.
It is right here.
That is what I'm thinking.
And now we arrive
down in the canyon,
red rocks,
down in the canyon,
they are right here,
down in the canyon,
red rocks, low down,
they are right here.
Here I walk,
I go alone.
This is what I'm thinking.
Red rocks, streaked with brown,
shooting up high.
It is right here,
down at the foot,
red rocks, boulders
streaked with brown.
They are right here.
My illness is absorbed,
right here.
I will this to be.
I will this to be.

Celebration

I want to fill my house with people
to drown out the silence and lonliness
to fill up the spaces and
ooze in the cracks
- pour food into their bodies
and fill their minds with loving music
and hug and laugh and cry
then sigh
when they leave

-Denise Coney

Hypnotized

So that's how you found me
Rain falling around me
Lookin down at a worm
With a long way to go
And the traffic was hissing by
And i was homesick
And i was high

I was surrounded by a language
In which i could say only hello
And thank you very much
But you spoke so i could understand
And i drew a treasure map on your hand

And you were no picnic
You were no prize
But you had just enough pathos
To keep me hypnotized
Hypnotized

The map led to an island
In a sea of store-bought dreams
Where soulless singers sang
Over beats built by machines

And lovely girls were hovering
Above my head like gulls
With their long slender necks
And their delicate skulls

And i was no picnic
I was no prize
But i had just enough sweetness
To keep you hypnotized
Hypnotized

So that's how you found me
Rain falling around me
Lookin down at a worm
With a long way to go

-Ani DiFranco

I believe

i believe misogyny and patriarchy are closet homo lovers
and they screw over their sisters cause they’re scared to screw each other.
i believe harriet tubman should be on the dollar bill
we’ve had our fill of white boy faces
time to change places.
i believe hilary, not bill, should have worn the crown
they could have learned from jack and jill
which one would break it and fall down.
i believe there are too many lonely lesbians looking for a lover
and if some would lift their cool masks maybe they would find each other.
i believe people and products both need less packaging
cause bullshit is still bullshit when you pull off all the wrapping.
i believe people are see-through
if you hold em up to the light
i believe people are enlightening
if you plug em in right.
i believe our system is a love affair between the up and upper classes
cause it’s easy to get screwed when you’re just raping all the masses
i believe diet coke is liquid steel
i believe too many women
drink their meal.
i believe in survival of the fittest--
if you’re ranking members of a gym
but if you’re talking about the human club, you gotta let everybody in.
i believe you should learn more than one language
you should learn to talk in tongues and lips
i believe in nipples and skin and toes and hips.
i believe in noise from teeth and throats
and cunts
the noise of poetry, music, laughter, after screaming cunnilingus.
i believe women are sexy
without makeup or clothes
i believe women are sexy
when they’re reciting prose
i don’t believe in horoscopes,
fortune, fate, luck, or chance
i believe sometimes shit works out
just cause of circumstance.
so i believe if you call the wrong number
you should talk for a while
you might like em more than
who you meant to dial.
i believe small talk is for small people
who have nothing much to say
if you really think it’s so nice out,
shut up and go enjoy the fucking day
i believe wall street invented
the criminal mentality
the easter bunny laid
mandatory heterosexuality
i believe mutual masturbation makes a lot of sense
i don’t believe in a white picket fence
i believe in picking fights and picketing riot dykes
i believe in loving in groups,
i believe in loving alone.
i believe in hardship, in travelling
through hard shit
then i believe in coming home.
i believe some wives find their husbands boring
and they picture women naked
while those boys are snoring
i believe men need to revolutionize
themselves or they’ll see
all those wives kissing jill sobule and me.
i believe there are more buttons
and more clever bumper stickers every day
and less and less sticking
to what they have to say
more recycling of garbage,
more recycling of cash
it all ends up in the same bin --
with all the white corporate trash.
i believe there are too many babies
and too many weddings and too many headings
that started with Monica
i believe post-gay is presumptious
just plain gay functions.
i don’t believe in ex-gay
i believe trent lott should be b.b. gun-shot
ex-punged from this term before
the thousand years he’s got left
i believe barbie should be used in anatomy class
as a perfect bag of bones
then taken to biogenetics
as an argument against clones.
i believe cell phone culture is ridiculous
imprisoning us in the cell of a social fetish
i believe baby dolls should have realistic clits.
so baby dykes can start getting used to it.
and i believed the guy i waited on today
who said i’m one hundred percent nice
i don’t bite
i said i believe you sir and i’ll take the beer
can you believe i’m one hundred percent queer
and i talk it and i teach it
and i poet and i preach it
and I hold it and I mold it
and I know it so I give it.
cause I’m sure that I believe
i’m still learning how to live it.

