"1942"
Piano tree, play
in the dark concert halls
of my uncle, twenty-six years old, dead
and homeward bound
on a ship from Sitka,
his coffin travels
like the fingers
of Beethoven
over a glass
of wine.
Piano tree, play
in the dark concert halls
of my uncle,
a legend of my childhood, dead,
they send him back
to Tacoma.
At night his coffin
travels like the birds
that fly beneath the sea,
never touching the sky.
Piano tree, play
in the dark concert halls
of my uncle,
take his heart
for a lover
and take his death
for a bed,
and send him homeward bound
on a ship from Sitka
to bury him
where I was born.
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Travelling Toward Osaka on the
Freeway from Tokyo
I look out the car window
at 100 kilometers an hour
(62 miles)
and see a man peddling
a bicycle very carefully
down a narrow path between rice paddies.
He’s gone in a few seconds.
I have only his memory now.
He has been changed into
a 100 kilometer-an-hour
memory ink rubbing.
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All Watched Over by Machines of
Loving Grace
I like to think
(and the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.
I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.
I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.
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Karma Repair Kit: Items 1-4
1. Get enough food to eat,
and eat it.
2. Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
and sleep there.
3. Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.
4.
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San Francisco
This poem was found written on a paper bag by
Richard Brautigan in a laundromat in San Francisco. The author is
unknown.
By accident, you put
Your money in my
Machine (#4)
By accident, I put
My money in another
Machine (#6)
On purpose, I put
Your clothes in the
Empty machine full
Of water and no
Clothes
It was lonely.
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Xerox Candy Bar
Ah,
you're just a copy of all the candy bars
I've ever eaten.
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Widow's Lament
It's not quite cold enough
to go borrow some firewood
from the neighbors.
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The Fever Monument
I walked across the park to the fever monument.
It was in the center of a glass square
surrounded
by red flowers and fountains. The monument
was in the shape of a sea horse and the plaque
read
We got hot and died.
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I Feel Horrible. She Doesn't
I feel horrible. She doesn't
Love me and I wander around
The house like a sewing machine
That's just finished sewing
A turd to a garbage can lid.
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Cannibal Carpenter
He wants to build you a house
out of your own bones, but
that's where you're living any way!
The next time he calls
you answer the telephone with the
sound of your grandmother being
born. It was a twenty-three-hour
labor in 1894. He hangs up.
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The Sister Cities of Los Alamos, New Mexico,
and Hiroshima, Japan
It was snowing hard when we drove
into Los Alamos. There was a clinical feeling
to the town as if every man, woman and child
were a doctor. We shopped at the Safeway
and got a bag of groceries. A toddler
looked like a brain surgeon. He carefully
watched us shop at the exact place where he
would make his first incision.
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Jules Verne Zucchini
Men are walking on the moon today,
planting their footsteps as if they were
zucchini on a dead world
while over 3,000,000 people starve to death
every year on a living one.
Earth July 20, 1969
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All Girls Should Have a Poem
For Valerie
All girls should have a poem
written for them even if
we have to turn this God-damn world
upside down to do it.
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Shellfish
Always spend a penny
as if you were spending a dollar
and always spend a dollar
as if you were spending
a wounded eagle and always
spend a wounded eagle as if
you were spending the very sky itself.
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All Secrets of Past Tense Have
Just Come My Way
All secrets of past tense have just come my way,
but I still don't know what I'm going to do
next.
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