the devil's tuxedo  

 
 
jim leftwich & steve dalachinsky 
 
 
2019 
Table Of Contents
1. distress signals
2. for god's sake (BUT) never forgetting
3. AND in THIS cOrNeR
4. the harangue of ringing ears
5. heroin(ES) & snow cones
6. the unwashed hat
7. what-by-what
8. ​as the chorus rose above the waves
9. ​erased martyred cookies​ ​in the crying rain
10. gag mole swerve
11. ​lung barge Zurich gulch
12. salt chicken union & gnostics gathering
13. there goes another pile of forgotten worker ants
14. ​we are the past, we are the humming shoe​
15. the radio plays bones & grids
16. stepping together
17. ​beard at various stages​
18. protect the sun
19. ​where acht(o)ung(e)ing is the norm
20. ​go go guys run rampant
21. ​postage stamps cut in half
22. ​'crat demo lish
23. ​a pencil & a good deck of cards
24. the devil's tuxedo
25. jelly fucking donuts
26. ​the tragedy of​ comedy
27. Cowboys
28. skewed as a clock
29. the chewiest steak i ever et
30. mocks pox
31. ​whilst the dancing hub
32. what's done
33. where you are
34. ​no rooms to let (go in)
35. soyclums carefully abscessed
36. ​a chatter of intent
 37. Awards Night
38. ​the shelf life of a gut
39. flunkies in a field of corn
40. sheaves of bone
41. wobbly rail
42. ​german snossel
43. blind scruffy spasms
44. ​infinities of rounded-off logic
45. a Blakean sunset
46. ​a system​
47. a basket of brackets
48. truths against birthdays
49. the grappled epistle
50. ​eclipsed junket rooster
51. ​a pair of radios in paradise
52. ​montez kong
53. the way station on planet zenoc
54. sock it to me maybe
55. ​no easy task​
56. hierarchy freakdom & piracy
57. we were already here
58. disjunctive blink concussions
59. stop - smooze - glisten
60. On my way to market

distress signals

diving for hidden treasure

my chest fills with plastic
my left arm grabs for urchin
my right arm swells & explodes
diving for hidden measures
pleasures forbidden & thriving
spasm with trills the rest is myth
church rabble warming cleft
nodes & welts swarm in the night
our wings are divided muscles
tassels & origami bowties
hassles & making meats end
trivial misnomers & lollipops
lulls in the hard/on of conversation
bowling eyes & organic miso
selvedge salts and
popsicle logic
in the sere monadic mists
tricycle vial static &
convex verse
hardened to the tulle
(cy)clones / seeweed
petticoats - armored tissue
boxes / latecomers to the party
line divided between 40 candidates
a sick elephant & a beaten dead horse
of course the sea bleeds plastic
cones fissures morel and (NO)
edible boats / it needs 3 or 30
(NO) parties even more than
we do / combing the lake clocks
dated between (NO) wed and wine
our uneaten phantom envelopes
flickering in morse code / S.O.S.
... --- ... --- ..._ ._ ._ ... - _ - save our souls
save our skin slog our ans... ... ...

june 2019

for god's sake (BUT) never forgetting

the volume turns itself

up and we turn down
an offer to compete
with the noise
for noise's sake
drinking hot saké / eating mochi ice
cream the silence running as deep as the party
next door / happy birth days away from empty
logging/rhythms snappy crap shooters bumbling
bees & hives & fake
news looters wrapping up
the bio-rhythmic logjams &
the simple forms swaying
swaying lapidary snoring texts
partly ashen or pruned
by sleep in a dream of
sliced dice & molten meat
shrinking for god's sake (BUT)
never forgetting to take out the TRASH
(THOUGH) precisely after yes/ ter / day
pissant in la garbage / property owner
in the brink (BECAUSE)
cr
ash
test
d
ummi
es
play terrapin eyes laughter inversely tough
cloned properly harbor cabbage inner piquant
be
ca
use
the
kit
che
n
s
ink
suffers from a lack of oxygen
when in the course of
human
t
u
mors
(WHILE)
the
reins are unflinched (BE)
(CAUSE) & effect / or affectation
 when "the train left the station"
suffering from a lack
of foxes & hedgehogs
in the curse of human rumors
their reign is unhinged
defective
an infection
& the blue light was my mind
&
the
red
light
was
a prime reason
we should have
all
thought twice
before
crossing
the
tesselate-d
oculist.

june 2019

AND in THIS cOrNeR

dribble / drizzle
drool / drol
drop of drainage
on a tamale
here goes an
other hero
there goes
an alter
boy (AGAIN)
frazzled ribs
cage crags
loop pools
 & rain on an
ageing rope
no hope no dope (YET)
again / the threat of
dirigible / detritus &
mimicry like
sweat on an
antelope eating
the american grain
death rattles and
illegible dirt ringing
bells from a bible
crying like
a mime in the sun
sophisticated blockage
inflated biographies
the way one robs one of their life
even after death
a pinch a squeal an explain-
ation & YET ()
locked by wages
into the cat-box
histamine soap
dish grapheme
biome rhyme
scheming flat
tire bone-knife
the first robin
of spring even
after the 4th
of july / like
throwing a
wrench into
the real (BUT >
maybe a chimp into the the stench
wrenching loose after a day at the beach
the moan of strife under the promised
bridging STILL) fore/gone
rubble / riddle
spool / spore
drip of downspout
on a tomato
xeric ghosts &
 Mother Zero
there goes
an altered
joy (AGAIN)
maybe a champ sitting on the bench
counting his bruises BUT better (STILL)
knocking himself out (YET) (AGAIN)....

​july 2019​

the harangue of ringing ears

some of the same seamless

nonsense seeps into our
satisfactions
rim jobs & catzenwhakin'
jamborees & catapultin'
catatonics on steroids &
phonics / (SIMPLY BECAUSE OF)
waking to the zen cake hobbled
by slim poultry & arboreal
hammers / what use are steering
wheels in a
void / tone
poems simply phonemes
sound waves / over-arching
smoke signals
a
c
h
i
n
g
bones
broken promises
all cool off
premises
marching or hovering while
drowning & waving
sounding when making
sones
hone
zones
moan
tokens of mists & roses
that can't be kept
the harangue of ringing ears
foregrounded emissaries
grounded for being too serious
with the biscuit distribution
hour by flour the serial sawtooth
being in time rounded-off
to quarried missives
abound before our years
singing lemon meringue pies
slept like sardines
canopic in a floppy hat
canopies of canonical
cannon fodder / fathers & brothers
more orphan than knot
card carrying astro/boys
(SIMPLYBECAUSE OF)
the joys of crooking
and sax anointed
noncommittal
feathers and bathers
with uncommon foods folded or
tied in slipknots & phantom moralities
of fellow travelers
curling the sard

july 2019

heroin(ES) & snow cones

so it g​oes
the flow of sonnets
the titles of titular aardvarks
 avatars without advice
so it shows as storms become
simple breaches in the economy
showing us the snowbirds
in their bonnets growling
arks & yardsales (a tulip
in the larynx is worth three
bibles with rice & tadpoles)
no doubt about the tarmac avenue
beacons as normative
shadows echoing myths
of money with their
peaches & their dimples
& so it goes as the sonnet flows
a melange of melancholy melons
a trash dump of dumplings
lots of little dumps in our own back
yards
eye/sight blind/sighted by short/sight
behind the porch light birdlime
sight-reading in the switching yard
eyebright bright moments
crumpling lumps in the Club des
Hachichins melopoeia
chromatic languidity
with bees in their bonnets
like holy ghosts...

postscript: when i was a child my big fat history teacher

in public school called me CHINNY Chinsky
now i bleed heroin & snowcones.

