Published By Dive Ink Books
Taste and tradition, then, taste and tradition
In any season or for any reason,
We shall never abandon any hard fought position
To do so would be at least tacky, if not treason
We must carry our heads proudly in the clouds
High as a piece of pie in the sky
For the glory of them and for the glory of thou
We will never hesitate to cheat and lie
Remember to always be mean
To justify someone else's ends
Every night say your pre-programmed spiel
After milk and cookies give you the bends
But do not stay up past teddybear bedtime
And keep even your dreams free from unwise behavior
Caution: In certain good places this pledge is a crime;
Void where prohibited by laws of nature
1
Dear stupid reader, you'll never see the light
You worthless, bloody bastard, you're an ugly sight
Nuts to you, you're a bothersome louse
Someone ought to burn down your house
Go straight to hell's rivers and drown in the flood
And never float back, you rotten little crud
I'm playing with your mind, you wise word shopper
Take notice that it's meant to alienate you good and proper
As an enigmatic writer, I hope I've struck the right chord
So that you'll say "Ahah! A new brooding genius is aboard!"
2
Cabdriver gets flagged down by a girl in a hurry
Heard the zipper in front of her
Tight leather outfit go down
Zip zip zip
And soon from behind him out pops this pair of cartoon boobs
Lady lets him feel them for the fare, and he quickly agrees
She was so smooth that soon she also had change coming
Zip zip zip
3
They shout that stale New Year's cheer
Straight into your ears
They pour that St. Patrick's booze
Down onto your shoes
They jam those Easter feasters
Right up your keister
They set Fourth Of July fires
To make you go blind
They push Thanksgiving turkey
Which gets you murky
They also throw Christmas fits
Until you yell "quit!"
4
While in a gypsy camp I met a stunning tramp
I bought her right away for one night's worth of play
Her body was her fame - it danced around the flame,
Swayed to the tambourines, played out the ancient scenes
She heard I'd paid her rent so she stayed by my tent
My greeting was a hug, my cold heart felt a tug
I stroked her lush behind, she didn't seem to mind
She was so glad to sin, she begged me to come in
The heat that warmed her lace was painted on her face
I kissed her fingertips, a smile escaped her lips
On her my hands were burned, so hotly had she yearned
Welcome was my prying, urgent was her sighing
With her I did not fail to travel each new trail
Time's lack could but improve our every hungry move
Thighs quaking in each clasp, my gypsy witch would gasp
All night the tambourines shook to our ancient scenes
5
One of those silly nuts dressed in an overly suggestive way
Dumb smut-driven slogans stamped on her T-shirts every day
Trendy controversy-courting sayings, much too sour or sweet
Half-baked quips that made her girlish heart skip a beat
She was a bouncing bumper sticker of joy, long legs included
That's all she eventually became, torturing us all in the office
Posing as the blonde earth mother, sexy savior of the world
Driving us all wacky with her grandly gratuitous graphics
So one day we wore our own naughty T-shirts to test her out,
If she went for its message, one of us would make her shout
We chose Honk If You're Horny, but she told us to honk off
So our dirty flirty filly was just a phony pony we couldn't boff
6
Flared flower protrudes soft fold first sight
Slender teenage heat peering detached
Idly toying snug below nestled stimulation
Stomach stayed relaxed luxuriously
Wonderfully spiced afternoon sun moved gradually
Immerse continuously talked unhurried
Tempted but patient sharply delineated
Streamlined in the water resilient ticklish
In anticipation peeking possessed and issuing
Complicated elongated flinched tense
Mounting clenched restraining an impulse
Implications electrified
Involving imaginative alert surprise responded whisper
Utmost care eventually rewarded
Abruptly briefly forceful lifted fullness feeling
With wild flavor fairly steaming directly
Intimacy profound affection sharing insisted truth
Confessed beautifully no love late evening both hungry
7
Contoured tours of feline followers flying unguided
To panting pastry pastures and kitchen nooks
Here's how to have more heaven, the master chef said
By baking breath on your cooking covers
To warmly yield the arresting aromas
Of a soul's true corona
8
Hearing the Beatles old white album, as waiters chime
Number 9, number 9, number 9
Benny Goodman's clarinet squeals in the lonely corner
A piano takes a tinkle on Ben-Hur
And gladiators will be frying soon
So say those high atop the luxurious Chicago Room
Suddenly the cymbals clash, and Dr. Duck wearing a fez
Waddles down the sidewalk and truthfully says
Quack! Quack! Quack!
