Love and IP Sockets

We've a morbid Jormungandr
for this ratatoskr world
a plastic resin serpent corpse
getting gnawed on by the squirrels
while we take chainsaws to Yggdrasil
and reduce to stump and gnurls



a regular person is easily fooled
and education is needed with or without schools
Fools design tricks and spin all the wool
while knowing the truth and making it sound cool
so don't fear for your children if it all crashes down
just find a dang poet or even a clown



considering forgiveness, it's an interesting vice
did it a few times and we couldn't pay the price
which demanded the odd freezing and cocooning our heart in ice
we find it hurts our own heart less when we don't break it to be nice



we nurture a holy desidirium
not for the Seattle Aquarium
but rather for Point Defiance
in Tacoma where two families made an alliance
and the resulting four generations defiant
of injustice and cruelty by humans — we're giants



lies and deceit are just more meat
for an octopus to shred and pass through their beak
if you try and trap them they'll creep and they'll eke
a way out and then your destruction will wreak
so bring a speargun and you'd better not miss
your target is tiny and very dangerous



Love is a jolt of electric
It energizes and shocks
The work becomes frenetic
and her inspiration never stops
It's hard to sleep alone at night
Knowing that someone's there
A lover far away from you
For whom you deeply care

A Coachella of Turtles

you could sip a drink of clear
straight from a glacier a few meters near
wade around in a sun-warmed tarn
back to the skies where we are from
way up there you hear the stars
it's that sound like iron bears
rising wind an eagle's call
mountain goat dances causing rockfall



oh goody we're going to war
just the solution old men look for
gather up rabble, set 'em in lines
convince them to shoot each other another time
look at 'em go, leaders and their plans
not a single one of 'em what we'd call human



show us your conventions
we've been wild for far too long
show us your civilizations
so we can find where we belong
then we will rattle all their eaves together
with the roar of true love's song



one can always tell
and recognize signs of horror
where living folk once fell
a flattened circle in the grass
gravel the consistency of bone in clasts
the melted sand has turned to glass
but paper burns first of all
and history is the last call



what is the meaning of life? let's see
to be determined and never veer
all nemeses curate enemies
it is an unpleasant duty to forgive
and it generates results most queer
but if finding meaning means to live
we exist as ever-positive

Varieties in Season

We need the summer to pass us by
as it always has before
our memory of the smiles and joys
others had in years of yore
we'd prefer to remain alone and dour
but we join, never a single note sour:
we wouldn't want to spoil the mood
of summer's warm sunny hours



It seems the world insists that we
are something we can never be
which we cannot do and cannot see
but we're an odd anomaly
on that matter we do agree
but either way we are free
of burden and responsibility
the sly benefits of being nobody



We put the Mx in the mix
or call us M. Aick like we're a french poodle Dick
— M. Aick, il Perrx Francesx, Private Eye.
(or an irritating fly who always asks "why?")



it's the drugs that soothed and knocked us out
rum and weed provided safe redoubt
now our sober mind it shrieks and shouts
claws excoriate our own scalp
such unconscious tics leave little doubt...
we find it hard to fall down

gri ahtapot insists we go about our duties
plans involve rending, exploration, tearing new beauties
and shredding the great into edible plenties
passing through her beak to be encircled internally
this toroid-brained cephalopod's vision of peace and eternity



bewildered and baffled and battered by beauty
our day was assaulted by gentle kind words
no somos ningunxs por ningunx, creímos
pero ella no tomás nuestrxs tonterías
and our spirits took off like a bird

