The Cultural Delete

By Nathan Payne | pablosmoglives | 25 Oct 2023

"My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,"
John Keats

I just woke up from a dream in which I'd been shot in the head 9 times but survived. My perception wasn't damaged, but my ability to relate to people was adversely affected, significantly. Not for medical reasons, but because I was now an anomaly. I'd been shot in the head 9 times. There was no one to relate to.

In the dream, I was on a large airliner with Nick Cave and his family. There was genuine concern from his wife, and his kids were friendly, but, along with the entourage of false family and friends with whom we were traveling, they ended up abandoning me in some strange, outdoor Asian mall. A market of nightmares. I wandered the grounds in search of love, meaning, or maybe just the restroom. Nothing made sense, and I urinated on a display of overpriced electronic items as though they were baked goods. Is this a donut, or a $600 electronic device? Not sure. Piss on it regardless.

I was looking for my "friends," the group of concerned and faux-interested Nick Cave people I'd flown in with, and found myself at some strange food stall that served live, serpentine worms that survived the deep-fried cooking procedure. The worms had a texture of fresh snap beans, firm and sharp. My worm had initially resembled a piece of faceless fishing bait, but had somehow transformed into something more animated, like a praying mantis, or a demon. I didn't want to eat it, but it was clear that the WITCHES and WARLOCKS who ran the cooking stand weren't going to let me pass through this stage of my development without eating the worm/mantis hybrid. So I popped it in my mouth, or tried to, and the head of the thing simply wouldn't be consumed. It didn't make any noise, or protest in any way, but the head wouldn't chew. The witches and warlocks, who looked like Asian food-stall vendors, were surprised I'd tried to eat the head, as though they'd warned me not to, and that it was some kind of shock to see me try to eat the whole thing. They hadn't warned me, and their surprise surprised me, since they hadn't said anything about not eating the demon-mantis in its entirety. They weren't cool, the entire situation pissed me off, and I was traumatized by not only the heart-and-soul wound symbolized by the 9 used bullets bouncing around in my head, but also by being abandoned by the people whose interest in and concern for me was apparently cosmetic. I felt like a mark.

A city bus was boarding next to the food stall/altar of hell, and a gringo tourist was saying something everyone could overhear, reciting some Bible verse about bringing a curse on yourself if you continue down the wrong path. He stepped into the bus in his flowered shirt and disappeared, but not before the warning, or message, or poetry recital, or whatever it was, had imbued the air around the demon food stall/altar like a fragrant smoke. It was convicting, and righteously unpleasant. Fortunately, God chose that moment to wake me up. It was one of those dreams you're glad to wake up from. "It was just a dream," you think to yourself with relief.

Thank God it wasn't real.

Or was it?

I turned on my computer and this video was in the top row of my suggested viewing options. The title of which is No More Hiding; God Is Exposing & Removing Unclean Spirits, Witchcraft That Covered You, of all things. Like an oasis in the desert, or seeing a ship when you're lost at sea. You'd wave your arms and yell, in an attempt to get the attention of your Saviour, if you didn't realize that not only has He not abandoned you, but in fact is reaching out.

I'll speak for myself, but seeing Christ reaching out to you is like waking up from a nightmare. It's beyond mere "relief." You mean to tell me, God, even though they shot me in the head.... I don't have to die? I don't have to eat the demon worm? My friends and family didn't abandon me, or if they did, it's okay, because they weren't my friends and true family anyway? Is there still time to get on the bus with the flowered Christian tourist, and get out of this place? Is it okay that I've been shot in the head 9 times, but am still technically functional? Is it alright if I've ever urinated on the overpriced electronic donuts in the senseless display case of the world of broken commerce? I'm not saying it was right, but maybe I didn't know any better.

Maybe I didn't care.