​july 2019​

the unwashed hat

there it went
bonnets overflowing with bar/codes
sestinas on the open road
 & 3 card monty the only true form
there is
(or was that solitaire?)
spent reverts therein
the soda scars the pith
(just like you said it would)
it flows on the wing and sweats
like a bone / it peens
like a toad in a tina nest--
there is only one normal mountain
in the backyard of the free
and that's the airy soul
in an unwashed hat

july 2019

what-by-what

realities that extort an errant

poet from the space-fire
also inspire the fashions of
Friday as they progress
exhortation without representation
exploration without transportation
exaltation without inspiration
perspiration within conflagration
where events revert to
versions and visions evert
to variations exploitation
mimics repression exhalation
limits transmigration explanation
limbic aspiration proprioception
iambic evagination / at the spice
fair the flaming irons are
flashing in their pans
the gyros are scoping
the invalids are tripping
the doctors are ungiving care-
mongers / the stalactites are mightily
 melting like clocks
dripping from our eyes
subsuming the trash that filters through
our art / recording the empty voices
of hypocrisy in the cities &
on a hippopotamus / with
Humpty Dumpty & on
an invoice / reordering our smart
phones our thought-filters &
our membership in the
crash-consumption club
long after the course has been run
rare electrifying resonance / objective
autonomy alchemical anatomy
bedsores & septic poisoning the
ruins & the beans / the curse
of the logos / obtuse rejections in a
sentence / reified eclectic & bare
barely chimerical / bearing the
nominal automobile into
the desert of the real / singing
birdsongs in haptic bookstores
realities that extort the fire
from Tuesday with
no progression or was that prunes
rectal / linear reverberation
& poooof there goes the neighbor's
hood & we all klannish about everything
each / or was that peptic all/heimer's
that affected the way we thought<s
in the ruins of the runes awash in
percussive nose-rationing / a line
in every ear where the wreck of the
talisman eightborne ghosts / there
on the roof
a hand! / everyone a snoutfish
with their own canned plan / all we
need is love or the bloodhymn in
a hectic vat-slash-beach / wrought we
away these infections / inflections / reactions
what-by-what if hitched cock got loose
zeitgeist anomaly / vertebral / vestal vessie /
misguided sentence & emporium
redacted & reflected / the goose is in
the clock & the goat
is on the witch / so what if
the message is invested
in kabbalah & braille for
the mailgnomegrist the
Mail Gnome Grist? so what
if their sensorium grades our
sentience on a sliding scale?

july 2019

​as the chorus rose above the waves

​cuando restauranto //// a VISION of grand PESTO

limedickey rich folk kill 'em with roach-o motellos
or drown 'em in tasteless jello-s
begin the deport my fine fine fellows
this indictment is way too mellow
(BUT)
a Zest for unbranded versions slants
to the test / unwinds or unwands (say
hello to the coach) / fills them
with yolk & egg-itch slick as a dime
(telephones are gems in the dawning wasteland)
yellow wine / mythic wine
report to the beggars your fallow tooth
an INDEX for the Book of Hissing
& booth kissing & another tooth missing
& much trouble pissing / cuando territorio
sock/her balls bails bills bulls bells
a herd of clocks & oratory in error
glistening in the rubble & mulch
THE Missive of Truth / theremin broth anole
& a single singing in
The TOMB
"ah cooties at anatole's bekck(l)onings"
the angle's intoned as their wings were shredded
by the giant cater/pilers pilopidaires
"oh confounded giraffadoops" they groaned
​as the chorus rose above the waves
like wild donuts at a gravediggers
PIC(K)nic
g
i
n
inginginginginginginginginginginginginginging
loins
beckoning
untold anaphora
snootlooting bah the dead red werew​​olf
sings Lycanthropics "the living
incarnation of the spirit of poetry"
the angels hone in on
the diaries of the pilot​​
they're growing ants in the crater!
raffle the doors! floundering on a coin!
shave the doves / the roses
are rusting in their graves

​july 2019​

​erased martyred cookies​ ​in the crying rain

festering newssores / rhythmic

bathyphase / the low
point of the day when
we wake up and Re-eat
their vomited ev​​ents
powered by zucchini / sprouts /
head/dresses made of coffee rind
blackboard filled with unsolvable
equations & as the reporter put it
ACNE
KALE Doubt chin-straps succor the
powdered wine their powdered
coffins MUD recessive dread
soluble thumbs "the piths of will"
 boardrooms lacking SLACK
puttering about the terrarium
with reptilian teeth quaking
ASH(en) faces
trashed ​erased martyred cookies
the splice we (s)have to p(l)ay
for being WET nurses immersed​ ​\\
in reimbursements of shinbones
connected to anklebones &
the crooked red lines
with their matrilineal seeds
eased into the crash text / edge
crush test / textbook
layering wave upon weave
we dice & curse
sweat-bursa & flageolet beans
served with steaming sediment
​in the crying rain.

​july 2019​

gag mole swerve

aging wood / romance

a cactus puss
fields of jersey pairs
pared down as pears
dancing should rage
against the racket
of pustule & snare
hurried or unyielding
in the pearly ash
parsed at dawn
whilst the piano prancing
rolls along the edges
of well worn song
gesticulates module of likeliness
we were dancing in annual lists
we were wedged between songs & dolls
 we were torn & swelling
we were dueling sans culottes
practicing splicing the skin samp(o)les
grafting the puuuuppi onto treeeees
aghast with learning yet another gaggle
of gags down their swerves
with no re-leaf
from the mole kiln lice
the icing on the rake
knees pronto pick-up
a raft of agile bothers
kerning with the ghost
nerves of wheels welded to
the food processor wordling into pre-
natal adjectives / meta/morpho/fors
smiling similarities / kernels of chicken/hawkllngs
with their melting seals
curving into precocious swordplay
soaring like a rose
mood fork phlogiston
with beta & chives
fate lingers like a deaths-head hawk moth
wicker kin with knolls of nerds
wily as a simmering lariat around the neck(lace)
of an embattled snapping turtle
titled retuttled/simulator trance/muter muttering
about the loose mutts in the back/yarddle/duddle
groundings & lingering groundhogs
fiddle with paddles and slack
"putting the goose" about litter & lutes
dancing on an escalator
with bytes of rebuttal
"hurl the map & batten your face"
battle the warthogs & spittle yer splace
clog & rattle
the whittler in the
palace

