Try Not To Be a Serial Murderer

try not to be a serial murderer

if people find out
no one will sit next to you on the bus

no one will want to dance with you

people even creepier than you are
will ask for your autograph
and take it home
and add it to a pile
that means even less than your list of dead did

you'll get to be a has-been
a boring creepo
and people won't even try
to overhear you at cocktail parties
to hear about the movie
nobody will make about your exploits

and even the next fad serial killer
won't want to kill you
because you're so boring


From The Troubles (1993)

Wildly Until

I


back, back from the flashlights could seal his doom. His eyes got to his feet and scrambled he had to run, and fast...as he went, into the alley. He rising only to race into the fog had to be...he knew not what but this time stabbing pain in his right arm, he pushed himself to his feet wildly until, panting, with sweat and burning them closed, he came boards, blocked his way... he crashed through the barrier safety, he sensed the taste of liquid unite with that of the sweat pain.

this naive newspaper and his arrival here.



II


He dare it as they'd said it would:

It wood red schoolhouse go down above which a sign wearing a black handlebar white shirt and a blue. But like they belonged their wearers travelled all of them wore the same. He sin town, the Grand Hot quaint though it was.

Upon was the center of attention handlebar mustaches, headgear on their head and they all stared at a show the same as the others but

"A room"

he nod

"No,

"Off odd here now."

"When?"

"Dunno," darker else brutes ped over the top cap fell off. entire skulltop was a concave "Didn't tell me." reporter's head. The hats skulls from everybody's view, and even zombie!

They had surrounded him. "Four others!"

everything and



III


"You o"

It was dark. Moreorless hazings of the light, like that "Yeh"

"I'm you?"

"Archere?"

"You room. Or you starve

"We're... Just... Any room with bullets"

John's red. The brute caught it. The guard's weapon and waist. The rope above holding the guard's rope son threw the noose-end. He missed. He tried a third

"See you

He climbed



IV


heard Marie's voice

keeper staggered forward, muttering then bowed what was left of his head. And, there was a concave metal disk. That smiled.

"Now you are master here," she said

wearing a bright green bonnet




From The Troubles (1993)

Note: I've done some minor punctuation changes from the original, which was punctuated to remain true to the material from which it was cut up. There are a few irregularities remaining, but the new version may prove to flow a little easier. The sole remaining version of the piece from which "Wildly Until" was cut is now posted to my other blog, Things I've Done For Blood.

Shopping Cart Poem

i began to understand suburbia
when i saw you
in matching suburban leather jackets
pushing your twin shopping carts
down shattuck avenue
with your clothes     heirlooms
and keepsakes from your kids
piled inside
i hoped you'd kept some money too
to survive

neither of you
was dirty yet

i hoped your neighbors
wouldn't have to join you
and wondered how     they could let you be here
instead of in spare rooms
in their own houses

from The Troubles (1993)

Walking Down

i began to believe we left
when i saw you
pushing twin shoppers
with your clothes go down the hall
and keepsakes from a foreign bedroom
piled inside     invisible flesh
i hoped you'd keep
to survive
as i would wake up to

neither of you
was dirty yet
no longer to their taste

i hoped your wonder how we were
and wondered how
instead of in their opium dens of coffee house

i began to believe in eyes open at the image
when i saw you     way across my bedroom ceiling
pushing twin love overcame them all
with your clothes     you're tired
then your bones ache
and keepsakes from you make the decision:
piled inside     move while the angry dogs are left
i hoped you'd kept in your head
a gold machiavelli
to survive

from The Troubles (1993)

Inheritance

plug in the right hungrier you're born
machine will     hungrier hungrier     you stay
hungrier famously     then
fortune may hungrier hungrier
look at the
tilt
two million years of brain stimulation
and the talent isn't yours
hungrier     hungrier
all else
a lie of bar soap
hungrier     hungrier
caveman fortune
looked at the spear
hungrier     hungrier

you
your children

from Thebes 1991

Urban Werewolf

i want to find the city again
in its nighttime     pavement secure against my feet
people out dancing
many false moons

my soul needs that jolting
juice like meat juice i can't find
in any place less wild     with light less courageous
light in sympathy with my metabolism light without which i'd be a dog

light     i am tired of the country now
of stalks through wood beneath full moon
alone of my kind a city boy in fields
not those of my experience

i need to find the city soon
where four bare feet always find solid sidewalk
and meat juice flows like neon
and there are always plenty of sheep to kill

from Thebes (1991)

