The Old Snuffalupagus
shall rise from his sarcophagus
to snag us and drag us away.
He'll stuff some asparagus
down your esophagus
and gag us on haggis
and humongous fungus.
With gustative gusto
disgust us 'til August
in his own Snuffalupagus way.
I met you one day, years ago an a Sunday.
I kissed your hand and it came off,
So I threw it away.
It was so cold that the earthworms turned to ice.
I married you one day, years ago on a Saturday.
I kissed your lips and your head came off,
So I threw it away.
It was so cold that the jellyfish turned to ice.
I saw you as I came home one day, years ago on a Friday.
I hugged you and your arms came off,
So I used them to prop up the TV table.
It was so cold that the ladybugs burst open.
I buried you one day, years ago on a Sunday.
Our children tossed you flowers and your coffin fell apart,
So we got a refund a bought a dog.
It was so cold that our shoes froze to the pavement.
I held you one day, years ago on a Monday.
But you sneezed and my heart fell out,
So I threw it away.
It was so cold that demons danced in our bed.
Too late, too late, too late.
I.
"Twirling sewers plummet through the drain
Soaking up all the leftover juice.
Meanness bears elastic kisses
because she has no way to go beyond them.
It was a Passover hat you scratched into the table,
but our itching gulch was filled with skin
and nobody ever noticed that you were raining.
That was the day our print died.
Hardly two months into an airplane and still—
…Caving is enough as truth
even for greens in boxers who died for their fellows.
They sliced deeply in modern Greece
and should have told me you were a bean."
—Lord Pumpernickel, High Ankle of Attbury, in a letter addressed to the Chicken
II.
"I haven't come to procure a six-story cat! I merely wish to deposit some wax into your masterful warthog receptacle. So if you would kindly leave my trousers in frosted peace, sir, I would be most obliged to your houseman's daughter. Good day!"
—Duke Hump-In-Bump, Champion Speaker of Cornshire, personally rebuking the Chicken
V____, my sweets, there is an animal in my lungs which you must smooth. We have cooked one another for all equal days since time enveloped our memories. And in all that swirling chocolate of weakening development, how have I ever been able to but control my numerals! V____, oh dear bull of blossoming, now as hollow as gold, I am brought too, too close, and testing will not wait another wavelength-I have opossums up my nose for you!
Yes, my dust-eared bunny, there can be no wayfaring in this jungle, for the zebra is out: I follow you with all my protuberances, always yet never. Thou art my chin, my remark, my grass-garrisoned gartooth. With queens in my sparklers I inebriate the earth with my banter; for thou, white V____, art in the heavens we cannot consume. You are true and fluidic, soft and slick, the carriage of my spine. V____, I have quagmires for you.
Inhale with me, slave with me, warp my lunches as I perish in yours! Let us dance in ghastly release, pour sewer bait through our sleeves, spread the night over toast, and cherish ourselves since eternity! My cotton speeds forth in mellow rhythm to contemplate the wonder of our ways. I feel a duplicate supplication, to drown with none but my own queer V____. These potatoes taste for you in unity-accept their domed feet.
I recollect your tremorous scribbles. You see that I am below human argument. You cannot corner my green intentions as you Xerox us. But V____, my accentuated firebrand, my most rare and fleeting of missiles, in a subterranean love I am branching into figments only we may purport! See that I am a true walrus-being, oh tame heart. And then enter with me into unspoken travails of worship and grace. V____, with blood and cheese, with puppies and oysters, universities and beatings, with every star a man can rapturously bring to paradise and die upon, I hitherforth allow to the canyons: Oh, V____, I mascerate you!
She eyes the pronged toad; her gaze is bursting outward. Her look smothers him, burns him, makes his scales shiver. How he desires to weave his threads through her mucky exterior. The coldness of that furious warmth wracks his canvas, twists his being into a futile beast of passion. Down he goes...
Caught, they fall through the years and are torn gently, every gaping fiber benign. Can this crack any more evenly? Yes, it will. He realizes this now, that it is too much fun for unrepressed man alone to eat through the visage of his soul. And so accordingly, he grinds his toes into her, now slowly, now with righteousness, now triumphant. She throws open the metal doors and pours out her blood. Thoughtlessness reigns in one glorious orgy of balooning fancy! Together now, as always, her mushroom and his brown purple angles intertwine through layers of shrouded blossom. Go!
The walls of this grey rock-tooth beat thoroughly, pulsating in their vicissitudes. Wonder of wonders, it's working! Hair sprouting from all their porous pieces; inflating sacs of chewy candy! Grow, little being! Find life and live! But yet, the walls melt...
Down...
