Manslaughter
Eli Richardson
1
Before it happened
the clan got gas.
Dad pumped,
Mom preened,
Sissy picked
flowers to wilt
in the graveyard.
Deareader played
peek-a-boo
with the payphone.
Ring a ding ding
the poor thing
is crying.
Like a baby
lost in life
for the first time.
A boo-hoo jingle
about being single,
by yourself,
abandoned.
Ring ring ring.
What a lonely
way to sing.
Lucky Deareader
knows the words
to this one
& answers.
Hello there
2
I was colored in blonde
hummingbird fevers
over crayon dragons
that haunt the thoughts
of possum teeth
ugly hiding yellow
wheat grass Kansas
air all fat with Sun
but my family was pale
& cold to look at
something wrong,
off beside the road
another wagon full
with family cracked
& shattered one door
almost open rolled
a dull head out bright
red & fingers
nosed round her jaw
looking for where
the ears might have gone.
& the wailing,
the red & blue wailing
made everyone move
real fast with big eyes
& my mother
was a practicing nurse
& left in the ambulance.
With the bloody ones
3
A guy can’t but help
his ever-loving father
even if he did
drive into a ditch.
Probably on purpose
as we all are
headed for a hole.
Anyway the gutter
ain’t proper
& I don’t want to die
in an automobile.
Much less my family
is out of sight
& maybe mangled.
Chewed up
& spit out
like me,
an orphan forever
singing a sad jingle;
Mom living Dad living.
Living living living.
Happy Mom loving.
Dad loving loving happy.
Dad, Mom living
happy loving.
Gone.
No more Dad living.
No more Mom loving.
No more.
Gone happy happy happy.
No more
4
Scene; they don’t say goodbye
& I never said hello.
They are interested,
they pretend,
in something else.
I am interested,
I pretend,
in my shoes
shooting out
in front of
each other
again & again.
I put my thumb
in the air.
They don’t notice
some old lady
cruising for a bruising
down a dismal highway.
By the way
she’s wearing binoculars
held up with legs looped
behind her ears
as she bumps off
this sad hitchhiker
into a shallow ditch.
Ask it if you will
why she’s so entranced
(she wet her pants)
at the sight
of 1 lame gunfighter
pulling out his pistol
in broad daylight.
At her age
5
I’ll be damned
if I’m not the Anti-Christ
or worse
yet, invisible to God.
& the keen eyes
of Deareader say
it’s hard to tell
drunk writing
from the real thing.
While I’m driving
I’m equally addled.
If it weren’t
for steering wheels
there’d be only one road.
But instead I’ve got maps
& speed traps,
passing & gassing
shifting,
gauges,
meters,
the man on my tail.
There’ll be no rest
for the wicked
as far as I know
DUI’s see car crashes
in their sleep.
It’s 24 hours a day
driving blind.
With their eyes closed
hard-core drunk drivers
visualize collisions.
Be it always the road’s fault.
For deciding to curve
or nail down a stop sign.
God forbid a hitch
hiker in the middle
of my dream
& head light.
Hood ornament
6
Scene; medic says
“SOS unit 911
needs back-up
ASAP for VIP
pronto DOA
if 86 CPR
& max cc IV
27 kliks south
El Dorado 10-4.”
Close-up wop wop
strobe echoing light
on hillside’s banshee
sirens wail “save us”
oscillating rescue angel
swoop been seen
in a pilgrim’s age
con carne carnage
in a car full
of blood & bodies
only seen before
in story picks up here
when you raise
a beautiful
from the wayside
to wishes on
as he crumbles steeps
dark
pitch
black
glum
sleeping
peeps aren’t heard
6 feet under.
It’s always night
7
It was a good day for dying.
Traveling many miles
long speed back there
where it was
over your shoulder
& around back
of the bright head parts
splitting the thing
dangerous close to the core
with yesterday’s
horizon line &
all that space bowling
back into sweet
dusk smells hiding
pink memories
fragile wading
the ancient grasses
greasy with youth.
A dance truly
to turn & blink
in a brave way.
Overhead sifting
red blue blackness
to old frowns
disgusting drip downs
remind you only the fastest
stay under the light
their whole go-round
faster please &
still more hurry quick go
you’re almost
to El Dorado.
Ha. Hold on now.
Look ahead.
there’s been an accident.
Someone’s dead
8
I actually did see the accident.
