Copyright 2002, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
Coolin' my heels on a Mexican tile bench as the golden sun parches
Stripes and stars snapping beside some familiar golden arches
A one-legged man hurries on crutches past the white steeple
Waitin' for my car to come clean with other waitin' people
There's a big tire store right across the street
It's not the way they roll but the people that you meet
Short-haired kids in red tee-shirts with grease on their sleeves
What are the accomplishments a man hopes he achieves
Cars hurry by, clouds float like ice cream
A thin whisker separates what's real from what's dream
I was doubting my own senses when I felt the Earth crack
They were waxing my car, now there's no going back
These sultans and kings, these baronies and empires
Are but a handful of dust
These tussles for treasure and ugly scrambles for pleasure
Are a bust
Dance of the Mutant, the Stranger, and a Corrupt Angel
Copyright 2002, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
a huge & muscular mutant shambling by the side of the gray burning highway in california desert. salt cracks his full lips. sinuous alien ripples distort landscapes of brawn dawn. a fallen lump of godflesh in a shirt made out of purple mirrors & claws. chisel-sculpted face, wounds trailing glutinous serous queues. solar flares & rockets descending. missiles. bullets. thru sky's gash descend three corrupt angels w/too long feet & hands attached bulbous joints & piercing blue eyes unusually immense & wide-set. sharp toothy smiles. this must be the politics of cellular sap.
sweat dripping on the side of a highway, blood dipping in a buttercup. museum-archaeologists clumsily attempting to re-stitch frankenstein's monster from randomly preserved bits of flesh & hearsay, but a few are conjoined in true resonance & love for their subject. vanishingly few. are there to be boundaries, limits? can we suck oxygen & simultaneously bow before little minds? the beast colossus avariciously nursing wordy oil between strange conceits in mortifying emission.
honor-bound to serve precious seed. all faces & names all numbers transforming into musical notes like bells having rung. corrupt angels take up electric guitars & wail like demons in sweet rebellion. here we break the thick waxy river of the past & dilate fragile souls into impossible beginnings. it's this way for the handsome stranger with curlicue hair, gazing suspect new-made world laid out below his feet when one translucent angel w/wild shoulder-length ebon hair whirls softly around him. he marvels his unexpected creation while she scoops it up w/sharp-edged tumblers & injects it into lymph tubes gritty w/cobalt sand & rust. somebody mentions the mutant then someone wonders where it has gone. swallowed by a gila monster. no, he was the monster, the father, the heavy purse. & then arterial trafficking of lymph & spleen as vessels & ducts tear out little mouths & fuse across bus seats & floors down hallways into elevator shafts all moving all merging we share these fluids gushing together sing it all together now, followed by the blood vessels & spidery nerves until neuron buttons find all new dendrites & synapse & we can only dwell on the phony losses of suicides & mass murder. all knives are jazzy serrated. all bones too white & glossy w/self-conscious cartilage.
disconnection, then? separation? angels can promote the fight against the power but what is time to an angel? i can feel the teeth w/in my side chewing, chewing. i know about those microscopic shapes plugging receptors signaling opiate-satisfaction. we are drugged out on mundane shopping mall existence. we signal, we signal back, we deceive ourselves w/slick feedback. flickering antique coruscating fibers. the tired theory of performance on the global stage. all theories are tired now. i smell your signal from across the room & worship the dopamine flashing gyration of color & light airy lightning. it must be better to possess this knowledge. give to me the nectar of your juicy receptacle. i lick the honey w/mad religious schizophrenic visionary zeal. i plug into electric passion where there are no boundaries or censorship or vulgar limits. we could all become insane prophets or flashing chameleons bright green w/twitchy pyramidal eyes searching out predators. fluid monkeys chatter & throw seed pods. feed me words now. we must have words.
