WWI

Grabpa and Greenma

They’re veterans you know

They fought in the war

The big one

Wizard War One

Which was at the time called

World Wide Wizard War to End All Wizard Wars

But pretty quickly everyone figured

There would probably be more Wizard wars

And it would be embarrassing

To have to change the name

So they just called it Wizard War One

Knowing that someday they’d do a second one

Who knows maybe you’ll be in it

If you’re lucky

Back before the war

When gropna and grelmaw were born

Magic wasn’t real

They fought all wars with science

So you can imagine it was a pretty big deal

When Smelnok, the First Wizard

Came up with spells

In a way it’s commendable

That it took 8 years before the war broke out

Before someone thought

What if we used these spells

To kill and maim each other

In new and whimsical ways

On a scale never before seen?

If we’re being honest though

Most of those 8 years

Was just everyone growing their beards out

Nobody wanted to fight in a wizard war

If they didn’t look the part

Plus everyone had to come up with

Plausible reasons to go to war

Besides that it seemed like fun

And they wanted to see what’d happen

Anyways eventually they started blasting

And the war went on

For an indeterminate amount of time

Due to the widespread use

Of temporal magicks

By the end it was looking like

The Necromancers Legion

Under the reign of Larry The Lich Guy

Would sweep across the globe

Kill everyone just to bring them back

But then the ingenious Xarxes the Silly

Cast his War Ending Spell

Which made every spell make a farting noise

And smell really bad

The fighting quickly came to a halt

Which leads us into this tepid era of peace

That we enjoy today

No one dares cast a spell in public

The ultimate taboo

It stinks so bad

When i was growing up

They’d practice down in the basement

Trying to undo the stinking stench

And it just soaked into the walls

I’d have friends over and they’d say

Your house smells like dookie poop

I’d be so embarrassed

But now i wish they’d have taught me

It sucks being in a wizard world

Without a spell to show for it

That’s why i got you this novice scroll

I don’t know what it does

But the guy at the shop said

It’s a pretty mild sulfur-y smell

Just promise only practice in the shed

I don’t want it stinking up the house

Happy birthday

genie timeline theory

When confronted with the wackadoo nature of this world

One feels

Being of sound mind and body

Compelled to cook up a theory

Of how and why it could be this way

And how much longer it could go on

It’s how a rational mind

Insofar as it is possible for a mind to be rational

Must cope with an irrational world

I’m frontloading this with self seriousness

Saying words like “must” and “insofar”

(I should have thrown an “ergo” in for good measure)

So that you can breathe a sigh of relief

When i say i think a genie did it

I think we are living in a doomed wish reality

Someone rubbed a lamp

And did not word their desire carefully

And created this world

Seemingly shaped in such a way

To teach an important lesson

But whatever the lesson was

It had to have been clear by now

Look around

Everything everywhere

Is going from subtext to text

All the masks are off

The world is loudly and bluntly stating the obvious

So why are we still here

Lesson unlearned writ large

Well i have some theories about that too

Some corollaries

One is that the wish was made by an idiot

And our reality is forced to warp

To become unsubtle enough

For the worlds dumbest guy to understand

Or maybe the lesson was learned ages ago

And the genie granted the third wish

To go back to how things were

And this wishmaker zapped back

To before he ever rubbed on that lamp

But all of us here stay stranded

In this godless loose thread of a timeline

Persisting via momentum

A dead end branch in the tree of time

Which will bear no fruit

And my final theory is

That the wish was made

At some point in the far future

And we’re just living in the backstory

Setting the stage for the protagonist

To zap into the year 2831

And see the consequences of their wish

That Jesus 2 was never born

Or something like that

We’ll never know

Which blows

Only loophole i can think of

Is if we got here via genie

Maybe some other wish can get us out

Monkeys paws and shooting stars

Birthday candles and dandelions

I’m wishing on them all

I’m wishing Godzilla was real

And that he’s smashing up everything i don’t like

If that’s not the world you wanna live in

I suggest you make your own wish

for Christmas i want

Well i sure would like

For my arms to get as long as

A city block or so

So i can reach anything i want

Within a block or so

And while we’re in the arm area

Maybe big huge muscles too

So i can crush anything i need to

Within arms reach

Which is quite large now

Hell

Why not double down

Give me big long muscular legs too

But of course that would make me

Look far too spiderlike

So make my body big too

Proportional pretty please

And i know this is a big ask but

Let me just rattle off

A few more things I’d like

Big sharp teeth to bite and chew

Laser eyes to look at you

Scales and spikes and horns

And wings and claws and tusks

An impenetrable hide

A resistance to flame

A big hungry growling stomach

A horrible roar

A thundering presence

The ability to strike fear

In the heart of anyone i wish

Just by the sound of my stomp

And my leitmotif

I also want a leitmotif by the way

I want the power to destroy

And the wisdom to be judicious

For Christmas what i want is

To become a big huge horrible monster

With every single power

And no weaknesses

And if they don’t have that

A $50 gift card is fine

sit on a panopticon otis

You’re in the middle of the

Inside-out panopticon

Dancing your ass off

Sweating bad

Huffing puffing

And nobody’s watching

It’s not good or bad

The dancing

And besides it doesn’t matter

Because everyone’s turned their backs

Politely

Leaving you this small void

A ten foot diameter

With nobody watching

Like the supermassive black hole

At the center of the galaxy

It all orbits around you

You dark star

Shining so darkly

Keep it all to yourself

It’s better that way

You alone

Allowed to be

By the grace of closed eyes

Eyelids pointed your way saying

I’m not touching you I’m not touching you

And if you close your eyes too

Maybe something magic happens

Maybe you snap out of existence

Only thing keeping you tethered

Was the itch of somebody else watching

From behind your eyes

Or maybe you just feel silly

Dancing with your eyes closed

Spinning around dizzy

At least you’d know

What it’s like to be

All on your own

company is sort of like fish, after three days they start to stink. And they have a duty to the shareholders to produce a profit quarter over quarter. Also. Just like fish. Companies. Fish Co. idk

