Nose-picking in the Adirondacks

with Cowboy Joe

scrap

dear everyone I used to groan

only people who were anti were

cool as if the pros were banging drums

braying for war

now of course we're fighting side by side

peace at any price is not too dear

all my friends agreed & no one cried

prayers for war

god don't listen any more she's sick

devil took her stick poor girl I swear

still she hardly misses much the trick's

learning from war

recession in lunch cart verse

the opportunity cost of language

when sales are artificially low

is the coining of emotional verbiage

which can leave the average Joe

on the lookout for a ham-free sandwich

with saucy waitress to go



most people shy away when making hay

deploy euphemisms & if they do

occasionally let it all hang out

flush the Polaroids down a Portaloo

it's not as though they object to display

in other walks of life they strut around

almost naked for inst on holiday

play volleyball lark about at the pool

barbecue England's bangers by the pound

convinced their muscle tones & tans look great

yet doing what comes natural in the round
though dressed as organ grinders shall we say

how many folks would make a single sound

poetry revolution

nobody is physically killed

in the poetry revolution

stood up against the lectern

and shot by readers in blindfolds

while Frost is kept out in the 
cold Lorca survives to write

of humble retribution

dipping his pen in the blood of

gay marriage and gypsy
divorce meantime

rhyme & rhythm are hung

up to dry on long lines of reason

except Whitman who according

to some traditions is strung out on effigy

MAD women

with the naked thrill bananas feel

peeled in bedrooms Peggies compose

jingles advertising ready meals
pens between toes

O’Donald care

& yet another take on
this fake president's

likes & dislikes

is

how they make out Cuba’s

one of the few countries

Rockefeller's little

finger isn't on the pulse of

as if a crummy little

island couldn't transplant

a heart better & cheaper

than a few strands of hair

ink from the old

is it a duck-billed platitude to ask

if George the third etched his plan

on the bum of a waiting lady

or am I a stark staring Dutchman

experts may be divided

bisected on the rack

in efforts to reach the truth

for what can be extracted without gas

Master Nothing has nowt to say

& Mistress Telltale uttered no less

but Mister Social has spilled his all

& Madam Such as voluble as a fish dish

untitled

the pied wisecracker

drunk on gunk rhyme

don't do twitter

which ain't such a crime

their daily bread

not feeding the ducks may be lame
a meaningless walk in the park

struggling to dig up a name
too busy hunting of the quark

this universe ain't obvious
& the god complex a puzzle

religiously irreligious
at times in need of a muzzle

I come to the overwhelming
answer never ask a poet

if they've ever given delving
fifteen minutes in the toilet

& forgive my not trespassing
on the water dwellers' diet