John Randall

There’s people I haven’t met called John Randall.
There’s a guy who’s sick and shoeless in bed called John Randall.
There’s a man with tattoos and a tie on, singing a song called “John Randall.”

There’s a fifty year-old governor who just drove his precocious
aide to the top of a hill named John Randall.
There he is in bed again, still with his shoes off, John Randall.

They’ve got their arms around each other, asking someone to take a photograph.

With a pillow over his head, John Randall.
They don’t realize it’s a tabloid reporter, byline John Randall.

He’s in the back of a portrait of a bunch of people in an apartment drinking Bud Light.  He is drinking a beer called John Randall.
He’s holding it there — not someone else, John Randall.

In the seventies his hair was way long and wavy, John Randall.
He has drinking buddies in college and there is lots of promiscuous sex, John Randall.

Out to pizza with his family, look at that cute dog there, oh, that little squirt, look at him he’s so cute.  Now the dog is barking, the barking is driving him nuts, actually making him physically sick, causing him to think, God, if a dog is this bad, how the hell am I gonna have a kid named John Randall, Jr?


More of this ridiculous poem...

A Farmer’s Almanac

I

Over this side
And steel.
Most moisture
We’ve seen in months.
Rusted linoleum
Tractors cowed
By the slender whim of God.
Banks?
There are no banks.

II

This is why you don’t wait.
People gonna make mistakes, sure.  But
This is p’cisely why you never wait.
Waitin’ for rain, for the aqueduct.
Waitin’ for the war to end,
For interest rates to move.
Nobody in this family waitin’ for a goddam thing.

III

Well, sure we dropped a well.
And dropped it,
And dropped it.
We found that, ah, cone of depression —
Some bottles of dirty water.
Our poor Mother, ya know.
She loaned us udders of water,
Buried deep down in her soul, like.
Sandstone-lined.  All she had.
We was just children then.

IV

So
We gone back to readin’ the clouds.
They’re beautiful really.
Cirrus curling into nothing
Way up there.  Just ice crystals
Casting down white light.
There ain’t s’pose to be such a thing as white light.
But I tell ya: I seen it.

V

I’m going on record with this
Because I’m in plain need of an elegy.
Sawbones gave me, oh, a few months.
Don’t matter much.
I came from this land
And I’m going back to it.
Now I’m telling you:
I want a Viking’s funeral.
If you can find ‘em, throw a thousand husks
Of corn onto my pyre.
Take fish from the hole I leave in the ice.
Despite everything I’ve said,
Regardless of whether there’s snow on the ground,
Whether the crops rise,
Whether anyone’s left to see me go.

Coffee Shop Audio Sketch

Third cup.Jazz.A man is talking with Ray the barista.Hum of refrigerator.Coins. Tip money dropped in a glass jar.Coffee maker — frothy release of steam, metal stirring along metal.Drums. Piano. Saxophone.Fridge door closes; cushioning.Ray greets a customer, “How’s it going?”She orders a latte mocha triple shot.Talk of parking, a popular topic this morn.Coins again.Ray laughs.Air ducts … Continue reading Coffee Shop Audio Sketch

Manna, Treacherous Sky

    Poor chap, that tramp —his beauty       confiscated          by filth;   Left to pray mindless    ly in the gutter,      in arrears         to the street; At church for his tea-and-two-slices   his offering but           a burned-up blade     of grass and             still he prayed;   O, heaven, my galoshes    are glummed,   my ears beaten             by duns;   O, keep me,       even though —

Advice for Endangered Species

   The ruddy turnstone of America
       died before my eyes.   This
    poem is inspired by
           but not about her.

     I tried to convince the great libraries
     to pump me full of rotten fruit.
     I tried and died?
     No I tried and failed.

  NASCAR cars awake to find themselves
  empty of engines but slathered in spit and lipstick.
      The Vice Presidents have all
      gone to pasture, revving
      like Alzheimer cows.

Meanwhile, on the North Slopes...
  The polar bears are all dead,
   even the ones we've eaten. The polar bears are all dead,
   even the ones we've eaten. The polar bears are all dead,
   even the ones we've eaten. The polar bears are all dead,

        I admit
        it's late and I don't know
        who to vote for.

 Sunrise in my eyes, coffee and rubles.
 This is the American Dream.

Please wait while I await another line.

FREE HBO

1We stayed in a dirty hotel.Rooms along the shoreand we didn’t get sick. 2Just down the streetflew thousands of rare birdsthough I didn’t know it.They’re bringing the trolley back,said someone on local TV. 3The room was hoursas long as we wanted.We both blushed.Our first meal wascigarettesand beerand Rold Golds. 4The second was aThanksgiving fiascoat an … Continue reading FREE HBO

thanks

      who says this thing is a
                                          value play?

           Sacrifice Sacramento

                bunt play send Santo

   Santa brings christmas

              me with the milk and cookies —

 An old poem w/ coup d'etat in it...

Once upon a time in Belleville

But I hide behind the spa I had installed.Gravel and country clubs and khoury league.Stoners in the high schools,Businesses long ago come and go.East end, west end — what’s the difference.It’s not city, it’s not country.  What is it?People call it Bellevue. They’re like, “Oh yeah, you’re from Bellevue….”Sometimes I correct them.Fast food, soft serve, … Continue reading Once upon a time in Belleville