july 2019
​lung barge Zurich gulch

argblungazuultch
ghosts aghast in the foggy org
grafbittle
microphone karmic ash
alangasubnutria
nutrients abscond with subcultural flanger
a little bit of raft on the grape
forghast as kneemic
gulchgazing lungbarge
lost in sleep lineflow despearance
elevator disperse charges
lightnig floop da gimzo
appeared on my desk like a snowy wine
changing guests like purses on a disk
with vaporous elephant lightning
and tornado zoo gimlets
like a chicken-coop without a nightlight
like johnny hartman crooning
my one & only lushlife
on a cruise ship on a moonlit
stormy night
we were noon mantras of the heart
joined at the knee
cushioned by the knife
& the boneless myth
we were spoonfed on the hip
a bruise of rusting corn
in flight from the normal light
within a spoonful of sugared poison
a lungful of jokertales
a mirageful of eaten tendencies
a garageful of dreams
imposition of gears & fuel on the moon
bales of soaked tongues
residency in a barrage of meat
the seams of mules & porridge
the glaucoma of comatose cucumbers
the ballad with strings attached within
the tendency of mood swing with or for
da suitcase filled
 with thumbs and nose-combs
the laws of ancient Rome
snatched from the wings
before a bollard of forks
with no food for decency
intentional or moot where the mote itself
protects no/one from (in)descent trilobites
thrilled with the idea of moist behavior
developed thru mass deportation &
reproduction in words sequentially ordered
to resemble sentences and statements
though in fact
port deep class anew
envelope of the devil
nor half bees
the hoist of death
piths led through the real
bite riles scent
the form of none
tectonic & professional
self-rote the here & now
they're just lists of phrases held together by
prepositions
articles
& conjunctions
swimming in subsequent fountains of ashes
& turpentine

​july 2019​

salt chicken union & gnostics gathering

discovered too numerous

the ancient miles
are nearby
where one day events
are here for things
to go
 to go toward melt/down
the fish in the see blind flukes
looking for an under/pass
tunneling their way from plea
to haunting plea
please no taunting
pleats no black eyed
peas no sway
of play in the funneling
air through
the blunderbuss cooking
nukes beyond
the dead sea wishing
that the OPERA(ting) system
worked mor(t)e efficiently
scrolls downward toward
thou-shalts & white/wash
air filters & jerk-a-bobs
temporary cyst tinge peril
& pearl the hat financial tea
nor sporks towed shards
roles gnash & bite the salted house
corn on the cob jerk chicken
& oil filters at the pipefitters union
& let's not forget noshing & gnostics
& the cistern chapel & gathering together
under too many roofs & harmonizing in
real time because we can do it

july 2019

there goes another pile of forgotten worker ants

​rediscovered lesser evils

as road blessed shaken by
vineyard ho(a)rse blintzes
as heat crawled along slippery ​
skin & boll weevils Messrs
covered bridges red baiting
 taken by unsaid guesses rode
hard and put away wet mincing
the hearse and yawning
in the wine lip service belongs
to the crawfish beaten thin as ash
cashing in on the latest faze of
birdchirp the square a cemetery
of ancient bones 20 potters fielding
glitches wherein our
days & fates
are numbered
by washing machines
like cement mixers
a choir of
third-stirrup
left-fielders
snot on the hairy twine
alone with
our antique witches
who inevitably stand us up
& ​there goes another pile of forgotten
worker ants up on
the tandem vitamin table
with the ink goats miles & miles
smothered in toes & dancing
on their forks

​july 2019​

​we are the past, we are the humming shoe​

bent like ​the seven of nails

phone home jones who
was last seen washing
in the riven of sticks
cross bars a dick shunned
still gnashing teeth
over mis/spent work permits
we are the past we are the chat/
 rooms where are
the humming shoe slicks
the barfing crossroads wreath
where mashed potato swill
will swallow us holes no
mites in the purse only
the forked scent of the serpent
hovering and pissing
in the rare hats
of the fair & balanced
like overspent pretzels
no logic no pistol
only bodies at a university protest
where all had been merged into
disgrace dear gods
of the submerged haddock
& bean please save us
from the race to the middle
in the universal test-tube protein
professist of tempests
in postdisembodied
teapots "the logic
of the poem is mainly the zeal
of the pistil pretext & ovenspout
reasoning conducted or assessed
according to strict principles of validity
for example experience
is a better guide to this
than deductive logic"

​july 2019​

the radio plays bones & grids

​the radio plays

someone to watch over me
the rain is non-stop
there'll never be another sun-
set again but the radius
 of prayer only covers
a small patch of bones
i face to face when i worship
warships / the carnival is never-
ending / the cars stream by in endless
processions / gas blowds my belly
the ship of winds is on pace
to fever in a veil while
the cutlass of dream is bending
sessions on the road to partched
livers & hairy procedures
blood from rectum ain't no blood
from a stone
​luddites are desert creatures
floodlights are desert creatures
light-sabers are desert creatures
saber-toothed tigers are desert creatures
tiger lilies are desert creatures
lilies of the valley are desert creatures
valley girls are desert creatures
grids & grills are desert creatures
grilled cheese sandwiches are desert creatures
sandwich boards are desert creatures
boards of directors are desert creatures
all else are creatures of habit or nuns.

​july 2019​

stepping together

starting with none of the above and

working out towards the bottom we
found ourselves on a small island
surrounded by sleeping waller-ators
we were rolling up our sleeveless &
stepping lightly with no time to wait
a bit crazy we took the glass cage
& together stepped into oblivion
on and on and all at all we called it
a night page by page phasing last
the elements blasting a lifetime of
choices into the harpist's retrieval
there were lifeboats on our oceans
and timelines on our open hands

july 2019

​beard at various stages​

with time on our hands

we charted the lifestyles of the great
black bear now showing in your local saloon
where we are riding on our handlebars
----look ma, no limes----
life is a steak & style is a shopping cart
moon by moon our vocal snow
is worth two nouns in the ear
3 chocolate metaphors
a simile of choice tastelessness
& a table of contents
filled with emptiness
---- hey ma, i'm hungry
& all we have to eat is this poem
& whitman's ​beard at various
stages of life flow / no fear / to be free
at Pfaff's on a friday night

​july 2019​

protect the sun

hide the accidents in the

constant plankton with
 their jagged muttering
shrugged often enough
miles of eroded beaches
spanking new jet-skis
sale/boats of souls solo-ing in
& out with the tide
each mode of smilin​​g
skits & nets a few sparking
wings of moles safe in their
moats wide as the pith
of a snout & protected areas for
creatures who don't know they
are protected / snipes / voles
piping plovers &...realistically
tectonic doubt (they know
they don't know) featuring
holes & snippets & professists
& poison ivy & poison sumac &
poison oak & poison pen letters
all poised to protect the summer
sun which is very noisy
with its fetters bent to seed & pose
all posers tattooed & glitt'rin with filth
all shuckin jivin & divin ina the bucket of
all memory based scroungers
takin da fifth with a shoe hose
like Huck Finn's divining rod
loungin in the basement
on da 13th floor
sleepin in the pool room with the padlocked
door / waking in the morning with a $2 spore.

july 2019

​where acht(o)ung(e)ing is the norm

everyday I believe
in enough silence
to mutate the
 arguments in need
of deeds & facts
but indeed it is words that count
despite what is said & the good sam-
aritan focuses on the front of trees not their tops
on the fountains at their feet
and not on the swords
in the weeds
where the same plaid blood is flayed
at the site of cropped knees
& puritan curses
where power begets power & the powerful
are full of powder where prowess is prevalent
& acht(o)ung(e)ing is the norm where the
powerful wear egrets to war there is valet
parking west of the pro shop & the black widow
spiders are full of corn their wings hung
on the storm like facts
their facts hung like wings on the totems of
disheveled angels...

