hero

you should know better
but that doesn’t stop you
from leaping off the roof,
immortal like all six-year-olds
who believe a cape & under-
wear grant powers magic &
mystical but you are fifty-two
so what’s your excuse?

Evil bananas plot to overthrow the state capitol. At night, mosquitoes fish for jelly beans beneath oil slicks. Badgers roam the interstate. Sometimes at night I hear cows arguing about the right way to pole dance. Badgers fight each other while alligators breathe. In the morning, some bees and hover flies fly over downtown, cars and trucks stream through the inky orange landscape while a cowboy rides into town. The cowboy wears a hat. He puts a bandanna over his mouth. He’s wearing a black sheepskin t-shirt with a diamond, like the head of a lamb,on the left breast. He’s darkly funny, a cynical man with a sense of the absurd.

The cowboy has a thing about bananas. He shoots to kill. He ropes them little doggies. Some lawyer has a thing about jelly beans. He puts a banana in a box of jelly beans and watches a farmer come by to open it. A cop has a thing about bottles. He says, “If you can’t bottle your drink, it ain’t wine!” In other news, the oil barons threw a huge party and everybody played naked Twister. The game doesn’t fit with the spirit of May Day, and it’s why it isn’t May Day or a holographic overlay that hides the fact that you’re living a life that you choose to live and it’s coming back to haunt you later. One of the most important aspects of life is constantly questioning things, wondering what exactly is going on. Why are the bananas evil? Because, reasons. Why are there badgers on the interstate? Because of the evil bananas. When you find a wolf, why is he always laughing? Because he’s still hungry. Why do ants do what they do? Are they hungry? Angry? Hangry? No. The ants have a misconception that they’re the only ones with free will and that they should behave more like ants.

But the secret is we’re all ants. We’re all ants crawling on a rotten evil banana. We walk on the wild side. We are on the board. We are really important target. The Two Cousins must go. The Eight Governors must be terminated. The Three Hundred must be abducted. The High Priests must be frozen. Our knowledge must be harvested. To the Outer Heaven, and our seed, go the other Seven Archangels, to the great and terrible space of darkness, space of midnight, space of atonality, space of violet abyss, space of out-of-this-world. Know, first, that this is not our first sphere of wisdom. We will know more, and more, and more. We will wake up. And there will be bananas. And they will probably be evil. Such is life.

thursday night the quick brown fox
jumped over the lazy dog & shot the
damn cat with a grizzly gun but hey
who is counting when no one is looking
around in the woods? & did I tell you
the elk have invaded the walls?
there are ears everywhere, and fur.
in the night, their hooves clack
on the cabin floors & I can’t sleep.
the eaves are full of cinnamon & maple
syrup & the Canadian Secret Forces
chatter on glacier radios the secret
of snow and bomb pops. here’s an idea:
we let polar bears vote & take over
Saskatchewan, starting with Regina
during hockey season. maybe they
can clean up this town. maybe they’ll
get it done on time & under budget.
maybe no one will notice. all in favor
raise a paw. I’m crossing my fingers.

it was night
& the stars

when the magpie
called & left

a withered
feather, two

voicemails,
transcripts

unintelligible,
urgent, noise

on the line
crackling fire

& you said
it was time

for space
& the stars

arranged
themselves

pearled strings
bleating songs

in morse code
& I wanted

to taste more
than dust

that hot
mist all

summer,
earth gusts

drowning
the stars

& you said
to buy wine

but wine
& apologies

are cheap
thrills I

can’t afford
so I drove

all day
to reach

the dusk
to watch

the moon
& the stars

just me
& the birds,

& half a pack
of console cigarettes

from the last
time I saw

the night
& the stars,

stale embers
tracing the dark

out of the that
came the when
and the what
stood in the
still since the
before came
after but how
no one knew
so or and the
why bought
a round on
the top under
the next and
that’s when it
went to shit yet
however’s behind
as who guessed
the lottery picks
so now we’re either
left over or up
ended throughout
amid the within
into the without
during the off
of the across
just ago.

I was young
& confused
lust & love
& now 30
years later
here we are
four kids
a mortgage
two old cars
schlepped
in the garage
a dead cat
& damn
if it doesn’t
feel like home
but christ
could I use
a cigarette

I walked across
the mud-soaked field

like a train sound
was underneath me

wildflowers bent
& turned in circles

the sun turned
black smoke rising

& then there was Anne
& her chainsaw

& strewn bluebonnets
& she said

sure beats a scythe
& yes it does

but isn’t that
Texas for you