-Alix Olson

At Blackwater Pond

At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have
settled
after a night of rain.
I dip my cupped hands. I drink
a long time. It tastes
like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold
into my body, waking the bones. I hear them
deep inside me, whispering
oh what is that beautiful thing
that just happened?

-Mary Oliver

HAVE YOU KILLED FOR YOUR MAN TODAY

In these hands, the cities; in my weather, the armies
Of better things than die
To the scaly music of war.

The different men, who are dead,
Had cunning; they sought green lives
In a world blacker than your world;
But you have nourished the taste of sickness
Until all other tastes are dull in your mouths;
It is only we who stand outside the steaming tents
Of hypocrisy & murder
Who are "sick" --
This is the health you want.

Yours is the health of the pig which roots up
The vines that would give him food;
Ours is the sickness of the deer which is shot
Because it is the activity of hunters to shoot him.

In your hands, the cities, in my world, the marching
Of nobler feet than walk down a road
Deep with the corpses of every sane & beautiful thing.

-Kenneth Patchen

the cat fluffs his fur
and tries to avoid the cold
of his own shadow

-Perdita Finn

78%H2O

when the joy had left your body
and you were locked in to your own thoughts
you used to love to sit by the water
and watch it lapping on the rocks
and every time you put your feet in
you'd cry out and you would pray
but it's all downhill from here baby
so naturally, i can't stay

first you'll roll your eyes to heaven
say you never had love so divine
but it will go from
more than ever
to not enough
in no time
you will push and
you will push un-
til you push me away
i hear you cry out for your water
and i know you'll curse it someday

i guess for me
there's been a few
who've walked up smiling
and drawn a line
between so far
and from now on
yes a big glowing
line in time
and i've been disappointed
i've been heartbroken
yes i too have
loved from afar
but we are 78% water
even our pumping hearts

-Ani DiFranco

Get it?

Get beat up on TV squirming on the ground for driving irregular
Get bombed in Philadelphia by helicopters with your little babies
Get kicked in the street by Newark police and charged w/riot
Get assassinated by a jerk while FBI sleeps with itself
Get shot by a stringer for the CIA & blame it on Fair Play for Cuba Committee
Get bumped off by an errandboy for Cuban drug kingpins, friend of the Feds & Dallas cops
Get caught paying off Contras with coke money while Acting U.S. Drug War Czar
Get busted for overcharging Iranians on secret warplane sales
Get convicted of lying to Congress about off-the-shelf dirty wars in Central America
Get 12 billion dollars for a drug bureaucracy and double the number of addicts
Get a million people in prison in the land of the free
Get the electric chair & gas chamber for unpopular crimes
Organize Citizens for Decency Through Law rob your own phony bank several billion dollars get sent to jail

-Allen Ginsberg
May 1992
New York

Incident

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee;
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

-Countee Cullen

from the jailhouse sink
the water comes out so clear
I feel cool by it

-Jakko Medina

Rosh Hashana

Even after the murder
of the child Muhammad on Rosh HaShanah
the paper didn't go black.
In the same water in which the snipers
wash their uniforms,
I prepare my pasta
and over it pour
olive oil in which I've browned
pine nuts,
which I cooked for two minutes with dried tomatoes,
crushed garlic, and a tablespoon of basil.
As I eat, the learned minister of foreign affairs
and public security
appears on the screen,
and when he's done
I write this poem.
For that's how it's always been -
the murderers murder,
the intellectuals make it palatable,
and the poet sings.

-Aharon Shabtai

Some Options for a Career in Poetry

You can be a forthright Beatnik, sincere
insight blossoms burning political

You can be jauntily arrogant, immersed
in New York’s powerful rhyming days and
steady pop relations

You can be Black Mountain bardic boom voice
dispensing subjectivity (see Beatniks above, line 1)

You can be the heart of a jaguar
beating with dense thuds in Amazonian flora

You can be a Marxist Post-Structuralist or something
(though this would seem a contradiction)
and take on the wobbly
experience of subjectivity stressed in words
and buying things

You can be Walt Whitman and speak
for the people, or whatever he says we are in his mystic gravy

You can be a dead author declining
the value of the subject according
to the fictions of many

You can be a generator for irony from
the googly matrix of Google (see Marxist Post-Structuralist above, line 10)

You can be a Grand Pooh-Bah caging
poets in cagey categories
collecting blood and shit for the storage
of future geneaologists

You can be an important, award-winning figure
for creative writing students
who touch themselves with your greatness
throbbing away the night

You can be coolly educated
on Foucault and Deleuze, it’s okay
we all do it, but run to your nearest Anglo-
Saxon dictionary
before you say anything about it

You can be an elliptical person, or
just pretend to be
post-modern despite
the U Iowa degree

You can be disturbed and frightening
when you’re young on drugs and sex
(we all secretly love you)
but it gets old unless you sublate
it, like a master craftsperson

You can be a new formalist, we like
your sturdy attention to how words move
just catch up to the speech and concerns
of pulse-beat human beings

You can be a dabbler in verse
working the day job with kids
or a devoted adept
alive in the work and with kids

You can be a liberated individual
because a lot of truly great action has gone down
to let you share in the freakery of identity
but in your poetry consider
how to most damage Capital!

