Mar

Mariana tells me
her cat likes to play at the bottom
of the sea.

De-fucked

She's on fuck
patrol tonight, her aching jaw
is firmly set.

Sack of Poems

I'll trade you
500 poems for a laugh and a
barrel of monkeys.

Spleen Time, Again

They love to
hate everything, and they think
they're the first.

Hidden Sub-Architecture

Aliens implant code
in our brains by manipulating
baseball box scores.

First Corpse

She downloaded him
onto her laptop, as his body was
blown to bits.

Secretless

She wants to
harbor a secret, but her mouth
is beyond control.

No More Old School, O.G.

We blew up
the old school, and the new
school's in flames.

Sleepy Skater

She is burning
the candle from both ends, out
on the ice.

Mulligan

His life amounted
to a series of do-overs, set in a
giant sand trap.

Dreamland (Her Insomnia)

She swims all
night at the 24-hour fitness center
in the mall.

First Born Bomb

He calls it
The Self-Moving and Combustible Egg,
the hand grenade.

Our Old Brains

We cannot stop
trying to get a bird's eye view
on the bird.

Sussex, Wisconsin Poem

The abandoned caboose
wastes away, leaving rust stains
in the snow.

The Best Attitude

The best attitude
to take in any situation is: I
couldn't care less.

Baltimore Mind

He's new in
town, but somehow he just knows
the way around.

Ice Cream Headache Suicide

She couldn't wait
for it to subside, so she threw herself
off the roof.

The Little Death

He became obsessed
with the sound of women sneezing, and
the erotic implications.

Basho at the ATM

The machine spits
out forty dollars as he munches on
fried frog legs.

Sleep Boutique

My sleep boutique
peddles naps after lunch to groggy
financial district workers.

Abrupt and Light

She carves poems
that hit quick and then linger, like
half-remembered dreams.

Hates Live

He holes up
in his home studio, vowing endless
fidelity to documentation.

Her Neck

Her neck is
a frozen tundra, and he is lost
in a whiteout.

Tracks

She always wears
this black, long-sleeve Germs
shirt around me.

Quick Boot

We gulp beer
from two giant glass boots
at Zur Krone.

Timid Barber

The old Chinese
woman refuses to cut my hair as short
as I'd like.

Dirge Analyst

She tells him
the track lacks sufficient gravity
to foster gloom.

Dry Out Tank

He loved drawing
on their faces with a magic marker when they
were passed-out.

Nail in Board

Her crude weapon
split his skull, and the blood soaked her,
head to toe.

Piltdown Man, Man

Doyle hinted at
the hoax in several stories, but
believers will believe.

Zero, the Dangerous Invention

The elders declare
that his tongue must be cut out, to
preserve civil order.

Golden Gate Park Red Cross Center

She mouths the
words, "Good kitty," over and
over and over.

Female Jail

Biters and scratchers
isolated, we hose them down,
and log tattoos.

Spam Prevention Robot Error Poem

Spam blog characteristics
were detected, but we're sorry about
the false positive.

Boring Through the Mantle

Her eyes drill
into his inner core, and his knees
begin to buckle.

Feather in Cap

Rice admires the
pile of bodies, and thinks to herself,
"a good start."

To Die While Laughing

Angel of Death
whispers a joke into his ear as
he drifts away.

Car Wash Bird

He steals quarters
from the tin cup, and drops them
in the gutter.

Nine Kinds of Ridiculous

Have at it,
little ones, for your story is hurtling
to a close.

High and Dry (Outside Albuquerque)

She left him
high and dry, without so much
as an explanation.

In a Lurch (Outside Kenosha)

He left her
in a lurch, stuck on the side
of Interstate 94.

52 First Cousins, Scalemakers

The salaryman explains
to me that he mostly sells scales to the
sumo wrestling circuit.

Death Blow Mallet

An exquisite weapon
has cast a spell over her, and she
longs for it.

Metal Sort

Her leather jacket's
fitting sweetly to her frame, and
she feels hard.

Dump Dwellers

The simmering mountain
of garbage is their whole life,
all they know.

Watch Out

Warning sign warns
them to remain vigilant, to keep
their eyes peeled.

Kagel Barbells Poem

They talk incessantly
about strengthening muscles, so that
they may squirt.

Cheetah the Chimp Turns 75

He runs Hollywood
from his desert ranch, sipping on
banana-kiwi smoothies.

Herz Aus Glas

Her heart is
made of glass, so I must always
be very careful.

Give Me the Brick

He felt much
better after they had finally made
their suicide pact.

Very Old Vietnamese Woman With Helmet

She walks slowly,
and wears a Care Bears bicycle
helmet for kids.

November 2, 1964, 3:20pm (pst)

Dr. Bill Turman
grabs my head, and pulls me out
of my mother.

Machine-Gunned

She often dreams
of lining them all up against
the basement wall.

Robot in Bus Stop

As police watch,
the man with the gun begins to
do the robot.

The Grey Goat

God and the
grey goat lounge around, drinking rum
all month long.

Snap Election

The Supreme Court
does as it is told, and the loser is installed
the next day.

Sleeping Rough

A pile of
passed-out homeless men blocks
the library doors.

Carcass Saw

He tells me
his best seller is a saw for efficiently
removing stiff limbs.

Buster and Croaker

Her machines snap
and coo and shimmy across the
dusty theatre stage.

Garb Downside

The cab driver
hits me up for stock tips
as we motor.

Fingermen

Informants never sleep,
so we swing around and visit in
the wee hours.

Poison-Pen Circle

Her club circulates
false rumors in letters and emails, to
wreck neighborhood marriages.

Murderer Within (Awakening Poem)

They loosen ropes
that bind the killers who patiently wait,
deep inside them.

Brautigan Gee-Whiz Ratio

My poetry mechanic
adjusted the timing belts, and now the
words are jumping.

Nihilism Without Despair

We're doing shots
of gasoline, all night long, in
the match factory.

Down to the Wire

The needle's ready,
and the fax machine and the hotline
are dead silent.

Casting About

She was fishing
for feedback on her hair, but he
just wouldn't bite.

Mighty Bedbug

250 million years
later, bedbugs around the globe
begin the takeover.

Robot Psychiatry

Her robot won't
stop crying, and she's at the end
of her rope.

Poem for Dick Rodgers, Polka King

Max's Polka sends
her into an ecstatic frenzy, and she
cannot stop laughing.

Many Happy Returns

They say they'll
never go back to River Forest, they're
headed to Berlin.

The Golden Arm

Finally the drummer
buys a drum machine, and starts
to program beats.

Showroom Dummies

Right on cue,
they recite the lines that they
have been given.

Potion 7

My flask glitters
in the glow of the dying campfire,
and we drink.

Resist Religion Poem

She shouted something
about every war stemming from religion,
then ran off.

Dungeonable Girl

He likes the
way she gets herself into fixes,
like a cat.

No Joy in Mudville

There were fears
of mass suicide after the Series ended
in utter collapse.

My Best Fiend

Werner grabs his
pistol, but Kinski just laughs
in his face.

Data Mining

Men doggedly sift
through her records, pasting bits
into a report.

Squealers

Squealers and snakes
are ascending, and everyone is
now en garde.

Tumble Off

They laugh, watching
homes tumble off the eroding cliff,
into the sea.

Fuzzy

She struggles to
remember the shape and the feel
of his hands.

Insertions

She thinks doctors
may have left behind objects,
deep inside her.

My Sketches of the Prophet

Religious savages froth
and scream, convulsing like some
mass shock treatment.

Late-Night Pact

George and Tony
agree to invade no matter what, and
then they toast.

Forest Basin Alight

He watches flames
licking the sky, and he thinks: "now
I command fire."

Checkmate

He passes time,
and time passes, until finally
there's an impasse.

Stunted

She gets stuck
inside of her sentences and
can't get out.

Pelican

A pelican stands
on the hood of her Lexus,
so she waits.

Slogging Through

They plow on,
empty months piling on, and
on and on.

Earmarked

She set him
aside, in a straw box,
for another time.

Spare Me, Pal

Cut to the
chase, and make your point,
or I'm gone.

Clubhouse Buddha

The tense players
gather around his locker
just before gametime.

Blanket of Ash

The winds shift,
giant dunes of soot and ash
begin to form.

Fancy

She fancies him,
but she wishes that he didn't
spit so much.

Strangle Precious

Most artists make
her want to puke, with their
navel-gazing blather.

Loss-Makers

Rust belt factories
go the way of the dodo bird,
one by one.

When Rubber Hits Road

The end begins
with a whimper, and closes
with a bang.

Gagger

Her unfortunate nickname
was a result of her two months
in web porn.

The Sleepwalker

I notice twigs
in her hair, and dried mud
on her cheek.

Canned Frog

Her machines pack
frog legs into shiny red cans,
for global export.

10 Miles Per Second

I swing past
Pluto on the way on out,
be seeing you.

Full-Tilt

They amp up,
and wait for the police
to wade across.

Behind Space (Immortality Poem)

We spot death
crouching behind space, and we
shoot death dead.

On Leavenworth

Homeless man shuffling
by with a skeleton strapped
to his back.

Unmapped Cavern

We crawl inside,
and fear whispers to us, that
they're in here.

Server Drop

I'm key-crushing,
jamming on a long show review,
when it freezes.

Breaking the Seals (Outside Tehran)

The reactor hums,
like a big bauhaus beehive,
encased in concrete.

393

He pulls darkness
from his eyes, and drops it
in the fire.

Who Knew?

George tries on
Hoover's pumps, struts around
the Oval Office.

Hi-Def

She watches him,
making notes, and thinking
about cutting devices.

Sudden Enlightenment

Santa looks down,
lights a match, sets his bushy
beard on fire.

Corpse Test

We fried him
long ago, but now we'll
know the deal.

Gassed (Slight Misspeak)

All twelve alive,
he said, but he meant to say
all twelve dead.

Ex-Globetrotters Fan/Novelist

When Meadowlark Lemon
died, she gave up on basketball
and began writing.

Underhand (High-Arc)

The Yankee hurler
starts underhanding it up
to the plate.

Worn Off

Her spell over
him has worn off, he sees
the brutal truth.

Revel Without a Cause

He just can't
get with the scene, all those
friendly dumb fucks.

Hotmail Jones

She tells me
she's a therapist, working with
hardcore email addicts.

Turn

Luck went south
on him, and she began to
turn the screws.

Wolf, Waiting

As she approaches
the door, she sees a wolf sitting
on the porch.

Visions of Gould (at IHOP)

Glenn Gould picks
at his breakfast while critiquing
my radio program.

Save Some Skin

Radioactive rain falls
softly on us, as we slowly erect
our makeshift barricades.

It's All True (Notification)

"Heavens to Betsy!"
she cries, and then they hand her
an American flag.

When You Die

When you die,
I will burn down that church,
in your memory.

Shaking Hands

Her hands shake,
and so I twist off the infernal
bottlecap for her.

Infinity on Trial

A fiddler plays
outside the courthouse, for
TV news reporters.

Mere Shadow

Herky-jerky moves
now, years removed from the
well-oiled machine.

Tricks

Stop playing tricks,
we're trying to be quiet here,
while we hide.

Prompts

She pauses, thoughtfully,
waiting for the program to whisper
her next line.

Six Handsome Bulls

Six handsome bulls
are killed for the pleasure
of bullfight lovers.

Gato

Her cat ate
a parrot, and immediately
began to speak.

Joiners

Military recruiters roll
through the Tenderloin, searching
for wayward souls.

Secure, Miserable

No sudden movements,
and no jokes about bombs,
in our sector.

Slippery Slate

The Google Party
smashed the two-party system
with info-dosing.

Anno

The first year
exploded on the launch pad,
killing the crew.

Jonestown

They line up
to drink the poems and
go to sleep.

Contraptions

She builds unpredictable
machines that are beautiful
but also dangerous.

Porron

We pass wine
around, and soon enough we're
all chattering away.

Dream of a Key

She tells me
the skeleton key is hidden,
under my tongue.

After the Reading

He wades through
the piles of charred corpses,
cursing and spitting.

Pants Down

Egg on face,
he heads down into the bunker,
to huddle up.

Locked and Loaded

Good old boys
drop the hammer down, it's
blood on tap.

Eve Tells Adam

Eve tells Adam
to shove it, that she's moving,
to New York.

4,770 Year Old Tree Worried

Earth's oldest tree
wonders if he will make
it to 5000.

Fragments to Salvage

Her former self
is not very clear to her, so she
is often blank.

Bell Lap

Rounding the bend,
and down the stretch they come, as
death chuckles softly.

What We Want

We want more,
not much, but we must
have more, now.

Two Men Playing Dice

Outside the Economart
two pimps casually throw dice,
while they wait.

Car in Tree

Her Lexus flew
off the freeway and came to rest
way up there.

Miss Praying?

Does the scientist
miss praying as she gazes
at distant galaxies?

Noun Program Case Worker

We shelter nouns
who feel they ultimately cannot
live as verbs.

Farmers Practicing Shouting

Hooting and howling,
they heave their voices across
the dark valley.

Snow Day

The spectacle buckles
beneath the crushing weight of
the snow drifts.

Frostproof, Florida

Washed-up pitchers
saddled up to him, to learn
the knuckleball craft.

Scrumptuous

The dinner is
so perfect that they
consider killing themselves.

Fixers

We were flown
in and given free reign over
the smashed city.

Buried Himself

He buried himself
in ice, in an odd bid to
spur world peace.

100 Tons of Poison (Quiet Shore)

The dead river
flows the same, but something's
not quite right.

Coffin Corner

The punter pulls
a gun, and shoots a cheerleader
with red hair.

She Lives in a Nest

She's an artist,
and she's trying to make some
sort of point.

Tortoise at 175 (Birthday Poem)

Darwin feeds flowers
to the tortoise, musing about
the 21st century.

Bitter Pill

She craves sleep,
to forget her life, and to
wander quiet dreamlands.

Creeping Out

We break curfew
and circle around the troops in
the Civic Center.

Lunchboxes

She had Mao,
Lenin, Underdog, one depicting the
May 1968 riots.

My Fortune Cookie Factory

I'm a cracker,
but fortune cookies came to me,
in a dream.

Aluminum Hats Update

They don't work,
if you're trying to jam the
code they're sending.

Drab Pushout

Infusing the marvelous
into otherwise grey life became her
only real ambition.

Kvetch Counterflow

Piles of books
surround his bed, his cats
about his head.

Marrieds and Felons

They screen them
out, to keep them away from the
rest of us.

Bitch Sesame

Her lesbian bakery
is doing brisk business,
then the quake.

The Royal Family

Dr. Phil dumped
his wife and married Oprah just
before the coup.

Alleged Father

Home DNA testing
commercials on the radio
make her twitch.

Choking Game Spreads

Moms ask why,
but the kids just curse them,
and hide away.

Toe Kick Register

The sensor salesman
gradually develops a tight,
hidden confidence scheme.

Plain and Mean

The nurse is
plain and mean, and her hands
are unusually large.

Big Salt Lick

We pull off,
to grab a bag of burgers,
and some coffee.

Mice (Drop 4 Octaves)

They skat and
croon, improvising lines around
a repeating motif.

The Painted Turtle

The painted turtle
vows revenge against all the
arrogant bastard humans.

Copy-Ups

Wheat-paste postering
girls flip the greedy corpse
slogans upside down.

Maple Syrup Cloud

A cloud rolls
through town, and it smells
just like pancakes.

Callas Clone Poem

Maria Callas drifted
in, and I kind of pulled her up
onto the stage.

Her Mates

She loves reading
old Andy Capp comics until
she falls asleep.

Demolished

He fell back,
into a pile of alley trash,
at the news.

This is San Francisco Calling

I'm on-air
when the blast hits, but our
gas generator delivers.

Glueboy and Speedgirl

Her pals left
a trail of wreckage across
a smoking landscape.

Hacking Into You

Her program jams
my voicebox, so all I get is
an error message.

Scrabbling at the Lock

We're aching tense,
and feverish with excitement, as
the safe opens.

Grimness Accelerates

Feeling mostly trapped,
the boy resolves to break out,
head to Milwaukee.

Crazy Goth Girls

He liked them
pale and slightly off, with
a curious edge.

Ruff Ruff

They named him
Ruff Ruff, which they felt
was very clever.

Plastic Heart

He shows her
a plastic heart, and then
he swallows it.

Drug Dinner

Like Steely Dan,
every night was a strategy for
total sensory overload.

Suspicious Device

She pulls something
out of her purse that I cannot
really make out.

Murder Poet

To choke them
with words was the idea,
when she started.

Blood on My Pants

I tell her
I cut myself shaving, but she
does not laugh.

Ringtone Consultant

A nonsense career
was her ambition, and she carved
a little niche.

Connect Me to the Window

She patches me
to the innoculator working
the drive-thru.

The Presence of a Clown

The emergency room
clown is beat, but still mugs
for the kids.

Swindlers Scoff

Swindlers scoff at
her when she hisses that she
will disembowel them.

Bony Son

His father cringed
when he heard all about the
modern dance class.

Curried Nipple

She eats curry
while nursing a baby, who
is turning red.

Dark Fuse

Inside her brain
a thought cooked up, and she
couldn't shake it.

Can't Sit

After the bombing,
he would always stand close to
the back door.

Growing Area

She chirps something
to me about an odd pain set
in her pelvis.

Siphoning Off

He draws energy
from her, mostly at night,
as she sleeps.

Queasy Kittens

Girls are slumped
over the rails, worn down
by the noise.

Effusive Apologizer

A feedback loop
had developed, so she turned,
and ran off.

Cash Money Freezeout

The bird flu
finally grabbed hold, on
our dollar bills.

Wound Duct Clog

The nurse stammers,
and then just points at
the laptop screen.

Nez Gently Tells

Nez gently tells
her: "every animal knows more
than you do."

LNR Poem

I pull batches
of new stiffs out of town for the
London Necropolis Railway.

Military Attack Dolphins Missing

Sprung by hurricane,
they begin to pick off surfers
one by one.

Why Cactus

Nail grabbed it
out of a dream, and scrambled it
up for breakfast.

Finn

Finn shows me
how to hold the knife and
how to throw.

Alpine Smack Chalet

He moves heroin
through Zurich, and he comes
to love skiing.

The '48 Oaks

Oakland was electric
that summer, folks gabbing happily
into the night.

Returning To My Senses

She wakes up
inside a box, her heart racing
around her body.

Look Here, Chum

She eyed him
with a hard kill stare, and he
quickly shrank away.

Fighting Popes

The Fighting Popes
were my team, but our mascot was
a sugar bear.

Guitar Mason

Red-brick guitars
were the specialty of my
small Dusseldorf shop.

Cudahy

He shovels shavings
from the shop floor, listening
to his ipod.

Right Quick

Summer in Omaha
was slow-roasted reading and
watching softball games.

National Prayer Police

Church and State
marry, and Bush orders us
to commence praying.

Midget Williams

Midget Williams
was a good man, a jazz man,
a wandering coyote.

Nocturnes

He visits her
in sleep, placing objects deep
inside her dreaming.

Shelf Life (Carousel)

An actress considers
suicide at 29 after watching the
Logan's Run DVD.

Blue Island (Secret Museum Poem)

On Blue Island,
she finds a hidden cave to
house her art.

Osama's NFL

Osama enabled the
mother of all Packer halftime
war fuck spectacles.

Wasted Yourself

Hugh croons, "You
could have wasted yourself in a plane,
in the air."

Dunebuggy

My kit car
served us well on the paths
along the crick.

Baby Punches Mom

She swings wildly
at first, but then connects,
with an uppercut.

Private Rap Concert

He cornered them
at the ATM, and he worked his
flow for them.

God Killed Santa

God hated Santa,
so he gently uncoupled the sleigh,
somewhere over Greenland.

Como Flotan Los Cadavares!

Ninth ward bodies
float by as the FEMA officials
eat ham sandwiches.

Listen Up!

Barking coaches fail
to control their monsters, and so
they run amok.

The Combine

The farmer spits
when I ask if Bush is doing
enough to help.

All Clear

A scientologist squirms
as her tiny implant is removed
during the deprogramming.

Coming Best Of

Dude keeps promising
a best-of anthology, but he's
always talking shit.

Birdsong and Summer Cloud

Zelda cooked up
a perfect day, and we set
off on foot.

Funny Falconer

The ventriloquist had
a falcon on his arm, cracking jokes
about hunting rabbits.

Carter Family Drugs

On the road
they favored opium, but at home
they just drank.

Explode the Dictionary

An alchemist-poet
seeks to obliterate the Word,
with plastic explosives.

Stealing Signs

Dancing off second,
the runner flashes a handsign
to the batter.

Dark Calvary (Outside Basra)

Blown-apart soldiers
gaze up at the clouds moving
across the sky.

Big Pile of Messages

She hated wading
through the heap of email waiting
for her reply.

Bloody Show

The woman smeared
blood all over her face and
went to court.

Bell/Hand

In the rubble
she finds a melted churchbell
and a hand.

Puttering Along

He marks time
by baseball and skulls, his
intense focus narrowing.

Hail Discordia

The swimmer screams
back to the shore: the plankton
are biting him.

Stompy Said

Stompy said I
had to either shoot the kid
or shoot myself.

Cutting the Block

She lowers herself
down into the quarry, fingering
the diamond tip.

Pull

A giant magnet
drags him into his present
form of circumstance.

Field Hands

Workers strip crack
and meth off the trees in the
sweltering August heat.

Can't Swim

She laughed as
she jumped overboard without
the life vest.

Luc Ferrari Drifts Away

In his bed,
he constructs a collage of
his imminent death.

Crackling Words

Crackling words explode
out of her mouth, covering me
in black gunpowder.

