The Five Stages

I. Denial

I don’t think I will be coming back soon.

The whole drive down was a storm of

Fucks, shits, goddamns, and doom.

The hawk grasps the snake up above

Cross my stormy path, while I wander, lost.

My sister took me to the hills,

The leaves, locked up in frost,

Teeters on the edge of spring chills.

I throw my spear at old scowling Laius

Who catches it and throws it back

At his dead God, pious.

Now hear the flashing thunder crack!

Doing mushrooms with Ginsberg in the hills

Lets Oedipus feel the edge of spring chills.

Now the bard has set her blessed drama

Possessed by those Razorbacks of Ozark,

She sees the colorful diorama

Arching words from Bois D’arc to Bodark.

To describe France, Spain, and England’s venture

As some abhorrent thrill sought genocide

Of these United States, sought to splinter,

Is to have words with Camus’ suicide.

The ordered regimes of the many tribes,

Alive and well before constitution,

This immortal land can lead many lives.

Take a bow for the new revolution,

              These United States is always the land,

              Now hear him cry, “Speak of me as I am!”

The only ghosts at the Crescent that night

Were of mom and dad’s married life

That crowned with every bite

You took out of each other’s wife.

I really wanted to screw our waitress.

She looked like she’d be into it.

You’d say I’m so sluttish,

Before throwing another fit.

My full moon is now a broken crescent,

From my parents dead married life

That was never pleasant.

To have and to hold so much strife.

From your bickering lips that tear and bite,

The only ghosts at the hotel that night.

Frank Stamford was right to pull that trigger.

Just not as right as the Fat Man.

And three times. You figure

The Beatles were this poet’s fans

Of this proud Trojan’s Catholic bleeding heart.

Somehow, I seriously doubt it.

Outpost pizza sick fart

Fills the pants, no doubt about it.

This wooden horse held together by glue,

Sneaks through the gates awaiting tragic fate.

Impossible for true

To be happy after this state.

So, the Poet dies for having two wives,

While loving these tender Vatican lies.

Arkansas has made me squeal like a pig.

Deliverance from nature’s state

As Archibald Yell did

Under Lafayette’s natural hate.

It is better to live on one’s two feet,

Than to die on one’s knees at war.

Poison Spring holds the meat

As buzzards feast upon the gore.

Black birds are singing in the dead of night

Of those brave students, numbered nine,

For Little Rock slaves’ plight.

Slaves of the Roman cross, the swine

That storm Ozark bluffs fleeing for freedom.

Praying through bated snouts no one sees them.

That bastard wouldn’t watch me skate the curb,

After all the bullshit from golf.

A Zen sport shanked a curve

That left me thinking, “all my fault.”

The scraped knees don’t hurt as badly as this

Moment of daily exhaustion

That pays my existence

To hold up my poor father’s chin.

A moment of thoughtless ambivalence

From a man who says, “God’s country

Is here,” in jubilance,

Nailed to the tree of Galilee,

Pounds Oedipus’ shield, the mighty war drum,

I’m howling Kansas City here I come.

The smartest man I know believes in God.

Not a judgmental guy up there,

Swimming around Orr’s cod.

More like an ethereal flair

That sparked the Big Bang into existence.

A formless, voiceless thing abounds.

So existentialist,

This circus with its cosmic clowns.

This transparent gardener plants schism

That germinates believing souls

Of mere mysticism.

The light of a massive black hole.

The universe expands and collapses

From imagination’s sharp synapsis.

The Catfish Hole is the only reason

To ever go to Wedington,

Eggs Benedict treason

Built these suburbs, no saving them,

Now all the people live their little lives

Upon the Roman cross for slaves

That revolt against crimes

So revolting and so depraved

That we sailed across the vast ocean sea

And built this land, just you and me,

Never mind the Sabines,

For assimilation is key.

Now scorn upon angel headed hipsters

In the way of my fried catfish blisters.

I kick flipped the wagon with my skateboard.

I never smoked more weed last week,

Cos I was stressed and bored.

Family guilt runs silent, runs deep.

I feel guilty for enjoying this smoke.