You can tickle Grand Pooh-Bah (see above, line 21)
in his Hut
by laughing out loud
or cutting the equivalent
of electronic farts
in his blog’s comments fields

You can be an identity ethicist (see above, somewhere)
blasting tunnel vision
upon the object you desire to be

You can be a burnt-out radical innovator
or just tired with words and watch
the accumulating compromise of
your life pass by

You can be a saintly sage inspirer
of the generations of copy-niks
who must imitate the style and finesse
you so graciously release from the dark abyss
of unconscious word

You can be drunk staggering fool
high on any manufactured pharm
barfing your morning ritual
hung-over sleep-deprived waiting
for that first can of beer

You can subvert the romantic modus
of genius, inspiration and taste
but that’s old hat

You can sleep with a teacher or student
to break the transferential code
of pedagogy or simply to make
a name in the banter
that makes a scene a scene

You can be reserved, austere, pitiless agent
of the toothless muses
but take it easy
someone may laugh

You can publish the elder poets whose work
remains in neglect, make a name
for yourself as another maker of
maps in the poetic geneaologies

You can live in bitter confinement
nine-to-fiving in economic servility
bile for all contemporary successes
your neglect demands respect

You can be a Buddhist ex-alcoholic
teacher of invention
ethos what is ethos
but the beginning of self
education

You can be physically distinct
and watch time drag its claws
through features
of your author bio photos

You can be surprised to one day like
something that maybe you wouldn’t have
some time back

when rigid boundaries mattered
You can be hateful for
how the cards are stacked
never enough attention finds
its way to you

You can be the voice of the Cosmos
goddamn!
or sing the songs of greenery
in respect of seasons

You can be a writer of sonnets like
Shakespeare, Keats, Denby, Berrigan
in them things could out
the self in words to make
a monument against the vast
black blankness of time

You can turn upon your audience
cut them no slack in epigrams
that bring them up to the self
recognition of ethical compromise
in dubious dream-wave attention

You can experiment with the alphabet
write with vowels and thesauri
to excavate the obsessive
violent contradictions showing
bodies violate language

You can be a writer of epic drafts and
committed 1960s dreams of
revolution but
why bother

You can be passionate about many issues
and still miss the “bigger picture”
someone wants something for everything
this is the problem with democracy

You can be a potato
zoned in the breeze where bees buzz
in lyric nothings
where humming birds join them
getting stoned in the pollinated stems

-Dale Smith

Debts

today I want to write about what I'm missing
not to waste hours
or to throw words into the abyss:
to sink into my depths
alone and naked.
what proof can I give of my mortality?
I'm just plain
with freckles, dreams and sorrow.
I have two children
another will be born in September.
I'm a bad lay
-I get pregnant just like that-
I'm number 338123 on my identity card
no photo -the kids ripped it up-
no record of offenses,
serious or petty -
I work as a program editor
a salary of 163 pesos
a literature degree
many uncollected poems
and friends in four categories:
reliable good terrible and sad.
a house that isn't mine
an electtric fan, a comb
the balalaika that my brother brought me
the piano from childhood concerts
a magnifying glass to see reality better
photos of Marti and Hemingway
reproductions
books they haven't stolen from me yet
maps widening the wall
letters from old lovers
a watch, a blue butterfly, a heart
and many debts
infinite debts with life

-Reina Maria Rodriguez

Abattoir 1

To crave WHAT, when the day is an abattoir?

Daylight is an abattoir.

The police too show the power of love, by
refusing to allow it, blocking food from
reaching children, women, Warriors.

A man smiles into the face of a child. Who
knows what he will, in anger, do.

Some gestures are the same as other
gestures. There is no hope.

Are the same as other gestures.

Mine are not the same, even when
repeated, as if I can only act out my
craving for your mouth, abrupt as our
intersection.

The sound of cellophane in an upper room,
wrapping green herbs.

Do you know what inner pain is? What it
IS?

The sense of having an intention, of being
able to intend.

Remember the porchlight across the lawn
of childhood, a city banished at the end of
its beam.

