Life through heaven’s eyes,

Galactic clouds seen by

The Hebrew shepherds

And astronomers at your

Local observatory. 

Tolkien calls

an event

In his histories

that never happened

“Ainulindale.”

Ain-u-lin-dale

AaNEWlynndaal.

En-oo-leendale

Everything was made

and predetermined

by gods making music.

The stellar cradle

isn’t music but

large clouds

of chemicals

and tiny bits of

stardust turning

into solid rock.

But maybe the

celestial furnace

in Tolkien's head is

where music is made

with fire and collision

and void. I know my
head is made
by music.

Is this what God is?

A bunch of palm trees.
Looking up at 'em with their
dry brown palm leaves hushing
up birds nests.

       Is this what
God is
jazz in the late August night,
ants at the foot of my bed--
wait they're in my bed,
can't sleep so write poems
instead.

Is this what God is?
The whuh whuh whuh whuh
whirring of a stand-up
fan, the hum hum ohm hum ohm hum
of an air-conditioner,
the shtick shtick shtiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigurgleiiiiiick
noises of the sprinkler
system.

A bunch of fuckin' palm trees.

Tremble in Fear

"Abraham believed, and therefore he was young; for he who always hopes for the best becomes old, deceived by life, and he who is always prepared for the worst becomes old prematurely; but he who retains faith retains eternal youth. " - S. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

Faith in what, Mister philosopher?
Faith in God? God's not playing basket-
ball in the cul-de-sac, He's not screaming
in the McDonald's playground,
He's not reserving valuable airtime on
a large network to promote his new
"half-priced" law firm, and He's certainly
not driving in our petrol-drinking auto-
mobiles.

No, where is God today? I'd like
to have a little chat with Him.

If God is within, inside like the Taco
Bell you scarfed down last night
at one in the morning, if God takes
his place in your stomach your lungs
your heart your cock your pussy
your eyes your lips your mind your
penal gland your feet--
if God is us, then we must must
must must must have faith in ourselves.

because there's really basically nothing left
to feel. 
Isn't
that sad?
I think
it might
be the
saddest thing
since Michael
Jackson.

MJ Lives in this Poem!

We who peel bananas to throw in swimming pools--
we who color our dictionaries with smeared apricots,
we who smell the Parthenon with our fingertips,
we who live, hear us! Think with tanks made of
glass and taste our shrieks of de-
light at the process of tossing our salads
at stray cats. Feel our sonic vibrations
and tater tots and sticks of slap and our real laughter
that isn't like our old laughter, feel it
in your bones yay-ah.

The ghetto's yawning in the six AM rush hour, and I'm sitting looking out my first story window at the neighborhood commuters, writing stupid poems or testimonies or word salads or toilet paper, depending on who you are and what you stand for, what can I stand for when I'm sitting? Palm to forehead, I slouch.

Elephants and the FBI

"Standing in the place of the wise and discoursing to his students upon the profundities of divine order, the philosopher suddenly speaks better than he knows, becoming, as it were, a disciple of himself. He finds new meanings in his own words; he becomes aware that his mortal mind is being moved by an immortal agent...only through the Mysteries is that inclination brought to the high tide of expression." -- Manly Hall.

Immortal AND immoral, I tell ya what,
sitting in this room full of stuff thinking
how hard it is to break
the ice on the back of the elephant,
past the tough-ass skin of the elephant,
to the soul of the elephant, and when

I say elephant I mean reality-- haven't
you heard of the blind men and the
elephant? That's us, elephant holding
up our green and we're trying to grab
at it, it's all an insurgency, see?

And I say immoral 'cus the damned
thing doesn't know when to leave
a poor sucker alone to his going-
nowhere world, stuck in his parents'
garage hands to forehead realizing

it's so much harder than he thought
it was back in high school. Immoral
immortal agents be all up in this shit,
looking for fingerprints and deciphering

what it means to be alive.

Nothing goes better together
than the heat and the blues,

except for maybe gravity
and its young sister, centrifugal
force.

To all the aging homebodies,
to the junk and scrap collectors,
the busy busy pet-owners who
don't have enough time to clean
the feces-ridden cage in the corner
of the house,

to the ones with cockroaches breeding
in their swimming pools, who'd rather
watch Netflix and eat pizza and go out
camping to avoid stepping in dogshit,

I feel you. I wonder how I can avoid
making the same mistakes, I wonder
how I can keep things from getting
so bad, because it just seems too natural.

