A New Pollution

She's got an unbroken heart on each sleeve
She's got the little pills that make her go crazy
She's a lily-white bride to the flame
Burned it up, now it's time to turn over

She's in love with the
new pollution

She's got a foot on the wheel of time
She can eat with a complete stranger
She can slip in a battery fog
Collecting troubles and electrical members

She's in love with the
new pollution

She's a paradise in camouflage
She's a cracked whip mixing my feelings
She's an island in an emptied ocean
I'm her baby and she's making me ruthless

We Cacklin' Absurd

Bein' cynically modern, as we are,
w' learn to take nothin'
too seriously.

Makin' horror stories 'bout funny things.
Trolls
Psychotic teenage axe murderers
Paris Hilton

But what's a laugh
inna tha face a
meaninglessness?

Look in 't
pupils dug like deep holes
cave-like nostrils echoin', symmetrically moanin'
Archimedean spirals 'n each side a ya head, en
yer gaping mouth, lik'n inverted cone, where light falls inna the pit, deep 'n infinite.
Masks fer e'rbody.
It's transparent and terrifyin', precisely
because
it hides nothin'.

But tha laughter perpetuates LIFE.
W' laugh not because we can,
but 'cuz we gots ta -
it just 'rupts outta us.

So w' learn to take nothin'
too seriously.
Nothin'.
Emptee set.
Zeeero.
Like uh...giant anus...open'd wide mouthin' one great big O-hoh-ho-oh-hoh.

You mightn't want nothin' to git inside you but
if'n God left the gate open when he went off on holiday
you wunder whether sumthin' mightn't of snuck in
and whether nothin' ain’t already inside it all.

Get comfterble.
Don’t be 'fraid.
En learn ta take nothin'
a li'l too seriously.

Remember this. (this is not a poem)

tic..tic..tic.tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka-tic-ka...

film is running
you're at the back of the class
wondering,
Why is the pledge of allegiance necessary to my education?
Really wondering;
thinking about George Washington and his slaves

but you're actually at work
thinking all that.
You wonder why you didn't ask more questions as a child.
You get mad, but only resentfully so - mad at yourself.

A caterpillar is inching up the bark of a tree - an American Elm.
Each second is 24 pictures.
60 now, if it's in HD.
Maybe more.
So when you saw your sister careen over the handlebars of your bike,
and you wish you could not let her ride it,
maybe there was something you didn't see.
A green devil poking his finger into the spokes,
or an angel lifting the life out of her body like a fish on a hook right before impact.
The caterpillar doesn't get to finish it's climb before the director cuts it off.

Occasionally, Bismarck, North Dakota, experiences something along the lines of something in Afghanistan or Darfur. Brains pick up memories in secret places - sometimes losing them like quarters in the couch - and when we find them again, they are like new and totally useable. Sometimes, I think it's good to forget.

Still,
my calendar speaks
regularly. Only one song
it sings forever.

Remember this.

Remember this.

The Long Golden Road

"A CRISIS IS
AN OPPORTUNITY!"
she wrote to
herself
before
she went out the window.

I will go to the City,
hang my portrait on the emerald bricks,
from the ruby scaffolds of the religious houses,
and proceed to get strung out
like a high wire act above the miniature crowd

like Dorothy
and her long, golden road.

A Big White House and No One to Call It Home

Ironically
in the house that is always "White"
someone comes to clean every day
they clean the floors
and
the windows, and
the walls, and
the kitchen, and
the stairs, and
the yard

and a few other things

the gutters
and the trash
and the plates
and the paintings
and the statues
and the office
and the tables
and the letters
and the tourists
and the library
and the dog
and the fishes
and the clothes
and the closets
and the undergarments
and the white sheets
and the rugs
and the roof
and the shingles
and the sewers
and the lawn
and the flowers
and the bugs
and the ceiling fans
and the lamps

and some other things

the weeds
and the mantlepieces
and the altars
and the crosses on the walls
and the bedrooms
and the guest bedrooms
and the cameras
and the monitors
and the security guards
and the guests
and the women
and the smells
and the pencils
and the pens
and the paperclips
and the maps
and the desk
and the coffee cups
and the batteries
and the light bulbs
and the toilet paper
and the bathrooms
and the bathroom magazines
and the cleaners
and the plungers
and the hair brushes
and the money
and the curtains
and the Life
and the garden
and the outside
and the boots
and the hats
and the shoes
and the pants
and the belts (the many belts)
and the purity of the Family
and the honesty
and the decency
and the necklines
and the collars
and the sleeves
and the toenails
and the Friendly
and the Meek
and the Equal
and the Strong
and the Beautiful
and the Pious

and the Family doesn't notice a thing
and the Family doesn't notice a thing
and the Family doesn't notice

What do you get for the Family who has everything?
The Family who is never in need
The Family that always stays together
The Family for whom nothing is missing
The beautiful Family
that is protected
24
hours
a
day?

Twitterrer

Like skipping stones,
I tweet sometimes.
Sometimes I get
one, two,
sometimes a few -
but most often they just sink.

Down,
down to the bottom,
the bottom of a bog,
a bog already littered with
letters
for anyone, everyone
and no one in particulars.

But why worry?
With the tidal activity and fish kicking them around
these thoughts may surface again.
And the worms dig up new ones all the time
to chuck sideways
set to your own personal spin
spiralling off into space again.

Again and again

just one more line -
another line to pass the time.