Hymn 12:13

stars, he was convinced
and had meticulous records
for large movements of birds
in totemic fascination
living alone with instinct
to flap hands
it’s what is missing
in backwater towns
with a bar on every corner
an epic search for employment
admonishes trans-california travel
for the wine must be divided
four parts water
and don’t you forget it

Autobiography

after Jim Carroll

i am not some meddling Iago
i am not the end of Jackson Pollack
i am not Ozzy Osborne
eating heads off of bats
i am not a farmer’s daughter fantasy
i am not laying back in
an opium den in 1864 Nevada
i am not a chthonic god
wielding a four foot scythe
i am not John Walker Lindh
at one with desert deity
i am not a criminal mastermind with honor
i am not kidnapped by Patty Hurst
changing again the sum of my convictions

The Good Parts

despite the perils
this almost always has nothing
to do with me or you
risking the ridiculous
where i am a cartoon drawing
speaking in bubbles
as if anyone decides
to make the bad choice
transitions at national holidays
loose in the closet
with old obsessions
if we admit it
we watch television
& think of nothing all day

Pheasant Anxiety

so was having this wakefulness
5:38 doesn’t seem in autumn
at the head of the assemblage
i wish i didn’t recognize
or screen old movies and a bird
this separate fare
busted from the trip
back in the rooms of the party
everyone is tears
cleans the tempers
any woman is free
to object to the term object
but then it may be in sleep
she’s having pheasant anxiety

Salvidor Dali on Red Bull

cans that lie
around are clues
to the darkroom gnosis
my freinds drive with thier knees
write road jouranls
on the red third floor
perform guitar paintings
to the hurricane in the sand
if that's what it takes
tatooed to eachother
a few years later
to make noise that means
the factory still smokes

X

you can’t get there from here
on the Arizona gift shop ledge
seven years old still
with treasure map
favorite novel backpages
in the study of valleys
Lacan was no dummy
fifteen minutes of silence
for the class to prepare
yellow flag on the field
of the simian brain
look in the rule book
it’s coming, it’s coming
the truth at last

What Do You Mean We?

too many last times
the person you tell
these are the problems at parties
corners with seating arrangements
abandoned
in that last reel where we free
her from the railroad
everyone is involved in the story
and talks too much
in the holidays
i will not stand for this violence
and marshall enough shields
in the rumor
no one bothers to remember

Alice B.

every year they recreate
a new grain or foliage
in promise of a picnic
in springtime, Paris
perhaps not the location
of necessity, complex sentences
hosting opportunity
backstabbers of mood and light
it was simpler for us
to walk a few blocks
platonically, in pairs
the guard would never recognize
so ten years later
an affair to remember

vow

something holy in my attic
i need you to understand
i’ll speak slower
when everyone has left
it is a message
on the amber alert
never ceasing to search
without a sun of my own
the mass of them dance in spirals
they say it in Arabic
hello, again it’s me
unanswerable
it is the practice
i will force you to understand

Of Mars

I sing of warfare and a man at war- Virgil

give me my friends back
from the claws of someone else’s god
on battlegrounds in states
even the poles shy from
this isn’t an ethnic thing
in the markets and brothels
or worldbanks of problematic conceptions
there are all sorts of mistruths
about nomadic shepherds
and the first war
it was wednesday and he took my
gi joe and i am pissed
and confused what to do with the ghost
you must avenge your father

Historical Slavery and Contemporary Voting Tendencies: it's what you think

This map completely blew my mind! It draws a parrellel between pre-civil war slave sates and those states that voted republican (lest i say the name). Coincidence, or a display of longstanding attitudes toward civil liberties. Thanks to Pejka for the tip.

Blue State

the greatest failure of democracy
war, abuse, acts of patriotsin
by the farmland states
how about them cowboys
them first ten amendments
and them cowboys with torches
nailing gallows for Salem
the stage is set
in the science fiction
wherewomen are handmaidens
and numbers are on our arms
the other guy never wins
and whatever populations tell you
Hitler was elected

That's Right

while we still have rights to our reproduction
and in the brief time before blacklists
fourteen pitiless lines from prison
i just want a damned job
and something to work for
someone to write home about
it's true, lurking in cold war mind
is the stuff of serial killers in hollywood
that's right, i'm discussing fictive fears
in ten words or less in every eleventh frame
the truth at last about the state
in the hands of my jailers
books of crimes of the century
not one of them a lie