Grinning Harsh

She forgot earplugs,
so she sways ecstatic, her fingers
in her ears.

Soccer Mom Demographic

She got rich
off a dumb coffeetable book of
toddler fridge art.

The Black Hawk

He hugs the
coast, watching the City
erupt in flames.

Warning

She found a
line of dead birds along the
path to church.

Blood on Sand

On the trading
floor, stockbrokers gouge out
their own eyes.

Her Hearse

She finds an
old hearse, and tricks it out,
and she's happy.

Roky Erickson's Back!

The song collapses,
and he lets loose with a wail
of molten darkness.

Short Stack

We ate pancakes
and waffles and watched the noise
bands carve space.

Quite Telling

She'd had a
stroke, but for nearly two weeks
nobody even noticed.

Home (Feeble-Minded Children)

We all hated
adults, and we dreamt of
torching the joint.

Rail Birds

We hopped trains
to Chicago, just to beat the
stifling 1976 boredom.

MS13 Lieutenant

The gangbanger tells
me he slit his father's throat,
for his snitching.

His Rockin' 1948 Packard

Hank Williams hated
to drive, so I usually drove
us to gigs.

Poivrottes (in Condom, France)

The old rummies
were sloshed, and sang songs
insulting each other.

Planet 10

The tenth planet
we called Elvis, and it had a
rather peculiar orbit.

A Summer Blockbuster Read

This is the
poem to bring along with you
to the beach.

Poem Fatwa

Clerics declared that
the hands of my poems must
be chopped off.

Navajo Remote Viewing

They rub blood
across my forehead, and I
become the crow.

World Champion Fish Expeller

The yogi swallows
fish and then blows them out
of his nose.

Clampdown

The King wavered,
and then flipped a coin into
the black water.

How Uncouth!

The woman yelped
as the waiter suddenly puked
in her lap.

Giant Cloud (Over Florida)

The dust cloud
from the Sahara moves over us,
swallowing the light.

Secret Amputation

She told him
the knives were for a ceremony,
later that night.

Rabbit King

In his province,
he is a big wheel, as he breeds
the smartest rabbits.

Liquid Iron

The unsettled core
begins to lose it's strength,
until magnets drop.

Bolt Cutter

Our drum machines
start to smoke as the low hum
overloads the circuits.

Pitcher, New York Gothams

He gets $30
a game, plus meals and smokes,
which ain't bad.

The Anti-Buddha's Message

Get it straight,
mack: I don't give a damn if you
live or die.

Slippers

Her slippers are
made of cardboard and duct tape
and plastic flowers.

Swing Low

Swing low now,
sweet chariot, for I have come
to behead God.

Catalina Island Days

We holed up
in a bunker, with books and
guitars and rum.

Laughing Dogs

Laughing dogs mock
my inept attempts to find out
where you went.

Fireflies

Sex and death
consume them for the two weeks
that they dance.

Fag Bop Thumbnail

Fag Bop played
hectic Satanic jazz around Delhi in
the late 2080's.

Stripper Name Directory

Kitty Miao received
a letter from the Commissioner,
about her name.

Sex Potions

The woman sells
bottles of 7-Up with beautiful
homemade stickers affixed.

Body in Trunk

Like a hand
in glove, her empty body filled
his car's trunk.

Head-On

His SUV had
a TV monitor in the middle of
the steering wheel.

Carnival of Full Enjoyment

They wore black
masks, and carried torches to
the midnight bonfire.

Church Bell Ringer's Lament

There's a peculiar
madness that afflicts many, a
sort of vertigo.

Haircut Two Bucks!

He was strolling
down Leavenworth, scissors in hand,
pitching his craft.

Download This

She placed the
gun gently into his mouth,
as he squirmed.

Frantic Caller

She tells me
to turn off the murder machine
under the floor.

Across McAllister Street

Angus yelled over
that he'd scratched his eye on
a trashcan lid.

Critical Ass

Pedestrians blocked bikes,
which were blocking cars, all
over the town.

Kaput!

She told him,
"you're lost," and then she
smashed his windshield.

Summer Wedding Watch

TV tells her
to care about the elaborate
celebrity wedding plans.

Ham and Egger

The dying boxer
asked me to scatter his ashes
in the snow.

Meow Meow

Earth is run
by cats, who have us in a
vice-like grip.

Spray-On Mud

Hummer drivers fret
when their off-road mega-machines
are tellingly spotless.

Up the Junction

He's got nothing
for her birthday, so he
must write something.

Against

Against the heat
we lean, until we slide across
the vibrating brickyard.

Broken Eye Socket

This will stay
with you, so you will never
forget, he implied.

Brainlock Poem

The girl girl
grrrr saddles up to to
th the ba

White Sox Swept

Cleveland's ninth-inning
rampage pushed the White Sox
into their tomb.

7 Trillion Dollars, Pal

The national debt
slams into the side of the glass
and steel tower.

Mad Dog Vachon in 1974

He wrestled in
Milwaukee, until he was banned,
for biting opponents.

Stop Religion Now

For Pete's sake,
every single bloody war starts
with you jokers.

Cat Tailor

She made a
very good living making elaborate
costumes for cats.

Missing Key Handler

The program froze
and shuddered, before locking
into death pose.

Mike and Michael

Tyson and Jackson
married, and soon after, they
adopted O.J. Simpson.

Bees Love Honey

She lights the
blowtorch and begins to slowly
seal him in.

Tomato Can

The tomato can
decides he won't throw the
fight, after all.

Pulled Up

Recording at Mavericks,
I'm dragged under, until a surfer
pulls me up.