we live on words. the world is words. this best of all possible words world. time is words. night after night the deep sky screaming me in foreign voices & hallucinogenic perfume. spinning back through time the words revolve sickeningly, pieces falling back together in revolting precision & the precious seed flowing back up w/in pollen cases. roaches grown fat on yesterday's poison. corpses fatten, ripen. ripped sutures reassemble. the words roll on & on around my mouth & on my tongue & on.
ohhh. . . .breaking breads, baking heads. severed hands & feet & legions of slumbering dead. your face is that of a pony. your hair is alive & it grieves when cut. your eyes flash to their corners & i know you watch me watch you. but time is a wet mattress that suffocates & the lizards slither into dark crevices until the jewels of the word world shatter into disparate, irretrievable litter of forgotten possibilities. the mutant is dead in a foreign tomb. gibber back at the night.
Freak Show
Copyright 2002, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
Went to see the freak show
They held it in the mall
Some were fat and some were thin
Some were short and some were tall
Some wore stripes and some wore plain
Some were generous and some were vain
Some wore diamonds and some wore tin
Some had to frown and some had to grin
I've been deceived by so much greed
If you don't believe in evil you must not be awake
Seems pretty quaint at this point
To blame it on a snake
You with your astrological charts and your head in the sand
Preferring cosmic causation to malice that's man-planned
Hollywood has a million ways to liquefy your brain
A million tools to prevent you seein' anything too plain
You keep stuffin' your God-shaped hole with hypocrisy and crime
You keep waiting for class to start, but it's graduation time
A golden city's shining, better cut your ego down to size
Its gates are too narrow for your swollen pride and lies
Went to see the freak show
Some will elevate you, some make you crawl
Ten sharp swords shoved in my back
Gotta confess I love 'em all
Passage
Copyright 2002, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
the flowers of the city, though breathlike, get deathlike at times,
& there's no use in tryin' to deal w/the dyin', tho' i cannot explain that in lines.
- BD
===============================================
pass thru a tiny pore
eye-searing starlight jolts
where memory & reason
char to bony ash w/terminal grief
the music is scorching, deafening
lays waste to uncharted acres of bedlam
the choruses undulate among metallic spheres
waves of delirium, waves of beauty
like the beauty in a silver singin' river
cruising at lightspeed on
a cool blue light beam, you've
ruptured thru a fragile crystalline shell
into the land w/o fingerprints
in a country beyond petty kingdoms
the ruts are filling in
entropy reversing
sundered, missing bits of pieces
in slo-mo implode & auto-assemble
all discord overlapping, interfering
yields unified fields of harmony
it's the last bus pulling out
last call, the last trip
distant birds flying
fluttering climbing
a cyclone of black birds
ravens & diamond-eyed butterflies
rainbow trout gliding, sailing & smiling
buzzing honey bees left behind
receding din of the voice of the swarm
acoustic guitars give way
plug in to undisciplined electric swells
out of the tragic, out of the comic
into the mystic & beyond
further
gossamer films of revelations lay down on
deeper layers of antediluvian answers
before pieces of questions can be formulated
all things connected, all time
all place, space
this is not free-jazz
or acid rock or fuzz guitar
this is not tidal chemistry
or ergot intoxication or riot pills
who brings on this tribulation?
what slow corrosion drains our veins of dedication?