july 2019

​go go guys run rampant

rampant
buffaloes everywhere
eating other folks'
hay
so where's the garlic end
& the killer begin??? where
does the poem go
from everywhere it is??
ant ramps? low buffers?
smothering
the beaten way?
where do the filters begin?
who infiltrated the greenhouse?
why were there ants in the cocktails?
 tales of untold miseries?
where will it go from (w)here?
every house of cards a treatment
plant. snails in the alarm
clocks, ranting air. like a whale
folded into a mini-series. here we go
here to go the go to guys
are here.

july 2019

​postage stamps cut in half

the news is of nudes defending

a staircase the Escalante bears
listening with their sandstone
ears even the backs of postage
stamps site this
escalators to heaven
backstagepasses to hades
waging ghosts for the flacks
of the seven fears
to bite the stumps
or rumps leaving
the calibrated shades
to the asses center-stage
within the amphi-theater
of argument

july 2019

​'crat demo lish

​
​2 + 2 does not equal rights
4 more gin & rummies & we'll
all be on the street
eliminate the middle person &
yer left with the muddle prism
in the middle of the night
when the quail = the qualia &
the gumshoes grin
like immoral deathforks
3 + 3 does not mean eyes snake
6 more ways to skin a ​'crat
demo lish un done by too much proof reading
quaaludes used to be where it's alleviation
make my eyes shine like dusty diamonds
like the sounds of demons debating bats
brickbats & batshit
the spoof is in the breading
we're still levitating the pentagon
with cracked anti- bodies
hardcore universals
tragic rest stops and
antiquated pedestrians
just so that​ 1 x 1 can stay a constant.

​august 2019​

​a pencil & a good deck of cards

red luggage arrives in the

extended language we
present at best to
policies of control
or was it a pest in the pants
is worth 6+6 no more?
a value than detach here
in the fire-ants nest
where the score is
always 5 = 6
the price of a patch of glue
a pencil & a good deck of cards
where 5'll get ya 99 plus
 a midnight ride​​
in the switching-yard
when i'll bet the whole pot
on that one means blackjack's
just a figure of breach & a hole in yer
blintzes is more than it deems

august 2019

the devil's tuxedo

regards known
transcendent eraser bond
what the maladjusted millennial
sought a fortnight plus toil =
trubble sown in the
boneyard beyond an easier
sentience a mile
of nails plus salad &
wheat foiled by the midnight
naught burger well worth it without
deluxe thrown in like unsympathetic music
not realizing its own potential
the width of doubt is north of hell
the music is sick
like a symphony in the attic
dawn is dressed in the devil's tuxedo
the onions browned without love
the fries dry as the meat is
medium well might as well have been
well done as done as the check that eventually
arrived at the wrong address
a day late and a dollar short
& there yesterday's menu sat crumpled
inside a stale 1/2 eaten bun.

august 2019
jelly fucking donuts

capped off expensive

coffee exotic bean/heads
the works within the works
cold jelly donuts broken
sieve-boating off the coast
of pie island with their esoteric
feet and their breaded genes
spoken in a glut of feathers
& peanuts pea nuts PEE nutz
weather change sugar factory
dominoes a game for sweet / tooth
money grubbers alalalalcchhoohoo choo
alachoo & pie crusts PIE crusts pie
CRUSTS torrid facts garfish & surcharge
theremin wheatsooth sweating forks
in the name of the nosedome
chew boo do the few new true
jitterbugs & climate change
easy pass & loud & clear
situation even keep & life dear life
has a way of being unpredictable
corny & urgent
climate-related
DEATHS
and money-related
DEATHS
& gun-related
DEATHS
and hate-related
DEATHS
& hamburger related deaths
& i'll have mine with ketchup.

august 2019
​the tragedy of​ comedy

great comedy is guerrilla warfare good comedy

is egotistical masturbation mediocre comedy is
insufferable sadism and bad comedy is pitiful
masochism i hate comedy but sometimes the routine
works other times just a bunch of jerks - i like french
comedy english comedy the marx bros. jonathan winters
lord buckley a few others dark comedy hair tonic
carrot juice i like banana peels banana peels with hats
banana peels with hats and ladders hats and ladders
and tragicomic couples dancing along twilit sidewalks
towards the sea ropes and bladders & all that matters
& mad flatterers and filtration systems battened
hatches matchbook poems the holy modal rounders
coping mechanisms unfiltered camels all orders
of badass plodders plotters & mad flatteners &
lines of punch & all bad jokes & frivolous blokes
with top hats i like chaplin keaton & laurel & hardy
& lou costello & a few other fellows but where are the
women no mention of them you'd think all comedians
were only men i love lucy & gracie & a pup name boo
& if yas don't watch out i might love YOU

​august 2019​

Cowboys

the cowboys are after the herd

not to round em up but to
brand em with their AKA's
a clan of misbegotten skin tones
wrapped in hoods not hoodies
proclaiming their territorial right
the cowboys are after the words
not to sound them out but to
grind them into their aches
a gland or forgotten shin bones
draped in moods and duties
reclaiming the torrential night
the cowboys are after the gold
not to try to spend but to have it
on their eyes after the sheriff guns em
down the cowboys know their fight
is the good fight of might the tortured fight
of SIGHT as short as it may be
in the long & lonely smite
the cowboys are in the fold
gritting and bending they heave
their eyes after the tariff gums
of dawn you know how the cowboys are
they bite their kites and drink bud lite
they sleight ash snort and maybe
get along dogs for a boneless mile
but best of all they wrangle genes
horse around & remove their spurs
saddle sore & weary.

august 2019

skewed as a clock

drive closer to the trees walk through

the sound the straight
street to go is impossible and
slow sure as rock steady as a chewed
finger pick ages have passed
& before the sun sets we are
out for a walk skewed as a clock and
pure as the snow pages & pages
have gassed past and linger
which is as close as it gets
to talking about the score

august 2019
the chewiest steak i ever et

this note
is legal tender
this tender heart is
in debt both public &
private / this is instant
take not this
bent egg or
galloping hiss
in the undertense
a rubric apart
a web of broth
to navigate through
this is tough love tough meat
this is the rear end of the arse
as far back as one can go
ough ough ough ough ough ough
bough love
cough love
dough love
enough love
furlough love
rough love
trough love
ough ough ough ough ough ough
in the business end of a hearse
bought the narrows & fraught with glomp.

mocks pox

yap yep yip

yop yup I
agree with
everything
boy toy
real joy
you the foil
watch out you'll spoil
you donkey
boy toe
real joe
who the foe
Edgar Allan Poe
long ago strip mall
mauled shopper
teeny bopper
share cropper
cost of copper
piy pey pay poy puy
pax pux pex pox pix
mail trip ego lung
hopping malt
flopping bean
copping shore
dropping boss
bax bix bex
bux box
sicker than flicker
slicker than picker
ix styx fix hex
socker than
flocker licker
than pucker
fox
stocks
mocks
pox

august 2019

​whilst the dancing hub

​whilst
the wilder strip
flourished
the gander went
elsewhere
what a long thirsty
trip / shedding
the fish by hand
within the web of circumstance
dallying lost in the lightbulb
zoomed boom​​ boom
out go the lights
within the dancing hub
capped off by a double margarita
...trouble in mind...but
haven't yet snapped crackled
popped or corned
ooops there goes the neighbor's hood.

