Texas Beach

Meet The Poets

How to Tell a Body Apart

Osprey and raccoon leave fish carcasses

up in the skinny Australian pines. A tourist

drags her skirt in the gentle surf of the bay.

One large condo in the distance

is completely on fire.

In order to feel safe, we sleep in the trees,

swatting at mosquitoes. An Abuela

comes down the bridge half way, calling

for her sons. The hem of her nativity

dress has dragged through blood.

Summer clouds are like cakes.

They do not promise to stop torture

or to bring humanity back. If you see

an osprey with a fish it is a sign of prosperity.

In last year’s spring parade, between the pirate

ship tossing green and silver beads and the police

motorcade, one man walked alone

as a skeleton to protest the war.

He walked like his legs didn’t work,

pretending to lose his balance.

Children threw rocks at him until their parents

smacked them. At the end, the pastor’s son, playing

Resurrected Jesus walked through the trash

and dirtied his gown.

The Abuela raised up to beg heaven

and a wind dropped a dead fish into her hands.

She screamed and the tourist, missing one eye

and half a cheek turned her head

towards the sound of birds.

::

Without

When you were talking about how the zombie

curse happened, I heard your voice but I wasn’t really listening.

You said they were the lucky ones, now

who could enjoy the world gone to shit and we

were still holding on to some hope of going back

to cable TV and spousal abuse and playing the lottery.

Now they got to walk where ever they wanted

and we had to scurry like bugs. I heard you say

you might just cash it in and shoot yourself in the heart

instead of the head so you could go back Macy’s

and stand at the discount rack and think

of all the other lives you could be living right at that moment.

Go ahead, I said. This time, when you die

we don’t need to cry about it any more. You pointed

your gun up to the clouds, took aim and the smoke

from the fire got in your eyes and you closed them

because except for the meaning it makes, the noise

of your mouth still carries on just the same filling

up a space no one’s really sure needs filling like a

canary telling it like it is to the grackles on the line.

Bumper-sticker Proposal:

~
`RED-BLOODED
ALL-AMERICAN
`````FREAK


=

Mad Wind

It is because an angry winter can collapse into spring like a sigh,
And Spring, revealing himself to be yet another season of madness,
Can blow a raw wind through the open window, stirring up dust
In this old house of me. It because of this that I submit the following:

A room full of chairs reserves the right to have,
At any given moment, one or more of those chairs thrown.
Because if a chair can be sat in, stacked or stored away
There is no reason it shouldn't also be hurled across a room
To crash into other chairs- collapsing whole societies of chairs.
There is no good reason why it should not.

CINEMATOXIC

Lightening behind the old drive in screen

creases the clouds into some cheap countertop.

We take popcorn and old beer and sit

on top of a school bus. It will rain soon

but the air is cooled by that. Looking

at the screen you explain how the muscles

should tighten when they dry out, eventually

they wont be able to move them. Perhaps

that explains the blood lust. The wind across

the parking lot lifts out hair like heat

from a fire. If you put your hand out

it you can split the air up around you.

When I was eight, they moved the bodies

from the graveyard, then let the grass grow

so you couldn’t even see the stones. One day

we found a clearing in the lea of a stone

where a deer had made its bed. We threw

firecrackers at the stone splattering

white rock with burn marks. Then the grass

caught fire and the whole field was like

hell and then everything was just scorched.

That summer the drive in went all Adult

then didn’t reopen with the thaw.

Here, these black speaker boxes mark

the broken field like crosses, the blank screen

our lake of fire, the flickering

plays moving bodies in the dark tree line.

The rain will come down and soften hard

things, ease the crust of pavement,

un-ratchet the ligament to bones.

Drive Up

Breakfast is cold and there are zombies in the window,

The whole earth has them arriving to ask

To use the phone and then eat you. That is how they work

Without even opening their mouths.

There must be something wrong with the poor man, you say,

And then Chomp you're on your way, gooed up.

People will no longer admire the sunrises

Because the light will only reveal how everything is gone

To shit. Which always was the probing truth.

There was one time when someone would cut

A hole in the ground and dig around for precious stones,

Just the same some fool would root in his head for a clean

Idea to marvel everyone with and give some little

Glitter to it all. You could see it on the TV first thing

In the morning when the light was soft and you

In your Pajamas could get optimistic before they

Came to the windows with their breakfast orders,

And all the editors wrote down zombie names

And addresses where they could be found rubbing

The rough stucco on your house soft trying to get

Their orders right. And the chef who made it in

To the gas station at the last minute can cut

Up some old Twinkies and braze them with electrodes

Yanked from old electric telephones still stuck

To the wall and juiced.

And that marquee out front is just as old and cheesy

And holy-roller as you can please and the lord

Don't want no early bird special. But that zombie does,

The trucker feller with half a head and teeth, he got a

Manifest on your load. And there is a bird, and a boy

In a red cap, and some hunters in Camo overalls

And just think, it'll all be over when you say go, give up

The rifle and stand up and declare the diner to be up and

Open the window and take a fast, fast food order.

Another Reason

It's almost zombie season. The factory

Girls are staggering to the beach

In decayed memory of carnival fun,

Condoms and jellyfish in the breakers.

From the jetty, one of them tick-ticks

Its hips along the boardwalk towards us,

Some near intelligence of hipbones

Showing through the tattered lace

Of jogging shorts

When a girl appears out of the water

Thumb and pointing finger missing

From her hello-come-here. She is old enough

And naked except for the nylons

She got caught trying to run away in

Out to sea, the sand and hair across her

Face and open mouth plastered, sand

Coming from openings, some tiny crabs.

When she's near enough you shoot her

In the leg and she falls on her side, gobbling

At the air of her missed opportunity.

I'm smoking.

When it got dark we climbed the light tower

And watched the dunes in moonlight. What if

She hadn't drowned but walked into the sea

Because she had forgotten what it was.

Her hair was dark brown. We ate beans

From a can. You threw the can down to the rocks

And began to laugh with

Fear and courage. This is the end of everything

And so beautiful .

Sleep II

I ride the relapse out, literally, on the motorcycle.
The night streaked downtown, the flint edge of cold to penetrate,
Five bad days break on the sixth like a wave.

