mail out 9 copies: good fortune will
follow | it is the soldier, not the poet, that
gives us freedom of speech | there's a lincoln
log cabin up the road
mail out 9 copies: good fortune
will follow
~remember: we had our choice. we chose
the apocalyptic sunrises, the flooding
of kitchens & the drowning of sunsets,
drunken fathers stumbling down university
blvd. screaming out spyware
software code. we chose the syndicated
sitcom reruns, every 8 minutes the
commercial catering hard lemonade to middle
school boys & girls who will
twist their caps & forget to use a
condom that their teachers weren't allowed to
teach them how to use. we chose
day care, we chose the 229 thousand dollar
suburban development plot, we chose designer
blenders & oven mitts, we chose
our children forgetting the faces of their
parents & grandparents. we chose
every firebombing, every spiked glass
of Kool-Aid, every rubber bullet, every
cannibalistic serial killer, and every
little child’s age-digitized birthday face on
mass mailings with a coupon for clean
carpets on the flip side. we chose it all,
but i'm choosing out, choosing north or
west or maybe just in, inside where we
is just me & i'm driving a pencil
worn down like a candle stub, its eraser gone &
never existed, no money, no gas, following
screams of my dead~
it is the soldier, not the poet, who
gives us freedom of speech
Jenny would never want to go to Japan
because there's too many chinks over there
and Jenny doesn't see anything wrong with
calling them
chinks
because it's just like someone calling
her a cracker
I'm sure there's no connection between
Jenny
& one U.S. marine stationed on the
dangerous shores of Okinawa
who'd kill anyone if he got called a jarhead
flipping up one little schoolnip's skirt
wanting to Kodak her tight little Oriental
butt
her lips just like that chick Lucy Liu's
this marine's seen Full Metal Jacket
he knows these little Asian girls just
want to love
big camoflaged American leathernecks long
time
and I'm sure there's no connection
to Pearl Harbor's prodigal USS Greeneville
with sonar off, radar off, swelling
like the Joint Chiefs' elephantine cock
battering one more Japanese hymen
four Jenny's & two Mr. Haponek's drowned
in blood
stained the rich shade of Ohio harvest
soil on the pure Pacific marital sheet
and I'm damn sure there's no connection
letting other students tell Jenny it's
racist
giving her a warning---waiting for dismissal
bells, waiting for tonight
so I can go home & lie down with my
wife
whose very existence I owe to hotblooded
Dutch men
tried of their hotblooded Nederlander
women
who sought simple women, different women
that would look down when they'd look
at,
to lie down on either sheets or the stones,
to spread little girl legs when their
blind cocks rise.
there's a lincoln log cabin up the road
Going to Greenup: the road is easy
but the miles--- going to Greenup means
eating where every waitress is a robust
and pregnant 19
serving burnt biscuits, eyes peering
over the counter at you drinking your
well water.
You're trying to tell someone
about spending last night with the lights
on
because darkness brought the smell of
burning
light where there shouldn't have been
light
You're trying to tell someone, except
he
doesn't want to hear anything but her
voice.
You can understand that--- if you had
a woman
be her, eyes only for you, voice falling
like her secrets are perfect December
snow.
If she was home, you'd forget the road,
forget Greenup
stay home & stare at her. Touch
her throat.
Read books. Raise children.
But eventually she'd discover the flowers
within her
which you could respect but never accept
so you'd go to Greenup
or she'd stay perfect, stay her
like a buried erotic fresco. She
would.
You'd leave anyway. Because she
wasn't Greenup
with all its unknown front porches
& bottomless scoops of ice cream.
That's not Greenup at all. Not the
Greenup you knew.
Wasn't there a car dealership here
but the salesman only cocks his head
offers you a test drive. A field.
It was a field.
Too late. The sign says Greenup
but like all signs it lies. You
know the truth:
Greenup is only a few miles up the road.
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