Cartoon Angels in a Fictional Paradise
by Nathan Payne
"I knew that my dreams had been right a thousand
times over...
it was life and reality that were wrong."
--Hermann Hesse
pop on/pop off yr
scary,
pre-faloobricated
cherries,
crush your swollen blue
tomato-toes,
hose me
down while I'm still
chewin',
we're a-doin' it
ugh-IN!
how ugly is the evening!
with toilet-feet a-lurching,
in search of bloody toothbrush,
the grey an' grimy floor--
my chowder-brain a-boiling, my mouth
full of lonely death-soup,
my girlfriend from the thrift store, savage
feathers in my
halo!
pee-knuckles are swinging,
wild junkyard monkeys
singing,
"your friends are nude & loaded,
an' the dogfood has
exploded"
my radiator dentures!
missed adventures in the mist!
I am the bane of my existence,
I repulse me every day--
should I be about the money?
soak my feet in bleeding blue-bloods?
dip my fingers every morning
in bowls of bored, elitist
Buddhists?
it's enough to turn my stomach
into a frightened angry
nudist!
we ain't no immigrant, we'z imported!
our brains have been aborted--
we need a brand-new coat of pavement,
and a cure for smoking
pot--
Shirley she wuz lying,
but maybe baby
not
spiders
dripping on my forehead, poison
raindrops on my back,
my hands
adorned with hornets,
large and angry buzzing
tacks,
my skin
blue an' smooth an'
rotten,
my mind
forgotten at the door,
my tongue
abandoned by the freeway,
all my bulletholes
intact--
where is the riding-horse hiding
inside my smiling
guts?
to whom belong these horselips now colliding
with my large,
misshapen
nutsacks on fifth
avenue/my bathtub fulla
winos,
electro-pubic steam-lounge/randy
cotton-candy
panties
brown lace or muddy footprints?
do I rinse or do I peel?
I been slapped upside my girls!
go on an' ask me how I feel!
I got herpes in my slurpees!
another blonde bikini moon!
another irreparably beautiful
day
in the shiny sad
cartoon!
another day another
sleigh
and/or horse & miscarriage
ride
in the delicious dank
dark
thru the garbage-lid
park--
another dead body/gaudy baglady
cracking
the hinges & joints
in her spiderweb spine,
smoking
drugs & drinking
with her children after
school,
hanging out
to dry
on laundry lines
of drool--
school-speak
spoken
in the brick-breaking
broken
dyslectic dialectic
of a thousand lousy
sows,
drowsing
wit' tha cows,
faces
deep down in their
tit-wine--
I wish I was a wicious
wiolent, wile an'
wenomous,
witch an' wamous
we-tard,
walking on the wild wide,
without a wope in well
of ever waking up
awive--
junkie jive
an' dope-talk,
chalkdust in my eyes,
flies an' famous
painters,
struttin'
thru the bitch-meat--
feet encased in Bibles,
Repooblican moronics,
speaking right wing-tipped
eubonics/
grade-A
ignoromics--
"It'll be a relief when the Chinese take over Texas!"
--Allen Ginsberg
the nail in my forehead's
got me pre-oomptively
a-drooming
of a land of no
restrooctions,
where
I'm feeling quite jawbone,
an' infinitely
teeth--
cardboard blankets
burning,
coffee
in my
bladder
brewing,
vampire
rats
a-roasting,
the air you can breathe with a fork!
horny honky ape-men,
raping
NoDoz-popping
guidos,
fixing penis-fist
burritos,
wearing
molten pink tuxedos,
sporting mortuary
hairpie
thru spunk-spangled
Speedos,
snorting
cadaver farts out
of a dead fag's hairy
ass,
driving
ferocious furry Ferraris/male
organ-grinding
monkey carts
down
dark,
specific highways--
dope-heads riding
mopeds,
in search of pills an' easy
girls
to take
out on expiration
dates,
eating premarital
pizza
an' unprotected
ice cream,
crying
out of wedlock,
an' wasted up on
babies--
Hollywood,
you hollow whore!
how do you blow the bums
out yr nostrils
w/o spilling
blood
in yr sewers?
when was the last time you had any FUN?