​august 2019​

what's done

where were we when the wind

started blowing through the cracks
in our stitches
there was always yesterday to
remind us
we could have been anywhere
but specifics can be important
at times
we were on the moon & we were
in Hiroshima
and we were at our desks while
the Arctic is
on fire
& we were
around the world for
80 eons
when the glue became
undone
& the news became undone
& the ironies became undone
& what's done cannot BE...

august 2019

where you are

where are you now

where will you be
when hourly ... our
windswept beasts
& spindrift youth
lie still as a noun
where you are

august 2019

​no rooms to let (go in)

yttrium ran its course

poly-divisible coitus
generally assembled
earthworks resembling
where you've been
the curse
of illiberalism
their hiatus invisible
polis dissembling &
generative blinkering
semes & earthworms
in the spleen
spewing out carwash &
vellum conspicuous nachos
& 4 alarm friers
 ash from the fumeroles
macho couscous
& the jelly thumb
of holy friars
over the yardarm farm
valium enough for everyone
gaps in the love machine
needs that differed
& 2 discount tix @ 95$ per
for the latest bdway (s)hit
everyone soughing helium
ex machina above the lapse
their infrared hats
full of seeds
peering out from
the jinx of truth
fully award of the noxious fumes
coming in through their terminals
scumsome retrograders lookin' for a spin/cycle
to cease...
no room for the noisy germs
moving toward our woolly thoughts
nor rooms to let in the oral cavities.

​august 2019​

soyclums carefully abscessed

behind the atrium beyond

the atelier beneath the
abattoir between the shiny
teeth of the trumpeter
who ate a bottle of lithium
an outlier blowing booker
little on the batoufargone
zippleock at a little
bar in lubbock texas
with a zither & a lyre
surrounded by hoods
 wearing liar liar life's on fire
t-shirts assuming great means
GREAT when it's just picki-yoon
and you're estranged on lake
pontchartrain no drinks to drain just
a spire for hire & a corn
knife in your lifeboat
with the fish a-jumpin
& the locals all high
& 5'll get ya 10 that the beignets are fixed
and clumped like vocal wishes
bent to the will of the sky
second rate versions crammed in like soyclums
hex
gushes
scurry
lumps
carefully
local
trills
buoy
on-ramp excursions pirouette absconds
abscessed ascends the starlit stairway absent-mindedly

august 2019

​a chatter of intent

below yesterday
a chatter of intent
a liquidation of sorts
& death dies with the suicide
what was all that anyway
snorting their way
from vacation to vampire
squid content to slander
the mad hatter
side-by-side
with lies on their breath
 cross bearers of inside dope
wooden ships afloat on fire
in ruins / another anthem sung
in the mud
what's going on
down under
here
s e e m s like a long time going....
lined in tons of cry baby train rides through
haircuts... with breaths
inside fires & themes
sung on a ladder
& the thud of heresy
sideways along our
thoughts of jump-cut
lines too long at the fair
where all the flowers have gone bye-bye.

august 2019

Awards Night

wilderness remembers the

southeastern mini-subject
the road on film unfolding
in dutch angles / unlikely parings
lens' disintegrating before our eyes
setup shots always done clockwise
to flatten the content
curve thus making room
for parrots of dice
as they blow
up tracking the play
counter production
direct hit to the air/shaft 'ploitation
plot/twist > the marmalade always
on hold / either you're ridin'
with a camera or you're not / be
thankful for what you got
 panning a wide screened desert
a montage of cowboys & indians
edited into a scalp of deadly dandruff
when the going gets
tough jump
cut to sacred
cows in India
a year-long tracking
shot from the Ganges
to the Rio Grande
where super heroes flourish >
hold stop circle direct write produce
make money .... CUT CUT CUT CUT...
to credits......

august 2019

​the shelf life of a gut

rape / incest / humanity

in a nut's shell
a cranium filled with
dinosaur bones
a boner if there ever
was / won by the napes
of their necks / the shelf
life of a gut / frills and
geranium tones with
wine sauce fever
alone & washed in ash
splashes of whitewash on their faces
the hangman's noose lined with feces
geo-geronimos growing
gregariously in the garden
in the james river face
wilderness splotches of
potash on their
noses mowing or mending
the fences like Hieronymus
 Bosch nefarious with
a warden in a garden of girdles' preflights
a phlegmish ball of blind men leading the fish
(you can lead a fish to water
but you can't make it drink)
flightless birds
in a hall of mirrors
speaking Flemish
to limbs of mint
squish them o breaded men behind The Mall of English
flamboyant buoys flame throwers & fops
squash em & wash em clean
peddle/philes ​file clerks
& bible thumpin copias
mopping up behind the snow
blowers & fire hydrants / the toy
meanings are gems & cash / quash
em in a file cabinet beneath
their muddied encyclopedias
bubbling clumps of bile
sinking forever in angelic morning of
re - structural isms...

​august 2019​

flunkies in a field of corn

treasures discreep again the distance

awarded the turnstiles of our health
with toolboxes forward
foundless in their teeth between
the gaps as another bites
the rust / drunk on lead / poisoned by pride
a blue/tion quickened the swell/bank
broken pedals off stems
rewrites as anole snapping
wide orisons on the beaded trunk
in the dust tank sweltering
sickened pollution
teeming with soft and modal tokens
surround sound potions
pistons of glunk
flunkies always on call
let's maul another mall/goer
mon cherie
notions & lotions abound around
the town / a small trombone plays
positronic funk / the toes are the key
we are smothered in mail
unsalted letters
moon-cheese on rye
pumpkin pie in the sky
bunk clunk dunk flunk gunk hunk
junk punk sunk trunk drunk monk
plunked down among the tone-pomes
& sinking.

august 2019

sheaves of bone

when you feel

& things are flowing
you've found your way in the field
& locusts are attracted to you...
steal away youth is like the wind
flowers are as rare as hinges
sealed away in our unwound weave
we have a new traction to discuss
a distraction to cause a fuss
& leaves that go on binges
an infraction like a hush of claws
or sheaves of bone the wings of a goat
flunging to ward pea / nut grause goo
lollygaggin grubbers & hi-jacked gophers
looking fer their shadows
good sausage in the gut
swarming peacocks & tongues
grapheme jackals & bubbling Lilliputians
like shaved haddocks in a furry book
that's never been read too many timez

august 2019

wobbly rail

it's the crust of a curse where

fiction is the main course &
the sauces are stacked
like hollow shutters
inanimate ice creamed cons
shallow tacky excursions into rust
& friction even though "diction" means
"the choice and use of words
and phrases in speech or writing"
adjusted for a wobbly rail
what we are lacking
in our pond of dreams
we reanimate as intimate vice
don juan in hell singing an aria to
young virgins / an area about the size
of Spring for our rites / waving a wand
over a chalice of olive oil
the tailor mending the piana
minding its own revelations

august 2019

​german snossel

ffo peels ot
backsling / terminal
drak-ortem post
 free radiccio(s)
sleep ping pong off​​
center to
germinate in a
wing sack
ghost-dreck & orts
scoff laws scoffed at
shuffling the deck while shuffling
along
sing-along springers
the flaws in the cough
are the flaws
in the hat
the stuff of
lingering dreams
seem(s) like nutmeg
wild mares & haber-
dashers
dysraphic mirrors
snagged in the
gut
saber-toothed bears
mild & mashed
wild rebah & seram
smees
grifters & screamers
all backward gemtuns
smeard swalf & chip-ar-syd
off to sleep
in our shifting
dreams
geraniums stacked sky-high
until they are scattered by morning's
hguoc.

