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PARIS-Five Parisians and two New Yorkers, members of high society, the avant-garde, each upstanding and seem like they could be focus for a new film that might be entitled Searching for Andy Warhol, agreed at a round, platinum-crusted table meeting last thursday that using X's in the place of hard K and S consonant combinations--as in THANX and PHYSIX--should be from here out seen as an expression of ultimate class.

The Stench

Salmon swims up the waterspout,
drinking and driving in the family car.
When it comes down to feeling half-empty,
no one knows a faster route
than protecting the world from another flood.
Salmon dries glasses like a summer drought.

Slender arms and you know that it’s true:
standing up right but he’s looking straight down.
While you were out, he knelt with his head,
worshiping numbers underneath his shoes.
Spilling his drinks and spoiling his food:
lies to the world but you know it’s for you.

Somber eyes,
what a surprise.
So many people
breathing similar lies.

Squish Squash in my little, rubber, planetary boots

The world seems flat these days. The
windows in my room televise a
mountain range pushed
into an oilfield that
pumps hybrid automobiles and
ten-thousand dollar, crossbred
cats. When I walk in a circle, my
feet always seem to travel
in a straight line, on account of my
international position on
Iraq.
Nobody bothers with the moon
anymore. It seems like we’ll never send a
man back up there. I wonder
if the moon is lonely,
like a hotel that had perfect vacancy for
a billion years, then
finally got some guests, but those
few left on account of
poor room service. Take
what you can get I guess.

Jason's Song

Jason’s room has a funny smell,
smelt like mold on the windowsill.
Jason’s laugh could break an egg
but nothing else: he was the quiet type.

Never I did understand
what he meant, who I am.
Reading Jason Sam I Am,
I would sit and he would stand.

Resting Jason’s head on mine,
through a dream I saw a sign.
Crusade quest was the prophecy,
float downstream the mystery,

Jason joined me hand in hand:
always he did understand.
Off we left on a cloud canoe,
drifting under our mother moon.

The river emptied in his room,
four half-shut eyes were our disguises.
Chasing Jason around the room,
like fresh plucked spring in the afternoon,
staring Jason eye to eye,
like two lone clouds in the morning sky.

Leaving for the forver

They won’t notice when we go; we were barely here at all. The things we leave won’t remind our friends of what we were to have become. If we grow up and fade away, then who will say we were at all? When we run we should not look back. With tight-shut eyes, we won’t stop. Let’s leave our beds just how they are when we woke up this morning. Memories are a clever game of truth or dare: we choose to leave. The sun pulls hard against our belts. Come with. Don’t ask. Just follow us. When we’re all and we all go, then no one will regret the sun. We’ll burn our maps and wear thick socks: we will not ever return.

Simon's song

Simon was a
whisperer; he whispered
when he slept. Simon went to
school Monday; he went to
make a friend. Simon made the
teachers cry: he was too
damn loud. At school, he was
troublesome; he put
the other kids down. Simon’s folks asked
the school’s advice: they took books
off their shelf. Simon thought these
crazy thoughts; he’d whisper
to himself. Simon told the
doctor lies. He’d rather
not have friends, then tell the world
his crazy thoughts; he cried out
loud instead. The doctor gave him
yellow pills: he was
only nine. His mom thought they
needed time; he knew
they worked fine. Simon had a
year’s supply before his
parents knew. Simon had been
hiding them: yellow pills
under his bed.

Simon knelt
before his bed to whisper
God a prayer. “God won’t you
take me away
to heaven and back,
to the moon and back,
fly away with wings tied to my back.


Simon grew up
very strange; he drank away
his pain. Simon looked
straight at the sun; tell himself
“We are the same.” Simon whispered
to the moon, “Why aren’t you
my home?” Simon chased
the animals: he felt so
alone. Simon thought these
crazy thoughts; he thought he’d
gone mad. Simon knelt
before his bed, “God, I’ve
got it bad.”

And “God won’t you
take me away
to heaven and back,
to the moon and back,
fly away with wings tied to my back.

What will this play in?

A band of horses ran off with my girl

So if we fall apart
wouldn’t we still be the same,
and when I broke your heart,
didn’t it still beat the same?

Can’t you believe it?
Wouldn’t you believe it?
How could you just leave me?
Why would you just leave me?

Voila, I found a cure—
wouldn’t you believe my luck.
She wears a tight white shirt.
Couldn’t you just see she stuck?

She looked the same,
she smelt the same,
she felt the same
as you.
And
she was better.
And
I’m still bitter.

So here’s a running start.
Find a pace that matches well
to the beat of your bleeding heart.
I’ll try to catch your smell.

Violence stinks