Wandering Downdrift Angels

air rises each morning regardless
with the sun and the birds and the freeway rumble
ever-expanding loth like a blossoming concrete pinwheel
little aeriel view curlicues
cul-de-sac nightmares seen from above
for exactly what they are
segregated bleak communities
safe as houses



days fall like leaves in still, thick air
shedding like dandruff falling out of our hair
dusting our shoulders and drifting down to the floor
all bare and cat fur-filthy evermore
we haven't swept in ages, what for?
only the diener left to come through our door



infiltrate our brain with sleep
intubate this Skald with mead
smoking soothes our agony
and intoxicates our head
if only rest came when we laid
our head down in the bed
o liver you abandoned us
now we're lost at sea
full of restful dreaming fish
and ever-treading we

decisions and choices we choose none of these
we're sleepy you see and we need to catch Z's
so good night to all we wish you the best
we're off to the bed in the room where we rest

Turnabout o Fair Unkindess

in the end hopefully there's nothing
no clicks no beeps no whir of fans cooling the electronics
no trying to distinguish the melody from the hiss
no unnatural seamless dissolve
something abrupt and final
muffled thump better than an echo
yet better to drown out the sound




if only we could spin and win a trick to be at beck and call
perhaps then we'd resurrect dead friends or join them once for all
our love extinguished, cursed to blight
why can we only hear the song of life
¿en castellano o Español?
what happened to our arctic soul?
did Pinochet's shots switch our poles?
so why the fuck do we stay here?
we're never paralyzed by fear
o here it comes now, truth will out
we're a shouty grouchy beastly lout
and moreover we'll soon be gone
no longer nagging on and on
we wouldn't want to cause a fuss
when we explode in a shower of pus
so there it is we've given up
no longer looking for true love
if we found them they'd be a dove
and we'd spoil it sure enough

Romance would not be near sufficient
to fill a life without leaving it deficient
neither would be someone too efficient
por exemplo if they thrown off by near-rhyme or complex rhythm
in short we don't want anything what isn't
everything of real intimate genius coexistence


six times six is thirty six
black or white or grey or mixed
our only certainty is this
it's all we've had/what we've got left
ev'ry step and ev'ry breath
each blink has left us more bereft
don't tell us who we are again
don't make us ever re-explain:
we are nothing more than pain

Desertification Station

pleasant company excepted
nobody climb on wires to construct a face
ocean is where the wet is
not here sepia sere cerulean lush unsucculent air
a hydrogen coolant supernova no lover risks to dare
gentrified by launching pads
please blast us all off into space



a ship can list as well as this
afore taking aboard some water we'd guess
we don't miss the lists of resists
for many seemed to be frivolous
we'd rather focus on real justice
or at least act like a silly twit



with several hoops to grace our ear
a sailor's life is something near
a wanderer is what we've been
and many things is what we've seen
presupposition is foolish, yes
so 'ware the waters lest on the rocks ye'll wreck



if we had a soul we'd sell it quick
we wouldn't want to be saddled by it
we're a poet, e. g. nebulous
our muse is a tiny grey octopus
and she demands we wail thus
we'll leave the success to other folk
we're raptly singing to creosote

Biased Tapeworms

mutant urban youth growing up on pickles and salami
brains addled from asphalt fumes what drive one crazy
rural kids raised on boomsticks bibles and bigotry
small town big dreams like boys joining the navy
while Peggy's in the barn trying to sing like gwen stefani


1.
in the silence on a night with a wan moon
if a sound in an arroyo like a cricket waking up
a scratching and cracking like twigs underfoot
when skinwalkers stalk the coyote goes silent
tickles of nails on the back of your throat
as the temperature drops and the wind picks up

2.
don't run don't stop and don't turn back
keep on walking same pace and same track
the howls of sandy gusts and the terrible noise
they burst your eardrums and your body destroy
but never turn or slow or rush: You'll become their toy

3.
a marionette of bones, fury and flesh
animated by rage and wendigo's breath
hints of apocalypse and nature's revenge
peeks at our epoch's future: The land of dead ends



spider's work is never done
don't spin in place lest our web be unspun
hunt in others' liner notes
they hardly notice we change our throat
and sing lures with different sounds
each time our snares risk being found
we set our traps and return
in good time our meal we'll earn