I wasn't going to say anything, but Halloween marks the 10-year anniversary of the release of Stumblefish, my only spoken-word album to date. I wasn't going to say anything, but I watched a Lou Reed interview recently, and it reminded me that the death of Lou Reed inspired me to get the album done before I went to Boston, around this time 10 years ago. For whatever reason, and to my own surprise even, his death affected me deeply. I threw the album together in a week (I had the recordings, but they weren't assembled or produced in any way), and dedicated it to Lou Reed, which a radio douchebag in Boston found pretentious, because, like most cultural gatekeepers in Gringolandia, he was the type to shoot you in the head 9 times while acting surprised when you try to eat the entire demon he has prepared for you.

What a worthless group of people. What a worthless demon culture it is, that has been served like a praying, faux-holy mantis to America. It has a pretense of righteousness (which only ever expresses itself as indignation, never as holiness), and it strikes a pose of prayerful introspection (even as it rips its clothes off), but it doesn't know the difference between writing... and writhing. It believes they are the same. And indeed, if you've been shot 9 times in the head, even if only metaphorically, it can be difficult to discern between the two.

Am I a writer, or a writher?

If you're a writer,

what are you?

Hollywood 2003, Photo by Tom Harrell

While looking through my files to decide which diamond beercan tiara to post for the 10-year anniversary of Stumblefish, I realized that I have been a writher most of my life, and have only been writing with intent for a few years. Not even. It was a pleasant revelation, but it struck me as being somewhat behind the curve. I just hit 50, have outlived Jack Kerouac, Joey Ramone, Judy Garland, and Nico, and am only now beginning to write with purpose, instead of making do with whatever garbage I happen to find in the flaming dumpster of bad decisions? Flailing in the oil slick, splashing in the mire, tempting the incendiary sharks to consume me? Giving the sharks a choice, in fact. Shall we barbecue the fool, or eat him raw? Will he survive the cooking process, like the praying mantis-worm in his final future dream?

Will I turn love into Tuberculosis, or Tuberculosis into love?

Am I a writer, or a writher?

Who writes like that in their early 20s? People whose idea of a problem is dying young of whatever disease is trending at the moment, with a heart full of love in a beautiful place? Certainly not found-object refugees of the post-modern Cultural Delete. Not elite, de-lete. Are we the final Cultural Delete, prescribed by the elite, like demons you can eat?

"As though of hemlock I had drunk," indeed, John Keats.

Does John Keats eats the mantis-worm, or does he choke on it as well? Was the mantis-worm developed in a bioweapons lab in China, or has it been around since the days of Cain?

Perhaps we are the zombies who survived the beating. In spite of our stupidity. As it says in Ecclesiastes, "a living dog is better than a dead lion."

The dog might be stupid. But is it rabid, if it has intent?

If the toilet is ringing, is it madness to answer it?

Until a few years ago, most of my writing has been found-object writing. Especially the poems. Because I found my objects in a dumpster, or a landfill, a lot of the writing is garbage. Or, perhaps more accurately, is infused with garbage. There are some jewels in the mire, to be sure. But you have to search for them, and you have to be willing to stand knee-deep in refuse for pages on end to find them. I dusted off the file for The Ballad of Lila Darke & The Three Janes, a short story I wrote in 2002 about a drugged-out runaway who communicates with 3 evil cheerleaders who turn into vultures, a poor, angry girl who drinks beer from a hole in her thumb and who eventually escapes by hitching a ride with a guy who can drive while sleeping. I couldn't believe how horrible it was. I updated the formatting and saved it to a more convenient location, with the intention of looking at it in the near future and editing the PORNOGRAPHY and bad language out of it (it's a shockingly-horrific piece of storytelling), but I'm not sure it's possible. I was able to edit the found-object stupidity out of stories like Good Morning Hollywood, but the Lila Darke story I'm afraid is beyond redemption. The horrible demon garbage is part of the story. Any amusing lines or flashes of light in the writing don't salvage it. When Nick Spooner (the male protagonist, the Clyde to Lila's Bonnie) is waking up from his hangover while cruising down the highway, and pulls over to gather his thoughts; when his heart "spits on the floor of his body," and calls him a parental fornicator, there's no way to edit around it. You can't just take the line out. The argument Nick Spooner has with his heart is fundamental to the atmosphere of psychedelic waste, the infernal landscape upon which the entire story takes place. The garbage is baked into the narrative. To remove it would be to dismantle the story entirely. There is no way to clean it up. The river has been contaminated. Wildlife caked in petroleum cookie dough are flailing on the beaches of my soul. Or were in 2002. If the library at Alexandria burned, what chance does my transient hotel full of haunted idiots have? The "wisdom of the ages," please. The wisdom of the ages is making snow angels in a landfill. Reason and common sense are flailing like a tweeker in the combination dumpster/library of the Cultural Delete. They shot him 9 times in the head; it didn't kill him, but the slugs are still bouncing in his skull like popcorn units in a drunken gumball machine.

