I am wondering What ink to pen Or computer print out To assemble about lost limbs Spilled blood and broken minds What to commemorate When the flag is torn And screams when touched What people’s voices suffocated Strangulated Can be heard through iron bars? An echo of a spasm Reverberates in a pool Filled with coins Yet people pass it by A tree with broken branches and roots is Celebrated by an out of tune marching band As an audience with painted smiles Mills about aimlessly Consuming cheap sugar concoctions The poppy seeds have been sown The generals grow weary of their opium dreams Attempt to speak their concern Then breathe in more of the hallucinatory fumes Decorated and bruised The warriors have come back With shrapnel sequined rhinestone wounds The performers have sung throats raw With shattered ambitions Hiding out in close circles The nightly shadow puppet show Has become more hollow And the vacant eyed ones Move in sickly shuffles Hide the corpses of those who failed to survive Between sullen stones of past glories Line their decorations up in military precision And beg for a cheap semblance of a smile Or at least a pained grimace We do not embrace the former fighters But cannot push them aside Hoping only that they rise up And cast their spent medals Into the reflecting pool Until their onrushing torrent of pain screaming Drowns out the authoritarian voices Who stitched together this piecemeal war With rusted needles

I’ve been thinking about Blondie Not the band I mean Hitler’s dog Whatever happened to Blondie? Was it put on trial for war crimes? Why was Son of Sam arrested And the dog that commanded him to do it Go free? Ever seen that crap movie “They Saved Hitler’s Brain?” I mean Hitler committed suicide And his remains were buried But what about Blondie? Maybe Blondie influenced Hitler Maybe Hitler had no power And Blondie told him what to do Maybe while they were burning Hitler’s corpse Blondie was busy being cloned Maybe there are Blondies everywhere I see a thousand German shepherds Cascading through my nightmares Each a clone of Blondie While little girls sing the praise of the Aryan race And the U.S. debates about legalizing torture Various Blondies Manipulate politicians with puppets and string Maybe the dogs have been advanced so much They can pass for human George Dubya is a Blondie Dick Cheney is a Blondie You can’t be on the Supreme Court Unless Blondie approves Everywhere I go Behind a fence A dog growls and snaps at me Realizing that I know It’s a Blondie Blondie makes people do bad things Blondie inspires serial killers Your backyard is incomplete Without a Blondie You’re not hip Unless you have a Blondie Or at least know one Blondie tore Lassie’s throat apart Blondie infected Old Yeller with rabies Blondie knows where you’ve been on the internet Soon the experiment will complete And every living thing on earth Will have the same genome As Blondie And while Rudolph Hess fades into obscurity And Goebbels disappears from our memories Leaving behind only a scowling glare Like the smile of the Cheshire cat A billion blondies pace the earth With a keg of liquid nitrogen Dutifully waiting to carry on the mission Imprinted so carefully by its creator

(George Harrison “Before you die, declare the pennies on your eye”) As a special treat Mark David Chapman is released from prison A John Lennon wannabee is cast as John Lennon He enters the stage Mark David Chapman guns him down Paul McCartney’s sheepdogs turn rabid And maul sir Paul Ringo gets electrocuted by toy trains With faulty wiring on Shining Time Station Anti-Israeli protestors are smote Instead of the first born sons of the Egyptians Clint Eastwood is run over by a SUV on Queens Blvd. And ends up hooked up to a ventilator The ventilator is disconnected by Dr. Kevorkian While the scene from Million Dollar Baby is shown I travel back in time And pull a Columbine on the bullies in high school While random clips from Revenge of the Nerds Jump in hyper speed on a movie screen Rebecca Schaefer is reincarnated And Mark David Chapman, Charles Manson and her sing “All you Need is Love” Then the theater collapses and goes up in flames As part of the wreckage An iron bar in the shape of a crucifix is formed The new pope canonizes the entire audience Attorney General Gonzales sings hymns With the back up of a mariachi band George Bush reads “My Pet Goat” In the meantime Bin Laden is stuck in an elevator Listening to Imagine over and over again Becomes inspired to be a Broadway producer And is the star of the show Of “Guantanamo: The Musical” Including a sexy cameo of Saddam Hussein in his underwear Cat Stevens sings, “Morning has Broken” Over footage of 9-11 The nation has been saved

The sun melts your freedom Scorched asphalt coughing tongue aspiration Choke on synaptic gaps Cover the graves with Astroturf Running in circles Then lie motionless As your dreams are infiltrated by demons Wearing flesh colored masks The room is your bunker The night is your interrogation Of past sins and reality Watch the clock Its numbers signal escape time But reading them wrong Leads to punishments Clockbound and weary worry The rhythmic emulsions turn painful The sink is filled with unwashed thoughts The day laughs at you Knowing it will soon conclude This chapter in the book

