PERSONHOOD

it's so strange to be a 


PERSON...


to suddenly zzzzzzip back 
from the nightly sojourn 
to awaken and 
allow it to dawn 
that you're back to feeding this drama
the trauma
of CHOOSE at every turn
no way to win with those kinds of odds
so go ahead and make 
mistake number three
cuz you're really just here to
accumulate karma
now what kind of dharma is that?


Goin' apeshit  batshit  ratshit  


at the prospect of writing the next line
knowing it signifies nothing
but still gives you something 
to read 
as you sip your Corona 
on the beach at Pomona


that tenuous hold
on all of your gold 
to stand there and stare
pretending to care
playing the game
just for shits and grins
knowing nobody wins


banking on Nietzsche being full of it
with his eternal recurrence
(like all philosophers, he was in his head way too much)
yet considering the possibility
ruminating  
if all of the highs
(of which there were many)
would be worth all the lows
(of which there were plenty)
to come back, Jack
and do it again
making your grand re-entrance 
with a HEY BEETCHES...WHASSUP?
but if you really gonna heed that guy
then you know ya gotta try 
to make every day
the best it can be, though


kinda hard when you're walking through the woods
in the dead of winter
and having to whiz 
and discovering that you've put
your long johns on backwards
with an opening in the front
but none in the rear
which is now reversed...


OH DEAR!


It's so strange to be a person
fresh from the slide
off a magic carpet ride
feeling trapped here inside 
once again


now you've been zipped
your wings have been clipped
you soul has been stripped

to fit inside this box


so strange to be a person
this creature
this thing
fiddling with your ding-a-ling
hoping it will bring
some solace from it all


and it's so strange to be a 
person
when you've seen beyond the pale
when you've poked through the crack
in the cosmic egg
grasping at last
that it's no longer a matter of 
when will you leave
but of how much longer 
will you keep coming back

SWIFT AND DETERMINED (inspired upon observing a local TV news person striding through the mall)

1. 

Funny Bunny Fridays

d'verse Poets Pub

Hi, it's ME...the girl who does the local news on TV.  Yes, and I'm BEAUTIFUL!  Well, you can see that, you pitiful peon!  No ugly girls on television, you know. I see you gawking when I pass by but...don't look at me!  Well, I mean...just LOOK at me, dummy! 


Life is grand when you're byootiful!  I walk through the mall in a swift and determined way. As if to say GANGWAY PEASANTS--my heels pounding the tiles.  And what does it feel like, you pathetic piece of poo that's stuck to the bottom of my shoe?  Don't try to stop me!  Well, yes---STOP ME, if it's copious praise you'll be heaping. 


'Cause there's no ugly girls on TV. Okay, well, there's that UGLY BETTY show. Geez, what's up with that?  Oh yeah, and there's Martha, my colleague. Not nearly as FABULOUS as me!  She's a MINORITY--and you know how that works.   Still, she PLOWS through the mall in a swift and determined way, thinking she's hot poop just because she's on TV! What a stupid thing to think. But not if you're BAYOOTIFULL!  Now, kowtow to me, you scum! 


When he hired me, my boss said there's no CASTING COUCH. But I did him anyway, just to cement our relationship. Cement...that stuff that starts out soft and then gets hard...tee hee!  Never a dull moment. 


Oh yeah, I had a STALKER once. Calling me at all hours of the night. Breathing real heavy into the phone and making these weird chicken noises. And peeking into my windows. Well, I can't really blame him for that. Like, who WOULDN'T if they got the chance? It puzzled me for a long time. Then I got this BRILLIANT idea to look at my caller ID display when the guy was on the phone. Sure enough, there was his number!  Turns out it was my little brother's best friend. That knucklehead! I told him I might give him a good spanking if he didn't watch out, but he just looked at me with this weird grin on his face.


Now, I want to say something about the way we look on TV. Some people think just because I have this BLANK STARE on my face when I'm doing the news,  that I'm stupid or something.  But when we read these stories about homeless people getting squished in trash compactors and stuff, my boss doesn't want us to show any emotion.  That's because EMOTION could be, like, expressing an OPINION with your face. And some people might get OFFENDED if we did that. Then, if they tune out, our ratings would go down.


