War The Omnivore

You eat time, men, women, children;

suck science, gobble God,

gnaw on nature, vomit technology.

Is there anything that you won’t eat?

Blown-up buildings, bombed-out trees,

murdered mountains, oil-choked seas.

Grassy graveyards that ricochet with green

grenades, art museums, libraries

made mausoleums; ants and horses,

elephants, deafened dolphins, hanging

plants.

Although you never stop

devouring everyone in your path–

village, forest, clinic, market,

bloodbath’s aftermath–

you never gain an ounce in weight

(and yet you’re plenty big enough).

You’ll always be in tip-top shape

as you lay waste to all we’re worth,

our bloated, turgid, morbid scourge,

creation of the human race.

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Earth’s Love Song To Humanity

Boil my heart in your tears.

Break me open like an egg

on the hardened edge

of your hate for one another.

Teach me the ways of your

technology.  Subdue me

with the logic of your

abominable God.

I have tried my hardest

to love you with all my

poison-riddled heart

but now my arteries

are clogged with your lies.

You’ve ripped out my bones,

replaced them with plastic,

invested the sinews of my

landscape with your ridiculously

insistent buildings, invaded my

perfect, starlit darkness with your

bristling electricity.

I can’t say I’ll miss you

too much when you’re gone.

Don’t bother closing the door

behind you when you leave.

The whole house will fall down

in the earthquake of my

implacable, inscrutable rebirth

as you and your narrow-minded

ways are finally ground to dust

like a cigarette crushed

in an ashtray by a gnarled

and dried-out hand

clutched from within

by your incurable cancer.

Dick Cheney Awaits The Grim Reaper In His Hospital Bed

A woman named Julia Butterfly Hill

tried to save a sequoia I wanted to kill.

Goddamned tree-huggers are always cramping my style;

I’m such a good person, so why can’t I smile?

So I took out my chain saw with a thirst for revenge,

tossed it into the Hummer, said, “Goodbye, garage.”

I drove from Wyoming to Olympic rain forest,

spewing carbon emissions o’er the land of the free

to bring down great Luna, the thousand-year tree

where Julia lived for two years–and for free!

But I had a mishap when I slipped and I fell

and I lopped off my leg as the saw dropped from hell.

Young Miss Hill was on hand to give me a lift

to the clinic where nurses were ending their shift.

As I lie here in bed wondering where I went wrong,

if you strike up the band, I will sing you a song

of a man who gave all for the country he loved

and developed the world with bombs dropped from above

Yet it’s clear to this hero God’s not on his game;

if He wants my devotion, his approach is real lame.

After gaining new life from a second-hand heart,

I must perish alone here, an abandoned old fart.

A Dog Named Insomnia

I wonder why he cannot sleep.

Perhaps because he had his balls

cut off when he was still a child.

I’ve heard that dogs dream

in black and white; I wonder

if their dreams are like watching

“The Munsters” on TV (and if so,

are they burdened with commercials?

That would be a nightmare).

He misses his friend, Sleepy the Cat,

who died when she was hit

by a brand new car.

Luckily, the driver was drunk.

He didn’t stop, apologize,

or remember the accident.

That way he could move on

without feeling guilt’s speed bump,

and resume the destructive dance

of his wayward, foolish life.

And yet, I did say sorry

to the dog for squashing

his beloved friend and hiccoughed

through a creek of tears

as we sat down on the couch

and watched TV

and drank our weight

in beer.

Shedding

Although I’m still a bit

too young to fill my days

with funerals, I’m learning

how to fail, decay, and fall

apart for starters.

I move less quickly than I did

when I was a young lad.

The time goes faster all the same–

you lose your mind to age’s axe

instead of going mad, the way you did

back when you knew how

to make yourself youthful.

I’ve grown too tired to make new friends,

too comfortable with loneliness

to stop talking to myself,

having no fear I’ll be overheard

or understood, a foreigner surrounded

by pedestrians dressed in earphones

and faces that reveal nothing

in eloquent silence.

My hair falls with the autumn leaves,

swimming semen soaring like salmon

before performing a splattering pratfall

on the table.  Desire continues

despite rejecting fatherhood,

reproduction thwarted and aborted

in favor of futile fantasies,

the fiasco of the future.

Besides, I’m too childish

to raise those who’d continue

antagonizing Earth

in the nickname of progress

and too aware how near the end

now feels as I am gently crushed

by the sundial’s shadow,

my grief ground down to sand

fine enough to fill a grave

yawning with either boredom

or fatigue–it’s hard to tell

from here, now that my eyes

are broken, dissolving as they shine.

Rude Awakening

A mosquito woke me up today.

She would not let me sleep.

I’d been suffering from insomnia

but wasn’t ready to get up yet.

It isn’t fair.  I should call time out

and flag down the referee.

But the referee is sleeping

and refuses to answer the phone.

(I wouldn’t want to interrupt him

in his reverie.)

When his wife nudged his shoulder

he simply snored at her, the way he

does all day, even when awake.

Therefore, I have decided to sue.

Concerned members of the mosquito

community should consider how

their actions jeopardize the slumber

of leopards, or darkening bananas

that cannot change their spots

as they continue to rot in the stainless

steel basket that lives atop the oven.

Perhaps they decay faster

from the microwaves that radiate

from the heart of that purring beast

who sleeps like a leopard when you

turn her on, instead of whining

like a mosquito

who won’t shut up until you

flatten it against the wall

with your palm, then wipe it off

with a piece of paper towel:

the meaning of life and death

in a nutshell the size and shape

of your ice cream scoop of a skull.

Courtney

In Memory of Kurt Cobain

You paid a man to rub me out

and said it was a suicide.

Enough people believed your take–

the press, police, your growing

avalanche of fans–that you could

get away with murder,

along with millions of dollars

I didn’t care for anyway

and the rights to all my songs.

No surprise that you should

share a birthday with O.J.

You said later in an interview

you wished you’d never married me.

I’d say the feeling was mutual

if I weren’t speechless

from twenty years of being dead.

I guess my understated revenge,

a grudging substitute for justice,

is that you’re already a has-been;

losing all that glamor must feel

worse than life in the slammer.

No wonder you chose to call

your first album with Hole

Live Through This.

At least one of us did.