THE RANDOM WALK ENSEMBLE

When you fall in the milk keep kicking.
When life gives you pompoms, make pomade.
When life gives you UTZ Bar-b-q chips
When light comes through the car dealership window

We are aware of the everything flows
And the peak experience, not to say
We may not be scoundrels under latex masks
Or sunrise, frizzy day. Doses of yo
Have produced a superstrain of uncool.

Straphangers, bend your knees a little!
Jungle beat, emit from headphones!
Riding the subway you think of Warren Cromartie
And the Specials, St. Paul and the zebra mussel,

Being available for continuous consultation,
Well, repeated bending fatigues metal.
Did you think ennui would make you different?
Driving out of the city fills you with the spirit.

The doorway is dark but so is the room
Lit with one bulb glinting off the plastic bags
Shadows off the moulding lead to bright corners
The chairs, the high chair, the watering can
All along rays from the lamp, the floorboards
Changing from light to dark without pattern
Air conditioner noise out the window, refrigerator
And through the closed front door, doors closing

When you walk in the room
When I have enough to do

Tomorrow the camera will look over the fields of dandelion
No one running through the salad oh play me a Cuban song
In honor of the Republicans-

It seems to be a good time, waking up
After a night of art and then starting
To feel again, the blue music, the sedate
Periods interiority peddles trading
Against (o learnèd caffeine) the breeze
And the rubber band artillery solidarity
Demands. True the new song is all bass
All work toys, and if you try to start
With any non-imperative, they'll dismantle
Your cubicle while you're out haranguing
The remote locations. O angel.

COMING SOON

I knock on the door as I turn my key
But there's no answer except the scratch
Across the floor of the Boston Terrier,
So solid, so ugly, so curious, so polite.
10:30, or so it says on the VCR
In the lit front room. The kitchen/bedroom
Is dark, and silent. Are Todd and Carrie out
For the night, or just out? It is spring,
And it is snowing, and the wind chime
In the street is so persistent I half expect
To see a glockenspiel being played by a monkey
In a little cap - but no, only crushed cans.
I don't hear any breathing, or other sleep noise.
It's 10:43, and somehow I am still me.

FICTION

I never touch the stuff.
The prose poem goes to school
for the first day and I'm
at home alone. The transit feeling
goes right through the picture on
the wall. How does the volunteer
exist in the voluntary. I want stuff.
A car, a stereo, a woman I love
to live with me. The fur in
the door. You're going to need
a fur to visit the playground
the way I have in mind. Have
you in my light cure. I'm
back to the drawing board. My
back to the drawing board. On
your back on the drawing board.