If you don’t like the pasta

You can send it back to the chef

And he will make another pasta

But with more spit in it this time

If you don’t like the fish

Well you can take that up with

Ocean Jones

The man who owns

All the oceans

Bought them up dirt cheap

Back in the 40s

When all the troubles were happening

And it turned out to be a great investment

He’s made his money back

A billionfold

Now that every fish is paying rent

Every beach is paying taxes

And every shark is on the payroll

Used to be

In the way back before

That nobody owned the ocean

It belonged to itself

But that was inefficient

Ocean Jones

Who was just called

Landlubber Jones

Before he got into the ocean stuff

He streamlined the whole thing

Vertical and horizontal integration

He bought out Poseidon and Neptune

And now they’re all subsidiaries

Of Jones Incorporated

I heard about a guy

Who went out swimming late at night

Without renting a subscription

They found him harpooned through the heart

Out on the docks

Uhm

Yeah that’s about as much as I’ve got

On this premise

Basically imagine

There’s a guy called ocean jones

And he owns all the oceans

More likely than you might think

It could happen here

If we let it

facing the devil and walking backwards into the kingdom of heaven

Gotta keep an eye out for selener

Red skinned devil fella

Pitchfork and all

Looks a little sad to see me go

But he loves to watch me leave

I’m doing Coldplay the scientist

I’m doing missy elliot work it

Ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gnaht ym tup i

I walk the upward spiral staircase

Trip and fall all the way to the top

Saint Peter says my shirts on backwards

Little does he know

My everything else is backwards

My shirt is fine like it is

I stop before proceeding

Through the shiny golden gates

Into some vague bright light

Enshrined in clouds

I say Pete why’d you put the gate up

Why is heaven enclosed

He tells me heaven is wide open

This is the gate to be let out of the world

The fence encircles it all

Earth and Hell

And all the other planets

Along with their respective hells

I get distracted thinking about

What color mars hell would be

Because red is already taken by regular mars

Pete’s still talking though

So i tune back in

He tells me it’s just heaven anyways

The big white void

Where everyone is happy and mills around

Being happy and smiling

And no matter what they say

There are dogs and cats and fish here

And they are happy too

Everything that was still is

Permanent

But it’s really just a staging area

For you to get ready for superheaven

Where you become one with everything

This is just a place for you to stop being scared

Of no longer being

Enclosed

In a single body a single soul

Take care of your unfinished business

If you wish it

Go down as a ghost or phantom

A type of bird they knew you liked

Hang around for a bit and see the sights

And when you are ready

You’ll know

Dissipate into the everything

Paradise

Welcome back

cheers

Another Wednesday night

At the neighborhood bar

Looking alluring and nonbinary

Your nonbinary friend calls you

To ask if you want to go tonight

And you were already on your way there

Trailing behind two lesbians in cool outfits

Who evidently are headed there too

Everyone wearing bandannas

Is milling around saying

I like your bandana

To the other bandana wearers

There’s plenty to go around

Order food from the guy that knows you

Order beer from the guy that knows you

Read your little book

Draw your little pictures

Leave your phone behind the bar charging

Because there’s people here to talk to

Someone who remembers you

More than you do them

And vice versa

By the time your friend gets here

You’re already funny

Holding court with their mutual friends

Bartender buying your drinks

This is normal to a guy like you

A regular

the winner

I look outside and cough

I can’t see across the street

From the wildfire haze

Vindicated again

I pump my fist

I’ve gotten to be the kind of person

Who loves talking about the weather

Because it puts me within arms reach

Of my favorite topic

Without giving the game away

Coldest summer for the rest of our lives

I wink

It’s awesome to be correct so often

So frequently proven right

This will happen when you think about things

And then you say them out loud

Well maybe not for you

But for me it does

The way i move through this world

Like a red hot steel ball

Curdling through butter

Why is it actually

Lowkey satisfying to watch

My steak too subsidized

My hot knife too buttery

My lobster too living

I think about it for a moment

And decide it’s fine to kill it

My karma will permit one kill

I saved a monarch yesterday

Butting its head against the glass

I cupped it in my hand

And it yielded

We had an understanding

That i was there to help

When we made it out in the open

It lingered for a second

Before flying off

Immediately obliterated by semi truck

Black cloud of exhaust

I tried

I start to spiral

But unlike many of you

My spiral goes up

Upward spiral

A moment of kindness

Before being smashed to smithereens

Not a bad way to go out

Way to go me

Victorious again

I start choking on the air again

Stop coughing for long enough

To point at the stained sky and say

Uhhhh that’s not very good actually

Then the csi Miami theme

Starts playing in my head

So i put on my sunglasses

Even though the sun is blotted out

When something bad happens

I win because i knew it

When something good happens

I win because i wanted it to

My home is full of trophies and medals

My mouth is full of soot

There are two kinds of people in this world

Me

And everyone else

Catch up sucker

treehouse!

