Forty Two Poems

No reason, no real rhyme
Just attempts to encapsulate
Little vignettes, bubbles of time.
Gaseous things.

Some quirky, some foul
Some droll, some stupid.
You know, poems about life.

They say right what you know
And I really know a good cosmic fart joke
And the pointlessness of worry

Forty two songs about things falling apart
Cosmic order that, the arrow of time
Ever to that great Entropic goddess
Singing that eternal knell

The music of the spheres
My cosmic ass to your celestial ear
The heavens sing
With forty two explosions of the gut.

Here are three most beautiful things I’ve ever heard,
about drinking, whores and excrement:
“Write about something else, for fuck’s sake.”
“You’ll never be anything but above average.”
“I don’t want to be married to Bukowski.”

I’ll take that advice.
I won’t sing about the sluices of my city
clogged with the vomited insights
of self-destructive escapades.
I won’t whisper
about illusory dreams
dissipating from over-flowing ashtrays,
like acrid snakes that bite the eyes of the stubbornly hopeful.

I’ll plagiarize Byron.

I’ll write about a flower.

It’s white.
It’s got a few green leaves.
It reminds me of a perfume
Bought from an Arabian street peddler
on the clean side of Faneuil Hall.
It stinks cheap.

A funeral flower for a wedding
Sat in a vase atop the mantle.
Next to a stone statuette of a Bastet goddess.
A smashed picture frame
had fallen into the pit of the fireplace.
Soot smeared the white of the bride’s emulsified white dress.

Dumbly, I tried to reassemble the frame.
I tried to smooth the shards along their jagged lines.
I tried to fix the insufferable mess it had become.

“Relax.” She said to me.
“It’s just a picture.”
I looked over my shoulder and found myself alone.
The apartment had been stripped of all belongings.
The flower, the statue and the frame had remained untouched.
A sacred shrine of what was that I refused to pack.
Until the last minute.
When the land lord awaited outside for the key.

The statue of the Egyptian cat
had been brought from her childhood.
Tall and black.
It perched on its narrow haunches
And wore a regal collar of hieroglyphics.
I marvelled at why she had left it.
“Relax.” She said to me.
“It’s just something I picked up in a garage sale.”
Again, I was still alone.

The flower still smelled sweet.
It’s stark white flower curled like cupped hands.
And the jutting pistil bristled with golden flecks.
I inhaled deeply.
It smelled of her.
Even through all this,
It had never stopped blooming.
“Relax.” she said.
“It’s just a flower.”

You tried to shield us with your aegis
As we meandered the old garden paths.
You allowed only rehearsed exploration
And taught the names our fathers gave the trees.

You covered naked wisdom for our protection
As we passed by the amaranth tints of Sodom’s apple.
We skirted stone pillars choked with oleander
And wove garlands dangling with datura pendants.

You raised your sentinel to block the light.
As we wilted in a penumbra cast in bronze and iron
We fumbled through the maze of thorny hedgerows
And never learned the patterns of snakes.

You fought to preserve our innocence
As we learned lessons through weathered gaps
You cast us out when we learned too much
And found out how little we knew.

So much depends on a used bowflex,
glazed with fresh tears,
besides the two people fucking.

I lie on the bathroom floor.
I wonder, “What are those marks on the ceiling?”
Shit? Or blood?

Then, I start to think about Christ.
And a forensic analysis by the Pharisees.
And how the bible mentions how he bled.
And how on the crucifix, he always has a loin cloth on.
How dead people tend to shit themselves.
I wonder, “What’s that running down his leg?”

I turn my gaze to the space behind the toilet.
I discover, “That’s where my wedding ring went.”

‘Twas the night before Hipmas, when all through the haus.
Not a scenester was stirring, not even to grouse.

Plaid stockings were draped off the vintage arm chair
Left to appease St. Atticus should he dreaded appear.

My artist roommate was all snug in her bed
With but half her dyed hair shaved off of her head.

And I in my raybans and pressed skinny jeans,
Listened to Bon Iver and the new Velveteens

When from the shared garden, there came such a racket.
Dashing out, I grabbed my Member’s only jacket.

I trampled organic herbs locally sourced
Thrashing our prized orchids, I stumbled and cursed

Tattoo shops and dive bar signs brightened the night
Our gentrification had cured urban blight!