But it happened anyway.
While I was sleeping,
13 years old & lying
up against the keyhole
to the door of a wood paneled
death trap.
Nap propped off
the growling asphalt & fathers.
A wagon fat & monstrous
all day long.
Then he wore a beard
in the early morning
as we rolled the gold hills.
On the way to El Dorado
with wheels.
Rubber demons
scream highway speed
in the mud twisted over.
A dream of crashing
stock cars
in the gutter butter
& rainwater
make the scene greasy.
Pile-up childhood
9
“Don’t touch me,
Mom,
don’t,
tell death breath
not while I’m driving,
tell little wanker to grow up
& get his uglier
in the mirror face,
Dad,
off! I didn’t know
it would be this bad
muddy, feel it? Touching
up our truck fuck! Excuse me
we’ll get stuck if I don’t stay
on the road I’ll
quit it!
Die in the muck
of this gray graveyard
“one-way” in & out,
in a way, look out!
That possum sniffing
gravestones, gross,
stop! Touching.
Me there
10
It took the whole family
to catch my wig.
Being stiff the wind got it.
Because of curlers & dye jobs
all over the cemetery
brother & sister critters
titter slither & slinky
bugging between tombstones.
This hairball couldn’t care at all.
Bald & jaws dropped open
they held their heads.
Digging nothing
but an empty place for me.
The last hide being up for grabs,
hair it goes out of here.
In the bushes
there’s an opossum
wearing my hair
& pictures to prove it.
We have a scene;
Riki Tiki Tavi stutters
as the serpent slides
into the hole.
Den & dinner, death,
lie in the darkness waiting
for fangs to sink
it home & send poison
through prey veins.
A tear like crocodile teeth
that grin.
In its belly there are doubts:
Is a hole the place?
To hide
11
Scene; in a red & blue
whirlwind & the howl
of a hospital comes
a doctor spitting oaths
& taking care of business
with 9 hands;
piping,
wiping,
cutting,
gutting,
hurting,
birthing,
willing,
killing,
& letting loose
a bird that crashes
into a mound of medicine
bound to mend back
mechanical man
mashing black
operatedoctopudness
black octopus
goes for the holes
where you sneeze
& breathes
& pees
& lies
& eyes
& you ears
someone saying
“he’s not gonna make it”
brother take it
& fake the good news
of magic ooze
Dr. Octopus uses
touring cavities
& orifices
& orbitstories
in the obituaries
are highly recommending
you roll over
to explore a shiny blue land
soup in a basket
expanaceous
stick out one foot.
At a time
12
I would have made it
hadn’t I slipped?
& fallen, always
to the magic lap
of the Dr. who pulls
a grim rabbit
from a cowboy hat.
Dancing in the flesh
falling always.
No matter witch
doctor bugles
taps at the graves
to raise the fallen.
Deareader dances
faster & faster.
Cuts buxom
bombshells
into 3 parts.
All day long locks
relax without a key.
Rainbows run
from his nose.
Dirty dancing
for coins
in the eyes
of dead ones.
Blowing fire,
death comes
pigeon-toed.
& final
13
“Make the stop
shooting,”
I shouted
the first time
they laid me down
with wires and tubes
for moving my bleed.
While I was tied down
most everything
was taken care of
but staying alive
in this war zone
with little else
than a straight jacket
to keep the bullets’
lead & poison needles
from hiding in the skin.
POW nursing
super head wound
boo-boo bleating
for a backpack,
“pick me up like a baby”
as I’d rather be paralyzed
from the mouth down
with little control
over my write hand
with someone special
to wrap me as
be dead forever.
In bed
14
It’s being tied up
& telephones I hate
the worst.
What with tubes
& traction,
catheters
& nose food,
breathing machines
& restraints
when I went
& tried to walk,
without air,
food or any legs,
paralyzed
by the floor
I split my left.
“Excuse me
head & butt”
hurled everywhere.
Across a silence
circled a candy striper
to the last drop drip
final drugs & warbling
“Eli, Eli”
she tied me back.
Down again
15
I could be stuck
in a hole
for 4-H fairs.
The rich green stink
of beef,
mutton,
pork,
& chicken
all turned turd
with hay on top. My family
or damn near any mammal
I’ve ever looked like
stops to take
a gander, cluck
& wander off.
As if they can’t help me
while I suffer down here
broken in my hole
& hating all of me.