I know in another ten years they'll be booting me out on my butt--replaced by someone who's younger and (don't want to say it) more BYOOOOTIFUL.  But before they can do that, I'll get knocked up and go on maternity leave. Hey, last year the weekend anchor filled in for Jennifer for like, SIX MONTHS. And she wasn't even preggers!  She brought these pictures of her SISTER'S baby into work and showed them around.  Yeah, we ain't dumb, ya know. No, were...BAAAAYOOOOOTIFULLLLL...you pathetic excuse for a cockroach.


Hey, it's not all a bed of roses. There's hair and makeup right before the show. And having to learn those big words like Ahmadina...uh...Amajina...uh...oh FORGET IT, panther poop!  I'm not paid to be SARAH PALIN (she's smart!)  I'm paid to be FABULOUS. It's in the contract. Anyway, it's time to go parading through the malls again...


So BOW DOWN to me, you slugs!


ADORE ME, pig lickers!


WORSHIP ME, maggots!


Oh CRAP...look at that...I just broke another nail. 

Shadow Shot Sunday

Poetry Picnic

IT ALWAYS COMES BACK

Poetry Picnic

d'Verse poets Pub

And we talked about time

and how we sometimes wish

we could get past the unmomentous moment

but that's just willing ourselves

one step closer to death

but we never see it that way

we just want to be nearer to that

which makes us feel more alive

And Time

you smirking sack of shit

I study your face as you perform

your sleight of hands

and when the big one's on twelve

and the little one's on eight

I've come full circle again

heading out the door in a groundhog daze

and all this picture needs

is Sonny and Cher

singing "I Got You Babe"

And the hands of time keep circling

like vultures around 
my fledgling schemes

but time is well spent

when one's well spent

and I try to think of what

I'm supposed to be thinking

but it always comes back to you

and every song on the radio

has already read my mind

this much I know is true

you make me feel brand new

I say a little prayer for you...

And Time

you old gypsy man

just once I'd like to land

a swift kick to your cojones

as a token of appreciation

for dragging me down

this one way street

And I think I know what it is...

it's this feeling of being alive

that's so heady and bittersweet

Spinning into a moment

that spits in Time's face

like a fortune cookie that reads:

You are living in an eternity...

the time to be happy is now

Photo by Timoteo                                                                        Poetry Picnic   

d'Verse Poets Pub

WHEN YOU GET RIGHT DOWN TO IT

Funny Bunny Fridays

Poetry Picnic

d'Verse Poets Pub

All right

NATURE LOVERS--

Let's talk about the NATURAL man

When you get right down to it...

It is UNNATURAL to

trim one's hair

It is unnatural to

shave one's beard

Or to shave one's legs

(and I knew plenty of women in the 70's

who were fully cognizant of this!)

When you get right down to it...

It is unnatural to

get a bikini wax

Or to allow someone

to unceremoniously rip off

the hair

that is naturally growing

on one's back

with that sticky tape...

AAAAAGGGHHHH...son-of-a-BITCH !

When you get right down to it...

Were we to opt for the completely

NATURAL LOOK

we would all

(eventually)

be the spitting image of BIGFOOT

Just like the aggressive

chest-thumping

barely evolved past apehood

species that we are...

And wouldn't the Victoria's Secret fashion show look funny then?

IN MEMORIAM

Poetry Picnic

d'Verse Poets Pub

Everything starts here

in my composition book

just like the ones I never used

for school work

too busy scribbling my subversive poetry

in study hall

a nasty little parody of Beowulf

or The Night Before Christmas

a drunken Santa staggering around

busting up the furniture

always thought drunks were funny

still do

art imitating life

I guess

I was past the days when dad

barely able to stand

took the car out one New Years Eve

and wrecked it

injuring some innocent family members

in the other vehicle

then

somehow getting a ride back home

and taking our other car out

and wrecking it on the same night

the guy was a gas

one day I said this is such B.S.