Is there a hopeless gesture, a gesture
presumed (already) hopeless?

Is thought hopeless?

This thought of you?

In daylight, the walls fall, the abattoir
stands open.

I shudder, then.

-Erin Mouré

Add Ingredients and Stir

Short uneven strokes,
this random walk among separated pieces,
another day's cast-offs left to simmer,
green tomatoes,
carrot stubs
grains of rice to fatten
under remnants of a wing.

This heat knows nothing but itself,
the boil of moments shared
in intimate conversation,
the yield of water
into steam.

I know the crack of thunder,
the cold, the dark,
a touch that comes too sudden
or too hard.
And I have known hunger,
steam that beats against the lid -
that way of seeing.

-Anne Fraser

On the North Sea III

If nothing more, let this be said:
“He remembered, as he carved his steak,
The overworked and underfed.”

-Edward Abbey, April 1952

Weird-Bird

Birds are flyin' south for winter.
Here's the Weird-Bird headin' north,
Wings a-flappin', beak a-chatterin',
Cold head bobbin' back 'n' forth.
He says, "It's not that I like ice
Or freezin' winds and snowy ground.
It's just sometimes it's kind of nice
To be the only bird in town."

-Shel Silverstein

Multiple Choice

The woman on the bus has a ______ around her head.
a. braid b. style c. void

The man who sells his sperm to pay for art school is a ______.
a. river b. donor c. rival

Their child was taught to ______ the oven.
a. rival b. soil c. avoid

She still liked to put her hands in the ______.
a. bread b. dirt c. river

The pigs, meanwhile, seem content in their ______.
a. style b. sty c. void

-Jeanne Marie Beaumont

The Dry Season

All day long I watch the blue sublime sky
With its perfect clouds
And the rain that fades into nothing halfway down.
The wind blows, every day, all the time,
Though not without variety: yesterday blowing hard,
Today blowing harder.

My Chinese windbells tinkle
like spirits in bracelets all morning,
at noon, all afternoon and all through
the flat dead hours of the night.
we’re not complaining, just stating the fact.
(Your lips are dry and cracked, sweetheart,
your eyes are red, and breathing’s hard.)

Good God, we need some rain.

Perhaps I should light my signal fire
In the crater of the old volcano,
Beat the drum, begin my little dance...?

I don’t know. It’s the dry season,
the pine needles crackle under my boots
like raw spaghetti,
dust rises at every step, the wind
drives it into my face;
the fire danger is rated EXTREME.

The flowers wait, curled in their buds,
and even the cactus hesitates to bloom.

Rain! Christ, give us some rain.

All day long we stare at the beautiful sky
with its beautiful, perfect clouds...

-Edward Abbey

Homing Instincts

The city's only secondarily for people;
first it's for pigeons,
their coorooktoo spiralling into rafters,
their improbable orange eyes,
the way they hide when death comes.
Their leavings on our monuments show
what they think of our generals, our war
dead, our public benefactors, our abstract art.
Feathers of rainbow grit and bone, skittish, them-toed,
they haunt the homely streets
and, after sudden noises, the lumpy air
and, whether or not we notice, us.

-Joanne Merriam

Rodential Waltzes in the Green Sepulchrous Kitchen

The ______ in its woody twin radar
cap applies non-transitive logic to
nocturnal fluorescence. Across the
proto-landfill of your unwashed
crockery. Perpetually both sixteen
and forty-five years old, the ______
plasters its walls with automobile
posters and chews through the Globe
and Mail with a dyspeptic
insouciance genetically encoded as
pornography. The whine of its
gyroscopic transmission contributes
as much to the microcosm of urban
blight as do the precautionary
accommodations we secrete around
it.

Here’s a game we can discuss
a game that we can:

furry animal with furry tail leaping across the candlestick breadcrust

Yes, a mouse.
In the kitchen.
Clattering along the linoleum and
Tunnels in the wains cot
Wain scot.

Scoot. A trap loaded with peanut butter.
(The brand name of this trap
Victory. Which is significant.
Victory in the campaign to
control the kitchen. In the campaign
not to share the kitchen.)

Observation: “The mouse ate the peanut butter right out of the trap.”
Response: “This time.”

Diving from behind the telephone wheels spinning by my footsteps.

The mouse chewed: a T4 form
a branflake box
a vitamin bottle
a tupperware sugarsaver

The kitchen kill ratio close to that of
the U.S. & co./Iraq war/massacre.
The mouse opposes a formidable
battery of hi-tech paraphernalia:
ultrasonic repellents, cage and crush
traps, food borne poisons, with a
single weapon: surprise. Leaping out
from butter dishes and sealed
drawers, the mouse must sufficiently
startle her adversary that seizure and
cardiac arrest ensue. While this is
fairly easy to accomplish, it induces
fatality only in rare and isolated
instances.