Because I can always
hang up, but a phone rings
for infinity.
E=MC squared heads
wouldn’t match the speed limit
these decibels are singing.
While Dr. tells us
bells
birds
stars
& telephones orbiting
our dead
means a doctor, his honor.
Isn’t order
16
If there’s anything
more annoying
than the sound
of medicine
it’s phone calls.
A voice yodeling
off key in the most
urgent manner
& getting more attention
than a crying baby
on fire or worse
a three-alarm tragedy
if it doesn’t show up
on TV. There’s nothing
more fit for news
or gossip as a telephone
grafted like noisy ivy
for every ear.
Bell booted for buzzers
& ring a ding thing
chatters like my teeth
crowned in a fever
pulling all attention
from our Sun’s supernova.
To be fried
from the eyeballs out
as a wounded brain is bright
& no one cares who is right.
We all agree we’ve got to
put out this screaming light,
sooth awake a night.
Laid flat
17
Take my word as someone
that’s been to a museum
with monkey skulls.
We’ve been drilling
holes for years.
Simply put the key
against the brain safe
& start to picking.
& turning,
turning. Round
& round.
Upside down
& over. Again.
Hold your patient’s
chain for the pain
is evil as the devils
come pouring
from the head.
Graytape lobotomies
18
A baboon’s skull
still shatters
when pressure
is applied.
The human head
is likewise prone
to web in tiny
cracks like auto glass
being every
monkeys’ relative.
Every brain’s
got the same
lock. Open the door
&
they’re gone
like jailbirds.
Slipping through
the cracks
& looking for trouble.
Because a possum
may wobble
but he won’t.
Fall down
19
Most everybody
that’s been trespassing
to a trepanning museum
with great ape
skulls knows
we’ve been drilling
holes the whole time.
Gorilla perma-grin
cranium crowned
in sphincter buttons
over the spots of release
from the pressure
within is twice as mean
as the devil
(& all his surgeons)
is not your friend.
Indeed we’ll cleave
a whole lobe
spilling to the floor.
Your curses “hurt”
crude doctors,
aprons soggy red,
they saw.
Your head
20
Don’t monkey
with Mother Nature.
Science science
nonsense
science
to those Dr.s
think I’ll swallow
science’s vitapills
life implants,
the brain
of a monkey
I’ll tell
of a time
when trees
& green
were God
before them
monkeys monkeyed
with another
monkey’s monkey
& they got a gorilla.
On their hands
21
Any one of you
that knows what it is
to see a spider web
just before it sprawls
your face
will recognize a possum’s
smile fade
as his skull collapses
like auto glass
under a heavy weight.
Bludgeoned to the head
box punch drunk sees
stars with birds
orbiting & warbling
of the flocks yet to come.
From a fractured
cavity where
everything is falling apart
due to mathemaniacs
it comes down to
dominoes & energy.
That’s how light works
some kind of
ancient high school history.
First of all
but then there’s impact.
Because no 2 objects
will ever occupy
the same place twice
I must possess
two headed facilities.
Like mirrors
22
In the beginning
there was dark.
O Deareader made light.
To see Himself big.
But lonely.
So Dr. made us come
to know Him many
angled mangle mud.
Ugly angel darker
than black so big He eats
night for breakfast
& the stars as spice.
Yet I’m burdened
beyond all
the pack animal backs
bent over
with their weight added.
As well, I’m buried
so deep I’m below a hole
dug till I’m just
a shallow grave in China
tended like charcoal
by jackboot trolls
& stories never told
of how black it was before
the fresh flesh got here
bones were all that was left.
In these old holes
awaiting rapture.
Flap, sure, or take flight
in the way of angels,
doves,
crows,
vultures,
bats,
or dark devils
come from a grave so deep.
It’s not
23
I live
in a tiny skull.
No room & a hole
in the roof. Only
two tiny windows
& constant chatter
from a mad Dr.
riding in a chopper
& beaming lights
into my cavities.
It’s hard to think
I could have
been asleep
since this book began
but my medical team
feels I’ll never wake
up. Dr.,
Deareader,
director yells
“cut” the credits.
Start rolling
24
This movie’s got no hero
or star or even a plot.
This is what happens
when you’re crippled
under the weight of too
thousand heads arguing
enough to drive you circles.
Deareader this whole while
with knives & drugs to kill
these pests.
