momanddad tell measachild to avoid ingestion of lead paint chips
which have been clinically proven to contain arsenic slash cyanide slash
strychnine slash lsd slash cocaine slash heroin slash smog slash and slash
or less than the daily maximum allowance of riboflavin
too late the heroes for i'd already done my share of munching and so
was rendered fuckupforlife
later on in the screaming, skinned knee schoolkid days other children
ran from me because i glowed in the dark like an aurora monster model
icing vegetation within a thirty foot radius o lookathim lookathim in my
superman suit but what was happening wasn't my incredible powers it
was gang abuse, was alien virus haunting, unshakeable
now older on my stage refusing to act my age this is me let it be
BRAIN IN A CAGE and proud red sign flickers for your loud, hoary
approval and i open my cranium spurting
jizz
blood
tears
braincake
to show you.
--APPLAUSE--
meanwhile, in comfy suburbianestledinnowhere, leaveittobeaverbradybunch
man finds himself irritated by BORED meeting, comes home to ralph the
cocker spaniel and the kids who are playing with their beav and wally dolls
while watching the cabbage patch kids on tv. Wife has a rolling pin and is
using it to beat the dust out of the cat, three weeks dusty but at a later time
determined to be three weeks dead
“hi, honey, got my wall street journal and my beer in the fridge,” he smiles,
slipping the youngest son into the sock drawer,
“oh, i'm fine,” wife trills, windexing the toaster
with a wistful, faraway glance she dreams picturesque reveries of burying a
meat cleaver in his forehead and WOULDN'T IT BE NICE sing the beach boys
on environmentally-controlled radio
“hi,” i say to her sad eyes as godzilla dismounts from his holy ass
4 x 4 and caves my face in for talking to his girl
i bite him in his flabby alcoholic tit and run for pride, vaunted, exalted PRIDE
is a negligible frill in the face of self preservation
tearful in my fool beer it always ends this way
nursing my bruises i plot to neuter the evil bastard and his porcine slut
while they sleep
this last, i think, will be paramount, satisfying cruelty
getting them right where it hurts most---in the raison d'etre
proud o scarred saint i become of these wounds for they name me martyr,
carrier of a little-recognized state of mind
and when they fade i am full of chagrin
The convenience store spiel
it's 7-11 and he wears a harley vest
he leers and gags and spits and is boisterous and loud and
unruly with his beer buddies and he talks about “lynyrd skynyrd”
and “kickin' some faggot's ass” i try not to let him see me
eyeing the comic books
why?
He's on his own mission
he has own own fucking trajectory and it has nothing to do
with that worm in the corner
the blasphemy in his mind
the flotsam barely thought or whispered
the cardinal sin, fool, you bite back on every day
in every aspect of this aberration you call a life:
I AM.
It was a dream i had once
it was a sunny, clear day and i was waist deep in a pool it was
my duty on that day to keep an eye on the baby ducks
inordinantly large body count that day bouyant they would
be but every now and then one would forget how to swim and
so then drown
PAINFULLY
duty then under circumstances saw me having to dredge
up the bodies that had floated to the bottom of the pool and
in the distortions of the dream the bodies had shriveled to the
size of breakfast cereal marshmallows
at the same time the abstract effect remained terrible and
disturbed me profoundly because they retained the
shape and color of ducklings
about then i would hear the spectral burble of childhood
enemies preparing to pelt me with rocks
i would hear bomber squadrons droning in
can you relate?
Dream as recorded has no beginning and no formal ending
it's just there, crucified in the time and the place of things
suspended and that is all
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
Playing with the ants.
WHY?
Don't look at me that way.
WHY ARE YOU PLAYING WITH THE ANTS?
Because they're more fun than people and they cause me no pain
go away you suck you see the world through a rose colored
vantagepoint of what OUGHT to be linear limited in scope
deluded slash oppressive slash happy slash like all the others
but is it real i think not people like you make me long to be
attached to a respirator (as in DEAD)
this is fun
it's theraputic for me and
who are you to play judge and jury because i choose to
play with the ants please go away
i was sitting in a small, family type eatery sipping
on a cup of bad coffee gazing out the window i saw a
murder being committed in the distance
a man in a tank top chased a refined looking girl out
of a beauty salon he was screaming at her smashing her
delicate frame against a chain link fence she objected
and struggled, her face beat red she tried to escape but
couldn't i felt very frightened for her
my bovine waitress poured me more bad coffee
stared and smiled at the carnage “my husband did that
to me last week,” she said warmly
“why?” i asked
“it was valentine's day, he wanted to give me a romantic
evening”
“i'm afraid,” i told her, “i think we should get help, i think
he's really going to hurt her”
the waitress eyed me like i was a blasphemer
“why?” she asked, “it's so obvious how in LOVE they are
and who are you to come between two LOVERS? You
make me sick, mister, enjoy your coffee!”