There’s is a tree growing

Underneath my building

And I’m content to leave it that way

I went downstairs and found its leaves

Pushing upwards through the floor

I felt the building shake

The floors shift

As this great tree sprouts from the earth

I don’t see any reason to move

I stick a shim under the legs of the furniture

I adjust the pictures on the wall

And i keep on living

Just like that tree

None of us has any more right

To take up space in this lot

Than the other

This section of our one and only earth

Does not belong to god anymore

It belongs to a guy called Land Lord

And like god he’s nowhere to be found

No place is permanent

Did you think that this brick facade

Would stand still in the winds of time

Through centuries of entropy

This building alone would remain

If you did you were stupid

But now you can learn

That all things crumble

I was never going to live here forever

Just as long as i could

Same as this blooming tree

Who despite all i know about plants

Has taken root in the concrete foundation

Six feet deep

Taken water from the pipes

Taken sunlight from the cracks in the floor

And decided to live

As long as it can

So my plan for now

So much as i have one

Is to stay here

As the tree picks up the building

So long as the floors are somewhat level

And i can still watch tv

I’ll stay here in this place

And when it’s time to go I’ll move on

Let the tree have it

I’m sick of paying rent besides

Trees have roots

People are meant to move around

self mutiny

The guy at the helm

Well he was only there by default

Because when everyone else got quiet

He started talking loud and pointing

Which by some metrics is leadership

But he is an anxious man

Hardly knowledgeable about the sea

That he’s gotten us this far

Is a miracle of Neptune

What we need is what we’ve needed all along

A captain

Not just some guy to steer the ship

A man with confidence and swagger

Who knows all about these waters

He’s seen a thing or two

He knows what he’s doing

Because he’s done it before

Someone with sea legs

To walk up to the helmsman

Grab him by the shoulder

And say it’s alright mate

Look at me

Look at me

I’m the captain now

tortoise v hare 2: deathmatch at kill mountain

I only have one idea

And it’s not a particularly original one

But it’s clanging in my head

Clang clang clang

Every day because

Despite what we know to be true

Despite all the evidence

All the common sense

All the reason in the world

Wisdom

Whatever happened to wisdom

Despite it all

Everyone’s rooting for the hare

They’re betting beaucoup bucks on the hare

Saying that not only will he win this race

He’s going to win them all

In perpetuity

Breeding like rabbits

They let them run rabid

Rampant and wild

Each new hare begets ten

And tenfold beyond that

They are making a graph

Showing the number of hares

Projecting into the future saying

If things keep on at this pace

Which they will

Forever

Soon 450% of earths biomass

Will be rabbits

Bet on it

Nobody cares about tomorrow

Nobody cares about carrying capacity

Nobody took seventh grade science

Nobody listened in kindergarten

The hare doesn’t win

He can’t

Sos i built a giant mecha-tortoise

To destroy everything

Slowly, deliberately

i promise that i can be trusted with the doomsday button

I promise that i can be trusted with

The Doomsday Button

I won’t press it

I really won’t press it

I’m swearing to you now that i

Really won’t press it

Unless

I have to

And even then

I’ll just hover my finger over the button

I’ll give us a chance to fix things

Before i slam that button down

I’m the right one to have the button

I won’t go nuts with it

I’ll just use it as incentive

To get things back on track

Nobody wants a doomsday

Least of all me

But if things don’t go my way

Well

We’re headed towards doomsday anyways

So what if we gave me the button

With the button i could set things right

I could skip the line at six flags

I wouldn’t

That’s not something i would do

I could walk into a board room

You know the type

Where they dictate

How many people must die

In exchange for how many dollars

I will wave this button in their faces and say

Smarten up guys

Smarten up

Or I’ll kill us all right now

And then I’d probably make them all eat poop

Stuff like that

Good for the soul of mankind

Rich guys eating poop

I’d walk around like Johnny DoomsdayButtonSeed

Telling people to

Smarten up

Do the right thing

Knock that off

Or Else

Eventually everybody would

Get on the right page

My page

And i could just sit lazily by my button

Drinking bloody marys on the beach

While everyone just went around

Doing the right thing

Knowing

If they stopped

If anyone stopped

I’d blow us all to kingdom come

having a really productive phone call with my stock broker

I’m not on Wall Street

I’m not on gambling dot com

But I’m making my investments

I’m placing my stock in

What i can actually trust

Self evident truths

