Pogo Shtick (about the enemy)
I know these people.
I‘ve known them all my life.
Kiss-ups: self-serving sycophants, knee-padded beggars entreating crumbs in exchange for their honor, cowards taking the "safe" route, disgusting vermin.
I know these people.
Posers: paradigms of prodigious emptiness, icons of Warholian temporality, revered May Fly Royalty quickly caught under foot and swept away, winners at musical chairs, sad little bullet heads.
You know these people too.
You’ve known them all your life.
Snobs who say: "How do you like my new dress?" And "What are YOU doing here?" And "Well, I must be going now."
They say, "We run this town." And "MY son is going to PRIVATE school." And "See you at Rotary?" (do you think they wear beanies with plastic propellers there?)
You know snobs:
To the manor born, stainless steel spoon in their mouths, careful parents protecting their precious ones from the "undesirable" element, on the school board so Junior can take the LOSING jump shot, class-conscious warriors in the classless Homeland Defense against "class warfare," puffed up pontificators of their own inescapable worthiness, inexhaustible exhibitionists of self-stimulation, demigods of consumption, tin pot aristocrats with streets named after them, polishing their putters and their silverware, gross toads in tiny cellars.
We know these people.
Lip-twisted Jesus-lovers spewing their racist vomit, their sexist, homophobic, parochial, creationist, censorial bile across the landscape. Moaning "persecution!" at the slightest hindrance of their self-righteous pogrom. Well-healed healers crippling their crippled sheep during the shearing - and in turn – the carnivorous sheep, transmogrified raptors - healed and born again - return the favor to their brethren. Rendering unto Caesar. Rendering the carcass of humanity to grease the wheels of commerce. Burn the witch! Burn the Jew! Pass the plate and the ammunition too!!!
And the bullies! Pushing ahead in line, eating your lunch, establishing the pecking order (enforcers for the long term), attack dogs of the virtual reality, teacher’s pets, quarterbacks, coaches, principals, cops, mayors, editors, clear-channel mouth organs, cable "news" vampires; offal, officially elected; statesmen, patriarchs, the smirking half-wit president of the US of A!!!
We know the bullies.
Home on the hill, sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-suburbanites, gated communitarians. Upper crust bluebloods, thoroughbreds. Orthodontia, acrylic nails, hair transplants, fancy pants; plastic surgeons, eggs of sturgeons; Gucci-Gucci-Gucci.
We know the bullies.
Playgrounders who steal the ball if they can’t win. Self-perpetuating slackers, self-aggrandizing losers, cardboard cutouts, ostrich-eyed/bird- brained incompetents who leave their droppings where they may and delegate the clean-up.
Exploiters who bring good things to life. Engineers and oligarchs; saviors, heroes, icons; holy men and businessers, suits and CEO’s.
Politicians preying and praying (with an "e"-ing and an "a"-ing). War-mongers abandoning vets - who forgive and forget (from their sick bed or their barstool) just BEFORE the next war.
And we know the cowards, you and I. We know them all already, know them all!!
The willow reeds bending with the wind, chameleons blending in, willing wallflowers, self-deceivers, band-wagoners; toadies, informers, collaborationists, company men; narks, snitches, good soldiers, good Germans, apologists; wearers of rose-colored glasses, takers of the easy path.
Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not to me!
Windup parrots squawking of god and country, reciting the provided script, premeditatedly oblivious to hypocrisy and lies and the obvious degradation
They say, "It is our duty." "We must support our leader." "It is the white (and red and blue) man’s burden!
Disgusting slugs sliming the world in their spineless, paralyzed rush to avoid being stepped upon themselves. Oh, what a well-deserved iridescent mess THAT would be, and how luminescently appropriate!
The possum warned us of these ersatz Ishmaels, riding the coffins of others to save themselves for one more day of self-delusion - these "survivors" - wrapped in the armor of self-righteous nonsense, spouting judgmental distractions, propagating emotional calluses, lips eternally puckered, shadow soldiers of the living dead struggling inch by perverted inch down the Primrose Path to the tables down at Morey’s where they pass and are forgotten with the rest.

 

 

Clothes Make the Man #1

Clothes make the man

So, when I die

Bury my clothes.

When I murder

Arrest my clothes

Execute them

Or

(if the Republicans are out)

Give them life imprisonment without chance of parole

Make love to my clothes;

take them off caressingly,

and take the money from the pockets

(they won’t notice)

Impregnate my clothes

and bring forth progeny

of patches and rags,

a gauche immortality

spawn of moths’ balls.

*************

 

Clothes Make the Man #2

Then god said, "Let us make man in our own image,"

And He formed man of

35% cotton and 65% polyester

and

breathless

like Jerry Lee,

gave man Great Balls

of Fire

 

(god also made woman —

from one of man’s collar stays —

but that is another story)

 

So

 

Remember man that thou art cloth,

food for hungry

moths

moths which

once

(when they were worms)

ate up

the meaty men

of yore

but now must try to

earn their wings

digesting polyester things,

and gumming wool and cotton strings,

 

to eat the Men of Cloth.