But he’s too busy orbiting.
Warbling meters,
seismic tweeter hatching
plans for this lame duck
don’t get much worse
than having to wake up with a
swollen head & the bird
singing in the corner.
If my right hand
were long enough
I’d yank the cord
& if my left hand
would listen
I’d answer.
As if without a pucker,
I can’t make a whistle
loud enough
to let a lark know
I’m even home
much less ready
to make music.
This morning
25
Naked toes tattling
“Momma
Papa’s lain
into nuther egg head
from Universe City
n the coop
n tied m with a cord
in sack n is beaten
sin out m
with a sledge hammer
cracking
burlap shaped
broken noises
sharp worry
you need
mind m for
hanky pankin withum
those hens”
“Jimbobettysuey,
whoever,
that’s nice dear
run & fetch
his tongue back
to the kitchen
before those chickens
get hold & start to talkin
bout how your father up
&
left for gold & city
livin like a whore
full of beans
he just put umpteen
children in the oven
& crops in the field besides”
ground pink pasture asses
working pumps
9 to 5 hours eating
baby cakes cheese
& piecemeal
making you love.
Moo-oo
26
Scene; the chickens go
“a cockle do for you
cluck back fuck a hawk
a lot alock a leak
by beak
alick snota lot
balk back talk
a pack cackle
golly Molly Hen
can melancholy
lay out the freshest carton
cluck clock
cuckold cock
cartoon
of Father Farmer
hen pecked by us
egg loving chickens
cooped up with O!
Possum goblin!”
Waddled gobbles.
“Kill it
before it eats the children,”
with rakes & clubs beating
the yolk out of the pouch.
“Look at the pout
on that rat’s grin
filthy fink
eating his own teeth,”
crack boned &
skinless laid on
the head
scrambled catsup
sunny side-up.
Funny
27
Humpty crumpled
crotch rock
dumpity plump
bumpled rump
bing a ding
a funged up
tip cracked
& shattered
matter battered
shell pell-mell
scrambled
underneath
the hen house.
Dr.’s got no menu
but he knows
we’re making omelets
because we’re breaking
eggs & three minutes
is up. If they weren’t
yellow embryos
wouldn’t run.
But as long
as this yolk keeps
time I can avoid.
Punch lines
28
If I’m not mistaken
it wasn’t angels
that came to milk me.
Angels don’t curse
as they nurse
a rubber hose
up my nose
& squeeze in butter.
An angel wouldn’t
stick a pin
in the skin
of some cock
even if it was a foul
& crippled chicken.
I can’t imagine
an angel
would get away
with pulling
that catheter
clean out
of my peter.
An angel
wouldn’t blame
her night shift
blisters on Billy
the Kid wetting
the bed again.
Angels never sever
ties to anything holy
when they discover
what cow patty I’ve laid.
God save their souls
as they start scrubbing
this barnyard.
Pigsty
29
My baloney has
a first name,
it’s E, L & I.
My baloney has
a second name, but
it’s too long to rhyme.
But if you ask me,
why I’ll say,
I’m giving marsupials
5 names today.
& rings to match
fingers blushing
possum wads
pushing rods
into the black beat down
little bits of night
with broken wings
till the palms
are filled with bull
in the scrub
tongue rubbing
his hot beef
injection “moo
’scuse me but I object
to my own horn
up my tooter pooping
piles of petrifying love
story dirty score me sorely
poor me be famous
for me in this horror
story slowly over & over.”
The clover
30
Honest Abe
as many pennies
have gone through
your pockets
I’ve got mouths
to feed with scripts &
lines that women
will swoon over
operatic booths
as the lights go dim
at the conclusion
of assassinations
on the home front.
Dark for days now
the government’s
been debating
civil war
& wholesale slaughter
as still the grasses grow
gnashing masses,
a whole slough of
egos to keep fed
with action roles
in pasgetti western.
Reruns
31
Scene; Deareader sits
with His legs
crossed on the throne
indifferent as a lion
with the whole planet
for a litter box.
& smug as smells
his Holiest Hole passes
before His nose.
Because even
the Pope knows
by God I was brown.
The asshole of misery.
Never had me a name.
They just gave me a number.
#2 when I was young.
But now I’m older.
& bolder odor
knows no numbers
for there is much
that stinks.
&
only one & one
makes #2
a slow groaner.
