An eponymous skateboard

My clamshell tilts to the left
like an offkilter ice cream
cone. Born & bred in the state

of Bosnia & Herzogevina,
from whence its name, Arch-
duke Franz Ferdinand. Also

from whence its major draw-
back, the fear of assassination
while wheeling down the road.


What the Dickens?

Nicholas Nickleby
escaped the pages
of that eponymous

novel & went off &
joined a boxing troupe
where he achieved

great success fighting
under the name of
Nickelass Knuckleby.



in bed, in lederhosen

Bertolt Brecht stirs beside me,
muttering something about Die 
Moritat von Mackie Messer. On 
the other side, in a mini dirndl 
with white school sox, Lotte Lenya 
murmers the words in a kind of
Sprechstimme, speak-singing the 
English call it, as a means of dis-
guising the deterioration of her
voice. Kurt Weill is currently not
around; but the words, the mutter-
ings, impersonate his presence.
All this because it is extremely 
uncomfortable sleeping in leather.
Even though it's soft, it sometimes 
chafes the thighs, plus experts 
warn that it stresses the material
& the seams. But I find that cer-
tain music will alleviate all dis-
comfort. Tonight it's Die Drei-
groschenoper. Tomorrow maybe
Bach, or Concierto de Aranjuez. A
few days in the nude will follow, 
or up until the weather changes.

The / Manchurian Candidate / in another demographic

Project artichoke was a CIA 
mind control program which
sought to determine if a sub-
ject under the influence of one
of many drugs could be made
to carry out an assassination.


Whiting moments, angry. (Psalm 69)

The Buddha said: "Touchy
people become offended, pay
their wrath forward." In
other words, some people

want shit to happen; & if it
doesn't, they do just enough
to make certain that it does.
Buddha won't be happy that

that's how it turns out; but
elsewhere, King David will
be overtaken by paroxysms

of delight. "Pour out your
wrath upon them; let your
fierce anger overtake them."