Whiz Bang Prose Poem 1

Repurposing the night to occlude the
Shadow of the doubt, the technicians strove
To plant their hands in the wound of
The moon. The starshine burned,
They were flayed the into an angel’s
Contrail…
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 2

You got whiskey, we got pain!
After all the shouting the mouths
Are pinched, caked with the chalk
Dust. Letting go of the situation
We fumble with our flies that
Keep us twitching with subcutaneous
Menace.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 3

Err on the side of kindness which
Is nowhere remotely close to Providence
Where the revenant of utopia sprawled
From the Wampanoag’s meerschaum,
Smoke not moving upward but
Horizontally, an ellipsis of puffs.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 4

Bandwith forthwith set on Madame Jazz
So Ephemeral is no longer the condition,
It’s the first name of the man who sends
A smear of trombone across the air.
Dig that, daddy-o!
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 5

Hunting for metaphors, the mournful mage
Encountered siphons of situations that
Washed over him, cleansing him of
The notion that semblance can ever be
Summoned and, qua, qua, qua, that’s that.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 6

Hail the progeny who remain steadfast
While disaster follows disaster and
the Flood comes. It’s not the water
itself which rings in apocalypse, no, siree:
It’s what is left when everything dries
And crumbles.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 7

Consider the runes: a bull’s eye, goldfish,
Crenellated hairbrush, calfskin diary, an
Ectopic pregnancy. For fifty bucks, put them
All together, rationalize their association,
And share what you come up with.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 8

A gaucho and Marlon Brando, pre-
Deceased, walk into a transvestite bar
Outside Milwaukee. They are dressed alike,
Identical, so no one knows who’s who.
Candy Darling throws a leather shoe
Thinking she’s hit her target and weeps
That her last tango in Paris was the summer
Prior.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 9

Hold your horses, caress their flanks,
Draw on your forces, rub your shanks,
Fuse your mind to the horse’s skull
And someone will accuse you of hybrid
Thoughts or bestiality. Tell them it’s satyr.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 10

All the villagers fished out their last shekls
To resume the construction of a plastic heart
In the central square. When it was finally
Finished, it mysteriously began to pulse.
Take this as a lesson in civics, not as
A myth. Or hoax.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 11

After the showgirl was defenestrated,
Her suicide note was found. The assailant
Who threw her out bemoaned how
The act now was pointless and the
Corpse was checked for signs of
Death instinct. The perfume clinging
To the body proved to much and the
Forensic investigation was abandoned.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 12

The thrill is gone. The thrill is gone?
Is this just an exercise in German Romanticism
Or, worse, semantics? The thrill
Never goes. It stays as a tremor, behind
The scenes and it will come get you,
Oh yes, it will.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 13

Went into the Black Forest to talk shop
With Heidegger but he was not there.
A marionette with lipstick smeared on its
Head lay in a corner of the absent philosopher’s
Cottage. It grew dark and I despaired.
Then I fled. Being and non-Being became
Catchphrases for hoax, trap, bloody murder.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 14

Consider the lobster or your fist,
Upend all received notion of extremity
And remember that the turning of the
Screw is turning towards you.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 15

Hellacious was that place and that time
And this time and this place and when
The two are spliced one sees stars,
The ones that hide on the inside and
Only become visible when the maps
Need to be remade accordingly.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 16

Homilies divested one of the rumors
Of no grace. Still blood was spilled
And the ritual of sacrifice repeated itself
And still rhymes with the fury of World.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 17

Often it occurs to me that my neighbor
Who never pulls her shades is not
An exhibitionist but a granite statue
Placed there by her husband.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 18

Stumbling into the vestibule, I
Noticed that the stained glass
Contained millions of tiny apertures
Through which one could perceive
The wedding at Canaan. Some
Of the attendees waved and raised
Their really red wine.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 19

The poem was encrypted due to a virus.
A systemic error was discovered and
It lay not in the poem but in the minds
Of citizens, tested regularly for fourteen
Days in fourteen parallel lines. The
Virus was a synonym for neglect:
The people died. The poem lived on.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 20

Aside from the usual smorgasbord of relics
Emptied from the pharoah’s was a brand new
Switchblade, of gilded blade, manufactured
In Armenia within the past two or so
Decades. Anthropologists will puzzle over
The convergence. You, Reader,
Already understand the scenario.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 21