And what did my pot-addled brain did perceive
But a crusty old punk with arms inked in full sleeve

Armed with a bat and a heart of animus
He could only be the mad St Atticus.

From the hells of counter culture past, he came
Whistling and yelling and calling us vile names

“Oi, Dipshit. Oi, hipster. I am coming for you.”
“You pussies. You posers. Your time is through.”

Your reprinted vinyls! Your trendy t-shirts
You’re such corporate phonies. So fake it hurts!"

Singing Sex Pistols, he kicked in the door
And dumped our record collection onto the floor

Out onto the yard, our possessions they flew
As he smashed up our flat and our walls he kicked through

And then in a cursing, I heard on the roof
A stomping and clomping of his angry boots

We hid beneath our bed and made nary a sound
We might escape alive if we went unfound

He crashed through the window and crouched like a panther
For our crimes against punk, he demanded an answer.

From dressers, he dumped all our clothes on the floor
He emptied our bookcases of post modernist lore

He unzipped his fly and pulled out his prick
His piss smelt of gasoline as emptied his dick

He smiled and his pierced mouth drew up like a bow
And above ripped collar his tattoos did show

From his pocket, he produced a zippo lighter
He struck the wheel and the wick’s flame grew brighter

Beneath the bed frame, my roommate and I yelped
In our hidden terror, it just could not be helped.

With a wink of his eye and a pull of his ears
he proceeded to realize all of our fears.

He spoke a not a word as he ignited the pyre
His satanic piss set our light reading afire

Post modernist writings went up into smoke
The fumes of beat poetry making us choke.

He blew a snot rocket out onto the floor
And gave us the finger as he went outdoors

To the next house, he continued his quest
And he broke all the furniture our neighbors liked best

And I heard him shout, as he ripped prints off the walls
“Merry Christmas, you assholes, now, suck my balls.”

Aka rubber bullet
Aka protest day
Aka any day

A rejected hand
quickly rises up,
If we don’t address the grievances
And hide behind our privilege.
They have always been the same.
The ones we stomped on
Kept subdued
Couldn’t resist
Stay down

I felt the teargas in my eyes
Saw the people
Regardless of creed and color
The disenfranchised
The abandoned
The exploited
The slaves
The majority
The fenced in crowds
Whose ancestors we bought and sold
Who are here

All cities will burn
For they are build on unctuous bedrock
They are the tinder packed around our edifices
The ones we thought we bought
But they will rise up.
The discarded and the sick
Frustrated and angry
Righteous and rectifying
Empowered
Angry
And united

Tonight, all cities will catch fire
Not from looters and shooters
But from the angry seeking justice
Unafraid of the slave owners
Unafraid of apologetic masters
Unafraid of their neighbors
Unafraid of the masses

Fault.
This is your fault.
Your lines shoot through
the fissures that grew
with all the chances you blew
that still you do
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing
To halt.

You could have stopped this.
You had the momentum.
You had the will.
You could have stopped this.
When did you comply?
When did you fall still?
You could have stopped this.
When did you stop shaking with rage?
When did you take your sleeping pill?
You could have stopped this.
Now it’s just your kids
that have to foot the bill.

Quake.
You felt the quake.
The movement you started
that you left unguarded
became distorted
yet you harden
Settling
Settling
Settling
to take.

Die.
It’s time for you to die.
Leave us to clean up your mess
We have a disaster to address
It’s too late halt the process
But we are
trying
trying
trying
to survive.

Scrape it into a pile.
Gather everything
that once had meaning.
Pack it full of tinder.
Scorch it to a cinder.
Build up the pyre.
Build up the pyre.
We got lots of wood.
Splitting with anger.
Chords of disbelief.
Gasoline and camphor.

Flick your bics
Flick your bics
and set it all on fire.

Burn it all down.
It’s time to start over.
Burn it all down.
It’s time to start over.

You grab the big ax.
I’ll whack it
with the hatchet.
Let’s get to work.
Time to make a racket.
Build up the pyre.
Build up the pyre.
Splitting with anger.
Chords of disbelief
Gasoline and camphor.

Flick your bics
Flick your bics
and set it all on fire.

Burn it all down.
It’s time to start over.
Burn it all down.
It’s time to start over.