she left me there to watch
i became very upset and before anyone came
to help the girl, the man killed her
the cowboy movie spiel
i'm the bad guy
yeah i'm the bad guy
i dwell alone in the corridors of stone
and i lurk in the shadows while you live a lie
i'm the bad guy
i reached behind the mirror
and fell inside a thousand hells
but they're inside you as well
and i want you to see them all
so i'm the bad guy
crowds cheer and canonize you
when you seize the holy grail
and i die puking from your bullet
laughing at a private joke because
THEY call you humane
sunny face you head off with your lady
while i weasel away tail between legs
plotting your demise while she gnaws
on your gristle
there goes the bad guy
you win congressional medals and
kiss babies for those photo ops
but only i see the shit piled up inside you
i'm the bad guy
quick
lock your doors
get the guns out of the closet
it's the bad guy
here comes the bad guy
there is a lot of life in this city
and much death as well
and joy
and sorrow
love, we ought to go find it all, you and i
take my hand...
no, but no,
but no
we don't want to suffer the consequences of
my having your hand, do we, now?
i may be tempted to place it in my lap
and so something revolting!
--APPLAUSE--
??!!SHROUD?!!!!!
pariah shrill on the thundering hilltop
pariah tirade and scream to the stormcloud
overwhelmed, overtaxed by the juggernaut of circumstance
falling, imploding, live cliffsummit in a futile, fetal sprawl
murmuring strange litanies to the roaring, ravenous brine
i i can't no i hurt i spike the sky the sky the ocean i oh no
blooming i no i bug crush bug crush big looming i
you caterwaul for order, definition
you subdivide and subjugate
and pariah rattling i splutter and inarticulate
how do you define the scream of the nucleus in the
soul's midnight?
How can i explain OH GOD the snapcrackle of my
circuitry?
How do i verbalize and inventory you this?
i i i cliff crash wave foam rage shake i no swallow no
consume no cry run hurt night i shrink
on a cliff too high under a sky too wide
over a sea deep and impossible
i've become a paralyzed golem hexed by my vision
this is not your priority list!
This is not your subdivision sorter!
This is not your regimented file cabinet!
The water is war its tendrils clash in elemental incest
beneath that,
calm,
a big, new sky,
another world
fishfishfishfishfishfishfishfishfishfishfishfishfishfishfishfishfish
life slows and stagnates congested
red and yellow lights glare
where are these modern gods, these heroes of the night?
They lurk behind the churches and temples, torturing the
meek and laughing
i shall be hero-atheist, he who is unbelieving in the hero,
the good man, the man of action
for he is a lie and i am a witness
i caught him urinating on me while i slept in the street
he laughed and stood revealed
the white knight's tinpot armor is soiled
with the blood of thousands and your
petty hopes and expectations are for nought
Hell street gasps, grabs
suck
poisonous
vapors
we children strove in the gas and machinery
i woke to the sounds of footsteps on my roof
(and the prancing and pawing of each little hoof)
closed my eyes and prayed for the sun
'cause a horrible monster who walks like a MAN
and speaks like a CHILD
saunters through the rows of ranch houses and split
levels
whose inhabitants dream away in false security
to those in troubled slumber there are lights
in the stinking, charred tunnels and the only way out
might fail
but look to the end
look to the end
Suburban leaveittobeaver man's eyes redden
as he scans the shopping list:
2 dozen eggs slash waffles slash 1 gallon of milk
slash bread slash cheese slash 2 cartons of cigarettes slash
2 sides of beef slash 1 tube of toothpaste slash vegetable oil
slash 1 hammer slash 1 ball of cotton slash 4 ingrids slash
4 deuces slash 5 aces slash 6 bottles of tylenol
and realizes he forgot to go shopping
he pulls up in his driveway beside the ambulance
two white-coated simians emerge from the two-car
garage carrying a stretcher sheet covering a
tiny, humanish shape
he wipes the sweat off his brow and asks tearful wife
who is waxing the cocker spaniel,
“what's for dinner, honey?”
--APPLAUSE--
Shockbox Press Chapbook #3 copyright 1991 C. F. Roberts/ Shockbox Press.
rev. 11/20 Molotov Editions
