Recently, I've been writing a lot of poetry that I would define as the equivalent of a doodle or a sketch

 in the art world. Not much of it makes sense, they're usually pretty abstract, and only one out of ten

 are ever any good. But they keep me sane when I'm traveling and away from my computer. In this

 thread, I'll periodically post one or two doodle poems that have any sort of merit to them.



Have fun!



Idealogical Rheumatism



It seems to me

that we'll all be in wheelchairs someday.

Wheelchairs with spokes like snipped guitar strings

and gutted seat-cushions that leave 

little breadcrumbs of foam behind

when we shift positions.



All our bureaucratic muscles - 

braided licorice sticks

or twined telephone wires - 

are going to atrophy 

eventually



and we'll all be confined to

thought-based nursing homes

where ideas are spoon-fed to us

from Gerber's baby food jars.



All our good intentions

are turning into peas-and-carrots

vomit-mash.



Wal-mart is throwing hand grenades.



Oh my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom!

Would God I died for thee

Oh Absalom, my son, my son!



The Rollback man (America's own symbol of prostitution)

smiles benignly as little hornet-swarms of bullets

make hole-punch gaps in flesh as patriotic

as spongy apple pie and surgically stitched

baseballs.



Little splinters of shrapnel

kissed by the lips of gods that sit cross-legged

in New York City and play with passenger jets

are staining old glory

with gangrene froth.



But it doesn't matter how many peace signs

are sketched or tattooed or spoken

and it doesn't matter how many how many 

of Jacob's multi-colored coats 

(fatigues the color of Shi'ite synagogues and dirt smeared turbans)

are stained with slaughtered lambs blood



because in the end we realize,

Absalom is already dead.