At this, the English waiter leaves the restaurant fast
Number 9, number 9, number 9 - we've had our fill
World War 0, World War I, World War II - take that hill!
Squish! Blish! Crash! Bangear! Bash! It's like 1939!
War! Why? Why war? Hold that line!
The crowd says ahhh! Hey! Fear not the war! Fear the peace!
Across the restaurant marches the victory parade of police
Cars honk and violins play in the crowd until it turns red
Violins cry, crowds cry - the announcer says Paul's dead
Then comes a shocked silence, later they scream as if sick
In the panic, the waiter rushes to Yankee Stadium quick
The duck gets in the back and quacks until he gets shot
At the arena, the bloody football game has progressed a lot
If you call that progress - cheerleader choirs blow the horns
A fat boy runs over Mr. Megaphone, leaves him in a pile of popcorn
9
On the shore the oyster opened
Drinking in the sinful sun
Slowly did the oyster open
Tasting of the sinful sun
The sun caressed the oyster bed
Warming well the pearl inside
The oyster bed went pink, then red
As the pearl grew warm inside
The pearl began to palpitate
Throbbing like a tiny heart
The pearl somehow did palpitate
Feeling like a beating heart
Its moist and satin fleshy folds
Closed to hide the perfect pearl
Until the morning next unfolds
In the luster of the pearl
10
With this ring I now wed
A poor weak man who'll soon be dead
She'll make him sick
Then kill him quick
She don't like him
Loves to strike him
Like a match
So bolt the latch
Watch out, waif
And play it safe
Don't take her
Just fake her
You'll get from her love trap
A nasty dose of bridal clap
I now pronounce you married
And permanently harried
11
New, today! Another contest for young writers only
New, today! Another contest for first works only
New, today! Another contest for young thoughts only
New, today! Another contest for first words only
Yesterday there were once great old works
By brilliant old authors, writing not their first
But their thirty-first books
But lately they've been driven off, bought off and chased off
By modern committee restrictions, awards rules,
And lousy publishers - ironically called an old boys network
Publishers only trying to net kids, not good work
It forced into hiding all the ageless artistic wonders
They stay out of range of the stupid carbon dating competitions
Waiting in a safe place to be read in a wiser future
Brats run the house, cry alligator tears, then dry up upon each
New, today!
12
Is it nasty girls in heaven
Naughty girls in purgatory
Nice girls in hell?
No, that can't be right
There are no hookers in heaven
Then it must be
Nasty girls in hell
Naughty girls in purgatory
Nice girls in heaven
Yes, that's it
But why do the naughty girls always wind up
In purgatory practicing the limbo?
Because nasty girls don't dance by the book
While nice girls don't dance much at all
And good dancers are hard to find
13
Each dame is a disaster
Every chick is a chore
Leaving you shipwrecked ashore
Each babe is a battle
Every skirt lowers your score
Leaving lots of scars and sores
But it's not a simple matter
Of which are saints or whores
Every woman is a war
14
Hot morning desert dry land, beige dust beds for miles
Stretch yawning under the mother sun
In the shady shack her eyes closed
Thirsty mouth open, nearing a cool drink
Of her magic in a labor of love
She almost reaches it again, another almost
But must settle for feeling a mere shudder instead
She is yet another mare after more
Than merely chasing the cruel carrot
Dangling in front of her
15
Honk-honk, beep-beep!