That my heart is in the right place

Beneath my sternum i think

As well as on my sleeve

And a number of other locales

That if you cut me in half

I have enough heart to go around

And like a worm I’d half and double

All at once

That a city ought to be like a forest

That the natural state is commensalism

Balance mutualism community

That there lies a malignant strain

An offshoot of my lineage

Which like locusts want to swarm the earth

Pillage and ravage and proliferate

Infinite growth hand over hand over fist

Invasive and virulent

Creating waste of the land

And trusting their own crooked wisdom

To tell them when they’ve gone too far

That we will win against this strain

That we are not alone

Because we can’t be

We is plural

That there is no such thing as deserving

No such thing as worth

That we are here at all

To sing and hold hands

All else a blip

That i have something to contribute

I can and will help

That good is obvious

And evil dubious and convoluted

That what ought to be is simple

Easy and forthcoming

And ought not be fought

That you should know

The names of birds and trees

And your other neighbors

Whatever shape they take

That there is time enough to fix this

Leave it better than you found it

That we can’t count on god to punish evil

Because god is busy in heaven

And the devil doesn’t punish evil

He loves that stuff

That you can only treat the symptoms

For so long before

You need to take responsibility

For feeding all those cats to coyotes

That dogs are good judges of character

That you should smile at babies

Even after they’ve grown up

I’m doubling down on all of that

I’d stake my name on it

My vast fortunes and riches

Bet it all on red

I’m feeling lucky

one must imagine archimedes happy

I was born a baby

The best way to be born

But i didn’t stay that way no

I groad up

Which is actually very easy

All it requires is

Constant effort in all directions

At every moment indefinitely

If you didn’t do this

You would be crushed

By the weight of atmosphere

And this is why

If you stepped into

The vacuum of space

You would explode

So accustomed to pushing

You can’t stop when nothing pushes back

One must imagine Sisyphus

Slapping his big boulder shaped belly

Burping as he takes another lap

Up and down the mountain

Singing a song about the way it is to be

I, Sisyphus,

Free

saturn return

Saturn

Oaf

Sits tracing his finger in the dust

And lonely he has an idea

An idea too big for his small mind

And so it bursts from his forehead

Fully formed

A son

A girl son

He liked this son so

That he thought to make another

And plucked out his rib

Folded in his hands

Et voila

Another son

With his head and ribs hurting he considered

Maybe just one more

And this one he just made

By spitting in the dirt

And clumping it together

Add a drop of blood and

Clump son done

As you can imagine

This was not his last son

He went on making them

Piece by piece of himself

Plucked off and spent

Until he was just eyes and a mouth

And two big hands

At which point he saw his mistake

Valley clouded with sons

Clambering around aimless

So he raged at them

And of course he gobbled them up

Tried to stack them in the places

Where they ought to have come from

And of course this did not last

His sons pulled him apart from within

And fell to the ground fully divided

No more Saturn just his parts

Split to go their separate ways

Have their own sons and so on

But still underneath

In each fragmented piece of the oaf

A pull a magnetism

Drawing them together

Enemy of entropy

Old Saturn

Trying to return

trick pony

He’s a one trick pony

Okay????

And???

One trick is a lot

When you are just a little pony

Go on pony do your trick

Yayyyyy

I clap at your trick

I ask you do it again again

And he does his trick

Over and again

Does it to death

Really beats that thing like a

Well

Like a

You know

A dead horse

sun in retrograde

After a long night of ingratiating myself

With people who already like me

I do my little dance

I cast my little spell

And the sun rises at night

I drink myself to life

Stumble sober back home

Storm in so you can yell at me

Quieter and quieter

Til we’re just talking over dinner

Nothings wrong

I sit back and watch

As you uncook our meal

Split up all of the ingredients

Sort them into their own containers

When you’re done i ask

If you wanted any help

Now that my stomach is empty

I go back to work

I hunch at my desk

Spitting coffee in a mug

Until I’m tired

I speed home

So i can put the toothpaste

Back in the tube

Mess up my hair

Roll into bed

And as the sun sets

Close my eyes

Thinking

Yeah

That’s how it should’ve gone

dracula rules

I need to be invited in

I need your permission

I need to be wanted

I need to be allowed

That’s like Dracula rules

I say

Not realizing I’m saying something

Kind of sad and pathetic

At this house party

Before that can dawn on me

Somebody says

Yeah you’re right

DRACULA RULES!!!

