Inundated (2023)

I curl up with my back to the wind sawing through the redwood tree 

A boiling kettle of branches above 

Not a twig drops 

Gusts crescendo and murmur and ruffle the fabric i cocoon under l

It's paltry and cold 

My tent stake bends as I make a wee roof 

The earth packed by a thousand nights tossing my sack of bones down the time slide 

Some more dry than others 

None so dry as my mother 

In a closet box,

Inundated.  

*** 

The store's closed for good, that's bad for music

Unless one likes sad music 

At least the bums don't leave their Lexus in the truck zone just to fetch dry cleaning 

Across the street 

I had to chalk No Fires by the former entrance

As some are crazy enough to burn trash for a couple minutes of heat 

The awning says Community Owned but the bank is in Wyoming 

It looks inundated with poverty all butcher papered up,

A real cutlet. 

A simple gift, tax deductible, and bento man is the last guy standing, but most people throw out the rice 

And besides 

Who needs silverware to eat and drive 

And stick it to the stick. 

___ 

The cook is sick

He was hale last night, chipper fist bumping the whole band 

Will be there 

He plays stand up 

Bass when he's not sick enough 24 hours later to cancel appearances 

 So here's a guy on acoustic songwriter and a cello from utopia, beatific 

She's covering in every way as they foot in mouth their non event for number 248 per year 

It's refreshing as tap water in contacts 

Let me tell you about yahacts last month, the best cheese steak in lower mintagilla 

Don't sic your hobo fan on us 

It's regular refreshments that background stop the ballpark 

Never heard of you 

There's your two big fans to dish out some shots at finale it's rubby elbow crimes  

I'm not watching overtly your cello diva at all 

I'm inundated by the mundaccious amateurism calling in well. 

 ____ 

Over our head, don't quit 

Breeding. Don't douse supplication by the fryer. We're layers in warm straw. 

The rent rises, inundating the newly burntbeak crew. Leaf feathers alone, they're company. 

Cage free gonna be, we'll see. 

___ 

Brown shirt staff sargent 

With his ranger rick get-up is barking some demand for me to risenshine from my weather buttress 

Here at picnic in the park 

I emerge, forgoing my combat boots, standing in my socks 

To hear i'm illegal and could be arrested at which audibly snort, been here three years 

Not here he says 

Yes, exactly here he waddles back to his city truck i'll be back after brunch and betting online against hometeam 

Then off to busk this temperate morning, the melvin gargoyle ambles away pushing his life basket, dispirited from last he said I'm lucky he don't got a bat 

I play an hour, one ten, and toss a pile of tin cans over the fence, spilling kidney beans from half finished meals that had been opened with haste and few moment edges 

Another hold the piss bus ride toward the east over the volcano all dead and fertile, notably peaceful with carlack 

I do my swimming in a rainbow suit as the hot tub brims with retirees and a retarded man of color, my mix  

He doesn't want to leave as his guardian calls time to go 

His eyes mesmerized making waves in jetting fizz, a magician transforming with perma smile beyond us 

He's inundated and center of attention, will he leave? Will patience grow more calm under the variable ennui 

I swim a quarter mile, half mile, time laps away who cares, dry off and go pump some blocks of dumbbell 

As cellphone drool surrounds the absurd muscle museum full of taxidermy 

And exiting, there's the troll, skin like a dog treat from a value pack sized roadkill 

Slinking past toward the natatorium with eyes in the back of her knees, trudge trudge 

It's quite the flow today, watching reality melt down history into a teeming sewer, up to my muskrat brow 

So I inquire squire lee about is We research regarding mom's non estate being subsumed by texas incorporated 

I scribe my hardshit waiver sic like melting butter on parking lot inferno, grittyesque with facts and antimath economics 

Done, not done. Inundated. 

