Comment on GW Bush's March 11 speech:

Politicians love to fight --isms. They got great mileage out of Communinsm and now they are revving up on Terrorism. As if it were a tangible thing and subject to our military might. Sure, we're all against Evil. What constitutes Evil? Terrorism is an ACT, not a person or a group. It's not even a belief. Declaring war on terrorism is like declaring war on darkness. Darkness is the other half of light. It will always be there. And as long as there is injustice, need and desperation, terrorism will be there. It is the only tool of the powerless against impossible odds. The way to conquer terrorism is to conquer need, injustice and desperation.

The President's Jaw

The country would follow

an organ grinder monkey

right now if he had a strong jaw.

In the White House

There is a mirror with marks

And PR men like personal trainers

Every millimeter the jaw juts

Translates to points on the popularity poll

--LRod 03-12-02

I put my Pall Mall out while

It's still fit to relight.

More coffee

Something about last night

When Sunday morning

Puts on the squeeze

Can't get my head

To fit through my sleeves.

A fuzzy caterpillar

Crawls down my throat

I look for the verses

I thought I wrote.

When the student is ready

The teacher will arrive.

likewise when the poet is hungry

The meal will arrive.

It's a matter of absolute faith.

Sparkler brained young poets

with roamin candles between their ears

Pop

I warm my hands

Pop--whizzz

I check my hat

Pop

Swoosh

The colors are magnified

by youth and newness

but they are

the same old colors.

Look the monster in the face

and still have humor

that's called grace.

One time I watched a guppy

for two days until she

started poppin little guppies

out like frantic embyo

uzi shootin fish

an mama gobblin

Cannibal mutha

Cannibal can nibble

butta few of the little

fuckers make it

to the kelp beds

and I'm glad after two

days.

playin with my sweet and low

wonerin about Dex an Lev an'

fightin over sixes and sevens

think I'll take my sweet and low

Petah, you've lost your shadow

Like we are on the internet

Any code that gets the message across is the right one

That's why the Japanese will win in digital communications

They already write in icons

It takes five English sentences to elucidate one pictograph

And what are words if not marks on the page?

Any word is legal, or any mark.

But I so love English sentences.

We could combine mammograms and airport security

make a database

of all terrorist titties

who fit the profile

champagn glass to pendular

nipples on the hot list

polyps posing plastique

I'll light my tennis shoes

to cop a feel

on your subversive

secret thoughts

my x-ray machine

Wendy's deft fingers

stitch my memory

lost boys fly

When you are tapping on the pipes in prison

Like we are on the internet

Any code that gets the message across is the right one

That's why the Japanese will win in digital communications

They already write in icons

It takes five English sentences to elucidate one pictograph

And what are words if not marks on the page?

Any word is legal, or any mark.

But I so love English sentences.

We could combine mammograms and airport security

make a database

of all terrorist titties

who fit the profile

champagn glass to pendular

nipples on the hot list

polyps posing plastique

I'll light my tennis shoes

to cop a feel

on your subversive

secret thoughts

my x-ray machine

So far it's a Fair Friday

But Good Friday is on the way

My friend Butch came with a

bald head and a bottle of Crown Royal

LR breaks out the bag--it's gonna be a good Friday

We sit blowing on the bottle and finding the tone on the piano

Take a sip--down to bout a B-flat

tastes like a smokey version of calvary's vinegar

What's so good about a nail in the hand?

Down to the F# on the Crown Royal

The bottle is in a bag. Purple

like a body bag

I saw the ambulance on the hill

ship him off to Joseph's tomb

I just know God's gonna make a storm

Me an my patnah keep nippin the bottle

Then blowin it and matching the notes to the piano

We've taken it down about an octave to the B-flat gettin toward the A

Nothin like a thunderstorm in Texas

God is angry like he would be on Broadway

If Rogers and Hammerstein wrote the Passion

He knows what's gonna happen when they roll the rock back

Crown Royal is givin me perfect pitch

didn't need the piano to

tell me I was tootin E sharp

or C flat

Was He already gone

soon as they rolled the rock in place?