Down they go, into the gutter. A chill permeates her various creams. Does night stop here? Late in the game though it may be, she is pulled through the wrong leak, and he dries up and freezes. Sight is gone, lost, but the eye in the mouth knows dark from jellied evil. Roll on out, roll on, and then SHE comes bursting up from the grasses! All yellow and true, up she towers!
Up...
Fireworks inhabit our wheeling dreams. Come what may, the cavern has forever disappeared. But when the lizard was wrapped in soft blue whore-flesh with butter, he never knew a truer grace. For both of them, the world has gone out like a recalibrated diary page. You feel it, don't you? Let us give thanks, for we the entry-takers feel.
And that is how it shall be, for as long as true beings are equipped, then the other word for asphalt is "sex."
If Calculus One
is a rite of passage into adulthood,
Calculus Two
is the first serious business of being a grown-up.
So hold your head high
and put on a tie
and try to forget
that deep down inside
your inner child
just wants to play with algebra.
The patter of a summer shower
against a classroom window
anticipates the washing away
of fears and woes of calculus
of tears wept for integrals
sweat perspired for derivatives
replaced at last by the sweet taste
of freedom, love and joy.
But hard to shake
(once in the habit)
—now watching all
those raindrops fall—
thoughts of each drop's
—velocity
——acceleration
———altitude
(hidden nature now reveal'd)
as they gently kiss
my tired face.
Provided that this test you pass
Ne'er shall you need retake this class
Mission accomplished, credit earned
Regardless of how much you learned
And if beyond that classroom door
You use algebra nevermore
F'rget not the beauty of the path
Which we traveled seeking math
In learning functions periodic
study till at last you've got it.
For angles' ev'ry revolution
struggle to find the solution.
Foster intellectual penchant
for cosine, sine, secant, and tangent.
Give a bravadosic laugh
at those who doubt that you can graph.
Make a sneer of sharp defiance
at TI-83 reliance.
And shout at trigonometry:
"You think you're big, bro? COME at me!"
What beauteous regularity
nature possesses
beneath thin veneer of chaos—
this rough-and-tumble world
whose forms' asymmetries
in their organic vicissitudes
do belie fundamental truth
where three corners
always and forever
make one sum,
a hundred and eighty—
hidden simplicity
at the core of all being.
Cast thine eyes
solely upon thine own parchments
o ye scoundrels
drowning side-by-side,
fallen brothers-in-arms,
blind leading the blind
who wouldst commit treachery
as thou vie together
for survival.
Another jigsaw puzzle
painstakingly completed,
only to be thrown again
back into its box,
a fading memory of
the portrait so revealed
forever traced
in the cobwebs of your mind.
An endless march,
ever moving forward
yet never advancing,
always returning,
the landscape repeating
in infinite cycle
'til in dizziness
my head does spin,
clockwise today
and counter tomorrow,
forever alternating
as I hike
this Möbius world.
The numbers you +ed for me
were –ed when you were gone
and my heart was ÷ed against itself
until with your return joy was ×ed
^ially.
The yawning chasm
between the rocky cliffs of Knowledge
and the steep bluffs of Communication
is spanned by teetering narrow footbridge
swaying in the winds of Confusion.
And I, gnarled old troll,
demand payment of theorems
—lemmas
——& proofs
before I will guide you across to safety.
And if one or two among you
should stumble along the way,
shall I reach out a kindly hand
to pull you back,
or shall I strike down
with blood-red editor's pen
and blot out each error from the Earth?
This is MY bridge
and the toll must be paid
so in clarity & intelligence
we can complete the journey
together.
What invisible hand of mischief
pointed you to me,
unglued your mouth,
coaxed you from your shell,
lifted your reservations,
muted your doubt,
opened your heart and—
just as I was ensnared by the loving threads of your silver web—
withdrew?
The intricate silver key you hold
has myriad bumps and grooves
each carved with meticulous care to fit
pins of an unpickable lock.
Now through the keyhole look and see
the happy life that you could lead
if only this key would mesh with this lock
and swing the door wide open.
But somebody, somewhere down the line,
must have applied too much force,
for this beautiful key so perfectly formed
has been bent, and will not budge.
You long for her but you cannot tame her
You dream of her but you will not own her
She marches to her own drumbeat
Dances cha-cha to her own rhythm
And if you dare to dance along
Listen, listen to the notes she sings
It's a strange song sung not for you
In a language all of her own, but
Listen, listen and come to see—
That all along she has loved thee.
She was so sick of Edens
fastidiously pruned little paradises
laid out and landscaped just for her
securely walled-in and sealed
against the cold chaos and uncertainties
beyond;
By her parents and their four protective walls
their watchful guardianship over her morals
never-blinking;
By her boyfriend and his simple, doting love
eaten up from within by his need to be
hers alone;
By her job peddling fast food
simple and reassuring
slice of childhood preserved;
All these stupid, safe little Gardens
stifling in their calculated idyllicness
when all she wanted
—all she craved—
was to take a bite of that Apple
taste the forbidden fruit
throw off her mindless shackles
abandon all promises
waive all guarantees
and experience Freedom
to wander through that boundless desert
make her own life, go it solo
and discover her awesome Humanity
her own way.