While investigating the case of the 3 headed saxophone Mysterious discoveries are made At some late night honky tonk Jazz was just a starting point Breaking its contours And molding it into surrealistic hues Screaming the cry of a people chained Bearing and gnashing your teeth And then caressing the audience in the next instant The few that saw you transfixed Transmogrified Swore you were an incarnation of the Holy Ghost And that your notes were written in Aramaic And each instrument Hand designed You took home And made a fellow spirit To speak the gospel Through baited breath Screaming jazz funk soul manic panic At an indifferenced world You brought the followers in And then let them loose Perhaps with their mind freed But somewhat humbled at the same time And even when a stroke withered your right side You played one handed As if to spit at fate And took your vision to the gleaming end Of the mortal realm Into that of immortality And right now you’re probably riding On a broken down freight train With the brakeman death himself And the train conductor is made out of Some space time foam And you’re playing the blues of some long departed soul On their skull bones I can hear you somewhere as the train makes its rounds Hoping to be heard over all the smooth jazz And break it up into the lethal shards you once knew

Belched out like fumes from a smokestack Or words from Amiri Baraka's mouth Or the stench of manure lagoons Comes the latest wonder New Jersey bear hunt Made me cold To think you'd be hunting down animals Why don't we cull people instead? And appointment me to be the commissioner Start with everyone who blocks up the New Jersey Throughway And include all the Christmas shoppers And the kids in the basketball court in Greenwich Village Who called me faggot Set up a couple of professional sharpshooters To pick off New Jerseyites at random So we can make room for the bears We'll have holiday fun And let the kids dive into a pool of piranhas And broadcast the results in Japan But until then I'm going out and getting an AK-47 Michael Moore be damned And picking off a couple of hunters Stuffing them And be the first one on my block to say I bagged some white trash Other than Iraqi soldiers that is So don't feed the bears garbage they might turn vicious And don't feed the people endangered sea bass or blackened catfish Or taffy in Atlantic City Because it might make them want to come back to New Jersey And I wouldn't want to harm the bear habitat So before you build another condominium Make sure it includes arsenic treated wood Stairs that break on contact And walls laced with asbestos But if this hunt has to be controlled And we can only take one New Jerseyite We'll feed Baraka to the bears To the tune of Hava Nigila While they paw him playfully And he writes about how bears Are part of the Jewish conspiracy So do you part And rearend a New Jersey driver Or re-enact the Pine Barrens scene in the Sopranos Only this time don't use fake blood So don't feed the bears They might grow brains And decide that hunters make The tasty prey of all Just make sure to spit out the lead bullets.

He woke up empty minded And realized the shattered remnants of his life Were scattering across city streets All the past memories mocking Past corrupted computer screens and city streets And memories of hall school halls Filled with laughter at him Degrading his own deadened existence For shards of something to substantiate He was sucked in by a whirlwind of hot breath Stalking the city streets The flesh parade nightly was taking its tolls His unawakened eyes knew that spinal sensations Would soon cease The asphalt melting and blinding light Bouncing off cars driving by aimlessly Scorched his already darkened mind The days had slipped into seconds And he was running past the stench of high school gyms And peepshows and subway stations Buried in layers of piss The subway rats were carrying news of his demise And stealing his dreams in bundles in parcels Distributing through unwanted internet visitations Into forbidden territory The children were coming to collect his flesh And the lepers his bones His neural filaments would be auctioned To pharmaceutical purveyors He was now a denizen of psych. wards and x-rated video stores as the burnt out buildings he knew disappeared co-opted by coffee bars and condominiums The silence of clouds passing by Predicting thunderstorms One of many That would coalesce As the lightning ran jagged lines Searing his broken synapses The instant the power went out He was online The lights jumping on and off The clocks flashing The weariness of the air conditioner Shutting down like a patient in a disconnected iron lung Then suddenly springing to life From the oblivion The smiling corpses eyes Unblinking in the seconds before an apocalypse.

