Rolling dice on Madonna’s Face
Helter Skelter by my side
(The book not the song)
Billy Holiday sang autumn blues
with Louis Armstrong
during Tofu burgers
and squash
that was fun to make
but we didn’t eat it.
Her first kitchen failure.
It happens to the best of us
Failures.
There’s no success like failure
and failure’s no success at all.
Dylan said that.
The squash sat in the frij
for quite awhile
She couldn’t bear to waste it
But secretly she believed
that it would age
like a good wine.
Or that after some bad wine
it might taste like
a sweet success.
North says most Americans believe
Charlie was a mass murderer
But he didn’t do the deeds
Not Tate
Not Labianca
Charlie Manson
Not Charlie Starkweather
He did kill
And the Boss said
it was because
"there’s a meanness in this world."
But those weren’t Charlie’s words
Just the Boss pretending to be Charlie
Like on Halloween
The only day we’re encouraged
to be somebody else.
The only day we’re encouraged
To go beyond our personality.
I put my name in a drawing
At Taco Bell
To see the Boss on Halloween
In Minneapolis
Where Dylan started out.
I wonder who the Boss will be
For Halloween
This year.
I’d like to talk to Charlie Manson
The documentary showed his
Defense attorney
And Bugliosi
And Charlie
And I had to feel
Inside
Like Bugliosi
Was crazier than Charlie.
I’d really like to meet him
You know
I haven’t admitted
That to many people.
So much of what he says
Makes sense
But I just don’t
Understand
The anger
The violence
I want him to
Explain
The anger
To me.
Depressives have
Anger that they
Don’t feel they
Deserve to have
Mass murderers
Feel they deserve
Anger that they
Don’t have
Random anger
Random killings
And I want to ask
Charlie why.
His lawyer says that
There was a lot of love
On the farm
But why does the love
Get criss-crossed
With hatred
With bigotry
What synapses aren’t
Firing
What combination
Of chemicals
Is out of balance
In Charlie
In Bugliosi
And why
Was he the one
Fate chose
For such a
Chemical makeup
For such a
Tragic role
Rather than me.
Yahtzee
I’m rolling dice
On Madonna’s face
And listening to
Nine Inch Nails
Drive their spikes
Through my soul
While I think of the
Boss
Again.
Just a roll of the dice
Like Yahtzee
Like Nietzsche
Like Mallarme
"Un Coup De Das"
It’s just a roll of the dice
The difference
Between
Charlie
And me
Charlie
And you
Manson or Starkweather
It’s random chance
Fate
Rolling on Madonna’s face
And Lady Madonna
Looks up and
Says what are the
Odds of a
Virgin birth?
And the
Mathematician
And the
Biologist
Say zero
And the priest
Says
Miracles can happen
Just like accidents
Maybe accidents
Are just miracles
In disguise.
Then she tells me
That Yahtzee
Isn’t
Completely random.
I hear Burroughs
Query
"How random
is random?"
As I flash on the
Sensitive, new age,
Marathon man
Who believes
"there are no accidents."
I think Seth told him that
In a book.
I fool with him
By declaring that
My philosophy
Is
"there are only accidents."
Belief in complete
Non-randomness
And in complete
Randomness
Marathoner in
Contrast to
Chain smoker
And only the
Smoker knows
That they’re
Really saying the
Same thing.
There may be no accidents
But it seems like there
Are only accidents.
We know so little
Of what we know
That what seems
Accidental isn’t
And what seems
Incidental isn’t
And God is a Bullet
Or is God Dead
And have we killed him.
They said Dylan
Was God
But I think
They were joking.
And Kerouac’s Dead
Lying over there on the floor
Dead 23 years and two days.
And gazing into his eyes
I see
Pooh Bear
Was it on a night like this
That he said God was Pooh Bear
Or that Hoffman started
The Tao of Pooh?
And if God is Dead
Does Nietzsche
Believe Pooh is dead too?
And if he’s dead
Who will say
"Oh, Bother,"
and who will eat the honey.
A used copy of "Howl" on the porch
Where my patch sister smokes a pipe
Before the water ritual
Cleansed
It from her
The best minds of a generation
Minds lost somewhere
Between the monotony
Of the fifties
And the monotony
Of the nineties.
Are you bored?