Soho Night Walk

am i a dinosaur?     am i a werewolf?
alone i walk scaled
bigger than in memory down tiny streets larger
in the past than when i see them now
there are people here who look like me twenty years ago
and walk in couples
i walk alone
the full moon alone is my lover
all the songs in the clubs
i've heard songs like
and if she were here
she would ask me
what did you do these twenty years
and if she were here
i would tell her
repetition repetition
fossilization

from Thebes (1991)

Travel Haiku

thunderous applause
heard in summer's train station
just a baggage cart

Killed

killed
like something six legs in the wind
something human or inalien

heroic
when carrying something
or a free meal

the call was interrupted

blocked at the broken switchboard

talk about what

can't

to your seat on
these assholes
and are made you
and more concrete
i see

and actually
dreams
none

in
giant-reaching
steps


from Thebes (1991)

Anti-Nuke Poem

i hear heaven in my washing machine ears in my piccolo
and generations of voice in my ears i'm
tired and unaffected on winter roads of greek television commercials
and rain on the roof is no encouragement to my taxidermist's duck
why     won't you cease to lie
when you tell me my phone bill is due
and i must pay under threat of eviction at armageddon

armageddon atomic bombs without fireplace
armageddon starvation without french fries
armageddon the disease of farting window panes
armageddon the car with no wheels on a collapsed freeway
armageddon running the road to ruin up your nose the last time
armageddon turn on the tv there's no cartoons

the face in the mirror shaving has a blade held close to it
this is not a joke this is real even if the image
could never cut itself
you move the mirror and image after image holds a blade
after awhile it seems abstract
after awhile you ignore the abstraction
at armageddon you can't cut yourself once




from Thebes (1991)

Can Dial Monday Through Friday

fraternity boys trembled at the
services being preened
left their pajamas behind
aware of how many hot
diplomatic sources as saying
the most favored souvenir of a
tragic collision
would ruin the electronic surveillance stations

pointing to a pair of automobile license plates
he'll have made by spring

temptress of a beer
of course i want to get
products and people since then


from Thebes (1991)

In the Village Below the Castle

when dracula is first broadcast in color
nobody can deal with the brightness
that the sky isn't green anymore
that the castle's not red
that all roses aren't grey

and that blood really flows in channels of hunger
that faces white as teeth are rare
that the healthy skin of the gorged
elicits envy

the entire village
clumps in front of the broad clear window
of the appliance store

at first each brilliant image makes them jump
then it's like a movie of the dead
the lifeless light outside
the grey brick and the snow
the hushed eyes
the faces preserved within scarves

The Next Night

the next night he held the cigarette to his mouth
til it was all ash but the last quarter inch
we told him be careful
if your last hit's too hard you'll burn yourself

he slowly
put the thing out
in the ashtray

put the bend of a finger
to his lips
lit the nail end

smoked it down
to the last quarter inch
didn't bother
about the ashes



from Bar Room Ballads (1992)

eat

eat

drink

mess

party

we



from Thebes (1991)

Poem For Andrew Carnegie

red green orange
montage the entire country
by summer has two months to get
all awake the last time

this island its chest builds
to catch a drop
of vain loneliness of radio
enough to bear steel

an ancient road
its bones buried




from Thebes (1991)

Variety Lights

getting paid is so much more visceral
when you get paid in cash

sliding all those little bills
all the varying shades of green and grey
into the autoteller's slot

the feel of that paper
that isn't paper
between your fingers
as the machine takes possession

their names invented
by denomination
on the slip of white paper
the machine gives you back

they're listed by number
an attempt at anonymity
but you can still see their faces
smiling back at you

Curse

peop lefindt
ables an d flo
were d plates
of ba dfo
od gu tach
es low
tort
ur e

Evolution of the Suit

we're being trained on early mammals now
before that it was reptiles
before that amphibians
before that various kinds of primitive fish
and way before that one-celled organisms
so hard to see      so boring that way
you spent hours staring out the window
out at nothing


they tell us the course will peak
with the evolution of the modern businessman
that this is what we're all detined for
the peak     of what a being can be
i only hope that it'll be springtime
with something interesting to stare at outside the window