Brooklyn burial grounds circa
1796: thirteen, maybe fourteen headstones.
The horizon like lamps blazing silhouette
The grounds á la Stonehenge. Picnic
Grounds for fishermen?
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 22

Kid Chiasmus said it was “noon”
Which spoke to the unspliced destiny
Of infinity and how the sun at
The hour is a perfect circle giving
Us back to ourselves, bathed in direct
Light.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 23

Caresses and dresses, oh my!
The understated glory of the undercarriage
Of a hori who prances with specks
of glitter as her skirt hikes up
and reveals a winking eye…
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 24

Were we to investigate the fibrous,
Perfectly articulated presence of the
Ghost called by locals as the Mushroom Man,
We’d be shamed into respectful silence.
(No pictures, please!)
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 25

February, 9, 2012: bad day, despite
Clear skies. A Mayan friend calls
To remind me to help end the world
By the end of the year. Sadly, I
Have plans then. Will be travelling far away.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 26

Permissive people will vilify philistines
Which is an imposture of the first order
As etiquette requires that one douses
Them with kerosene, light them on fire,
And call it art.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 27

Tense was the atmosphere when
The mountaineer who resembled Courbet
Felled the redwood tree on which
Was perched the metallic bird named
Gerhart….
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 28

Zombies and vampires, damned to
Cliché by overexposure, decided
Shake hands, change roles, and
Kiss each other’s lips into sunrise…
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 29

“Very interesting,” the art connoisseur murmured
As Damien Hirst’s freshly decapitated skull was
Inlaid with diamonds, a few fingernails, and
One or two periwinkles brought by train from Brighton.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 30

Are all those folks dancing over there
Medicated with some substance unknown
To us sedentary animals? So strange,
They windmill and peel around with
The subtlety of chrystal flamingos.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 31

Commodity is misanthropy is
Hereditary is redundancy and
Since so much of “it” is shit
Then to the commode goes
Dear commodity. Hiya, Marx!
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 32

Finding contradiction in the schism of
The matter, the Brothers prayed for
A way to cleave the breach and bend
The bows and hosannas showered their
Efforts from above.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 33

Were the skeletal remains more resembling
Of human form then it might be said
That the focal point of our ancestral fetish
Could be better clarified. But it can’t be
And so trace your steps back from
Where you first started. Not there; there.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 34

Nitrous and nectar, ambrosia and absinthe--
A moralizing gourmand’s strict diet
Of opposites. No, not quite. Perhaps
Unrefined spices with which to pepper
The ground of the world. To clarify.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 35

The eyewitness had the grippe
And also had no eyes and lost
His grip. You might think this
Is poetic justice or poetic expression
But all it amounts to his bad news,
Dude.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 36

When you magnify the wing vibrations
Of a magpie in a rage having been spurned
By a lover, you get the sense that all is lost
And when it’s found it will be too late for
This world and the next. Hum-hum.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 37

Home foreclosures went up in the past
Few years for many—but not for the homeless.
They stayed steadfast to their homeland,
A staggering sequence of networks that go
Right through you, including your homes.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 38

When funny bones develop malignant tumors,
When paradigms cost para-nickels, then
The writing on the wall foretells that the
Usual accounting practices undertaking by our
Various financial divisions will multiply
Our insanity. Collective insanity.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 39

Holy shite! My acetylene blowtorch was left
Out in the rain and now, after intensive blowdrying,
It was contrived by some ghost in the device
To splay toxic, murky rainbows which hovered
Over the skyline from 3:33pm to half past 7pm
Last Friday.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 40

Sensually transmitted diseases are of
Course preferable to sexually transmitted ones
But why would one wish to communicate
The communicable to the Incognitos
Huddling under the highway overpass
Waiting like tricksters to turn tricks?
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 41

You cannot think outside the box if
You are the box itself. Moreover, you
Cannot be on the same page if indeed
Your interlocutor/cohort is also a page.
Such is the trouble with speech acts
Who lack the therapy to make sense
With sense.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 42

Books have spines, mammals have spines,
Both are re(a)d, both are bled,
Each get crusty, most likely dusty,
And that is the end of the story.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 43

After the incident, we stretched out on
The tabernacle to fornicate and inject
Some secular into the sacred. But, alas,
The sacrilege was too much and on hallowed
Ground our harrowed souls made a seminal
Sprint for the door.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 44

