Ferment

Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi
hair pulled, pepper spray across the pavement

Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi
the Empire's subjects out in the streets restless

Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi
I'll tell you once, it's a secret: this life's a wild ferment

Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi
Labor the only thing you have so it's precious

Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi
Shanti shanti shanti.

The Only Thing Missing is a Margarita

Summer's here, been here, been there,
it's refreshing like a dip in the hot tub,
your sweet lovin' might be what I need,
dig it when our hips roll like sailboats
out on the horizon, our future's out on
the horizon, the road we're tripping on
hot pavement, car's in cruise control,
somethin' to drink to, somethin' to go to,
the air is hot and so be you.

Shroud the stars with your underwear
lost under my bed, don't even attempt
to find it 'cus skeletons be climbing out
the closet, keeping your head when you're
giving me head, let's give the bed and our
clothes a shed, girl, please, you ain't got
a monopoly on livin' like royalty,
the bourgeois dream, proletariat's scene,
meds on the counter and your car's in the shop,
while we're here your head be spinning like a top,
thinkin' hip hop can save you, but here's
the rub princess, witness the right hand of love
when push comes to shove, gonna push you
under the bus if you ain't careful, alright,
I'm sick of giving you this earful, just be mind-
ful and insightful and you'll be good to go,
sit back, relax, enjoy the show.

Please be sure to give my middle finger as a gift to His Majesty

(old.)

(!)

James Bond and Robinson Crusoe fence

with Horus, the Wise-blooded mud-blooded

African King. Birdman calls his neighbor,

Stephen King, who writes seven books

and the climax is a grand master jazz duel

between Birdman Horus and Crusoe Bond.

(@)

The duel will commence when

the elephant puts down the joint

and hits the books, and

Sinatra will pull out his

[puck] while singing Crusoe’s favorite

song. Islands of stop-watches

later, salt water seeps into Horus’

belt-loop hoodoo voodoo redo,

linseed oil combined with piggies,

piggie bones and piggie tails,

and just a pinch of piggie nose.

(#)

Remember, two spaces back is

actually one finger away from a canary;

and each time the cards give way to armies,

let it be known that luck will always pull it back.

($)

Boron and Jamba Juice,

chloride and popping the clutch,

elbows and pumice stones,

oh tell me why the bears aren’t

singing in their cages, or how the green-

bottomed Hesse could ever be

born again.

For K

Stop hangin' on to tomorrow

live by

the way things should be,
not the way things are.

May Day Redux

Remember the days before the first world war,
the Gilded Age if you know your history, sure,
it was long time ago with people in the first days of May,
in the street for the eight hour work day,
insteada sleep deprived workers, barely have a life outside the factory,
shining shoes or waiting tables for secretary for the treasury,
and in Chicago where they be packing meat all night long,
the workers stood up to their bosses, tellin 'em this life is wrong--
wage slaves for the productivity, incoming profits
didn't have a place in the pockets of the ones who labor for it,
so they marched and marched and marched on the fourth of May,
when a bomb got thrown, four civilians, seven cops dead,
and that's when the eyes of the PD boiled red,
tried eight anarchists and killed them fast,
all eight innocent screaming "free at last, free at last"--



(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
hair pulled, pepper spray across the pavement
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
the Empire's subjects out in the street restless
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
I'll tell you once, it's a secret: this life's a wild ferment
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
Labor the only thing you have so it's precious
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
Shanti shanti shanti.


So now in celebration of the price for labor rights,
along with Occupy Seattle's angry taste for riot-fights,
we got the Black Bloc stormin' windows up at Niketown,
someone next to me holding a sign and acting all proud asking
"Didn't they do that back in '99?" It was louder then,
now it's just a fetishized copycat trend,
justified by the weak thrashing out against the strong,
but it's all the weak's fault spouts the mouths of the neo-cons--
I can't forget to mention the Pink Bloc's involvement,
(We're here, we're queer, we're unicorns and we'll fuck you up)
screaming about those who were alienated into retirement
from this world to the next one and it's somehow the government's
fault, but all we really want is a better world,
somewhere that isn't so bureaucratically cold,
Hip-Hop Occupy's turnin' the shindig to a block party,
a good two thousand at Westlake packed like sardines,
and in a march we're squeezed into Pike Place,
cops on horses craving a chase, so some of us ran,
caused small panic, a couple minutes later and the
anger be seeping.



