Dog

There was always something weird about
That dog
We had him four years
Since the night we found him sitting on our porch
My wife said he was trying to break in
I don't think she ever liked that dog much
He was a big dog, brown and fuzzy
With floppy ears
Fed him regular
He never ate much
My wife said there was soup missing
But I never paid her no mind
He was very affectionate
Used to pat him on the head
While I watched TV
Always used to greet me
At the door after work
With my slippers in his paw
I loved that dog
Though the house did smell of cigarettes-
I thought my wife was smoking on the sly
Sometimes when I came home I'd see his big head in the window as he stood
On his hind legs to see me outside
Then one day he wasn't at the window
And he wasn't at the door
And my TV and stereo were
Gone
Too
My wife came home from shopping and
Said we had to call the cops
We had that weird dog four years
I'd have loaned him any money he needed...



A Poem Most Poignant and Tragic

She found her ex-boyfriend's paintbrush
On the way to the Dokken show
On the rug
Where it dropped when she shocked him when
She told him she was gonna go
There with Doug
She found a tear poised to moisten
Mascara 'round her pretty eyes;
Held it back-
She adjusted vinyl tube top
Indulged a couple tragic sighs
And a snack
She had a kiwi wine cooler
And a fork full of pasta whip
On the porch
With her mentholated cigar-
ette, lit the lonely paintbrush tip
Like a torch
And then as Doug drove his pickup
Up the driveway, glossed her lips
With a squeal
And a tube squirted red blood or
Paint under stil-
etto heel.


A Lyric from von Borax Hit Broadway Musical (in Progress):

Vomit Boy


If you notice me when you look at me
If you look at me at all,
If you happen to wonder what I be,
You can listen; hear them call:

Vomit boy needed on the Tilt-a-Whirl
Vomit boy, vomit boy
Vomit boy wanted at the Shaft...
Vomit boy needed on the Hoist and Hurl
Vomit boy, Vomit boy
Vomit boy to the Roto-Raft

I drag my ass across this carnival
From six o'clock to three
I watch the yokels stuff their gaping maws
With stuff they shouldn't see
'Cause Carmine's made the corndogs out of rat;
He bathes in the lemonade
The caramel corn is dank and foetid
And the pretzels are decayed
I watch these imbeciles get in machines
Snap flabby bodies 'round
And fling them roughly upside down
Leaving lunches on the ground.

Yes they're throwing up and I'm cleaning up
And the puke never ends
Oh they're blowing chunks as my mop it dunks
And this mop's my only friend

Vomit boy needed on the Tilt-a-Whirl
Vomit boy, vomit boy
Vomit boy wanted at the Shaft...
Vomit boy needed on the Hoist and Hurl
Vomit boy, Vomit boy
Vomit boy to the Roto-Raft

They say from the top of the Ferris wheel
You can see for miles
Down below you’ll find all the chicken peels
And varicolored bile
They say on the top of the Toss it Up
You're halfway to the moon
But here below as they rise up
Stuff is falling, soon.


In Solemn Tribute

To the tortured and exploited action figures of my youth:

To the Lone Ranger, unmasked,
Bound with twine
Hung to twist in the air
Covered in hot drips of candlewax
His pastel blue cowboy togs set aflame
Falling on the quilt on the bed as the twine burned through
And my hands beat out the fire then
As my grandmother grew suspicious in the next room.
To the lovely Dale Arden, captured,
And made to perform
Unspeakable acts
By the merciless Ming the Merciless and myself
While her rescuer the beauteous Flash Gordon
Lay forgotten on the carpet
Seven feet away.
To the ritually-scarred-on-the-face
Eagle-eyed-kung-fu-grip G.I. Joes
Held as prisoners of war
Hurled from second story windows
Covered in Pepsi and left half-buried in anthills
Stripped to their ultimate blue pelvis/underwear
Realistic carpet covered heads
Submerged and freezing in the ice cube tray.
To Superman who bravely flew
From the overpass to confront
Rush hour traffic.
To the Hulk whose empty rubber head
Was sliced open like a lid and filled with ketchup.
To the tiny green soldiers, arms and legs snipped off,
Melting in a napalm pool of rubber cement.
To Action Jackson,
Who I last saw bouncing down the street
Tied with white string to the bumper of my mother's car.
In the afterworld of the dolls I am a legendary despoiler
I am the destroyer
They speak of me in hushed tones of fearful reverence
And chase me down adult streets
Pointing at me
With kung-fu fingers.