Or did he hang around and listen to the blues

All day Saturday

then erupt in glory on Sunday morning

with all the French horns in the Crystal Cathedral

blastin for the networks?

sixteen pennies in Jesus' fist killer on the left robber on the right

Buddha holds his breath with all of his might

Levo calls the meeting to order

Dexter sets his hair alight they play into the night

Day of Doubt

sounds like a laxative

or one of those little pink pills

women swallow

so they won't be a nuisance

to their husbands.

If we take our emoticons

we are cured of

embarrassing ambiguity

and the world knows

we are just joking.

Two dancers in the same shoe

Two chefs in the same stew

Two captains in the same crew

Same picture two artists drew

If you took me apart

how would you put me together

again?

executive hair?

Bradd Pitt dimples?

A puppy who would lick your feet?

Can you stand the risk?

The risk of newness; the risk of strange

The risk of opening; the risk of pain

I'm risk on a stick. Let me explain

I am a tightrope across Niagra Falls

You are the Great Wallenda

I am taught and covered with spray

I see your lips move as you pray

You touch me with your toe

A quivver goes through me

A thrill that reaches to Canada

You slide onto me; the dance is reverent, slow

You'll make it across if you look at me

and not the things you fear below.

Found a place to buy half price cigarettes

My friend Jack

wrote a song; which I think has a great title

called I'm Here and You're There

I'd love to fall for you

Think it would be great

Like a sandbag I could fall for you

I'd love to be besotted and tormented

by you and write ridiculous reams

of verses and curses and fuck ups and make ups

But let's be practical

I'm Here and You're There

You're raising a child and working a job

I'm running from the law. Sounds almost Shakespearian

it would be much easier skin to skin

we could live in digital sin

but this is the world we're living in:

I'm Here and You're There

your simple existence makes me more alive

the possibility of you somewhere on earth

is an inspiration and we should cherish it

I'm fairly world wise and I never thought

I could feel a lump in my pants from words on a screen

you are very deft with your fingertips; I'm sure

you have other skills. Stop, restless mind.

there are many things we can share even though

I'm Here and You're There

Oh, I can imagine the terror of meeting

what if you have a wart on your nose I can't ignore

or what if the whole thing turns out to be a crashing bore?

What if my pants don't meet my shoe

and your eyes are brown and I thought they were blue?

Yeah, It's risky bidness, these words without a face

and tricky little symbols we use to show our grace

stop me, d my heart is outta pace

in this little poker game it's queen against an ace

You've got me crazy

I'm not much of an end rhyme man

but you make it look so easy

so I'm doin what I can

I prefer inside alliteration

and anapestic titillation

cunnilingual fellation

with a throaty intonation

I know this is hardly fair

being as how I'm Here and You're There

If verses versus verses

can take us anywhere

you can pave the way with words

and I will meet you there.

If we fall in love let's do it by small amounts

you're a smart one; you know what counts

but this is true; it's on the square

my cards are down my soul is bare

She lives in a doreen world

of monsters and goblins and

charming princes and poets in vogue

Only takes one to screw in a light

He holds the globe and

the world revolves around him

Even Elvis looked better in

Vegas than he did in Tupelo

She's sleeping now

with her hands clasped between her thighs

susserant suplication moistly from her lips

a small groan from time to time

She's in a doreen world

Yes, I know you're a nice 'n

Intrigueing and you're enticin

but before we go

I just wanna know

In whose mouth is the ice in?

