Whoopity

Baloo!

 Overfed dog!

Let's get in the car and go!

See leaves 

They're everywhere

     What shirt should I wear?

Baloo!

  Whoopity

 There weren't no nuthin

I'm a forgetful fuck

Without a rubes luck 

I stamped my letter

Dear Mom

I'm in NJ

How are you?

 

 I'm green

Green as the grass

Green as the tanks

Green green green

I'm played 

I'm played out

I'm a sarcasm in a petunia

I'm a sickle cell

I'm a standard brand

I'm a fledgling flotation device

In the Arno

In the sky 

In the forgotten plain

I'm here 

And there 

But not everywhere

 The blimey blook 

Took an ambulatory meander

Thru the edgewater flood plain

Saw the drift wood old man try to get on the bus

"This bus doesn't go to Teaneck!"

He got on anyway

Past the Galaxy where stars align near Ft. Lee

I wonder where Gary Glass lives. 

I'm back in New Jersey

 I'm not trying too hard

Just took the 166 from Point Authority

After walking the wrong way from W 53rd St Subway station

Mid town busy 

Streets kind of torn up 

And my leg hurts

Spent $5.43 for a king size Payday 

Fuck it

Bus was packed and stopped at pretty much every stop

On the Jersey side

I'm thinking about buying a building in this new town

Near Edgewater 

It's called Floodplain, NJ

Odd name

 I misunderstood the holy voice

It came out of a desert

Or perhaps the ear of a woman

It ran up the velvet sash in a dark theatre

On a rain soaked night

"Are you ready?"

"Ready for what?!"

"Umm I'll get back to you. Mom?"

I walked to the nearest bar. 

"Fernet. Make it a double."

"Didja ever hear the one about the Chinese couple getting married?"

 I'm not perfect

But I sure do act like I think I am 

Maybe there's some truth to the matter

But the gray matter 

You can count it out!

Time is a ship w Herman Melville on it

And Carl Sagan saw billions and billions

Of  what? Not sure!

Ask me later 

I'll tell you

 Nobody talks about nuthin real

But why would they?

Try to be nice 

Try to be kind

Nobodies perfect 

And many far less 

But it is what it is

What's it to you?

Why you gotta take it personal?

Grow up!

 I got drunk

On Fernet on a rainy cloudy Sunday

In New York

Wandering the streets I feel past ages 

In the streets 

And the buildings

Modern stickers tell of currents

Free Gaza from Hamas

Even Rich Men Can Go To Jail!

- Along Canal street

Beautiful black faces lined up under the eaves 

staying out of the rain

With their yellow plastic delivery bags 

A man pulls out a black warm coat with a fur lined hoodie

And puts it on

His friend assesses 

 I remember what it was like

Or do I?

I think probably not?

Memories add a rosy hue

Somehow though it seems different

Did we ever think it was a programmed illusion?

Maybe reading a Dick novel

But daily life was what it was

We had tv radio movies records bands 

But limited 

Now we have everything

And nothing

 I can't break the blue rule

Staid sporadically 

Leaning on a Marlboro light

       Outside in the rain

            The days are gone

         I need new shoes

     Can you see the record store

From where you live?

      The car is rusted and the paints worn down

   It's cold out but the heater works

Let's get the fuck out of here

  And go somewhere

 There's a lot going on

But Jeez can you slow it down?

Nope? Ah forget it

 Who are we

We who walk and talk

      Oh the mighty

     Days amongst the hamstring 

Satire

 Donald Didgeridoo Duck

   Quack quack

  Sing a song of 

Quack quack

   On a third man instrument

What are those dots worth?