Changing from one anti-psychotic to the next Is like jumping from one bad relationship to another Only at this point I've been had both times Today is the first day on Risperdal alone The Seroquel is gone and being that I've been on it For 5 years I miss it already I haven't decided how to divide up the dose I take the first by itself and rabid dogs appear before me Banging at the door I start laughing hysterically Shit I think Too low I get up and take the next dose The dogs are at bay Lie there for a while with the chills My bones ache as if I've been walking miles And for all I've seen I might as well have I bundle myself up with my favorite aged quilt with the op art colors That my grandmother gave me a few years ago I go to the bathroom I have mosquito bites And they itch now more than ever I cover them with caladryl And look in the mirror My pupils are dilated Shit I fall asleep and am awakened At five in the morning by that dirtbag kid downstairs Screaming at me He is whistling to himself He must be walking that stupid sausage dog That lives with him and his father That howls all day Because they yell at each other all night I'm supposed to get angry But I just think stupid motherfucker Laugh to myself And fall back to sleep He'll pay for this when I feel better I think as I wake up hours later Eat breakfast Dream about the movie Logan's Run being broadcast In a subway station Commanding the populace with hypnotic instructions So post modern Get up One in the afternoon Want to sleep all day But I gotta see my friend in the city Shove myself out of bed My aching joints and all Shower and grab a slice of pizza I notice all the green grass And the mockingbird Sampling all the other singers The flowers drifting from the trees And the buzzing mosquitos They hate me I think Just like that kid There are dazed cats walking across the lawn haphazardly I get off at West Fourth Street Head to some record store There are all these fake macho guys One says to another, "A pigeon came flying in the store the other day He elaborates Then says, "I caught it with a bag and threw it out the window. Some woman said, 'Don't kill it.' Kill it. Those things are flying rats." But I like rats I say but don't Sometimes its better to keep your mouth shut I'm running late and if there's one thing my friend hates Its lateness I try to run but can't move too fast I meet my friend at the Cube at St. Marks Place just in time There are all these junkies With matted hair and tattered clothes Punked out and fucked over They are lying on make shift mats Made out of their jackets On the sidewalk "The sleep of the inebriated" My favorite movement of Vivaldi's Four Seasons The harpsichord creeps in and all that Its so ethereal But I'm besides myself There's this one girl has a giant bruise on her leg Must be because all the veins on her arm are gone Poor thing But yet almost beautiful that bruise An azure shade in some impressionist painting about decadence I snap back to reality for a second I turn to my friend and say to him seriously "There are some things you're not supposed to look at." There is some guy lying on the traffic light being filmed As a performance art stunt I try to forget about the junkies We go record shopping and he lets it get the better of him As always He has a credit card I don't There is a punkette with a blood red miniskirt And pale skin I turn my head all the way around I look to my friend embarrassed "That's okay", he says "She's asking to be looked at." I don't bother to argue with him I have completely forgotten about the junkies I go home and listen to some ambient trip-hop album I don't even know what that means But it suits my mood And anyway it's a birthday present for my friend The first few days of a medication You feel as if it's your best friend They call it the drug honeymoon Then it gives you the sucker punch I haven't been struck yet All the new anti-psychotics Are supposed to be better than the old And they are Except that the ways they fuck you up Aren't non-existent Just different I was reading about drug studies They take you off the pills cold turkey Give you an injection of speed to make you nuts And you're lucky if you get the placebo "When it comes to the shrinks and the pharmaceutical industry" I say to my psychiatrist "Its like when the cats are away the rats will play" He just came back from his magic carpet conference There's a new drug coming out And its supposed to dwarf all the others In its magnificence It should be out by the end of the year he says I look at him with puppy dog eyes "It doesn't cure schizophrenia.", he says snickering "But you'll try me on it anyway.", I say, "Right?" "Sure." he says as if tossing me a stray bone Some rats are more equal than others

What happens to a poem deferred Brought before a poetry slam Like Christ before a crucifix Stuck together at some open mike with a bunch of dicks Sung along with an acoustic guitar About someone's mother getting run over by a slow moving car Multicultural denouncing slavery, injustice and the patriarchy And you feel like Custer's last stand And you're going down And each syllable is another round Does it fester like an anthrax sore? Mean and rotten to the core Ugly and vicious and sick Like a racist cop with a night stick Does it go on forever like a rant? Moan and scream and pant Is it a trip to the gynecologist, proctologist urologist, herpetologist? Head shrinker? Dope dealer? Is it wasted like a bad trip? Or pugilistic like a fat lip? Does it aim to please Like the latest epidemic disease? One stanza and you're hooked The serial killer's latest book Looking up snuff films on the net Smothering kittens while you're a vet Is a turn on? A turn off? A turn the other way and don't look back Getting ready to attack All poison and venom Cheap lipstick and bad denim Or just another fucked up liar Wanting to fill the world with passion and desire Bad heroin and cheap pot Teeth falling out and mind starting to rot So does it make you want to change the world? Does it carry you to another plain of existence? Does it make you want to join the resistance? Does it make you want to go out and get fucked? Or does it just plain suck?