I’m getting the sense that we don’t
Recognize each other anymore, said
The face to the mirror. The mirror
Was just about to echo the statement
When an imago with ego erased them both.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 45

The club rules mentioned that all patrons
Must enter astride some creatures with
Winning personalities and a provenance
In approximately the Neolithic period.
One friend of mine succeeded fulfilling
This requirement, but he never told us
How he pulled it off. Plus, he never
Answers his phone. Bastard.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 46

Some poor souls locate their significant
Others through social media while others
Scour missing persons pictures on gallon
Cartons of milk. To each his/her own.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 47

Lethargy lead him to believe that slow motion
Was the norm and stasis a sublime means
To escape the prospect of high-speed ways
And means. However, the force was not
With him and he actually began to accrue
Backwards ideas and reverse his actions entirely.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 48

Pity the pensioners who glibly allude
To the good old days which could not
Be corroborated and for which no evidence
Could be mustered. They realized their lack
Of substance and broke up like a million
Tiny pieces.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 49

On the moors the Moors stepped along
Steppes and very plain dwellers of the plains
And felt as if they were accosted by symmetries,
Struck by the cruel ironies of knowing their
Fates were similar to the cliffs of the Pyrenees:
Sharply expressed but still not less-than-strange.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 50

For all the faults attributed to the Neoconceptualists
For whom emptiness was a byword for fullness,
None was worse than the impregnating the art
Community with the embryo of an idea
Suggestive of a non-idea and leading the non-image
Into a non-language of total despair.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 51

I sent you that cryptogram so
My intentions would be secret,
That my desire for you would be
Mysterious, and that I could have
Some opacity come between me
And my impulsive wish to always
Be like a window. Paint it black.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 52

You said yourself that this vaporetto
Was buoyed by a five-horse power
Engine, and I believe you, but how
Is it that that squid on a moped is
Easily outpacing us and giving us
The tentacle. All of them.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 53

Paper cuts and purplish sluts
Make me go nuts or make my
Nuts go nuts but not as they do
When sliced with paper cuts
By purplish sluts.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 54

You can have your formula
I want a contentula to form
Like a bruise on the conception
Of order and bleed, only if slightly.
There will be need for triage, believe me.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 55

Stiv Bators got hit while walking in Paris
By a car, most likely a Peugeot. He sat
For fours in a hospital E/R and then
Left, never having been admitted.
He died later that night in his sleep,
A dead boy. Some band names are
Prophetic.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 56

It seemed appalling by all that he
Would attempt on the first date such
A vile, venal overture. After all, who
Prepares for coitus by rubbing Vaseline
On the skin, striking a match, and
Setting oneself on fire, especially
Since it’s been done before and given
That the prophylactic will melt?
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 57

The headmaster struck me as a luminous whore,
Rank in personality but consuming knowledge
Like a piss ant, toppling theories with the
Grace of a lumberjack and steering all
Conversation into a dark hole, a mountainous
Crevasse or a syphilitic cunt.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 58

Captured in the cross-hairs of the departing
Thief’s attention was that he could not steal
The painting with an image resembling his
Mother strangling a likeness of his face
Attached to the body of a faun. It was
So terrible and so beautiful that he knew
Its presence near him would lure him
To the abyss. Which one, he did not know.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 59

Shards of meaning scattered, foregrounded
Near the door of base-camp. Don the research
Scientist took a sample back to his lab,
Intent on identifying and then classifying
Them accordingly. Needful to say, he
Went mad, not because he failed in his mission
But because the custodian swept the
Specimen into a corner and turned off the light.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 60

The mosquito was wearing a death’s head
And a headset, blowing through the pulqueria
On a unnamed journey for which the patrons
Did not bother to inquire. For them, the prospect
Was ominous, the combination and suggestion
of flight, sound, and death seemed like but
another advertisement for primetime line-ups
or cemetery lot availabilities.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 61

In a bar the other day called the Blarney Cove
(the bar, not the day’s name) on the west side
Of Manhattan, a man in the restroom told
Me that I looked despondent and that we
Downcast souls should stick together.
Then he laughed hysterically and shook
His head as if the damned get the best
of all worlds because they get it truthfully.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 62

Remedy this crisis by applying pressure on
Your thorax and massage your antennae.
Keep all your eyes peeled and recall that
Voyeurism multiplied is no longer
Private perversion but mass-produced
Surveillance. Beat your wings into the
Future, flyboy!
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 63