Insert Nursery Rhyme reference if desired.

The mouse chewed: a refrigerator compressor
a microwave turntable
food processor blades
the strings of my heart
(which went Zing!)

Rustlerustlerustle. Trottrot.

No floursack is safe. Spoor
radar the human mouser. Combing
combing the wheatgerm. These are
very large mousekins with indefatigable
rodentteeth. Chewing the human imposed
edifice artifice. Negotiate
human.
While there’s still time.

-Ken Howe

Conversationally Speaking

The river enriches the soil for planting.
The river is the donor of riches. The sty, however,
is full of dirt (the pigs might see this differently --
planting their feet, their snouts). The pig
is the ultimate donor of pork, which is to say
it has no rival. We avoid thinking of it this way.
We avoid the (thought of the) sty; hence the separation
from lunchmeat. We like better the smell
of bread (daily, given, whole) done up in the style
of a braid, pure product of the soil.
It is wise to avoid the void, which is nothing really
like the river, the sty, or the emptied bakery
window (its closest rival). Instead
we could relax by the river, picnic on meat
and bread, or just bread--pigtails are kin
to braids--since eating pork's gone out of style

-Jeanne Marie Beaumont

Down the River

Let’s go now, boys, down the river
where the blue herons stalk through the cane
and beaver swim against the current,
quiet, strong, steady as the river;
where the slick amber walls of sandstone
lean over the brown god’s flow, rising up straight
into light and a thousand feet of vibrant space-

(withdraw)

That’s for us: sandbars and reedy islands,
deep still canyons leading into peace,
glens with clear springs, the plume of tamarisk,
silence, clarity, the sharp prints of deer
on the shore, down from the mesas beyond.

Bring your girls, your bibles, your poems
And children, bring in your souls’ and hearts’ courage
To search and hope, and prepare, and wait,
While the world we knew drowns slowly
But with sure increasing certainty
Into its predetermined swamp of madness.

(withdraw withdraw)

Once there we will build on rock
a house of stone that will outlast
all of their wars and furies, their carnivals of despair,
keeping on the hearth a fire of juniper
and wild scrub oak to warm the hall
and praise your eyes, your speech, your hands,
saving some part of the old virtue

(withdraw withdraw withdraw)

Until the smoke clears and the time comes
to leave the wilderness and build at last
on the poor black battered plains of man
that visionary city of the prophecies.

-Edward Abbey, September 1963 - Sunset Crater, Arizona

West Coast Poem

since i had
a few extra bucks
i decided
to take the ferry
from Vancouver
to Victoria.

2 hours
of smelling
the open
ocean.

a much different scent
than the ocean
which rests
on the edges
of city
beaches.

there’s no suntan lotion
or car exhaust
in the air.

there’s just
the ferry
churning up
the aqua water
& pushing the salt
up your nostrils.

purity.

i stepped off
the bus
in downtown
Victoria
& walked along
its red brick sidewalks
until i found
that famous bookstore
named after
some famous
Canadian writer
i’ve never read.

i lost some money
to an old man
sitting on
a street corner
in 4 or 5
games of chess.

i bought
some marijuana
off a kid
with a skateboard.

then i sat on the beach
smelling
the polluted ocean,
got high
& watched
my loneliness

become
tangible.

-Chris Kornacki

Black Sun

to lie alone in the desert
and stare at the sun
until the sun goes black...

Black sun, black sun of my heart-
Strike down your shaking blaze of fire
Eat up my eyes and brain
Burn me clean and dry of all desire.

Black, black, sun in my heart-
Rain down your murderous love
Your flash and carbon, cancer and heat
Bake me sweet as a dove

Sweet as a stone, black as a bird
Flay me with fire to the bone
Wrap me and wash me in flame
And leave me clean and alone

On the lost shore of a river I know
In the strange-lit country of stone.

-Edward Abbey

Capitol Air

I don’t like the government where I live
I don’t like dictatorship of the Rich
I don’t like bureaucrats telling me what to eat
I don’t like Police dogs sniffing round my feet

I don’t like Communist Censorship of my books
I don’t like Marxists complaining about my looks
I don’t like Castro insulting members of my sex
Leftists insisting we got the mystic Fix

I don’t like Capitalists selling me gasoline Coke
Multinationals burning Amazon trees to smoke
Big Corporation takeover media mind
I don’t like the Top-bananas that’re robbing Guatemala banks bling

I don’t like K.G.B. Gulag concentration camps
I don’t like the Maoists’ Cambodian Death Dance
20 Million were killed by Stalin Secretary of Terror
He has killed our old Red Revolution for ever

I don’t like Anarchists screaming Love Is Free
I don’t like the C.I.A. they killed John Kennedy
Paranoic tanks sit in Prague and Hungary
But I don’t like counterrevolution paid for by the C.I.A.