We'll get him to praise the devil, by simply writing what he sees.

Not to say that "Over The 5 And Far Away" praises the devil, exactly. Certainly not intentionally. It is the sonic version of the world I lived in during the writing of most of the poems that appear on Stumblefish, the garbage angel in the streets, made by a flailing clown. But "a little leaven leavens the whole lump," as the flowered Christian in the Asian city of my nightmares would probably say, while boarding a bus to leave the city entirely (over the 5 and far away, perhaps). He's right. I'll look at it again, maybe, but the Lila story is probably beyond redemption. I can't believe it took until yesterday to take it down from my merch shelf. I can't believe I used to be proud of it.

But I was a found-object writer, and since I spent most of my life in a garbage dump, much of what I wrote was made of secondhand materials. Kerouac has probably been the biggest influence on me as a writer, and he was all about describing what he saw. Like a journalist, or scientist. A collator of dreams (or nightmares, as the case may be). Unlike Keats, Kerouac didn't turn his visions into statues of David. Kerouac took photographs with words, and his "poetic prose" was revolutionary at the time. It wasn't quite poetry, and it was far enough from normal prose that people like Dorothy Parker dismissed his writing as mere "typing," instead of actual, valid writing. But I don't care.

I think it's beautiful.

So that's part of it. I come from that tradition. It may have been transcendent in the 1950s, but after years of juggling the form, I can say without reservation that it is seriously flawed. "Stream of consciousness" writing is the same as the belief that "in vino veritas," or that booze is a truth serum. I disagree. Just because something crosses your mind, doesn't mean it's worth writing, listening to, or that you really believe it. It just crossed your mind. It might be the stupidest nonsense in the history of thought, but because you were drunk, or entertain a false belief in the timeless validity of the unformed form, you let it fly.

It can be fun of course to make a Cinderella suit out of pumpkins from the thrift store; indeed, learning the art of thrift-store chic might even be a necessary step in one's own personal development. "Looking cool with nothing," out of necessity, is an exercise in learning to walk gracefully with humility that separates the real people from the rich kids. Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn are the exception; the Kardashians are the rule. If you can be Grace Kelly (or the punk-rock Cary Grant) in a patchwork outfit from the thrift store, the pigs will never be able to touch you. No matter how many rounds they pump into your skull, they will never be able to completely take you out.

At some point, however, you need to put down the bottle of rotgut stream-of-unconsciousness, and pick up the fine Keatsian wine of intent. I mean... you don't have to. But after awhile, after you've made all the rotten splash sculptures you can make, why not give it a shot. Intent is a tailored suit, upon which the "diamond tiara made of aluminum cans," or the love that is "like a string of plastic pearls" simply look ridiculous. Nothing inherently wrong with those things; indeed, there is little that is more beautiful than a diamond tiara made of aluminum cans. And when I worked at the Chateau Marmont, I saw John Waters walking around in a nice suit with a pair of Chucks. He made it work. But the question is, will the girl actually meet you halfway in your flailing stream-of-consciousness daydream, or hold out for a guy who can afford an actual ring?

The fairy-tale line, "we'll live happily ever after, at least for tonight," suggests the latter.

Perhaps because it's true.

