National Poetry Month: Loud Lord

The future an accordion of paper dolls, countless wraps
made with the same variety of deli meats. Meat dolls,
paper dolls. Who is the accountant of these meals, these
paltry wishes exchanged over hoppy small batch beers
secretly owned by global conglomerates? The way to make
your life seem longer is to be bored every second
of the day. Thanks for that, capitalism. The way to make
your memory seem longer is to participate in a wide
variety of everchanging events. New axe throwing place
next to me and I’ve never gotten drunk and thrown
a sharp instrument. Over the past year I have divided my
time between a dozen tv shows and a dozen videogames.
I should read a presidential biography to mix things up.
I should slash my kind old neighbor’s tires. Looming,
a season of storms forecasted to be the worst yet, until next
year at least. How exciting to live in the era of go bags
and multiple forms of government identifications!



Ibid Ibid, says the frog, fucken copycat. I move from
apartment to apartment, I bring the ashes of my dead
cats. They sit on a shelf next to a painting Sitie did, also
dead. My youngish friends who died twixt 30 and 50,
I don’t possess their ashes, that would be weird. Ibid, ibid.
One pal died with my book on his nightstand, quelle
harsh review. Stacking up death like trail markers in the
cluttered hiking path. Last friend who died as of this
writing (pre-revision) entered hospice for two days first.
I coulda called him, who’d that be for. Last of the month,
ribbit ribbit. I don’t get your midwesternisms you love so
much. Everyone there loves to have one story about
how much they hated shooting a deer on a hunting trip
(but they tagged im by gosh). I’d like to fly over
every state. America breaks into tiny little pieces. This is
Democracy Manifest. I lost my Canadian accent
somewhere along the way but I do like to inject a little southern
drawl into single syllable words for a little fake flair.
Fakeness is honesty if you’re a bad enough actor.



Chosen one stories bad for kids, like you can’t effect change
unless predetermined. I’m being oppressed but the
sheep’s organs said I wouldn’t be the one to stop it so oh well?
Spawn camping sadness explicitly forbidden in the
unwritten rules. The page is my shield, I’ll talk about sadness,
disappointment, failures. Help, the dagger pierced my
page shield quite easily! Shoulda used metal as my shield.
The stone tablet etched with ancient cuneiform with
crying bird, boneless dog, birdless cat is my shield. Spaghetti
code keeping me loosely together. The wire looks
insignificant but I still wouldn’t cut it if I were you. I wish I
could see a snake on a walk in the city. Suppose
I could walk into a pet store and grant my own wish quite easily.
I am a homeowner,I betray my generation. I owe
the bank a whole lotta money. They would rather I fail, become
homeless. How many meals have you taken in
your car? The tea leaves have predetermined me to take
between two and three hundred meals in my car. I hope
I’m most of the way there in not a death ideation kind of way.
I like to relish a meal even if it’s garbage food. Meals,
I’d prefer to take them in love’s company, but Laurie doesn’t
really eat breakfast or lunch so I’m only doing at most
seven a week, a lucky week. Personally scared of fellas in
balaclavas but I kinda root on the ones not in the
government’s employ. Must I see someone’s face to know
they’re up to no good? I’m up to no good, I try. Must I
see someone’s face? The twitch of the eye gives away a despair
I agree. I imagine meeting and making new friends over
forty, what a drag. Yet I lose friends to death’s machine every year.
Hiddyugleous, I’m a mess of typos, big ole mess of them.
It’s ok, sometimes the typo has more energy than the feather’s
brief life in air. I fall into little delusions about small
town life, remember the freedom of blowing shit up in the woods.
Rural Texas, rolling beautiful hills, ranches, and people
doing terrible evils, hoping for death and torture on their enemies
on a nightmarish scale. Living lives of such fear, the spider
terrified of the fly. But what if I only knew ten people? What if
I had to pay for cereal in flesh? My friends, time bombs
of grief. I’ve been getting strange headaches lately, but also
grinding my teeth in my sleep. Feather impressive as it
wafts on the air but we don’t really think of it when it’s still
attached to the bird.



I am a big man, beard, tummy, much hair in various degrees
of excess and grayness. Upon me has been cast masculine,
curse but also cheat code. I write poems, I write little sobs
about the deaths of vulnerable animals in everyday
situations. Upon me has been cast feminine, pushed around
as a child til I got big, still not jibing with all the
beaten ups. In my office, M. Os, small lizard skeleton I hope
the janitor doesn’t remove.



