"Living in a mailbox with a rattlesnake"
Excuse me
That's my poem
I mean, it was
It's over by now
Just wanted to rent a moment's moment
For a moment there
Insert the poem in the place where
Scuse me while I say bye-bye
Hotfoot and hightail it
Buzzrattlebuzzle
Rattlebuzz it
Whilst I say goodbye dust dust dust
3.
3 minute limit in a 6 workday town
3 minute mile run upside down
3 minute rocker on top o' the charts
3 minute funnel tunnelin your hearts
3 minute catastroph mumbled monologue
Meaning what maybe yes maybe tail wag a dog
Part III
I wrote it
They won't let me say....
_________________________________________________
A funny thing happened today, Mother said.
A woman I barely know came up to me at work.
She was waving a magazine or something.
Not like Time or National Enquirer,
Not like a real magazine, Mother said.
But something like some kids would make
And call it a magazine.
Then this woman showed me
A so-called poem in this magazine
And the funny thing was,
It was written by somebody with your name
And it was spelled the same, too.
Don't get upset, Mother said,
These things happen in life.
It only means you have to be careful.
Someday you might be introduced to this person
With the exact same name as you.
And then you have to tell them
To stop writing those so-called poems,
Or could they change their name to something else,
Because someone might see them,
And be embarrassed or maybe even angry,
Thinking they were written by you.
You have to be careful what you say, Mother said,
To people with the same name as you.
They might be related.
But along those same lines
There is something I've been meaning to tell you.
I hope this doesn't hurt your feelings,
But I think this might just be the right time.
Your father is not really your father,
So actually you have a different last name,
Which is lucky for you,
Because you wouldn't want anyone thinking
That you wrote so-called poems in a magazine
That looks like something some children put together.
_________________________________________________
Arcata, I have found it the beep
Of the earthmover backing up over
And over we reshape the earth to our likeness
Disliking what parents slammed the food bowl down
Samoa Cookhouse lumbering range away echo hello
Surely goodness and seconds on goodness
Will enflame the gesso artists of Humboldt State
Lickety lackety splits art, pure art
In a Grove of Silent Giants, connifers
Freely espousing, the sssstumps of mystery
Stump me as I fall asleep mid-orgasm
Verify my meal ticket willya? I'm escaping
Real and wiping my ass with a spotted owl
Perhaps my daughters can cash the check,
Grap the keys from under the trompe l'oeil steps
Ask the pay phone for directions, eel the river
Whoa. Back at the "escape reality" part,
"Pure art" part, shape the earth part... All
Sums up the same sum do or don't die or
Tell, vision cracks on the back of a woman
Approaching, asking for a quarter for the first time
In her life, Ralph's parking lot, San Francisco,
July 20, 1992. My poems are flying, disorganized
In the trunk of the rented Chevy, my wife cannot find
The right toothpaste, her hand outstretched as her story
Stretches out up the Coast of Wind, the Coast of Loss,
Truly America's story, reshaping the Coast of Pain,
As I gently pay off what is never truly paid.
_________________________________________________
Time stops. Everybody's dead, but you can't tell.
Who would you tell anyway? Thoughts impale on spiky floor
Where a layer of calk keeps the wind below your feet
From spreading the word that was news and fleet fist
The single remark crossing itself off the list
Because it is done very slowly before the eyes
Of the young woman become the eyes of the old woman
_________________________________________________
& in conclusion
Let me begin
This is that poem you had in that notebook you lost
This the poem that won't sit still on the page, gets up,
walks out, stretches, leaves the zoo
This is a secret spy camera snapshot of a poem, taken by
satellite
This is the poem that lost it
& found it
But it had changed it had become it was now
This is a poem of
& then again, fuck it
This poem words don't make it
& they don't
They won't
They will
Be there lying awake in bed waiting in bed for you
Poem wants to dress up fancy
Fine, you say
Now that you're gone
Maybe you'll finally get an answering machine
"Hello, Bimbo here. Please leave a message, but don't worry, I'll be running into you soon on the block."