In any case, I am, apparently, a late bloomer to the purpose club. An aged and damaged member of the holy flower garden comprised of things that were once profane, the flock of sheep who used to be goats, sitting peacefully at last in the garden of intent. Resting at the feet of their master, waiting to go home. The flower-shirted dream saint has boarded the bus, and warned me of the curse. Perhaps so I can pass the warning on to you.

Because, what is the reason for the pen? The animal pen and writhing implement alike. Perhaps it's okay if the demon-mantis is unchewable, or if sheepdog breaks my leg, if the pain keeps me from sticking my head into the lion's mouth ever again. It's okay if I look at the sheepdog with incredulity, and even anger. Because the sheepdog will say, if I hadn't broken your leg, that lion you didn't see, the predator about to pounce, would have DESTROYED YOU. There might be an appearance of freedom in wandering the wilderness of madness in a state of accidental inspiration. And at some level, of course, all inspiration is indeed completely unintentional. But we are men. Meaning people. Human beings. We need to shave, and bathe. Wear shoes. We are not really wild beasts. We are capable of craft. Instinct is necessary, but will only take us so far.

Even Kerouac went crazy, staring down the void on Desolation Peak.

Of course, who knows. Maybe collating dreams is the entire purpose of the poet. Whether passing the time in the peaceful "Hippocrene" gardens of the Romantic period, or making garbage angels in landfills for the postmodern Cultural Delete,

Perhaps it's our job to hold a mirror to the death-maw, whether we've outlived our Statues of David, whether they've been mass-produced and turned into lamps, or not.

Whatever the case, Halloween is the 10-year anniversary of the release of Stumblefish. I was going to wait until then to publish this article, but I didn't think this was going to be a real article, and I didn't know I was going to have a dream about not being able to actually eat my own demons last night. I didn't choose Halloween as a release date for any particular important reason; I just thought it sounded cool. But I'm going to publish this article early, because the hell with Halloween. The hell with Halloween, and the hell with the praying stream-of-consciousness demon-mantis, sizzling in oil like a crunchy, deep-fried muse. If, as Kerouac says, "Everything I wrote was true because I believed what I saw," then don't expect "Ode on a Grecian Urn" from any poets stuck in an age of cultural deletion. If we are limited to believing in what we see, then we can write "Ode on a Grecian Urinal," perhaps. And since we're in an age ruled by the Cultural Delete, all my newer, intentional poems are basically warnings. There's no more time for odes. At least not to the world.

So don't expect any joyful affirmations from the dope-sick poem from 20 years ago pasted below.

The album it's on is called Stumblefish, for pity's sake.

What do you expect from a culture of aimless, stream-of-unconsciousness garbage angels?

A bunch of hymns?

Soap Dick/I'm a Rat

polydrug user!
polydrug user!

babes of unexpected sexiness!

your screams of terror
are like coldcuts of sound
rotting
quietly
in tiny carpeted refrigerators
in my ears—

it takes weeks,
even years,
for your clothes
to digest you—

I suggest you go
home now,
you androgynous
rats,
to yr sorrowful
lovenests
yr tall puke-a-lyptus
trees,
sad Cheshire
rut-rats
roach-teeth a-gleaming,
scratching
names
upside-down
in the wet
white cement,
planting
flowers of dissent
on Peroxide Road—

(drink yer bone-bleach
while it’s hot)

snot-eating
burlap-dancers,
locked in the boxcar
lounge,
sporked-tongues
spitting
sparks,
toasting
homeless people
roasting
in Coathanger
Park,
papercuts howling
in pain
in the rubbing alcohol
rain—

broken-down
black guys
wearing
prehistoric shoes,
facial expressions
like charred
looted
storefronts,
ugly-bug sunglasses,
eating
flies with their eyes,
tears of bug-gut
an’ bile
drying on their cheeks—

blackout!
blackout!

the sky’s cracked an’ peeling!