The Devil alias God's Shadow

Okay, so here’s a story about the devil you kids know so well,

Because I’m sick and tired of writing things that won’t sell.

The Devil, when in Russia a magician named Woland,

when in the desert a man in black chased by the gunslinger named Roland,

Took my guitar and told me to go home, I’d never make it.

But I told him, ‘nuh-uh, my girlfriend never fakes it,

And you can’t make me move because God wants me here,’

To which the Devil says, ‘I took Daniel Johnston, so you betta have fear!’

He says to me, ‘look, I can make you an offer.

Something so you won’t have to suffer.”

And I tell him his offer’s just fine,

As long as he keeps it out of mine.

He laughs and tells me I need this deal,

That this is it and the deal is real.

I tell him I don’t want to cheat or be cheated.

He tells me to ‘shut up or you’ll be deleted,’

And I tell him to go back where he came from,

And he laughs and tells me ‘come and get some,’

To which Buffy the Vampire Slayer surprises me from behind a tree,

slays the devil with holy water and ancient key.

While he’s cackling like hot coals about to go out,

I take my guitar back and tell him get out.

The devil acts all lame and really infantile,

So I lick my fingers for something I haven’t done in awhile.

I put him out with my fingertips in a heavy sigh,

Rolled myself a joint with Buffy and then got high.

Dog, ya dog,
try to make sense
out of a hurricane,
ejaculate on her belly,
falling on the floor

bound to pride the
way lions are, the lion
that is freedom roars at
the riot-cops--"Destroy
what destroys
you"--
filing insurance claims,
withdrawal fees at ATMs,
banks charging interest
for just about every-
thing. You know, Muhammad
the man not the word
said 'charge no interest
to your brother.'

The hurricane inexplicably
came on her belly,
who's her but liberty?

The sun shines through the rain
That pastes itself onto the wind-
Shield. God brings the rain but
He also brings bigots, liberals,
Cockroaches, famine, life,
Love, let us not forget rain.

The world at large you can wear
On your pinky.

Space Cadets!

C’mon, space cadets! It’s time for another

roundup, one of those hey-it-won’t-be-every-

day-that-I-have-to-do-this-kind-of-things, something

fast like your mother’s pet alligator biting

extraterrestrial radio listeners when they investigate

her cellar in the Bayou for human artifacts to take back

to their extraterrestrial city exhibitions describing

their creations, or conversely, evidence for abuse

and battery of our local ecology, and grounds for

annihilation.

And the Vietnamese children cry for joy

when extraterrestrials made their debut upon

the childrens’ old and broken continent.

I will cry too, if we ever get the chance to meet

our maker, beginning or ending,

and it won’t even matter in the long run

because we’re all being swept away in the

matter recycler black hole that is the sun in

five billion years, which if you’re a fourth or

fifth dimensional being then five billion years

is the blink of an eye, and I long wish

we were defeated by space.

I’d call it the day the music died.

Eliot

TS who shows me fear
in handfuls of dust never
ended up in this town, altho
fear and dust
go hand in hand.
The bum on the corner
of Charleston Blvd. and Lamb,
next to the McDonalds,
he has a mouthful of dust.
Eyeful my eyes are dust.
Her breasts aren't fat cells,
they're dust cells, and even
beyond the neon, all you sinners
are saints covered in dust, fear
handfuls dry, making worse
my unquenchable thirst,
making worse my unquenchable
thirst.

Little girl thinks the meaning to life
is inside the video poker machine.

Nicotine-stench in the caves of
my city's bowels, the city's bowels

big like an all you can eat buffet. Little
girl, take your cashier checks and get

out, past the puddles behind Circus
Circus, past the prostitutes on Industrial,

past the I-15 and the chamber of commerce,
past the lies and into the light.

Outlaw living paycheck to
paycheck, two weeks straight
without common sense.

Outlaw the machines, brightly
colored, noises and levers,
giving people without things
to do less to do, glassy-eyed

patrons, or are you slaves?
toeverything that's wrong
with capitalism.

it's a scam.