LOW COUPS AND HAUT COUPS
How the Confederacy Finally Won the War
(the birth of a franchise)
Ammonium nitrate,
a little red salt picrate,
order out some
fried hegemony, and brother
the Ris'n Sun's
the fifty-first state.
China's the fifty second
Russia's the fifty third
Southern fried Hegemony's
on the global menu—Colonel Sanders
in Afrique du Sud? Umm,
racism taste good, deep fried—
terrorists, commies, tribalists
in the queue,
exploding chickens,
crossing the road
losin' their hide
to get to the other side.
The Future as Fatal
After the rime is scattered
all over the surface, and
the kerosene is pour'd
over the rotting expendables,
and the histidine hogs
have stompt out the vengeance
in the limousine's glass noir
and the aerosols coat every surface;
this orb was destined
to be a dump anyway.
Ambrose Bierce Studies the globe
"It is winter in Albania,
There's no place like chrome."
The Traffic Report
An aecyetelene sunset
turns into a parafin dawn—
there surely must be
another war in Deserta Arabia—
and Babylon.
How about it commuters?
let's have a swaller of coffee
for the children
screaming under the carpet-bombing.
Low Coupe Bumper Sticker
SHIT HAPPENED
No Ideas in Things
There is nothing
so irrelevent
as a red lawnmower
on the green grass
shellaqued with maple syrup
HI COO
The scapegoat's milk
is homogenized
The blackberry brambles
cover the hill
Early Modern
Every Poet needs a chorus of Negro women
And a friend in wing-tipped shoes
The Way We Are
One half percent difference
in the spelling of the genome
between us and the High Apes,
one percent from the Mouse.
Caught in the middle,
accused by both.
No Coup
You remember
When you were young
And headed for Alaska?
Well now, you're
Dessicated &
Going to Florida,
And you'll be lucky
To be et by alligators.
Way Coup
(with the help of T.R).
For the man standing
in front of a firing squad
4 cigarettes are a lot.
Another Modest Proposal
The border with Mexico
Will never be secure
As long as the Oligarchy
Is permitted to disgorge
It's surplus population
Into the industrial North.
We should annex the country,
Hang their ruling class
And distribute their property
to the peasants
Peace with Violence
We want peace and
we will kill you to get it
Low Coup, Long Overdue
NEA cuts Good and
NEA payback Better
[had Real Poetry "takings"
been in place, the deficit
would be our wages. ĦAh!
it is true when
the agriculturalists say
Ammonium has more power.
Slow Coup
If voting changed anything
it would be illegal
Beau Coup
For the capitalist, time is money
(he bets by the hour, lately by the minute)
For the artist money is time
Coups Noirs
No atrocity or horrid event
from the past can equal the
ghastly enactments stored
in the future: In fact the
worst horrors of the past
were once the future
*
The light carries darkness
in its pocket.
Illustrated by Nancy Victoria Davis