[perfect teeth, listen up]

perfect teeth, listen up:
you’re not going to get anywhere.
tomatoes and onions sustain us,
and peas and carrots, perfect teeth.
ah, yes, shakespeare is very nice,
but beets, chicory, and watercress?
and rice and beans, and collard greens?
lovely little teeth, the bull you’re eating
just yesterday was chomping in the field. and you complained
that the meat was tough.
life’s tough, perfect teeth.
but eat, eat all you can,
and forget this chat,
and dig in.

[i enter the idiot’s bookstore]

i enter the idiot’s bookstore.
i don’t have any money
and i don’t have a knack for crime either.

lining up before my eyes
wonderful titles
moribund from sitting so long
on the shelves.

steal us, they say,
we can’t stand it anymore
in the idiot’s bookstore.

who’d believe
this version of the facts?
help me, maragatos
in this most stolen hour
of a destitute liberator
of books.

my heart pounds. pounds
more than the salgueiro drum line.
my whole body shakes
and my hands sweat buckets.

i reach the street, hands empty
and the books cry: sissy.

in the bathtub with gertrude stein

gertrude stein has an ass out to there gertrude
stein and when she gets out there she makes a great noise as
though someone dragged a wet cloth across
the huge glass window of a public building

gertrude stein from here to there it’s you the washcloth
behind your ear’s all yours from here to there it’s me the rubber
duckie’s mine gertrude stein and thusly we’re pleased

but gertrude stein is a charlatan thinks it’s fine to let one
loose under the water eh gertrude stein? it’s not possible
that anyone could so enjoy making bubbles

and at that moment as it’s her tub she makes
like a scoundrel and steals my towel

and runs out stark naked huge ass descending the
staircase onto the streets of st.-germain-des-prés

rilke shake

make me a rilke shake
with love & ovaltine
when i have a sleepless night
and nothing lights up
i order a rilke shake
and eat a toasted blake
sunny side up
when i am sad
& lonely while
love doesn’t blind me
i drink a rilke shake
and brush a toasted blake
against the epidermis of the butter

nothing beats a rilke shake
on the question of anti-heartache
nothing surpasses the frappe
of rilke with ice cream
no matter how much you pour yourself into bed
and take pleasure and have fun
some nights the moon is weak
the stars vanish in the pitch
and then when there’s no cigarettes
no decent beer
i order a rilke shake
gulp down a toasted blake
and dance like a dervish

what’s a see you?

see you es un adios.
un hankyless adieu amigos.
there are people who write haiku,
three lines à la bashō.
see yous also follow rules.

whoever writes see yous knows whatever
’s sweet is over.
∫
beaten as a child dips his feet in the orinoco
underwater what’s the sound of an ocarina?
brbrlllbrrr brbrlllbrrr
∫
snubbed at a party dips her feet in the rio das antas
underwater what’s your heart do?
‘get out of the rain’ ‘go inside’
∫
suffragette without rouge dips her feet in the clyde
underwater what’s your hair do?
left … right … left … right …
∫
unphotogenic dips her feet in the rhine
underwater what’s your cell do?
‘after the beep lorelei after the beep’