I guess I’m convinced it’s a sin.

Some religion’s dull joke

Pulls me down again and again.

Perhaps the bad habit is this belief

In a judgmental guy up there,

That causes so much grief,

With his old ethereal flair.

The smartest man I know, knows many things,

But I know he will believe anything.

I am so sick of the same old question

That will never have an answer.

Know nuclear fission,

Know the cure for all the cancers,

Those are questions that have concrete answers.

But let’s go fishing for some God.

Dreams of Swan Lake dancers

Swim away like Major Orr’s Cod.

The cowardly chaplain dares not face truth,

That wastes his time with boring stress

Of ganja smoking youth

Of multiplied fruit that is doubly blessed.

A good feeling feels good to be alive,

But God-fearing fools let such feelings drive.

Yes, I think they are quite foolish indeed

To be fruitful and multiply

As the world’s greatest creed

Is to fly the coop, up and fly,

Fear the queers like red foxes with rabies.

Her biggest day is their wedding,

 And she births his babies.

The cherry-red sun is setting.

My marriage has hardship as all of course.

My thrice loved dad cries, “get a job.”

At my age, his divorce

Was my biggest reason to sob.

He said, “all marriages fail, come what may,”

That’s all he said for our small wedding day.

Karamazov almost turned me faithful

Through Dostoevsky’s way with words.

BB’s taste is hateful,

Illiterate nouns and dumb verbs.

What am I trying to prove to BB?

By reading aloud this dense book

To the Titan Phoebe

Whose attention hateful forsook.

There are some prayers that have no answers.

I want to take away her stroke.

I don’t understand her

Obstinate desire for her hope.

I have illiterate nouns and dumb verbs

From Ivan’s madness that whispers, “Absurd.”

That black widow spider spins misery

In her vicious web of nagging,

With such antipathy,

Her daughter-in-law’s with dragging

Misery across her gossamer web.

She sucks out their insides to feast

Upon the living dead.

As Christ’s flesh is flour and yeast,

As bacchant wine flows through his veins,

Offerings to Titan Phoebe

Spilling stigmata’s stain

Upon Roman cross weaves BB

A tapestry of Earthly suffering

Belief in virtue’s poison thundering.

At the Christ of the Ozarks’ Berlin Wall

Is a shred of beauty amidst

A most sinful faux pas.

And Christians don’t see what’s amiss!

Jesus looks like an Isle of Lewis piece.

Some poor pawn that prays pitiful

On the Roman Cross’s feast

Of flesh upon his slavish soul.

This act of rebellion up on that wall

That risks cold bitter labor camps,

Lest the red Kremlin fall,

 Plies the virgin’s flushed birthing cramps.

By the chapel in all of her glory,

Not sure if true, but it’s a nice story.

Perfection is the biggest lie we tell

To escape in this fantasy

That everything is swell.

Pray hard enough for ecstasy!

How should I feel about being lied to?

Anger flashes Achilles mind,

I don’t know what is true.

But this lying is so unkind.

The truth shall set me free from this locked room

With my family stuck. No exit.

We sit in boring gloom,

Complaining, vile, and so wretched.

Stuck in this big boring bleak liar’s hell,

Perfection is the biggest lie we tell.

My sister married someone whose been probed

By space alien UFOs.

He swears Bob Lazar knows

Secrets that keep him indisposed.

He says the gods are ancient aliens

Their boss must be the one true God,

From pagans’ gradient

Imagination lightning rod.

He got all this from TV and some books.

The boy is no fortunate son

But moves slick as king’s rooks.

My buzz kills conspiracy fun.

I know I can’t help him, and now I’m done,

This man hasn’t seen 2001.

I get up, go out the door, go outside.

This empty world feels full and free

With human’s broken pride

Of being wrong and too carefree

From believing these morality plays

That punish the weak to protect

The weak from being swayed

To strength by shunning lie’s incept.

Outside the birds sing a song of their own

Creation, in their own image

Songs shining vision shone

Its own sake, creation’s finish.

Whenever the lies make me want to hide,

I get up, go out the door, go outside.