Friday, April 29, 2011

Nutrient Budgets (bulk + occult deposition)

When your "religious retreats" became a weekly event
And you began stocking up on Hunt's® Tomato Sauce

I had four questions that I kept to myself:

1. Will a healing poultice cure you?
2. Should I kill you in your sleep?
3. Was there ever a Godzilla Doodle Art poster?
4. Why was my car repossessed?

When I found your Post-It® note about Dwight D. Eisenhower's warning
I had three concerns that I kept to myself:

1. Worship of a reptile is forbidden by my "personal rules"
2. You sauce girls are complicated, to say the least
3. I miss my car, Lizard Sauce Queen

Stop reading Visual Nutrients. Learn a Chilean custom, just in case!

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Hydnocarpus Wightiana

A can of tomato sauce
Not an expected find
You seem smarter
Like a paste woman
But here is the evidence
You are a sauce girl
Sauce girls do not receive the healing poultice
Whole peeled ladies receive extra healing (not extra-healing) poultice
Paste women get most anything they need
But the evidence clearly shows
You are a sauce girl
You are not entitled to receive the healing poultice

Use positive thoughts like weapons! Use weapons like guns!

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Pine Sap

you had crystalized pine sap
in an urn at the inn
you were a terrible innkeeper
though not deserving of being defrauded
your downstairs dining area was filthy
only the drug-addled and destitute
would eat such a travesty of a continental breakfast
dry and uninteresting danish
Farmer Brothers coffee
you brought shame to your profession
the profession of innkeeping
which is (as stated above)
what you did

You actually do see the forest for the trees. Your insight is just puffed-up regret!

Monday, April 25, 2011

Ethylene Glycol (warning: explicit!)

When I sent you the spice rack
You bottled your spices

the man's skin was the color of Mountain Dew™
we thought he might have some sort of problem with his liver
but he ended up saving our lives (sniffle) and
and (sniffle/cough-ahem thing) we are oh so grateful


When I sent you the lilacs
You parsed them with lysis

he walked right through the wall like Casper®
we tried to get his attention with guns and stuff
then he used "erudite" correctly in a sentence


And now you expect me
To help with your crisis?

the first line ends with a Product™
and the next tries to "tie-in" the jaundiced man
and pass him off as educated


And when feeding the shrimp
Do we start with the mysis?

the product turns out to be Jaundiced Man™
who is able to save lives while being discolored
and is smart but undisciplined


Do we yell out "Shazam!"
Or "Oh mighty Isis!?"

Profoundly offensive missive was censored! (it had to do with the creepy old man in the motorhome sodomizing™ Billy Batson)

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Corn Sugar

I opened up a cabinet
Hoping to find corn sugar
I was disappointed
Be careful what you hope for

Not everyone has corn sugar in the cabinet!

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Oat Grass (non-organic)

that an invitation
to the Predation Singles Mixer
raised no suspicions (red flags) within you
is pretty fucking baffling

you were the star of the party
with your über-hip Makara tattoo
and all eight seasons of Three's Company on dvd

the police report was never translated
from the original Sanskrit

Everyone loves your advice. You are so smart!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Half-Ton of Chloride

I used a newspaper
Without reading the news
I used a Jack Lalanne Juicer
Without drinking the juice
Sometimes the use of an object
Is anything but obvious
I use a whole lot of objects
A word that rhymes with obvious

If you've got nothing worthwhile to say, write a poem or a song! Your neck hurts!

Monday, April 18, 2011

Domoic Acid

Divorce had worked her way up Columbia Avenue
Two houses down from us, "Dan" and "Deanna" got hit
Their house is on the market for a pittance
The girls across the street caught it as well
Want to rent a cute Spanish-style bungalow?
They thought they made it through the tough times
They clearly did not
You can keep your doors locked
You can change out the number on your mailbox
But when Divorce picks your house
Or your apartment or trailer
You will know, in the back of your mind, she chose correctly

Hold close the one you love. Embrace the temporary.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Atropine

when we made first contact
with the beings from space
they drank up all our atropine
yeah they drank up all the atropine
we tried to give them cherry juice
we even offered apple juice
they only wanted atropine
oh, such a thirst for atropine
when we first made contact
we should have run the other way
before they took our atropine
our precious stores of atropine

You can't catch lupus from a doorknob, but it hurts like hell to try!

Friday, April 15, 2011

Yeast (stop reading if responsible)

I bought my neighbor a shovel
Because he lived in a hovel
And lacked the read of my novel

I gave my neighbor a present
Not a Pillsbury crescent
Pheasant

My neighbor is a chicken
A hen to be exact (three hens)
Chicken chicken chicken

You are still reading this
(Please stop reading NOW if you are responsible)
You drink chicken piss
I do not know how you get the piss of chickens
But you drink it and you disgust me
How awful it is what you do

Draw a picture of a clock on an envelope. Obey dumb commands!

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Ash

I hear you got the position at United Telemetrics
That is fantastic news, son
Your mother was a believer
Before she was reduced in size

(imagine some accordion music or war sounds)

I hear your son volunteered for the implant
The United Telemetrics team rewards heroes
Hell, we create heroes
Like you created your son with his now smaller mother

(a graduated cylinder holds phosphates hostage)

Your condiments are like "enhancement-medicine" for your food! Your focus is narrow!

