DEMOS 2.0

Our Greece is puny anal
a bun in the oven
baby-daddy Democracy
parliaments of Enfamil
tithes to tide over
the ephors and scribes
broken antenna that dribbles
milliliters of veritas
into the monopoly flagon
greasy spoons in Queens
legislating forks be forks
whatever happened to ostracism
as a means of purging malvolios?
instead of babysitting embezzlers
feral generals and industrialists
they should have to crack rocks
with a blunt butter pic
we have incorporated several
theaters of spite towards
boat, plane, and raft people
to little avail or renown
is dragons of infidelity
dragoons jettisoned to where
we currently want brunt
generals with aggressive portfolios
in subsidiaries that cast blamrays
is the distracted peasants
of Dromedaryville for they will
withstand most anything, except
being able to floss and pop lip gloss
is Brooks Brothers thobes
denim saris and supersecret
rayon abayas, everybody else
moving in just uniform apparel
is defunct stirrups of Captain
Cowboys, quarterbacks
linesmen, safeties, Chairmen
on the House Committee
for International Heisman Ideology.

SEVENEXPRESSISHMAEL

On Wednesdays and Thursdays I take the 7 all the way to Flushing from Times Square. The trip takes a good 40 minutes, but it provides me with ample time to devote to my studies and staples of fiction like Moby Dick. This poem is a result of that compulsion.


Call me the pilot of my commute in the belly of the seven
Call me something indicative of my milleau, but that also harkens
Call me the customs agent of the feminine ingression
Call me harpooner that sleeps with his implement
Call me mutiny on the high seas of the Queens elevated
Call me pressure dyspepsia as the express barrels
Call me the plaudits of the wake of silent seas
Call me jocular recluse: a farm christened, Arrowhead
Call me unclassified tendril on terra firma, an abomination!
Call me superstitious seaman in the same way that astronauts are superstitious
Call me Knickerbocker Clancy, South Pacific de la Carre, proto-Kipling
Call me pulpo, ink of the octopus, Squid Bic, a stylus named, Lance
Call me epic tome, didactic almanac, critical rubble
Call me alcove throne, carrying a sundry solace like a dromedary
Call me passed over for promotion all my lubber life
Call me paperback flagon of symmetric, synthetic poetry cabernet
Call me Captain Apeshit with prosthetic pinepeg
Call me the whirled woods of Woodside, Corona Park, or Kissena
Call me pip of mongrel caste, Admiral Deep Pockets
Call me windlass of my lector time in the ratchet of Jonah’s gaze
Call me capstan of the stand clear of the closing doors intercom command
Call me something you can make more fancy by adding an e
Call me the great, white whale of Shea Stadium
Call me todos los mamones que van al U.S. Open in boat shoes
Call me pelvis of the world, Ambassador to Foam, Prince of Cetyology
Call me late for classes at library school on the frigate, U.S.S. Marm
Call me “dismemberer of my dismemberer” with the tact for tit for tat