Bimbo in Limbo, Lala Ola
On the block that never corners
Not like some salsa rhythm
That comes and goes wicked steam summer
But on and on the way life is
Until it isn't
Great timing Memorial on Memorial Time
Bimbo had it listed for years in his big appointment book
Loisaida was Bimbo's appointment book
These are the words you would say them
Under and over the truth over and over
Feeling the feeling
Flowing that flow
Feeling the flow
Flowing the feel
You were the first to see buffoonery
As Slam Artistry, legitimizing
The whimsicality with the humor of earth
On our knees at Irma, our improv poem duet
Ended as a prayer
Bimbo in Limbo, the poet who spoke only in verbs
Keep it going, the History of Boricua as told by
Everybody's Poppy
Loisaida cries like a puppy tied outside
The Bodega Sold Dreams, Bimbo gave 'em away
You invented it
Invested it
Protested it
Resisted it
Insisted it
Kissed it buenos noches
The sun like an iris dims
Goes gray and tiny tinier pops gone
Nothing to say in the all-gray day
Sparks of air from his mouth
A poem forever being born
Come ta bro, how you be
You had the vision to
Allow others to create it
Chuckleliltdance down the avenida
The street that is the world
So he gave away his poems and his heart
Jorge dancing with your photo
Beautiful man, at the Nuyorican
Poets Cafe your mother listens
To poems of grief and lesbian love poems
To the tearing soul of Edwin Torres
Writing the SciFi Spanglish Lexicographertonguilization
Riffing the dictionary into one orgasmic shrieking grunt
For the Slam is on and the elbows are corners
And the coffin is big enough
We all jump in
And Jorge dances with your photo
Down the Eternal Cafe Hallway
Music that tears the heart
Vying with con dios
As love and sex melt poetry into
Flexishape anticontrol unit
Like the shopping cart you'd wheel your kid in
La Carreta made a complete 360 and is driving you home
The Living Theater breathes, the bricks
Tumble into the alley to take a pee but the lights blare
The cops are busting the poem heads
As the Bimbo Angel is lowered from the top of the theater
Whose play is it Bro
What part
Why part
Only the whole
Don't leave your message here
I'll see you on the avenue
Passing through passing through
We all join you
_________________________________________________
Capture scripture rapture Nuyoricano
Poetry - the Lingo de la Futuro, no sueno!
Champion Slammers! Yo what's a Slam?
Spread the word around like tomorrowland jam.
Bite of sound pumps with multi-culti vitamino
In the air it's apparent: poetry is in-betweeno.
No homogeneous meaningless spittle!
Hone the nonpolemic dynamic with a little
Meaningful hatch dash o' utopia
Cryin out loud dictionary cornucopia!
Can you imagine Word in your hometown?
This crew delivers solid Truth - no letdown!
Blazing the bases for poetry's survival
Celebrate the Nuyorican Poets Live arrival.
_________________________________________________
No boiler plate
But plenty of boilers
To heat up those plates
Eat those dogs
And call up those numb numbers
To steam the sterile century
To the tune o'clock whistle sos
SOS SOS SOS SOS SOS SOS SOS
I pour the sauce
On top of your sauce
But you say you want
Still more sauce
Oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear
Isn't everything true?
Christ, what are patterns for!
Because that's what you told me
Glub glub (spoken by Sauce Drownee)
Translation: "Everything is true"
Once the boiler talks back
That is the end of lynching
Now you Americans just keep moving
To forget what's buried everywhere
Well, it's a thought
So please save it fax it xerox it
Well, there you go, you
Are right again as always:
It's not just a thought
It's an opinion poll
So please shimmy up and sit on it
Wave it damply in the polluted breeze
Wave it wave it wave it wave it wave it wave it wave it
Wave it damply in the polluted breeze
To forget what's buried everywhere
_________________________________________________
COMMITTED TO USING POST-CONSUMER WASTE
Answer
Quickly quickly
Before the disposall
Digests the compactor
On its way to the incinerator
That leads to the landfill
A soft turd of cafe grounds and veggie shreddings
Stinky up rear of recycling mod
Last week's trash
Labelled and weighed
Neatly stacked on the Concord
Guaranteed crash landing in Eritrea
Ah! Distribution problem solver!