Cut. Reset. First positions. Hot take – takes are way too hot.
Folks trying to outspice each other at the fancy dinner.
Thai hot (but a white person asking Thai hot Thai hot). Rolling
rolling. I walk (crossing) in front of the camera when
the lead actor, portraying a recovering addict, says “It’s up
to you.” An intense scene, the dialogue is too quiet for
me to hear, I wing it. Background expected to be idiotic anyway,
we are rarely yelled at. PAs get paid just as little and
are yelled at constantly. Nice to be told exactly where to walk,
how to walk. Only costumes that fit me were some golf
shirts. Tres bland. The country is deep in the sonorous notes
of the Liberty Belly, (c/o Alaysia Davis), being digested
by various patriotic stomach acids and Freedom Loving
gastrointestinal crushings. America is a project I’m happy
to halfass.



Connie Converse, songwriter, vanished or died. Authorities
wouldn’t follow up because cops suck trademark and also
because it was her right to disappear. Your accounts are settled,
you can let the wilderness take you. I don’t know if that is
really true anymore, the country’s juicer will crush every drop
out of you, corpse, estate. We’re on the same page here.
Fred Hampton said you do not defeat Capitalism with Black
Capitalism, you defeat Capitalism with Socialism. Where
is your gun, comrade? I better not see you standing for the
national anthem. I’m ready for all the destructive criticism
you can muster. As children my friends and I could not really
draw but bought all different kinds of pencil grades
to manifest talent. Let’s manifest something here other than
destiny. The séance to bring back all the ghosts, the ones
with grudges and curses, who’ll smash all your ancestral vases
in the night. I’m through with exorcisms, I’m into
summoning. Chants, herbs, smoke, and oil. Rachel Corrie,
murdered by the Zionist occupiers for standing up for
Palestinians. Zio Ghouls there celebrate her death every year.
I’d like to believe in an afterlife but I cannot. I have no
interest in believing in God but such belief has wrought
horrifyingly beautiful art. Let’s cheer the snuff film
of this man who was tortured to death on a hill for saying we
ought to be nice to everyone. Let’s embrace only
the torture. 8 Billion people, 8 billion gods, and then some.
And I love a devoted man, guided or mis-guided, who
believes fully, who pulls the lever, who detonates the bomb.
Who steps in front of the train believing it will stop,
believing it will not. Certainly an enviable little donut. I picture
a mass of black jelly spidering across the back of my
brain but I do not picture it clearly enough to mention my
headaches to my doctor. I don’t wanna be a bother. I live
in the dusk, the time when the mixture of fading sunlight and
early streetlights confuse me while driving, not
everyone has their headlights on yet. Sky is pretty red mess
and I get a little distracted from the rush hour around
me, true. Hope a poem isn’t subpoenable if I’m ever in a fender
bender! They’ll revoke my poetic license har har har.
In future I am old and unretired. I live in a world even hotter
than this one. The kids say we’re cooked! Better cut
that before I type, edit, publish, republish, and it’s out of date.
It’s already out of date. Didn’t want to be an “elder
statesman of verse” yet here I am, 45 and can’t eat a bowl of ice
cream without getting a hangover. Offered pills to
enhance the Japanese art exhibit and sure, I’ll take em, only so
many pills left in this life, so many pilsners. Plates and
salaries in need of garnishing. Every American citizen
responsible for the complete purchase of one ICBM in
their lifetime. Guy next to me sure about sleeping with his
10/10 neighbor, Noor. Love the certainty. I already claimt
it, no backsies! I’m in the mood for some destructive criticism,
destructive catechism, monsieur. I’m in the mood
for some a that hemlock, a jail cell full of mentees to admire me
as I slowly go. Bet it’s more bitter than arugula which
I do love. I like a food that pains me a little, the only fighting
back I can defeat. Today I have spent only ten dollars
on a couple beers in this local pub as I scribble this in my
wee notebook. Hope the patrons don’t think I’m a snob
for writing amidst the lumbering collapse around us, or, er, I hope
collapse, but collapse in a way that doesn’t hurt too many
people under the top earning percentile. Who’m I kidding, little
daytime fantasies but capitalism will outlive us all. Most
of us will outlive Israel. Manifest this destiny! Most of us will
out live Israel. Now hold hands and say it. Most of us
will outlive Israel. I guess I made some a you mad but get right
with the lord, dorks. Lord be shepherd, pepper, crook,
or fire, it’s all the same. Worship the little dead meat
on the plate, my lord, flesh, blood. Worship the pain
of the stubbed toe, my lord of the doorjamb. Worship the lord
of the pen, who is it making these scrawls, I don’t
even know me. Worship the sadness incarnate, lord of the
gloom. The shadows, my lord. The sunlight battling
the shimmer of the rustling leaves my lord. My lord necrosis.
My lord I’m crying, my lord witness my tears.