She drinks Dr Pepper and vodka

an internet Bohdisattva

but it's Saturday nite an the litkickers are crawlin

lightnin the lens up with digital scrawlin

Spring it has sprung and the clocks are set back

Ferlinghetti, Burroughs and Jack Kerouak

And Corso and Ginsburg and the rest of the pack

are laughin at ole lightnin rod for bein a hack

go ask Crowley and Gurdjief and Padma Sambava

why she drinks Dr Pepper with her vodka

Would you be my imaginary girl

I could hang the moon and conquer the world

and you could be my imaginary girl

Quick and lusty; soft and musky

you can be my imaginary girl

I've used every trick to get

into the pants of women

I've been the sheltering, calm

I've been the brash and conceited

I've been the fairy waiting to be turned out

I've been the industrius and preoccupied

I've been the non chalant and self assured

I've been the crack-up needs a mother

I've been the swift and the sleek

I"ve been the dark and the pitiful

I've been the slow and the steady

I've been the patient and the cunning

I've been the shark and the bandit

and the dashing robin hood.

I've used tears and lies and hard cash money

to get on the other side of that silk.

the fragrant barrier tween tongue and slick membrane

the nest into which all poets wish to wiggle

a fermented peach spins my head in brandy

light waves are very short

measured in hair breadths

sound waves are longer

some of them are a meter long

they need distance to develop

become fully audable

love waves are longer still

miles long

they need TIME to develop

You're a wonderful flirt

and I am older than dirt

Are you a feinter or a lunger?

Are you a Freudian or a Junger?

I wonder if eating is better than hunger?

Why do you make me feel prettier, younger?

Can phermones reach a thousand miles?

Can smells travel on zeros and ones?

Is the weight of humor measured in tons?

Will the Amazon swallow the Nile?

Dreamt that I saw Lenny Bruce

Standing at Bourbon & Toulouse

and alla his jokes were hanging out

like tongues on roller blades.

Behind the scrolling wrought-iron grills

Flower pots on window sills

a no doubt real stoned comedy

why am I not laughing, then.?

Why am I not laughting, then?

This Hero wants his heroin(e)

it's no matter; what the deuce

we're all at Bourbon & Toulouse

Imaginary dialogue between Charlie Parker and Dorothy Parker

D. sitting at the big round in the Algonk and your name came up

C. say baby I love the way you wiggle in those high heels

D. seriously, they say you are on the leading edge of your art

C. I'm boppin Dots. Why don't we go down to The Street an I'll buy you a

gin and tonic

D. Can I call you Birdy?

C. You don't think people would talk?

D. Long as they spell our names right.

C. But you get to walk in the front door; I have to come in the back

D. I always say that girls who wear glasses have superior asses

C. tha's jazz baby

D. Mr Parker I hear you play in synchopated time

C. Mrs. Parker you got moxie I like yo rhymes

D. Mr. Parker you're a credit to your race

C. Mrs Parker I'd like to lick the rouge off your face

D. That's a flattering bulge. I understand you indulge

C. never said that stuff made me play better

just makes me feel better.

D. Is art because of our lives or in spite of them?

C. Let me lick your reed dahlin

D. I hate men. They make me feel so good.

C. Let me tell you about feelin good. You don't need men; you don't need

women.

D. you're talking about being at the end of a gunbarrel or a hypo or one of

those dreadful proud snakes standing like a cobra

C. well, if you are gonna be on your knees I want it to be in

sucklipation not supplication

D. Mr. Parker

that's jazz

if we drank a quart of rum one night

we could get into a terrible fight

you sing alto and I'll sing bass

kisses and bruises all over our face

I know you don't believe in astrology

and as to the shelf life of your apology

it might last forever but if you'll permit me

it might only last till the next time you hit me

We're a couple of flirts. I'll flirt with anything that will flurt back regardless of race, sex, weight, occupation, age, IQ, education or gender preference. I flirt with pets. I flirt with danger and disrepute; I flirt with death on occassion. Flirting just means you are open to possibility. Flirting means you are ready to mix it up with the world. I'm ready to mix it up with you. Four ball side off the bank. Pour the glasses; chalk my cue. Combination, corner tank. Hunna dollahs in my shoe. Rack em up; I'll flirt with you.