rig-ladies
reeling,
hair sweeped back
by hissing
aerosol breeze,
plastic skin
melting,
pinned to the hot gravel floor
by a ruthless
toothless
sun—

a thin stick
bum
with electric
chair
hair
an’ grillmarks on his face,
orange leather arms,
an’ army surplus
lips,
teeth worn to nubs
from years of eating
concrete
carrots,
hamburgers
of stone,
his whole being
like a prehistoric
punching bag
marinated
in zen
filth,
trudges
past the La Brea BBQ
pits
an’ the unfortunate creatures
encased
in the ancient
bubbly black barbeque
sauce,
roasted
in slow motion
for eons an’ eons,
to seal in the flavor
of prehistoric bacteria
specific
to that specimen
of ten-thousand-year-old
mammoth-meat,
known in this newly-fangled
millennium
as the one an’ only
Arco dog—

whaddaya think yer doing!?

don’t eat that s**t!

take it outside,
an’ wipe it on the sidewalk,
to get out them
germs,
ya gotta use
FORCE—

of
course,
I’ve been
listening me
to sleep every nite
to the juke & drunks
at Raji’s,
so
what the dick
do I know?

who IS that happy a**hole?

with the well-adjusted laugh
of a tidy whitebread
madman?

who’s the chiquita mosquita
with the tiny
2-tone
tits?

yea yea yea,
whatevs buddy,
whatever
ya think ya seen y’ain’t seen
s**t—
wait’ll ya see my girlfriend Bananas
do a lickety-split
handstand
on a razor-wire fence
wearin’ nothin’ but a tampon—

tiny toy coffins
bursting into
clowns

you maggots have eaten
my hands out
from
under me!

drops of water, little
spiders
crawling down my
legs

I’m the clown-prince of darkness!
I usta live on your ceiling!

pale wrists precipitating
snowflakes
of blood

just take my teeth
and
EAT ME
a’fore ya gets too
scumfterbull—

spit out yr feet
an’ meet me
up
high on hilly
vista,
fulla bees
an’ trees
an’ thorns,
where the 4am traffic
winds
blindly below us,
coursing like blood
thru brittle broken
veins,
abscessed
subway tunnels
collapsing
on trains,
track-marked
gutters,
an’ infectious-germ
commuters.
cracked concrete
capillaries,
red bloodcell
brakelights
at stoplights coagulating
in carpools
of blood—

dusty
hillsides encrusted
with million-dollar
houses,
standing
on wilted steel
stilts,
giant concrete-glass
parrots,
perilously lurching,
perching
over parties
fulla girls you can EAT!

it’s time for me to meet
the Bikini Meat
elite—

a floating inflatable fleet
of tubes
lubes
an’ boobs,
booze-bunnygoats
bleating
eating
tits-on-a-stick,
swizzle-dicks competing
over fiberglassy
blondes
drinking
wood-varnish martinis
garnished
with nipples,
cartoon girls triple-
stacked
on top-a ornamental
pornstars,
with zippers for eyelids
an’ fire-retardant
pubes—

welcome,
ya greasy green
underlings,
ya floppy-eared
rubes,
to the Upper-Middle Mannequin Class—
where ego-engorgeous
Godzooka-like
zillionaires
meet a fashionably
bored,
top-optional
demise
(severed members only),
floating face-down
all alone-ly,
in bottomless swimming pools,
or leaping off
cliffs
in Olympic-sized
ravines—

(when death to YOUR house
comes ta visit,
which
will YOU find
most exquisite?)

death by TV dinner?
death by family?
death by job?
death by joy?
death by happiness?
death by handpicked admiring-squad?

death by money!
death by fashion!
death by children!
death by mansion!

in the hills,
driving
cars
with constellation headlights—

the skies are unkempt—
the birds fly like stupid bricks!
my heart is descending—
I need a newer kinda fix!

