(The Dead Spill-O Scrolls)
So, why does Spill-O
marginalize himself thus?
Because you
can’t tell secrets
in paragraphs--
when everyone is listening.
He’s at it again, compiling a manuscript
deep in the desert of the world’s concern,
so when they find his hairy glacier of a corpse,
there will be something for his stiff finger to point to.
He used to owe his debts to silence
But then began a ringing, a singing with a science.
He was dizzy through the night and into day
And now it seems he has bells to pay.
Spill-O remains convinced
that rhyme will awe the animals.
And he calls late at night to swear
that he wasn’t just being an asshole poet this time.
The sign on 34th Street
really read 99-Cent Dreams,
and that someday, all those bounced checks
are going to be worth something.
(Spill-O’s Career—Some Questions for the Boss)
Twenty years of self-portraits.
Three point two million memos to self.
Spill-O stands all the way back. He looks at
Standing back. He looks at looking at things.
Something more drastic may be needed.
The sky shows no cracks. And he cannot conjure even a phony fervor.
Spill-O’s usually on his own side.
But tonight, he has some questions for the boss.
(Spill-O’s Hinterlands)
The bus gushes Spill-O out with its freshened air
upon a town built on grinding wheels
into the minor-league-hockey shadows
that small cities cast
on shadegrown people in shadegrown towns
Ugly because unhappy because ugly
Failing to culminate
Deer by the railroad
and no right side of the tracks
Bridesburg, Spotsylvania, the Newarks
proclaim beer, Jesus and television,
cling to every easy gleam
reflected off the mongrel earth
On the roadside, Spill-O walks a long way for fast food
while pickup trucks prowl for roadkill
Growth, giddy and unprecedented,
makes no sense until you see the decay
Green plants eat every endeavor of man
All the sleekness, modernity and comfort
the high marketing druids have promised for a half century
sits by the river, half finished, the jobsite looted
The steel turns brown and poisonous
inside the concrete
By the passing cars,
Spill-O is consoled mightily
by what nature and neglect
have made of the last century’s boasting
(Spill-O’s Slow Progress)
Obesity, obscurity and poverty
All the dark eventualities
Gather
The unconscious forces,
the comatose twin of reality
accelerates, strengthens
The rules are a rumor
Even the sunlight seems a day old
The silence rings on, grows like the beard on a corpse
Maybe he muddled on for years
and lost his chance to decide anything
Spill-O had to do a lot of looking
to do a little seeing,
through the cigarette smoke,
karma, cancer, sin and rising seas
A fighter deprived of human enemies--
struggling with forgetfulness, rage, decay, delusion
Spill-O’s only hope is in the terrible frustration
of trying to bring something forth from his mind
that is not a mess
(Spill-O’s Prophesy Readies Itself)
A voice told Spill-O that there is a New York City
in all eleven dimensions
That there is a real reason
they called it the Manhattan Project
And the eleven dimensions, the 128 senses--
there is a natural passage to these places
They kept coming,
insights with the rank whiff
of real mental illness about them
Tied to his noble work with a dirty string
Spill-O stepped out onto Twin Cheeseburger Plaza
and wondered what would be asked of him
So, why does Spill-O
marginalize himself thus?
Because you
can’t tell secrets
in paragraphs--
when everyone is listening.
He’s at it again, compiling a manuscript
deep in the desert of the world’s concern,
so when they find his hairy glacier of a corpse,
there will be something for his stiff finger to point to.
He used to owe his debts to silence
But then began a ringing, a singing with a science.
He was dizzy through the night and into day
And now it seems he has bells to pay.
Spill-O remains convinced
that rhyme will awe the animals.
And he calls late at night to swear
that he wasn’t just being an asshole poet this time.
The sign on 34th Street
really read 99-Cent Dreams,
and that someday, all those bounced checks
are going to be worth something.
(Spill-O’s Career—Some Questions for the Boss)
Twenty years of self-portraits.
Three point two million memos to self.
Spill-O stands all the way back. He looks at
Standing back. He looks at looking at things.
Something more drastic may be needed.
The sky shows no cracks. And he cannot conjure even a phony fervor.
Spill-O’s usually on his own side.
But tonight, he has some questions for the boss.
(Spill-O’s Hinterlands)
The bus gushes Spill-O out with its freshened air
upon a town built on grinding wheels
into the minor-league-hockey shadows
that small cities cast
on shadegrown people in shadegrown towns
Ugly because unhappy because ugly
Failing to culminate
Deer by the railroad
and no right side of the tracks
Bridesburg, Spotsylvania, the Newarks
proclaim beer, Jesus and television,
cling to every easy gleam
reflected off the mongrel earth
On the roadside, Spill-O walks a long way for fast food
while pickup trucks prowl for roadkill
Growth, giddy and unprecedented,
makes no sense until you see the decay
Green plants eat every endeavor of man
All the sleekness, modernity and comfort
the high marketing druids have promised for a half century
sits by the river, half finished, the jobsite looted
The steel turns brown and poisonous
inside the concrete
By the passing cars,
Spill-O is consoled mightily
by what nature and neglect
have made of the last century’s boasting
(Spill-O’s Slow Progress)
Obesity, obscurity and poverty
All the dark eventualities
Gather
The unconscious forces,
the comatose twin of reality
accelerates, strengthens
The rules are a rumor
Even the sunlight seems a day old
The silence rings on, grows like the beard on a corpse
Maybe he muddled on for years
and lost his chance to decide anything
Spill-O had to do a lot of looking
to do a little seeing,
through the cigarette smoke,
karma, cancer, sin and rising seas
A fighter deprived of human enemies--
struggling with forgetfulness, rage, decay, delusion
Spill-O’s only hope is in the terrible frustration
of trying to bring something forth from his mind
that is not a mess
(Spill-O’s Prophesy Readies Itself)
A voice told Spill-O that there is a New York City
in all eleven dimensions
That there is a real reason
they called it the Manhattan Project
And the eleven dimensions, the 128 senses--
there is a natural passage to these places
They kept coming,
insights with the rank whiff
of real mental illness about them
Tied to his noble work with a dirty string
Spill-O stepped out onto Twin Cheeseburger Plaza
and wondered what would be asked of him