I can see your atmospheric blunders!
the tears between your thighs!
your maladjusted pimples!
morticians in your eyes!
my opportunities ain't
lost, they's getting
wasted;
high on beer an' fearless,
turning wildly arcing
pirouettes,
reeling squealing
ballerinas
engaged in strange romantic
antics,
like some
salacious salty
sailor--
the more my tongue gets
burned,
the better tastes my utter
failure--
"A burnt child loves the fire"
--Oscar Wilde
my friends all call me Chonky Kong,
gringo-king laureate
of the 18th street
Barrio Bros.,
a gang
of
untidy
hoodlums,
bathroom-graffiti evangelists,
and cartoon-punk
participants,
who scratch
inspirational scriptures
on stainless steel Venice Beach
toilet seats,
who snort
granulated grandparents
thru curly neon
twisty-straws,
pearly neon
peons,
pinwheeling blood
and oily
brains,
like fishmeat
on the sidewalk--
talkin'
with their eyes,
malfeasy sleazy flies
lookin'
for to pluck
the lucky 4-leaf
queefer-reefer,
a pat of creamy
slutbutter
to spread on stale
slices
of squeaky week-old mattress-toast,
spreading
their illegal, underage
eagles
all over my stiff,
sanctimonious
fantasies
(I want to have sex with your hot naked brains)
all knives an' chains
an' keyrings,
studs
sticking through their
tongues
(who says these ruthless youth are useless?),
hair shaped & sculpted
into improbable
architectural
wonders,
moth-
eaten yellow
faces,
teeth scuffed an' slimy,
graffiti-skin
grimy,
my grooveyard
discooples,
carrying skateboards
instead of books
to ride away from families,
fucked-up
yes,
but loving--
Pablo Diablo!
what colorblind devil
possessed you to paint
your ugly beard
blue?
do you not see it stands
in tweeker-type
contrast
to your neon pink
moustache
(which was never that cool,
and way beyond ugly)?
don't you know
Jesus
loves both you
AND your punk-ass white
momma?
have you no sense, boy?
repeat after me!
yea,
tho I be rollin'
thru a valley of crackheads,
junkies,
an' tweekers,
I will fear me no
evil,
cuz it paints
my hair
up to look
stupid,
an' laughs
at my shoes--
now get it on straight, boy,
an' meet me
at Oki-dog
for all the usual
reasons
"the seasons are deranged,
my pants are full of machines,
and life is fucking
beautiful"
--Doris Dangerous
sitting in traffic
on the Hollywood
Freeway,
the air
warped with exhaust fumes
and mid-day
heat,
like a quivering
glass
under which we are
melting,
squinting upward with eyes
burning with
poisons,
to see
shiny
swaying
palm trees,
petroleum rainbows,
flocks
of white birds
(THANK YOU MISTER AIRPLANE)
building
nests out of discarded
braincells,
perpetually smiling,
under a luminous
puke-blue
sky...
sitting in traffic
on the Hollywood
Freeway,
watching 747's
floating
serenely
across my windshield
in perpetual
dream-loop
mirage...
WAIT a minute!
didn't we already go under this overpass?
isn't that the cop that passed me
more than an hour
ago,
in pursuit of a carload
of unforeseen
lunatics,
more than an HOUR
AGO,
in pursuit of a CARLOAD
of unforeseen
LUNATICS?
how can I tell if these billboards are following me?
that helicopter just snorted a fat line of riot cops!
I'm smellin' like a felon in this golden glowing slum!
Goodnalorcious Lorda mercy, Las VaLOOgas here I come!
balls-tripping strippers
spit
twisty girlish flames,
twirlin' slippery
dripping
flystrip-whips
in my Fremont Street
flophouse,
the city lit up all around them
like a neon pink
volcano
in some imported island
sandbox
of glitter-diamond
bone-dust,
all rusty
& a-rotten,
skyscrapers/black duct-tape,
tarpaste &
cotton--
I can feel my brain
evaporating
(a mile at least beneath me)
thru
the ozone holes
in the top
of my
head,
dead
flakes forming a halo/cloud
of gnats
above me,
buzzing optimistically,
raptured
an' released
from their cranial
captivity,
into a state of constant
wonder,
subpoenaed
from reality,
into courts
of higher
understanding,
by smog
an' toxic
pizza
served in apetight
containers,
for my conspicuous
consumption,
until I'm all walk
an' no
talk,
all tic an' no
toc,
all dick an' no
dock (?),
or until the blue
fits
the bird,
whichever comes
first--
maybe I'm not really
happy,
maybe my joy
and peace of
mind
are nothing more
than mechanisms
of survival,
employed in self-
defense
by an ever-shrinking
intellect,
that becomes increasingly
too stupid
to know how to defend
itself,
and is reduced to merely
smiling
when the world
has its way
with me--
I may never know
for certain,
but one thing I can
tell ya,
this view is totally wasted
on these kids
and their
computers--
"I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die."
--Sylvia Plath
the rear-view mirror is alive!
my good luck is like a curse!
it's no wonder I'm a-bleeding!
microscopic grizzly bears have chewed their way right
thru me!
I am drunken! I am puking!
I reek of hot disgusting slook!
I am perm-ently a-doomaged!
I have lost my will to thoonk!
I am void of deeper mooning!