Clatter cog
grinding
cattle prods
in my duction
fudpuckered eruption
of dire degreed diarrhea
spiced puncture
on a raw weeping
over the wiping out.
Sour grout
32
Deareader knows it
only takes a hammer
to a hipbone
but you must use tweezers
on the brains.
Great pains to pick
at the sore spots
formal-Dr.-hide
& mount
specimens of the culling
in this particular
scrub room.
Bucket red,
pink & flaky
gray doctor
carves to the roots
of my convolutions.
There grows a weed
with voices Doc locates.
Skill of plucky forceps
as a Caesarian
salad Dr. keeps picking
as ordered.
No anchovies
33
It gets sad
when I can’t read
my own signals
to myself sprawling
across the page
in open-legged hunger
waiting for
someone to answer.
Horny sleeps:
Green thoughts sleep furiously.
Bean squats reek seriously.
Obscene snots peep luridiously.
Weaned tots tweak injuriously.
Spleen shots bleed worriously.
Carbine cops shriek murderously.
Umpteen lots speak curiously
about how I
was a different flavored cake.
I’d get away
with a Kansas worth of crowd
SRO’d in one room
& stand up by myself.
Calmly talking
loudspeaker words
that nobody knew
convincing us
there wasn’t anybody
making sense.
Later Q & A
34
There’s nothing more crippling
than an open rebellion
between 2 neurons.
Nimrods refusing
to talk to each
other & tying
up the line
with their silent squabble.
“Busy signal for days”
brays the ass
that bares the Savior
& His ripe virgin
on the way to birth.
“Good luck,”
the wise men crack,
“at finding a room
during tourist
season the reason
being we don’t like folks
with a mine of their own.”
The rumor has it
those with schizo
lose it in themselves.
Soon enough every face
has looks just like the lost 1.
Even in a mirror a smile
is still a smile
&
eyes won’t change
with blinking.
As if it matters
who I see
I know it will be me.
From now on
I choose a name
& call all of me the same.
There will be neglect
& some may mutiny
but I swear I will.
Be 1
35
See & say one
thing the other
ain’t making
sense to me.
I’m a dog, “quack quack.”
I’m a hog, “meow meow.”
I’m a frog, “moo moo.”
I’m a cat, “oink oink”
I’m a bat, “crack crack”
I’m a man, “shriek shriek”
o what a goose I am
to have never heard it said
I write
while whole worlds
of eyeballs
watch what me
& my pen can do
when we lean over
& kiss this page
in foreign tongues
tangled up
in French for Paris
is Pay Ree wee
pardone means ’scuseme
for confusing everybody
listening to this
prolonged far stretch sketch.
Discontent continents
36
In these prairies deep
they make great families weep
plains of pain
& toil foils the topsoil.
Daddy slashes & burns
the earth to fodder
& incubates his seed.
In the dirty folds
where his plow fits
idly sits
his lunch & brood
by the hedgerow happy
holding to the folds
of a mother
dancing to tunes of rich
frontier & promise.
Dad’s back to the tractor
with a bubble caption
like Sunday funnies:
“Slung like aphids
to a liver spotted stalk
our babies refuse to walk
& balk at the milk
I have to offer a plot for.”
Sharecropper
37
“They were right
about the sufferings,”
in these Job lands
is a flagrant bush.
Better luck next time.
To any of you
that would care
to visit my house
I’ve built into a tree,
there’s no vacancy
for another
butt scratching monkey.
That position’s filled by me
probing for a dose of stink
to hurl at the enemies
below growing
faster than this
wood rotten
cotton picking
on a brown odor
of shit sandwiches
divvied up
for multiple mouths.
Devils food
& cake to those logs
below in great piles.
That smell
38
Of course
I have to stand up
for myself
even if I am
knee deep in shit.
Or should I say knickers
to any of you pilgrims
won’t talk or walk,
stalk the weaker side
& prey on your own frailties.
I believe I’m strong
& welcome every challenge.
Come & take this hill
or spill because I am king
& armed
with more than teeth.
Since it’s Fall anyway
you’re all going down.
You ought to covey together.
Covet company
with each other
birds of a feather
stick to 1 another,
right, Bob White
Bob White.
Come & hide from flight.
Every kite
gets pulled back to crash
unless the whole herd
flaps together.
So huddle quails & brood.
As doomsday comes
on opening day.
