Four Old Poems Revised

I believe these were all originally written in January of this year.

Computer Slay

I

As an old storybook
this Internet sits encrusted
on this old oak table, ancient,
with trails of new salsa spittered,
wine crumbs dripping,
and out back there goes a paper
boat down the stream of trash and
gasoline toward the lake where
the fat people lounge and the thin
boogey board or jet ski quickly.

Splash; splash; splash; splash, splash.

The Internet has a new suit.
Today a black cover,
a new abutment spaghetti strap
and a long gewgaw thin thong.
Great in the sun all day long.

Lightly salted glints race up,
race down the megabyte strip. Savor
with tongue overlapping keyboard.

We open the case and get crazy.
We think about our hunger for info.
Extra virgin oils for your transistor.
“Get me my guacamole suit.”

In the lighting I want to munch.
I beg maw to scruff, bandit wax.
How it must feel to be nothing
more than a galaxy of clammy forms
all condensed into one stammer,
one edge, one plain, one theatre.

But we are kept from imagining.
Cannot go. Mind hampered. Warped in lag.
Each link feeling broken. Dead ends to
dead walls of inconceivable labyrinths.
Like a nest of dead branches all bundled
together I am bundled in these wasted pages.

Take me back to the website over yonder.
Take me back in time which does not exist now.

The notion is now going on to hibernation.
Making the move to guilt and rest, energy salvation.
It is time to watch the food mess collect,
and stare quite frequently at the blinking greens,
lights that match our potato-smelling breaths.

II

Heroes we cannot hope
to see and touch move about
where we cannot see.

You said you saw
a closing soon sign.

The font spelled
letters sharp to the tongue.

The earthly opposite
revealed as hollow!
Like a ghost it hovered
before zooming to vanish.

What went up the stairs
went down the stairs.

What went up the stairs
went on down to become
breeding bombs
rocking the blank slates.

The blanket is a television.
Happy birthday!
This is the world of occupation.

Three days later,
no one home means
it is still turned on.

When we shut down,
we left the water
running—

---

Like Us

They might find it out in taxis.
The trees designers along the pavement,
bending just a little more here.
Its grey is much softer when touched.

The wind calms a little bit, but
it is the dull night that will fall
like a blanket over the cities
of America, home to bad dreams.

---

Shorter

Your brain with
fingers for two seconds.

Will the experience to
some slow coordination.

Dizziness for several minutes.

If you touch only
for a minute you
will not recover.

---

Toward Time

Dance like a ballerina as
the long shadows form from
each of your skinny fingertips.

Lounge around hunched over,
sipping coffee and scowling at
the bland colors of these walls.

Close your eyes and think of women
who twirl about with partners
wearing masks of rococo, pizzazz.

The cats were outside again
today, returned from the grave
like the call across the palisades.

Sitting there, backs arched,
there was mystery in their eyes,
glowing like planets or star fruit.