An off-the-cuff, breakneck, headlong
Notion elbowed into the realm of the
Possible, embodying the previously
Abstract premise and manifesting it
As a smear of snot on a glass-pane,
Translucent like embryonic fluids,
Glistening like wetted emeralds.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 64

Aghast at the hubris of the homunculus,
The giant beat his body with his fists
Until he realized that this was no
Homunculus but a homeless circus
Performer, a dwarf, who had never
Exasperated his towering assailant.
To make amends, he removed all
His limbs and floated like a
Moving island down the nearby river.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 65

God forbid that the peaceful nature of rural
Librarians is changed by the rustling of
The dusty pages of a book previously unopened,
Lying atop a bookshelf, softly caressed by
The wind, summoning them to seek the will
To destroy all books, mere archives of
The atrocity of history. This book that requires
The death of all books is still quivering in
Space, waiting for a welcome.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 66

Hymns and hymens, highwaymen too,
All are thresholds to pass through, opening
In song, sex, and subversion, the elements
Of life. May you find yourself engaged in
Each and let pass those forms which
Go through you as you are the threshold too.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 67

Splayed like a run-over cat, the book of
Poems lay abandoned in the tall grass.
A passing bicyclist ran it over and
The next to encounter it was a teenage
Wiccan who brought it to a next meeting
Where she was sacrificed to the gods
Who were actually Muses and the true
Authors of the volume.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 68

She went into conniptions, he went into
Interruptions, that other one when into
Erasures and no one has heard from
Him/her since. It was the kind of cocktail
Party where the sense of evanescence
Went hand in hand with water evaporating
On the martini glasses.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 69

The offer has been rescinded because
He got caught red-handed, because
All Poets are Thieves! Remember
That Prometheus was a Poet and
If had the energy at my beck,
I would incinerate you too!
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 70

Yuri Gagarin thought he saw silhouetted
Around the earth while he was orbiting the
Earth a spectral likeness of a serpent that
Morphed into a giraffe which in turn
Transformed into a solemn caribou.
This wavering bestiary instilled in Yuri
The quasi-holy sense that wildness
And worlds are indicative of an
Individualized psychological problem.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 71

Clem and Billy G. decided to go cow-tipping
On the night before last and were never
Heard from again. Yet they were seen
Intermittently, leashed and on all-fours,
Leading a group of cows, a kind of security
Detail and performing patsies, while the
Cows laughed themselves sick their
Blacks and whites of their coats switched sides.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 72

You could hear it in her voice, the indecisiveness,
The resignation. I tried to talk sense into her
But she spat it back out. I relented in my
Efforts and she finally made good on her claim
To sing an oratorio while shooting me in the face.
The aesthetics of violence can be useful when
Used in such a deadly fashion.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 73

Sometimes Pam thinks she’s transparent,
Especially after dessert is served and the
Dishes have piled up in the sink. At these
Times, Doug reassures his beloved by
x-raying her and encouraging her to
remember that the photographs of
her bones are really her bones and
not just a comment on incarnation.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 74

Facebook became Defacebook and
All of the sudden the likenesses of
My familiars and sort-of-familiars
Were wiped out. I had difficulty
Recalling them. None got in touch
Or wrote on my walls. All was still
Until I removed the epidermis from
My face and photographed it before
I went to hospital, looking like
Marbled meat and bleeding exquisitely.
After I posted it, I got hundreds
Of lovely notes and all my contacts’ online
Faces were restored. Technology
Is not to be sniffed at.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 75

Cut-outs, clip-ons, cuttings, scraps,
Shards, specks, and other minutiae:
If you by dint of miracle were able to
Piece them together, assemble them
In a psychotically perfect way,
You would be able to retrace the
Fatal missteps of our ancestors as they
Emerged from the light of day into the
Empire of darkness. Yes, this story had been
Reported, ripped to pieces, and the particles
Passed through time into the scattered
Confetti of rubbish, detritus, and debris
You see here and there.
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Whiz Bang Prose Poem 76

Let’s now be the metaphysical brawlers
& get to the task of removing the unnecessary
Obstacles of literalist drudgery with force
And farce and fierce factors, pummeling
The opposition down with lute, lyric,
Whatever medium necessary. You
Are the broom and the broom handle:
Sweep in circles and then in no known
Geometries.
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