Salad Daze Unit 22 (2001)

from one of the living who doesn't envy the dead 

although i am not hers
this is no defeat

in what we never shared
i will ever after linger

no pain can solve such love
these tears are lies

although she is not for me
i am bathed in victory

Salad Daze Archive Unit 21 (2001)

homage to an unknown poet 

there is a
huge cold hammer
coming down at me
but this is not a dream

it is blind & patient
the edge is too far
to quite run to
this is more than its shadow

if we laugh
may it then dissolve away
but we still aren't laughing
this is still the same

Salad Daze Archive Unit 20 (1997)

detritus

if i am a stain
on your glorious wall
where the hand
washing me away
or the arms to hold
& forgive away this

if i am an angel
in your milky smog
where the eye
sure swift true & merciful
to snipe me down
& burn away history 
or the lips to kiss
where worlds begin

Salad Daze Archive Unit 19 (1997)

dumbshow

this stage
bends & flows
over it
players strut & rage
as the sand
laughs into its bowl of glass
scripts blur
in rains like knives
eyes meet bewildered
by the theme music
that has just disappeared
as slowly
this stage rises to meet us
onto it
we flow like curtains

Salad Daze Archive Unit 18 (1997)

teasing song

will i learn this
ere it destroys me whole
neither serving nor dictating
neither pen nor page
do i find this
ere it casts me to the dogs
of all my enigmas whole
of each season's shining arm
may i do this
ere the klaxon sows panic
both throat & pendulum
both wolf & lamb
did i make this

Salad Daze Archive Unit 17 (2001)

Soft Target

Sacred goods for a profane market: make way for the advent of the next Soft Target...

You got screwed over in our clover, but now you've come back for more.
We'll let you choose which way to lose - do you prefer Virgin or Whore?
We built this city on your aching spine, which suits us just fine.
You can march in our parade while your ideals fade, you're such a good gold-mine.

It's so much more fun than denial & regret: all hail the rise of the new Soft Target...

We grant you a heritage where brother eats brother, it makes your dreams nice & easy to smother.
All you have to do is shrug & turn away, so while the children burn our fiddles can play.
It's payback time so cough up that dime, you know exactly what for.
We stole your choice & altered your voice, you're such a good little war.

Bless you for swimming into our gross net - get up on the altar, you're the next Soft Target...

Salad Daze Archive Unit 16 (2001)

Panic's Wheel

from Panic comes Prophecy
from Prophecy comes Knowledge
from Knowledge comes Survival
from Survival comes Innocence
from Innocence comes Care
from Care comes Law
from Law comes War
from War comes Peace
from Peace comes Panic

Salad Daze Archive Unit 15 (2000)

Heart's Fancy  { a Satyre }

imagine me not imaginary
I am your heart's apothecary
wrapped in panic cold & alone
here is the ballad of each shaking bone
this beauty discarded on a summer's day
whispers our warning from its muddy lay
feel me near as kind as ever
I am the cord you cannot sever
wrapped against both hands & swords
none unravels this knot of words
these same burnt eyes seek anew
to share the kinship always with you
know me not quite unknown
I am the elixir you never own

Salad Daze Archive Unit 14 (2002)

for the unknown empress

pretty maid wild & true
in trousers or a dress
the one no-one can guess

i bore a sacred key
a phantom you swore never to find
i loved you enough not to mind

noontide's half-blind side
strange new spirit majesty
a gentle truth that melted me

you felt like such a zero
when you were my only hero

while i surrendered i learned
from the greatest lyric ever
your voice's small clean river

pretty maid so smooth & fair
you made each day my perfect day
the bergamot in my earl grey

Salad Daze Archive Unit 13 (1997)

anvilhead

the mirrors are mine
in which lurk the enemy
here are your mad dogs aplenty
i am what everyone searches for
the angel of the next war

the swords sleep here
in this eager darkness shine clear
this is your final golden mine
i have what all are lusting for
the secret of a melting core

this breath is mine
in the moment that you forget it
here are years without names
i am the old law fresh renewed
the flames are my prelude

3/27/97

Salad Daze Archive Unit 12 (1996)

wiremom vs. softmom

this is the way we
slide the bolt slide the bolt
far over our heads
sold out for sale on sale sale ends soon
this is the way
we load the chamber load the chamber
do you get it
or just laugh in smug myopia
no-one gets a chance to
make a second impression
in this cage
still the other calls
this is not the way we

7/15/96

comoediae magnam postulate

That observed non-trivial violations of symmetry & of conservation can potentially serve as elements of a metageography for an esoteric & novel ecology we have yet to measure or observe.

Ratios of violation over time may be helpful if means exist to collect them.

The Political Economy Of Pain

Our main vehicle of survival is exactly what we instinctively dread & despise.

Alternativen-Dämmerung - Twilight Of The Alternatives

When adults pretend, very bad things can happen.
Decades of denial have now narrowed the track of history to an epic degree.

The dominant motif of humanity now is the Hail Mary football play.

The trope of ultimate extremity rules in a kaleidoscope of forms.

Fascism resurgent is the polity attempting to defend an economic order that long before 2008 was already demonstrably a morbid anachronism.

Rising psychopathy, pedophilia & narcissism are unconscious attempts at ad-hoc evolutionary solutions to an unsustainable consumerism that's spawning an ever-worsening toll of social & ecological disaster.

Actual evolutionary solutions to our worst threats exist & are not state secrets.
Being hostile to the status quo, their success is not a given.

The Great Weirding is nigh, the surreal historical crux when our collective inherent instability finally manifests itself to its full potential.
If you think the century was insane this far, this is when you need to strap in.