STANDING HIGH

if merely an egg,...but 2 to 3 in time shall become, and the sky will cease to desire to linger amongst the inner caves of our nostrils. i saw you playing by the stream with your can of tossed beads. any which way you'd line them up, you'd conjure no angel (you'd even sting like a wasp and fly like a bird, but still it meant nothing at all). if i were to crawl from the sand, i'd still wear the noose around my neck. i can feel the lizard writhe as it spits us out in coughs like needles (what'll become of my kneecaps?) - peep inside your cavities; the future's in between your legs. amidst these stones we stand alone as fickled space onwards to nowhere.

GUTENBERG'S EXTERMINATION

i shrilled an apology. she hates the way my iron limbs are cold upon her skin at night (she'd even sometimes push me to the floor). i often dreamt of trains. we'd have our cottage on the tracks and wait for the 3 o'clock wreck. i often dreamt like that. she's dreaming of her paradise. and i can tell because her pinwheel ears are spinning quickly. and still i'm waiting for the train, though i know the rails are greased. and there's no plug to pull because it's been concised. my daily waste is stored in plastic. my arm's reduced to an abstraction. the puffs of smoke from my cigarette engage in foreplay with those bare ankles of synchronized swimmers. i'd like to be like them. i exist for 42, and i could give it to them as a gift. but they've already too many. and i apologized. she hates it how my skin sticks to her iron leg at night. she'd even throw me out the door.

ACTIVATE!

i kiss Orfeo's lips and bring the skeletons to life. like Victorian squid ("there in my bed!"). the ink inside my pen will bring joy to the little drummer boy. the children's toys. a murmur on a fetal page. a hand from beneath the casket's lid. just like a kid. God's a castrato and he's turning me on. a radio knob. my hymns have all been blown away. i sing because i need a sister. Ave Maria. i pulled my rib out with my teeth. until i give the angels wings, i'll be the whore of Paradise.

THIS LADY VEILED

she'd recline in her throne of thorns and wait for the embrace and incestuous kiss that'd set her kingdom gloriously ablaze beneath her radiant shadow. day by day from miles on end, they'd swarm into her presence, only to be turned away. they'd beg and pout. they'd even pray. they'd get no farther than a nod from her head. "i'm not the one you've come here for," she'd say in her delicious dress, "my daughter sleeps beneath the quicksand." they'd act apologetic and she'd curse their cheap sincerities: "her secret may lie between her thighs, but mine lies cradled in my darkened navel." then, one by one she'd have their throats slashed (she'd been here since the birth of time and would be here till its end). those that had escaped would seek the three-pronged pitchfork posted in the mud. they thought this would be the way to Heaven, until they drowned beneath the maiden's pillows...

PIANO

baby was a hurricane until he enjoyed sight again. they gave him glasses, tipped their glasses, cheered three times and wished him well on his sentence - on his road to Heaven. and it's transparent. shades of desire. like reaching out for stars beneath a Sistine sky. a Papal vision. pure superstition. you wouldn't want to know. you'd fear what's most desired. you'd get married in Las Vegas if you had to. praise in God with plastic Jesus. baby ate computer chips. he pulled a gargling chicken out of a basket with a rope, smiled, and grabbed a hammer: he'd decided. winter taken as a mistress. it'd snow on the skins of maidens (how they'd be bashful). employment of a limitation. a catalog of placebos. random symbols. random reality. a shot or ten of Paradise. in a bar he'd see them hit the floor (5000 fed). baby stood there with his mallet. at least we'd be massaged by angels.

GUTENBERG'S EJACULATION

her fingers cartwheel over the keys on her lap. and they're dressed in feathers and ribbons, so she knows she's held in high regard. and her mind's like the key that hangs from the tree in the garden, though she's never seen Day One. i want to be just like the branded, paint an "X" over each eyelid ("please my friend, won't you spare some of that extra liquid metal that's lounging on your fingertip?"). i switched my radio to 2030, but all i got was laughing gas from the speakers, and i sat back and dreamt of mother in an imported straw hat... we're walking hand in hand through the wasteland. we're dodging anvils and tripping over the books of the anointed. heaped up like dirt like so many images before us. a halo's handed to a jester. he's jumping up and down with microphones made out of flesh. and would i like to buy my ticket? there is no need. i'm already here.