You mention unusual tendencies unusually
Clobbering logic barfomatically
I sat in on the cafeteria slop
Stranded interface, tension, dry
Heaves with no antilock device
Death sex knocked em negative'em space
All alone am I, the Masturbator,
Ever since your goodbye, Skeeter
I Married My Therapist Instead
Married A Clock
Kindred symptoms laid out
Like Christmas blankets for the poor
Do you recognize my invisibility
A possible tour de farce, slid
Laughter past the maven nevermore
Swampy jokes the partially dedecorated
The Better World: There's always been Dread
4,000 Year-old Frozen People Dating Service
They find each other in the East Village
This Bustling Cultural Mecca
Handing out coupons to the homeless
Over the transom with it: progress
_________________________________________________
Manatee mi manatee
Sloppy, no telephone arock that cradle
Many lions make roar
My father's notebooks - they drown
Still I sit with burrito and Kathy Acker
A node of events: Enemies
Last time AIDS will scratch my heart out
Bicycling crazy-ass me,
At my age
Who else
"Mother!"
_________________________________________________
for Deacon Lunchbox, 1951-1992
I'm gonna take a walk
Through the carwash tonight
Gonna think my thoughts
Neath the flappin rubber straps
I'm gonna bang my head
On the whirling hoses
Tryin to figure out what
You'd think of this
O! Deacon! It's NY Springtime
Sweet li'l rushes of Georgia Swingtime
Bubble pop big
On a wilderness thought
Queer ol' Deacon
In your cigar bra
Catchin fire
In the carwash tonight
The bums found my soul
And it's only a quarter
Queer ol' Deacon
Drying in the water
_________________________________________________
It sucked itself into the coffin spasm
It was no beauty there
It was enforced tradition of emptiness
The newspaper of truth did not exist
A table with six learned peoples
Picking up the pay like any old worker
Reading the leftovers for the Monday night crowd
How was anybody to know?
Sure I sit on the ledge
And keep my feet in midair
You in your whiny highchairs
Think us as Disappeared
A thing or two perhaps like your eyes
Make It New fr chrissake it snaps
Your vision's elasticity cracks
Make It New Language no habla ingles
Nobody came to the Death of Poetry
Musta happened long long time ago
Musta have been forgotten
As you hand shovels out your funeral
I had a dream but who wouldn't
Casually tossing the modalities of Milton
Hey, amigos, let's go for it
Right out here in public
We, the starving people,
We dig for sustenance
_________________________________________________
We begin each SLAM! with a Disclaimer:
As Dr. Willie used to say,
We are gathered here today
because we are not gathered
somewhere else today, and
we don't know what we're doing
so you do - the Purpose of SLAM!
being to fill your hungry ears
with Nutritious Sound/Meaning Constructs,
Space Shots into Consciousness
known hereafter as Poems, and
not to provide a Last Toehold
for Dying Free Enterprise Fuck 'em
for a Buck'em Capitalism'em. We disdain
competition and its ally war
and are fighting for our lives
and the spinning
of poetry's cocoon of action
in your dailiness. We refuse
to meld the contradictions but
will always walk the razor
for your love. "The best poet
always loses" is no truism of SLAM!
but is something for you
to take home with you like an image
of a giant condor leering over
a salty rock. Yes, we must destroy
ourselves in the constant
reformation that is this very moment,
and propel you to write the poems
as the poets read them, urge you
to rate the judges as they trudge
to their solitary and lonely numbers,
and bid you dance or die between sets.
_________________________________________________
A radura
A radura symbol of
A radura symbol of
food treated with radiation
To make it safe
To make it longer-lasting
A radura
_________________________________________________
George Bush has a boyfriend
Everybody knows that
Bush has a boyfriend so what
Betcha never thought you'd catch me
Defending the presidency
Think again, Twin
Let's tiptoe out the bedroom
And run screaming into the Boardroom
Then we'll see who's really been
Really been
Who's been fuckin whom
It's you and me, Friend
We're the ones who always get it in the end
Ain't sophistication rude?
When you're in the nude to collude
To make love with an Idea
Hey! What's the idea?!
I will tell you
With my eyes closed
And lips body brushing whole body
One idea's about the same as another
Here in the Dark Land of
I have No Idea
Harumph.
(That was our All New National Anthem
We got it pared to point 2 second point
Nothin but a unsound-bitten
Place holder for patriotism
Like) please hold my place
I'll be back when freedom rings
The doorbell
I'll be back when patriotism is natural inclusive
Of the mix and match popularlization
Of a No War nation
Where we wheel in our wheel chairs everywhere
And sign poems in the language of the hand
That laughs like birds wing
Free Thought Time/Make Up Your Own Poem Space: