Word Soup (Scratch Pad)

insurgency

karl — 2008-03-21T19:00:58-05:00

our love is an insurgency

it fights the tide

in long, lonely mile

in passwords and in code

Ad Agency Love

karl — 2008-03-10T12:54:56-05:00

he was a fifty foot billboard of smoldering metal and Calvin Kleins
shot straight out of the boardroom and into the daily think
a ceramic reconstituted DIck Clark with an android angel's grin
wrapped in an airtight sex and wisdom PVC coating
liquified and injected into our rattling, battling skull
filling us up with bitter almond inadequacy like liquid mercury

she was an ambulatory blue ball hijink fuck apostle
still slick from the ad agency's short skirt pump parades
rattling heads from a mile away in a push to sell cosmetics
to the plump and yearning, the assless and burning
she gets off shoving fingers down young girls' throats

their children will be raised by cell phone
their teeth an unholy angel white
they leave glossy mirror footprints on fifth avenue

blood widow wind

karl — 2008-03-04T20:03:25-05:00

And so it goes
with rotgut clothes
and fingers spread out on the floor

Tokyo's dead
and the priesthood has said
there's a blood widow wind at the door

mindless

karl — 2008-03-02T16:24:27-05:00

dark metal hands crank out cantankerous applause
basked in engine oil and chain smoke
this town feels like a mudpuddle being stomped in
by a retarded child on a sugar high

dim men living hard lives,
propped up by dumb, bruised women
suckling dumb, bruised children

If it were summer I'd envy them like early Sam Clemens
I'd sings songs like Bob Dylan
get hard over simple living

but I ain't seen the sun in twelve days
and all I can think about
stuck in this traffic jam
is how they're all mindless, shitting pigs

I mean that in the nicest possible way

sycophant (song in G-Minor)

karl — 2008-03-01T16:48:57-05:00

He's a rattled slat sycophant
a stumbling, bumbling deviant

a double chinned greasy wheeled money man
selling guns to tots for gold

His brothers and sisters are obstacles
commoditized hot-heated Popsicles

Just like mud-puddles under his chariot
or cotton pills plucked from his clothes

He worships a mass market fealty
a contrived message plastic reality

Where inadequate sheeple all scurry for parts
in a play that he trademarked last June

We could wish for his death, or epiphany
But his sons carry on his cacophony

On this mangled American highway
That we ride on together alone

corpse pope

karl — 2007-11-26T17:17:55-05:00

knives in the back
and glass river shine
at the end of the rope
burn this corpse pope shudder apoplectic
in pits and shiver
in radio talk show treason
babbled dumb among the shits and giggles

The Aztec

karl — 2007-10-26T09:03:08-05:00

I awoke purple
a predator drone
alligator skin
marble hallway eyes
electric heart

Quetzalcoatl
plugged in
to the city divine
a million yapping brains
a million bleeding hearts

every pulse
every shift
city spires
belching children
and drum beats

warm

karl — 2007-04-17T19:56:29-05:00

like a candle in a pumpkin's head
seconds scatter
like thunderstorm rabbits

the guts behind

karl — 2007-04-17T09:36:44-05:00

bat-shit and double barreled
I stand corrected
I leave my guts behind
thinking just maybe I'd be faster

scotch tape holds my head in

my stumped feet
and their copper caps
clump the walk, scrape the pavement

my folded soul has un-ironed lines
I smirk, blame static cling
teethy crowds point and laugh
friends among them

my bubble alien head
strikes streetlights as I turn to run
my wounded knees
rusty, like hinges screaming

I have tattoos for each enemy
each broken heart and every battle
I look to them for strange comfort
they form a map to here

This angry snowy street
its mindless equatorial mob
smacked stupid by a pitchfork pulse
I thought maybe I could outrun them all

nefarious he

karl — 2007-04-11T18:16:23-05:00

a slick bomb licking wet storm wounds
some maniacal mechanical animal
freshly unengaged from barb wire tired
the crowd's nebulous eyes wide

the corner keeps a white tower worm
versed in potency polemic, ineptly academic
his girl's thighs ache in rhythms unfamiliar
later they lay in tired tricks and riddle

chatterbox gossips forge legend
idolatry and library stink in the air
a sudden look, an easy smile
she falls hard as river stone, smiling

I like accidents and nightmares
humility and uncorrected errors wild
humanity's thick bloody flaw
tonight his timing's just too precise

He's all things to all people
Intellectual or sexy ineffectual; on demand
last time I met a predator like that
my girl lost years and ran home blind wild

tonight it's a pop-candy diatribe
a hip sexy ride on the escalade
47 broken hearts in the glove box
invisible wreckage dribbles out behind

to the crowd he is alien phrenology
a carnal untranslated mystery
curtain cloaked syncopated entropy
wound tight as a wounded child

No Surrender

karl — 2007-04-10T17:31:39-05:00

No, Surrender

-Justin Currie

Big Macs for the fat
low-cal wraps for the call centre battery hens
Japanese snacks for the choice-spoilt citizens
caviar kickbacks for the citadel denizens
airport shoe shine servicing the suits
among the little silver stereos and hand-grown cheroots
first class passengers file on last
after the scum are packed in with their tax-free loot
checkout calamity, cheated out of loyalty points
ten more years of this joint you’d be home and dry
beggars beat round the cash machine
but you just slip between them with the usual lie
terrible tales of kidnapped kids
keep you focused on the family and filling up the fridge
neighborhood watchers, shop door dodgers
stick their sunnies on the market and start racking up the bits

Should you stand and fight?
Should you die for what you think is right,
so your useless contribution will be remembered?
If you’re asking me, I say
No, surrender.
No, surrender.

Constant growth the cancerous cure
a sworn in race of profiteers insure
cheap cars for the rich
cheap lives for the poor
cheap weeks in the sun
free drinks at the door
puerile propaganda plugs up the TV
keep folk following the money so they’ll never be free
keep them swallowing the swill
the celebrities, the paedophiles,
the immigrants invading from the camp over the hill
war talk, the big debate
foot soldiers in the capital liberating new kinds of hate
come shots of human dots caught in the spotlight stare
he dies, he dares,
fatuous fast track are sneering at the shelf stackers
little middle-Englanders can’t stand the backpackers.
fortress freedom, come on in
take your chances, you might win

Sunset beaches, security patrol
keep out the undesirables who won’t accept the code
equal opportunity to live in total poverty
execute the ignorant, incarcerate the slow
car caressant managers, choking up the avenues
braindead patriots standing in salute
paperwork raining again and again
so the billionaires can claim there’s an enemy to shoot
pill pushers, door steppers
personal goal shoppers, life style trend-setters
meditating mind benders
hair-brained share sellers, pumping out stocks
‘til you’re choking on a chain letter, avalanche of dross
dog squads trawling through every country
tracking down fools who are bullshit hungry
blinded by divinity, followers fall
into the mantrap saddle on the way to war
athletes compete in grand charades
while tanks flatten streets, and a nation laughs
visa holders gape at the changing guards
while creeps buy bums to take their photographs
film fans flock to the latest schlock
blockbusters block out even the vaguest thought
bankrupt schools grind out fool after fool
and feed them to a system where idiots rule
phone booths, phone votes, bogus questionnaires
you get a say as if anybody cares
Joe Public doesn’t wanna play,
so liquidate his life as he looks the other way
don’t get sick, don’t get wise,
or they’ll get you with a justice where everything is lies
march down Main Street, complain if you want
but it’s 20 years straight for the losers at the front"

Watching Tony Snow

karl — 2007-03-22T17:25:15-05:00

I feel it click and the dumb comes on
like some dull eyed river asks why
nonsense has a prime time line
lost between the microphone screech
are bits of heart and an honest man
truth replaced by subjective conjecture
while you were nipple fed and sleeping
dumb dope feeds brittle heads in kind
and the liquid suckle makes a violent pop
as the tit is pulled and the tether falls
only the faintest carrion aftertaste
we all feel so much better now that we know
those children aren't dead
they're only sleeping

drive on

karl — 2007-01-02T11:26:40-05:00

There's two men
one has insect eyes
pupils stutter like winter squirrels
he's been taking something

The other
smells like bacon fat and engine oil
has a nametag
the name on it isn't his

Both think it's funny
They actually think it's funny
Somehow to them it's funny

Neither has slept since Wichita
since the truck jolted
white eyes
drive on

tripping ballistic

karl — 2006-10-16T13:21:32-05:00

I launch face-first at mars
and miss
tripping screaming
laughing fantastic
past steel mills and radio towers
leaking curse words and sucking up radio waves
skipping across lakes, arms flailing, yelling
ballistic body heat building in waves
back arched wide-eyed now pinwheeling
piss & vinegar, I smash life-sized holes in skyscrapers
rolling ridiculous magnificent, now accelerating
head down, shoulders square, steaming slamming organic
double fisted middle-fingers raised skyward
screaming, blaspheming, body rocking
a broadcast projectile, a brainless bullet
a blue electric wake shatters glass, leaves birds stupid
steel-willed, wind, teary eyed double vision
my legs numb, stomach raw, mind empty
I go fetal, blistered and brainless, spinning
the heat now liquifies metal, clouds recoil, singed
children pointing skyward, faces hot
terrestrial idemnity be damned, preternatural orbit alive

Jersey

karl — 2006-10-07T18:08:35-05:00

Jersey used to sing
now she wipes black marker
off of rest-room stalls
she stopped reading what they write
long ago