"...sounds very uh television-y"
*
does not cognate
with contributing to ongoingnessness
(ie nonsynthesizing)
*
spin. not the right word for it.
*
create a dynamic here
where do you acknowledge non-hermeticism?
comment on the comment on the comment?
*
Uh plain American uhTV-specific uh skate on the drowned
*
Lang-wage
mid-veneer
cultivultivision
Natchewrawll(def.):Radiobillboardballoon
*
Edit it with a spoon (or, from a spoon)
Respond with mouth full. Whatever.
Keep the burner up! and brain savvy gravy
*
Listless tongue busters
Beavis and Beethovan equates Text vs. Texture
Making
it beyond Blah
*
Stylistic formalism (How Dry It WAS)
Contravening "I expected the surprise"
I miss you
*
Your wholesale appropriations
The way your agression makes you so comfortable, me too
*
And there was this idea, fell out
at the last minute
From the many times folded-over
reference
That we had it so sweetly once Love
Figure my Total Fair Use Doctrine Love
Goodbye, Mock Furious
The edge no longer contradicts
More is no, less is "yes
And yes she said yes"
_________________________________________________
Invisible ink on air kinda thing
Stopping by woods and nobody noticed
For many years he was a she
They sat by riveredge and didn't
Not even palm wine nor smoke
Would start fish quizzically appear
And dart away from the spot
Where the sunk hook shoulda been
Yet the time went by
For no perparent reason
By the clock of the bay
Watching nothing roll away
On recycled lifesavers
_________________________________________________
grates the page
over brain al dente
li'l curlicues di parmigiano shampoos it
doses a bite o' green virgin
over that, yeah, and tosses in
a dash of melted memory flash
ecco la! "ze word salade!"
a mix it like an old rose
petal the big old head'll get no
nosey speaks calmly up
ahem sweeper zip it up
into an aria of the sea moves
like nothing more nor less
than the motives of a tornado
boom
And if you spill something
No apology please
It stain without recourse
You gotta taste this!
No wait, really dry!
Aged resonating delicious wafts
Anyone lurking enough for dessert?
_________________________________________________
BALANCE
Balances
Life
Off
The
Speakers
Yo Bimbo
Bimbo Rivas
Yo this and that
Balance with Eternity
Just for a little while
_________________________________________________
THE POINT
for Luis Rodriguez
The point is
Where we are at
Is the point
Of all returns
We're at the point where you can see clear through
The Crystal Diet Pepsi Lite
Transmogrifying your transcendence
To that point where you prep to the fine
Point the Dinosaur Armor Divisions of the National Guard
While picking your teeth with a grenade handle
Awaiting the verdict on reality itself
As the gates to the Academy of the Future
Are blown
Clear off the hinges
By the implacable forces of the End of History
I used to be a visual aid
Now I'm a hospital
It's all right Ma, I'm only deconstructing
At least the Germans understand
Sandbag the universe
Kill the aliens
Put the kids on drugs
Shave every hair
Hope is a thing called advertising
And poetry my Sweet
Is on MTV
That's right Super Poet
Has devoluted the bod
Into its molecular construct
To pass right through
The lead wall of Plato's polis
The MTVization of Poetry
The Poeticization of MTV
Which gives who gives what gives
A putt putt little motobooty
We rush to rescue something from the burning building
And bring it back into the burning world
Let's unionize the Poets
Let's stand up because there are no chairs anyway
Not any real chairs
They are being used to pound a brain with
Some sense at all sense in no sense
It doesn't make it anymore
Sense, I mean, since
Nothing comes over the rainbow
Bob Kaufman's head, smile is a rainbow
It's 1995, you cannot put rainbows in poems anymore!