I have bloober-berry eyeballs!
my brain an undigested nipple!
I'm eating toasted ego waffles!
my id conniving in the glovebox!
my holy Benjamin urethra!
Franklin baby, help me!
I'm ISO sum-1 cute!
won'tchoo bring me please my sleeveless, one-piece
erection suit?
do you really need
another new prosthetic
doofus,
topless and/or toothless,
swa-linging
from yr
lip-bone?
lonely as a lumbertruck, toting
logs of blissful
silence?
weren't you happier in Maine?
thinking nothing of your future?
who will evict you from this town?
full of curtain-munching clowns
that surround you like a
moat?
quoting from the Booble,
blowing bubbles from the folds
of their polka-dotted
coats,
sly as bloated bleeding goats,
an' wise beyond their
girls?
"The girl I love is like a goat splashing
golden cream Power"
--Gregory Corso
don'tchoo know that Famous
is a fabulous state of being
in which to sharpen your character
into a brilliant disguise;
to manipulate the perceptions
of others as tools
for sculpting your identity,
imagined, real, or
otherwise?
in whose curly cloven closet will you make your first
deposit?
on whose long unsleeping slime-ax will you reach your
final climax?
will you grant your soul forgiveness?
on the beaches of Miami?
eating
nauseating coconuts,
death-inflicting
catsup?
will you subsist forever?
on an apoca-
looptic blinding blend
of tropical exhaust
fumes,
tasteless pink
skin,
unsalted hotel
rooms?
who will cure your terminal, mannequin
depression?
big gay blacks on crack?!
smackin'
their lips
down on the sidewalk,
talkin' 2
cops in silent
toilet-code, loaded
out their fag bazookas,
smoking hash
from broken
hookahs, spooking
out their musty
mothers
with colossal
fossilized collections
of unpaid
futility
bills?
chillin'
in their dope-dens, zen
crackheads smokin'
meth,
singin' it's alright ma,
I'm only shootin' dope-n-drinking,
smoking-crack-myself to
death?
"We're down on all dogs, howling at the balloon"
--from The Cocksucker's Manifesto
see with what marvelous velocity!
the people here go crazy!
do you think you're any different?
(and by different I mean stupid)
with your dog-eared copy of Total Eastern Mysticalism?
important
pages missing from the time
you ran low on hi-grade
rolling papers?
it's only the elite that make it out of here--
the few,
the prude,
the maroons
take it from me my stolid dollface,
your better off in stupid
Cuba,
rolling cigarettes for
Castro,
riding big sensorium
elephants
of nonexistent happy
colors,
the sun
buzzing
like a giant hairy
horsefly
tangled in
ecstatic razorwire,
wearing
combat boots of
light,
clomping
on yr
face,
racing a starving, smarmy army
of poised an' poisoned
peasants
towards a bright an' shiny
death-raft
made of rotten
fenceposts,
bound with stolen
duck tape,
an' unfashionable shoelaces
from a foreign
K-Mart,
a thousand million
miles
from this savvy Mojave pavement,
under which the sand is
melting,
where complaining is a pleasure,
an' getting shot at is a leisure,
a poolside activity,
palm trees,
sun,
an' freeways
extending off for every ever
that ever there once was,
as your straining to
maintain,
in luxurious elation,
the slightest imitation
of the world's
most elusive
buzz--
no more no more no more
I think I've gone an' done an' had it
with this achy breaky macho
bullshit,
so let me take you out
with my favorite dirty
joke--
"Knock Knock"
"Who's there?"
"Fuck"
"Fuck who?"
"FUCK YOU!"
so if you want me I'll be sleeping,
don't wake me
up unless I'm
weeping--
(I fell in
to a burning ring of circus clowns)
"And now the greatest drug of them all, the sweet
dream."
--Doris Lessing
and now
a final word on today's impending
reality,
typing up all night
on jet-engine-powered (powdered)
laptop,
smoking my mom's
Marlboro Light 100's
on the very spot
I lost my
virginity,
next door to the room
where I had my last-ever
drink
(only one bottle of wine; hangover: 2 days),
surrounded by broken computers,
and stacks of blank typing
paper, it's exactly
7:07 a.m.
my would-be psycho-killer half-friend
once in blithe frustration
asked me,
when I showed him my
poems,
where's the substance
and the meaning?
baby, give me something real!
but what I am or what I ain't
don't need to never be
'splaint--
whatever all I done do
or ever will did--
however lowly I've climbed!
however high have I slid!
the heights to which I've sunk!
the valleys I've aspired!
who gives a fuck I'm drunk!
all this talking makes me
tired--
so let me light another cigarette
an' tell ya 'bout my cat
but all I wants to know is
where's the fun in
that?