I’d like to let you seep into me so that I become a spongey mess
Your fingers, explorers,
My appetite soaked in my desire for you
Even in a slightly less than perfect world I could let your intimacy envelop me,
Cup your hands to hold me
Until I run through your fingers & become a puddle of vulnerable
My desire to live inside of your embrace frightens my desire to be independent
Desires hidden in unshed tears
I cannot understand as you blink in Morse code
So I bat my lashes in time with yours,
dot-dash-dot-dash-dash…
Hoping, hoping
The blinking won’t loosen the tightly cradled droplets
But also hoping, hoping
You notice my quivering lips when I say, “I don’t love you.”

this world orbits dimensions unsure of themselves
and these tiny creatures inside me rule everything

eyebrows raise while eyeballs fly
to the tune of the fourth stooge, an indomitable spirit
whose spit makes rain on our heads

his purple smoke fills dreams like paper balloons
LISTEN-

the drive-through window is accepting hieroglyphs
and applications for unemployment in outer space
or sweet, sweet death for the happy scratch-off winners
with imploding mansions and cars melting into pudding

life has burrowed itself away in a discarded kiwi
LISTEN-

there is nothing there
and therefore no need for a proper search (engine)

peanuts have become fuel for our time machines
LISTEN-

the maestro is asking you to roll one up for him as well
and either you do or you don’t, it’s that simple

I am starry-eyed little pieces of joy
exploding in your atmosphere
I am happy tiny lovebugs
crawling tickling along your seams

Exploding through your atmosphere
I am b-b-b-breathless sleeping next to
songs floating through the clear clear
ocean waves of deliciously rough cat tongue

I am b-b-b-breathless lapping
clapping hands with rock candy cliffs
I am ecstasy (not the drug) dreaming of
Intellect and feet thinking of dancing

Clapping hands with rock candy cliffs
I am like playing steel drums with dreads
swinging in the night, evading birthday wishes
obscuring sink drains with the sway of my hips

I am dreaded steel drum players
In a bathtub full of lipsticked kisses
I am bubble-bath icing with rubber-ducky candles
I am starry-eyed little pieces of joy!

In a bathtub filled with lipsticked kisses
I am laughing laughing with each cup of Indonesian tea
I am sewing machines producing higher education
like baseball fields with computer key bases

I am laughing laughing armed with Indonesian teacups like
Happiness wrapped in crepes with cherry compote
I am shiny sunshine kisses under moon craters
with Chinese New Year rabbits in my wake.

Happiness wrapped in cherry compote crepes
I am as if your world had a soundtrack playing
Music with harps and saxophones
I am castles in clouds and fuck-me pot revolutions

I am a soundtrack for the world and
Scratch-and-sniff eyelashes giving you butterfly kisses
Or the first rhinoceros you ever pet as it glided down
The slide in front of you on the playground

I am scratchy butterfly kisses giving you
ice cream in the winter that tastes like angel food cake
and spaghetti that doesn’t leave a mess of sauce
on your cinnamon-bun-white dress

Like winter angel-food-cake ice cream tasting
that first Polly Pocket you swallowed when you were three
I am when the trees talk back after you swim in their branches
Around around the merry-go-round

I am starry-eyed little pieces of three-year old Polly Pockets
and cucumber sandwiches at noon on a Sunday morning
when the church is on vacation
in cleavage you can get lost in

Noon-day cucumber sandwiches in the morning
I am death wearing a tiara with one stone missing
in business suit made of jelly-bean flavors
and chocolate smothered blow-jobs

I am wearing a stoned tiara like death
With fried pickles dripping in your chin hairs
After pineapple watermelon ceilings
and a really good poop

I am fried chin-hairs dripping down
one thousand multiplied by infinity I love yous
after walking through leprechaun rainclouds
when you put both your feet behind your head

I am multiple I love you by the thousands
and am the nonsense of suction cups used for
running from the border patrol
across the vast Guadalupe river of your soul

Suctions cups nonsensical like
I am iPhone ringtones like fingerless gloves with feet in them
and being able to hand-write everything with letters
in upside down backwards baseball caps and take-out menus

I am feetless gloves with fingerlings attached
to budding spring-time cigarettes
I am never boring never bored Spanish English dictionary lovers
With toffee infused negligees