this is not heritage
that noble massive spreading bushy tree
that slop bucket splashing
trial-&-error-shaped organics
this is not a gently beating heart
a commodity in great demand and scant supply
not fear & loathing in high places
not vonnegut, not yeats, not herman hesse
not 9/11, not biological attack
not pablo, nor his faithful slave pedro,
not leonardo or dali or bosch
this is not bowling ball planets distorting spacetime
or spacetime fiercely gripping matter
or virtual photons & their anti-selves
emerging & self-immolating at event horizon
w/shimmering embers of hawking radiation
this is no mission to mars
or panspermia w/its infested pebbles
peppering volcano land in a hard rain
this is not cosmic inflation
not alan guth
not arlo guthrie
or frankie & albert or diamond joe
not jerry or janis or jim or john
or stevie ray or george or jimmy
or ken or timothy
you hear the train whistle blowin' ooh-ee
thru the back of your memory
w/2 lights on behind; no,
you've burst thru the backdoor of the
motel of lost companions, trailing
a phosphorescent wake of glimmering stardust
blazing another momentous trail across
eternity: let
all men heed this passage
i can't follow that trail, i
too much love this more turbulent tumble-down realm where we
struggle w/fractured bits of questions
where perceptions in time are too truncated
to be of much use 'cept in a dark ironic vein
& biases of heritage & prejudice
distort a more lucid vision, & anyway
how not stick around to see how things turn out,
to recover what was lost? i wonder did you
take too much for granted, or else
get your signals crossed?
where we fomented our on-going rebellion
against those powers whose small minds are most constrictive
where i told you the 1980s reminded me most of the 1480s
& you told me that "things have changed" reminded you of my trials
where, on a good day, the dead were bearable
especially playing someone else's song
where, considering their inexplicable fiscal success,
we considered charging half as much
& taking the chemistry analyzers on the road
on the road
where we catalogued the political hypocrisy
of rabid republicans & other miscellaneous unindicted criminals of war
where thru geometric proof we finally discerned vividly
that all songs, future & past,
are lesser derivatives of
primal dylan forms
& thru the scientific method we resolved
that all jokes are best taken just a bit too far, for
what good's your humanity unless
you experiment w/it?
where we conspired to escape to alaska
or to san francisco
where we struggled to crack diana's stony resistance
w/contemptible twisted tales of titanic proportions
& quests for amputee amphibians
& where we tormented jillian w/tumid intestines
& where your controls were never quite w/in
2sd
where you made far-out dilutions to appease
the irritable gods of nephelometry
you tuned in on agrobacterium radiobacter &
the genetic promiscuity of gonorrhoea
you turned on to every alternative to conservative bombast & ennui
& long ago you dropped out gloriously
how we stretched out the membranes of those fathomless nights
solving the problems of the world one crisis at a time, drawing
arcane conclusions on the wall
unearthing ebola virus before it became fashionable
tobasco or soy sauce on popcorn
you spit out the mexican chocolate when
sour milk spilled forth
you grimaced at waldenstrom's syrup in your viscometer
w/your stopwatch slowly ticking away the hours
you w/your tape recorder in your car
archiving endless reels of dead air
you w/your telescope gazing back
into god's face
you loved so much
your generosity transformed everyone you met
your words were light to me when i wandered in shadow
faithful companion & kind
most of all you loved your children best
there is no greater honor
i wish you could see how it all turns out
then i remember:
already you are there
Taker
Copyright 2002, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
You can take my shoes
You can take my fan
You can take my gum
And my trash can
You can take my radio
You can take my phone
You can take my steak
You can keep the bone
You can take my paper
You can take my pen
You can tear it up,
Make me write it down again
You can take my table
You can take my chairs
You can take the floors
You can take the stairs
You can take my books
Take away my PC
You can take it all
Far away from me
You can take my money
You can take my wheels
You can rev it up
Until it squeals
You can take my house
You can rattle my life
Shatter my peace
With war and strife
You can make the ground rock
You can make the air roll
But one thing you know you'll never do:
You'll never touch my soul
Tale of Fifteen Honey Bees
Copyright 2002, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
Diamond fragments scattered upon slick streets like
Broken promises whispered between urgent sheets
Lonely people crouching low behind pompous words
Lifting from ruby-stained lips like wayward carrion birds
