dioginette with hand over mouth

spring again, time to filter
the clothes, out with  the unworn
out out and take your stuck
zippers with you. first
world problems oh! our
hydrogen fuel cells need too much
plat ti num. oh! old mac donald's beef
isn't free trade, oh oh i'm down wind
from an ethnic carnival, how
will i bear it?

it's ok i answer
somewhere there is justice

hmmm, so i
went lookin for it
down in the basement up in the cellar
through a bunch of attics and tree houses
yes, like that, i took off
with a candle powered
by batteries, a rope and a towel.

i tied the rope on a horse
i thought should belong to me.
horses and ropes go together
if there are humans involved.
that's how it's been since history.
but i left them both at the beginning
of the journey. traded them
for a buncha batteries. i am not
a horse people. but

i'll never let my towel go. to be truthful
i keep it in a backpack i discovered
outside the trading post. serendipitous
like so much of life, as i wondering
where will i put all these batteries?
they really were
the only thing  i was interested in
 at the post. i needed two things:
light
and to get rid of that damn horse.
it was a fresh relationship but
too demanding. spoon fed strawberries, for reals.
spoiled is what i called her. seriously spoiled
was her name for the time i claimed her sometimes
i think she rode me instead of the other way.
around the corner from the post sat
the backpack. brand new.  still
with a tag on it. i looked  for an owner
or hidden cameras. then i took it.
it was going to a long journey, i knew
because no one had seen justice
in the first world since
they couldn't remember.
after a while of traipsing up stairs
and interviewing cell mates i began to form
a picture of it. shiny, swordesque it cut
through bullshit then sliced green
tomatoes for dinner. .never asked why
are you late, just warmed the plate,
 set it beside you and let you eat in peace.
justice was understanding, sometimes to a fault.
i remember a story one woman related
about a custody battle over a botched
adoption. justice wanted to cut
the baby in half. the adoptive mom
broke down in tears
as the blade was raised and threw herself
in front of the bailiff screaming no!
she(the birth mom) can keep her!
so that's what happened. later on they found
the baby dead of course but no one
seems to blame justice. some people
didn't like to judge but still they rated
the service ones and twos .
some nights while camping in the latest
hovel i'd found on the internet, the leaves
seemed to echo the gossip i'd overheard
during the day in cafes and gas
stations, they whispered
 how slow she was, how blind. how
have i not found her! i silently screamed
  boards  rattle and skyscrapersswayed elusive
still, i think
i must switch tactics.
i begin to travel at night.i have all these
batteries and a candle. my towel valiantly
holds up through multiple soppings-up of rain
soaked shoes ; spilled coffees; sea soaked skin;
night's indescretions    it rests, royally purple
embedded with a paisly jaquard, in the backpack
 ready  to protect me from  bad
 hair on a drizzly day. i trade batteries
for a hamburger in gold city, oregon.
i ask the waitress if she knows anything
about justice. justice! she spits
the word out. i cover my coffee. they tell me
she's blind but i think she's dumb.
dumb?  i've heard her called a lot of names
but not dumb.
yeah well, last time she appeared
around here, she didn't say a word,
just sat there, like her lips were stitched
together. she had an interpreter
doing that thing with the hands
but i don't think anyone knows what anybody
said.pretty much everyone left unsatisfied
and the tent only bot a few more folks come in
after that.most likely they saw the fylyers still up on the road,
she had the signs just ike burma shav
with jingles to draw the crowd i remember the best one went
when you're having a party
don't forget to bring the fun
when you do a bad deed
don't forget to run
it won't do any good of course
to think "they won't bust us"
we will grab you at the source
because we are justice.
she liked
to talk in the royal but there
is a lot of firepower behind her.
so we began to undertsand
that's what makes her right. might.
we didn't like that, so much.
we throw snowballs at her now
she crouches down on her walks home
from the library where she's learning
to speak again, hey, hey, mister hey
but i've run out of batteries
and the night's coming on

-what the poet knows

brown rice and dungeons. edges. all of them.claws. the rattle of a baby's toy.joy.easy to say.sunset's unease. drapes. pulled back onto a sunlit rose garden. a spider and a webcaught fly. there was this time in pheonix. at the airport.after the toiletries were exposed. oversized. trashed .she knew where she'd point the gun. knew she'd pull the tirgger. if that was her job.

what the flea knows

warm winds  came early this year
worming their way through oklahoma

there were vibrations in the stalks, from
hidden earthquake or uprooted trees,
 the very dust jittery and uncertain.

