Clark Coolidge

 

ORGANISM STANDSTILL

When Batman was nine
Mike Hammer wasn’t even a spot
on somebody’s sex bomb my lamb
they only drink Stoli saying this
and there’s going to be an earthquake sunday
with drumroll     dim bulb in a sewer drop
anyway no more termites to worry about
Chain Link Boys instead     teenage sandwiches
the merest thought of assorted flesh
colored signs all over the lot like harmonicas
want to see a smile? dry tapsters need apply
the Eagle Rock with style and grease additives
these monkeys were born with     hum loud
loose your hole card bound for the coast like a twin
whoa!   somebody’s way out of hand here
I thought this was an erotic viewing
care for some full body sex?    don’t ask why
it’s okay with me   might get myself in trouble
here are the high-gloss troops invading backwards
these are electric times   the shout without
the throat     this stuff already full
just missing some blood    whale bulk
duct with a tuck    struggles make
you slippery far from Tipperary
all out hot for the flood
I’ll take some table water please

6XI04

HIGH TIDE AT GREY LAB

Most don’t know gunfire for shit
a fiat at Sunset Coffee Replicas
siren of a suspicious moth got loose
I signed myself out as a cop

Heavy chartreuse blinds the radar
clandestine night light bluing solution
devolution gongs with a substance élan
Saigon rears its next ugliness

Can’t afford to be seen as connected to death
mobile system clanks out the shortest riff
cuckoo are we?   somebody’s trying to pull
the ropes beneath this land

Consequently latest tone row by telephone
closed down on Eight Street the avenue open
you going somewhere?   bombs in balloons
a strychnine mesh blocks off the ducts

Abbott and Costello as shaman relief remnants
the snow always blowing up to knock on your door
I own the first folio of all their works
poem closing overcome by stones

7XI04

 

LONGITUDE LOHENGRIN

I may have seen enough humans but
all I want to do is stay home with a shovel
so to take care ‘neath the lights of the refineries
from here to Catch-Me-Later dripdry
uniform over the back fence coming home
leaves his blinds behind and stammers on
fenders that blend right in boots out there
just beside where you drive?  join up before
you may have to   rockets full of profit
the rain style is unprecedented hereabouts
click and you’re home supposedly and that
ain’t much in anybody’s untried chambers
you need a license to gull?  or to snail by?
so   we’re kind of lean on buildings in this town
they play Mambo Italiano through the midnights
when the needles come I mean the rain drops
this man’s lot is going to the dogs springside
popping seeds and short studs toward the exit
shining through his poor boy world

10XI04

 

ON DRAINBOARD HUMMER EITHER

We need a batch machine
us lesser participators in the stacking of the decks
but no bones ever rolled like stones do
now here is my assistant Shiftless or Shirtface
had a girlfriend till he got shitfaced
once chased around the perimeter
then set out remnants under the weeds
John Coltrane never owned a camera did you know?
this cat root is sweet even at turbo speed
not so shell peeled back back after all this
tube space among the chest meters
how long oh globe how slender?
Turkish fossils won’t drain you much
this bloom they call Cop’s Breath or else
Jackson’s Arm gone down behind
revenge is had by all good greeters there
I snapped that top off like greased weights
soaked to the shoulderpads   evidence of monks
I tell myself   out where the lunatics
don’t include Dracula

 

10XI04

 

TALES OF THE SPIRAL WARRIOR

Nobody is listening to the good doctor?
call for some take-out dreams
all the toilets of the world are settling down now
drop the vehicle in    forward to
a boiling hole at the center of the gym
you see that?  they’re talking about it on the radio
Roger Voltage your anchor and angular pimple
Formica Sid will be coming to
but what are you?  a sonic bore?
where’s the apple pan blooey?   hey
I saw that on Danger Rabbit
it’s not going to get under anything
that’ll get repeated through sheer vulcanism
what’s the bar code temperature?   puzzled
at all this earthlight down here
free to eat what?   cotton cake?
we are hemmed in by apocalypse fronds
I sense certain avenues   salted data
rebus composed of Earth waste
the journey is to the smooth
though we’re urged to not move

