
LET


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
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?
KINDNESS
I found some robot’s
alomg the roadside
hanging around
the corner
doing thd things
that robots do
and so I spruced them up
forged them into an army
let them
loose on the world
since the world
loves war
figured that this
was the kindest thing
I could possibly do
and perhaps,
in the process,
make an honest buck.
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
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
JOE’S PEOPLE
Joe’s people put it out there:
the man
has the soul
of a poet
once wrote
a poem
or so the world
received it, rapturously,
myself I believe
the wit and wile
lies
buried thete
somewhere
though hardly
a poem
in my book
more a concerted attempt
at a daub; Rorschach blot
for the
dead in imagination
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
PHIL AND BEN
Phil and Ben
shootimg the breeze
like they are major league gods
on Olympus
but caanot
taste the abrosia
in their words
run
with their wisdom
history sure to show
how here, like so many,
they shot themselves
in the foot
with some weapon
of horrendous calibre.
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