With shotguns
39
Man almighty
Ernst Anyway
had hairy brains
& books in Idaho.
Where he shot the vultures
God knows he was drunk.
Possum piles on the roof
whiskey on the hoof
& scavenger bait
in his cups,
the dickless goof.
Lured carrion circles
come on black wings.
Hungry & waiting
for death
with both barrels.
Loud before silent
dropping the last
of the bottle.
Papa’s hobby
40
Deareader hovers
out of bounds
beyond range
of the vulture hunters
for there is no end
to what death has left.
In its wake
size small denims
wet for fear of buzzards.
Early morning tastes
of cramps & hunger.
Battery acid buttered up
in a down jacket. The cold
is less important inside
the metal of a truck.
Floor bored he hears,
“Jack, you’re in back
&
take these bullets” bang
the door slams
in a huff
but now there’s room enough
for he to see (wee!)
up on the seat but litter
(beer rag napkin napkin beer
butt butts & lottery tickets)
& a window.
Look for the circle.
Silence.
Circles black & hung over.
Sick & dead animals.
In a shoot-out
41
Deareader observes
troop movements
behind my back.
Under the table
I surprise myself
with brutality.
Women & children, Hell
I take no prisoners.
There is no innocence
in an internal conflict.
Everybody thinks
concentration camps
cure constipation cramps.
Ethnic cleansing
soothes a pathetic frenzy.
Suicide?
I should have cried
when I started running
out of murders.
The tortures
& cruelties
that I suffer so.
Short bodies
42
Scene; regal western knight
dressed to the nine
hottest fashions
a cowboy could
muster. Buster
dolled up in leather
laying last rites
over the latest
gunslinger
given the finger
& a bullet in the heart
to help him
float to a heaven
jammed with Stetsons
& pointy boots
that arrow upward.
A fistful of dirt
& a second of silence
is the shallowest grave
we can afford
for there are more.
To bury
43
Good old Coronado
in search of El Dorado
was swarmed in Injuns.
So he took a rock.
A little smaller
but still they knelt
to the one where dingoes
ate the baby.
In Australia
they grow them black
with white beards.
But back to conquering.
On a bluff
he made his stand.
Grand sight it was.
One lone Spaniard
in a savage land.
Potting them
as they came in winter.
Splinter their skulls
with crude weapons.
My hero
44
Scene; picking up paw paws
in the paw paw patch
a puckered lip
in my back
pocket fondling
a lawn whistle along
be doo wop bomb
bay do drop blow-in-bits
to the whole continent
of you inconstant children
just to see in detail
your entrailed innards
outed & laid to waste.
As carefree rockets
zero in Santa Claus
is intercepted by a patriot
Hail Mary missile
as the last hope
is a long bomb
with enough firepower
to wipe out Christmas
& every other birthday.
“Seasons greetings”
to those of poverty
for the masses
have missed my church
& sermon.
“Ye in the valley
there’ll be lurking herds
looking out for a
napalm thunderstorm
garnished in rainbows
of every type of blood.”
O positive
45
Scene; Black Heart Bart
in a fat brim grins
gold & opulence
as Injun arrows
bound off his hairy chest.
Roaring with 2-fisted firearms
potting war party
circling like headless chickens
running for their lives
from giant Bartholomew
Ernst Bloodletter.
Better get the Hell out
of the way filthy redmen
ambushed in a ravine
by a mean old pilgrim
blazing away with ever-loving
spoonfuls of laughter
cackling the most bestial
uses from the failure
of a nation:
“Har har I am that I are
thar I war cuss & swar
at thar ugly savage!”
The slopes don’t jerk
to this here music.
Charlie don’t surf
rockets! Wop wop ops
loaded up to atomic
oscillating gunship
(demon machine)
hung swell on the belly.
Bottoms up bad ass
slipping out
a napalm breakfast
to those what eats.
Just desserts
46
Scene; intercom recon
“Ho Harry’s got a live one
by the hole.
Wall I’ll be bogeys
hiding over that
son-of-a-trip wires!”
Careful Harry.
Watch your step.
You’re on TV. man
in my family room’s
box of black & white
&
he’s in greens
in a funny hard hat
he goes “clack clack”
with a knuckle tap
& points over
at the bad guys
next door
stoop slinking
slant eye creeping
slow & GI Joe
squints looks like
“mother help me”
down the barrel.
