"rape him with extreme prejudice"
[shadows)
THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST
While a passenger in Iowa City
we passed at dusk a cemetery
and from its gates emerged
the tall Irish wolfhound
lumbering like a Baskerville
beast in need of feeding.
Later that evening
in front of a restaurant
while smoking cigarettes
we looked down
and there on the ground
laid the cordial canine breathing.
The beast was calm
and his guardian was around
the corner speaking of wandering
grave-rows while the dog
came along and chased
ghosts and rainbows.
CHEATING AT SOLITAIRE
Showing restraint--
too little, too late--
fine, fine, everybody's
prolific and ingenious
no need to intuit
to breed to screw it up
just some idiot idea
of love, just a theory's
hooves, pirate Jack's
one-eyed suicide,
birthday thalidomide
surprise—look Ma,
no legs!
CONQUERING NEW ORLEANS
It will never not be too fresh
to recall in this life unless come early death
with a ten-day pass to bacchanal
to die by pride and insolence
fueled by lightning and a numb face
and raw prostitutes with the death wish
fatalist chemists of power doom asleep
SO MANY DEAD FRIENDS
Miss like hell the mind
when I thought it superior
when I was fifteen
when I had a healthy body
and couldn't wait to destroy it.
Gangsters don't worry about it.
I do not prefer anything at all
about California except for desert.
The rental throbbing, guppies
on the handle with harmony.
Hotel suite shellfish on white.
Art deco pastel trauma mural.
Chew on green in chemical slaw,
only the color strongly brewed.
Irish Spring, Shamrock shake.
Pole Position. Rod Laver Adidas.
Correspondent shapes and clover.
Mistletoe torture with crook-neck.
The stuff of dreams. Ideals made
of a lack of brotherhood myth.
Stones of accord, milliner hood.
What about the we-don't-know
and the madam's charging toys?
The day-plugs of acrylic clogs.
Revert. Backward. Regression.
Not past-life, this fucking life.
I don't care for much these days.
Joylessly biding and distracted.
Deliberate, constant diversion
is a talent worth cultivating.
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