Prose

Art

Reviews

backflashing

thinking about me in my boyhood room
in ellport pennsylvania. young teen,
late 1960's. hadn't smoked pot yet.

hadn't gobbled a palmful of mini-whites
or eaten that purple haze on the shore of a
creek with guys like regis, packy,

junior, vic, ed, it was early afternoon
i know, saturday -- we probably planned
a baseball game at the field --

i think we had our gloves with us
slapped on the various rocks around
the room-size sandy beach

under giant oaks
under circling chicken-hawks
& operatic crows

the purple haze
we had beer too i remember
i remember sitting on a boulder

feeling buzzy like a fly.
packy became a sort of frog-like
human thing who glowed blue, yellow,

all purple the water rolled like paper.
sat there feeling fly-like &
incredible.

next thing i realize
i'm here
now -- decades later. hendrix

is the last name of ann's
younger sister & amerika
is a nightmare of social mutation.

existence on the surface
of a spinning, microcosmic world
under old, green trees

in whatever age
the mind
hovers,

song
of a bird
in bird-cage skull

i am more
angelic
than any homosexual poet

i am
not
moving from this boulder where i

hunch, all paunches,
i'm a giant,
furry, buzzy fly in fake, pastel daylight.



pancake poem

a poem is a perfect cup of joe,
an ode is an egg. bacon
verbs & homefries of nouns,
so yummy. & you're all ridiculous
& hungover off newcastle brown ale
letting marijuana ease the morning.
relax. a poem is never a
problem, never an interruption from need.
have you brushed yr teeth yet?
i brushed my remaining teeth.
poetry is dawn.



for jesus

he's the son of god.
he is being crucified,

hung on a cross
to die & spend the final moments

of life on the surface
of planet earth

in horror.
from the softness of mother

to intense pain
& injustice, that's

the flash
he sees of life,

& it is
existential terror,

tho the loss
of so much

blood
makes the mind airy,

he hallucinates
& it is what

we now know as this.
this is his altered nightmare.

amerika, gentle power.
gross roman soldiers

rape & pillage
the world. christians

& hypocrisy
are twins.

thinking about
jesus christ, son of god,

two thousand years
ago in the middle east,

hanging, crucified
on a cross on a hill

under the sky
under the cruel conditions

of humanity
& the masses of primitive citizens.

humans slaughter humans.
the basis of religion is a stark

truth.
jesus was a man.

one of the
trillions slaughtered

over the course
of human history,

& there will be more,
even the devil's son

we will
mutilate.