Oct. 2 2010

Who can stop us from taking an address or two down
Not to use now, but for end times, when the shit explodes?
Nothing can stop us. Write down that address, and wait.
What can it profit a man to let the foe slip from his paws?
Love demands reckoning, at least one good bloody day of it.
And love is not the love of fellow man. Love is the sword
Driving the money-lenders from the temple
Protruding from the mouth like an expired ATM card.
Love is smiting the Amalekites to every man
Cruising this neighborhood in my unsightly Neon
(Not mind you Subaru or Beamer)
My skunk’s nose wedged in every cookie jar.

But I am not the child with his nose pressed
Against the sweet-shop window in the grey of winter.
But I am most certainly the bloom of summer months,
Fleet Mercury and ruddy Mars and Cyclops,
Alfalfa with his sling-shot in his pocket
Stirring up the blue-haired ladies during tea-time,
Ungainly but energetic, stumbling through the yard.
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The first frost of the season, the temperatures dropping.
What is the spot on this soft liquid crystal screen
That I cannot scrape away with my fingernail?
Out, damned spot, soiling the blue vibrating
From the operating system, always on or asleep.
The Valley News called. The newspapers are hurting.

The editor’s seat is shaky but warm, and the desk-lamps burn
Through the wintry evenings. Only office windows betray
The presence of the city. Come and go the cruise liners,
The volumes of the buildings like orthogonal cubes
Until you think how they stand in night their real state .