It was a non-committal acquittal,
A temperamental instrumental
While making all that noise
Most of the single people were scolded,
Tried, but not liked - and forced to
Marry for their crimes
Sentenced without a paddle up a certain famous creek
Sent to a home for life with no hope of bail
Ordered about by their spouse wardens
Who demanded instant everything -
Plastic food, junk mail, game shows and eternal soap operas
This slight refinement on solitary confinement
Means millions more must live out such penalties
But at least the cons got to do a great solo riff for awhile
Honk that beep!
16
I gaze upon my guests with glee, and hope that they enjoy
The potion mixed especially by this revengeful boy
It was not that they were so wrong, those many years ago
Chanting "guilty!" just like a song, calling me such a foe
For I'm the rogue who did their crime; prison I did deserve
But after waiting all this time, this meal I still must serve
Look at those wretches and letches - citizens all so fine!
Who's the first Mr. Death fetches, as this last time they dine?
Aha! One cad is collapsing - gargling his soup, somehow!
Now their condemning hands quiver, to clutch their fat throats tight!
After this the roomful of guests noticed my bored party -
Seeing my victims slumped in rest, they said it looked arty!
Mass murder was soon discovered, when those six hit the floor
The villain was not uncovered - I'd long been out the door
Free once again, I thought I'd won, though I did sadly find
That further damage had been done - they'd poisoned my poor mind!
17
Shut your stupid face before I shut it for you
You talk too much - now smarten up and listen
Who do you think you're fooling?
I was standing there the whole time,
Watching
So don't try to deny it - you killed that guy
And then you killed the rest of those other guys
And I'm the sole eye-witness to everything
There's no way you can lie your way
Out of it
Yes, I'm a witness bound
To put you away for a long time with my testimony,
Even though now I'm in this iron lung
If, that is, you don't start murdering again by choosing to
Pull my plug
18
Spiderwebs aglow from head to toe
In the cave wintery spectacles
Incredible receptacles
But not one spider yet appearing
Though he knew they must be there somewhere
Still there was not yet proof of it
Except webs everywhere, of intricate billows
Bizarre blueprints etched into his muddled mind
He somehow felt the justice of line after line
Of fluid on fluid, loop after loop
No escape from this poison net rape
Finally his captor arrived, ready to bite
It moved much too quickly, like an old bad film
That skips a few frames, first here -
Then suddenly there -
And now it was heading straight
For its man-fly victim!
19
He will do it again, drink the drug
To get stoned again
As in the dreary days of old
Children bleat in the street outside
While he reenacts the crime
In a dull, dark soundless cave
Melancholy shades of the evening
Add to his insufferable gloom
All is so desolate, bleak, rank and decayed
In the little room where he lived out his bitter lapses
Those nightmare phases will plague him once more
As his mind's hideous iciness chills further
The utter depression of his soul
The sickening sinking of his empty heart
Submerges him in an eternity of terror
He will reel, stagger, clutch helplessly
At his melting, altering features
All sight will cloud into oblivion, perhaps this time forever
He will begin it all by putting that
First glass of beer to his lips
20
Her mind raced through a wild vein on an outside track
Hugging the sharp curves, flying all the way down
The long, thin, magic cord, leading to
This final strange cerebral ceremony
She dragged on the cigarette, and kept downing drinks
Chills rippled through her nighttime nausea
Across the street from her hotel room window
When all her own lights were off
The old neon sign smugly winked down on her
In her stupor she waited to be grabbed by dark demons
Another lonely lady at the end of her silk rope
Nothing new to her, looking at the world in a tired way
For so long she took things for granted - now things took her
Forced her to walk the line of her mind's fatal fears
Dreading the dawn of another unwanted decade
Her heavy-lidded eyes in the plaster darkness
Had too often counted all the wallpaper flowers
Now black nylons cease itching her cold legs of stone
She waits for the best time to tell herself it's over
After a few more sips and a few more what-ifs
Later she imagines traveling to the sea while still in bed
Her pillowed coffin on secret wheels rolls along with the tide
At last her brain goes swimming under, escorted by a small sigh
As the devious undertow of alcohol takes her out
21
It was many and many a week ago,
In a market by the sea,
That a pastry there sat proudly on show
From the kitchens of Sarabel Lee;
And this pastry was there for no other use
Than to feed and be eaten by me
I was a treat and she was a treat,
In this market by the sea:
But we fooled with a feed that was more than food -
I and my Sarabel Lee;
With a feed that the high holies of health food
Coveted Lee and me
And this was the real cause that, weeks ago,
In this market by the sea,
To eat pastries - my pastries - my vice and my pride,
In the garbage can there by the sea,
In her grave by the sulking sea
22
Let's go down to the moon tonight, I said to the girl
That wrote a note to my friend
The moon, I said, is pale yellow, almost white
It mocks us, clocks us
We'll both be gone soon
This particular moon will sink into the sea, and all those
Cute little surfer people will ride it the following cold day
Let's go now, while we've still got a now,
So the man in the moon can laugh a tired moon's laugh
At us two common clowns in our half-living struggle
However, when the sands of time were running out
She said no, that it went against her grain
Well, the man didn't stay in the moon too long after that
But for years I kept rambling on to her
During visiting hours
And she did prove to be
A good listener
At least
As she became
A near-catatonic case
23
Lemons, lemons, pucker, sour ick!