    Dehumanizing again

   From a Giant Ferris wheel 

In the international zone

   He was the best friend I ever had

 Clean Forgetfullness 

On a hot day in the east village

It's a walk up apartment

Overlooking sidewalk restaurants

And cars are still honking at 3:15 AM

  I drank the last of my cousins ron 

And whisky

  Now two empty bottles

   With very nice labels

The gin in the freezer is unopened

Yet mysteriously less than half full

   The ghost of the village

    Took their share

    The guy who used to sleep on the sidewalk

   Across the street 

Now replaced with tables 

  Go get some American cheese cake with strawberries

And a cappuccino

At Cafe Reggio

 

 Heretofore 

Schlepped the malarkey 

But there's a bit of hope

In low cut dresses

On a warm October Friday night

 It's a long haul

But the steep is pathological

The sigh dways certainty

Is ee Cumming

On the off chance

The ea Poe 

Is standing watching

Outside people are having fun

 I'm

Troping

A thousand tropes 

A key bank

In NJ

 Kvetch as kvetch kan 

Use a kvetchers mitt

The Hall

 Has mitts

Old leather

The past is gone

 Nothing is the way it was

But that's what she said

Who is she?

Lady Liberty!

 Everything is convoluted 

Breath deeply when you hear the word  ________.

 I'm trying to hold up my end 

But it ain't easy

So much going on and it's always 

Another show

I don't really understand

What am I doing here?

 I should let go

But I'm a Virgo 

Puedo hablar mucho pero no entiendo nada!

Que lastima!

What do you put on your tacos?

 Concomitant needs

In separate camps

You couldn't really hear

Needed a hearing aid

And I looked old and haggard 

But just being me 

But the sunny side

Is where I'm walking

 A credo was fortunate

The pie was hot and flaky

I'd be the a la mode

To your rhubarb pie

 When you're seated near the maitre'd 

You get to hear people being told

It's going to be a long wait

But the food is so good

Best restaurant in town 

 Far from perfect

Aboard a ship with no engines

In a town with yellow eyes

The strip steak was good

W a double dirty martini

The shop closes at midnight

 Awake in the bulwark

Kneed himself with cold

  Funny eyes

       The longitudinal excess

Was pretty much everywhere 

     It wasn't pretty

She wanted to argue

But I was like can't we just forget it and

Move on?

 I'm not making this shit up 

It really happened

But who cares? Nobody

Why should they?

Shut yer yap and make some toast

With blackberry jam

Like Ruth would

 I think people used to like me

I attributed the change to not being youthful any longer 

Who loves an old man?

Why would you?

But maybe it's because I'm an asshole.

Kinda got two strikes!

I'm in Cooperstown 

 I wish I could smoke

Smoking in bed is the best

Especially with a hot cup of coffee 

On the nightstand

 I'm

Not 

Perfect

In fact, you said I'm very contrary

I said I'm not contrary! You're contrary!

(A joke)

 The dream was bad again

After I kissed you

You said your mom didn't like the way

I didn't smile between sentences

Then you mis-pronounced my last name

And I got mad

In my dream

 Something to be achieved 

Mara wants to know everything 

The winter is cold

The summer is hot

Monks laughed when I said Barley

Is good for beer

 I think there's an endemic body type to the Catskills 

Crusty angular

Thin and wore out

Overalls 

Gumming their words

Headless 

But no horses

Maybe a donkey

 Somebody couldn't perplex you

In the straits of Hormuz

Or a man cranky and crusty 

Examining a used pick 

Purchased from a thrift store

You'd think he was looking

At a possible da Vinci 

The way he examined that thing

 It was Thainese food

Two nights below average meals 

Mixed together

Bingo! 

Thai-nese!

Yum!

 There was rain

In your parade 

The 4-H sheep were 

A sad reminder 

The Wells Fargo stagecoach 

Ran on the road 

Where your dog

Died

Bruno Wasserteil 

In Tel Aviv

 The dreams were not 

Ohh you tried

You tried your very best 

But sorry to no avail

They were not there

So you moved on

 I had a thousand memories 

All of you

With your funny smile

And your sparkling eyes

I had no hope 

But life itself

 I dreamt of you

In a cold place 

Surrounded by the sea of nothing

You who were so succinct 

In every waking moment

Was left speechless

After I'd driven from Newark airport

In a fifty dollar Uber 

By a gal named Vanny

I had made jokes to a four year old 

"My names Vinny. I'm from NY. I'm here about the, the uh, the thing"

Who said "You're Uncle Doug!"

