SECTION THIRTEEN
POETRY PAGE FOUR
sm
COLUMN
FIFTY-EIGHT, APRIL 1, 2001
(Copyright © 2001 Al Aronowitz)
[Charles Potts has been publishing since 1963 and three of five new books
are in wide circulation: Little Lord Shiva: The Berkeley Poems, 1968,
from Glass Eye Books in Northhampton, MA; Nature Lovers, from
Pleasure Boat Studio on Bainbridge Island, WA; and Lost River
Mountain from Blue Begonia Press in Yakima, WA. He is the editor,
publisher and force majeur behind Tsunami Inc., publishers of poetry
books and The Temple, the third most widely circulated poetry magazine in
the US, now in its fifth year. He studies Yoga and the structure of oriental
languages. He has just completed a linguistic geography prosemetrium on
how the Chinese will clean the clocks of American conservatives in their
war for control of the Pacific Basin economy called Across the North
Pacific. ANP is in fact the second leg of a major economic geography
analysis entitled How the South Finally Won the Civil War: And
Controls the Political Future of the United States. He lives in Walla
Walla, Washington, but can be found almost anywhere.]
America
is an empire
Not a
country
Which
makes it impossible to defend
And
pointless to attack.
*
* *
Downwind
of Christian Capitalism
Vile,
loathsome smells of Boise Cascade's paper mill
Blow in
on the wind from Wallula to foul
Up the
thin and beautiful pagan fog of morning.
People
began worshipping the sun;
Theology
has gone downhill ever since.
There
are billions of people,
Christians
Buddhists Moslems Republicans,
Who
believe libraries full of fantasies for which
There
is not a shred of reproducible evidence.
They
meet in difficult to appreciate rooms
Full of
noisy fools for whom
One
life on earth is not enough.
*
* *
Geezers in Space: AKA the Case for American
Exceptionalism
for John Glenn, et al
All
Americans are exceptional, let them tell you.
It was
an exceptionally wide path God cleared for them
Through
the exceptionally beautiful American Wilderness
Over an
exceptionally large number of dead Indians
Creating
the exceptional doctrine of Manifest Destiny
Which
manifests itself in their exceptional reluctance
To
acknowledge the exceptional scale
Of the
genocide that is the bedrock of their exceptionality.
The
exceptionally rigid American Constitution
Has
governed the United States for an exceptional length of time
Disguising
the plutocratic use of power as democracy exceptionally well.
Look at
all the exceptional immigrants
Ratifying
these exceptional choices.
The
last thing anybody needs to know anything
about is
Geriatric
reactions in space, and so
An
exceptionally large amount of money was blown into space
To
discover the effect of weightlessness on mindlessness.
*
* *
Easter
Sunday, April 23, 2000
Also
Shakespeare's birthday.
Can you
believe
The
infallible Pope
Pimping
for the whore of Babylon
Sputters
around the deserts of Sodom
Let
alone Gomorrah
Apologizing
first for the Inquisition
Then
the Crusades.
What's
next,
The
Crucifixion?
*
* *
We’re
in trouble.
Car
trouble.
America
had a love affair with the automobile
And got
knocked up.
Now
these little metal bastards are everywhere.
*
* *
The Hot Dog Train, The H.M.S. Beagle
(A
journey to nowhere)
Because
Davis, California, is so hip,
Babies
are born there with bicycle sprockets
Instead
of ankles, so there no longer is any
California
transportation problem.
Because
the power is giving out
In
Davis, California, home of the terminally hip,
It has
been necessary to clean the refrigerators
At the
University of California at Davis.
They
found a lot of dead bodies,
Dead
bodies of Beagles experimented on
With
various traces and doses of radioactivity.
Man’s
best friend frozen stiff in a manmade Nuclear Winter.
They
also found the Beagle shit on ice,
Frozen
now but it was too hot then,
When
the dog shit stashers of Davis, California,
Didn’t
have the nerve to flush it down
Their
too-hip-to-be-radioactive sewer.
Who
besides us saves their frozen hound dog shit?
Talk
about Iceberg Slim as an anal retentive.
As
least we know what besides control of the plutonium supply
Turns
these assholes on.
But
they found a place in our not-so-hip-backyard.
Our NIMBY, WHIMPY, Governor Gardner couldn’t say no,
On a
cold day in Dog Do Heaven
To such
federal nuclear dog shit stashing scientists of Davis,
Who had
the long reach to the Hanford Reservation,
Home of
the Manhattan Project, the Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs,
Where
the radioactive tribe finally brings
Everything
including the radioactive dog shit home to roost.
When
the bona fide members of the Hanford tribe
Leave
the Reservation glowing in the dark.
'Twas
Kennewick Man
Actually
found
Radioactive
in a pile of hot dog shit.
We’re
talking about tons of this shit.
A
trainload of radioactive dog shit.
With a
half life longer than all the railroad songs
You’ve
ever been subjected to.
It
really sticks to your feet.
Sticks
to your ribs.
Sticks
in your craw.
This
radioactive dog shit of Davis, California.
Chill
out with
Radioactive
Dog Do
Dog Do
Dog Do
Radioactive
Dog Do,
(This
is not The Ballad of Los Angeles),
Keeps
us glowing in the morning.
I’ve
been to the world’s biggest cities:
Mexico,
Tokyo, Beijing, New York.
Where
smug mayors act on everyone’s behalf
As if
they had it all.
But
they better not have any radioactive dog shit
Because
we intend to corner the market.
I
don’t want anybody holding out on us.
Washington
state wants your radioactive dog shit,
All of
it.
And we want it now.
*
* *
The
Pledge of a Grievance
I
pledge a grievance
To the flag
Of the empire of the United States
And to the people
On which it stands
One nation under foot
With gliberty and injustice for all.
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