a downbound train is running through my veins
due to a central nervous system glitch let’s face it
it’s a bitch being me at present my allies have bailed
+toothpuff has filled the vacuum
my dentist’s diabolical plans for me beckon I will
arrive at the appointed time +larry will anoint the
goddamn fistula with oil
my fucking cup runneth over
__
Winter 2020 ..a kadouchas by any other name..
went for 1st covidtest where a small pharmacist in braids
brandished a small q-tip it was barely shoved i would call it
a more tentative placement so why are all the drones getting
brainraped at drive thrus?
leaving the masses dazed fugued +more confused
(could this be why they lose their sense of smell?) dogs
who lose their sense of smell sleep where they defecate
perhaps our fugued leaders do too?
let’s face it words do not mean what they used to take
lockdown please take it i.e.., take my wife please take her (henny youngman)
lockdown now means: go forth and multiply the sunking virus🔆
go especially to unventilated BIGBOX stores
once there hoard toilet paper in direct proportion to your
reading on the bullshit meter if poet sounds a bit testy she is!
now tested +oh so covidclean? we are taking a wait+see policy
**(should i have it u will all be required to isolate)
while just today my ancient mother was arrested for seduction sedition
when she walked in a dark construction ridden hallway as walking
is NOT allowed for old depressed bats in congregate care settings
battered by 9 months of solitary
walking papers for the manager please? he who prevaricates even on a
word like mandatory ! inglorious big brother he +barrelchested Ford
put 1984 to shame
yet we vegetate all orwellian +seethe down with dumbfuck managers
premiers + doublespeak in general + lardy cowards with yellow hair
+ lying dogs who sleep where they..
u all still there?
__
Winter 2020 **reading this shit can be hazardous to your health
at 7 i had the strongest desire to catch a bird father said:
take a dish towel +a salt shaker +sprinkle salt on its tail
u cannot imagine how close i came inching along on my
girlbelly
this bit of wisdom i found in a hassidic tale some 40 yrs. later
father a hassid! my ass what i caught was the desire to lay
quietly for lengthy periods in damp grass alone in zazen
bird-meditation waiting
and waiting is what father was really teaching me
no the squirrel who fell from the roof is not at the zoo little birdgirl yet i wait
maybe father somehow knew that one day i’d have waited 31 yrs.
+counting to see him it gets easier i guess not as hard as in
the first 90 days when bellycrawling doesn’t begin to describe it
waiting now too for the final 3rd to unfold where a bird in the hand
would be the rising particularly on the beach where father’s stallion
is known to graze + the light at the end of the tunnel is a pair of
greenish-blue eyes
__
u just wait
i will catch that bird
find that beach
Fall 2020 ..the old boss..father’s doppelgänger..
i am fearless except re: the things my mother
feared when i was womb-ridden
the beast
retorts
bugs
going bugs (ie., i don’t want to end up in the bughouse)
tall dark strangers on darkened streets who chase young girls
+grab them between the legs
imagine the brave involved in approaching a fly
trapped in my house (need some freedom karma asap)
scooped him in a covidkleenex ferried him to the roof
said fly said:
this is not my house this is not my wife
who is this bitch? i better run for my life!
with that i snatched back the under appreciated freedom
+squished the sucker between my fingers i suspect it will be
a long winter covid-caged +bugs
__
Winter 2020
THE PACIFIC OCEAN ! IT’S THE PACIFIC OCEAN !
bookend dream to the man with a giant baldhead and
megaphone-mouth bellowing: SECOND HALF OF LIIIIIIFE ! at 36
which in judaism is double chai old cabbalist lore gore
i’d consulted a rabbi bill maher’s doppelgänger who stank
of mould kasha herring pig not in a goodway he was my sensei’s
rabbi the guy who left 16 needles in husband’s thigh shoulder
buttcheek +later when he undressed for candlemas there was
another in his crevice he still leads with this at times (hey i didn’t give birth to him)
acupuncture my ass
last night’s dream what can it mean? go west old woman?
newly shorn sacrificial+lamb hair was a complex red for some
30 yrs +more now a neighbour shouts: oh you so rock ‘n’ roll
with spanish inflection
as i with the courage of a flea come down to Lake O to find
the Pacific Ocean? but this particular transformation is gonna
require a plane balls +a deep cutting of strings yet here i sit
spewing words all cassandra-deep +blue
__
Fall 2020 ..for Sonny Lee Atkins..the apartment cat…now calling the Pacific Ocean home..!!
we talk about blocks about anxiety i check the
Iowa Writer’s Workshop site $50,000+ annually
i think i can get in i don’t believe in writer’s block
+i can spin words into gold (gold jerry gold!)