Each night I crawl into this lonely old bed,
and dream about what might have been:
Of deeds left undone and of words left unsaid,
things left out instead of kept in.
And I long for a life that was never my fate
but once seemed to show possibility,
but that moment is passed and now it is too late,
and wishing's an act of futility.
The looming threat of global disaster—
ocean levels rising
lakes receding
diseases spreading
species vanishing
so often a worry in our heads—
is for this one moment forgotten
(out of sight! out of mind!)
as we don our shirtsleeves
and doff our shoes
to run barefoot, carefree
across the warm young grass
laughing
prancing
twirling hula hoops and devil sticks
beneath the vivid blue sky.
The couples stealing kisses at picnics,
the dogs leaping for frisbees,
set to a score of raucous birdsong,
all natural and normal sights
to be sure
but— in February??
Oh no. No no no.
Something is amiss
Something is awry
Something is very ominous about this scene but
for this moment
please, let me relax
and enjoy the apocalypse.
When the sky falls
washing away our towns and cities
our families and our dreams
what is left standing?
What is left to stand for?
When the inferno consumes
our homes and schools
our struggles and hopes,
all we built rising
in a haze of soot and carbon,
what place is still safe?
What land is still stable?
This tiny blue sphere was
our only refuge, protective mother
in the dark void,
and as she dies
what thoughts are left to think?
What words are left to say?
I scramble to protect my skin
in the apocalyptic calamities left & right
but my mind cannot be shielded
and the wind buffets my heart
as fiercely as the land.
Still—
"Onward and upward!"
the continual march of progress & triumph.
That grand Human Adventure
must someday end,
and in the darkness beyond the horizon
these hurricanes we made
rage on against silence.
How do I enfold THIS?
How can I encompass THIS?
How shall I hold my head
above the surging waters and
face the night with courage?
I don't know.
The Earth is warming
but here I helplessly sit
feeling cold, cold, cold.
Los Angeles, City of Angels,
trembling on restive tectonic coast,
burns in deadly unnatural heat,
ten million regal trees raised to heaven
in noxious cloud of carbon gas.
Thru tremor-proof window and air-filter mask
proud denizen gazes into hell
and sees thru choking smog
Herself,
wondering—
Which apocalyptic vision
of mortal impermanence
defines us?
What stands ingrained & unique
in this city's identity?
This is Us,
living life on the edge,
perched precariously
between inferno of SANTA ANA
(you, shimmering ghost of death
who creeps up silently in the night
to strangle out all life,
hot breath of an avenging angel)
and shuddering maw of SAN ANDREAS
(you, hidden energies of Earth itself,
rising up with pants-shitting
adrenaline rush of horror & noise
to topple our world)
balancing act of burning ash
and rending motion,
searing, shaking,
the hidden soul of a city
that Survives.
This is Us.
This is Humanity.
Life in L.A.
given weight by uncertainty.
Atlantic Ocean
stares at the night sky, wishing
it could be that deep.
Thin parallel lines:
Sunrise through venetian blinds
slides across my eyes.
A single tear shed from your eye could drown the world.
A single squeeze of your delicate hand could crush galaxies into black holes.
A single glance from your yearning eyes could melt gold and turn sand into glass.
A single sigh from your sad lips could blow civilization away like dust.
Earth, air, water, and fire.
I once met a mayfly
much happier than I.
"Ah, that I could be
as happy as thee,"
said I to the fly,
who, in prompt reply,
died.
Have you ever recited a poem so good
your clothes fell off?
A poem so poignant
that with every utterance an article fell away
the syllables themselves unwinding laces,
opening buttons,
layers of fabric parting
as if moved by the music of words,
baring your soft flesh
as you bare your soft soul.
A poem whose rhythm
carries you naked and ecstatic
around the room
stealing breaths,
breaking bras,
breaching britches!
And when every pulse beats to the pulsing beat
of line and verse
and hands grip hands
against the explosion of joy
that is YOUR poem
rocketing to verbal climax—
then you've found it.
Be sure you're wearing fresh drawers
because that is a poem
fit to strip to.
Galaxies hurtle through infinite space
so vast and empty it would surely seem
no eternity is long enough to bring about
the chance collision
the surprise encounter
the moment of contact assuring,
for just a moment, you are not alone.
And yet through the eons
inexorable forces curving space and time
guide us slowly together
and make the vast cosmos
a little smaller.
If every flower and every tree
should nightly say 'good night' to me,
how could I sleep, how could I snooze
until I've heard 'good night' from youse?