My Mistake

Sad was I
To realise my mistake
Shortly after I fell into the churning vat of linguini dough
At the factory
To be called before the great dark being
And brought to see that
To my eternal shame
On Tuesdays
I should have been burning incense
Made of purest platypus dung
And sitting in a bowl of earthworms
Consecrated by a dwarf with neckrings
And a bald head anointed with holy mustard
Whistling the sacred waltz
Rotating my thumbs counterclockwise
But I was a fool-
And now I'm damned to be cast into the swimming pool of vomit
And suffer the torment of the six knitting needles
And one hot parsnip
Beset upon by hairy swimming spiders the size of hats
Hear my woe and pain
If only I'd partaken of mentholated massage oils
If only I'd been blessed by a man that lies with poodles
If only I'd had one eyebrow and one side of my moustache shaved off
If only I had not eaten of the forbidden Cornish hen with stuffing
If only I'd wept salty tears upon a newborn owl
And barked my shins intentionally on a low table
And made an irritating whining sound
When alone in the bathtub
If only I had known not to eat onions like apples!
But I was a fool
Pluck a nostril hair for me,
Or ignite a small vole
In prayer.



What I Should Be Doing

I should be singin' Italian arias
With my campadre Mbembe
Strolling through Paris
In a toga and a fez
Doin' a little Greek dance
And aiming a Mauser at that rat Ngyuen
-He killed Sonja-that rat Ngyuen
I should be running through an Egyptian desert
On Tokyo time
I should be eating Swedish meatballs
In a Brazilian falafel hut
And sadly warbling a Micronesian threnody
On Chinese bagpipes
I should be applying an English riding boot liberally
To the accelerator of a Hispano-Suiza
On a black Carpathian mountain road
With a bellyful of kim chee
Weiner schnitzel and absinthe

Or at the very least
I should be picking up some more strawberry zingers
From the convenience store on the way home tonight...



Vegetable

Like a razor through a radish
Her voice commands you to
Strip nude, and take that bad carrot
As punishment
Disdainfully
She calls you potato, and you flinch
As she teases you with erotic leather spinach
And the orange pumpkins of domination
Exposed now...
You crave bunches of sex dandelions
And gothic vampire buttercups
As skin is heating in limp asparagus bondage
But your mind is bruised and cold
So numbed by restraints of rhubarb
That her overcooked celery whip
Cannot
Touch
You
Laced in burlesque lettuce boots
Gasping for release
As rivulets of beet juice mingle
With streams of salty meat juice
On your bed of hot
Buttered rice
And pine nuts
And slivered almonds
Now weep
For the pungent severed innocence
Of onions.

From the 34th Floor

He rents his liquored ass

While I spit from the 34th floor

Adding my wad to the sputum of God

That whirls in the cold wind

To the street where he beckons to passing cars

He takes a pull from a bag full of bottle

And I laugh- ha- as I drop

A 1923 Underwood typewriter from the 34th floor

It's so cold and windy

You could snap his ears off like potato chips

And the Underwood is pulverized

On the cold cement at his heels

And the "x" key traces a tiny line of blood along his scalp

He might notice

But he doesn’t care

As a car slows he saunters forward

But it pulls away abruptly

His ass is insufficient to its needs

As I lean out over the windowledge

My toes push off

I howl as I plunge

From the 34th floor

To flatten his liquored ass.