MR. CRUNCHY

(part three)

This dance you do, what do you call it?
I call it the No-Skin Crispy.
I call it the Nutra-Sweet Goose-step.
And this thing between us is not love,
but waxy build-up.

Call me by my real name; Mr. Crunchy.
Call me by my real name; Microsoft Willy.
Call me sugar when I melt at your mouth-step,
filled with a fever of false promises.
Call me Son of Cheese-Wiz,
Son of Sons of the American Spread.

I will cover this landscape in redundance.
I will cover it with the flu of surrender.
I will check on the status of my deadened heartbeat
and think, “This will be the only sound
I’m hearing when I dance, when I dance,
the only sound I’m hearing
when I dance from now on…”

AFFIRMATION

It’s not that I am dead. It’s not that.
It’s just that I’ve been burnt a little, that’s all.
When that happens, you tend to loosen up,
in terms of slipping. Parts gone since
you last checked them. Funny.
Things seem to run fine, even in their absence.
Maybe they weren’t needed to begin with.
There’s so much excess baggage nowadays,
it’s hard to tell.

The circle has wandered farther than the name
we put on it, its’ letters spread so thin
they barely cast a shadow.
We don’t even recognize them
as letters anymore; just long, deliberate slashes
made through the landscape---to tell time, perhaps,
or was it to measure miles?

The mechanism rusts in the desert.
I keep walking, hoop through hoop.
It’s not that I am dead.
I just keep walking through.

EPIPHANY

Things work out. Things always work out. How many times can we fool ourselves? There are candles burning out there, there are lights that stay on all night.
The glow on the sill lasts long
after the switch is hit off,
but still we turn our shoulders
like the bows of ships
toward what might hit us,
and we curse the things that bring us here.

AGE OF GRACE

Suddenly, all the clocks fell dead.
Their arms went limp, rigor mortis set in. The front doors blew open.
Those of us inside were finally coming out.
We were sons abandoning our fathers, children
who left the radio on, the faucet running, the oven burning high as they stepped greedily into the sunlight.
It was an age of grace, I think,
and all we could do was pick up and leave.

PRESS HERE TO ACCESS SEXUAL HEALING
I love to see you this way;
your wide-spread, circuited body.
You who were once so distant from me,
now made an infinitely soft-wear.

My keyboard shimmers in symphony
with all twenty of the programmable senses,
my fingers press further
through this gnarled and circuited light. My joy-stick begins its’ joyful wagging, dancing like an ice skater freed from my palm:

(The pleasure center is under control.)
(The pleasure center is open for business.)

(The pleasure center has been seized by terrorists. Please stand by.)

So many buttons to push, so little free time…

THE PRODIGAL GODZILLA

(part 2)

The president’s forehead grows thin as paper. Inside, a fire is burning, whole libraries are turned to ash.
The White House becomes a party hat, passed around drunkenly by the side of the pool.
No one can decide a thing.

Switchblades flick open; horrible abortions are performed
In the shadow of the golden arches; Everyone is on
A blood-mad search for the True Son, the Son of the King.
If they can kill him, they might feel a little better.
Everyone’s in a mood that’s a lot like drowning.

Now their fingers strum a symphony on my belly.
They clamor for the placented sunlight to stream from me.
They are hungry; there can be no waiting.
They’ve always played a game with fear.
Now they want the real thing.

My breath, the angel wings of butane.
This is my body, I give you this gift.
I will give fire back its’ original name.

THE PRODIGAL GODZILLA

(part 1)

When I was old enough to stay up late without a babysitter,
the TV transfixed me: I would sit, afraid to let the blue glow fade, to feel the cold photo of night press itself against the picture window, because I knew Godzilla would be there,
taken from the screen
like a drop from a petrie dish suddenly grown full-size and looming.

Godzilla, some stillborn child put on this earth horribly starving,
with a throat thimble-thin and a gullet wide as an ocean,
full of a depleted vocabulary of fire and rage, never able
to express his needs and so hated, fired upon
by toy armies of reason.

Godzilla, I get back the X-ray from the hospital;
He’s in me now, trashing against my ribcage.
I knew junk food was a curse, but not this bad.
I didn’t know it could have children. Now my womb
swallows the sky, and everyone is watching.