Happy birthday, pops, sell the union and wallpaper the flood stamps, it's life on the river and windy by trial in the wrecked casino barge, high tide catfish that's on my menu of fascination  

___ 

All fed up, cuz the pizza from the bench by the theater didn't sell 

The movie been seen before it premiered 

Pepperoni dejavoo pickemoff 

Thick foil triangles inundated so that multiple wraps can't smelter the bounty 

Out peeks red sauce, but over sparingly to my tastes 

Dough still crusty or vice versa 

It'll dry let me get a handful of tissue, that's sad 

Don't call it a rerun, fantastic planet from 1956 

That groundbreakingly just ten years after WW 2 whisks us away

Let me just tuck away for a rainy day some these still soft restaurant edibles, the barber watches trimming his last cowboy today 

He could turn down those heat lamps, jesus it's brite 

Specially when we exit the odditorium where they sell cups of grog for a nickel, and the nickels are silver screen, and everyone's handsome or about to monologue 

Don't barf mr. hand-me-down 

Grocery titan, you can remodel, and tear down the melvin statue, and make Howard again 

Just chisel away.  

_____ 

Sump pump at the community center parking lot, 

It's a new crew hosing today 

Lake graham cracker crumb from the toddler squads for it all inundated in the grate 

Cars blast it six feet out with enough gained speed, the cherry blossom precinct unperturbed by motor boats in the crosswalk and pylons around the waterfowl mannequins wrapped in terrycloth 

They're busy ordering order 

Filling up fuel catchers 

Butcher papering window bricks more secure 

I say get an auger size of  Detroit and sell it and don't stop 

Evict that bad water before it gets into the gas tank with the snorkel and hydroponic hypnosis, that's some lax oversight to build a drain that collects and pools yesterday 

Wouldn't you say, mom? 

Wouldn't harriet tubman breath easier not needing stilts to get to class? 

Deferred maintenance has a waiting list around the block, I've been looking forward to it all day, a little time for me 

So tiny time, so clogging it's dander and sediments, mostly human skin they say, and dog stuff. 

Lake go-away slough , back to the drawing board, better engineering for a drier parking lot, and learn how to use tape correctly on all four corners, schmucks, it's folding like my potbelly running toward gym. 

This is tantamount to inundation, the brimming excess, and repudiation of plumbing. 

____

"One lovely and useful proverb is “still waters run deep,” which, translated, means  

quiet people are often more brilliant, clever or complex than they may appear.  

This proverb compares aspects of the human character to hydro- dynamics" 

"Of Latin origin, but possibly popularized by William Shakespeare, c. 1590, in "Henry VI," part 2, act 3, scene 1: 

 Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep; And in his simple show he harbours treason."  

__ 

Residual snowflake, flurry of one, solitary yet wed in dance 

Over pavement carless, care dictating each to their own views from windows, 

I gambled again last night 

Got drunk in deaths clime incubator, after selling my fishman preamp I drank my treble away, boomerang 

Three pints of mountain at the park, along with elderberry flavored river, courting nightshade rowed to a rowdy stir the blood 

Pool game with paul haul, a sonabitch made me beat him and shed my layers until it was tank top guns 

Him hating his dad, 70

Poisoned but wanting the be put in his place, sassy kid 

His girlfriend hanging back, fine by me, she chides me about my daughters, she's one too 

Wants to give a healing hug no problem, drinking cheapo lite, light food high 

The chatter of a party in a long last supper table and two dozen empties get me the bird, and out the door 

I'm stumbling, falling 

My bike soften the blow, rise and hike, never got my layers reinstalled 

"Winter pries it's fingers" in my hammered heart, my pea coat saves me, I awaken to the third ranger in as many sways 

Polite on script, older than the usual clocks sent to recite and point hands at dials 

I'm warm in 20 degree bag, look out at snow ice lawns and tree bit mulch that has been Cuisinart by chef wind 

I toss my foam in the fancy litter jail, after closing off the hefty so dog shit don't besmirch later use 

Cuz who knows, other than the queen oracle, the chain off it's sprocket so I walk to shell

-Ter, counter

-ter, store 

-age, patterns upon patterns paint the road there 

Too beautiful no hangover or frost bite, temperature dropping at 9 am 

Keeping it simple, retired, slow and in contrast.  