this idea of school as a full time job

and I vowed to stop taking homework

completely

and made good on it

my last two years of high school

nobody cared

the funniest thing was

they let me graduate

dear old mom and her Second Big Mistake

would be at the beer joints all night

I'd stay up alone on Saturdays

in that isolated farmhouse

watching Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi on late night TV

I wanted to walk like an Egyptian

I could always count on them

to come home fighting

ripping the phone out of the wall

and busting up some furniture

so comical

I'd pass my nasty rhymes around in class

Teach would be up there with his blah blah

my poem circulating up and down

each row of desks

even the girls snickering

and passing it on

and Teach

protector of impressionable minds

intercepting the paper

beginning to read

beginning to laugh out loud

catching himself

face turning red

going on a diatribe about how such trash

was the product of a sick mind

but it was too late

I'd already caught him

in the act

and gool ol' Mom lying there

in a pile of chicken feathers

from a ripped up pillow

and ol' Doc from town would come out

and patch her up

discreetly

it was a small town

and Doc's young daughter

prettiest girl in my Junior High class

asked me out one time

to a roller skating party

it occurred to me much later

that he must have put the kabosh

on that from ever happening again

with the likes of me

and Santa cursed

and flipped them all the finger

as he rode out of sight

after busting up some furniture

of course

always thought drunks were funny

still do

but only funny

if they're funny

and not morose

more points if he's staggering around

with a lampshade on his head

every comic knows

that comedy comes from pain

so please don't stand there

with that look of disdain

and try to change me now

CHRISTOPHER STARDUST

Poetry Picnic

d'Verse Poets Pub

You gambled on a sure thing and your losses were incalculable. So you hit the road (after being tossed from a speeding pickup truck).

While hitch hiking, you meet up with an old southern gentleman who is offended by the stars in your eyes and the stripes along the highway. He says, "I SPIT on you, suh!"

"No ya don't," you cry, keeping on the move, bobbing and weaving, increasing the tempo until he runs out of saliva.

You shag a ride with a woman in a Jaguar convertible. She parks along a dirt road and her top comes down. You desperately want to get her home to play a game of Scruples, knowing that she has none.

You say you can never be bought, but she purchases you outright. And though there was a price on your head, she says it can be easily removed with a little soap and water.

Her career is in high gear, so she leaves you at home to play Mister Mom. She sends you a text that says: BANG THE DRUM. BURP THE BRAT. BE SURE THE DOGS ARE BATHED AND PROPERLY TUCKED INTO BED. (It is public knowledge that she has a rash in a private place, but since it's always dark when she gets home, you're the last one to know.)

You become a transvestite, fashioning your own dresses from the burlap bags you buy with your meager allowance. You wear glitter in your hair and call yourself Christopher Stardust.

The newspaper does a human interest story on you. You get your own cable TV show, doing psychic readings for house pets from the way they bark, mew, or snort into the telephone. You tell a cat that its last escape from death was just by a whisker.

You parley your knowledge of animals and your smooth bedside manner into a successful phone sex business for those who are into bestiality. (You imitate all those beastly noises yourself.)

You take all your profits and hit the casino again, intent upon making that one big score.

You put it all on black.

It comes up red.

You borrow money from a guy named Bruno. You don't lose your shirt...you lose your bra, your wig, and your garter belt. They take you back to the highway where they toss you from an even faster moving truck.

Ever the hardheaded one, you gather yourself up and stagger down the road. Glitter falls from your hair and gets stuck in your navel. You look up at the sky and see a shooting star burning itself out. Your woman drives by in her Ford Fiesta.

This time, she doesn't stop.

STARS ON WATER

Friday Poetry Fest

Poetry Picnic

d'Verse Poets Pub

We are lost in the darkness

the autumn constellations

like the sparkle of snow

Dreaming

drifting
as milk wagons from a bygone era

on nightbound roads

moving ceaselessly in search

of a vanished dawn

The sleeping forest

crisp and cold

a jewel in the moonlight

Night planes

spiraling stars

deer snorting in the underbrush

Atum spills his seed across the firmament

the great nebula of Andromeda

we need only believe in mysteries

Our campfire

like the summer

fades to glowing embers

Eternity so relentless
and yet so fleeting

springs and autumns flash by

slipping wordlessly away

And we

like stars on water

drifting seaward

In the awe-filled silence

MEMO TO MYSELF

Poetry Picnic

d'Verse Poets Pub

The day doesn't care

what you're doing.

The sun will still

make its arc...

the quail will still

scamper across the yard

in the morning...

and all the nasty little children

will pile off the bus

in the afternoon

screaming epithets

that once were the purview of sailors.

You can lie there

on your dead butt

or you can do something heroic...

but you won't do anything heroic

lying on your dead butt.

The day doesn't care

what you're doing...

it will pass you by

without a moment's regret.

It's all up to you.