there are wolves on the moon, too
howling at the earth

In Memory of Kurt Vonnegut

the quiet wraith figure you pass midnight on a highway as you’re driving south, crossland, out one jungle into another, he smiles back and waves and maybe you’re lucky enough to catch it. the juggler, the shepard, the king’s handyman, mocked, pushed aside, how they fell on their knees pressing their palms together, pressing through skin to bone on bone salvation, no more mystic floating spirits, but the true touch, fingering your main cables: the pulmonary artery, the spinal chord, seminal vesicle. watch his heart beat, age, stop, watch his glasses thicken, hair grow wilder in neglect. so it goes, so he said.
the human story, an ants story. a grain of sand. excruciating and simple. life is rotten, leaders lie, the good struggle and die, everyone is moved by kindness, everyone desires love, lives to laugh, but moves too quickly to really enjoy a cup of lemonade and a sunset. the complexity of a Charleston Chew is lost. so much for wine and cake and humility. so gone are lovers. so driven are we while our feet swell and heels ache from wearing pretty shoes…
a great man is dead and he’s left us everything he thought, all he learned in 84 years as a person in 14 novels, countless short stories and drafts. when you think of Kurt Vonnegut do you think of the man, weathered and humor filled jowls, beagle eyes and all or do you think of hundreds of pages, pounds and gallons of ink splashed insights, screaming V emblazoned book jackets lining your shelves, each one stained with his conciousness, a life experience purchasable in bookshops and airport kiosks, the man the flesh body, the man the paperback, one looses breath and blood flow the other gains speed.

gimme gimme gimme

Give me a porcelain dog bone and I’ll break my teeth just looking at it
aggression is wasted on the young
I hope I’m this angry when I’m older
when I have a little more salt to me
now the best I can do is pour some letters into this machine
hope that I can push something out of me
more impressive than a healthy bowel movement
I realize I’m impressionable
delusional
I realize that I’m not as brilliant
as I ought to be
I realize that anger in general is as dangerous as
laziness
and I realize I am as lazy as I am angry.
So look out!

Give me a gun and I’ll use the butt to drive a nail into a wall, to hang it on
if only I could say this directly to you
I wouldn’t have to scratch for each syllable
I’d just have a conversation
but I don’t know where you are
I don’t know if you’re out there
I know that the most rewarding
mysterious occasions of my life
are when I let my guard down
and speak softly of fears
or ideas
floating masterpieces of thought
I carry around at all times
but consider to be too singular,
too personal to share
and I share them, thanks to booze,
thanks to the right stranger,
thanks to talking out loud,
thanks to frustration,
and you say, yes,
I know what you mean.

Give me a flower and I’ll wither with it in front of you
I’ll hitch hike even though
the days of hitch hiking are over, you keep reminding me
I’ll listen to the mariachi band on the F train
and watch them with out pretending like
they’re not making my commute more bearable
I’ll state openly that the way the world
operates is completely incorrect
that there is a better way to go
I’ll make it fully understood that
I don’t have a flying clue what that is

Give me a sandwich, I’m hungry for Christ sakes
there’s a feeling in my gut
all the time like I’m not doing what I’m supposed to
that we as a whole are off the mark
I’ve been to protest rallies
and they look just like what the rally is rallying against
there’s a big politician shouting slogans with a microphone
there’s a big crowd standing in formation shouting the slogans
back at the microphone
they march to city hall
they march to the UN
they march forming lines and columns and regiments and battalions
and units and
they demand peace.
NOW.

Give me a haircut, the hippies are selling me new cars
the time has come to create a culture
that operates outside of a computer
that lives and breathes that is misunderstood
misdirected, mistaken, mysterious
that performs plays on street corners
throwing quarters into the coffee cups
of passers by
that wears logos and no clothing
that gives themselves names like Lambisill and Lunesta
that goes to Darfur for spring break,
that creates a new economy by depositing poems, short stories,
and recipes for apple pie into the ATM.

Give me a dictionary I’ll rip pages out and line my shoes with them
give me an acre of land I’ll build a gas station there that pumps
chocolate milk
give me a horse, I’ll drive him around in a carriage
give me a president who can talk, I’ll write a poem about his wife
give me absurdity, I’ll show you a mirror
give me sanity as
I’ve never seen it

Wax

step inside a ball of red wax
heated by a neural sun
you slip in easy, amused
by your surrogate womb and
dine on the things inside awaiting you
grapes, oranges, ham hocks, all wax, of course
and soon you are wax as well
breathing wax, eating, sleeping, dreaming wax
that cools and hardens with the
setting sun, trapping you in red,
but who will you blame?
the sun for setting?
wax for waxing soft
then hardening?
curiosity for inviting
you to a ball of wax to
wax in wax till a
new sun finds you

(Untitled)

Hapless and drunk
Romantic and weak
Breastfeed on dreams

Manically lazy
Devoutly fearful
Constantly stumbling for attention

Determinedly selfish
Inscrutably ambivalent
Precisely circumventing

And always whining
Whining
Whining
Whining

Full and Upright

The only thing I remember clearly
Is that he didn't recline his seat back
Not once
Not once in a 5 hour flight
Probably 35, 40 maybe
Probably brown hair, no beard
Probably wearing a cheap suit
Reading Time or Newsweek
Never saying hello
Or even acknowledging the living body crushed beside him
Doesn't watch the in-flight movie
Doesn't look out the window or listen to music
Orders a ginger ale with no ice
His peanuts remain unopened for the entire extent of our relationship
He sleeps rigid, no pillow, no hand
His dreams are like a newspaper
Black and white, boring,
And ultimately, disposable
Meanwhile, I have to piss
But I wouldn’t want to impose on our friendship by asking him to move