WEAPONS OF SEVERAL DIFFERENT SORTS

To say that you are
a liar and that I would
fight you, bare knuckled
in the back alley of anyplace
until you laid on cardboard
bloodied and apologetic
regardless
of the fact
that you are in possession
of what is referred to as
le argot
would be
fact.

There is this over sized
bumble bee doing laps
around the bench
on which I sit.

He refuses to strike,
perhaps out of sheer
lethargy.

Nonetheless...

I feel his sting
and walk
off.

- joseph goosey

ACROSS TOWN

the raccoon,
the kitten,
the peach,
the apple,
and snow white
lay in the nude
reading Radcliffe
and drinking iced
Sangria.

Don't you know?

My insurance is due
and in most American slaughterhouses
400 cows are executed every hour
which means that for every
line (?) in the slaughterhouse
the pistol crew must shoot
a creature between the eyes
every nine seconds,
on the second.

My cat snores in the upper
left corner of her hair.

Her eyes illuminate
with disgust.

Why?
Why don't I own
a motorcycle?

- joseph goosey

A POETICS

Where are you?
Where is everyone?
Anyone?

I write poems and tossthem
into steep wells and you
can keep that typo.

Occasionally, all the time,
I am shouting upwards
at a woman whom I have
never really seen at all -
let alone in the nude sunlight.

You must must
forgive this. I haven't
written shit in precisely one
month. but ha
ha that was on purpose!

I gave my first poetry
reading since the inception
of this one sided marriage.

It went poorly of course,
I drank a 2 liter bottle
of yellow tail and she said
that I should not have done so.

Is this not what she asked for?

Alcoholism? No, no,
to be taken to the haunted
school house is hardly
alcoholism.

But who has a flashlight?

There used to be one around
here somewhere...allow me
to get on my knees and
search.

When I find it would you
like to tell stories under
the sheets? O, you would?
Well, I can't find the damned
thing so we are out of luck
or rather just I am.

In my wallet there are 2 poems.
They are waiting to be thrown
out the next time that I go
to a starbucks.

I always get soy and that
is no trick up my sleeve.

Speaking of waiting,
have you deemed me useless?

I thought that perhaps I might
be driving somewhere tonight
so...

well, you know how it goes...

wine...etc...

This is the same problem
that I had with sally.
(names have been changed
to protect...protect?
How was your loss
prevention meeting?)

Not that you are a
soul-less creature
I just mean that sally
would always call up
at the most inopportune moments -

Joe, do you want to come over?

I opened the champagne.

Bring the champagne.

I finished the champagne.

Anyhow, yes I know a pretty
kind girl who got caught
throwing confetti at the italian
police and they thought
she was on acid but
when they took her downtown
(is that what they do in italy?
I don't know because I refuse
to go to europe without you)
the police figured out
she wasn't on anything.
Nothing at all and now
the girl sits in an upstate
NY mental hospital
and will be given
pills to make her unfortunately
just as bland as all of her
big-titted, icicles of friends.

I will continue to type
until you walk in the door.

I will continue to attempt
to type.

I will continue to type
because I hope you didn't
get into the shower or tub tonight,
especially the tub.

You impress me,
regardless of whether or not you-
make objects out of felt,
have 6 tattoos of different porcelain dolls,
own a thin framed bike,
desire an MA in literature,
have a stomach like every cunt who lives
by the ocean,
you could sit here on this
couch and just baaaa like a sheep
and i'd be in some notion
of a heaven.

O, yes, the poems...

So the one that may or may not
be published about our failed
suicide attempts is all just creative
license.

Please do not loathe me.

Please do not find out.

Ouch, the blemish on the forehead,
the cheek.

Where are you?
Fuck "everyone"
Where are YOU?

Sleep? In all likelihood,
masturbation or solo-scrabble or
I will put on my jeans
and play at rockstar.

No more.

No mas.

- joseph goosey

A BIT OF NARCISSISM FOR YOU IN THE EVENING TIME

You mean to tell me you can't be fooled with poetry?
Well, shit on the sheets and call for a haircut appointment
because that was the only plan I had drawn up thus far.

Don't you understand? I'm writing about your pigtails
your sprinkles your frosting your dress your river cigarette
stuffed bear record player plastic flower neuroses

What? You don't want to read about any of those really personal subjects?
You just want to lay there eating your sushi and gatorade?
If you had a diary I could just read the fucking thing but now a
scheme must be devised.

If you would just write me up some instructions for how to
act smoke fuck laugh care cry shout poop eat ginger
then maybe this key would fit a more out of date but stylish car.

What yanks at me constantly,
is why you are not in awe
of all that I do.

- joseph goosey

PROBLEMS IN THE BEDROOM AND MORE

Some people who won't be singled out
really want me to produce a groundbreaking novel
but I can't quite pull myself together.
What with car insurance and et cetera.
However, what I can tell is that were I to shit out
such a work, the first sentence would read as follows.

"I mean, I used to be able to copulate properly."

- joseph goosey

PLEASE ALLOW ME TO STEAL YOU FROM ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS

Pre-destination of the word is needed and the same holds true
when it comes to the organs.
When I say organs I mean the instruments in my loins.
BAAAA BAA BAAAAA
that is not the sound of a sheep
that I once drew in art class above a four line rhyming poem
about a sheep.

Madness, certainly encroaches, but what I would I be without
you on a sunny porch?

