3. Sailor

like “El” Ron Hubbard
steal a big yacht or 2nd hand
battleship sail round the world
non-stop w/ crew of besotted
brainwashed cult-slave sailors
in tight white bellbottoms &
                                          blue blouses
nautilus caps & bare feet at war
      with all the world (anywhere
                              out of this world)
pirates without victims

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10. Whale/Big Fish

      claim to be Jonah
thrown overboard pariah by the
            whole damn crew
swallowed by the whale of art
spat up half-digested witness martyr
                  the sea then
            would be language itself
      origin of language
                        seduction
                  persuasive rhetoric
stink of big dead fish on Mott. St.
noble rot for gourmet nostrils
      steamed carp
            boiled eel
casserole of oysters & roast pork
      salt-baked softshell crabs
            soupy crab dumplings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

26. Eel

worshipped in Old Polynesia on Ponapé
where cyclopean dense megaliths recall
H. P. Lovecraft’s paranoid fantasies
            about mixed race
devotees of Dagon taking over derelict churches
in Providence & Innsmouth perhaps exchanging
bodily fluids like Gnostic Carpocrateans
in 2nd century Alexandria—the wet dreams of Social Darwinism
writhing clump of eels in mud—
            detachable genitals
true emblems of eternal Matter’s
                  secret realm
if you thrust yr cane in their midst
you might change sex or else become
Trismegistus his-self—a
                  Calvinist no-no

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

13. Peacock/Pimp

Malek Ta’us Peacock Angel of the Yezidis
displays forth redemptive power of evil
apologia for Iblis by dervishes lost
in Cold Mountains of hashish Anti-Lebanon
Blake’s Satan last true lover of Allah
wearing iridescent lustre-silk azure cerulean
smarigdine gold dusted PIMP SUIT w/
leopard spotted socks red platform shoes
blue fur hat big as the sky in his
      pink PIMPMOBILE Cadillac
with shark fins & three unbelievable HOs
in the back seat & the former
      welterweight champion of
Baghdad beside him smoking a big BLUNT
listening to old Oum Kalthoum tapes at
top vol as they cruise across the desert
in sunglasses & mink w/ bourbon on ice
lobster caviar pulled pork sandwiches
chanting YA ZAT-i SHAYTAN—Hail to
                              the Devil’s Essence—
                                                                              NUMBER THIRTEEN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

74. Kite

ah all you
four winds
plus Boreas. Oh
Neptune if you rule them
or Juppiter. So sing West Wind
or breeze from garden of the beloved
each one in turn the apple (did you
ever deconstruct this metaphor before) of my
eye—send news—or if you can’t
send money—or anyway fortune
to the neo-luddite kid
who’s launched this kite
as if its string were
studded w/ diamonds
warrior kite
ready to
bite

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

19. Worm

Better a slave in Greece than
                  King of Hades
realm of endless grief & boredom
dark hospital room w/ flickering TV
canned laughter forever
                        [Cliché]
            An Egyptian notion
somehow
      vast broken sphinxes & pyramids
air heavy as a tomb’s but
      still shot thru w/ light
      like ambiguous moirée
                  shot silk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

49. Drunk

The sage can
            get high on
                        plain H20

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

17. MOON

                  vast crystal domes
w/ artificial atmosphere generated from
Luna’s interior ice mass artificial gravity
so huge they generate their own weather
dew heavy as rain clouds winds
so old that whole Arthurian forests
punking & rotting around hermit caves
Sea of Tranquility Gulf of Dreams
drowned in actual water w/ mutant
asymmetrical seacreatures
            afloat w/ redsailed dhows & junks
isolated castle-islands each one a
                  decayed gem
in a ring of ancient garden silver
HDQ of some cult or phalanstery
Temple of Artemis or Sin or Soma
      or Cyrano de Bergerac
vast city-sized libraries rescued
                        from Earth
(of Earth the less said the better)
here I’ll spend my next life

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Nun

EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE A NUN
rapt in Jesus Buddha or
lusty monk at other end of
underground secret tunnel
                                                          bake
white sugary almond cookies
                                         dry as holy love
that crumble in fingers of greedy virgins
in white dresses on Spanish
      or Mexican shady afternoons
crypto-Moorish languorous half asleep
like García Lorca in nun drag
            el duende

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

90. Old Man

bearded Pir when
      appearing in yr dream I
            warn you beware of good advice’s
counsel of despair. Sooner believe yr
                  Uncle Gandhi
when he claims to regain warmth & strength
by sleeping between two 13-year-old girls
                        —I mean
who wouldn’t.
Believe even yr cat (but not yr dog
      who only tells you what you want to hear)
The aged are such losers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

71. River

Each river its angel
            creeks their cherubim
dappling scrims of trees with
                  abstract cartoons
                        slant light
a dam comes to lock out eels
block salmon from their sex leaps
mills spring up & dump crap
into weirs polychlorinated biphenyls
            petroleum rainbows
anorexic sludge antibiotics & despair
the angels fall idle losing their
                  foreverhood
spilling & dissolving away

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

27. Wasp

October apple orchard beer garden
constantly recurring re-forgotten dream
Watchung Mts. North N. Jersey circa 1958
rotting windfalls goblinesque garnet clusters
golden smell of too much gold
golden pitchers spilt puddles of
                sun-lit back-lit
                bock lager pilsner
hops smell astringent yet buttery
                October light
pissy stale beer greasy wurst
souring the edges of this
        prole heaven attended by
golden hordes of beer besotted
                       yellow wasps
who in their own minds
                were probably angels

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7. Seashell/Snail/Feces

Forget that fag Freud—it’s not
about anus & cunt—think instead
of D’Arcy Thompson or Goethe
            metamorphosis
SPIRAL
      whirlpool of Slumberland
            down the drain of golden dream
hieroglyph without translation
Mesmer’s 3-D cone of hypnogogic sleep
deepest mystery of Number Seven
Seven Ruby butt-holes of the
      Pre-Adamite Kings