Henry Darger would know He would know the basics Of undoing patent leather shoes And removing lace stockings And soft skin untouched since birth He would know all the colors and shapes From pleated to gingham to tartan He would know how flowers wither in autumn And warm coats and stockings cover soft bodies How chapped skin comes undone in the cold air And is mended with soothing ointment He would know the celebration of springtime And the unscarfing of young bodies As they danced under a pale pink sky And hid under shapely trees He would study these realities As he impaled them one by one Into glass boxes Pinned next to butterflies Some with wings still quivering In mute agony He would excel at snuffing out sniveling little psychopaths Crawling and creeping Multiplying little chains of paper dolls casually cast into the fireplace The ash peppering the landscape like snow-white panties he carefully scrubbed clean In the middle of the night with bleach burning away his fingertips He would know how to take out their intestines Like delicate sausages in a gourmet delicatessen Poke out their eyes and line them up in neat little rows Mindful not to trip over their huge clitorises He would know how to sharpen paintbrushes Until they cut into the flesh of canvases He would know how to linger over photos of first communions Without drawing untoward attention Staring at the images Until the white dresses dissolved into the open air Leaving crucifixes hugging budding breasts Betraying the Immaculate Conception He would know how to savor glimpses of children being dragged away Into homes filled with chocolates and candies And that at any moment These walls could crumble to pieces And that the stench of gingerbread would not offend But the playgrounds are too safe these days Leaving no room for gaping wounds or fractured skulls And there are nontoxic crayons and lead free paint And the computer screens are filled with warnings and temptations And blurry pixilated images That lead to forced marches down corridors with narrow halls Chances are he would not survive in today’s frigid climate And would probably long since have been defeated by the Powerpuff girls Or maybe they’d just be really close friends

"I want to take it while you're here", I said to my shrink "in case something happens." "What do you think I would do?," he said. "I dunno" I said "Here", he said "catch". Throwing me a box of free samples of Geodon I bit down on a cookie Downed a pill with a bottle of Snapple And off I went into another hell Different from the hell I was in But hell none the less Smiling cheerful The drug honeymoon they call it But a few days later The chains came back And iron crosses the next day And the crown of the thorns the next Pfizer it seemed Had finally gotten clearance To release a new med Three years later Despite the fact that it sometimes caused fatal heart arrhythmia "An annoying side effect", my shrink said Then it was down or was it up or was it inside out Withdrawing from the one and embracing the other My nose leaking snot Spit drooling from my mouth My stomach wilting with nausea And dreams drenched with nihilistic tantrums Up half the night Me and the apes and the polar bears And the giant squid that stood guard on my left shoulder Came face to face with the waterbugs Breaking bones Falling down rabbit holes Watching Alice undress And Henry Darger paint her portrait Praying to the Buddha statues to free my mind but before I could hear an answer it was back to the little blue pills full blue now Not half blue I had graduated to the full dose Me and the starched white sheets And the yellow wall paper Decompensating while looking through medical books In the Jamaica library Peoples faces deformed by leprosy Melting like wax candles and sugary deserts My heart jumped for a second To the tune of Philip Glass first String Quartet That was the first time it happened The day was strung out And wrung out And broken into fragments My mind too numb to pick up the pieces And again the quickstep of my heart The giant squid did not approve And I couldn't face the Buddha statues On the dresser drawer "They just cut me off Medicaid" the woman screamed at work As I attempted to call the welfare worker My heart thumped again A bit off step Not exactly hip-hop More drum ‘n bass Ambient soundscapes of aortic contortions Scraping fragments of time With a paper shredder Skin crawling with thoughts Embedded in my flesh The only sensation of manufactured bliss Singing sine waves Then visions appeared before me Laughing mocking That public service ad from when I was a kid Three animated pills singing, "This is serious. We could make you delirious" and soon they were my only friends and my heart was dancing with them A quick visit to the doctor Reading an EKG "So what do you do these days", he said "Disability advocate", I said "What's that mean?" I help people who can?™t do workfare Because they?™re too disabled get SSI "Thats funny. I used to help people get cut off SSDI", he said "Thats what I?™m on", I said He looked a bit uncomfortable As he removed the little sticky pads From my chest Then it was back to work the next day Staggering Weak from low blood pressure Couldnt picture think focus Labored breathing barely piecing together syllables And my heart caught all between the two Staring at a black squirrel on the pavement Its fur undamaged Its face blank The next day the maggots came The day after it was gone That night I opened a door And a barn owl Flew out of a cuckoo clock It was Thanatos who had come to collect his dues "I gotta get off this shit before I die", I said to my shrink So I did just that and reentered the same hell I live in now Hoping that whatever the next big thing was Wouldnt be quite so deadly and might be gentler on my mind In the bullring, the bullfighter said Its God the bull and me Somewhere along the way Past hand me down minds and broken crutches I lost my cape

