Rat sore n’anxious of course—
even on the day I was born
a dripping, mottled hand 
made a bee line to my babymouth
and settled a slop of juicy caul—made
a first meal to contemplate, to pause tonight, 
where an old timer said
You’ve lost something. I’d snapped 
at pomp unsmoothed that night, popped off
at multitudinous morons shouting cacophony
in nearby Poughkeepsie, that greedy
poor township of grabasses that borders
the edge of Connecticut State was broke 
and on the dole that month because
the band KISS had invaded for money—
an army that won, a unit with results,
animalizing, strutting hearts on fire in leather
all metallic, a hint of Camembert, 
an Israeli gentleman in a coffin with a bass,
and Paul Stanley’s chest hair, eyeliner, gel, and curls.
Salacious whispers planted a procreate X
for sex to lure Enterprise—boys skipping school
with the hope four fresh females named Madrigal 
would mate to music by Testicular Kabuki spectaculars,
belle enfants filling wards and foster homes forthwith—  
strollers in New York for Beavises and Buttheads.

Where in the Sam hell did life start—?
Once more I, more than able, I, pipsqueak, 
once thoughtful, his sharp fistfull of finger nails 
happycrammed two inches deep in gum-less gloop,
become now a thickheaded fuck with a retainer
in denim wondering whether life began in cars?

Eagerly I fall victim to artless art—
my ex wife molests me under the bleachers,
first to feel me up and down, and then part.
Her braces draw fresh blood from my lips,
white shirt hides everything I need to see.  
Yeah, me! The guy who cried in school,
and wandered to bargain swimming pools 
on the roof of the academy—me!
slipped a snide bully’s contacts in my eyes,
agreed to see a Hendrix show in ‘85—me!
wondered if Jodie Foster would marry me,
if Mickey Mouse would ever grow up,
whether Mommy 86’d the cocker spaniel,
and did Donald Duck have a tadger
underneath his feather puff?

O, to have lived in a silent film
of dream, in a rusty machine,
then powerless—struggling—unwilling—        
unwillkommen by Liza, and Joel Grey’s emcee
the oily two-tone schmuck in Cabaret.
I need you, some money, some sympathy! 
My life won’t pass go! a two gallon box of calamity.
Sink-a-slide a silvery wall down
I fall, as mercury pouring. 
A string of beads only, answers these in my ears. 
Hang up the phones, circus in arrears, 
bread lines wrap coastlines for fear. Now’s the time
to have dinner with the President.
If only people knew they were immeasurably worse,
then we could create everything the aliens promised us.
Raining! Raining! This country, pelted with mirrors.