They've evaporated, become ads,
Madness has been changed into a new breakfast drink
And it's clear
And that's the point
There's a bunch of poets shuffling off to the Slam
Voices are heard, mouths are propellered open and
People have bad breath
The guy who takes my bottles back at the bodega looks so tired
The picture of the smiling Filipino kid on a dump over
Jessica Hagedorn's bed
Love comes in the front door without knowing things
The cloak of invisibility is such a great look these days
And a dozen condoms, please, to go
The past is on a rampage
Eating itself
Didumm
Youie hearum abouda veggibles for eber und
Lizards crawl over the moon, they are not tired,
(No! Not them point!) but wired
Messages coming through at such and such a pace
I'll grab a few deposit slips, an X hat, a kiwi fruit
And hightail it out to the desert where we
Stop dead and pray for clear, cold acid, acid rain
And I am in the Love Canoe
The window is stuck
Howzs the hurricane going to stay out
The Crystal Lite Pepsi is boiling over
The Refrogerator Magnets are dangling
I mean dancing
I mean losing pep pop profundity
Poopoohing the poignant and eating bugs raw because
They are haute cuisine bro
Fax machines who said
Fax machines
Fax machines are implanted at birth I am spilling
The delicious venom
The college library is the perfect site for a Transplanted Rain Forest Habitat Salvation Center
Are we there yet
No but we were just there
Is it time yet
Not quite you just passed it
Passed what it
You o'passed the o'point
O'back there o'ways
Notes in your shoes, tacked to genitals
A list to remind yourself to look at the To Do List
The see-through soft drinks with lo-cal alcohol are surfacing
It's so Pure, Zounds is making a come back
Because everybody finally knows Zounds means
Gods Wounds
And finally we know that God does not exist and is bleeding All over the place
Which is the placed point of
Love Caboose! Get the balls,
Get the sapgum
Demagnetized tapes are big smash hits now
Listen to Pure 000
That's right we degauss your brain
Insert a train of yikes thought that makes no stops
You are the auto pilot
Wherever whenever whatever however
You forgot to express yourself and went the local route
The local root keeps you rooted and rooting for joy
And garbage in a strait jacket
And what you got left is the point
Of the point
And nothing but the point
Where something never leads to something else
Because something is
You on the brink of the Great Abyss
And they are quickly extending the overhang
Hang on, Sloopy!
Hang on to that point
Oh Gyroscopic Moon,
balance point of the Wobbling Pivot
Graceful nonpoint gently pushing us back.
Back into the coffin from all directions
Stop me stop me stop me
Before I get to the end
_________________________________________________
PRACITICE (Sic)
Now that I am responsible for getting poetry on television
Diluting the last vestige of purity on the planet
People are saying, "How's your own poetry doing?"
As if getting poetry on tv
Were not poetry in itself
My own poetry is not very well, I reply
The bitter twitches of my lips flapping
When I drag myself to the pen
After hours of meetings with lawyers and executives
And sitting in horrible editing suites
Breathing stank reconditioned air
And after I've tucked my daughters in for a good night
And kissed my lovely wife a couple times to keep the sparks from sleep
I jot a few random words on the back of an envelope
And pray that they'll make sense in the morning
It's a new way to write
It's called poem
Which I rush off to agent
And head for date with
Sand Man
_________________________________________________
Scratching Skeleton
Smokin up a storm
C a s u a l l y elaborate
(Just the ring forever)
Answering the question relected in the...
--W e l l ?
The reflections, yes,
a stringent
Tremolo
The Leap
Out of the night/pocket of love
A starry starry some other word for night
Call it The Darkness Time? Hour of the Cave?
Tunnel to the Sun -- mainly speakers
All around keeping busy allowing sounds to escape
Rationing the detail
And trill drills deeply working over a breast
Now that's understanding
Deep in the Black Bowl the thousand eyes
Suddenly unify with a single zippity synapse
An accidental total connection
Jumpstarts
Like the names of God have all been invented
Or like God shows up and the trees bow
Trees with leaves, trees witout
The rod quakes in the opening
A body question mark balloons out into the Future
Held by a thin squeaky spongey spiralling organic string of love
Fancy
Fancy meeting you here blah blah blah!
I wouldn'y if I were you blah blah!
Oh really let me know if blah!
Thusly blah the blah blah blah
Converse? I thought you said convert!
No kidding. That's completely dif blah.