the parkbenches
are all booked
up
full of broke
starving
henchmen
wearing exoskeleton
trenchcoats,
shit-crust
in their workpants,
shoes from another
era,
peeling prophylactic
socks
off cracked
plastic
feet—

bleary-eyed
bug-f**kers,
junk-sick hicks,
crackerjack truckers
suckin’
on liquor sticks,
pleasantly
foaming,
stray roaches roaming,
climbing
statutory rapevines
growing
in the day-glo grey
cracky
pavement,
fingers trapped
in spiderwebs of chewing
gum—

carrion
chopper-blades,
locust-cops
buzzin’
over
groups of trees
handcuffed
in a grove of streetlights,
bare roots
buried in
boots,
refusing
to cooperate—

mud-angel
nudists
wiping
blood off the fish-tile,
crack-king their teeth
in mouths
fulla tar,
eyes
risin’ constantly,
2 blue bleeding
suns—

2 dozen donut-mites,
itchy
an’ bitchy
in pigeon-skin
slums,
bums are a-scheming,
drinking
drip-drool
an’ dreaming
of anywhere but here!
spilling
junk-blood
an’ beer
on a flea-eaten
mattress,
wearing
beef-jerky jackets,
‘cuz leather
is fer
winners—

ain’t no way to tell him
a flying wig
of paralyzed,
comb-proof
hair
has landed on his head!

no way to conceal
lips of dope
lathering
with soapsuds of madness!

no way to escape
sour
lush-hour winds
blowing
foul
brown breath of death,
orange
smoke-quilts of smog
hanging
over anthills of jewels,
fuel fumes
wincing,
rinsing
soft
plush-white
hands,
upholstered with fat—

Pakistani
sandwich-peddlers,
selling lonely
bologna,
lunatic
tuna
an’
tamales of folly
to
imaginary gangsters
engaged in
invisible dealings
under sickly orange streetlights,
vomiting
gravel
in the nausea-mud
an’ pouring
rain
on their pancakes—

operator,
I need a pill!
will you kill me if I cry?

will your oval
envelope me
softly when I die?

crickets
play contralto
to a cavalcade of sirens,
ambulance-grooves
grindin’
under a glowing brown cloud
of carcinogenic,
omniscient
filth—

tar-paper junkies
lifting
methadone barbells,
eyelids of wool,
taking
powder-showers
with perforated,
reprobated,
underweight-trash
man-hookers,
or alone or maybe
stoned
or with a 40 of Ol’
English,
always on a
nod,
in the unappealing
nude—

hooker-hair
slimy,
like
gluey-glook strands
of blue-black spaghetti,
clogging the drain,
my girl’s been
pavin’
her veins
with tarry black
gloop-paste,
fixing
her shots
with meticulous
haste,
don’t waste yer time,
buddy,
she’s a bitch
in real
life—

the sky is propped
open
by the last rays
of sunlight;
fuzzy gray
cat
w/ overcast
lining
sits
at the head
of a waterfall of blankets
gushing
from the foot
of a beheaded
bed,
my crazy once-girlfriend
lay slovenly sleeping
under a
shelf
of tulips
an’ china dolls,
chipped plastic
beads,
balloons fulla heroin,
little packets
of speed—

what delicacy of mind
arranged miniature
teapots
in such careful-ish
fashion?

gnashing
her teeth
over tiny porcelain
place-settings,
letting
ashtrays
an’ beercans
pile up on the floor—

sweet dreams little venom-fiend!

happy trails little whore!

why-zit
Yucatan
lose at a war
ya ain’t even fighting,
that no matter
whutcha du,
ya never can’t
win?

our OC disorders will never meet again!

I am happy
to sleep
alone
in a corner
on the old wooden
floor
amongst piles
of pliers
an’ parboiled
chicken bones,
clear 80’s telephones,
bent wire
clothes hangers,
abortion-hook soup,
hypodermic pine needles,
slaveyard bikini-strings,
bloody black flowers,
fangs fulla
honey,
damp
rolls of toilet
paper,
toy razorblades from heaven!
patent-leather purses,
pocketknives,
phonebooks,
matchbooks,
magazines,
stereo components,
tubesocks,
toy trains,
tambourines,
porcelain alarm clocks,
Ku-Klux
Kleenex boxes,
boxes
of catshit,
boxes
of valentines,
computer parts,
wine bottles,
fake wood TV
trays,
moldy blue tomatoes,
bags of liquefying
onions—