​august 2019​

blind scruffy spasms

small scruffy goats
ground on a broken
hinge smelling of
leftover candies
like portals
through a (fluffy) plasm
malt spasms dine a dozen
binge thinking dangerous
& lines of linen redrawn
like frozen fault lines
& cataclysms
dangling on the brink
of a reinsured wine
stuffy spelling bees singed
by syringes filled with blue ink
blinds drawn in pencil/light
singing knees & pelts like taffy
with wrinkled lures spilling
sphinx-light
dawning on double binds
bins of antique raffle tickets
blinking in sewer suds
crinkled popsicles tar/niched
thick baffles of oblique spin
up to our knees in blood & mud
in the pewter
sink filched far &
wide with cyclical winks
or leans further toward babble
on.

august 2019

​infinities of rounded-off logic

​fester by the pool

lounge chair rotation
plastics inevitable melt
into the fingers​​
loop thee by blistering roster
to flotation devices & rotator cuffs
hairy air scrounging in the bible
belt where the evil elastic
fables linger
stinging explosive jew democrats
lounging in pockets of profanity
we are the rapture / the rupture
created by christ / the divine trash
of ascendancy with maybe
a few demons exposed
in singing ​infinities
of rounded-off logic
& lack of potty training.

​august 2019​

a Blakean sunset

​visiting the air brought

vulnerable clearance
waiting as the water
pursues memories
lovers gone
fading flowers
sun in and out
olive oil in the salad
dreams twinkling​​
among the ivories
purring soup bone
hovers above our
lower wading
snout-sand
at the Inn of the Us
pop art eye
in the spinach
diddly/squat mirth-worms
jumpin in the juniper
one mint at a time
what squirms like a doodle
with lime-scented tones
rappelling bumper-to-bumper
inside the tunnel
connecting limp nods to
telepathy
like a funnel filtering
nodes through
the lamp nexus
swath to Connecticut
where we dawdle in the twaddle
with our swaddling bands undone
​a Blakean sunset on the tips of our lips
slipping downstream
without a
paddle
in the hand zone madding
dour as a crypt
where the chosen ones perilously straddle.

​august 2019​

​a system​

warnings abound
within the reckless sound
of one gland swelling
serious sonorities revealed​​
us playing the devil's avocado
serial nor the land
of well-being counterclockwise
around the thinning
ground warmings silently
resound / found objexts
floating in a pound of lard
crazy world of fire rebounds
what's next? oblong nouns
bloated like a mound
of birds
belonging to no / one
longing for bliss
prolonging their agonies]
until they become pro/nouns
synonymous shifters
of known renown / yearning
for a blizzard
of peonies ​/ ​of ponies
longitudinal on inherited
prairies
rare fairies on a plane of distain
reactionary prawns in a pool of ​plotkins
skinned & refueled by college
where our raw actions
of barefoot hairy kinship
plodding on the fast-lane loop were ruled
by a collage of raindrops
& a system of synthetic waste products.

​august 2019​

a basket of brackets

we are free from form worlds

as muskets torpedoes & sea
thinking fever a hat forms a
reversal of events that
in a mirror, and -ering a mirror
a tisket of brisket causes
uncertain and free-form
curses & off course ME- a task
et of misfits & the inverse
of the curse a basket of brackets
muskrat biscuits & brie

august 2019
truths against birthdays

free from liturgics

detergents that cast a spell
lapalapa padooser a mishigas
of you cranes
foaming linguistic knees
vast pelts are no deterrent
mishaps on the Ponderosa
palpable as a brain
as was mi-spelled so i used deferr/ants
where the planetics profelitated
the sin(g)-a-longs
pulpa de mescalito
remembering against
reading we
build-up
massive truths
truths against birthdays
death/days slogans
sluggers & exits
this view
of their pages
shares
a lather of style
a blather of smiles
a smattering of ideals.

august 2019

the grappled epistle

curious to acquaint
a flesh challenge
to the hop​​e
furious & quaint
a flash in the scan
 on a flippery flope
the seal flops on the lip
out of the fire
& into the frying
pan / a clash on the run
floora fedora on a turkey
wishbone wishing it were flesh
...there goes the neighbor's hood
yet again pollution in green
impacts of dog
flooding
the grappled epistle
as the apostles plod thru
endangered species
gone up in a BLAZE
from the Amazon to the Arctic
we don't miss out on anything
by insisting on the real
the authentic slice of
coke candy & capital....

august 2019

​eclipsed junket rooster

forensic / collision
happens when 3 quest-
ions avvince evenings
spinning like irons​​
in the wind illusions
of the carrot & the stick
avoiding revisionist
paintings by glamorous stipends
it seems to turn like a sprocket
in its corner soaking up
eclipse twice as long as
the horsepower of an hour
junket yogurt & she's malleable
seen from the back she's
 anything at all
the shadow-hinge is green
a tall table for the gut
we lying in the gutter
roofers stuffing prawns
long gone
like a rooster cross the
lawn long
gone.

​august 2019​

​a pair of radios in paradise

problems as thick as a kind

of second helping feel the
same when seen in the
conclusion of small cities
from the air
hyper-spacial pity for the lackie
moronical island scanner
formaldehyde lacquer
and a pith of space-dust
sniping
scammer than maniacal
scramming from dilettante monkey
business all clocked propopalis
dill + etant = 1. The Waterfall, 2. The
Illuminating Gas, 3. Gustave
Courbet, 4. a kind of pickle (French:
Étant donnés) "to be in a [kind of]
pickle"
in a pickle = in a difficult position
(like pickles in a jar); pickle from
the Dutch pekel, ‘something
piquant’, originally the salted
vinegar used as a preservative
(17th century) Gustave Moreau
rusty water iron spittoons looney
 parasites the sinking of the Loose-sit
ania / anal retentive hurricane bombs
chapeau moral staff & gust of situationist
moonlit spoons in irredentist tears
the irenic waiters hustle their
pink kings with periscopes & parasols
tombs aplomb alone cannot
bury a beehive in the retina
like a piano in a panel truck playing right now
in my dying room over the paradio
a pravda-esque signal for ploys
the right noun in the right place
parades of dice
hovering over our gloom
even their toys are signs and nails
at the risk of evading our prayers
for ships that sank at the opening
of the war to end all wars
& the lusty men that sailed 'em.