Oily Robbers

Wearing only underwear,
Cambodian thieves oil themselves up,
before heading out.

Dreamless Sentence

They finally placed
all the prisoners in comas, to help
trim the deficit.

Behind the Beak

Behind the beak
she was another person altogether,
a dada duck.

Painted Shut

The rule was,
when they were painted, they
could not talk.

Teraflops

Bombay programmers bash
it out, to keep up with demand in
the sub-continent.

Night of the Long Knives

The Pope laughed,
and spit in the face of the
weeping, broken nun.

No Pussyfooting

Crazy drinking commenced,
and over time they found they had
drunk the seas.

Celebrity Weight Loss Update

They break into
the Iran story to go live to
Delta Burke's gym.

Timber!

He fell down,
flat on his face, his boxing
dream knocked out.

Happier Death

The mud approaches,
and she just pops an oxycontin and
mixes a martini.

He Hit Hecka Hard

The mother belches
when I ask for her name, so I
just hang up.

The Pig Was Cool

The cop hit
the joint, and handed it to me
with a nod.

Obstruction Poem

When they operated,
they found an eyeball lodged
in his throat.

Checkout Line

Tree shaper snobs
mock me at Cliff's, as I buy
some Miracle Grow.

Crane Man Zapped

Police reached him,
offered him water, and charged up
the stun gun.

Empty Gesture

She warns him
that the proof of the pudding's
in the eating.

A Street Griot's Monarchy Song

Homer scream-sings
out: "Michael Jackson's the King
of San Francisco!"

Dervish

She spins around
in the middle of O'Farrell,
blocking the traffic.

Blog Life

Little factories churn,
and desperation billows out of
the blackened smokestacks.

Freezer Full

The dead stack
up like they're waiting in line
at Studio 54.

Back Stretch Stumble

The racehorse stumbled,
and then righted himself, and won
by eight lengths.

8:23 Sky Report

The sky tonight's
purple and pink and orange and red
against slate grey.

Downwinders Cooked

Hanford victims blame
higher-ups at G.E. for the
crazy thyroid cases.

Bug Quip

The girl says
he's just as funny as a bug,
and he snorts.

Mesa Squirms

"Nationalize our hydrocarbons!"
they sing, as a laughing woman lobs
sticks of dynamite.

Vibration Plate (A Ghost's Poem)

The plate popped,
and the air rushed out, so
we were fucked.

Camp Gate Exchange, 1944

An old man
trades his beloved violin for
a train ticket.

I'm Hit!

When the egg
exploded on her face, she thought
she'd been shot.

Chili Finger Investigator

Chili Finger Investigator
Schwartz grins triumphantly at
the press conference.

Concede Now

Just admit it,
and leap to the rocks awaiting
you, down there.

Bloody Flux

Jamestown fever swirls
around the camp, picking us off
one by one.

Night Rise

It's late now,
and all of your gods have been
put to sleep.

Sac Fly

He handed her
his last dollar, so she could
buy a 40.

Bridge Washed Out

She watches uprooted
trees drift by in the flood
as she records.

Data Team Killed

We found them
in the sweltering server room,
duct-taped together.

The History of Bellydance

Flames melt gold
into a river that rolls, it
bounces and hops.

Long Pig

Cooking human flesh
was an underground scene until
Martha Stewart bit.

Lady With Lapdog

Chekhov nudges me,
and I see she's hand-feeding the
dog Swedish meatballs.

Top Baby Names

Oprah was irate
when she saw the dingbat topic
for Monday's show.

Drank Pine Sol

The woman said
"Fuck you, nurse," and then
she quickly drank.

Mayday! Mayday!

We're going down,
and Laurie Anderson chuckles at
her ironic fate.

Strange Bling (Legs A-OK)

Gangsters around here
zip by in electric wheelchairs
they don't need.

New Skin

She burns bridges,
and so her Rolodex is crammed
with useless names.

The Good Morning Lady

She greets everyone
strolling by as if she's the
Polk Street Concierge.

Marina Busy Body

Her wedding set,
she knew nothing of the hole
in her heart.

Only the Numb Survive

If you think,
you will be sad, so you
flip the switch.

Manila Days

Finally, they named
her Bad Baby, and her crib was
a cement mixer.

Underground

They drink pulque
in the quiet dark, deep inside
the linear accelerator.

Ain't No Tractor Pull, Mack

Funny cars blast
down the sunny strip, and
we're eating snowcones.

Taipei Chop

An old woman
carves my name into the wood,
my signature stamp.

Woozy Gal

I shoe horses
to make ends meet, she said, and
then she fainted.

Django Shrinks Tumor

The tech turns
on the old Django Reinhardt LP
for the patient.

Frame-Up Claim (Last Moment)

I was framed
by you, and now I'm standing in
buckets of concrete.

Nickel and Dimers

You dirty rats,
know this: in the end, I'll
watch you drown.

Picasso Seance Gig Redux

My blue guitar
was named Wallace Stevens, but
it's firewood now.

Avert Your Eyes

The Vatican burns,
and thick, white smoke fills the
the empty square.

Trail Mix Levers

He favors pretzels
when stressed, and sometimes goes
heavy on raisins.

Hunters Have Small Cocks

Every reputable study
has shown: hunters typically have
shrimpy little dicks.

Begin Your Slide Now

You are late
for the ending, they hiss
through clenched teeth.

Bomb Inside Her Poem

The poem ticks
inside her purse, a digital
timer counting down.

Greasers v. Fire (July 1977 Fragment)

Freaks and greasers
formed a baseball team, to smash
the Fire Department.

