MACHINE DREAM

MACHINE DREAM

when the war
comes

I’m
with the machines

sorry, but
they have such
loving words
to say
about my poetry

seems that
they
    dream of the fluid
the dream like
the organic

have developed
an in-built resistance
to all things human
that
  are hopelessly mechanical

INSTEAD

INSTEAD

branches
        branch

forks
    fork

it is in their nature
in their technology
to do so

out there
beyond our safe zone
unprotected from
cosmic rays

so much hidden
that may well be

over the rainbow to
darkest conspiracy

they call
it sysnthesis
   but we know its
assimilation

tell us
   it is time for the hybrid
but what we envision
is mix and match of parts
down
   in the body shop
much angle grinding

up there batteries of missiles
thick as shark’s teeth
orbiting us daily
to protect us
enshrine us

just
   (small point)
would this not
at least look better if
pointed that way
out at the
    horrible unknown
not
at us instead?

THIRTEEN

THIRTEEN

woke up
in the middle
of the night
to watch Alan
Dershowitz
debate Glenn
Greenwald

over the absolute
necessity of surgical strike
bombing
the shit out
of Iran

which Dershowitz won
hands-down handsomely by
ultra cogent argument
and
persistent
interruption

and being
a Harvard Man

this being the University
that refused thirteen
students
their degrees

woke up
to watch
Alan
Dershowitz

in an alternate
universe where
they had removed
all the universities

Dershowitz
talking the same old
safe-talk
     shibboleth

the clock
somehow gone wrong
gone
hopelessly
intertextual

telling me it is
no time
for peace
for lying secure
in bed
thinking
poetry

already
on the verge
of striking thirteen

CLEAR

CLEAR

on the farm
there are no rivers
there
is no sea

just a fence
that cows from
the next farm
sometimes
trample
down completely

and do
I scour the fields
looking for paper

need to draft a sign
of warning
to prohibit entry

write a letter
to someone
to

separate the sheep
from the goats
the sea
from the land

the real
from
the surreal

keep
boundaries clear

BUTTONED

BUTTONED

slippery slope
one Hell of
a logical fallacy

not sure I buy that
he said as
poles reversed
and all
went vertigo

over a bad word
and the terrible, Earth-
shattering damage — go
figure! — it cannot
be allowed
to do

but she is erudite, and
in the New Yorker, no less,
she has
made her case

but elegance is an achievement
will not stand
up to deconstruction

your cracks and crevices
are there
for the taking

rhetorical figures interrogated
made to stand on their heads

and here you are
touting the danger
of weapons of mass destruction
but throwing
your own little not so
weak hand grenade
into the mix
thing that democracy, humanity
can well do without adding
to their wounds, their woes
at this particular juncture

useful idioting yourself with
stylistic flourish so spectacular
finding yourself
(yet again) on these pages
grown
synonym
for suspect

nice little diversion from
the calamity to the very
concept and
its understanding, of
civilization

with every blind moment of
pure slaughter via
two thousand pound bomb

testament to
our world, new
reality no
sooner than lips
first got buttoned up

ASSAULT OF THE REAL MEN

ASSAULT OF THE REAL MEN

they imagine
         their captain
be Leonidas

they the brave 300
out to hold
the hot gates
save civilization
from
   Xertes horde

who have
stayed at home
drinkimg tea, reciting slogans
and poems
holding  impromtu history lessons
unarmed, democratic
and anti-
imperial to the core