I download an old album, choke the bike high for the cold,
Pound it up Riverside again. I ride it high strung,
Keyed up, banking straight into the sun.

It is music with its own fabric, it can wash over you if you let it.

It is what my son Henry calls monster music.

The light shatters, fragments through woods yet to come back.
Guitars rending, feedback from the bike, its music, it’s humming
In my chest. When the woods taper and end at Huguenot,
It is my emergence. It is joy.

Viggo's Hot Swedish Breakfast

On the Phone

Prof. Snodgrass: Oh this says it's buy one, get one....

Me: What?

Prof. Snodgrass: Mashed Potatoes.

Me: In a box?

Prof. Snodgrass: In a tub. I want to hear no derision on the subject.

Me: So are you getting the tacos? That's like six different stops. You gotta get the meat, the shells...

Prof. Snodgrass: Yeah, you gotta get the little packets..

Me: You don't do the meat with salsa and taco sauce?

Prof. Snodgrass: No

Me: You're kidding me. The little packets?

Prof. Snodgrass: Listen, Truckstop, I know it ain't Pimento cheese sandwiches or anything.

Me: "Truckstop." That's nice.

So later I sent him a text message: "Tubbed-Tater Eating Pennsyl-tucky Chicken-fucker". To which he responded: "I weep like Dave Mustane."







~

Be Good

They told me that an emotion is proceeded by a thought,
And in this way, if I thought right, I could begin to feel better.
They told me that I had to change my mind in order to survive.

Thus I am currently of the mind that the citizens of this world
Are not out to consume me.

Yesterday there was a service for one of our sisters that fell along the way.
Her father told us that an experience in childhood had fractured her personality,
So that later, as an adult, her mind would attack her almost daily.

I wasn't going, I needed money. It so happened it was held in a church
The next block over from where I'm working, I came back from lunch
And recognized everyone on the street, they were in suits and nice dresses.
I walked up to the church in my two days worth of sawdust.

I hadn't planned on going. In my mind, if she'd had a big event
I would go and wish her well, but in this case it wasn't necessary.
She wouldn't be there. She'd already moved on.






~

Sweet Viggo's Buttermilk Taints

Another Healthy Addition to Viggo's Hot Swedish Breakfasts.






`

Alchemist

Never forget there are still monsters, those without even the convenience
Of being human anymore. Don't you forget them.
This is undercurrent, consider it a theme. Like a tree
You have sap inside yourself, this is the season is rises.
Stand against that which gives way. Remember, you are not at war
The red-tail hawk high up in the dead part of the tree across the way
Might have it's own message, it doesn't necessarily have to be one of violence.






`

Sleep

--Sleep, Holy Mountain

I don't know what the hell this is either, I was just hunting for some metal. I do know for this music to be truly effective you have to play it really fucking loud.

The Trouble with Zombies

When you realize that you are being

Eaten by a zombie instead

Of reading a poem,

You will feel cheated at first

Then a little icky because your shirt

Is now wet and that makes you think

Of the time you spilled soda down your

Front at the movies and, because of shame,

Were forced to sit in the sticky

Until the darkness lifted. Go on, make

Sense of the sensation of being eaten

By applying some critical theory,

I suggest Deconstruction, the stack

Of fresh paper you were going to print

Your fancy poems on slips

Onto the floor as you flail after it.

The leaves are soaking up your blood now,

The zombie is chewing on a hunk

Of your neck, and you are shocked

To realize that it is your neighbor who

You were thinking of including

In a poem about dry cleaning and shirts

And stains and the way shame

Can unravel the mind. And as you begin

To black out you remember seeing

The neighbor beat his kid in the backyard

But you didn’t do anything

Because you were reading a poem

And it made you nervous to think you might

Have to go over and say something

And instead you sat there, reading

Your poem, trying to connect the bright, hopeful light

To the scene in the yard next door.

My Cthulhu

Do not fuck with it.

Chrome Rhinoceros

Diagonal

It’s a sunny day like this

From the rooftops I think the chain fence

Is come to.

I think of the kids dancing to some rowdy

Music passing in a car.

There is disaster strapped to a cloud

Shaped this time like Thomas Edison

The inventor of the wax sound tube,

Of the wind gauge and needles

Against skin to test the heart

For strength.

But from here I can’t really help

The hole in the world. That Chevy truck

Still lean to in the ditch for some week now,

I can’t resurrect the winter to freeze,

Nor poke out a loop of birds to pass on.

No, the grass is all grown

So far as I think of growing

I might consider when I’ll fall asleep

And slip off this roof, or when the arms

