Summer Poems I-VII
I: Last Night in Jerusalem
Last night in Jerusalem
the meek meanies mixed
Manhattan Moonshine.
Under the midnight moonlight
of the moonlit midnight cover,
of course. But then————!
The crusader cops cried
“Cut the crooked crops
or we’ll cut your crooked
craws you crooked criminal
croppers!”
And pop go the petrol panties!—
pahpahpahpahpahpahpahpahpahpahp
pahp… pah… pa… ppppffftthhhzzzz
From the front looking back,
the audience sink into their seats
and smile.
II: Tubby Time
Lathered up in Birmingham
Brand Bubble Bath Bazooka
Soap. The ladies love luscious
l(a/ea)ther! Oh yeah————!
A hop and a skip, and I’m off,
off on the town with my greased
up greasy greaser in tow. Cherry
cherry wine, cherry chocolates,
turn me left. Someone slips
placenta juice in the punch
(What a punchline!) and now, now
hey you, be my Easter ham. You
may not be kosher, but you sure do
taste good, my pineapple glazed pretty.
Lathered up together in BBBB, the
world will be our [b/(g/r)]ubble bath
forever and forever and forever and
fornever.
What a future this promises.
III: The Ballad of Buckaroo Bill
Heaven is for real says the cheeky four year old standing
on the book cover. He knows from personal experience.
I often sit and wonder if I could use a fake driving license
Made in China, or would I find out if the boy was telling
the truth, after all. Buckaroo Bill, the pudgy driving tester
will laugh over my smiling dead body (smiling at how
much a pain in the arse driving is) and then he will say,
“I told you that you should have practiced more,” and I will
say, “Go lasso some cattle. It’ll shave some fat off you.”
Or at least my spirit will say that as it finds out that heaven
really is for real, really, really, really real after all, really.
And he won’t be able to hear me.
IV: Phil Collins
My cat looks like Phil Collins,
and sings like him, too. No, you
can’t hurry love, meows Phil, as
he scratches behind his ear with
his back right paw, the only four
toed paw on a five fingered cat.
Suffer the little birdies that fall
into his thumbs of death. He
drums the life out of them…
in the air tonight, oh Lord——!
I do believe I have sand in my puns.
V: Honesty
How many heads can fit under a dinner table?
I dropped my fork to bend down and check.
Of course it was quite crowded, as always.
Fluorescent light reflected off my fork, and
illumined Valerie’s sylphlike shoe, a repository
for adorable ankles and fever fostering feet.
Sitting up I looked at Valerie. Lord, what a face.
Like it had been steamrolled at conception. Imagine
the moment of her birth, her baby body spit out
like flavorless chewing gum. And her mother, looks
at her daughter’s pancake puss and sheds syrup.
I glanced at her and wondered whether one could
inflate it with a bicycle pump. Maybe, after dinner
I will make an honest attempt.
VI: The Abortion Clinic
My daily commute to work brings me past the local family planning center. Not once have I driven by and not been greeted by rival camps of protestors stationed outside making hoopla about babies and conception and termination. By some unholy convergence of elements the speed limit for the road is fifteen miles per hour because some woman with a deaf blind mute child once lived on the road and the state has not gotten around to raising it. Each car is like a brainless lobster wandering into a trap, just going about doing what it is doing, and then chiung goes the rusty gate; it really gives one a sense of perspective. These hooligans love to pound on cars and wave around signs featuring high-res photographs of bloodied up fetuses or stomachs plastered with melodramatic slogans pertaining to individualism and autonomous decision making. One particularly dour morning the protestors in a rare display of unity formed a human blockade to prevent any further movement on my part and would not leave until I confirmed my stance on the issue at hand, and I replied saying that I was pro-whatever-snarky-remark-I-came-up-with-at-the-moment. Sometimes they even bring their offspring with them, and you can guess which group I sympathize with more at that point. If only I could run them over and plead self-defense as they are quite threatening to my mental and physical wellbeing, not to mention my timely arrival at work. Because of the aforementioned I spend much more time than I usually would (see not at all) thinking about the nature of the fetus. Once while purveying a news journal of dubious credibility I perchanced upon a story describing how in China (where everything shocking seems to happen) terminated fetuses were being freeze-dried and used in tasty snack products and skin creams. I remember chuckling to myself and wondering if these frozen fetuses were what the Chinese fed their astronauts. (When I was a young child it was my life’s ambition to be an astronaut until I read a children’s encyclopedia on space and was greeted with a lovely picture of worms (whether the worms played any primary role in space exploration I do not recall, the fact that they were worms was enough to bring an end to my astronomical ambitions).) But returning to my conflict with the roadway ruffians, I often question why instead of blowing up family planning centers domestic religious zealots do not blow up these people. Perhaps I will have to enter this burgeoning occupation for myself. At least I would get to work on time.
VII: Danish Curtains
Clop click clackaty clopkaty cloup.
Was it yesterday tomorrow when I
whilst under the influence of cat nip
ruined the curtains? The Danish
curtains, the droll dank dusk drapes.
For just 25¢ I promise to patchitty
patch pem pup (not a pup as in a pup
but pup as in pop like pop, phmap!).
Now now now now now. Nap time.