But now your hand was bleeding badly

Later you said you hadn't

Eaten anything really all that day 

As we had haddock and salmon

In a very crowded small town restaurant 

 Flayed Opportune

In fits of frost

Bursting like annoyed footwork

Time travels in a 737

Line up assholes

Gotta go potty

 Green Pepper Man

The local superhero

Once stuffed with rice and ground beef

Now a superhero

He works with his sidekick Fajita

Righting wrongs!

(Actually I still dislike green peppers)

 Just had some microwaved hamburger and a lager

Whooptydoo

I guess you can't just call it beer nowadays 

   "What kind of beer? An IPA? A stout? A Hefeweizen?"

"It's a fucking lager, it's a goddamn beer!"

 The bottle of whisky was my blood

So I spit it out

And puked

Then I went back to bed

Fuck it

 I woke up to another day

But today I have a plan

I'm packing it up and leaving

Going east for a while

Not leaf peepin

Or to support real people

Just going

Getting the hell out of here

I need a break

What pants should I bring?

 The calamity of tomorrow

Today ain't nuthin 

Wait till you see what happens tomorrow 

Tides will turn tail

The sun won't shine except on rich people

Screws will only work backwards 

The fruit stand won't be there anymore 

Instead there will be an old man holding a violin

Playing Beethoven and crying

 Captain Wilhelm reporting!

There were no ambulances sir

We tried our best but the road was blocked 

We fought until reinforcements showed up

Unfortunately reinforcement was Captain Kangaroo

In an ice cream truck

Mr. Green Jeans was done in by an IED. 

Grandfather Clock could not moved 

 I was not your good deal

Things didn't really work out

Obviously no fault of yours

You put up with my worries for years

I didn't deserve you

 Compote gruel

Feasibly authentic

Enameled with a paramour 

Festooned in archaic imbroglio 

Gesticulating irascibly 

Like a swollen stuffed owl

 Your spell is a lot to deal with

Curses and jars with eyes of newts

Where did you even get those? 

I don't think you can order those on Amazon

And that giant dusty book with pages falling out that you read aloud for hours

While stirring that giant pot of stinking stuff

It stinks!

And where's the broom?

This place needs a good sweeping.

 You said the dead

Couldn't know fdeath 

Only the living can know fdeath

I said wtf is fdeath

You said you should know!

You're alive!

I said maybe Richard Brautigan

Made up fdeath

You said

See? Very close!

 I have no heart

Nor pears to my house

  Neither fish or fowl 

No steady 

 No time 

But all time to 

Go

 But I'm a waste

I waste time 

 I scowl and 

Laze 

  And criticize

All in all

It's not a bad life!

 There was no beauty

It was all a mess

Your hair was fucked up

   Your mouth talked a bunch of shit

   Your apartment was filthy

  I love you

 Sometimes I wondered

But you never did

So I fried an egg

   Until it turned black and the kitchen

Filled with smoke

  The smoke alarms went off

So I opened a window and went 

Out the door 

To McDonalds

 I who had no hope

Continued because well fuck it

        I bought a new shirt

            I bought an airline ticket

I'm fucking going

   TMI?