Come through the crack in the door

And nudge the lock off her perch, so

Long as I can still point easy at my own head

Like I was scratching or pulling the trigger,

Why not go hopelessly on a relaxed memory

And the clouds come apart into paper wads,

Toss themselves in the wastepaper basket.

New York Angel Head Baby

Typical Girls

1979

I Got Stuck This Morning

Behind a woman in Strawberry St. Market paying for her NY times in change while most of this song played (loudly for 7:45) on the soundsystem.

Needless to say I spent most of the morning thinking about Missy Elliot.

Rock the House

last one I swear cuz Dr. Snodgrass hates Gorillaz

Bill Murray

Good Mornin' America, How Are Ya?

--"pancake batter covering a sausage link"

Hellfire Rain On You

Near Reba

Coming down the back way off Sharp- Top Mountain, Peaks of Otter

A Gorillaz For Dr. Snodgrass

Yeah I know I'm behind the curve on these but we ain't got no fuckin tee-vee, see?



Henry's Favorite-Clint Eastwood





Henry's Other Favorite oh yeah And Mommie's too--19/2000




May-may's favorite--DARE




Daddy's favorite--Dirty Harry

Hardware Word-of-the-Day

Your first burst: Utility Nozzle

Her proud brow of encumbrance.

Next, mincing fish sticks into forbidden

Not to mention odiferous resonance: Beano

The hard line in the grocery section, post-elderly

The stare of greening faces like a sudden shore

From a fog: deadpan. A marbling of veins

Sticking screws and weeds. Bright flash

Lead beads and tweed geezers, shows

Us how to do. Wing-nut gallery

Despicable plastic glass fronts and frame

Fountains with teeth, shop suck,

Crimp this.

::

A Cremaster For Dr. Snodgrass

Hey Johnny Depp

You Never Check Your Back Pocket

Surely the Second Coming is at Hand

Workers of the World Unite

real Aliens

Can't Stop Loving You

caution--not safe for Abagail

--The Remains of Brian Borcherdt

Picnic Panic

Posthuman

The zombies arrive at the screening of your soul

Don’t look, the eggs are unhinging

with delight even as the antennae appear

Edge-shadowed from under the bunker.

In the suits of funeral participants, smudge dark

and dried up stiff around the stains, these fashions

they hedge the century by shaving more ice

into the ages by singing. These zombies are not

politely educated but they are critics, ultimately

Banging arrows into merchant dreams

with a thwock-thwock one two, clearing out helmets

and police cars just as fast as a wooly mammoth

strips out the safe harbor of the strip mall

by laying tread all down the city’s spine.

In the theater of the movie of your soul,

you are quaintly chewing on a drinking straw

as the bombing goes on, making you nervous.

Now the zombies are brewing coffee

with your brains but you have scripted a long

tunnel of escape and terror, so long

it stretches into infinity before caving in

but the zombies don’t stop squeezing through.

The Admission

This is the scene in the movie where we learn

that the zombies teeth become so accentuated

because the news of being dead travels first

to the mandibles then to the soul.

Maybe not so vampire or werewolf like

but you have to admit the teeth, the beacon

fires that let your whole being now it still is

and is yet no more, you have to admit they

get awful yellow awful quick, like a cart load

of corpses during the plague, the news

comes out of these scenes, and some bodies

get old and start to smell, right? and some get

up all tooth wrong, leaving little spurts of juice

like tips on the table and start to come

at you and you wonder how to get out of this

scene, the frames slipping so fast you fall ,

or you could be suspended in white space,

or slick on a wetness and as everything slows down

you notice how it gets long, gums wrinkling

like theater curtains and everything going yellow,

tumbling upon you like a sack of lemons was

held above you for so long and finally someone

came by with a sharp knife and sliced it open

on you, and you kneel down as they thump on you

because you have to admit it that we cant know

everything about the zombies and their teeth.

Mongrel Nation - origin of english language

Note the icy stare

Cuz This Is MY United States of Whatever

This Zombie Movie

This zombie movie takes place

Inside the head of the Zombie

In order to show what he is thinking

As he tries to eat the young

Person hiding in the bed

Of the pickup truck that died

Half way to safety which is the end

Of this movie and which is

Also the deception of safety

Which is also the end of this movie

About zombies and thinking

And getaways and parking

In the right place so as not to be left

With anything on your mind

When you go in to see this movie

About what the zombie is thinking.

What is his motivation, the method

Actor might ask, and the answer,

The deep moving memory of human

Concern that propels him in his

Bloodied suit and tie even into this

Theater is a as gruesome a mantra

As an executive bowtie or a sale on