Blah blah for goodness sake hm
What was that blah again
I can relate to that blah again
Boy was that ever close! What could I have been thinking of? She almost understood me, I'm sure of it. It was like she was looking rightvthough me. She could see the real me, oh brother. I've got to calm down. I'm exploding, I'm blowing my stack. I'm smoking! I guess this is it. This is it. This is really it. This, this is love, huh?
Yippi ti tappiti tiyiyo --
The whirligig is set free (Hello I'm Wire Lee)
This message brought to you by
By you brought message this
Ooo
Boy do I like love
It so yum,
Kiss me quick before children!
Our life settles in a pronoun
Kick me out of your mouth
This sung while dancing to a future
That is s7unny right where
The declaration of a turtle
Sings the interlude of our existence
Like a bouyant cloud that strong
A friend walks by cloud
And a hospital aloud
And a marriage cloud
The tiny aspirations of ear -- what?
A birdfeeder attracts the young.
A hill and a half- what? The flower
Is in the way, spoiling the view of the
father. Scurry to the basement, hiding
Is the best place. A river runs by it.
For manyv reasons all blue, she patiently
Pulled ever so gently the skin folds
Pliant, relaxed wrinkles, lifted the word
Over the paint. So many regard a ghost
As preferable, but again -- the ear, the flesh.
In this I pull the trolley tongue alobng
Meaningful kiss, to supplant meaning, and
Slowly age together ever tender.
Four (or Five) Amongst the Day Lilies. Sex
And loss, sliding between the spring bulbs.
Clouds pacing the atmosphere, so many fingers gently
Applying the skin-pleasured skin. Faux peni
Blossoming tongues of their own. Mindy was an organ-
Izer, tight dark curls. The deep blues of Evol,
Sweating profuse character, sticky and the purest
Evocation of a reclining civilization one could imagine.
Claudia? Hank? And trembling Terce, the herm-
Aphrodite. Ai, mis amigos, how the chunky mo-
Ments elaborately reconstruct -- were I to attempt
The briefest of recapitulations, even just a list
Of pairings, groupings, tiny sonatas of pre-orgasmic
Sensation -- well, I can say now, quickly would it devolve
Into a moment-by-moment for there is no other
Only the idiotic languagwe lapping the intricate
Webbing us into our flesh.
Colors, ionization, salty taste.
I fall
For you
Over and over
To repocket
The moment
Vision gave me you
And impossible possible
The kiss won't stop
Digging through
Tender Science
Tender science trade scene
Eyes cooly float to survey
Love friend fried fiend
An army inbetween surrounds
The colors slowly sound
Jewelled hints casually drop
Little clues, footprints, mess-
Ages of the past hidden
Under the ledge of future
If Life as Life Goes On
Even existence then love
Seepens, an ever-changing
Shaft of light illuminating
This and that of our making
Turning over the earth, a seed
Awakes crying for air, cover
Tender shoot shyly
Ever verging
Roots lift, supporting air
Sky a blanket of might
Heads Up
With or without hats
Vocabulary matches
Boot to breast and toe
To ear, pinch the cable
On the table
And slo swirl
Pointed curl and that
Is that
As I was saying
To say what must
Be said: Turn
Around the sound!
My quiet blue love
Is ecstatically resprouting
My shell -- open
Wide wider wildest
I am forever pouring
Deliriously image of you
Breathing me into us
Yello, blue, green
Can't Keep a Good Sausage Down!
The hatch led clear through the ironing board
And drew us step by step into
The Hall of the Mountain Queen
Hear we heard the mad clinking
Of party time in Bosnia, the sour
Screams of the disappointed:
"Bullets Tonight Only No Ballet Today"
Whew!
Crrazy!
I gotta admit
That life with you
Well,
Words fail
So I shut up
In your print
You say it all
Just close the cover
And let us fuck the night away
OK here we go Here's a good one
A story told a long time ago seems as if
Written just yesterday just for you
It is so applicable!
