Saturday, April 3, 2021

Jack McCarthy & Fred Rogers Talk in Heaven

It's a poem I don't even have to write. I just have to

plant that idea...

already it grows 

in your imagination,

this easy-to-believe 

premise. They are talking 

 it's the best thing you have

ever not heard yet. Like me,

that's a smile on your face

right now, easy isn't it?

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Sometimes Impossible is Only What You Cannot Believe

The first recorded image of an Okapi is from a façade

of the Apadana of Perseoplis, 5th Century B.C.E.,

even though the Western world, refused to believe

in it until the late 1800s. It wasn't like Okapi existed

to a greater extent after that, anymore than it didn't

through all those years of being hidden away from view.

May 10, 1970 is far from 1887, just as the Congo is

from 5th Century Persepolis. But strange creatures do whatever

is necessary to exist across distances of disbelief. I did not ever

have an interest is sports as a kid, my imagination explored

different heroes. But a young boy in America in the 1960s

who didn't like sports as much as breathing was... unknown.

I knew my adopted father felt this way. So I tried my best

to show fake interest that looked real, like he did with me.

So, there I was at that epic moment in History, the last game 

of the 1970s Stanley Cup Finals, and Bobby Orr made flying

real for long enough to place the winning goal. So excited

to see my father be proud of someone, I wanted a taste of that.

I blurted, "That was as impossible as they used to thing Okapi

was!" His face fell. He looked at me, had no idea what I was.

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

Another War at End

 When the rest of the world moved on in 1945, Hiroo Onoda did not

know the war was over. He was given supplies and ammunition, 

and this final instruction: Defend Lubang Island. Keep a close eye

on the American forces. Do this until you hear orders otherwise


that come directly from me. With that his commanding officer,

Major Taniguchi, left him behind with this one last job to carry out.

And Lt. Onada did that one job and for thirty years he didn't know

that WWII was long over, and he didn't have to fight anymore.


Every time I have a drinking dream, I think about Lt. Onada.

It's funny how the human mind works, but I have one brain cell, 

at least, dedicated to recalling his name and story. I'm not upset 

by the drinking dreams, because they are dreams and do not count


as relapses in the real world; and it's because another braincell,

obviously, was ordered once to watch guard over a vital pipeline,

to make sure I had a uninterrupted supply of alcohol always, always

available, should it ever be needed and it always was, every day.


Like Onada, it clings to the last order it was given, to make sense

of a changing world that forgot it, by refusing to give up the fight.

When outsiders came to Lubang, he fired at them, the war still on

as far as he knew. They had to fly the retired Major Taniguichi in


so Lt. Onada could hear it from him directly. Onada handed over

his sword, his Arisaka rifle, and a dagger his mother gave him

to use, should he be captured. But he never was. He surrendered

instead, with no shame. It was 1974. His long war was at last over.


And on the mornings, when I've finally shaken off the false shame

of a dream drink that never happened, I tell that braincell Thank you,

you had one job and you did it well, but now it is time for you to stop

fighting, to leave the pipeline to run dry, and to come back home.

Saturday, July 20, 2019

Faking the Fake Moon Landings (re-launch)

The problem was never one of vision, As far as humans can see,
they have imagined even further. So, when the Government called,
we did was any good Americans would do: we truly imagined
how much money we could make here. When the Big Call came
from President Johnson for "something to amaze the whole world,
especially the Russians!" Talk about your big dreams come true,
he asked us to fake a manned moon-landing. What he asked for
was men walking on the Moon, but, read between the lines, right?
For this to work, everyone has to believe it. The Soviets beat us

out into space, we had to show that American Know-How still ruled.
Here at Universe World Studios, we are the magic makers of dreams,
craftsmen of the real. If we were going to do this for country, we were
going to do it right. We sat through meeting after meeting, bad-pitch
after worse. This is why we don't make movies to tell the stories of
real people: their storiess suck, they're boring. Too real, "won't sell
in the fly-over states" as we say. No, if we were going to do this,
we would do it right. We needed props-- a working Russian R-7 rocket
(do NOT ask how us how we got it) and then we sent a scouting team

to the moon, to bring us back sketches, some rocks, a bag of moon
dust, reference photos. My God, it all looked like so much crap
on film. Not the "Right Stuff" if you get my meaning. Film Rules
are like Retail: location, location, location. I knew, to pull this off,
you would need an idea so simple, but so right, that people like me
get paid obscene amounts of money to think them up: we needed
was a film studio... on the moon. Once we sent our tech people up
to build it, we sectioned off a big area of the moon's surface,
and we made it look just like the moon, We spared no expense,