Corporate farmed replacement kidneys,

It is the same burning question we all have:

Do you validate? Do you validate?

Do you validate?

I'm So Curious

Cordyceps Fungus

Probably the most stunning and horrifically beautiful thing I have ever seen on television.

From the BBC series Planet Earth

Misanthropic Needles

Evening in her dress lifts the hem

For a peep at thunder, maybe rain.

Hope for the tomb, laughter

Comes over a loud speaker

Installed near your armpit.

Quietly, quietly,

It is necessary to interrupt.

One point in the distance

Is a huddle of laundry

Dry, rotting, perverse.

Some hunters and their deer,

They tie the racket to a tree

And unload beer, carnage

Cleaning the esophagus is severed.

This deer has a sack of potatoes in her

Corset. Blue eyes

In the dark barn. Someone

Playing a piccolo stops

To a sudden distance. Recall

The posture of a cloud

Alerting us all to a mourning.

So many trumpets of countryside

So many calming ointments.

Meanwhile the geese engage in firefights,

Misled by the compass points

Engagement like pulling rings

Through their nipples.

A lizard crawls out of the cold

Remembering the belly of rock

Igneous, geometric spindle

I wish it was still cold out

So the sacrifice wouldn’t rot.

I’m the air in a swirl as the pickup truck

Passes. Frightful eaves outside a morticians

Bedroom.

Awkward slip of change

Quarters

Through

Nightclothes.

My minutes are running out: each

Second marked by a dog bark

To which I wince abominably.

Track of mud and hair

Enormous shame.

And the door is ambiguous

Eternal separatist

Possessed of elements

A car in the wind, a breeze

Over streets, some shopping

Perhaps I’ll buy a Peruvian Mask

Made of seal intestine.

Attuned to the cracking sidewalk’s

Edge, blank’s signature

Sand on wind convection

Tighter circles until synched.

Hanging plants invested

Of root, I demand a recount.

One grain catches me in the eye

My eye, caught and hung

From a tree, her spindle root

Flagellating in wiry creation

I am working a finger up and

Back into view.

This apartment is expensive

But it has a great view.

It could be said of kindness

She holds a pin to the sun.

So I dig with my hands because

Deflation is obvious,

The mounds are godlike, it’s a shame.

Merit and bloom, cantankerous

Twins shouting

To a mother unburdening her wax

I am not without a grave, spectacle

Not submergible without

A word for drowning.

I’m eating a footlong

And scraping out manifestoes

So measured by feet fit just barely

Through the walls

Made to enclose a god.

My sandwich prefers track lighting

While the subway looms neon,

Together they produce

A segmented apartment building

For the worm to inhabit.

It is in the ability to hand

Streets their walking shoes

That the technical louver of rainwater

Slices fingers off,

Children’s digits to god,

Her segmented ability to

Both gnaw

And be worshipped.

Balanced blood vessel

Is a skill of blending,

One foot on either side

Of the knife,

Beach sand gently sawing

At an unhurried mistake.

Dredging chasms of Bank Notes

Departed headstones.

The Jessica Numbers

I have no idea what's going on, but oh the colors!

btw-- New Pornographers

Metal Emo Blue House Fire Pit

Performance Piece--Winter 1992

Much thanks to "Wilbur Evans."

The Tubercular

If you were to fornicate with the afterglow

of your own wound

Keats on the Spanish steps

made the dogs howl with the smell

which is where great art Zombifies,

on the steps,

hacking up great spurts of lung

fair reader

this is one half step away from pure

meaning.

What is we had Keats’ brain in a jar

marked marmalade?

What is reanimating? watching cartoons

again and again

until the afterlife

I guess.

II. Infections Performed Before Witness

Because the origins of reanimation are unknown

doctors sacrifice volunteers on a platform

wearing gowns of purple with gold threads

before great columns of pyrotechnics on TV.

Today we have a Data Entry Technician from

Topeka interested in astrology.

She maintains

extraterrestrial given her faiths, Virgo in twining

the self orchestrated to the other new-by becoming

the gnawing distended self of Zombie, oof.

The moon above says “grow”. The Data entry

left behind weeps openly, floods of code, coded

streams of uneaten fast food lunches.

Bedraggled

looking back, the priest with serpent knife

says death is the possibility of sex, the roof

gasps. The porous transition of shape.

ABD biatches

Sweet Merciful Crap

I can't believe it took until JUST NOW for it to occur to me to post this here.

In The Sea-Change Nothing Is Safe

Zombie Oblique

You need a metal screen across your windshield

If you want to drive at night. Zombie eyes

Don’t reflect the headlights like a deer.

You might wish you could stop and vacuum

Out the car once in a while. Some gore, dried.

Some goop globed from one chewing

On the reinforced bars around the passenger

Side door. There are no more cigarettes now

