Reproduction

People are delirious. Busy, scared monkeys

who proved to themselves there's nothing

like them anywhere in a universe proved

to be bigger than our imagination. Working

on a reproduction plan for this sick planet,

with a blastoff one day aimed at a sphere

floating close enough in the Goldilocks zone,

where we'll release a rocketship full of seed

to give birth to a planet with Earth's DNA.

It's easier than prying this planet loose

from all the men with guns and gold.

Soon, You Can Play A Movie On Your Jacket

it can take hours to recover from talking to people

and no one really trusts those who hide from TV

which is just the relentless sound of auto salesmen

rule #1: keep them on the lot #2: erase #3: slave

i don't know what happened or what I daydreamed

until a devil asked to interview me some place quiet

It was a yellow bus brought demitree's brain to him

woke up singing, in full fever, vowed to be a star

savior, water from his hands, sun rays off his eyes

in a jumping 64 blue steel impala, air-powered fours

oops, sudden ending: all cataclysm is history

Outside Of Jiminy's

they closed the door on me at jiminy's

as if i was too tall

or had too many freckles

or refused to take my sunglasses off

they were all angry at the same thing

and I wasn't

i could blow up their souls

but I didn't

solitude is a brother poet, after all

the way we leave wet streets alone

to shine and reflect and cry out loud

stars come to the city like outlaws

as if the cops kept them up in the sky

while they plot theft and rebellion....ecstacy, maybe

the cars run lost, no one arriving, really, where they want to be

I'm reduced to cat or rat or hungry stray

how you find family

Center Of The Earth

Dominic was key, because of his size,

the best summer me and my brothers ever had.

We built an acrobats' seesaw (with cushions!)

after watching Ed Sullivan one Sunday night.

First, he flipped Tommy over the fence

into the weird neighbors' plastic pool.

And Tommy had to go back and apologize,

my Mom mad at him for yet more mayhem.

Al broke his leg, trying to wriggle out a double.

Edgar gladly took the bottom of the totem pole,

as long as he was safe from the seesaw.

He should have been born a tree. Redwood.

Me? I was small. They called me Flea.

"Flea, you got to learn how to land on Tommy

standing on Edgar....flying 30 feet in the air,"

said Dominic. Yeah, man. Great plan.

And so I learned to fly. Roll and twist

and somersault in turbulence and cloud.

We gave ourselves Polish names:

Domski, Tomski, Edgarski, Fleaski.

(Alski was injuredski) Fun. You know?

Laughing, breathless, dangerous fun.

The best kind! We were no scientists,

but we were the center of the Earth.

All the kids wanted a turn on the seesaw,

as if it jumped them to another world.

60 years later, I can say, maybe it did.

We kept it to ourselves. Like an altar?

Then, Dominic bought a car. He found

all the away from home. The oldest,

first gone, the way it's always been.

We all knew it the day we were born.

Edgar took his place, but lacked weight.

We would land back in place to launch him

up past the telephone wires, waiting

for his return. We flew higher than ever.

Then Edgar left for college. Scary.

The world was chewing on our house.

Al, Tommy and me knew we were next.

They get more jumpy living out there.

Poor Al got busted for selling pot.

Never saw any of my brothers cry before.

He gave me his cape. And his ballet shoes.

Al was terrible on the seesaw. Distracted.

Tommy went to the local junior college,

but with work and all, I never saw him.

The seesaw didn't move for years,

then Dad sawed it up, threw it away.

Dominic became Mr. Big. Edgar sang

in TV commercials. Al cleaned windows.

Tommy tore it up in the real estate game.

And I became a circus performer.

There's a lot more, but it doesn't matter.

Never was a center of the Earth like that!

Everyone was legend...a long time ago.

I never wanted to be anybody else.

Green

They came for me for words,

all their torches lit,

the crowd crying out the same thing.

"What do you want to hear," I said.

But they all yelled something different.

And that's alright. That's OK.

"There's more love and affection

in this world than tinsel on a Christmas tree,

times 223! More or less. As physics suits me."

"Huh?'

"I'm not saying, 'Don't be stupid.' But, don't.

Your love connects beyond your thinnest thoughts."

Just like the dentists took all the gold from my mouth,

and kept it to themselves. Fitted me with porcelain.

It's this world we all believe in! (And so trust is hard.)

Just like going after catfish with the wrong bait.

They want Velveeta Cheese. Don't ask me why.

That's catfish! They eat crap all day. Then, they die.

I mean, it was an old and aging world, uninformed

on purpose. A culture of buried alive. Death before dying.

Like watching dogs drink out of the toilet. Um, dumb.

See the sunlight on treetops? Or glancing off the fruit?

The smell of the forest fills you full encylopedia set.

Wild animals confer. They'll stay wild. You?

And so, I surrendered myself to plants.

They're conscious, and communicating.

First voice. Original telepathy. I connect. The noise!

Petscan

Well, one day I felt like every footstep hit the ground

with all my history--every step--like walking on the moon

for the first time, or a rebel's walk to the gallows,

or a soldier treading into battle, but what do I know?

The next day was for me, and my wife, and how

we went to lunch and a movie in the middle of the day,

and kissed like sweethearts behind a haystack, in 1885.

On Monday, they might tell me I'm going to die.

I'll announce I am a sorcerer. Then, we shall see.

Chicken

My friend Huddie enchanted a chicken

with his new pocketwatch.

It asked us, "Who owns this world?"

I pointed at Huddie, and he at me.

"Really?" said the chicken.

"Your first words should be, "Thank you,"

I said, puzzled by the way the chicken jerked its head.

"Do you not see the changes in the trees?

"The weather right before winter?

"Something bad is happening, right?

"And have you noticed there's no bees?"

Huddie cut that chicken's neck with his axe.

"Truth" is the last word came out of that chicken's head.

We ate it that night with mashed potatoes.