LAMENT

i saw you beneath an oatmeal sky. you were seated underneath an umbrella. its choo-choo shade would shelter you from...BUMBLE BEES! mushrooms in a basket and a Bible full of powder may be very well indeed. but, will they help you catch that dawning train when your head is frothing over with disease? she's my niece: "and it's a curse knowing too much..." how she would say (though i had seen the jailhouse in her skull, and i would often hear her victims cry out). but i could tell that she'd be the object of my envy. the object of my affection? - not by far! i only wanted to possess her hole of a head. and still - worse of all - i wonder how you comb your hair. and, how you put your lipstick on. and how you speak in perfumed nothings. and how you plan to save all of the forests. and how you're joining in with all your comrades. and on the covers of all the papers. you're standing in a fire of chocolate pudding. speaking in tongues - though i can't hear you. in halls of flowers you put up placards. but, there's no mistaking her hole of a head. i wished i were dead.

LEVIATHAN FOXTROT

we hold the priest in utmost confidence. he'd serve up wafers for merely pennies. he'd even spread the marmalade. me, i'm just a happy little girl with streamers and some cotton candy on my way to happy days...forever! a telephone made of ivory. a phone call to 1651. he blew rose petals out of his mouth. he actually made us think he was talking to us. they'd be greedy with the world. they'd keep it all to themselves. even dauphins got their share. but, in the Hall of Mirrors we'll play tic-tac-toe with avocadoes. play the lead role in the circus. "can we tuck you into bed, Your Majesty?" we'd show them. yes, we'd show them. he buys his tattered rags from Persian merchants, and he speaks to us with golden words. he keeps his watch from a distant. makes sure he's far enough away (Heaven forbade his being in the same room as us). he speaks about you from a distant. spills a drop of blood in the sea. a social buffer. a triple crown. i wear my hood like a dunce cap. my matches light the sky. and on Liberty Day we met for tea. i wore my favorite space suit and ate my biscuit with some tweezers. but even dolphins got their share.

DANCE OF THE VEGETABLE

we took our pick. wasted no time. as investors of the gumball womb, we'll even give your son a nickel. she shaved her head and grew a beard. she put up posters: "have no fear, the Lord is here!" we'll save the whales or ring the bells with friends who tell us there's no Hell. in the corridor the cauldrons spill with lozenges. they're different colors. "care to donate for the lynching?" it's a shame i wore my mother's hat ("but, won't you buy my Chinese Bible?"). a petri dish for the rubber man. last year he swallowed chunks of jelly, but i swear i saw him on all fours burying some in his backyard. he even wore a dress. she'd be drinking at her parties, collecting her invitations. ...and i swear one day i'll buy that dead camel.

ZZZIP! (VIDEO ONE)

tonight we'll slide down the perfumed backs of worminfested bananas. our archéd destiny will launch us into the next Creation (we searched for Shiva so that we may be given a golden arrow to pierce the Accordionist with - we'd slip through his navel!). we jiggled through the corpses of dolphins, fingered the decomposition of horses, and swam through boneclad mud. we'd skip a day or two as we'd catapult into the air. our prosthetic hips would flash and twinkle vibratingly as we'd soar beneath migrating vultures. we'll cover up the serpent's sneeze and capture our salinity in an elegant salt shaker. with all the Holy Water locked in our museum's basement, we know we can go on forever.

LOLLY DAZE

Lemmi was a space girl from the coast. she always dreamt in pink. she’d love to sink beneath the surface of that carrot stew inside her mind. she'd use a morsel as a lectern. act the Stoic as she'd puff her cotton doughnut smoking adjectives into our pilloried expressions. when she speaks towards me, i swear, i wish i'd have tied my shoelaces to that hungry junkie's set of train tracks. could've introduced myself to Siva. there are bubbles around her purple lips. they're rising towards the ceiling. and there's a parade with gingerbread men, a jack-in-the-box, and a cute chinchilla in these crystal eggs. not one of them remains on the ground. they sail away like hefty Spanish galleons that speed across the crashing waves carrying nothing but a ton of light-weighted gold-coated plastic coins (though a ton nonetheless). and when they burst at having hit the ceiling, and all the salivasoaped charcoal residue falls onto the floor and carelessly scrawls out words like "paradigm", "discourse", and "interior design", then i'd be bored all over again because the room would be filled with a thousand pounds of warmth and dampth. boy, was i scared when i dreamt i closed my eyes and saw her favorite color. the turnips would just not look at me in that same way again.

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