The Effects of Isolation

East Coast shot vitamins into the head
Texas rides it's horse anachronism
California disintegrates
the goof irritable soul on a horse
green man in the Arkansas mud
banjo on his knee
plays this opera Oh Suzanna
plugs in an earphone
turns up the volume to drown out rock and roll
tumbling states play their Strat louder
the uncertified horseman jettisons pots and hammers
carjacks an SUV
for as long as the car chase lasts
in his mind he's Magellan Coronado Columbus
anything that sounds like something

 

“Mutt” is a mean word. So is “mongrel.” I’m pleased everyone is sensitized to the impact words have. “Dog.” Use the word “dog.”

I am a dog, as good-natured, complex, fallible and canine as any Afghan hound or Yorkshire terrier. And now I have to let it out. I’m not a star player on the dog show circuit. It’s not fair.

My name is Rover Fido Spot III, and I am a pocket poodle/St. Bernard mix. I don’t get stud fees. Town & Country magazine doesn’t care if I get heartworms. Bruce Reisner is out of room, and I’m dashing off this note on his computer. He won’t mind. He’s advanced. Sharp dresser. Nice guy to live with. Food’s all right.

Mr. Reisner has been aggrieved because he belongs to an ethnic group, is seriously low net worth and feels he is not fairly represented within city ways and means. He’s cut out of the loop. Too, that geezer has seen his share of ethnic intimidation, job discrimination, hostile environments and the furry undercarriage that transports prosperity to the lucky local few.

Mr. Reisner is throwing a bird about this, that’s why I had to get involved.

first published in Triblive: letter to the editor

 

We all know Punxsutawney Phil, the weather-predicting groundhog. Lesser known, there are many sage woodchucks all over the region, spanning all areas of expertise. Henrietta Woodchuck lives in the vacant lot behind the house here in Perry Hilltop. Her specialty is world politics and macroeconomics. It’s a popular double major back there.

Henrietta has been concerned for some time about what may be called a “corporate oligarchy.”

“At the local level,” she was telling me last May, “this can be seen in the form of the city/corporate/nonprofit partnership, which concentrates and singularizes economic and social initiatives, good or bad. It protects the wealth and power of the few.”

It’s bad for the poor folk. At the grassroots level, people have no bargaining position against that of the oligarchy. Henrietta says we need to force the Fed to rewrite the antitrust laws that were put to sleep when the Bush family was in the director’s chair.

I agree with Henrietta. The United States is in the grips of a corporate oligarchy, and it may be resisted by the use of antitrust laws.

sci-fi: They Don't Want Me

 They Don't Want Me 

I was driving south in this anus black hatchback of mine. Oil light on the dashboard, the Aladin's Lamp diode, was giving me BS, there was Roscoe's best synthetic 30 weight right up to the mark on my dip stick, and that's among the last things on Earth I trust. I think someone dumped prednisone in the brake lines, and I've always stopped in time, but it's like my neck is swelling up. Warrantee ran out while I was still wearing wrinkle free shirts and a bow tie.

Aside from natural worry, the interconnected rat-like thermodynamics in a vehicle equated wear and tear with my ass banging and sharp lower back pain. A pan-somatic deterioration in connective tissues emits vibrations, same as anything being viciously imposed upon. There really are flying saucers, and they have detectors. Your vibration tells them, 'hot fresh meat' they might take some form of interest in you. All mine are saying, 'Don't bother. No commercial or scientific value' I don't think a Martian would fuck me if it drank five six packs.

Poem: Untitled 12 3 2021