Your situation, I mean. The way you're so
Wrapped up with that lover of yours, like,
You know, arms and other body parts like
Holding each other never gonna let go uh uh,
Uh uh. Something drastic
Is going o inside you, is all. I mean,
You want to laugh it off right here in public
So ok go on have a fit, cascades of laughter
Bounce off the rocks, that's how rockets got their names,
River can't the Great River Can't be contained
By banking, this is no story you realize gasping this
Is sex with love and you're never getting off
Hmm. Ride that image.
In the kitchen for a glass
Of water with ice that
You realize is better applied
To your lover's heat
Next: a complication.
The bed falls apart
And the alarm clock
Goes off 2 hours early
So you have to screw
In the bathroom
These new screw-in, modular bathrooms
Are so efficient
Just like sex with love
Sweating in a sleeping bag
Diving in the coldest lake
In the universe
And drowning
In each other
We have lost fancy judgement
And we can't give even a little
And we ace the spot
Hugging the meaningless sound
Pssst -- just you and me left
All others took the story
So serious they zip up
And down the telephone poles
To catch the first pulse
Of love! We casually waltz
Out of the bedroom
Into the party
And no one even notices
That we've been gone for two hours
What was I saying?
Was I saying something?
Wake up and go to work
But you are my work
Fire and rain
Sometimes fire
Sometimes rain
Sometimes and
Better in reverse
It's the same
Anyway
Smoking
I don't know
But I been told
It's cold
Hold me
When we are long gone
Long forgotten
Not so long from now
So long, so long
The 4 Intercontinental Directions
NE
NW
SE
SW
Find the center
Hello. This is the center
We sit here and
We just sit
"Truiangles in the afternoon."
Brrk brrk
Hello, this is the center
A pheasant sails out
Of nothing and into
A longterm relationship
Elizabeth, not long enough
So many crazy off both so many
The log is bewilderingly returning into a twig
Ya ya gonna gotta box
Vapor jet, sung tongue
Forever dancing, nowe I get it
Way the beat subtlely defines
Foot position: attractive/awkward
Ah ha! Kind of a hop
Arms around the little darlings
Who would walk us into immortality
Stop crying and screaming and biting
Start dancing that old circle
Fast circle
Back
What better to do
Than end
That's a helluva closure
Close the book
Still talking
To you
_________________________________________________
But words ARE history
Were her last words
AS she slipped
Into the dictionary the river
WAS
Each word is all history kissing
You was the news. Depends on who
And depending on your own personal
Hiss spraying pronouns all over
In a helmet of power.
That pressing but vague feeling
Of mission.
Man Overboard! (Me)
Floating up the down river
Deep into everlasting embrace of
Last word:
Becoming the history, Birth by
Drowning. I can hardly
Recall
The world you give me
20 minutes we'll give you
The world
Back again
The dictionary of fingers
Finds the meaning in air
Ha
ha - you are so stupid
I cannot help you - who? Water
Covering monster love
Whistling (listing?) to the O's
For "overreaction"
Beckonings from below
Breathe breathe
To Zzz
_________________________________________________
When you match the mix the whole world burns
Natch the nix's the op of sight
Blinding blinds lead the blinder
Over the edge to bed bed better
Scuse the excuse, did you
Say something actually say something
Keeping the people apart so they hate
Is a very good idea when you have plenty everything
Now I don't know but I've been told
Hiccup over and over that I don't know
So if I could hiccup you for a sec
Maybe you could tell me how I might know something
When there is no time for me to think about what you've told Me hiccup exuse (sic) and it's not so much
That I don't under the stand barely standing now
Nor not not understand how to understand
The noise bleeds my mind-o (“Kleenex?”)
And deteriorates the bliss
My space held and squeezed by idiots
Clapping bones over my flesh
_________________________________________________
--after Miro
Late 20th century kind of day.
Doubt is the bottom line.
All shades of gray...
When suddenly
Suddenly has happened!
Numerous numbings, occasioning
The "expected suddenly."
No more quick flips of zigzag yellow!
Once a stairway to heaven,
Ever a metaphor like Christmas
In December --
Children born
To be bored and rankle the wrinkles.