Then everyone goes in the kitchen

There he is Lord Dracula

The pale specter in all his darkness

Doing a kegstand

DRA-CU-LA

They cheer

He’s sucking up beer like blood

Under his cloak and cummerbund

He’s wearing a shirt that says

BEER IS LIKE BLOOD TO ME

AND IM DRACULA

SO I DRINK BLOOD

Goddamn he’s cool

Always living in the moment

Because he doesn’t show up in photos

This coolness only exists

Right here right now

Oh

Oh damn

He’s biting down on Declan

Yeah he’s drinking his blood

Damnnnn

It’s getting awkward now

Declan’s doing a thumbs up but

He’s looking weary

He’s going pale and shriveled

Okay yeah this sucks now

Everybody is getting scared

Declan falls limp to the linoleum floor

Everyone screams

Dracula shrugs

This is vhat i do guyes

You invited me

Not my fault

Not my freaking fault

This is a cautionary tale

If you give a mouse a cookie

He’s gonna eat the damn cookie

If you invite a Dracula in

He’s going to drink all your beer

Then he’s going to drink all your blood

The end

clone jones and the doppler gang

Clone Jones runs a mean gang

South of Gene Street

They call themselves the Doppler Gang

You can spot them by their colors

Red when they're coming right at you

Blue as they flee the scene

They all look plausibly similar

Enough to give the cops a hard time

Getting anything to stick

They booked Jones last summer

For street racing

Nyoooooomm

He was back on the street in a week

Sporting baby smooth skin

And another tally on his neck tattoo

Everybody in the neighborhood knows

If you wanna get your hands on

Some genuine stem cells

A vial of thymine or guanine

You can find one of the Doppler boys

Down at the corner of 46th and Dolly

They’ve got a longstanding feud

With the Haploid Crew over westside

Bad blood between em

Ever since way back when

They all used to run with Bobby Banks

But split up when he died

Bled out in a botched robbery

Clutching onto a bag of cash

The burlap kind with a big $ on it

Buddy of mine was there that day

He was just making a deposit

He says the Haploid Brothers split

The second the first shot was fired

Jones had a mind to go down fighting

And if it wasn’t for Bobby he would have

This buddy of mine

Old timer, retired from the force

Real good, honest guy

Officer Frank Blundt

He hasn’t seen nothing like that

Since way back in the day he tells me

Back when Domino Joe and the Pushover Kids

Just about took over this whole city

They were overwhelmed

Outgunned and outmatched

But the second Joe fell

The rest of them toppled

Frank retired not too long after that

His brothers

Kurt and Ernest

Gave speeches at his party

Short, but sweet

Then we all sang the his favorite song

About that cowboy gambler

That lost all his money

Betting on a three legged mutt

Double Down Dan and The One Dollar Dog:

Ohh Dan you better run

Faster than all of their guns

Cuz Dollar Bill is gonna shoot you dead

You won all of your money back

And then you doubled down

On the only three leg dog

In this town

Yeehaw

moneymouth

Put my mouth where my money is

Trifold in my back pocket

Open for you always

Honest

I swear

Shit fuck and other cusses too

That kind of stuff

Just vocabulary to me

And when i pinky swear i mean it

Even if you don’t

I promise you

I’m lying

In wait

Calling my shot like

I got next

Don’t make me feel stupid

I’m not

I took a test and it said

Not Stupid

I’ve got the certificate

On the fridge back home

I’ll show if you come over

Come over

I’ve been training

I don’t know Kung Fu

But that’s not the only kind of fu

I made my very own fu

Watch me do my

Fu for you

I’m waiting

World wide like the web

Double w

That’s

4 u

Norwood IV

All of your hair falling out

Is a recession indicator

That hairline is retreating

Running for the hills

Pull out your phone and bet on it

The phone talks to you

In a woman’s voice

Or you’d assume

That’s a woman’s voice

It’s been a while

It (she) tells you

Gamble Gamble Gamble

Bet against other bald guys

To see who will go baldest first

All your bets are going south

So you start ripping out your hair

Market manipulation

Bet on how much it hurts

Softly patting your bleeding scalp

This is how the big dogs do it

Make their millions

You’re not just gambling — you’re training

Says your phonewoman

Training to be the richest man in the world

And the baldest man in the world

When that day arrives

And the last hair is plucked

You will be happy

You just know it

may i please be excused from the table

Sat at dinner once again

And down the long stretch dining table

Once again i can’t spy anyone

Who hasn’t shoved their cutlery

Into one or both of their oversized nostrils

They’re all talking at once

Sounding nasally, saying nothing

Out comes the waitstaff to serve us

Looking as miserable as usual

They do not lift their heads enough

To meet my gaze

And i fail to think of a gaze

That can say anything other than

I’m guilty

The food is immaculate

Expertly prepared and arranged

From the finest and rarest ingredients

And these beasts that sit among me

They grab it by the fistful

Smear it across their chests

Shove it down their throats

Hack and cough it up onto the table

They are inept and incompetent

Unable to even feed themselves

But they won’t even let me pity them

For they are more cruel by far

Than they are stupid

They stab one another with forks

Grope at the waitstaff

They scream and wail

And through the incoherence

You can hear the anger

The indignation at their cushy lot in life

Tonight i have decided to fast

My stomach will growl

And maybe for a moment

I will get to feel alive

Like i am a body

A living thing

But i will be expected back tomorrow night

And inevitably i will be hungry

I will fold my napkin in my lap

And do my best to savor the taste

Prime rib of an extinct omnivore

The last one if I’m not mistaken

I’ll say thank you to the server

Who does not speak my language

This language of mine

That has no word for gratitude

No word for understanding

No word for remorse

I might try to tap my glass

Raise and give a stirring sermon

Tell those who share in this communion

I do not think we deserve to eat

We pigs at this table

Have ravaged this place

Stripped and hoarded all the scraps

We were born fat and grow fatter still

Off the spoils of wars fought on our behalf

Not a single one of us on the line

The labor that sustains us

That keeps us here in hedonistic stupor

The hands that feed us loathe us

But fear over loathing

That we will take our bulging hooves

Engorged by excess and greed

And stamp down on them the many

Who hold no power or material wealth

Who have nothing that isn’t leased from us

Even violence itself is something we own

We ought not eat

I’d sooner starve than go on this way

I’d sooner starve than be fed on your behalf

I do not want this

May i please be excused from the table

And if i had said it

Put it like that

They’d stare

Wall eyed and blank

Snot dripping

And they would laugh

Like Beavis and Butthead

And I’d go quiet

Push my food around the plate with my fork

They’ll soon start serving human meat

And I’ll be too spineless to refuse

Until all that is left

The only organic matter

Is that which has ballooned around

Each and every chair at this table

They will turn at each other

Ripping and tearing and eating one another

And i will turn on myself

Ouroborowing

In some misguided attempt

At this late stage in the game

To spare myself from the sin

Of doing harm

none of my business casual

I wasn’t given MLK Day off at work

And nobody said a thing

Nobody had a thought about it

They are trying to drive me insane

I get 8 holidays off a year

And this is not one they recognize

Isn’t that strange

Doesn’t that indicate something

To anyone other than me

Please

Don’t make me feel alone here

There’s a detention center in Broadview

Holding captives

Refusing them medical care

Declaring them inhuman