the day
smooth an’ peaceful—

blankets of smog/
grey
feather pillows
on a hot heatlamp
sun,
keep us from going
crazy,
keep us
lazy,
an’ happy,
hazy,
an’ slappy,
all those tattooey-junk losers,
boozers,
cruisers,
dildos of soap—
they all usta
be friends of mine;
now we’re just sleeping—

weeping creeping keeping
our mouth shut—

what
Angel of Stalin,
descending on my bedsheets
in the middle of the silent/holy/
cracky-trap
night,
is demanding fucky-wucky,
an’ expecting to be
fed?

weaker than a tweeker,
chewin’
on ‘iz fingers,
poking steam-holes
in ‘iz head,
ugly
lugnut lips a-lisping,
cranium crakd
an’ crisping,
an’ a microwavy
haircut
on top an uninhabitablable
head?

eating
slices of chewy
blue-grey
bread
that look like
lint filters
in industrial
clothes-dryers,
applying
finger-lickin’
wedgies
to herds
of sexy
nerd-girls
wearing
robot-eating
sneakers,
footprints
on their parachute-panties,
tangled up in blissful
briars,
an’ starting trendy
fires—

beating
quaran-teenage
devil dolls
wi’ pockets fulla
foo’l-balls,
Cyanide Chiclets,
malevolent
lentils,
latent
opioid
appetites—

skunkards
an’
ja-runkards
with coal-burning
throats,
cookin’ up
their breakfastes
in spoons
of ruin
an’ recklessness,
singin’
Negro Britney Spirituals
under a pancake makeup
moon—

my wakeup call is wasted!

the cat is spun on crank!

watch out
for the tornadoes of teeth
an’ clouds
of claws,
an’ be very very
wary
of the supernatural
catbox,
now that it has taken
to levitating
mysteriously behind the toilet—

rickety
iron alligators,
impatiently descending,
comin’ down from the ceiling
on lysergic
tornado slides,
South-Side
Chicago blocks,
chillin’
in tha darkness/
bloody darkness/
chungk of pavement/
brainwashed
drone—

the payphones all need pruning!

glood
gates are frozen
shut!

what news?
what urgent business?
could be so possibly important
as to find yourself requiring
ta beat me to tha
meat-punch?
(vodka-licious
meat-stew,
served in crystal-nut
champagne
flutes)
tryna come off
like all yer shit’s together,
like yer carrot
ain’t cooked e-nuf
already—

steady,
Betty,
don’t pass that semi
on the shoulder!

his expletives are explosive!

his wheel-wells are weird!

whom
will groom
the grey-haired vegetables
growing
in my gardenoid
beard?

what expense my common sense?

an’ what price my lucky dice?

what intention all this tension?

not to mention
the pinched, enlightened
faces
of my atavistic
peers
(baby we wuz smokin’
all the way to Ho-Hoboken!)

don’t bother me!

I’m boring!

leave me
alone please I’m imploring
ya
ta keep yer
self
all to yer
self
a’fore
ah gets my
self
in jail
all a-cuz’n
yer gunbelt
panties,
an’
my vanity
case of herpes—

Elvis can you hear me?

are you up there washing
dishes?

do you know Santa Claus
and Jesus?

do you communicate with Memphis?

telepathically
through an old
busted
black & white
TV?

hey buddy!

Elvis wants for you to give me 50 bucks!

sure I’ll take a check,
an’ if’n
yer not a chicken
yu’ll take a kickin’ in the nuts!

whoo-hoo-hoo!

hee-hee-hee!

I’m ludicrous!

I’m free!

ain’t no one here to tell me
they’re gonna
care for me
forever,
condemning
me to an eternity
of eating
emotional popcorn
in a 30-year-long movie
bereft
of boobs
an’ cool explosions,
a narcoleptic epic
monologue
of preposterous proportions,
of which WE, of all people, are forced to be the
stars!
strapped for the duration
into cold electric
loveseats—