My loud voice, ruining our covert operation. My loud guitar
plugged in and fuzzed, ringing into feedback as it knocks
its neck against the floor. My loud, forgive me! For all our
leaders are in diapers. What more can be done. All our
leaders are in mild dementia, but don’t hand me the yoke,
I don’t want that responsibility! My loud dank, ruining
the job interview for me. I didn’t want that either. I want for
nothing because I want nothing, nothing that is possible,
quick, call the necromancer. Post punk on the supermarket
speakers. Thinkpieces on the legacy of DOOM. Dutch
angles through life, or my shoe is broken. My lord man, the only
animal that can instantly recognize itself on the jumbotron
(thx Frz Wright). Aminal instinct, aminal passion. My animal
cutie pie, my animal desire at bedtime, everyone asleep.
I think I’ve improved the quality of living for six people, ruined
it for seven. Almost balanced out! Carbon footprint
of sasquatch. Me need lord horror, scary me with a broken story.
Death for no reason, Hell for no reason. Which more
terrifying, heaven, hell, nothing, ghostdom. How many love
songs you think ever really worked? I read a poem
about loving me once and I felt like I wanted to spontaneously
combust just to get out of everybody’s sightlines. Imagine
a turtle is in your room. No big deal! Imagine a hawk. That’s
trouble. The hawk on the bedpost. No outside, no food, no
drinks. Cool breeze in limbo. You can listen to a thirty second
preview of any song written in history, not enough to get
the hook, the big key change. Everyone who dies has a near
death experience. It is possible I am near death. I’d never
say that about you! Although… You may have to have two
dolls instead of thirty. You may have to have zero dolls.
What condition are your dolls? Used to be a funny guy now I
get laughs when I say things like We Deserve Torture!
Too true, smh. I did have a real good time when responsibility
wasn’t filling the room like garbage water. Now I am
responsible for the many ills committed by my government,
which I do not raise arms against. I’m a lil coward.
Marching her ass down to the bar and yelling who the FUCK
is Lana? I have reblogged several folks’ important notes
of contention with American concentration camps, with US
giving money to Zionists to brutalize and murder hundreds
of thousands in Gaza. I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge
in a very serious protest (we used only pedestrian walkways).
I believe in organizing, I believe Palestine will be free. I believe
in the memory of a bloodied lip, an orphaned child. I believe
I could name 120 countries of the top of the dome. I believe
I’ll have another beer. I believe in ghosts only at night
when I’m home alone. I believe in the true and un-mitigated
power of skunk beer and skunk weed. Would run from
a skunk skunk. My beliefs are my own, they will not change
upon death, dismemberment, disembowelment, etc. I believe
in the power of etc – everything contained within conceived and
unconceived. On September 10th, 2001, I doodled an X-Wing
fighter crashlanding in the NYC skyline. I believe that meant
nothing, etc. I didn’t even remember doing it til midterms
and I had to read my old notes. With tablets, laptops, very few kids
today doodle. Instead of doodle, they shop, they engage
the capitalism machine, an intruder in the classroom. Or it owns
everything, if only we could teach AI to shop, to desire,
why muddy the equation with flesh? My Lord GPT, tell me the
secret of life, the universe, and everything! And don’t
get snarky, no 42s. My Lord Question versus My Devil Answer.
Let’s end all the side conversations, a national day
of shut the fuck up, Habibi. The volunteers keep volunteering
to engage in combat. Pop quiz hotshot. Hope you brought
your own blue book and pen. What does culture war accomplish
when none of us have weapons? Open book, open note,
can ask for help. My lord pause. My lord unanswerable.
The monetary desire to close all doors, answer all questions,
slam all windows, sew the trachea shut, remove the eyes,
only feed, only consume,
etc etc etc etc etc etc etc