Grüß Gott

They will tell you

Secret cobblestone alleyways
They will tell you

Long-forgotten castles
Buried in the foothills of the Alps
They will tell you

Streams converging on rivers
Diverging back to streams
Running through endless fields
And carving through rock
They will tell you

A farmhouse sitting in a meadow
Quiet and happy with loneliness
Glowing on the inside
Whispering its warmth
Content with its agelessness
They will tell you

Meandering through a valley
Of pebbles, grass, and dirt
A meaty slug crawls on its ancient belly
Through an ancient wood
They will tell you

Barges passing each other in the night
Waiving their homage
To Bacharach and St. Goar
They will tell you

The shadows of bombed out churches
Slickened by ash and rain
They will tell you

A soldier and a civilian in love
They will tell you

They will tell you
That Germany is beautiful

Kilgore Trout was Here.

I want to cry ‘cause I never knew him
And maybe I read a few of his books
And thought myself clever for having done so
Maybe I spoke about him at parties
And in doing so
Looked smarter to the people I wanted to impress
But I still want to cry
Because maybe I did understand some of his books
Maybe I laughed out loud once or twice
And had wished that there were other people around me
So that they could ask me what was so funny
And I’d tell them that he just described the
Length and girth of the penis of his main character
And they’d look at me quizzically
And I’d be smug with the knowledge that I was better than them
Because I understood it perfectly
And I’m still crying
I’m sad and that’s not just poetry
I’m sad because maybe they’re still putting
Anna Nicole on the front cover
While they bury this milestone on page 9
Crying because his mother killed herself when he was young
And because he sat in a meat locker while
Dresden burned above
And because he saw the Depression with his own eyes
And he was still funny
And still in love with this planet
And that’s just sad
And I love him still
Because I can’t stop crying
I would liked to have shook his hand
He probably would’ve asked me why

Blurbs

The guy who shot him in the head said,
“We will silence you in a way that you
will never speak again.” And he was right,
otherwise Hrant might have continued to say,
“Of course I say it was genocide.”
The Turkish Prime Minister said,
“Bullets have been fired at free thought
and our democratic life.”
He has to say that. What else can he say?
Certainly not something against his own country’s

“Turkishness.”

But thank God the U.S. State Department
stepped in and said, “We certainly are
concerned any time someone who has
been very outspoken in their views is
made to pay a price simply for their
ability to speak their mind.” Thanks, Tom,
we really appreciate that. I’ve never heard
“Keep us out of it, please” put more delicately
and with such tact. We’d ask you to speak
at the eulogy, but I’m sure you’re busy.
And you, my fellow Armenian… what do you say?
Are there words left in you to speak?
Then why don’t you say something?
Don’t worry; I’m just as much a hypocrite
as you are. I didn’t know who he was until
after the gun went off – until he was dead.
You can quote me on that.

My Canticle for Leibowitz

within
from within
from inside
inside my mind
through my arm
through my hand
through this pen
glide over paper
tell from
within
from within
from inside
inside my mind
stand by the edge
of these precipitous thoughts
and put them down
forever
so that they will know you
you were not afraid
you wrote it down
and one day
when all the moisture
evaporates from my body
may my bones remain
as dry as the ink that
has stained this page
with words that will
have outlived my life.

State of Apathy vs. Martin

When have I ever written anything
Bigger than myself
When have I stood for the rights of
Other people
People less fortunate than me
Have I ever told the story
Of someone else
With no gain for myself
Of someone else
Instead of me
Instead of the skipping record
Of my inner anthem
Plastered over parchment
And screaming for attention
Did you see my fists curl
Did you see me carry a gun
And stand on a wall
Did you see me rise to the challenge
Of preventing the oppression
Of good, kind-hearted people anywhere

No, you never have

And the swings will stop swinging
And the merry-go-rounds will stop spinning
And little feet will not dig in the sand to take root
And the sun will not nourish
The photosynthesis of our imaginations
Because the voices
that shouted out
“Nevermore”
From years ago
Have faded into
the greedy whispers of
“Give me more.”

Quantum Physics

Maybe you were looking for a cryptic
Way to ask
But writing it down makes it solid
So stop staring and say it

You can’t strip this down any further
Honesty is in two-tone grayscale
And this cursor keeps blinking
In and out of existence

Foot taps
Sweaty palms
And rolling eyes
All postpone the question

While my dreams are frozen
At zero degrees Kelvin
I’ll simply ask
Here we go

Shall we masturbate like monkeys
Or invent the wheel today?

...?

I’m just amazed by
All the crazy things
That will happen to me
Before I die
Some things will hurt
And others will make me smile
All before I shut my
take a nap for a while