august 2019

​montez kong

cropped cock-eyed
why botherers
there's tense / all season-
tanning / whys-achallenged
handy-cappers
crock pots cracked at
stop signs smothered
by reason & unhinged
chain-link snapping claquers
adding flack to all the cracquers
who smacked a goil in the bottom
whilst drinking the pee
with Winnie the Pooh
zip-a-dee-doo-dah
day de death & dada
in a cask of sloont slunked by
chemurgy slinkies & tap-dancers
neuromancers & rat finks
urged to a chemical wedding
linked by the risky task
of their slanted loot
forgotten concubombs ethno/graphic
novellas / tormented goose-bumps
flickers grappling
nothing ebbs
combing cucumbers
ten goat fog
plump segue
dented tomes
lasting velcro
velocity indicators
transflexible toiletrees
mono-somatic hay-cleavers
justifiable promo/sides
ort scat index
city of veils
knees yet toil
bile flex sand
verse-clean hectic
amass on some
decides rope mop
able if fudge were trickier than blather
or where the bather went to oxidize its
chromo/somes
lathering then rickshaw skier sere
the hacksaw seer with his dice & fox
spent bathing in heresy
what a messy chromatic summer
filled with gigantic miniatures
minotaurs stuffed with olives
cocky tailgators out for vengeance
& knee-high splinterers X-pounding
cocksure minarets tickling
giant fantastic ants
endives suffering
sour mints
seance tongues & Venn diagrams
sprouting the fate of kale
 resounding x-ray musicality
internal plinths and thigh-fees
cuppie dolls running down patrons
aprons flimping in the rind
astro/boytoys climcheed in the framustootle
epic or Homeric hymn tradition
with tootsie rolls in their A-frames
climbing the cream cheese tortoise mountain
the blimp the blimp in the astral mind
mapping these patriotic dawns
where the sun drools
on its Cupid like a pony
where phonie radisheads willop
on the linda/sills still lifes / stiffs
if ever there was a zootsuited cadaver
woodshedding radius dollop phonemic hair
lifts the knife and fills it
with India ink and thiefbone
forever astute as a boot
in the feverish here & now
all in the name of song sound & resonance
all for the sake of truth justice ways & means
all lost in der crabilabia crimpcroak canasta
(as in card game) shuffle
in the dance of reason in the long game
of the fictitious fall what we glean from play
as ice or juice we stake
on cannibal aster and soak
in pimping crime the biological library
like a thundering ghost
muffled by the name of the shard
hard boiled like a mosquito neat noir
garbo montez kong mutilated young
wranglers in a bridge game kwai/ed
eating our tin foil hats
as quiet as moss
toiling in the front yard
tongues later for the gong
they have monetized their garbage
wailing kiwis framed on the ridge
tangled in a wagging rant
wadding amongst the waterlilies...
august 2019

the way station on planet zenoc

​newspapers fanning changes fell apart

at midnight in their flickering
thoughts of cities flopping warmth
while wandering on the moon alone
don juan still in hell​​
telephone brinkers rush
to his aid
the storm approaches
my relatives have escaped and are
living in space
maybe Mars
maybe the dark side of the moon
the last we heard they were orbiting
the earth in a large tin can
looking for leftovers from the rain
forest foraging for skulls ashes
& ah has backs bent permanently double
from working in the silver mines
at Cerro Rico ("rich mountain"),
or Sumaq Urqu
(Quechua sumaq "beautiful, good,
pleasant", urqu "mountain)
a beacon of chalices
razed slowly toward earth
a ribald opera of errors
a piebald opus of mirrors
experimental peril
a mirth of razors bowling
dog-head gal prism
wang danged by shooter
doodling yet again on the fender
of democracity
good mountain chalices
toward an earth of errors
mirroring a gallon of fangs
 against the grain again
like the last time i ate a popsicle
or saw janine
or heard the rag man outside my window
red # 40 blue 15 yellow infinite like
sunrise dye die diy
bicycles
we knew all along
iodine
bag of loose eyes
thigh bones drumsticks wings
fly me to the mortuary
whilst oxygen remains in his mind
behind the strings behind
the wicks behind the crumbs
behind the throne behind
the sighs the obituary fly trap
Rembrandt brains oxidize generic ilk
milk toast in a foamy chronology
the milky way lost our way
way to go here to go samba bent sin
dream piece wilt airs drunt rocket 9
number's up / ward
since when balsam
fine as fire
let the rant flare stilts and lease
on waste where there is no place
for humanity to venture toward
a wayward slumunker in tights
what is the pace for
the nose in lace
who knows the word who
heard the bird
who ate the turd &
slew the race
it's so absurd & leaves no
trace....

​september 2019​
sock it to me maybe

terry said to steve

all that sniff'll kill ya
steve breathed heavily
placing the sock over his mouth
& nose > chortled
steve ya heavily mouth
chortled to kill breathed his
nose said sniff'll steve over
& terry the sock
clocked right in the g(l)ut -
inous maximus entered inta the
tent screamin circus circus circus
circuitously
glut the circus gut
circus into the circus
entered in the right maximus
screaming tent
locked us in the airplane
glued us to the rams(h)ack(le)
ransacked the run(a)way
the airplane hacked or tackled
away in hams harm
a ham in harms way
socked us in a lock and
glued us to the railroad (t)racks
hacks that we were writing bad
defective novels about noir white kids
snorting (dis)pepsi(a)
and racks bad kids pepsi
locke railroad writing white dispersal
in the werewolf noir snorting
snacks hat detective north
mazzola marginalia flopglided bulldingers
car/opted mud-owls stuck in planters
on the flip-side of the bulldozer

september 2019
​no easy task​

they say no one said

it was going to be
easy but they are
lying about that too
too many broths kill the
snoop / extra mezzo in the tomato
parm / linguistic w/calm source
flying two close
to the chicken coup
potatoes on the mezzanine
with lamb curse & lip servants
preserved earlobe garnish
"i'll have mine to G(r)O(pe)"
grow & smell / flop & flask
origin & moment
in the grip
or a tarnished gibberish
with no orgy
to lament
no red tape / no frappe
no non-stick cookie sheets
no superman
flapping his cape
no pass go & collect
"they say that
for every drop of rain that falls
a flower grows" & believe me
that's no easy task

​september 2019​

hierarchy freakdom & piracy

​heavenly shades of
goomp appalling
 it's trauma-time
deep in the muck your
clam is crawling....it's
unevenly shaped if
appealed to pogo
a lime aroma
like Huck Finn creeping
lawless on the lam(b)
shank
heavily maids on tarps
are falling it's
fall/guy's prime
without without the phloomp
you're stalling / it's
as easy as mauling a lamp
post-loop fallout
trying right on time
within my prayer for pyro-tech's demise
a lot of smoke & mirrors form your eyes
together or alone we drink turpentine
fine
we drink feathers & bone
wise as a wreck
or a throw of layers
for the thin can-can dancer
who feeds proust smelly underwear
during the last phase of the moon
at le chat noir
either that or the cat
in the hat
the moon is a prune in June
underwater we are melting
roasted by our needs
quietly he plays a tune on the
player piano's knee
the orchestra comes to rest
the absinthe-minded professor
pukes riddles
he plays a loon on tv
and he plants his nose
in a layered nest
whoosh what a mess
combing a chest of drawers
 the roof-sensor long-winded
fiddling his absent rebuke
for my sheri amour
in the bland of the shread
where crescent shaped flutes
circulate breath
between hourly wages
and 2 thousand thread count sheets
in the pandas of the dead
we curate our pages
for the scent of the grape
and the myths that we adore
because we are all great pretenders
or bartenders pre-blending cocktails
in the round
surrounded by contrails / wending
our way to the ends of the
earth / out on a limb / in ancient
Greece / eaten by the winds
of freedom & ​hierarchy
freakdom & piracy
income & delicacy
hieroglyphics peak oil
precarity & heroes
from the deli
the soup-kitchen spooners
pasta- rami eating crooners
shooting the moon
on a chance to legitimize
their urgency
emergent hair mites &
three-legged stool dance
too soon the boon
muting hoots (Ram Dass
is not a rastafarian
beatnik)​ & i am not
a Cesar Franck sonata.​