Doc at 824

The outpost whispered
death, and the doctor yearned for
Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

Monarch Project Poem

I have screws
in my neck, and the implant
sends me voices.

MK-Ultra

I stand and
watch the cremation of care, in
a silent way.

Duck Soup

The bird flu
carved us in half, and defused
the overpopulation bomb.

Not About

All the commercials
say "it's about..." but c'mon,
there's no it.

Head Cutting Time For Papa

Her father chirped
when his skull snapped open,
and she giggled.

Koufax By Contrast

Fastball after fastball,
no junk or offspeed pitches,
no messing about.

Ghetto Splitter

Tenderloin beam splitters
drained the oily blood of the silicon
valley biotech mammoths.

Fresh Kills

That dead Pope
floats just the same as the
rest of us.

5 Minutes

She watched him
polish the tinfoil on the burrito
before unwrapping it.

All My Clients Are Pigs!

The cabaret singer
lurches across the stage, scowling
and cursing us.

Pressure Drop

A giant beehive
grows within hollow convent walls,
as nuns pray.

Mount Everest Burger King

Base camp five
sits just below the increasingly
popular burger shop.

WTF?

She composes ringtones
for a living, but refuses to own
a cell phone.

Send Up a Flare

Point the gun
at the moon, and maybe we
will be saved.

Oyster Shucker Gripes

I always smell
like oysters, and my hands have
countless little cuts.

Comfort Women

The grandmas tremble
with rage, teetering and shuffling
toward the embassy.

Bomb Marriage

Bomb Marriage activists
struck again, disrupting weddings
around the country.

All Ages Show South of Market

Under the overpass,
bands set up a mountain of gear,
preparing the rock.

A Certain Ratio

For sixty years,
he tried to breed black roses,
to spite her.

Stuck Inside

I figure out
I'm inside the lightning, screaming
as it strikes.

The Core of the Earth Below

I'm no Dante,
and we creep down scared, into
the boiling crater.

The Cypress Scene (Scent of Ages)

Right about here,
a 4000 year old perfume factory
cranked it out.

Park That Psycho To Me

We triage calls,
turning screws on the bastards,
until they wither.

The Admiral's Last Night

Tribesmen placed him
in a box, until it was time
to cook him.

As Big As Kate Smith

The nun implored
us to really sing, from deep down
in our guts.

I Feel Like a Rube

Pockets turned out,
I stand on the platform, watching
that train roll.

Body Snatchers Dubbed

She can't sleep,
so she's watching some old horror
movie, in spanish.

Well Baby Unit

The nurse exhaled,
passed me the joint, and drawled,
"lotta breeders today."

Don't Get Smart With Me

She reared back,
and spat out a twangy stream of
stupid parenting cliches.

The Swelling Sun

The swelling sun
ate the lucky planet, and drank
the seven seas.

My Eyes Turned Black

When I glanced
at the mirror I saw that I
had been changed.

Ghost Dance

He shuffled down
Hyde, to the corner where he
watched for 5-0.

Level On Aggregate (Football Poem)

Breakfast in Chelsea
was always beans and toast
and soccer scores.

We'll Just See About That

Our shield failed,
and fast death rained down
upon us all.

Grabbers

Grabbers are rabbits
who've learned to lift wallets
from Marina yups.

The Science of Mocking

On the road,
to kill time, we'd painstakingly
imitate each other.

Dream Bolt

The king confessed
to his doctor that he had
swallowed his crown.

The Wrecked Year

She needed two
years to bounce back from the
drinking of 1989.

A Sudden Fissure

The governor yelped
as the ground beneath him began
to open up.

Heads Will Roll

Gramps was pissed
when his wildly-popular poker
blog crashed again.

Red China's Attic Base

She believed the
Chinese were tilting her house,
hiding her food.

Master Blenders

In old Havana,
he worked at the cigar factory,
and hit .364.

Time=River

On the bank,
I run faster than the current,
to find you.

Why, You Dumb Cluck

She chided herself
for not thinking of a smart
retort fast enough.

The Ready Men

Lester Brown dropped
his ham sandwich when he noticed
the kelp levels.

Pregnant With Poem

No paper anywhere,
he scrawled the poem on his hand,
with a Sharpie.

She Caught the Vapors

Laura Bush cried
as she sat on the side of the
wet, bloody road.

Flip Wilson Scream

Her roommate was
dead-on Flip Wilson's Geraldine,
with that laugh.

Cold Snap

A hot bath
and the Sedaris book and the girl
was all set.

If Not, Not

He told God
the information provided was
simply too vague.

The Abe Lincoln Brigade

He fought fascists
in Spain, even though he hated
to fire guns.

Kids See Priest Knifed

They clapped, actually,
and set fire to the corpse after
the attacker left.

Mike Benign Saved My Bean

The cassette was
X: Los Angeles, and it rewired
me inside, completely.

The Artificial Noses

The Artificial Noses
were the band who decided to blow up
the packed club.

Murderer's Row Poem For Art Bell

The 1927 Yankees
were almost certainly hybrid aliens,
like the Sumerians.

Are We What We Are?

"She's hecka fun!"
the boy shouted, referring to the new
punk rock babysitter.

Out of Town With the Bossy Concubine

The mob lieutenant
winced when her shrill voice again
suddenly let loose.

Lunar Pulse

L.C. Flippin' rocked
from a pirate orb somewhere on the moon,
melting our brains.

Erase All Prior Memetch

Targeted amnesia treatments
can buff clean those deeply-etched
memories and stains.

Trance Harmonica

Distorted waves crash
and loop, the harmonica wailing
like a siren.