    Hah

 Delayed essence of skyscraper

Behold the concrete lives

Steel is the answer to

All your problems

  Affix yourself to Spiderman 

A comic book hero with a bad attitude

  He's no Two Gun Kid

The taxis know

   Where to get the best 

  Where to find the best

Where to go

 Could you bear the erroneous satire

Peas and carrots

Mr Howser

Down by the water

  Stand up and sigh 

     The moon has forgotten your name

Please the fracked face 

Of Mother Nature

   The dripping blood on her face

Is your moment

  Your time to throw pearls before swine

But piggies are so cute

I love little piggies

 I treasured the lost thought of nothing

It was left behind

In a forgotten day 

I

Who

Prided

 Himself 

 On just about everything

   Was no longer up for the night

    I plunged into the sea

And swam with sea creatures

Black and grey and blue

   The world was not identifiable

Words spilled out of my mouth at random

Blustering hateful

Miserable sad

     Words unworthy of the day

But at night they seemed right

 The blue landing

Was an efficacious signal

Of lost innocence and torn wasted days

He filled the jars with nails and put the lids on

He stored them away in a deep basement 

And locked the door behind him

 The forest was Jack Kerouac

His memere lived in a tiny house on the edge

Jesus and Buddha were best friends 

While they smoked pot

Years later when things had changed the woods 

Became whisky bottles

Buddha was a drunk 

Jesus high on speed 

When it all hit it was too late

But at any time would it have made a difference?

Ask the cats 

 The fog

Abreast the neutered city

In Saturday morning

Silence

A siren blares suddenly

The tv comes on

Today 

The prognosis is not good

Dr. Benbow 

Has a hypodermic needle

For anyone worthy

Just place your head in the transcriber 

Please move to the right 

And release your tension 

Boom!

 He cut the pork chop into pieces of Dostoyevsky 

He was better than they, they who had all the money

Why was he so poor he wondered as he ate the pork chop

Dostoyevsky rolled over in his grave. 

For dinner he he decided to have pieces of Tolstoy.

 The Jabberwok was tired of the insinuations

"Burbled?! I've never burbled!"

"Claws that catch, jaws that bite? Well, yeah those I have but burbled? Never!"

He put down the Wall Street Journal and finished his pan au chocolat.

 He had a momentary lapse 

Of being rebuked by himself

What is this? He wondered 

As he gazed at his stupid poetry.

 I trampled my perplexed sense of self

"Self is an illusion"

"There are no illusions. What you see is what you get."

The barn door was left open again but the animals all stayed in.

 I cut the booze in half

And made a cardboard reconnaissance plane

We flew over the broken skies of Verdaenia

My eyes were tired from nights of Leave it to Beaver reruns

Whitey and Gilbert were fighting in the back

Don Johnson broke down on Folsom St

But it was not in the show 

 You tried the certain way

But it was okay

Your pants fit nicely

The glasses were clean and in a row

The keys were where they were supposed to be

But something itched

And the more you scratched it the worse it got

Until there was blood on your nails

And you hit the doorframe 

With your head

And threw a pie out the window

And tore Newsweek into a hundred pieces 

It was another day

 Across Paradise there 

Was no place to go

What about...

Nope forget it

Shoot!

He opened a book but there were no words

He was dead

And he laughed

So this is what...

He never saw the Sasquatch eat him

 "I'm not perturbed"

But I am perplexed

He laughed

And then fell into a pile and cried

 There was a fly in a glass

That was sitting upside down 

In a cafe

He left it 

And went to a different table

"What'll it be?"

"Ham and cheese on white bread. No Mayo or mustard, thanks."

 Jesus bought a suitcoat

At a thrift store

A lady said it looked good

And it was cheap

And practically new

When he got home he tried it on

And looked at himself in the mirror

Fuck he said

 The man carried a gramophone

Up a long flight of stairs

Listening to Mahler

In New York City

In 1938

 There weren't no yesterdays

But still be still

Listen

You can hear yesterday

Even though it never existed

 The moon is a rainstorm

On an early evening 

Still and cloudy 

Like a lady's face

 Blue felt 

On my front lawn

The ghosts of the past are living in the round

There's no place to hide

Here and there

Everywhere

I drink a beer and lay about

In my underwear

 I craved a sharp tool

To tend the sheep of my dreams 

They were in disarray and I had no border collies at hand

The moon was only half full

Or half empty 

Depending on how you looked at it

I tried not to

 I kinda stopped drinking

And now I'm like wtf am I supposed to do?