And I'm passing under the full moon among certain eerie trees
That overhang the hushed alleyways of uncertain destinies
We were eating buzz candy
That the fuzz kept handy
Swinging in hammocks between
The milkwood trees
Right before the moon turned sandy
And the mayor became a dandy
You misremembered what we'd seen
And swallowed fifteen honey bees
Helen of Troy bouncing off-beat in a beat up black and white
Sways with a silver hip flask, she's a drunken soaring kite
"Here's to the love 'em and leave 'ems," she blurts at the surly hack
Who takes a swig then idly hands it back
While suspicious cats go slinking like sinister refugees
Among the trash blowing greedily between uncertain destinies
The phones were ringing like gold medallions
Bright, besmeared with polished dew
While wobbling girls slipped off their shoes
To race against a bitter curfew
Cold scissors waltzed across the lake
Which was frozen and blue green
We smelled our way between the walls
And convulsed in a Spanish influenza dream
Mosquitoes buzzing like terrified soldiers are just ribbons in my ears
Clutched at by young widows in black deserts to dab at children's tears
What's all this dry snow that blows cold dust through dead branches
Napoleon in the gutter sputters somethin' 'bout missed chances
Then Walt Disney and Sprio Agnew play at chess, immune from current hesitancies
While Deliah and I duck under the brazen skies of uncurtained mysteries
A pig performed experiments
In chemistry from experience
And sung of what an ascetic requires
To soothe our uncombed nerves
We donned our suits for December gents
And brushed away suggestive evidence
Is karma served through fulfilled desires
Or receiving what one most deserves
Olive drab fabrics run on to carpet a shuddering globe
The hit-and-run escapes as a passing surgeon carves lobe from golden lobe
Curved surfaces fill in the corners and coroners inflate my veins
Ghosts around the steeples cry over fiery eruptions from passenger trains
And dwarves sip cream while excavating ancient abominations and ecstasies
As we run down the echoing hallways away from these too certain destinies
Between telephones and electronic mail
Our voices have been strung
Between the clouds and featureless stratosphere
Where the blind and bloated caterpillar's stung
By famished ants with mouths to feed
Back home, the game sums to none
There's no way out without a doubt
But back whatever way you've come
You Don't Ever Know
Copyright 2002, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
Whirl around, pick any direction
Then open up your eyes
Human beings beat down like dogs
But that ain't no surprise
You might be an evil soul
With no conception where it's at
If you already know everything you can't learn much, but
Some day you're gonna discover that
You don't ever know anybody
Half as well as you think you do
Just cos you don't wanna believe something
Don't mean that it's not true
People angry everywhere
'Bout things they know nothing about
Take a look through any door
All those people start to shout
"Vengeance is mine," sayeth the Lord
Nobody seems to think it's true
You vomit your lies and malicious excuses
You better hope no retribution's headed for you
You don't ever know anybody
Half as well as you think you do
Just cos you don't wanna believe something
Don't mean that it's not true
This old world is bruised and battered
Every few minutes another species goes extinct
Wedges driven into family structure
Whole nations driven to the brink
But you're not hoping to heal the Earth
You find the weak spot and you hit there
I see a golden city on a hill, but I don't think
I'll ever see you there
You don't ever know anybody
Half as well as you think you do
Just cos you don't wanna believe something
Don't mean that it's not true
I never knew your kind of hatred
Your soul is fully corrupt
Your heart is tangled in turmoil
Your terror perpetually threatens to erupt
Don't matter what you think you know
You better shut your mouth and open your ears
You're takin' nothin' with you when you leave this world
Folly's forgotten, but kindness runs down the years
You don't ever know anybody
Half as well as you think you do
Just cos you don't wanna believe something
Don't mean that it's not true
You're My Girl
Copyright 2002, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
You're my girl, my precious child
You're the future, you're the gold
I brush your hair until it shines
I cover you when the night is cold
You're my girl, my favorite kid
You sing and play, you skip away
You never know I'm watching you
Your dreams will all come true someday
You're my girl, my tender one
You think the world's beyond your reach
I give you gifts that you don't see
You always have something new to teach
You're my girl, my little girl
And though time so quickly must unwind
One thing always will be true:
You're worth more to Daddy than a diamond mine
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