I asked the lost minds
The best lost minds
Of a generation
Lost
Searching
For a place
Where life
Can have meaning
Somewhere between
Interzone
And
Casablanca
They walk
Aimlessly
Searching
For something
That doesn’t exist
Bliss
The best minds of a generation
The lost generation
Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class
The lost generation is real
And it’s still around
Playing games on hardwood floors
Listening to jazz
Rolling dice
While the working class
Work their work
Hardwood floors
With Helter Skelter and Kerouac
For carpet
And Burrough’s tape still unexplored.
Cut ups
Finding the lost generation
In interzone
By cutting through the present
Cutting through the New York Times
Cutting through the King James Version
Cutting through the Pope’s picture
Like Sinead O’Connor one Saturday Night
I cut up the Supreme Court
In my closet
Last fall
And then Aunt Abby
Ended up working
For O’Connor
Sandra not Sinead
Sinead says it’s all about child abuse
That’s what she’d say about
Charlie, I bet
And how random is
Child abuse?
Is it just a roll of the dice
That says what child
Will be beaten
Will be fucked
A roll of the dice
Like a small straigh
Better not take my
Chance yet
I’ll take
Zero
For my large straight
Still hoping for a
Yahtzee
Like
The Lottery
The Publisher’s Clearinghouse
The Reader’s Digest Sweepstakes
To pull me out of this
Trap
This tunnel
And if I roll the dice
Or chant the chants
That the white witch
Taught me
Will I win
The prize?
If I do will it be an accident
Or destiny
Or both at the same time.
Randomness and chaos
One wonders sometimes
How the mathematicians
Can sleep at night
With their naïve
Belief in probability.
Last winter
In a maniacal frenzy
I wrote a note
To the mathematician
Who I didn’t yet know.
I asked a simple question
"What is the probability
that you are reading this
right now"
Well, one would have to
Determine the probability
Of me writing it
And you finding it
And both of those
Involve an infinite
Number
Of possible
Options
Alternatives
Like if I’d decided
To watch Saturday Night Live
Tonight
Instead of writing
These random words
And as the probability approaches
A solution
You hear that your grandfather
Was almost killed
Escaping from
The firing squad
Of a Nazi concentration camp
And my ex-wife’s mother
Knew people
Who knew
Charlie Starkweather
And maybe I would have
Stopped in Rulo Nebraska
And been killed
By the creatures
Who pass for people
There
And so you decide
That the odds are
Infinity to one
Or one in infinity
And you realize
That I have a greater
Chance of
Winning
The Reader’s Digest
Sweepstakes
Than of you
Reading this note
And you close
Your math book
And head for a nudist
Colony
Where you can read poetry
And surf with monkeys
An artist colony
Randomly created
A genetic accident
And you wonder
About things
And accidents
And Dylan and the Dead are riding on
The Slow Train
And Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
And it brings you back to the
Hardwood floor
And my brain
Hurts from
The storms
Of past
Present
And future
The coffee is all gone.
I drink it black
Straight poison.
Like Arsenic
In Elderberry wine
Jonathan
Aunt Abby
And Charlie
Drinking
Wine
With Pooh Bear
And Piglet
And the dice roll
And Wendy dies
Peter Pan dies
And the Voodoo
Can’t save them
It’s random
It’s accidents
Or not
Which dice will you
Choose to roll
Next time?
Kerouac’s dead on the floor
Charlie’s dead in a prison
Kennedy is dead
Dyland and the Dead
Are on break
And Billy Holiday
Is singing
About Wishes
Stars
And
Moons
Why do we wish
If there are no accidents?
I wonder out loud
And I ask Kerouac
To tell me the answer
But he’s dead on the
Floor
And I’m
In the attic
And the VCR
Is downstairs
And I still
Can’t figure out
How to make it
Stop flashing
12:00
like on the cartoon
this morning
but
I thought
I’d be seeing
A Yellow Submarine
By now
As I pound the keys
Wishing
For an accident
With her
But
Elvis says
Accidents will happen
I guess
You don’t
Wish for them
They just hit you
When you aren’t looking
And she hands me
A new scorepad
And I can’t quite
Understand
Why there’s
No sex
In this dream, yet
And she puts on the
Carpenters
"Close to You"
And it’s time to play Yahtzee again.
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