Out of some place they came
Out of any place they came
And everywhere out of place
Making the whole world out of place:
Kicking monster, old-age monster,
Yaitse, eye monster, rolling monster.
And that’s not all, there are
Monsters nobody ever saw.
Old man said:
Pretty soon
They gonna monster us all up —
Pretty soon, mind,
Be no more people.
This is what awful Yeitse said
At the moccasin game,
That great destroyer,
That bad fucking news:
Woe! Woe!
You should have left it where it was!
I would have played it there,
You should have let it lie!
Striking the ground hugely
So that the tent-rags shook,
He guessed wrong,
Knowing someone had moved the stone.
Some of the people were
Always up to no good,
Making up evil games.
Pretty soon they made some monsters.
Oh, women, women!
What did you need so badly,
What midnight things did you practice?
Now what will become of your own children?
Oh, men, men!
What did you want so much,
Why did you never stop?
Now what will become of your own children?
She jumped up high but fell into a hole
As deep as night, as dark as low.
She climbed back out, it took all day.
By then her friends had gone away:
Some to build,
Some to earn,
Some to gather things to burn.
Some to work,
Some to school,
Some to follow the golden rule.
She laughed, and got on out of there.
But she kept the hole as a souvenir.
on the waterside path
by the levy familiar geese
gaggle along
while a fat boy rests on the bridge
while his backpack rests beside him on the bridge
while the train goes by
that jackrabbit lolloping headlong
that reaches cover in the tall grass
and runs out the other side of the tall grass
toward the shack with walls no longer square
whose roof is rows of weathered slats that gap
to sunlight and the morning air
while two crows black and black
perch atop two dirty chunks of broken concrete
upon a low mound of broken concrete
and me watching
me watching
as if my heart would break
The first people came up, they say,
Up through four worlds,
Up through a hollow reed, they say,
Up to this world.
When they arrived
This world was dark
Then someone said
It will not always be this way.
The clouds shone
Then birds came, talking loud.
Sun took hold the mountain
And leaped into the sky.
Day came
Then the waters rose in mist.
Spider-woman caught a fly
To celebrate dawn.
I wanted some ice cream
Look what I got:
Rodents ’round a big milk pot.
(Do I want mice cream? I do not!)
I asked for chocolate chips
So how
Did I get a gooey garbage scow?
(A chocolate ship? No, thanks, not now!)
That’s two wishes gone, and just one left.
I wish this genie wasn’t deaf!
Jimmy, Oh Jimmy, jumped into the jakes.
Why’d he do it? Goodness sakes!
When his teacher pulled him out
All the children commenced to shout:
Jimmy, Oh Jimmy, why did you do it?
See that hole and jump into it?
You’ll have to move far, far away
For no one will marry you after today!
My Nana gave me jelly beans
And so of course I went and ate ‘em
I don’t know how to tell her this
But – oh, my gosh, I hate ‘em!
I wouldn’t say that they were bad
I’d say that they were worse than awful:
They’re gruesome, noisome, smelly beans
And ought to be unlawful.
One tastes like bile; one tastes like grout;
And one’s like liver mixed with trout.
But while my Nana’s watching me
I daren’t spit ‘em out.
Some taste like toadstools on my tongue
Some taste like vipers might have viped ‘em
Some may have come from Baby’s diaper
After Baby diaped ‘em.
I wish I had a time machine
So I could tell her not to buy ‘em
… And those are all the reasons why
I will not let you try ‘em.
After a drunken night, the fog starts to clear . . .
What the fuck?
Where’d that mountain come from?
Bag of Anything 