poem #23

it’s dark at night

it’s light during the day

we’ve harnessed electricity

we’ve pulled down the shades

we attempt an expertise

at making what is

what is not—

until we let be

it’s the getting we won’t got.

a house divvied up

reading Camus again on the can, my life does not not does not need to be legitimated by a father, step or otherwise, but my thoughts could use a companion father, a father companion, Padre Compañero, just as Africa needs twentythree more free presses, or just some Free Press, and free press, and America needs another hole in its bedfellows, needs a noose, though some have taken that too litcherally. you know - we all live in the past, but carrying strange fruit relics around these days puts you outside the fence of Sisyphean philosophy, so if you're gonna tie a noose, please do us all a favor and tie it around your own neck

and jump.

THEM

twentythreebooks is proud to announce that Omar Shapli's newest selection of poetry is available for purchase.

at the drop of a fedora

she's not too bad after sandwiches and magazines, even though her pet rabbit has a cocky ego, and "ID" begins simply as plastic magnetic letter for childrens learnings alphabets, until the day they notice an arrow pointing right under the "6" in a keyboard, the proverbial of end of child hoodies, and while they know what the arrow means and know how to use it, they stop caring and a certain kind of suicide occurs, but they'll come back to the office tomorrow because lazarus is drawn to the cubicle like frogs are drawn to rain puddles and jesus is drawn to look like an american. eventually, absolutely everything will make no sense (not "nonsense") and they may just maybe be able to stop worrying about johnny paycheck.

Sleet picks at the window screen—

an out-of-tune harp—

I am trying to hum along.

I am trying to hum along gone.

Spalding Grey

Spalding Grey

Balding, or grey.

Not no more.

That’s not very nice.

I apologize.

How can a man who makes froths

at the mouth telling a story

end up suicide?

What frailty this network of synapses.

What strength, what endurance,

but what, ultimately, frailty, what little

we can do when frailty calls the shots.

Laughable the pills, the books, the shrinks, the drinks, the drugs, the Robin Williams hugs.

What frailty.

We cannot end war.

Stop marching.

We cannot end death.

Stop trying so hard. But you already know that. Because what makes you you is ignoring sentiments like these.

What frailty.

When the only thing that keeps your

life in balance are Post-It notes

with doctor-scrawled to-do’s.

What frailty.

Will you march against dust?

Will you march against rust?

Will you march against sand?

Will you march against bland?

Some day it will come out that

George W. Bush was shtupping Anna Nicole Smith

(and perhaps one of his brothers was too; this isn’t the place for such yellow speculation spread)—

the tragedy of it all: she never got to sing Happy Birthday for him.

Gerald Stern, University of Baltimore, April 25, 2007

In a Maggot Nation

Now imagine there’s no song called Imagine,

I wonder even if you could.

Now imagine that your are John Lennon

in bed with three Yokos

and you have to answer questions from reporters

who think your name is aptly homonymical,

especially when it echoes in Strom Thurmond’s hollow heart.

Now imagine you cannot count to five

and you do not care

and no one makes fun of you for it.

Now imagine that plastic cups cost three dollars a gallon

and the gas stations start giving cigarettes away for free

and the water fountains in all the high schools in Tennessee

convert to Blood of Christ fountains overnight.

Now imagine being stuck in a crib with a lobster who is an expert on Miró

and you feel so ashamed at not having anything to add to the conversation

and you just curl up into a ball, suck on your thumb, and your mother

de-ascends, picks you up, drops you on your head for the fourth and final time,

and all is well in the detergent isle again.

Now imagine a place called the Detergent Isle.

Would you go there? What one book what you bring? Not counting your wife,

what one girlfriend from your past would you bring?

Be careful how you answer that question.

Therapy is expensive. So is divorce.

Prison Poem

A friend of mine who had a short stint in the Big House shared this poem from a fellow inmate:

Somebody get me out of here

The fun has been over shadowed by the fear

That I may never find my way out

Seems that I’m stuck on this deadend route

They’re never gonna leave me alone

As if I really wanna give up my thrown

What is it that prevents me from letting go

Guess I’ve yet to hit my all time low

Numb to any type of feeling

With some of my problems I better start dealing

I’m in quick sand up to my neck

The results of all the responsibilities I chose to neglect

Everything is catching up to me

Not to much longer before I’m unable to breath

No one is coming to rescue me

The pressure so tight don’t think i’ll ever get free

Somebody get me out of here

All this sand isn’t going to just disappear

But everyone knows there’s only one way out of quicksand

And thats by someone grabbing your hand

So no matter how much I hate to admit

My own wrong decisions have landed me in this pit

Vulnerable, tired and almost out of hope

Praying someone finds me and throws me a rope

The sand pit is a perfect example

There are situations in life not meant for one person to handle.