And nobody says anything about it

It doesn’t even matter

Not to anyone in this room

Sat at any of these cubicles

They don’t seem to notice

They don’t seem to care

Another person was murdered by the state

And nobody said a thing

Nobody had any grief over it

They didn’t even seem to know

This scares me

Really truly makes me scared

I suppose there is enough apathy here

In this office complex

To tolerate anything

To permit anything

And i suppose

It will go on this way

Until it doesn’t

cow tools

Scientists have reported

The first known case

Of tool use

In cows

Which must mean they are smart

Funny to me because

Science

As a broad concept

Is painted as this

Infallible, unbiased, objective lens

Which you can use to analyze

And measure the world with

The practice of Science

Is one that is meant to look

Futuristic, evolved

Greater than the sum of human thought

But then you poke around and

A lot of the time

Running right along the spine

Is this value system

Which makes us seem small and dumb

It says

We are humans

And therefore humans are good

We are smart

And therefore smart is good

And smart is whatever we do

If it is like us it is good

If it is unlike us

It is less good

We use tools

And so we are smart

So if a cow uses a tool

It must be somewhat human

Humans have souls and go to heaven

A place where everyone is very similar

I think this kind of thinking

Is innate to the human mind

It’s the kind of thinking

That killed Homo neanderthalensis

It’s the kind of thinking

That is killing us even now

And without recognizing it

Naming and resisting it

We are doomed to continue killing

Anything unlike us

And that scope will continue shrinking

Until it’s each man for themself

And the world ends

Barren

Two men stabbing each other to death

Bleeding out in the same pool of blood

the beast game

Gun to your head

What would you do

If 100 animals

From $1 to $100,000

Were in a cage

In the worlds biggest trap

Above a spike pit

And you could push the button to drop them

OR

You could not push that button

What would you do

And what would it say

About your psychology

This is very interesting to me

Mister Beans

Gun to my head

I would focus on the gun

Who’s holding the gun

Who has gathered these animals

Of all variety of monetary value

Who has manufactured the cages

Who has installed the spikes

Who wired up the button

Who has placed us in opposition

Why is there a gun pointed at me

Who are you

If i too am trapped here

How am i different from the animals

How am i liable for a choice

When i can not make it voluntarily

There is no coin

The coin has no say

It’s just Anton Chigurh

Sat in the chair gonna murder me

Just Jimmy Donaldson

Pointing us at one another

And hoping we don’t see him there

Atop his beastly pile of unlimited wealth

And we won’t

We never do

The only way to win is to play

The only way to play is to lose

Your dignity and your direction

Your sense of self and safety

Your ability to see

They shouldn’t be allowed to do this

It’s cruel

All this and more

Every Wednesday Night

On Amazon Prime

Beast Games

$100 Burger

All of this

All of this pain and suffering

The bloodshed and war waging

The erosion of the fabric

Of the world you know and —— tolerate

It is targeted

Oriented at a single shared goal

Which is

To create a $100 burger

Now there’s nothing special about this burger

You’ve had dozens, hundreds of burgers

(Damn! Burger boy)

On par or greater than this ultimate burger

The difference

The only difference

Is that you’re paying a hundred dollars for it

Now

They will kill anyone

They will spare no expense

In bulldozing the world

Reshaping it into one

Where you are willing to pay

One hundred dollars

For a regular burger

The leader of your

Opposition party

Will get on the nightly news

Sponsored by Global Burger Inc.

And announce bravely

Pointing his thumb at the screen

At you

That he will be creating a panel

To look into the possibility

Of a $99 burger

And you will know then

In your empty living room

All of the screaming out of earshot

That you are fucked

You’ll be paying for that burger

All one hundred dollars

And you’ll be happy about it

Or you won’t eat at all

tar jay

The concrete sphere

Out front Target at the strip mall

It used to be a planet

Teeming with life

Not there’s many other ways to “teem”

All variety of ecosystems

Rivers and lakes and waterfalls

Forests and deserts and oceans

The Target corporation

Built a big telescope

A big space ship

And a big space sucker

Capable of sucking

Even in the vacuum of space

They found this planet

And many like it

Sucked it up

Painted layer after layer of red paint

Until it was perfectly sphere

Then they placed it out front like a bollard

It is not infrastructure

It is a head on a pike

A trophy of war

They are winning and gloating

So you see officer

I’ve committed no crime

This so called vandalism as you say

Is an act of righteous justice

Now help me push

Once we get to the top of the hill

We can let it roll back down

Point it right at the target

Bullseye