press 4 for verbal humiliation by male voice

press 5 for nagging and harrassment by female voice

press 6 for parental chastisement

press 7 in case you forgot what a loser you are

press 8 all of your problems are because you invite em

press 9 to replay the menu ad infinitum

first time I caught a kundalini buzz

thought who needs amyl nitrate

and being an old chi wrangler myself

I tell you it's all in the hands

keep the hand moving

all in the hands

ask Will Rogers or any

lasso twirler

round and round

staight lines make the illusion

of a circle

any chi poke knows

only way to corral those dogies

is to to lettum go

and if you move chi wid words

keep the hand moving

on how fast the snakes curl upward

kundalini travels up the spine

anits like one of these games on

the midway where you hit the lever

with a sledge hammer. Sometimes

goes all the way up to the bell

and somethimes you just get to

my karma craves with constant caliber

but who expects it till it comes?

I'm feeling my oatmeal

and the high powered cream in

my coffe is whispering castenets

to my tympanic imagination

and even if I'm more of a snare

than a kettle drum

something beats here for you

I awaken

Again the page is blank

No matter if yesterday

I was bright and prolific

Again the page is blank

And my job begins

To rupture the whiteness

And curse the purity of silence

ii.

I sort through theories, histories

The pedantry of daily life

Old tales and breaking stories

Whiteness is uglier than darkness

And if Truth hurts the eyes

I must be blind already

iii.

Blankness has no eyes

But misses nothing

Knows your dirty secrets

Still accepts you for what you could be

Your words a stain on

Her Little Blue Dress

The Heart

Is more than just a boom box

bumpin' a hip-hop hemoglobin.

It stays up all night, its valves in synch

And ticks the time of my love for you

The Heart

Counts and marks each second

A hungry clock of muscle

Hangs in the breast; waits for your email

Gucci's in the Gene Pool

Since sweetpeas and fruitflies

Genes are wiser and craftier

Engineers write software

Tells tomatoes when to turn red

Genesis gets bought out by Genentech

Stock splits quicker than chromosomes

Even a goat crossed with a spider knows

Theft is faster than science

Tomb of the Unknown Pretzel

The story goes he gagged on some twisted dough

Whether it came from Enron or some other terrorist cell we don't know.

He faints like a damsel and misses the third quarter of his administration

The body politic pivots on his jutting jaw.

As a cover story it beats running into a door jamb to explain the bruise.

People will go for anything

Fried ice-cream or a mojo ring

Fred don't dance and Frank don't sing

People will go for anything

Stick little pins into your ears

A pill to end all woes and fears

if it's dong ding dong or ding dong ding

People will go for anything

Whup the terror out the Taliban

Save all the women in Faghanistan

Drop the bombs; let freedom ring

People will go for anything.

You write a check when you buy the hog.

You make a prince when you kiss a frog

Got to leave with the one you bring

People will go for anything.

I got the jive; you got the jing

Put the Johnson Rod in the Johnson Ring

Dogs don't bite; bees don't sting

People will go for anything

D in her ruby kicks

skippin down the ochre bricks

each a boombox bumpin tunes

like jumpin jive on jumpn spoons

comin right in through her feet

Baby D can keep the beat

Jesus and Buddha and Levo and DExter

Dirty faced angels in a poker game

The pistol's on the table

And the chips are down

Will anything ever be the same?

ok I was just not gonna email

and let you stew in your own

deeply fragrant juices and oh

god i can't take it already just

the thought of you out of sorts

and reaching for carbohydrates

makes me go seismic for my

little volcano.

the very nature of prophets is

that they come too late. Isaih

missed the mornin train and

Daniel and Jeremiah are inna

poker game jackser wild and

you'll be born with your faith's

sublime every prophet has his time

yeah cat daddy hitchhikin was

Da Way

An it was no accident that they

called it Panhandle Park

but sold the Barb and Oracle

and dodged the man

from Mission to North Beach

yes dem was a summer

Very Well Then, I Contadict Myself

Holy Moses burned his ass on the Bush

No Navy Seals in those days

Renegade millionares in a resort of scorpions?

I put Bin Laden in a hottub full of houris

in terrorist paradise where the virgins are supermodels on tap.

Don't mess with America

We'll take Ground Zero and put up a hot dog stand

The very wound you inflict on our flesh

A color in our flag.