I'm not the brightest bulb on the tree

Not the sharpest knife in the drawer

Nor the cleanest underpants in the dresser oh wait

 Greed has a beard

Did you shave?

And wear a tie!

 I passed a phony centaur

He thought it was an Uber

But really it was a pizza place

Stupid centaur!

 There was a fountain

Not of youth Pinche De Leon

Hey cabron! 

Tasty banana!

(Hasta manana)

 A made up story

Regarding sympathetic crocodiles

Living next door to each other

Both beer drinkers

 Fortunado Calvino

Was a moon wanderer

He climbed the ladder there

It was placed by workmen on a Sunday

They had left for the day

To go home and eat pasta bolognese

And drink red wine

 Staged

Staged feelings

Spreading like a rumor

Wearing clothes from 3rd grade

Smiling at the sky

The birds are not your friends

But it doesn't matter

The moon will stick around

Where are the feels

In your dirty shoes

In Angels Camp

With choppers

 I'm a legion of Hell

My horns are broken

My tongue is forked

I smile but it's gruesome 

Hello!

What am I 

(Answers at 11)

 Joyeux

You're too cynical

I just call it like I see it

You complain too much

What's life without something to complain about?

Is this the product of a malnourished psychological upbringing 

I bought a new shirt

It had stripes

Like a prison shirt

I got stripes

I got a ball and chain

But you can't see it

 Too far away

For clouds to smile

The swarm was unlike the smiles

A Malibu- like person

Ran into the convenience store

And the likeness was similar 

To a bottle of red wine

 The road led to a beaver 

He lived in a pond

You could hear him thwacking the water with his tail

Lots of trees were chewed down and used to make his pond deeper

It was a beaver pond

 I had no memory

Except a white car in a cold garage

I think this was in Melrose, Massachusetts 

Years later I got a job in Lynn, MA as photo printer

Working an enlarger

Between Lynn and Melrose is a town called Saugus

I always thought that was a lousy name for a town, Saugus.

 Petunia Wales

Was a potty mouth 

She who never said anything

But poopy words

  Her best friend was an aardvark named Roy

She called him King Roy

He was 112 years old and quite large

  He sat in the back seat of her Toyota eating

Lettuce and cabbage

   She liked to drive highway 1 

  She would stop at a place that sold pies

Sometimes there was just a box to leave money for whatever you took

King Roy liked rhubarb strawberry pie

 Fourteen years

Now in the country

Dreaming of a motorcycle

Spending hours drawing

I bought a Gibson ES-330 TD for $300

Money made working at a Union 76

"Fill 'er up!"

 The was a dream of a rainy day

Cloudy and gray

No Highway smiles 

The sea was a pot of coffee

The earth a donut

 I just had a hamburger with spaghetti

On the far side of Jupiter

With a 64 Chevy Nova

Parked outside

It got a ticket 

 There weren't any signs in the sky

None. At least none that I could see. 

My eyes were okay but I'd had glasses since third grade

My glasses were always getting busted because I played a lot of rough and tumble games

Finally my parents bought me a pair of hard rubber glasses frames that you could bend all around and they wouldn't bust.

Saved them some money I think

My mom said I always picked out the most expensive clothes at the store.

I didn't look at the prices just what was cool.

 I measured sympathy like a bale of hay

We lived out in the country

Sometimes I'd hitch a ride into town

The neighbor rancher was of Native American descent

His barn was covered with hundreds of deer horns

His dog was mean and you didn't go through the gate

Without letting anyone know beforehand

The ranchers family had owned the land for a long time

He drove a blue stepside pickup and he'd give me a ride

I always sat in the bed of the pickup

His sister was driving her car when my dog ran out into the road

My dog's name was Bruno Wasserteil after the radio journalist

"This is Bruno Wasserteil in Tel Aviv."