To feed an ashtray with. Bars of light across

The fog, zebra night and stutter feet out

Of the green backlit soundstage our lives

Have rotten into. Some gauge out of

A storm cellar where transformations hid

Themselves to wade out the parade of storms.

Living animals crashing through the bushes

To die beneath the wheels. Run one over.

How about two? The screen’s a springing

Shock of protection, gives an off key twang

When another zombie dives head-to.

Finger Food

Relax, there is no history now

To rise up from and overcome.

But there are some photos left

On the kitchen table like desert

Plates. Some mistaken preserve

And reward of us on a bridge

With sunset, church and mustache.

Remember these pictures waiting

To come back from the dead?

The piazza from the café, Rosetta

Memorial of family lineage in

Genealogical phrasebooks rotting

In a medieval tomb. Parchment

Like skin, none of them family.

There’s the blurred thumb or half

Face and cheek too close up to be

Made out, but I can tell is you

From sleeping that close to your

Breath. Then the mistaken

Colander of being, separating

The life juice from our fleshy

Spiral shapes, the softening juices.

And there, by the photos, are your

Fingers. Sharply bitten off, one

At a time as you held your hand up

To protect your neck. Sure, I

Remember. What I don’t, that’s

What the pictures are for, just the

Beginning of a hand, reaching out.

No, I Am the Batman

& you are my mathematician monkey assistant.

Here is your helmet.

Every day and in every way,

I am getting better and better!

We've Got A Bigger Problem Now

The Zombie that Ate Paris

The Zombies will not stop emerging from my movie posters.

A giant head emerges from the map

Pate, brow, eyes, as from a lake which shouldn’t be

Over seeing as in a giant movie poster the Eifel tower

And what other exempla of Paris-ness like

The Moulin wind mill. Beneath these eyes

Which peel in desperation, the lower follicles

Brandish gunshots. Nevertheless this zombie will not stop coming

Out of the cheap plastic poster frame in the hall.

I fumble out the remote to see if that works

But the synth beat soundtrack swells to crashing

Until finally this hallway of bare light is claustrophobic

With my new undead conductor, bald and bow tied,

Honored to accept this award for cinematic ingestion.

Imminent Dread

Not, finally, the teeth.

Instead Mrs. McGuckian in her torn house coat

And loose arms revealing an elderly breast

Which tears on the broken window as she comes

Finally inside. We have been waiting

In the audience of smiles for evil to shed

The banality of its uniform, to bow

Politely as the Maitre d of the gas chamber.

For evil is as a polite as bumpkin in a classy restaurant

Smilingly observing the quality of each new dish

Of horrors, some snails, some brains, some ascensions

He, and I mean you, could never otherwise submit to.

Thus the smell of bodies on old clothes

Is more frightening than the actual taste of it, squishing

Over the lips into a stomach-less void of hunger

Instinct pearled around our necks

Like a noose of delicate acquiescence.

Zombie Susquehanna

We do not speak like pharmacists anymore.

Instead we groan in the dark streets like lovers

Eager to finish sowing the fields.

Some black and white photo of silhouettes in profile,

Pictures from vacations, head turned as though

To a voice calling from behind: over here.

We give up the city parks for pleasure

And look to walking meat sticks like flowers

To the sun. Here, the correct word for freezing

Is hunger. Not the mailbox, the imagined message

Through the air, that relinquishment of voice

To time and fingers slicing up the envelope

To return it to the hometown, little home

Drowning in the squeeze of its own juices,

Smearing across the table. We say what we feel.

Union Meeting of the Dead

This day is worse than the first

A scratching hand is still at the door

And this is more than beyond will.

For the Fork Salad and a Brain Trust local One-O-Seven

They said it couldn’t be done

Benefits for so many needy and of course deserving

Souls,

Departed. Or, just the same,

A food line, the chapter organizers here and there are

Pushing over some bits, fighting to ascend the podium while,

Unmolested, the keg of beer in the corner returns unhurriedly

To room temperature.

One legless member, hook ear and half an eye, plans,

In his after life, which is through a graying

Slobber of preserved being, some

Self revoked to membership through a mirror through a mirror.

And while they still glimmer to vote on limiting dues,

A gobbet of the Exchequer

Gores down Member Fifty Seven’s

Neck and into a pocket-protected front pocket.

There is a motion called to detonate a snake bomb,

And who will inherit the bite to the mouth on the mouth

Who the chunks, see

The members in dredge colored skin,

Skin of rivers and rivers polluted by grabbing smoke stacks

Hungry for sky.