Thousands of times I feel I have to go
I've had many beans today and quite a lot of lemonade
And my very soul, my very bowels of my being
My very guts all tell me that my winds are rising and my
Rivers are flowing
Oh, damn, I've sloshed myself again!
Rehabilitation, indeed!
Nurse, nurse, eureka, nurse, I've done it!
Bard of the bedpans, cynical barnacle in La Hotele Helle
Clean me up quickly now
Can't have anyone see me like this
Quickly, yes, that's good, nice and dry, but
I seem to smell peppermint, now
Or is it alcohol after all?
Nurse, what does it really mean?
24
Only the HICKS can believe used car salesmen
Only the HICKS can believe holy rollers
Only the HICKS can believe politicians
Only the HICKS can believe advertisements
And don't believe it when the usual
So-called fence-sitter then says
That they're NOT a HICK but that they buy it all, too, or
That they're NOT a PRUDE but let's ban it all, anyway
Those prefacing NOTS -
They're warning signals for the sane people on the road to
Beware of dumb country pickups
Beware of those old HICKups
25
Have we honored the past?
Have we eaten too fast?
These worries appear when I look at you
When you don't see me
Look at you, and I have to look fast because
You might see me seeing you see me and all that
But I don't like you any better when you
Can't see me looking, anyway
There is no real difference
As long as we rid ourselves of the guilt
About eating everything too fast like hurried hogs
Or honoring the eats too much and eating our honor
26
You're just lucky you get to
Use a hearing aid
Sit in a wheelchair and
Wear thick glasses
Or I'd be over there
Boxing your ears
Pushing you too far
Robbing you blind
As it is,
I'll chalk this phone call up to
A wrong number
That will never be right
27
The world is flat
The world is square
We wish it were
Really not there
The universe is flat
The universe is square
We wish it were
Really not there
His wife is flat
His wife is square
28
No, they haven't actually announced it yet
That official things mean nothing anymore
But we're believing it anyway, right?
And really, what else is there besides a
Good birth and dearth and what rests in between?
Only some names and games
Babes and taxes, hammers and axes, lots of pay and say
Do any of those words not belong?
Patents pending, copyrights renewed, Co., Inc., Ltd.
No, they didn't have to admit it in print
On all the front pages that so much legality means
Nothin', nothin', nothin'
29
Cronies tip a tankard but not to excess
Booze it up, laugh it up, take time to engage in wenching
And what better buddies could a fellow have
Than ones with an antic sense of humor?
Enjoying ravenous women and a sumptuous pretzel feast
While non-members are instantly rejected, ordered away
They speak with pomp, presence and lilt in their lines
Their lives an echo of a hastily contrived school play
But one of them was a devotee of the brutal side of history
Killed after being misled by theory and undone by passion,
Wrongly rising with all force, thinking his ideals were threatened
Flying into tragic battle over the score of a Sunday ball game
30
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