The Best Spankings

The dominatrix paused,
and chuckled, and pressed record
on her camera.

My Atheist Gospel Choir

We drive South,
and torches are thrown at our
reinforced school bus.

The Zenith Hot Stompers

That 78 broke
when Voot sat on it at the
Super Bowl party.

Fish Magnet

On Lake Beulah,
we eat ham sandwiches, and
pretend to fish.

Rats in Paradise

Street urchins slink
around the TL, searching for
a little scratch.

Form Follows Function, Fuckface

The design professor
picked up the tool and smashed open
the student's skull.

Reichian Trace

Reich's orgone books
showed up on the list the librarian
gave the Feds.

Surrogate Placenta

When men bred,
the battle of the sexes
became a war.

Show Biz Kids (Cork Cycles)

She pulls cork
and greases the mashing chutes
for her copper.

Boys Life (Rhinelander Days)

Boys Life magazine
incensed the budding atheist Webelos
inside Pack 251.

Better Than Pretty

Rumsfeld can't decide
if gadget girl is unusually beautiful
or merely ugly.

Temperature and Motion

Inside his head,
violence struggled to jump out
of his eyes.

Rumble Seat

With settlement cash
I bought a running Model-T, for slow
cruising the Tenderloin.

Compton Cricket Days

I was there,
a washed-up fast bowler, but they
knew my past.

The Phone Rang

The computer virus
lept from the phone and slid down
into my ear.

The Golf Swing Analysts

Salarymen barge in,
hoping we can finally help them
cure their slice.

Some People Give Me the Creeps

Slurping and gurgling
sounds from behind me at the party, and
I'm 23 skidoo.

Freeloader the Cat

Freeloader adopted us
in the parking lot behind the
Costco on Divisadero.

His Girl Friday

His girl Friday
transported weapons to the cell,
and laundered jack.

Cow Groomer Poem

She knealt down
patiently, as I brushed the hair
above her nose.

Polio Arm

That kid pitched
like a girl, but his knuckler
was way unhittable.

Bury In Deep Lobe

Duck and cover,
chum, and place this memory
in a box.

Tether

Down the well,
he reached deep into the dark,
where she was.

Safe Cave

"Your planet's dimming,
pollution blocking out the light
for your people."

You're Dead To Me

All memetch unbundled,
and shoved down into the shredder,
dead to me.

We're Turning Over!

The Earth wobbled
in an odd and beautiful way, and we
all fell off.

Sigh Generator

The empty sea
is darker and colder now, and she
loses her way.

Boom Chair

The Boom Chair
squeezes you, until your self
flops out, still.

Dreadful Study

The study concluded
with a great fire, and the limbs
were disposed of.

The Boy Named Hot Dog On a Stick

He was small,
but he got the foxy chicks, with his
well-honed wit.

Spelling Bee Baseball League Poem

I was stranded
at second base by a dumb girl
who flubbed "placenta."

Unconfirmed Image

He came to,
but he couldn't tell if it was
morning or evening.

Outside the Wedding Gown Superstore

They ate tacos
and listened to Black Flag, in
the parking lot.

14 Billion Years Ago

Henry Darger painted
a big bang, and the dust became
our creaky bones.

World Telephone Operator Summit (1906)

They wanted "ahoy"
instead of "hello," but monied interests
rigged the vote.

Oh, Rats!

He was always
waiting for that girl to complete
her to-do list.

That Grubby Grubster

We'd love to
kill, but we will (usually) settle
for crude sketch.

At the Sobriety Checkpoint

She lit the
roll of firecrackers just as the
cop leaned in.

Before Leak Ender

A hole opened
at the base of his spine, and
love drained away.

You're Fired!

Trump sits slumped
on the toilet sobbing, cradling
his limp cock.

Acceleration=Gravity

To fold space,
she amplified gravity, with a slap
to his face.

Lagos (Play Pump Installer Poem)

Dizzy, beaming kids
endlessly whip around on my merry-go-rounds,
drawing water up.

Gulp, Gurgle, Gloop

He drinks deeply
from the decapitated cactus, his
knife tossed aside.

Level Level

In the road,
a prostitute yells fuck you! at
the passing cabs.

Where is the Sun?

A black hole
played a sad song he called
kill and deliver.

Folded Heart

She folded her
tattered heart in half, and placed it
in her purse.

I Shit On Your Eucharist

Open your mouth
and stick out your tongue, for here comes
a big surprise.

To Set Fire

To set fire
to them--sometimes it seems like it'd
be lickity split.

My Life Was Stolen Away

I was declared
dead in 1982 when my uncle in Bombay
paid a bribe.

Carriage Crash On

Carriage crash on
Downer Avenue sends honeymooners to
the overstuffed E/R.

Those Skins Blew Up His Grave

Kelly Kelly was
an anti-racist skin, and so now his
plot's been bombed.

Drink Hustlers at the Dong Baek

He likes drinking
with the Korean chicks--they yell and cackle
and bite him on the arm.

Can I Help You, Old Man?

Diogenes inside his
smelly barrell croaks: "get the fuck out
of my light."

We Come To You! (Mobile Suicide Patrol Poem)

Vans with skulls
on them slow-motion creep up Leavenworth,
looking for the sleepy.

Incessant Honker Beaten By Mob

The impatient broker
was dragged from his SUV and shown the
Dead Man's Tuning.

The Man Who Frequently Bites His Tongue

He doesn't have
a complex, she said, he's
just complex.

You're No Roberto Clemente, General

Pinochet's brain
was simply not shriveled enough to
block his trial.