I am cigarettes in the spring like
I am sleepless nights and hula hoops stuck in trees
I am your arms holding me close
as pixies fly through monkey-grass clouds

I am hula-hooped trees stuck in a sleepless dream and
I am double double-sided printers next to taunting tamale stands
Using notebook paper made from melon-flavored chewing gum
In a jack and coke banana pancake

I am double-sided tamale stands like
electronica that sounds like spoken slam poetry
in a bright hot-air balloon when cassanova is along for the ride
I am pieces of starry-eyes joylets

Spoken slam poetry electronica that sounds like
The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics
On hot jalapeno mayonnaise spread with the tip of your tongue
like my nose belongs in a rocketship headed to inner space

I am the ethical professional society coda
Under a shit rainbow of gratitude like the Texas lege
I am rye-bread crumb wedding cake at a Pagan knitting circle
and I am so pleased with the outcome of my sweater-vest slippers

Under shitty Texas rainbow gratitude I am
old fur coats left to the coin jars meant for wishing wells
in a down-trodden economy after a surplus of penis drawings
on an ivy-league college entrance essay

I am meant for old coin-jar wishing wells left to
graveyard Moonpies in the in and out of anthills
I am the dinosaurs died because you touch yourself at night
with your fingers in my cinnamon cunt cranberry apple juices

In and out of anthills I am graveyards
like snow melting into pomegranate rivers of freshly dyed hair
I am inching up the tub drain of forever
because anything is possible if you don’t put too much platonic science in it

Like snow melting into pomegranates of dead hair
I am starry-eyed little pieces of joy
And I am the eternal infernal self-made orgasm of words on the page…

What is satire?  Satire’s the truth toned down. -Anonymous

If Bozo the Clown were President, he’d be sworn in with a BANG!  At the Inauguration, he’d Rocky Balboa the steps of the U.S. Capitol, and shadow box for the press.  He’d take the official oath with his fingers crossed behind his back: “I do solemnly swear, yadda, yadda, yadda,” he’d say.  “…and defend the Constitution of the United States, oh help me God.”  Then, he’d smack the Chief Justice in the face with a cream pie.  This would be followed by a 21 cap-gun salute and the Big Top Band playing, Hell, Here’s the Chief.  And Cooky would be Vice President.  Wizzo and Cuddly Duddly cabinet members.  They’d cartwheel down Pennsylvania Avenue.  Throw candy like a real parade.
If Bozo were President, he’d start an arms race, where all the weapons are toy flag guns that say, POP!  POW!  Or: KITOWW!  He’d have all airplanes built with the same material as the black box.  He’d put treadmill belts in front of fast food registers, so patrons could burn calories while waiting for their food.  Speed them up if the orders are Super-sized.  Instead of food drops to starving countries, he’d drop the starving off at Chuck E. Cheese.
President Bozo would then change the type of element that backs the world’s currency.  Instead of gold and silver, he’d make it water and see how fast we’d drain the oceans.  Class separation would be levels of dehydration.  Next, he’d make everyone from each country pick up and move to another—Britain to Africa, Japan to China, Germany to Israel.  Move America to Iraq and see if we’re really so advanced or if it’s just location, location, location.  He’d stop worrying about life on Mars and focus on death on Earth.  He’d settle all wars by having each side play the Grand Prize Game.  Each bucket made is another battle won.
If he were leader, he’d say, “Ask not what your country has done to you, but what you have done to your country.”  He’d make diamonds worthless.  Make gravel precious stones.  Then, the streets would be paved with jewels.  He would institute a reversal of celebrity.  Make movie stars, sports icons, and rock gods pay outrageous ticket prices to watch teachers teach children, maids scrub toilets, and mechanics fix cars.  He’d improvise his speeches and give the world a reason to laugh.  He’d text message the State of the Union Address: M-S, V-P-C, M-O-C, etc., etc., and it’d be the easiest to understand in years.  He’d put humans on the endangered species list, because we’re all one nuclear pissing contest away from extinction.  He’d bring ice cream to NATO meetings and say, “I scream, you scream, we all scream.”  He’d squirt water in Queen Elizabeth’s face.  Pull a rabbit from Hu Jintao’s ear.  Give a balloon to Kim Jong Il.  He’d make the world a fun place.  Make the world a better place.
If Bozo the Clown were President, he’d be assassinated with a smile.