september 2019
we were already here

fall in the snow lanes given

in answer to where are
the wars and who
is still willing to find
them / nightingales / westerly
blown / in response to
who are the whores & how
who is the Ponzi scheme
in the unknown sacristy
scowling at the scores
of the whole / who has
hemmed the midnight
snail in a frill of wine on the early part
of sarcaphacus sancrisant pilgrimage
to san somemememe-oh-so to find
the relics of histrianical lalososoosops
clearly smart phones snark abacus
without croissants
scrimmaging sandy marshmallows
frolic with botanical
Laborotosaurus scoops of bebop
stuck inside the inner ear & maar gan datt luky
in the why/duct of unsanitized vision
versions demonetized while sneaking
through the alley with an ally
in Flat Hat Kentucky barring any unforeseen
ganglia fear no spinning B-sides
idling in the muck
so we block the exits
the goal posts are golden
silence falls upon the
field / the lambs are led to
slaughter bartering our doubts
for lamps yielding to the pond
through a lens of mold & ghosts
& the quietude of safety
pinups begat.

september 2019
disjunctive blink concussions

drop something?
never go down on all 4s
your safety is unessential
leave it where it lies
flopping or flapping
at the hinge
just before the dawn
sour scents wafting by
we tried
with both sets of tired
eyes
all we saw were the blinking
stars go out as they collected
the cash
the galaxy registered naughts
the towers reconvened
it was one long car crash
winking goats at the lectern
ash and whey blistering
an onslaught
of convenient laxatives empowered
by the powerless farters who emitted
enough fumes to evacuate the mona-
steries riding lawnmowers
half-bitten non-starters
matriculate in the Sough of Gloom
to curate a moondream miniseries
so if you say something be some thing
if you drip something sp(r)ay some thing
if your pants fall down leave 'em be
if you sea something beach something
pants on fire? throw em in the ocean
sow what sew wheat so beat be be it
beebeee guns & liars fleet's-in-conjun(k)tion
conjugated conjugals / gulls in tandem with raw/shack
nests
fests invested in random
 pulls on the grid
frugal as in gated community
disjunctive leaflets & flyers
stunningly needy
dunkers leaving the scene shortly after
your concussions perk polyrhythmic ranging
stranger than mythical politics
shirking the sun
we coin the rafters
to hang it in

september 2019

stop - smooze - glisten

1.
stop doing that / we
are up to our ears
in all of their
earlier defeats
our feet are worn down
from pacing the educated idioms
enunciating subtle adventurous
apparents
dawn is reborn fare & reeks
of sour axioms subtracted
from the parsed foams
of venture capitalists runcible
stubble aerating
their rented appointments

2.
incorporate some unison
the side door is the easiest way
don't fret the small inquiry
conceptions of time are not clocks
confusion begins
in units of unrest
 they ate the porous ink
which way to the greasy theology
a choir of snails / no sweat
the machinery stopped working
a long time ago / the esperanto
fingernagel knew the wang dank butcher.

3.
go snorkel hopping chicory macho thief
ant peril ego the limestone gong
go cherubim itching spanks the curlew
gelatin nail-biting lingers in fling
went thou succulent piglet
gone the piper's call
hence the goblet's giblet
dense the tyrant's fall
in the halls of beyondsense the
fire hydrants
thrall the
letters nibble on the throb
since
culled
viper's
the bone

4.
trigger-nometry
falsetto tolerance
the forgotten manifesto
clean sheets & tiffanied/
lamp/shades with their
faded epiphanies camping
in the heat of the mean
a little rotting pesto as it
tolls for the foggy
lettuce / set to a false
poetry rigged
anomaly nagy > start here
pass gone retrieve data
simulate a simulator
stimulate yur orgons
be cock/sure
5,
do that again / the lure of the
clock beats like morgan
stanley mulling furry stem
cells later than the golden
retrievers fetching a bone
near the heart of the bauhaus
blintzes reaching petzlonners
regress the egrets sledging the mose
to get things right
wedging the grackles between
the geckos & the retreads
guests' gaussian distribution
of pez dispensers all in the
sun grit their hinged teeth
right between the eyes
as they debate amongst them
selves...

september 2019

On my way to market

1.

on my way to market
mark my words
though i had the date marked
on my calendar the colander over-
flowe(r)ed
we were parked behind
the parking lot we were
marching through
the archway we landed
on our feet like a snaked coiled in
an unread book
the pragmaticism of a prism
underwent withdrawal
rewired litho-memes
reprogramming
assured / went / remarked
sacrificed scarified
remurked bent aspired
to repossessed grammar
the same orthopedic red wine
dawning piths & scented thunder
that got us in trouble in the first place.

2.
at first glance
it seemed safe to go
back inside
the bagels had all gone
the locks all pried open
save the next
dance dreams of a
ghost beside a knack
for basil on
bone the pride
of clocks
the rock rolling
back toward the cave
the rolls dry & hard
the turkey overcooked
the glands expanded
tolling for our socks
for whom the belt
waves the word
of swords or shards
on rye the boll weevils
overdetermined the beef
jerky from panda express

3.

this little piggy went to

spare ribs
that giant maggot stayed
put
my waggy laggy was a mean
craggy claggy
got stapled right in the gut
 but what about cursing
the fig tree what about
the brittle ibis parrot snare
the preying mantis
goat ant gnat bean buttered
ash snagged in a waggle
dance capable
as night is not

4.

on easy handled
sources
jump-started enigmas
juicy spark distributor
systems
bandied about like
greasy spoons
humpbacked engines
& tribunal parking
meters the scourge
loosely of stem cells
& festivals of the yam
hamming it up over
bad greek salads
pits breaking yet another
peace treaty
hovering over Hanoi
like a Nixon lampshade-mask
ladles speaking
bread to smother
their breakneck splits
meat unleashed by teeth
many fake doo-woppers
spreading the word like
soggy meatloaf
returning 1000 fold to the off shore
drill sergeant naked
at the phony burger
king with his leaf-blower dog food
common core golfing for gold

5.
often the symphony lasts longer
than the cypher
way before gold was mined silver
tongued craftsmen washed ashore
from Cerro Rico at Potosi in Bolivia
beginning in 1546 to Serra Pelada
in Brazil in the 1980s the coffins
last longer than our empathy
for the workers

[in progress when Steve died]

september 2019
TLPress 
Roanoke VA USA 
2019