.he jumps into the air, a parachute aloft reversed
the swirling dust all around.  he finds a hold,
.clings with   weary  legs, tightly folds his wings

  bites down hard, tastes blood as he's lifted
 into the knowledge of water's gravity..

what the adjunct knows

alchemy in the hallways, added courses and prior requisites
some things cooking in the lab probably won't turn out right
but that's the omelet's odds. it's mostly placebo driven egos
anyway,defining the way we could have been by all the unfiled

patents hidden in agendas that cruise sharkish by the doors.
politrix is like that, so what did you expect? she looks at his razor
stubble, it's seven oclock and there is too much to do even now.
he knows the job is lost. her daughter told her a shaman story

that ended with her ex's secret love. no sense sneaking around
the shadow, it simply follows in front of you. her eyes
 baby marble blue, peer down a greacian nose from under
 egyptian lids. she has not eaten in seven days. the dress fits.

frittering agendas

once you had them all lined up
you didn't know what to do with em.
you looked like the staged moment
of a   hollywood stud leaving the club
with twenty two women on his twenty
two bulging muscles. someone just had
to be the lucky one, going to bed with fox news.

now you're all, what if it's so good, i can't smoke it?
the end of this is all whacked out, but you
give it to me anyway.  i will pull your chain baby
but you can't put any holes in me. enough's enough.

/i don't know if i can take anymore/
too harsh?

/my fingers hurt, there's all this stubble on the floor/
there's just a few left. put your sandals on.

/i could walk on water if you'd just let go/
oh baby, you know it's not that simple

/saint, you said. you said saint/
it's not a catholic thing. it's the opposite of rosary.
you must  forget the names.

the other legacy

she sat in her classroom,
looking at the  photographs
she'd taken of his photographs.
When she saw them, the first time

  he'd stepped into her like wine.
  she wandered further into his mind
 uncontrollably clicking her phone
plucking grapes from his vine. it was unethical

but his photos sold for thousands, she
wasn't a pirate. she was merely in love.
 her husband couldn't know, no one
should know how cold she was without him.

 she cut herself on tape and thistles
dripped blood on   silver nitrate film
noting digital would continue as dom
she bought a box camera, an umbrella lamp.

she needs the money. it's why she teaches
the kids here are ok but she's not seen real art
the kind that makes you worship a god
you don't believe in. budget cuts are taking her

darkroom. he died from advanced pulmonary
 disease yesterday. she lights a cigarette thumbs
through photographs of photographs. locks the outside door
 turns out the lights.  kind hands touch her shoulders

lightly, lead her to the darkroom. she loves the chemistry,
watching him  resolve  on paper, a solution attaching itself
 to being.  her last exposure is a double,   his interesting ears
melt  into a noose that fits like a second skin around her neck.

-three ring pinkie

today i wear sensor collars

home from work. i place them 

on right pinkie finger for safekeeping

when i crack open housings to repair

torn, broken wiring. these things 

are battered around a lot. the collars

are stainless steel and there are no extras.

a flea jumps on my leg, reminds me

there are more important things

that need fixing, but the money comes

from automation repair. to put people 

out of jobs they never wanted in the first place. 

and you ask me why i never write of work?

it's soul less. and it's killing me painfully

with no hope of redemption. sometimes 

there are new problems to solve 

but i've been braindead for so long now

it's tough to get restarted. 

*

butterfly wings are scientific fodder, even.

finally, engineers note evolution's solar collectors

think hey! maybe we could emulate that.

once dna's decoded completely we should be able 

to synthesize anything. it's a matter of will and money.

come and get your share.

789*-

*

here is a picture of a four generations.

father, daughters, grandchildren, great grandchildren.

when he was born, he lived on his pappy's 

tobacco farm in a one room cabin with no running

water or electricity. he and his daddy would go to pappy's

well to fetch water. his puny pail felt like filled with lead

but he couldn't spill one precious drop. if someone 

got sick or hurt, they had to hitch a  mule to a wagon

to bring help. his daddy got a job on the rails and they moved 

to town. they got a phone. and a toilet. when his girls were born

television was the new ritual. movies were technicolored

but tv was black and white. there was one  phone 

in the house. bobby kennedy was shot and vietnam was on tv

and the beatles were banned from their house but his girls

played them anyway, at night very low on their transistor radios.

his wife one daughter  died. his mother died.that's why they're not

in the picture.  his girls had babies

finally  over a span of ten years. he was perplexed

why did they work outside the home? why did they let their kids

play video games, why do you need a cell phone, what is this internet thing.

they try to keep up but the picture is static,the faces smile 

from photostock, printed in color to simulate reality.

someday in an attic someone will find this picture

and wonder which of their relatives this was

and how odd they look, in those turn of the century clothes.