after all-- we weren't paying for it. We got actors from the CIA
experiments with LSD. Believe me, those people came through
for us: very realistic interpretive dance that made it look just like
they were walking around in thin gravity and the crackly noise
before and after their dialogue, just like static-y transmissions:
"One small *zzzzzt* step for mankind *skzzzt*, one giant leap
for the mankind... and the technicolor bats !" It was ok, we edited it
out in post-production. But we made sure to put all kinds of things
in there for the conspiracy buffs: flags flapping in the impossible

breeze, bad shadows; we left that footage of the alien fleet hovering
on the dark side of the moon on the cutting-room floor... kidding!
Or am I? Fact is, we pulled "Apollo 11" off SO successfully,
we were invited back to make five sequels. Then, via shell companies,
we hired Bill Kaysing to pen We Never Went to the Moon: America's
$30 Billion Dollar Scandal, by telling him that he was right, Disney
was in on it, and Kubrick directed it and Arthur C. Clarke wrote
the whole thing. I gave him a real fake moon rock and told him
it was real. I almost told him the world was flat, but he's not an idiot

and I didn't want to be mean. So that, as they say, is it in a nutshell:
we faked the moon landings and that never would have been possible
if we hadn't gone to the moon, in order to fake it right. If that is not
worth $30 Billion, then I'm sorry you're not a fan of Science Fiction.
What are you, a Communist or something? That was quality cinema,
and that-- more than anything else-- is where the American Dream
lives, baby. 600 Million viewers around the whole damn world! All
those people, looking in the same direction at once: the television.
All those people buyin' the same ticket, taking home a piece of the moon.


Friday, June 28, 2019

Young Morrissey Sings to Old Morrissey


Oh my, old dad
what a terrible life
you must have had,
to end up so old
and sold
to the cold vacancies of a narrow mind.
I went to London and they don't know you
anymore, they no longer recognize.

Could the story of your life be any more plain?
So surprised a solipsistic young man
grew up to become such a bitter old man.
Just another cunt,
waving a flag for the national Front.

Tell me sir, how do you not choke
on your own words? Is this some terrible joke?
How do you break the hearts of everyone
that ever believed in you? I feel bad
for Johnny and Mike and Andy too,
just because they used to work with you.
There goes the reunion…

Oh my, old dad.
What a terrible brain disease
you must have had.
to wear such hate
In a button on your lapel
On American television
I’m surprised you even showed up at all.

Now go away, go away, go away
go away, go away, oh please, go away.
or better yet, die alone
and take the England you remember,
take the mythical Old England you remember;
you can share the same gravestone,
with the epitaph, “It took too long for us to die.”

Monday, May 27, 2019

Punk Rock Song of Bizarro


Bizarro am most punk rock hero ever
me shun beauty and hate what me love
me am very healthy with super weakness
and every day I go to sleep is an old ending

my every move is real-life fiction
Bizarro: The Movie, poor with mundane effects
you will not believe a man can fly backwards
I always see where I’m not going fast

All me need is Hate. Hate is all me need
to keep this cube-shaped world of ours still spinning
I cannot sing. I am weaker than a moving train.
Less powerful than jumping buildings.

Me am not unSuperman without glasses
unsecret identity is hidden all over my face
Look at my cheekbones. I am guitar expert
My band am not The Justice League of Bowling

I am weakest one of all. Everything can hurt me.
Cold and lonely fortress of solitude not hanging on my sleeve
We unthank you, Bizarro am champion of losers.
Me am arrive now with “Down, down and Right Here…!”

All me know is Hate. Hate is all me need.
The only crime in Bizarro World is being perfect
Me am the Man of Yesterday, me am beautiful
"Down, down and right here!".

"Down, down and right here!".

Monday, May 21, 2018

Grief (Re-Write #2)

Grief
(for Tim Hopkins)

We are built for loss, whether we know it or not,

we humans. Our memory is what God gave us
when He was not in a truly giving mood. 

Loss of innocence was a bite of real fruit. We cannot be hungry 
without it being a sin. Loss of the womb is called natural birth, 
and every mother & child can tell you the pain of creation is real. Loss 
of a child's imagination is called learning to live in the Real World, 
is called Oh grow up, will you?  

We talk all the time, but how little of that is Real Talk? 
Giving up being a nomad means pretending you own 
some piece of the world, and we call that real estate. 
Our ages are measured in real numbers. Life expectancy 

is a real concern when you live in Real Time. Praise authenticity 
when we say Keep it Real, but why is it we only say that
when we say Goodbye? People die. And the world continues
to just spin, like the people we lose are no longer real.

The real axis is where real numbers add up, but even
knowing that doesn't matter Our hearts are in real pain
our grief is never gifted a set of merciful linear stages,
but rather, a design in real time, and yet all everyone tells us
is to get real, get over it, and get one with our lives? Unreal..

We get it, World, we get it--

we read the real signs in every death, 
every cold October, every year:
every loss is real. 
Every loss is real. 
Every loss is real.