LAMPSHADES MADE OF FLESH

Long and white pickings
of the litter slid past
this old television set
where filthy & famous
gorge themselves silly
fool's camera, off topic,
in some gorgeous idea
their own well-greased
bravado and beauty
will set Smith free from
the mules of mockery
of misery and toil
of danger, democratically.

Society of the spectacle
ain't without its icecapades
or pumpkins carved up for fright
until writing clay poems for raids
scattered along the glittering class
loving then shooting on first sight
sane pigeons walking the awful plank
hands in nobody's pockets nobody's
like some bayou country on the run,
we believe ourselves dutifully astonished
swooning at the slow taint of suicide songs
entering nations now as the thief moons
simple courtesy to some frenzied
God of the Dead licking steroids.

Hatred and phobias in the news
no time for sergeants or dirty Jews
no cross-bearers, no Zen, no holy cow
to rot this new perspective, only
the icy pool of blood to plow
words in a book of terror
left as Joe Mohammed's
calling card
to each of us who doubt
we're on the invitation list
engraved by fourteen centuries
of lust wandering the sands of time's
last stand. Time is the detonator.
Time is the fire, the flame, the scream.

Time in due time will prove itself the liar.

[ 2002, Washington, DC ]