Art Officially

In the December of my youth,

I fucked a giraffe

when my parents weren’t looking

(when were they ever?);

it tasted like chicken.

I once paid two dozen duckets

for a Stan Yerkes baseball card.

It was only worth one ducket, at most,

but I walked around like God Rockefella himself

for weeks after that.

Theresa has bulges you wouldn’t believe.

She’s got a fly’s life and only complains

when the cat food is stale.

I’d marry Theresa, but she reminds me of nuns.

And I, last time I checked, am

not Jesus, nor even Jesus-like.

I’ve got a belly full of shoes.

My paintings won’t sell anymore.

Inevitability is the only thing that haunts me.

That

and all the different kinds of knots.

Soroughly Thoused

I am where

my eye is not.

Welching faces, welping Macy’s—

I’m all full of lament.

Raising an Army of Sisyphi,

thin out their ranks a little with waffle ball bats.

Willing to feel pain,

but unwilling to accept it as a gift from anyone but me.

Never come between a man

and his stripper.

Nanny nanny boo-boo,

I can make dreams from the lint in my pocket.

20-year-old wisdom:

“The key to life is to never have a door.”

A hand in the stomach

married to a mouth in the heart.

I got a date!

I got a date!

w/ Cindi who is 28!

I feel so great!

I got a date!

Whoa—that’s something you’ll never see on a bathroom stall.

Yet.

My father used to talk about some place

called xanax xanadu; heard of it?

Prisoner #2+2=5, please report to

metaphorical river by the idyllic tide.

Let’s catch no birds with no stones

for a change.

Gertrudes of Devotion

Had Aristotle focused a little

more on Legos, or even Legolas,

Alexander wouldn’t have grown up to star

in Oliver Stone’s worst movie,

but it all depends on the definition

of isthmus, which is the name of

the icicle used in the perfect crime—

take notes, wait for winter, don’t get fat—

one neighbor smells like fart; the

other, basement.

A Livelong Day

You should not

be let allowed

inside my electrons.

I am trying not

to let you allow be

where you don’t belong be.

It’s a full time

kind of job

where geese fear to bread.

Father Knows, and in the Knowing

Father Scrimshaw’s matted hairdo was

parted by Henrietta, just Henrietta, and Henrietta the Sufferer

has heard only one compliment from Father Scrimshaw

in all the 23 years she has been bringing him his milk and opium milkshakes:

It was the day she wasn’t wearing any panties and she had brought

over two milkshakes, one for him (as was the case every Monday, Tuesday,

Thursday, and Saturday) and one for herself because perhaps he might like

to not dive alone for once, and halfway through their milkshakes and Small Wonder

reruns, Father Scrimshaw turned to Henrietta, just Henrietta, and said

“You smell like gasoline when you smile.”

She about died right there and right then.

Between her legs got really sweaty, though it was a stickiness nothing like sweat,

and she leaned over to Father Scrimshaw and said

“That’s what God used to say to me every morning up until the day I found my son hanging by his belt in the bathroom.”

“My dear Henrietta, just Henrietta,” Father Scrimshaw replied. “That wasn’t God. That was the voice of the bugs crawling all over your belly right now.”

God Is My Backseat Driver

I’m your knight in t-shirt armor,

the kind of guy who notices

the periods at the end of the titles on U.S. currency:

John Snow

Secretary of Treasury.

John Snow, Secretary (was) of Treasury—period?

What is a period doing there?

Is this some sort of metaphor

for our government—

misplaced or odd-placed periods?

Yes, this is what I do,

can you stand me now?

Is I all that you thought I was cracked up to be?

It’s how my head works.

I only grease the gears, I didn’t

invent the machine,

So I will not apologize. I won’t.

You don’t ever have to apologize either,

but you do have to tickle my balls

every now and again.

It’s the least, really, it is the least.

The General Has Arrived!

twentythreebooks is proud to announce the arrival of Omar Shapli's The General Is asked His Opinion and other sad songs 2002-2005. Check out the website for ordering information:

http://www.twentythreebooks.com/