We all root for the forces of right and good.

The Theif of Bagdad and Robin Hood.

If you did what you should or did what you could

We all stand up for right and good.

St. George goes out to slay the dragon his daddy made

so we can dip our staws in the desert and stuff a bunch of

paper up their skirts. Gods and politicians can't get enough press.

Send bad Bin Laden to a martyrs paradise?

Put him in stocks at Ground Zero.

After several seasons the people will come to love him

for accepting their mockery.

LRod 12-15-01

I wanna tell you the inside story

I wanna give you the real low down

Just my little version of glory, honey now

Here's the bottom line

Just want a little sign

To let me know I'm thinkin bout you

The way you're thinkin bout me

It's the least that you casn do.

Take a ride on the Caty

You know I'm steamin on down the line

If I'm still kickin when I"m eighty

I'll be lovin you

There's nothin you can do

if all week long you're fat and lazy

And Saturday night you 're mean and crazy

I'll still be lovin you.

I wanna tell you the inside story

I wanna give you the real low down

Montel, Oprah and Maury

Don't know if it rimes

The headline in the New York Times

Tells you all you need to know

Put it on the morning show

I'll still be lovin you.

(Bridge)

I'll love you down on Easy Street

I'll love you in the slums

I'll love you on the night before

And when the morning comes

Love you on that sunny day

Love you inna rain

Love you once upon a time

Warm is the summer wind

Red is the tamarind

Swinging hammocks

And pomagranites

That break on my lips

They break on my lips

Soft is the whiporwill

Fresh is the daffodil

What good are promises

When the promises

Break on my lips?

They break on my lips.

Love is the end of ryme

Love is the pantomime

Brave Narcissus

And silver kisses

That break on my lips

They break on my lips

Halloween moon's as fat as Charlie Brown's Punkin

What's crisp as the clean night air in Texas?

As kids we laughed through it like devils and skeletons

We ranged far and wide as pirates and princesses

Dragging trash bags full of caramel apples and popcorn balls..

Our own terror has cancelled this festival.

Fear of razor blades and suspicious powdered sugar.

Our little osamas and firemen won't know the joy of

Running like wild disguised heathens through the night.

What do you tell your tiny goblins?

This year has been scary enough already.

LRod--10-31-01

It's Saturday night; and I'm goin down town

Coat of arms: Cantankerous Cavalier

Radiant swarm; a breath of ideas

My coltish legs don't know whether to run or wait.

City lights mask the stars

I know they still twinkle

my blindness is a sign of the times.

Only difference between a party and a riot--

Well, what is it?

My rythm breaks when I think of you.

You don't see Clyde and Bonnie

You don't see Billy the Kid

You don't see Frank and Jesse

Cuz they all stayin' hid.

When you an outlaw

You always nowhere to be found

When you an outlaw

You always livin'---Undrground.

You don't see the Jack of Diamonds

He's stayin' outta sight

You know that Jack the Ripper

Only works at night

When you an outlaw

You got to know your way around

When you an outlaw

You always livin'----Underground.

Everybody's runnin'

From some secret crime

Keeps em lookin' over

Their shoulders alla time

When you an outlaw

You got to jump at every sound

When you an outlaw

You always livin---Underground.

The germs of Allah have closed our government

Experts say they're small enough to be lethal.

We know this is true because Experts say.

They've evacuated Congress in favor of Lysol and

Are about to Clorox the Constitution.

Osama has trained an army of brown recluse spiders

they are now in deep cover in the US

These bugs are highly motivated fiddle bellied fanatics

and might be hiding anywhere.

If you see one trying to crawl onto a crop duster

It's your duty as an American to vote for a stupidity tax

at airport gates and surrender your nail clippers. The second amendment does not cover mustashe scissors or eyebrow tweezers.

Besides the Bill of Rights is part of that old world

Before the Attorney General in plausable cadences

Explained how your rights belonged to him. It's the only safe place for them. Habeas Corpus is an old joke at which