Denim Shit

No-one sees the heap of jeans, foul and festering,

bunched in a cramped corner of our highest highway;

the fumes infiltrate our urban swerving -

and we are lurching like lighters in the dregs.

On their buses during dawn, the grimy gimlets gawk

at the greying air, holding their noses; in our offices guises

at the gloaming, the rest of us, the bastards,

roar and rest past the unwashed rank.

Then the businessmen, snorting cash, rot in their suits;

the builders, baked in concrete, erect an edifice

out of their brickly bodies; and the janitors steam

and simmer in the city's denim stink.

The preachers prophesy purgation by baptism - but

the politicians shit themselves in protest, drowning

from the weight of their filth; and the bastards break

into applause and search for a scapegoat.

The garbagemen are crucified upside-down for failing

to forgive our stenches; and all at once they sing:

our father, who art made of sulphur, harrowed be thy

odors, thy suffocation come imminently,

and find our laundry where it lies decomposing.

But the detectives run in circles, tracking dead herrings

down to the docks, where the fishermen, in desperation,

bite their own delicious fishhooks.

Sailors: don't dredge the river - its coins are full of unheard

wishes, washing to the sea; and Artists: don't sweep the streets -

your brooms are putrid and your dustpans are sieves

that leak toxic scents with glee.

The policemen, driven mad by their dogs, barricade the exits

and murder the mayor; the firemen evolve into arsonists, dancing

in powwows 'round the flames; the street surgeons flash scalpels

and rhinectomize the passers-by.

Meanwhile, the mailmen print letters to the president, pleading

in prose for a platoon of perfumers - in crop dusters -

flown by naked fashionistas whose denim clothes, worn once,

crawl onto the highways in shame -

and there they die, surrounded by flies, while the chefs

spice our maggot-filled meat; and the rest of us, the bastards,

wander in circles and wonder why our denim shit

persists in this city of corrupted gods.

-10/2010

Poseidon's Pitchfork

Somewhere inside the Triangle you appeared, my ghost,
Naked as the night you drowned inside my arms.
Knowing it was futile, I still shot at you and cursed you,
And with a phantom smile you said, “shoot me again!”
My conscience was corrupted, but the compass held my aim,
And cannonballs dissolved your body as well as my ship.
Smashed by sin, the water lapping ‘round my heels,
I took the last lifeboat into the harbor, and when they asked,
I told them I’d been a victim of mutiny. But who?
Oh, it was God, God Himself, God Almighty
On the Devil’s Sea, wielding Poseidon’s Pitchfork,
And stabbing me through. I spat up blood for a week,
And then, like a derelict ship, I floated away.

-12/15/08

Epic Verse

I had a dream:
I was alone on a vast expanse of dark desert.
A horse of fire bore down on me,
Rider's sword waving, rearing menacingly,
Like some grim and ghastly tale from colonial times,
And my head was ready for the taking –
Then to the tip of an iceberg, and I was chained to it,
Like Prometheus to the mountain's summit,
As a horse of ice bore down on me,
Gnashing its teeth, and I knew it was hungry.
If I was gutted next, I didn't feel it;
The blood only flowed from a bitten lip.
I shook myself awake, groped for a light,
Because every dark corner obstructed my sight.
This is where I might die, I might perish, I might become nevermore,
Like the Raven of Poe's, like the innocence of a whore.
Lighted now, the room seemed bare and seemed boring,
Yet sleep engaged me in hide-and-seek –
A game without laughter for a man who felt meek
After feeling the horrors that Bibles foresee.
Revelate, revelate! O reviled saints!
Paint me a picture of hell and of pain!
Paul and Peter, do you fear the rapture?
I’m fascinated by fate, but still I’m its captive.
Now shaking and shivering, I lack any courage –
The battle in my brain is of epic proportions,
And it distorts the logic that governs the days
Of the populace that plods along at a pace
Clocked and counted out by diamonds on a Rolex:
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock you're dead.
But still I wrap myself up in the blankets;
In fetal position I feel more protected.
A mother's love teaches a child, till finally
He makes his own life and fulfills his own dreams,
But dreams are fickle friends at the best:
Peace must be made if you desire your rest.
So cease not in temptation, but uncover our evils,
For this is the kingdom of power and glory
That never is tethered.
Amen, I say, amen,
For the good of our friends and of our children,
Amen, goodnight, the end.

~05/07