THE REAL BABY
My baby is real
I know because I wear it
like an accessory
going to the store
Its mouth opening and closing
all real-like
Its little fat fingers pinching
Oh baby, baby oh
My baby is real
I know because I wear it
like an accessory
going to the store
Its mouth opening and closing
all real-like
Its little fat fingers pinching
Oh baby, baby oh
People seeing I have a real baby
make faces and point and laugh
Go mind your own bleeping
business I say
and swing my claws
Have you never seen a real baby before?
Then my baby starts to cry
No not you, I say
never you
When nothing happens
I chew the pine needles
I put my mouth
on the baby’s mouth
so it can eat
Its eyes big and hungry
My baby smells of rotten food
and something else
I can’t remember
Will my baby live?
Looking through the window
into the river’s hungry indifference
I am not so sure
My baby is my dream and also my body
answering to a cruel gravity
aching in me
My baby senses when I am
having a bad day
“A body is the manifestation of a dream”
my baby says on days like this
“A dream is the impossibility of a body”
I don’t know what to think
or how
when it starts up
I hold my baby up in the screaming daylight
I bandage the scars
My baby I say oh
My baby
***
WRITING ON OTHER PEOPLE’S COMPUTERS
I find a house I like
and stake it out
and when they leave
to do whatever people do
in this shitty world this shitty beautiful
tragic world of shit
I sneak in
through a backdoor or window
sometimes I walk right in
the front door
something is always unlocked
there is always a way
into
America's grimy little
dark-knot heart
America's finely polished
porn museum
if an apartment, I like to stand
on the balcony
and smoke a cigarette
and pretend like
I'm going to jump
oh no help! I’m falling!
then find the family computer
I like a good family computer
so much better
than a private computer
I like a good solid stationary computer
not a laptop
who can write on those
floppy-flappy Devices of Evil?
I like a screen with a big happy photograph
of some family when I write
in the background
I like the folders
with names on them
maybe I get online
look through their history
because they say
every poem needs a history
then I write
for five minutes or so
without stopping
whatever
comes out
goodandbadtogether
something about
the crisp cut of morning
something about
how I love you more than
piles of leaves
until dead, dry, shiny
another poem
comes out
useless and wrong,
afterwards
the deep and profound
sense of
shame and failure
like a drug
I like to spread out
on a nice big
king size bed
and recuperate
I like to get under the sheets
I like to read what they read
but honestly
not many people read
honestly
most people are
fucking idiots
so mostly I just lay there
For Poetry
make faces and point and laugh
Go mind your own bleeping
business I say
and swing my claws
Have you never seen a real baby before?
Then my baby starts to cry
No not you, I say
never you
When nothing happens
I chew the pine needles
I put my mouth
on the baby’s mouth
so it can eat
Its eyes big and hungry
My baby smells of rotten food
and something else
I can’t remember
Will my baby live?
Looking through the window
into the river’s hungry indifference
I am not so sure
My baby is my dream and also my body
answering to a cruel gravity
aching in me
My baby senses when I am
having a bad day
“A body is the manifestation of a dream”
my baby says on days like this
“A dream is the impossibility of a body”
I don’t know what to think
or how
when it starts up
I hold my baby up in the screaming daylight
I bandage the scars
My baby I say oh
My baby
***
WRITING ON OTHER PEOPLE’S COMPUTERS
I find a house I like
and stake it out
and when they leave
to do whatever people do
in this shitty world this shitty beautiful
tragic world of shit
I sneak in
through a backdoor or window
sometimes I walk right in
the front door
something is always unlocked
there is always a way
into
America's grimy little
dark-knot heart
America's finely polished
porn museum
if an apartment, I like to stand
on the balcony
and smoke a cigarette
and pretend like
I'm going to jump
oh no help! I’m falling!
then find the family computer
I like a good family computer
so much better
than a private computer
I like a good solid stationary computer
not a laptop
who can write on those
floppy-flappy Devices of Evil?
I like a screen with a big happy photograph
of some family when I write
in the background
I like the folders
with names on them
maybe I get online
look through their history
because they say
every poem needs a history
then I write
for five minutes or so
without stopping
whatever
comes out
goodandbadtogether
something about
the crisp cut of morning
something about
how I love you more than
piles of leaves
until dead, dry, shiny
another poem
comes out
useless and wrong,
afterwards
the deep and profound
sense of
shame and failure
like a drug
I like to spread out
on a nice big
king size bed
and recuperate
I like to get under the sheets
I like to read what they read
but honestly
not many people read
honestly
most people are
fucking idiots
so mostly I just lay there
For Poetry