Tyranny in Turkey or Korea Nineteen Eighty
I don’t like Right Wing Death Squad Democracy
Police State Iran Nicaragua yesterday
Laissez-faire please Government keep your secret police offa me

I don’t like Nationalist Supremecy White or Black
I don’t like Narcs & Mafia marketing Smack
The General bullying Congress in his tweed vest
The President building up his Armies in the East & West

I don’t like the Crown’s Official Secrets Act
You can get away with murder in the Government that’s a fact
Security cops teargassing radical kids
In Switzerland or Czechoslovakia God Forbids

In America was Attica in Russia was Lubianka Wall
In China if you disappear you wouldn’t know yourself at all
Arise Arise you citizens of the world use your lungs
Talk back to the Tyrants all they’re afraid of is your tongues

Two hundred Billion dollars inflates World War
In United States every year They’re asking for more
Russia’s had as much in tanks and laser planes
Give or take Fifty Billion we could blow out everybody’s brains

School’s broke down ‘cause History changes every night
Half the Free World nations are Dictatorships of the Right
Socialism worked in Scandanavia, Bud
The Communist world was stuck together with prisoners’ blood

The Generals say they know something worth fighting for
They never say what till they start an unjust war
Iranian hostage Media hysteria sucked
The Shah ran away with 9 Billion Iranian bucks

Kermit Roosevelt and his U.S. dollars overthrew Mossadegh
They wanted his oil then they got Ayatollah’s dreck
They put in the Shah and they trained his police the Savak
All Iran was our hostage quarter-century That’s right Jack

Bishop Romero wrote President Carter to stop
Sending guns to El Salvador’s Junta so he got shot
Ambassador White House blew the whistle on the White House lies
Reagan called him home cause he looked in the dead nuns’ eyes

Half the voters didn’t vote they knew it was too late
Newspaper headlines called it a big Mandate
Some people voted for Reagan eyes open wide
3 out of 4 didn’t vote for him That was a Landslide

Truth may be hard to find but Falsehood’s easy
Read between the lines out Imperialism is sleazy
But if you think the People’s State is your Heart’s Desire
Jump right back in the frying pan from the fire

The System the System in Russia now China the same
Criticize the System in Budapest lose your name
Coca Cola Pepsi Cola in Russia & China come true
Khrushchev yelled in Hollywood “We will bury You”

America and Russia wanted to bomb themselves Okay
Everybody dead on both sides Everybody pray
All except the General in caves where they can hide
And fuck each other in the ass waiting for the next free ride

No hope Communism no hope Capitalism Yeah
Everybody’s lying on both sides Nyeah nyeah nyeah
The bloody iron curtain of American Military Power
Was a mirror image of Russia’s red Babel-Tower
Jesus Christ was spotless but was Crucified by the Mob
Law & Order Herod’s hired soldiers did the job
Flowerpower’s fine but innocence has got no Protection
The man who shot John Lennon had a Hero-worshipper’s connection

The moral of this song is that the world is in a horrible place
Scientific Industry devours the human race
Police in every country armed with Tear Gas & TV
Secret Masters everywhere bureaucratize for you & me

Terrorists and police together build a lowerclass Rage
Propaganda murder manipulates the upperclass Stage
Can’t tell the difference ‘tween a turkey & a provocateur
If you’re feeling confused the Government’s in there for sure

Aware Aware wherever you are No Fear
Trust your heart Don’t ride your Paranoia dear
Breathe together with an ordinary mind
Armed with Humor Feed & Help Enlighten Woe Mankind

-Allen Ginsberg, Dec 15, 1980

Mirror

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful-
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she actually is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

-Sylvia Plath

Today

Same deal as last post

Dead Fish Washed Ashore

This is a poem that somebody scribbled on construction paper and taped up at a drum circle I was at this winter. I'm not sure who wrote it, but I liked it a lot.

Cotton and Corn

Said Cotton to Corn, t'other day,
As they met and exchang'd salute--
(Squire Corn in his carriage so gay,
Poor Cotton, half famish'd on foot):


"Great Squire, if it isn't uncivil
To hint at starvation before you,
Look down on a poor hungry devil,
And give him some bread, I implore you!"


Quoth Corn, then, in answer to Cotton,
Perceiving he meant to make free --
"Low fellow, you've surely forgotten
The distance between you and me!