 The Sun Of Understanding

Was an eternal wish

Fashioned from nothing

No one no how 

No thing

Gravity is time

Time is light

Mass is Sunday

Jesus didn't exist

 Back then

There were no yesterdays

Only tomorrows

   You bought a new bike 

A brown Schwann ten Speed

 After that weird single speed bike got stolen

After you left it on the front lawn

 Green marrow

in the bone street

You drove a hopped up Camaro 

And we smoked marijuana

And drank Molsens 

 I carved a likeness in chocolate fudge

But the fudge wasn't cooked right

And didn't harden

But we ate it

With a spoon and licked the pan clean

On a hot summer day

In 1973

 I opened a forward thinking consideration

Uh oh

That's one Pantera's box you don't want to open!

Ben Stiller might come out

And say hey you stole my joke!

 I had a memory made of teeth

But it always needed to go to the dentist

"Are you flossing?"

"Umm"

"These two will need to be pulled- 3rd grade

And when you were on unemployment at age 31"

"Umm"

 I gave a thousand fucks

Everywhere I turned I gave a fuck 

Until they were all gone!

My pockets were empty

The bank account of fucks was depleted

I tried to write a check 

But the paper crumbled in apathy

The wind blew in startled derision

The moon howled 

 Down "there's no mercy street"

On this map 

Of the moon

Your plasma driven aches

Called forth a song

But it was forgotten by the wind

On an icicle moon bird

(See instructions on page 7)

 Dreaming of Christopher Smart

But that's neither here nor there

A Giant Ray burst forth

Twas an explanation

Of scales and cloven hoofs

And what to have for lunch

 Green was an idea

Long ago when the washing machines were new

You tasted the divine

In a casual sense

Believing that it was enough

Until you saw the heights

Of Daedalus 

From afar 

Your wax wings didn't melt as you went higher

The cold made them harder

And you flew on

 Realms of the fortunate failures

Belied an inopportune cohesion

Between the mind and the non-mind

Dressed in hickory hues

And wearing a beaver/hare fedora

Taken from the Napa Valley Theatre Company

It was a scramble to God

Through the poison oak

Bedlam and an album by Prince

 There was bright star

In a frozen yesterday

By the 7-11 

In a car named VYL

 

 I moved the broken turmoil

Who broke it?

It's not known

Some took credit

"I did it!"

But they were glad handing the wastrel prophet dwellers

"See it was on a Tuesday, my day off work?"

Their shoes were a dead giveaway

"Go to your doctor and tell her you have a misstep in your parallax! Now go!"

The broken turmoil

Was no longer broken

 Twas a ménage a zero

No one took part

Seemingly indifferent

To the passing phases of the body

Like a giant flower of death

It bloomed in the night

And smelled sickly sweet

We stood and watched 

Mesmerized by the nothing flower

Blooming in the night air

 I had a spoken word crime

It was unhatched in the early nineties

In times of very cold weather

And streets of crack

There was a meanness to the nights

And it caused my thoughts to turn to crime

Be there

Be where

Be the one

Try the sky

Turn to burn

See the sun

Turn in its home

Be left

Behind and 

Worry no 

More

The Forest of Belief!

 

 It's weird not having any booze

Sitting around thinking

Thinking about nothing

Not doing anything

Thinking about not having any booze

 The green pie

Was not heavily traveled

Are you weary?

Were there flowers at the time of dinosaurs?

 The Moon shot a long shot

On the dark side

The silicon based life forms 

Sang their communicative individual songs-

The songs wrapped around each other

And formed conversations-

They lived hundreds of thousands of years

and their only goal was that no others should ever know 

Of them

 A career of yearning

The pay wasn't good

And the hours were long and hard

They said hang in there 

Promotion has your name on it!

That was ten years ago

Now I'm rich and retired!

Everything works out!

 I grabbed a fence of disbelief 

It was sharp and jaggedy 

I walked into the forest after and sang a long made up

Song about William Blake of whom 

I know nothing about

A cloud came overhead and soon it started to rain

I went to get eggs and bacon for breakfast