At the end of the world

He presented himself as
Virginia Justice, American,
Red, White, and Blue.
The Monk asked if he’d been in government in his day.
“I ain’t ever been involved in government.”
The Monk checked the blowhard, shoving him aside.

The Highest Art

Chastisement comes to us from the Greek,
just kidding it’s from Old French,
and before that Latin.
And you can follow it back to PIE and beyond—
To the first poet to utter a sound, and beyond—
From since there’s been vocal cords,
or rattles,
or hairy legs,
there has been chastisement,
and poets do it the best.

Load and effort

Balancing the needs
of the artist with
the needs of the man
is a hard thing to do
beginning with it’s the man
writing this because the
artist is dead immobil-
ized at least, feels
permanent, tormented
and unable too,
but in there somewhere
is the eye, the last piece
of the artist recomending
linebreaks and howling
over word choice
and worrying about how
this will ever be digitilized
ones and zeros motherfuckers
it’s impossible he shouts
his last words and dies
back again as I’m saying balance is a pitiful word for what
I want to describe:
a fulcrum 75% along a beam
with the needs of the artist at the short end

Analogistan

You can stay out
He tells the cigarettes
You come with me
He tells the coffee

When he hits the edge
And can no longer balance
The composition book
On his knee

Heading out or in in
Search of a suitable
Surface to lie or lay
His book and his pen