To expect that we, Peers of high birth,
Should waste our illustrious acres,
For no other purpose on earth
Than to fatten curst calico-makers! --


That Biships to hobbins should bend --
Should stoop from their Bench's sublimity,
Great dealers in lawn, to befriend
Such contemptible dealers in dimity!


"No -- vile Manufacture! ne'er harbour
A hope to be fed at our boards; --
Base offspring of Arkwright the barber,
What claim canst thou have upon Lords?

"No -- thanks to the taxes and debt,
And the triumph of paper o'er guineas,
Our race of Lord Jemmys, as yet,
May defy your whole rabble of Jennys!"


So saying -- whip, crack and away
Went Corn in his chaise through the throng,
So headlong, I heard them all say,
"Squire Corn would be down, before long."

-Thomas Moore

The Surgeon at 2 A.M.

The white light is artificial, and hygienic as heaven.
The microbes cannot survive it.
They are departing in their transparent garments, turned aside
From the scalpels and the rubber hands.
The scalded sheet is a snowfield, frozen and peaceful.
The body under it is in my hands.
As usual there is no face. A lump of Chinese white
With seven holes thumbed in. The soul is another light.
I have not seen it; it does not fly up.
Tonight it has receded like a ship's light.

It is a garden I have to do with --- tubers and fruit
Oozing their jammy substances,
A mat of roots. My assistants hook them back.
Stenches and colors assail me.
This is the lung-tree.
These orchids are splendid. They spot and coil like snakes.
The heart is a red bell-bloom, in distress.
I am so small
In comparison to these organs!
I worm and hack in a purple wilderness.

The blood is a sunset. I admire it.
I am up to my elbows in it, red and squeaking.
Still it seeps me up, it is not exhausted.
So magical! A hot spring
I must seal off and let fill
The intricate, blue piping under this pale marble.
How I admire the Romans ---
Aqeducts, the Baths of Caracella, the eagle nose!
The body is a Roman thing.
It has shut its mouth on the stone pill of repose.

It is a statue the orderlies are wheeling off.
I have perfected it.
I am left with an arm or a leg,
A set of teeth, or stones
To rattle in a bottle and take home,
And tissues in slices--a pathological salami.
Tonight the parts are entombed in an icebox.
Tomorrow they will swim
In vinegar like saints' relics.
Tomorrow the patient will have a clean, pink plastic limb.

Over one bed in the ward, a small blue light
Announces a new soul. The bed is blue.
Tonight, for this person, blue is a beautiful color.
The angels of morphia have borne him up.
He floats an inch from the ceiling,
Smelling the dawn drafts.
I walk among sleepers in gauze sarcophagi.
The red night lights are flat moons. They are dull with blood.
I am the sun, in my white coat,
Grey faces, shuttered by drugs, follow me like flowers.

-Sylvia Plath

Siren Song

This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:

the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see beached skulls

the song nobody knows
because anyone who has heard it
is dead, and the others can’t remember.

Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?

I don’t enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical

with these two feathery maniacs,
I don’t enjoy singing
this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you,
to you, only to you.
Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me!
Only you, only you can,
you are unique

at last. Alas
it is a boring song
but it works every time.

-Margaret Atwood

armpit hair

There were no seats on the subway
so I had to grab a strap
As I lifted up my arm I heard a scream "what’s that?"
I took a look around,
I thought "there must be something scary".
Like a lion or a tiger or the Virgin Mary?
But then, I noticed they were looking at me.
I heard "oh my gawd! They’re hairy!"

You turn thirteen, they put a razor in your hand
To teach you the difference between a woman and a man.
You see, chicks smooth their pits
so boys can smooth the chicks.
But I was different, I wanted to smooth the chicks,
I wanted to lick their pits!

Armpit Hair! Armpit Hair! (I like it)
Armpit Hair! Armpit Hair! (spike it, spike it!)

I was walking around brooklyn
when these cool guys drove by
They said "we’re looking for a good time baby,
wanna ride?"
I flashed my biggest smile,
I said "hey, sounds like fun"
Then I flash my armpit hair. They turn. They run.

Armpit Hair! Armpit Hair! (it’s a weapon)
Armpit Hair! Armpit Hair! (use discretion)

Well, I hear that the Senate is planning a convention
to pass an amendment
On body hair prevention. I’m planning on attending,
I’ll be sitting in the front row.
I’ll have chains on my pits screaming
"Hell no, it won’t go!"
I’m like Inspector Gadget, when I unfurl my curls
I lasso all the bad guys, then I rope in all the girls.
Well, I figure I owe ‘em cause they saved me
From the clueless and the hairless Patriarchy!