Get a husband, next thing
You know he'll be sick in bed,
Watching you from the window,
Handing over the dough to the sanitmen.
6:30 AM. Nice robe.
Soaring art stays in bed
Wraps a grand piano under the tree.
Everybody wonders what it is.
But we are somewhere in space
(Black blobs collide with light splats)...
(We use screen cleaner to wipe off the dust flecks
So we can see them, the rush to exist,
From vantage:) somewhere in space...
On the radar screen, coagulating molecules
Discuss first off how much they are gonna appreciate life --
A utility drawer opens.
The kinked up extension cord slowly unravels,
Plugs in, sending the lights ecstatically
All over the tree -- it's a piano
In a shadow of love, eyes the better
To see you with,
Somewhere in space...
_________________________________________________
Feigned love is not the twin but the other's other
Tiny hurts add up to a big meal, big napkin grease
Amazed by your covered wiles, how many other ways can I look
To stave off the mutual disaster, singular disease
The many times I have seen hate grow cold
And love o'ertake it at a gallop
But yours is the first opposite to this I've seen
Where love slides hollowly into slit eyes' cop
So full of yourself, like a frog voice
Occupying space, mileage, consumibles
In the measure of your pettiness
I await your death, and find such patience.
Such subtle depecations as you hurl so bitter
Give tensile torch and edge the fitter
_________________________________________________
Suicide
_________________________________________________
THANK YOU, BOB KAUFMAN BY JACK MICHELINE
AS COMPOSED ON THE PHONE TO BOB HOLMAN
The
day in the Marina we threw your ashes in the Bay
You made the rainbows come
Not even the Pope could do that
Not even the stars
From Coit Tower to Angel Island to Sausalito
You sent us a signal
A love call in the sky
Thank you, Bob Kaufman by Jack Micheline
_________________________________________________
Caress the wait
To orange
_________________________________________________
for Jeff Anderson
Bring
your own shadows, minister joy
A lot of light passed this way once -- right
Now the tracks slick and blister
Too much dust, dyastolic liquor
Plenty of troubles both ways, remembered
In the cafe where the frog gets its gills
Back, a parasol to rivet the glazed
-- Still say you got a handle on love?
Friend, the crosseyed crossroad's still and dead
Deadly spring passes a bonnet, converges the high
Kite bleeding its own tail. Ouch! (mosquitoes)
Code for kisses bloom', as if art matters
Book in the bathroom lends zest, rigor
Generates starfish. I knew a girl just like her.
from the "Thinkin Bout A..." Series:
_________________________________________________
Things follow
Things fall down
Things follow get back up
Coffin lid's nailed down on things
The
image escapes the monitor!
Rocks the nerves of your love
Harness solar system. Whoa. Creamy
Doughnuts ooze fingers of interrupted logic
An iambic of fact: priest strangles crucifix
Into the position of David's penis
Speed grows large down the throat of Truth
Usta be a pop rapper now I'm political poet
The third walks beside broth for future generations
Get Einstein out of the freezer, dear?
Pay back those who elected you
Go bowling with skulls
_________________________________________________
The Be Like Me Bomb
_________________________________________________
WHY AND HOW I LOVE MERILENE M. MURPHY
Hello?
Hello, Bob? It's Merilene.
Merilene M. Murphy! I've been meaning to ask you,
What does the "M" in Merilene M. Murphy
Stand for, anyway?
Well, Bob.
You won't believe this but
The "M" in Merilene M. Murphy stands for
Merilene M. Murphy!
What!? You mean your full name is
Merilene Merilene M. Murphy Murphy?
Thaasssss right!
But what does that "M" stand for then?!
Well, Bob.
You won't believe this but
The "M" in Merilene Merilene M. Murphy Murphy stands for
Merilene M. Murphy, too!
I guess that makes you
Merilene Merilene Merilene M. Murphy Murphy Murphy?
Bob, you are soooooo right!
Well, Merilene....
Yes, Sweetums?
How's about I just call you "Merilene"?
Well Bob, I think that sounds just about right.
_________________________________________________