(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
hair pulled, pepper spray across the pavement
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
the Empire's subjects out in the street restless
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
I'll tell you once, it's a secret: this life's a wild ferment
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
Labor the only thing you have so it's precious
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
Shanti shanti shanti.


And at the end of the day it starts to rain, this,
the first day of May, we marched to the dinner bell,
met up with an immigration rally, group starting to swell,
but now I'm outtie, cold without poncho,
got three buses to take back home-- where'd the fight go?
Turns out that the May Day fiasco is the end of Occupy's
first round, let's make the second one count,
before we're enveloped in these feelings of doubt.



(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
hair pulled, pepper spray across the pavement
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
the Empire's subjects out in the street restless
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
I'll tell you once, it's a secret: this life's a wild ferment
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
Labor the only thing you have so it's precious
(Gandhi Gandhi Gandhi)
Shanti shanti shanti.



But I forgot to mention the saddest part of the thing,
some woman caught up in the tires of her dreams,
pregnant up in the front lines, got shoved by a pig
on a bicycle, gave birth to a stillborn later that night,
and the cycle continues, not ready to choose
who's right and who's to blame, I go back to take
a final exam the next day.

Black X's on the Blue Angel

motel as I drove by it this morning-- it used to be a darling of the old world Vegas, in the Ratpack mobster gangster jazzster days, and it's funny how the angels have left the ballpark, dig? Nothing but skeletons with high cheekbones, old farts with sleeping disorders, the meek and the predators, everyone intoxicated or handicapped or working, no more blue angel, no more Blue Angel, just radiation off the hot hot sidewalk.

City of Fear

and Loathing, Monsieur
Thompson might be right--
the American Dream dead
and dying on the footsteps
of Caesar's Palace, next to
the next monolithic resort
and spa, relax and spend--
you're buying emptiness.

Hey, listen up, you'll only
hear this once, the grandeur
and the parties aren't real,
but neither is the job you just
lost, neither is the penny in
the slots, neither are you if
you don't see that we are all
part of a game, a game played
with limousines and cocktails

and there's no hope in it. But
jesus, you'll go crazy if you don't
hope for anything, hope can
take the struggle and put it on its
head, if you can discern what
to hope for.

In any case, the streets are active
finally, mamacitas walking babies
into the night in their strollers,
b-ballers playing the court, players
playing the court but also the court-
room and the blackjack table, if you're
not careful you'll wind up there too.

Maybe hope isn't in an election, especially
this election season, maybe hope isn't
hanging out smoking blunts in their cars,
maybe hope isn't but it is too, and if the
paradox confuses you, don't even try

to understand what can't be is. It is and it's
sad that  two options present themselves--
poverty here or poverty there, hopelessness
here or hope there.

The dream lives but maybe dies and I need
to die before I die but I got two souls
here caught up in the tires
of nofuture allfuture and leaving might
not be in my hand. Shit, dealer,

reshuffle.

William S. Burroughs

"I am not a person and I am not an animal. There is something I am here for, something I must do before I can go."

Danger danger
danger is in anger
and broken coat-hangers,
danger danger
danger is in the manger

(Am I crazy?)

No, just angry.

Stravinsky

can choke on Electric Daisy
Carnival. Lost but strong
tanned neck my one-eyed
present hopefully won't
become the nofuture that
is my allfuture, and while

alpha isn't beta isn't gamma
isn't phi, it is really
no contest what leads me

into the dark.