12XI04

   

EGGSHELL AS KEY

I cooked up a matrix you may find toothsome
the average lark lasts only till the eyedrops
too many and you might as well forget continuity
chilblains a shaky hand no more knowledge pops
guess they ran out of corridors from Alphaville
how can you expect me to wear black glasses now?
I know enough to take any oracle under advisements
Arkansas has more underground parking lots than any state
at the bottom of this elevator there is a cultured pearl
I must think of things closer to my own vein
care to give us a such-as?   bodies
fall to the floor with a concrete sound
I don’t understand how these people operate with guns
you are a Particle Child    am I right?
found out on read-back but under another sound
Barnacle Bill the Shithead   black blood on white bread
my failure I can never see the beginnings of things
ends are easy   everybody knows nothing
Professor Sawski is used to these sorts
the Denver Brontos   is there a bottleneck here?
if I had the power I’d raise up every man
woman and child and march them into the nearest hole
but even that gets old

14XI04

 

 

THE HOTEL HELP AND FRIENDS

What are your best cigars?  Magnetos
I pulled up my short but
there was something missing
a toad or wreckage thereof
the throb and thrash will outlast all that
has got not much pass the jello
outside is all blue rhythms swirl toward nightfall
we’ll stay inside where it’s never
Officer Clown screams of a desert throat not?
you skip dinner?  wishing to die an opera singer’s death
covers all matters of dashboard and cellophane
scum eh?  I’d tread lightly   someday
the fly will make up for the monotony
my hero all those silent years was a circle
all you need if you never surface
take and Aquippa break   Equipment Breath
scored?   now if I can just reach the trees
you can’t be a Yale Younger Poet all your life
you can?!?  a dark core do you have?
that squeal was heard in the world where
we’re going to be large and there she is
Missus Angina   a portable Niagara Falls
living at Tapioca Towers where
all the TVs need a washing out
and the birds carry bacons on their legs

14XI04

 

SETTLE UP

Here’s the death bird
fresh from the Elephant’s Trust
they play banjos backwards
you’ll be here much longer?
larger?   let me say you’re a drunk
the colossal life is something else
desperate to spin water stories
meanwhile I accept this bulb
hewn of mountain pine a joke
I then realized and raised up fine
thought I had to bulk up to iron things out
frowning was always hard for me
green as a pigeon cage as I was
that scarf came off the sunset
my favorite forgotten word?   radio
days I tried to suffer but
the 80-foor man was not from my village
I’ve given up trying to announce myself
but I do prefer museum coffee
put on my spending glasses and leave
not very patient am I?
the iron in this world bothers me
I could get a hat…   think of it
a straight man like me

5XII04

 

THE DRILL

I didn’t see a director’s name not even Meathead
cement truck no factor any more than
the whites of their eggs under duress
you could hear the drip of women in their tents
slogging through the crush of rippling feet
what can you say to me?   a very model niceness
frogs without quarters   fish in form
you can live nowhere if you say such things
give me a yell if you learn any better
water is your friend     or enemy
but that will not do    the day will come
a simple come and go of it all
black cat against star field forever
and yes I do weep

5XII04

 

GROANS THEN

It’s Don Pardon the atomic scenarist
dead in a girl’s frame on the boulevard
I’ll stand for that    nothing to do with me
just leave the important terms     flavors
she turned around and the sound went off
are we done?     the negligible dark doctors
brought me up on the sauce at a Mail Pouch regatta
heights of prematurity    you’re laughing?
I lashed out   prepared myself    lasted
have you been working on me the whole time?
now breechclouts are the subject
huff huff and I never got up again
some things are begonias you’ll see them
pools of unattraction we’ll burn in
I’ll let you off in spades   term limits
scouting the errortory    sun over the bungee cord
stop thinking   drive our colors to the ultimate
checked up on you didn’t they?   I’ll have to
hire a new roadway   dustup on which to thrive
dawn in the hedge rows my name is still Harry
an ocean of calomine and this Colorado!

 18XII04

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