On New Terms
by deborah garrison

I’d like to begin again. Not touch my
own face, not tremble in the dark before
an intruder who never arrives. Not
apologize. No scurry, not pace. Not
refuse to keep notes of what means the most.
Not skirt my father’s ghost. Not abandon
piano, or a book before the end.
Not count, count, count and wait, poised — the control,
the agony controlled — for the loss of
the one, having borne, I can’t be, won’t breathe
without: the foregone conclusion, the pain
not yet met, the preemptive mourning
about which
nothing left of me but smoke.

Living the Chemical Life
by chris anderson

I have to admit that I don’t care about the historical Jesus.
One way or the other.
I’ve always thought there were larger forces at work.
The sun and the wind. The sadness that comes in the afternoon.
Did you know that our bones are only 10 years old?
No matter how old we are, it’s always the same.
Something to do with cells, I guess. With regeneration.
There are miracles like this all over the place,
in everybody’s bloodstream, and that’s alright with me.
Doris Day was once marooned on an island with another man.
Years went by and her husband, James Garner,
was about to marry another woman. Polly Bergen.
But then Doris came back and sang a lullaby to her kids,
then tucked them into bed. And they didn’t even know who she was.
I think that life is just like this.
Sometimes we are the stone and the Spirit is the river.
Sometimes we are the mountain and the Spirit is the rain.

my heart cannot
keep up with
yours. it is

out of breath
from contented cigarettes
yours is
still

on
the
run again

I could be completely egg-hatched for all you know,
yet, still, you can’t see me,
I’ve eaten myself so you can’t see me.
(Logically, that’s the only way.)
Then, pulling the apple
from my eye,
you tell me how pieces
are missing.

You’re smiling (laughing),
all I can do is count your teeth,
and drink cement
like it has a cure,
hoping it hardens soon.

You’re whistling now,
patronizing me, or
maybe that’s selfish, a locked door
that knows he stands in your way,
self-aware and boastful.
His wood taunting you,
the grain, like fingers, begging
you to try and open him,
just try.

Your airplane tongue mocks
me, so, I sleep inside
your breath until
it’s safe to come out.

I get two frozen pizzas and some Cokes and some big waters and the total according to the checker lady I like is like $18.65 until I say “Oh really?” and key in the card number for the discount, which sounded a lot funnier (the reply) at the time because of my timing but now seems cliché, because it was, because my personality is usually exercised by my saying something stupid and smiling with a hint of I’m aware that I’m acting like this and I don’t really know why I’m doing it but if you try to patronize me I can reflect that shit into levels I don’t even understand and therefore have no real scope of the danger I’m going to face when I finally have to address that I’ve been looking at mirrors facing one another my whole life and entertaining the thought that the figures getting progressively smaller might actually be other beings I try to outwit, so come at me if you want because I’ve been practicing. But this lady genuinely finds me somewhat amusing so it creeps me out I’m thinking defensive shit like that.

Try to pull out a pen to sign the credit receipt cause she can’t find one but all I got I notice as I pull it out is my X-ACTO shank which is disguised as a pen (all clickable and clipable), so I let her keep on looking for a real one behind the counter and don’t bring mine out into plain view because I don’t want to look threatening.

And so I blow that illusion by telling the lady I like her so much right now that if she finds a pen I’ll write her a little love letter on the back of that receipt and sign it appropriately on the front and if she couldn’t find a pen for me to write it with I’d be glad to use this horseshit grift I call a personality to coo at her and would really mean it when I held her and kissed her neck and whispered that she was everything to me, and while I reached across the counter and locked her in with the one arm and began to etch into her back how much I appreciated her letting me in like this, I’d tell her I cant help that it’s so rotten and loud where I just came from and that I require passion like this from time to time to leave those voices merely whimpering.

My husband was a shotgun made of candy.

I wanted to kill his former lovers, especially

the Strawberry Shortcake-looking one

who swore she was eighteen and the other

who scarred his forearms with knives he

later laid on my body. On our anniversary,

we made love in a kiddie pool full of sugar

and afterbirth. For my birthday, he blew

into fifteen pink balloons and set them loose

around the living room. Then he wanted me

to let his breath out and chase after them

with my mouth open, always wide open.