Move to London with me!

I saw on the Internet that for a flat million
you can buy a grand townhouse there.
I lack a flat million,
but we could open a croissant and espresso shop
and maybe earn a sixth of that.
We'd get a studio apartment and sleep on the floor
with Hello Kitty sheets and a Ninja Turtles pillow.
We'd have dozens of copies of Wuthering Heights and Nausea
just laying around as if they were candy wrappers.

No one would understand us.
How marvelous it would it be?

- joseph goosey

LOOK WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DRINK 2 BOTTLES OF RED AND SPEND YOUR WHOLE PAYCHECK DOWNLOADING MUSIC YOU'VE NEVER HEARD

What have I done?
I do know
what I am doing:
hanging out smoking cigarettes by the mailbox
all night. The mail, though, doesn't come
at night and there is no time,
no time, don't you see?
For art.
All the singers are pleasant.
They sing slow and high. I am slow and high.
The difference is that the latter is not majestic.
Is the man singing of guns?
Of ghosts?
Of 60 dollars spent?
For that much, hell, I could reinvent my entire persona.
The one that they see contained in the small box.
I will be independent.
I will be the alternate choice.
So much farting around is being completed.
1,000 dollars in the bank account and tomorrow I will set
fire to the bank not out of antipathy but out of a lack of comfort
with the United States Mint. Fuck it, ya know? My opinions
regarding money are so reprehensible my parents have long
distance conferences regarding my well-being.
In the moon-owl night I compose intricate letters and address them
to women whose mouths I have licked but whose ambitions I never
bothered to learn. They'll be pleased. Who wouldn't?
To be affirmed is glorious.
You are stuck on a water slide in the middle of tornado.
And you over there...
You are in my states capitol sucking up life from a straw because
you drink from straws and this I find
so goddamned
adorable.

- joseph goosey

AN EMBARRASSING MODELING SESSION

As your presence inflated I almost walked out.

Breathing was becoming
scarce.

Ow!
Shit!

Who taught your eyes
to do that?

Who informed you
that it would make sand of me?

The breaks must be enacted
But to do so on this train seems
quite useless.

Lost in the marshmallow
and hiding behind
my paper easel,
at least

you're not in the nude.

- joseph goosey

HALLUCINATORY NOVELISTS

Yes.

That magnifying glass which sits there
under glass is tempting but all too often
I become trapped in a stinking bog of detail

With so many hallucinatory novelists
writing today and so many little girls,
who stand about 5 foot 3 trying to sell me
the works of these hallucinatory novelists...

Everybody must calm down!

I need to lose roughly 14 pounds
before even beginning to smile and walk

And I remember the time
I just laid around in bed with a collection
of letters from a lesbian and a bow tie around
my neck

I just sat there waiting for the mail to come
or for someone to knock on the door
professing my greatness
or their devotion

I was a bloody fucking fool, still am

but now I am without...what?

- joseph goosey

LITERARY CIRCLES AT 1:40 ON A THURSDAY

Before all of the fish tails, there was once a boy
who breathed trails of apricot smoke and in response
to colored movement he laughed, oh goddammit he laughed
until his belly ached and his shoulders ached, his legs his ass
arms and feet

Time walks through the door in a gradual procession
and from now on I find myself in faux wooden chairs
reading aloud over and over Ron Padgett's "Who And Each"
as golden women and off white men whisper
"Is this really necessary?"

- joseph goosey

I TAKE A SEAT NEXT TO YOU

Are you hungry?
Do you want some lunch?
Will you be hungry on Saturday
around 7pm?
How was Corpus Cristi?
How is the aquarium?
Do you enjoy trumpets?
Trombones?
French horns?
French poetry?
French fiction?
Tennis? Bowling?
Do you savor dishes of fish
and rice?

Write the answer
to the aforementioned down
on a post-it, in H10 pencil,
and leave it for me
on the windshield of my
dirty dirty car.

- joseph goosey

AMIDST SO MUCH SMOG

Let us pray for the walls-

I have held you dear in so many
places whether they be clay or
mulch, red or
green

And to think-
I could have existed under the
radar and amidst so much
smog they never would have
known

Or!

I could acted as some grand thing and led discussions about this cafeteria
or this chicken coup

2:36PM and what wall closes near?
none to think of and how did you
get your hair to listen so perfectly?
how are your hands? fingernails?

San Francisco sits out there
watching as Eugene, OR performs it's play
written by the french

we all
are.

- joseph goosey

WHAT ARE YOU DOING RIGHT NOW?

A man can be experimented on
by the state gov't and not
be told about it until 42 years later and
there are so many rejected
poems
in this drawer.

I do not write clearly,
I smell clove on the walk way
and feel a sense of mighty elation.
Someday the artist will see Portland,
someday the sun will flourish here
and I will say to you pretty, pretty
girl-

-What is your favorite restaurant?

-What are you doing right now?

Today it is Monday and what is Monday, really?

I feel myself growing
and not growing as in soul growing as in
today at lunch I had a half-pound angus burger
smothered in pepper jack cheese
even though when I venture out
into the general public I like to tell people
"I only eat beans and rice milk."

The field of philosophy is nothing
but a bunch of quotation marks
and the last person to even think anything at all was Sartre
and even then he was wedged in like a mouse
at the U. of something something
or another.

- joseph goosey