Rilke gestated the duino elegies for 10 years
so what was he doing instead of dragging words
dark+bloody from his loins? smoking pot drinking gin
reading the duinos u can see that he needed a
decade to cram angels+archangels by the tens
of thousands onto the head of a pin
so did he believe the voices up in castle duino? (dead with final poem at 49)
you’re lazy
you’re bored
you have nothing to say
you’re washed up +ugly
hell no in those ten years Rilke stoked his immortality but for me
sitting Kurtz-like on the river of brokendreams the wordcemetery
beckons a bog poet bogwoman and the word feckless appears
in the gator’s mouth along with poet’s black toes
__
..could we handle that dumb thing, or would it handle us? I felt
how big, how confoundedly big, was the thing that couldn’t talk,
and perhaps was deaf as well. I had heard Mr. Kurtz was in there..
(Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1902)
Fall 2020
..but, oh those nights- those nights when the infinite wind eats at our faces..
and the nosing beasts scent how insecurely we’re housed in this signposted World..
do you still not know it? (Rilke First Elegy 1912)
didn’t u think anyone loved u? lucinda moans
lake charles drawl throaty mr. marty today’s
the day of the dead + i just saw a flash of your
imp grin riddleresque +provoke
felt your breath too blowing ru’ach in my face
spiritworld pressed up against us today hey i’m
coming to mexico for february+march will stay til
april if we get along
i’ll come every year
every day
I’m coming
_
Fall 2020
heard thumps overhead rushed up to roof
+there was bigbro 2 yrs. dead flopped on
his side looking way better than when i’d
seen him last
florida hospice going fast and fast is a
relative term we brushed him off +he
regaled us with tales of the crypt
ape it’s not what u think! lunch is
5x the price +the shrimp are NOT the size
of your arm but otherwise it’s fairly hospitable
there was this one guy who insisted he was
my brother but they’re both still alive so what
kind of jive was he talking? unless
__
..generally he finds the secret not worth knowing..
(Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1902)
Fall 2020 .. hey can’t we get them some bigger shrimp? ..
my attendance at 5 deathbeds confirms
that the throes they ebb into a fabulist peace
a release so gentle it makes birth that garish
bloodbath ! an unquiet grotesque
which
of course
it is
not so the birthing of death no forceps (just those prying sister’s fingers off of u)
here there is a low swinging to the wailing
of those who are losing u who do not see
that u are just over yonder waiting
so don’t u weep
don’t u moan
and
DON’T wish them back
fer chrissakes
get a life
__
..she could still see, feel, his mind darting, and darting..
(William Faulkner Light In August 1932)
Fall 2020 ..long may u run .. Marty Atkins.. May 19, 1946-October 21, 2018..
..is waiting.. and darting..
it must be that the twilightzone has split open
+those GIANTS peering over the town (did u see that episode?)
a couple in a 1950’s convertible roll into a quaint
town it is empty even the kitchen drawers are fake
well those giants loom overhead as i negotiate with
bureaucrats for my old mother’s freedom in the
nowapocalypse LET MY MOTHER GO! my voice
all moses +shrill *(not the 1st time i have tried to free her)
CHOMP CHOMP now deep inside the stinking mancavity
of a giant it smells of moss mingled with fecal +oldcovid
about to be shat out? birthed?
or maybe i’m in Woody Allen’s sex flick inside the spermatron
where i am about to experience conception fer chrissakes! it
smells like salt + tastes like slave
__
..born into this..into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes..
born into this..pissed on by this.. made crazy and sick by this..
(Charles Bukowski Dinosauria, we)
Fall 2020 ..autopilot is your friend..
songanddancegirl... at 4