To the woman with the leopard print jacket Fake nerd glasses And black tights Who cursed me out When I passed by her Not once But twice In this humble city of ours You make me hopeful I don't know who you are But I think you gave me the evil eye At a reading because of some piece of shit poem I wrote when I was in a piece of shit mood And remembered who I was I'm the misguided misogynist fascist self gratifying mental cripple The self loathing creep who almost vomited the first time he came The psychotic freak who paces in circles And sometimes drools out of his mouth Because of all the meds he has to take just to say sane The repellant pervert who watches Catholic schoolgirls leave school Like vultures hovering over a dying lamb That's me alright Just wanted to make sure I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to acknowledge me Because for God's sake I need a press agent But don't forget for a moment's sake That while I may be Just like you A speck of dirt in a meaningless universe Surrounded by an unimaginable space-time foam That probably resembles the grotesque diarrhea Spewed from some cholera victim's undeserving asshole I happen to be a bigger, meaner, uglier, nastier speck I possess an actual diagnosis And you would probably be turned down By even some hackneyed therapist Too bored to hear your neurotic whinings The last time you caught up with me was in Starbucks A place I would be ashamed to be seen in I only went there so I could take a piss And needing to be a customer to use the facilities And after having read the Ethicist in the New York Times Decided to buy a chocolate chip cookie Just to inform you I don't even drink expresso, cappuchino or even herbal tea for that matter Let alone pot, booze or ecstasy And I try not to defecate in public places Or play catch with dead waterbugs But you don't have these kind of morals Why don't you admit that You petitioned the Taliban To destroy the Buddha statues Annihilated Chechyen refugees Disconnected Cheney's defibrillator Are an avid fan of Idi Amin Purposely wear sweatshirts made from child labor Went up to the last homeless guy you saw And threw a can of pennies in his face That you walk out every time Orion reads Instead of realizing that he's the next in line To be the Pope And is one of the great thinkers of the 20th Century So if my words so scandalize you then why don't you take your literary revenge on me Why don't you write an obituary with my name on it Why don't you publish me in your piece of shit literary magazine That no one but clueless assholes bother to look at Why don't you read a piece at the Vagina Monologues Pretending I was your ex lover and tell the whole audience How small my dick is Why don't you slip the date rape drug Into my cocktail of medications And while I'm unconscious Inject me with rabies So I die a lingering agonizing hydrophobic death Like Edgar Alan Poe Poetic justice So why don't you confess That every moment of your waking life Is dedicated to snuffing the life out of me That I am the reason you get up in the morning Shower and brush your teeth And that even though you're probably bummed out That the dotcom company you worked for Went out of business That getting your revenge against me Would make life worth it Because I just might catch up with you Call the cops on your dope dealer Inform the Giuliani administration in advance Of the sex party you're planning in your trendy loft That is if you didn't invite him already And if ever decide to commit suicide Don't worry I have plenty of suggestions But think of you as much as you obsess over me To quote Bartleby, "I'd prefer not to." But as for you my friend I'm afraid I can't say the same

Still Laughing The Night Syd Barrett died The wind howled Cataclysmic thunder searing Lightning scorching the sky As hail beat against the air conditioner And the windows were pelted with rain The childhood stories Ripped from their pages The meadows of verdant grass Slowly withered Into garlands of rotting thorns The world caught in the grip of psychosis Collided against unseen forces The vacant eyes The vague smile Now no more The undertow of despair As the waves crashed against each other Battered against the cliffs Carrying suicidal souls to their destination While his was just a modest funeral Squalls of feedback Echoed from amps All over the world In screaming protest No scientific deduction Of a pick against a detuned guitar Lyrics mumbled quietly While seeking sadness crept in Invoking the unseen The words now lost The sky lit up with flame And ashes burned our eyes He was our enabler To unknown realms The next day The people lifted their windows And opened the doors With identical metal keys Walked down the crumbling stairs Red eye window pane Entering data at quick pace No more chromatic keys No more minor chord embellishments The musicians packed their instruments But all that was left for them Was handouts Of corroded silver The world deprived of oxygen The sun burning red The melodic debriefings Now unraveled The knitted garments In garish colors Pieced together Coming undone Every so slowly Mice crept around the corners Passing notes to each other Today the dust motes Gathered together In full regalia For a send off Of one of their compatriots As the seekers Gathered the yellowing tomes And each was handed A letter to carry with them In an amulet For safe keeping