Armpit Hair, Armpit Hair! (you know it)
Armpit Hair! Armpit Hair! (grow it, grow it!)

Well, I want to go to Europe, the land of Brave and Free
Where it’s considered natural for girls to be hairy.
Where gillette don’t make a profit off of
keeping womyn busy
As pleasers with their shavers
and their razors and their tweezers.

So to all the boys and the men
with the furry, furry masses
With the ape like backs
and the very hairy asses.
I don’t find that particularly pretty
So get your opinion out of my hairy pitty.

Armpit hair! (forget..) Armpit hair! (gillette)
Armpit hair! (don’t cut it) Armpit Hair!
(rapunzel swung from it!)

They say, "cut your clits and shave your pits,
and cover your tits!"
We say- bullshit.
Cause I use my curls to be at one with the world
like when I’m out camping
And I lay myself to rest
I sleep with my arms up
so the birdies can nest.
So stop and reconsider just what they consider natural
Cause armpit hair is simply
Mammally Factual.

-Alix Olson

The Ballad of the Skeletons

Said the Presidential Skeleton
I won't sign the bill
Said the Speaker skeleton
Yes you will

Said the Representative Skeleton
I object
Said the Supreme Court skeleton
Whaddya expect

Said the Miltary skeleton
Buy Star Bombs
Said the Upperclass Skeleton
Starve unmarried moms

Said the Yahoo Skeleton
Stop dirty art
Said the Right Wing skeleton
Forget about yr heart

Said the Gnostic Skeleton
The Human Form's divine
Said the Moral Majority skeleton
No it's not it's mine

Said the Buddha Skeleton
Compassion is wealth
Said the Corporate skeleton
It's bad for your health

Said the Old Christ skeleton
Care for the Poor
Said the Son of God skeleton
AIDS needs cure

Said the Homophobe skeleton
Gay folk suck
Said the Heritage Policy skeleton
Blacks're outa luck

Said the Macho skeleton
Women in their place
Said the Fundamentalist skeleton
Increase human race

Said the Right-to-Life skeleton
Foetus has a soul
Said Pro Choice skeleton
Shove it up your hole

Said the Downsized skeleton
Robots got my job
Said the Tough-on-Crime skeleton
Tear gas the mob

Said the Governor skeleton
Cut school lunch
Said the Mayor skeleton
Eat the budget crunch

Said the Neo Conservative skeleton
Homeless off the street!
Said the Free Market skeleton
Use 'em up for meat

Said the Think Tank skeleton
Free Market's the way
Said the Saving & Loan skeleton
Make the State pay

Said the Chrysler skeleton
Pay for you & me
Said the Nuke Power skeleton
& me & me & me

Said the Ecologic skeleton
Keep Skies blue
Said the Multinational skeleton
What's it worth to you?

Said the NAFTA skeleton
Get rich, Free Trade,
Said the Maquiladora skeleton
Sweat shops, low paid

Said the rich GATT skeleton
One world, high tech
Said the Underclass skeleton
Get it in the neck

Said the World Bank skeleton
Cut down your trees
Said the I.M.F. skeleton
Buy American cheese

Said the Underdeveloped skeleton
We want rice
Said Developed Nations' skeleton
Sell your bones for dice

Said the Ayatollah skeleton
Die writer die
Said Joe Stalin's skeleton
That's no lie

Said the Middle Kingdom skeleton
We swallowed Tibet
Said the Dalai Lama skeleton
Indigestion's whatcha get


Said the World Chorus skeleton
That's their fate
Said the U.S.A. skeleton
Gotta save Kuwait

Said the Petrochemical skeleton
Roar Bombers roar!
Said the Psychedelic skeleton
Smoke a dinosaur

Said Nancy's skeleton
Just say No
Said the Rasta skeleton
Blow Nancy Blow

Said Demagogue skeleton
Don't smoke Pot
Said Alcoholic skeleton
Let your liver rot

Said the Junkie skeleton
Can't we get a fix?
Said the Big Brother skeleton
Jail the dirty pricks

Said the Mirror skeleton
Hey good looking
Said the Electric Chair skeleton
Hey what's cooking?

Said the Talkshow skeleton
Fuck you in the face
Said the Family Values skeleton
My family values mace

Said the NY Times skeleton
That's not fit to print
Said the CIA skeleton
Cantcha take a hint?

Said the Network skeleton
Believe my lies
Said the Advertising skeleton
Don't get wise!

Said the Media skeleton
Believe you me
Said the Couch-potato skeleton
What me worry?

Said the TV skeleton
Eat sound bites
Said the Newscast skeleton
That's all Goodnight

- Allen Ginsberg, 1995