Of a gun
47
“It’s a no good day
for killing.”
Jack says reloading
from a back pocket
30 ought 6 designed
for putting holes
in fly’s eyes
coming up gutter
trouting naked gripping
“What the Hell
is their gripe
their ass & gropes
is flat a shame
to see they’s balls
shot off a shame
to have to pot m
in the lung
lead boys lead”
Jack says “shame
of a day for dying
primed? Atomic cocks?
Jesus loving bastards
here they go to Hell with m”
Jack says spitting
(Jack’s hammer)
firing “reload”
Jack says.
“It’s opening day”
48
The sky was slow spastic
breaking up in places
where the dinosaurs came
to lunch my family
played yellow tricks
& crouched
under a rained out picnic
kicked sick of it hicks
hiding out in the sticks
melting long pigs
& spit pickled jizz
spoiled sphincter
boy balls foul
bowel bowl of butterflies
in the belly. Of this world
where it’s school children
it might as well be Kansas.
What a heat.
Sending youngsters
into a twister
because 9 out of 10
pasture boys are cyclones.
Driven to destruction
& an acute sense of the word.
The word is worse
& chaos
is just one other form
of God falling
for a thundercloud. Father
farmers duck the worst.
Heaven’s fallout
49
I was there the day
nip nazis
firebombed
the Last Supper.
Revved screams
“coward cocky”
Kawasaki caliber
foreign jobs.
As they raced
squinty eye shit faced.
Douched with cocktails,
Molotov a lot of ales,
volatile mock males
& bare knuckled chuckles.
As witless children
huddle in rubble
& nibble leftovers
to country cousins’
Sunday picnic
some ornate
Mother Mary
bless this meal
to our good for God
is food God is great!
Our hog is laid
through with a stake.
From His ass end
up to fruit
pried open jowls.
Howls as they hold
a mass & pass pieces.
Broken bread
50
I’m not a real apocalypse
but I play 1 on TV.
If I were a real apocalypse
there’d be no mushroom
booms, the motorcycle
gangs would stay home.
No fumes, floods, or fires.
Count out the mystery diseases
or heroes named Hitler.
There’ll be no mobs
or anger. The apocalypse
will be no trouble at all.
The end will come
on little cat feet,
she’ll perch on the skyline
& wake her children.
With strong brown fingers
she’ll probe alleys
familiar as pockets.
Her hair will wind down
your fire escape & brush
lovers locked together
tickle babies’ feet.
Her breath will smell
of coffee, cigarettes,
the day’s news.
Gently she will arouse mankind.
Unimpatient she will watch
her cities rise.
With warm wings
she will brood them
through the dawn.
A sleepy race
will bring the end
of the world.
Billions of faces paced
in an orderly retreat.
Painlessly,
with extreme quiet
the end will empty cities
to make room.
For herself
51
Scene; back when
they had crashes
to cushion it was a dog
of a job to be tied
to a scapegoat.
Victims thrown
from cliffs
were given chickens.
& tied to feathers
they were fed
to the wind.
The lamb
needs more wings
he can imagine.
Squawks,
flaps,
bleats
& the weight of sin.
Give him the finger
for the trouble.
It’s been
52
If my head
ain’t in my hands
my body
never will be found.
For what I’ve laid
upon this temple
will have people talking
in tongues or telephones
or whatever
they’ve got left
to make sounds.
’Cause tar baby
don’t say nothing
my dummy will stay mute.
A silent skull
on a walk to walk talk
to nobody walking
along gone walk
alone on a walk
walk no talk
even “pardon me”
or a step aside
walk talk to nobody
but yourself
walk without talk
talk without any eyes
to meet in any direction.
This talk is walking
itself someplace
to nowhere but El Dorado.
My home
53
Kansas is just God’s way
of keeping us fallen
on our toes.
But out of sight
you can’t
even see
El Dorado.
A land of honey
white & pillows.
A place without pain
or even the memory
of once hurting.
A world of wings
above tired feet.
Halos over
bashed skulls
& bad haircuts.
It’s an ice cream
truck melody
instead of
the phone shrieking.
Happy neighbors
offer rides & a dog
never has to bark.
Please even more
than ever, El Dorado.
I’m coming
54
No one notices how much
I’ve been in these boots
for 10 grand miles
one state after another
&
I still ain’t got there.
