These Three Things

Shut the f*ck up. 

What? 

Huh? 

I said shut the f*ck up. 

No. 

That’s not how it goes. 

So how does it go? 

It goes 

Yeah 

Yeah… 

She loves you… 

Yeah yeah 

Yeah. 

Baby. 

Baby. 

Love me. 

Love me. 

Do

Sugar t*ts 

Love me 

FRAME:  He balls his fist and swings it from up high.

Like the descendent arc of a lunar orbit,

He hammers it down onto her face. 

She would have ducked, but 

The knuckles split her lip and cracked the eye-tooth 

Before she could even shudder to think

How much money it would cost to get this fixed.

She spat drizzled blood-lumps before even registering pain 

As the radio played 

Baby baby 

Lover 

I’m gonna 

Love you 

She loves you 

Yeah 

Yeah 

Yeah 

MEANWHILE: the dung-beetles carry these moments on heavy shoulders 

And bring them deep down to

them dead guys,

that get burried 

in those toons

all... 

 

She loves you. 

And the Egyptian F*CK YOU mother f*cker 

Smiles and says 

F*CK YOU 

And f*ck 

You 

You 

You! 

He swings back and hammers.

Turn it up 

Radio songs transmit,

Saying 

Yeah, Baby….  

The radio plays a soundtrack 

And your face feels 

Linoleum spit 

And blood 

C*m/&

P*ss  

At one point, you finally knew it was wrong:

He said, “Three fingers?” 

And he didn’t even cut his nails. 

Nails! 

What about four? 

Huh, Baby? 

Ohh… baby… 

Baby 

Baby 

Baby… 

These words transmitted across the airwaves 

And made the violation more brutal. 

They were drawn to it, to the babybabybaby soundtrack

That sucked up the heavy air in the room

And pulled out the mist that ordinarily

Would have provided some kind of moisture.

Now, the dryness protruded like red-rectangular corners,

So they preserved the moment and cut the rectangles in half.

in half

in half

in half

They shuddered

Stuttered

Stumbled/&

Spit

Onto your body

(and into your ears)

A transistor kiss:

"I speak lies."

Yes, they transmit their candy-coated stink.

Their smiles smother

Beneath the

Baby

Baby

Baby...

So shhhh

____________________________

A Prophetic Interpretation for Gatsby's American Dream

"The great Dust Bowl will be filled with the bloody, skinny bodies of Jews, and you will eat them in the 40s.  You will consume them and keep them safe in your bones and only when adolescence is invented and the people are wrapped in a warm blanket of entertainment will Pharaoh lift his head and nod and hum a simple tune from the Beatles...   Within three days, Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your position, but some of you will be kept in prison to test whether you are true.  You will be tested during these times."

_____________________________

g=01g/e 

"She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
 She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
 She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah"

Songwriters: Paul Mccartney, John Lennon. 

_____________________________

 

FIRST APPARITION: 

I whirl in bits of silicon sand. 

Listen to me, if you can-

Three lines

Three rhymes

Three times.

Enough! 

I’m lost. 

I’m lost. 

Yet you shall be tempest tossed!

Into the cauldron throw

For-to-eight digital. 

SECOND APPARITION:

A thought, a thought!

I squeezed my hand

into an X m(ark)s the spot!

I balled my tight fistly

Still leaving inside me 

Room for the asterisks 

Caroled in by dismal beetles 

Who marched in twos down 

Into the frames. 

  

Later, we—the savages standing mute on the shore—took notice. 

And we marveled as the letters sailed two by two 

And gathered in great numbers 

Forming certain words 

That appeared like remnants of frayed ghost-ships. 

And as for you, this comes to an end 

When blue-blood lips have kissed 

All the men! 

(And all the wives 

And all the lovers 

In all the lives.) 

Well then, indeed!

Usher me Down, dear beadle.

What you spoke will never be!"

THIRD APPARITION:

His father is a silver thread. 

And the Flesh? 

The Flesh is a woman

Who pounds into this 

Double helix the noise

Of a heavy stone

That dives deep.

With that conscious kiss, 

She regales in the cusp 

and then in the wane. 

He abused her then,

While the music played...

But not again.

And those brothers,

The twin crescent moons,

They dilate in unison! 

FOURTH APPARITION:

Let him light the mist and carry it on. 

Ah, to be open to 48 frames per second.

When two mirrors face, each to each,

How many reflections can be counted?

Squeezed by his hand into the arc of a story,

How many asterisks can he hold in his fist?

How many are shouldered onto the backs of dismal beetles 

Who carry them down into the blue-blood dung. 

I whirl in bits of silicon sand, 

48 frames per second 

—perfectly digital— 

And perfectly preserved in the hexagonal honeycomb.

And you?  Will you squeeze into the ark of the 

Asterisks that moves down dismal tombs 

On the sturdy shoulders of dung-beetles?

_____________________________

By the way, I did find out about the man

Who tried to sneak in here.

He looked like an ordinary player,

An ordinary piece

In this game of chess,

So when I introduced myself,

I had no idea who or what he really was...

On squares of black and white,

We engaged as pawns

Of polite conversation.

Eventually we landed on the 

Safe subject of pets.

Like a proud parent, 

I took out my phone and shared

A picture of my dog Dexter.

"We named him after Dexter, the serial killer,"

I said, laughing.

He in turn told me all about his "Ophelia."

"It was my love for Hamlet that

Led me to choose the

Name Ophelia 

For my pet."

I have a "gift of discernment."

I'm able to see colors 

Where others see black and white.

So when he talked about Hamlet and Ophelia,

I heard the "auditory cipher" 

and determined its hidden message.

How do I say this without unsettling you?

Here goes: sometimes the principalities 

Choose to speak through the players

Without their even knowing about it.

In a game of chess,

I hear fragments of a cosmic debate ensue.

It's not unlike driving in the car, turning on the radio,

And catching a bit of a song that suddenly "makes sense"

With the events in life.

And here's the interesting part...

The players don't know it.

So when the man spoke about his dog,

He didn't recognize that his words betrayed his terrible secret.

I asked, "What was it about Ophelia that you liked?"

I said it more like an accusation than a question.

BAM!

He knew that I knew.

All pretense disappeared.

The fish was pulled from the water

And it stammered, stuttered, stiffened

On a chess board where no babybabybaby 

Could distract from the truth.

I think he realized then that the airless rooms are real.

They must have terrified him because he turned to me 

And rather desperately apologized.

He didn't deny anything or try to explain anything.

He simply apologized

As if I had some power to absolve,

Which I don't.

If there is any power,

It lies here in this cavern,

In this maze

And the Father and the Son

And the lengths one will go to.

________________________________

“F*ck it!” I say. 

I have no better place to go, 

So I’ll slip into the ebb and flow 

Of the tidal-march beetle-drum. 

It says ‘Boom chicka rocka chicka rocka chicka boom.’ 

Just like a pig, see?    

 

Meanwhile, I remember standing in front of my class  

After teaching Macbeth for the ba-jillionth time. 

16 years of ‘walking shadows’ and incarnadine seas: 

It all makes my soul sleepless with dis-ease. 

How many millstones begin with something I teach? 

No more!  No More!  Next time, I vow.

Skim the witches, skim the ghost, 

Skim the murders... 

Next time we will focus on these three things: 

1) ...He’s worth no more

2) They say he parted well and paid his score 

3)  And so, God be with him…