Fluorescence And The Boredoms

This year, I am a disillusionist, too much of a dog to be alive.

I am also a large cricket sometimes, in choking hot nights, hearing bat flight every time I close my eyes.
Reaching into my skull, I still get anxiety attacks and trip on your first novel.
In a museum, you talk about responsibility and pray before your pills.
In a human, you walk around with morning clinging to your cheeks, spitting.
And only when surrounded by fluorescence and the boredoms do you get the sensation that you are dying.

I also am a hummer and can whistle when my throat is wet.
On foreign streets, I get a good look at a train wreck.

Everything Wrinkled

You go to Ellis Island to stare at the names
Collect your parachute from the police
You build a little fire, rest your eyes on the flames
Throw your dirty books into the heat

Running naked through
The stadium
With pride in your skin

My sister's got
A rosary
She dresses up in

My pocket's feeling heavy with the ink of my pen
So I better get this down

Shivering at the back door with your books and your fleas
Your Kerouac, your almanac, and your hot jazz beat
If you're feeling empty you should talk to your priest
Or get a little high

Don't try to speak in meter cos nobody does
Don't pretend you're a romantic; you just want to be fucked
I keep a little stutter; it's the only thing I trust
I refuse to be understood

My mother had
A surgery
It's a child, again

Good for your
Telepathy
Know where everything is

I need a new rebellion; this one's losing its edge
Tell me how to be bad

I don't believe in science or the afterlife
I won't bother with you, I like everything you like
You've been working in the garden, now you're reeking of thyme
Everything wrinkled


In the light

Temple

My body is not my temple
My body is a lot of spit and stone and skin
Made to look valuable

Your god is not my temple
Your god is a lot of fear and freaks and fucks
Made to look holy

My word is my temple
My word is the word that says,
"NO."
"YEAH."
"SHIT."

My word is the word that says your little book and your business cards and your shined shoes standing on the street corner selling scripture to schoolchildren is bogus.

But climb up on your little soapbox altar and tell me to go to the hell I've yet to be shown on a map.



Alright.

Damn me.
I don't subscribe to your organ-playing, wafer-eating, wine-drinking, fear-mongering, stained glass, senior citizen, completely celibate but still fucking the altar boy bullshit.

So come on, white boy, PREACH.

Pray for my soul, but my soul's right here. And it's looking at you and your kids and your Sunday clothes, and your amen hallelujah and it's saying "That right there is something worth saving." But you decided to save me first, man.

I'm up for a saving.

Or would be if your idea of saving wasn't telling me to fear god, stand up straight, sing, sit, stand, sit, give me money because I need it to build another one of these!

You preach a culture of fear.
But mister,
Fate loves the fearless.

I read that on a fortune cookie, which is as good a religion as any other. It even comes with a dozen fried dumplings and some white rice.

Your god told you to spread his word. You call that divine, I call that good marketing.


Mister, I find your misguided idolatry dangerous, ignorant, and hilarious.

I won't come into your temple and tell you to go to hell.
I won't give you a business card, I'll give you a dollar.
I'll give you a dollar and a handshake and a goodbye.
Because, Mister, you're about to leave
You're about to walk out of that door and get in your SUV and drive home to your suburban development and turn on your FOX NEWS and climb into bed next to your emptiness and fall asleep with your Bible open.


Mister, GET OUT OF MY TEMPLE.

Stone Soup Peace

I have given
Beds to soldiers
But under their tanks I still sleep

Motionless, they
Have us gather
Ingredients for stone soup peace

Aching in the fields
We harvest
Ornaments or Christmas wreaths

We fall away
From our religion
But these presents we will keep

Shivering
In slavic slumber
Waiting for the other shoe

Bumping
On the subway
You're a stranger, I'm strange too

I get used
To my surroundings
I locate the neighborhood

I grew up in
Bakeries
Crumb-faced, looking rather good

World History

D. (Slept in shifts) In the
Apartment -- family, friends

The farmland (open area) has
Been filled with streets &
Buildings

Touch

You
Put my head on your lap
Kept on rubbing my back
I sighed
It is so nice on the outside
I thanked your god for the plough lines
And their growing seeds

But
It was ruined and rained
The bridge was creaking with strain
I sleep
In your van in the back seat
Kept on feeling the black heat
Against my eyelids

Too
You were baking for days
It is nothing I say
I know
I am quiet and not old
I am ugly but got soul
Worth enjoying

Good
Kept my feet in the sand
Kept on touching your hands
I was
Just as happy as a bug
Felt like touching to be touched
On our island

True
When the sand turned to grass
We were measuring mass
Of the
Bones and skins and the rubber
Gorgeous things in each other
We kept our eyes on

This
We were saying at last
We were skinny and fast
The hill
Picnic-eating all our fill
Summer-living it until
The season's over

Grab
All your songs and your bliss
Your dust and your instruments
Meet us
And the only true creatures
Know us all by our features
Tattoos and scars

At
Where the man makes his bend
All his limbs and his ends
Are so
Great for living in the world
Good for kissing on a girl
And hearing thunder