I’ve walked clean out
of 4 pair of Levi’s
& 20 times t-shirts.
Not to mention stains
or the crud I’ve washed
down drains.
I eat so little
it would make a rat nervous.
Flossed my gums with
someone else’s dollar bill
& filed my nails
with potato chips.
I brush out morning
breath with masking
tape & no sense
shaving. I’m growing hair
make a dead man envy.
I’ve got cramps
had to scoot in back to
make room for new cramps
still tired
from the very beginning.
I ain’t slept in so long
I forget what eyelids
look like. My legs
keep stepping out
like they didn’t know
I was falling.
Gather I still
ain’t got there.
Not yet
55
Chimneys
on the horizon
are headstones.
Fencerows
fading
are battalions
of the fallen.
Highway stripes
read like obituaries.
In the ditches pissers
hang their heads
as priests.
Those circled
around steaming
engines
are mourners.
Not even
dashboard saints
will save those
cross-country.
Road kills
stretch blood
& hair for miles.
On asphalt
56
Brazen coward
coming out
only in the day
time & time over.
Boring yellow dot
nailed to the ceiling.
Scoring simply goring
hot screws pouring
over poor stinking flesh.
It’s twisters twisters
son of a blister
breathing down my neck.
“Back off” the heat
I’m baking sweaty
basting bastard
so Sun’s chasing
&
I’m racing
from the hot ball
ever dooming this damn
scab to scuttle rustling
always hustling shade.
On the prairie
57
What will they say?
Being up to me
it’d be
mum.
But as it is
with any intercourse
there has to be dialogue
between a chicken
& how do you say
something clever
like a cleaver
& all the jokes
where a chicken
crosses the road
& a knife says
“excuse me”
“ouch”
goes the chicken.
Roadside slaughters
are what it’s like
when no one
knows your name
could be a stick.
Without a shadow
even the Sun won’t look
& wood would know
the cold though
even without eyes
these stars
can cast a fever.
Such is a normal reaction.
With any infection
Deareader can see
clouds & perturbation
from his space station
I’m invisible.
Under a thick
cloud cover
I’m 6 feet under
the weather
& weight
of what a cannibal feels
to be caught.
Red handed
58
Daylight’s cold
& hard as pavement
under shoes
that are too tight.
Try walking a mile
in the wrong color
or if your tan is distasteful.
Your accent makes you
sound like an idiot.
Your eyes point
the wrong way.
Your hair grows in a bad
direction
& your face is on
backwards.
A pack of turds
is a better switch
then when you can’t
decide your gender.
“Bend them over
&
let’s have a kick
at their can can car.”
Brat
Beetle
Datsun
Yugo
Civic responsibility
to wear the grill
& head light high beam
if you are.
From out of town
59
The most ill-feeling
boots are those
you do not own.
But you keep trying
as the feet you’re on
are wearing
down the alleys,
furrows,
fencerows,
avenues,
& the toll
it takes out of a sole
as you look
for anyplace
to go.
But this city’s
like the wrong shoe.
On a backward foot
going to forgotten.
Whereas if I know
it the limped gout,
faked because nobody
persecutes the crippled.
But I’ve got more
than bunions afoot.
The easiest thing
is amputation.
But by my calculation
I can’t count.
Without piglets
60
If a scarecrow’s
got anything
it’s sure as shoots
not a head
on his shoulders.
As if straw
could do the thinking
he’d live in Kansas.
The grass there
gets the best treatment.
Even if hay for brains
a man without a mind
is treated in these parts
like royal crab grass,
grab ass, a black hole.
If it’s got anything
it’s a butt full of cavities.
Gravity is the vacuum
on my neck
sucking evil eyes
& all the gossip
from strangers.
“That’s got no head,”
says most everybody.
Like I’ve got anything
to say
when my mouth
is empty.
Never making a sound,
a shadow crawls
over a landscape.
The life of a stranger is dark.
& no one knows
your name
is worth more
than the straight gaze
or sunglasses.
The look away or noses
in the air but never.
Eye contact
61
My Deareader
who is elsewhere,
hollow is my name.
From one end
of this book
to the other
I have come
& have done
many things
on this Earth
that are not
allowed in Heaven.
& yet you read
of my slaughter
& do not turn
away. Deareader
you are all
that is left
to me. I cry
a sad song
of loneliness.
I beg Deareader
to answer.
The lost 1
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