____ 

 Between ice and hand warmers in the pocket, my speck not ascendant 

Transitory yet barnacled by fellow human clods 

Uneager for dissolution from inundation, hot cocoa mix that don't swizzle, paddle as we do with a splinter 

Pulled from the cross, red 

The gamut of exhaustion bottled, to steep in indoors 

I heard nobody pray 

I heard sharp howls of pain from one guy, squabbles and cussing, accusations, friendly banter, kind gams at sea, the chance meetings that disaster harbors 

Dogs living with cats, society's outcasts glazed sleep, shuffling feet in outdoor clothes, the crinkle of water bottles, forgiving bumps and boundaries, to survive 

Unheeded calls for help, forsaken by pecking order bureaucracy 

Legless men with smiles 

Filling our arms with tents, tarps, instant oatmeal, and brief acceptance 

At the base of Mt. Tabor 

I better look that up again in my atheist catalogue 

Now that i'm on my side 

Cheek to the snow and the other inundated with keys and coins unspent 

___  

"Just as Elijah and Moses begin to depart from the scene, 

 Peter begins to ask Jesus if the disciples should make three tents for him and the two prophets.  

This has been interpreted as Peter's attempt to keep the prophets there longer. 

 But before Peter can finish, a bright cloud appears, and a voice from the cloud states: 

 "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him" (Mark 9:7).  

The disciples then fall to the ground in fear, but Jesus approaches and touches them, telling them not to be afraid. 

 When the disciples look up, they no longer see Elijah or Moses.

When Jesus and the three apostles are walking down the mountain,  one guy gives him shreds of shelter wool to wrap his feet from the ice: traction.

Jesus tells them to not tell anyone  that the supervisor knows that fentanyl was incense in the shit room.

"the things they had seen"  

until the "Son of Merde" has risen from the dead." 

___  

Refuge in a steel box spared me from obliteration,  shhhh wind now a whipsaw velocity that decapitated the picnic manger on Tabor where the pilgrims wear shorts in the snow 

Wind sharpened to molecular carbide on Crown Point 

Wind pushed the balsa fronds of fir out of the tundra without spite other than the smite of man and his sheetrock lairs 

Following channels of cement like a pinball game, no hindrance other than balconies for viewing past the megaTV 

Rootballs of trunk lollipops, for to rest parallel invites nature a new lease 

This is the only law 

Decay, and sublimation to moss, thrush, worm, and badger  

Out of storage, the leftovers feed mouths ravenous, molting, hurry in study too occupied to hunt cook and tablecloth, too inundated with progress for the sake of shaping a menu 

To serve satin sickness 

Go climb a fallen giant and find the nests before they are sold below in thrift stores 

Go log a look 

Witness the inundation of earth fighting back, reflexive, her kneecap jerk as automatic as a catapult from the rubber mallet of Dr. man 

Freezing rain slows the dinosaur glop in our engines, we feast on Old Food from the unpowered fridge, reaching by candlelight and memory of what was deposited last Odin's day

Last Mars day, last Freya's day 

Daresay Thorsday 

There is no bearing on the compass to guide a lost bloated contagion of capitalism 

The wax expends into bee sweat as fire reaps wick 

Glaciers peninsula our shallow tastes down to bedrock 

Where pilings hold not for long, and launch platforms commiserate escape from our inundation with self destruction, in Latin fairy tales with plastic slabs of lamb, sung with tinsel jingles 

Hide behind the sequoia, it melts too under a hiccup from the Gorge 

Wy'east and Pashto take it in stride, magma boiling in their cauldrons kept at bay under a loose sternwheeler that glides upstream to memaloose 

It's talk, that's All 

The wind inundated with power poles and copper lassoes and sturgeon magnets in a maelstrom symphony crescendo 

It's sex with beyond death on a tee shirt and sponsor, that tale of cerebus Grendel

It's a high point in sea level mentality, that folded ship made of diplomas 

A helado dripping down the fist running from the bull 

We run and the caterpillar gazas us in holy pauper view 

Sic pay per view, that's how clever drips congregate  

If there's any radiating glory, it's Hanford and folly 

It's Martin Luther Kaepernick doing knee bends to cheerleaders of every flavor 

Sacrilegious sanctimony and silly potion pedigrees 

Frost heaves the homeless to safety, from tailback, from rear guard, from tackle 

That's religion. 

____ 

 

 

2023

FLB