heisenberg and st basil of cappodocia play gin rummy

apprehending the benediction of contraindication despite the emptiness of flowers growing happily in the interstices of jellyfished kineticism the loose matriculation of narcissism overflows the percipient quagmire in the ruins of a snow-covered tower under the vertiginous wasteland of the expanding yawning zeitgeist but the zeitgeist has no amanuensis as barracudas chomp the debris of the empire of the forty graves

slender

i hate poetry but i love slender volumes of verse i used to tell myself i was not a voyeur i didn’t understand porn or want to look at naked bodies at flabby boobs and dicks and asses or stand in the dark in the wind and rain looking through lighted windows at unsuspecting humans doing - what? but naked souls that is a different matter i admit it now i am worse than the sad peeper seeking a glimpse of ass or boob everything pales beside seeing naked souls i always thought stand up comedians were the bravest people in the world nobody could be more naked in front of a crowd with no cover and no excuses they either “killed” or “died “ of course i never had the guts to try it myself but if you can’t do standup or performance art or read poetry out loud what you can do is write poetry in slender volumes forget zines and anthologies where the naked ones can huddle together and hide behind each other no, it must be a lone slender volume the distillation of a single naked and lonely soul the fewer words on a page the better nothing is more naked than a book of bad poetry except, perhaps a book of ordinary poetry

suitcase

i was not worried about losing the group even though my black suitcase wth my new novel in it of which i was so proud was in the group baggage being taken to the bus downstairs under the curved marble staircase when the old woman with the round lined face leaned over to me and whispered “you are quite a character” and laughed softly she and another old woman began talking in french but so softly i could not understand them when i went down the stairs the bus was gone but i was not worried because “i knew the area” wide polished vistas in gleaming red and orange and white porcelain tunnels with a hint of rain and the cafeterias were closed i kept going in circles but was not worried except a little bit about the suitcase with my novel i was never in a dream which was more obviously “just a dream” but when i woke up i was surprised

something

i always thought that someday i would find something somewhere on a dark highway on a rainy street in a dimly lit cafe on a lonely road on an empty subway car in milwaukee a motel room in las cruces new mexico standing over a juke box in manitoba or tokyo at a bus station in vladivostok something maybe not love or peace or illumination or divine revelation but something something i would only know when it happened

someday

someday you will wake up and the bad people will all be gone and you will think, hallelujah this is the new dawn and you will take the scripture down from its secret shelf the one you have been writing forever all by yourself you will put it in a suitcase and go out into the street and you will nod politely to all the folks you meet and they will be so happy that their oppressors have fled that they will not even notice the frown on the top of your head you will take the suitcase to the river and toss it into the depths your sins will all be forgiven you will have no more to confess all the gods you invented and all the demons you named will be as if they never existed and never played the game you will put your hands in your pockets and walk back into town the celebration is only beginning but where is your golden crown?

friends

i was young and now i’m old i was hot and now i’m cold i had energy now i’m tired i was cool and now i’m wired i had the world spread out before me but then my friends began to bore me i was innocent but did learn that friends against me could quickly turn * i had a friend named jim i was better than him and another friend named lee he was better than me i had a friend named lou who knew just what to do and another friend named cole who wanted to save my soul i had a friend named clyde who took me for a ride and a friend named brad who took everything i had i had an enemy named joe who knew things i didn’t know and an enemy named ray that i hope to meet some day * friends and enemies vanish in the breeze i wish i had more friends but the dream never ends

walter

the sky was blue the earth was brown a breeze passed through the little town one cloud was white one cloud was pink walter thought i need a drink i need a drink and then another the sky is my sister and the earth my brother in fifteen minutes i must leave this bar and try to sell a human a car o what did i do to deserve this fate my dreams were early and my crimes were late today is just another day just one more drink and i will be on my way