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Multivitamin

These dissociative identity vitamins aren't going to reintegrate on their own!
So let's dissect and label each component in order to map out our strategy. We will afford each component the respect and accommodations we would afford to any "stand-alone" vitamin in our care. It should be no surprise to you that many of these components are unaware of the others' existence. Once we, as professionals, feel we have a relationship with each of the components, we can begin to invite them together. A neutral venue is best, like a country hot tub (the kind made from those old wine barrels). I often keep the multivitamins in their container until I am fully relaxed (rye whiskey is helpful in this regard). I then lose interest in whatever the fuck I was blathering on about. I drift back into the grim facts associated with existing. I am tired and still have a cold and I have a lot to do tomorrow.

Good night! Vitamins use our services once they understand.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Phosphonate (e-book edition)

I do not like your books:

Drape Courage "A Civil War veteran befriends his battlefield nemesis at a New York design college. Two men, three legs, one love, and a bolt of fabric to die for."

Minimum Rage "A marginalized worker writes threatening letters to his supervisor, but never bothers to send them."

Smaller Mothers "On a terrible island, something is happening."

Fate Hoppers "When Larry and Brian discover their science teacher is a time-traveler, they attack him with rocks until he flees in his time-machine."

If you put your batteries in the freezer, that explains the corn in the flashlight.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Aqua Tofana

I lost track of people like you about the same time "envelope margaritas" became so popular.
Haiku Envelope Margarita
drink trends come and go
most do not require postage
but alas, some do

Imagine my surprise when I reconnected with people like you at the Quasi-Texas Gymnastic Revue in Corn Springs.
Haiku Corn Springs
make a shame gimlet
and use a glass, not paper
I want it first class

People like you were waiting for me in the parking lot of the Super 8 Motel, wearing masks to make you look like "history cats" or celebrities.
Haiku History Cats
a lot can go wrong
in shipping live animals
cats stacked like cord-wood

Use your thoughts to make sentences in your head. It's like a letter to your mind!

Friday, April 08, 2011

Mittelbach Translation

how does one say "happy birthday" to a life form
brought forth from an aerosol with the word "reddi" on the can?
or is it more of a question of knowing, rather than saying?
do we (I) ask these questions already knowing the answer?
we (I) do
we and I do because of the tenacity shown by both John Ritte(r)
and Ed Asner (postmortem)
Ed's speech at the Lynyrd Skynyrd memorial was weak
like mary when she bought the wrong gift and freaked out
GIRLS LEARN BY CRYING is the message and the message is wrong
we (I) have known this
since the time we (I) went to the dairy section of Vons
and sucked the nitrous out of about 12 cans of whipped cream
and stumbled through the Hartz (toxic) pet supplies
toward the cash register
to get that precious pack of Winstons
so the we (I) could look contemplative and smart
when wishing you a happy birthday!

Happy birthday, Stella! Use nitrous oxide!

Thursday, April 07, 2011

Coal Tar Oxidized with Nitric Acid (from ammonia)

I keep reading your posts from McMurdo Station
about your stupid plan to name penguins
after your favorite post apocalyptic science fiction authors

I print out each email, tweet, and blog post
(so much for the paperless future!)
and use a Scotch® Permanent Glue Stick
to create kind of a scrapbook of your thought patterns
that I can show to you when you come back to me

but for now I am content to wait here
with the knowledge that you still believe
that distance is some sort of buffer zone
and that I will somehow find forgiveness in my heart
after seeing that photograph of you
a sardine in each hand
sandwiched between Peter Watts and Nevil Shute

Use words like "archivist" when talking to authors. You smell like a library!

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Carson, California

it really felt good
when I found out
you boxed me in
on purpose
I never considered myself
overtly suicidal
but you were there enough
to get the gist

but now I wake up in Carson
and I just have to say
fuck you for saving me
what kind of monster
would extract a man from hell
and yank certainty away?
so please get into your car
and drive into a wall

Helping people feels good. For the helper!

Monday, April 04, 2011

Borage Seed Oil II, pt. III

so you killed a tree
borage seed oil II, pt. III
you stung a bee, oh

the tables have turned
use the word "the" and then "then"
(then the) tables turned

oh, how you hurt me
borage seed oil II, pt. III
made you sting a bee

The California Black Bear wears a man-suit! Bears everywhere!

Sunday, April 03, 2011

Borage Seed Oil II, pt. II

on Sunday mornings we sweep up the bottles on 3rd street
some shattered, some intact
all empty
the familiar yellow labels with bold black lettering:
Borage Seed Oil II, pt. II
say what you want about the drinkers
just let us do our job
it is a weekly routine, now
one block of the city is claimed
for a few hours before Sunday's dawn
we let them have their ritual or whatever it is
because it never works to fight them
and cleaning up some bottles is nothing
compared to the alternative

Memorize two numbers today, six and seven!

Friday, April 01, 2011

Hückel Criteria

There once was a belt with a buckle
That tightened your waist with a chuckle
The mirth of containment
Along with the pain meant
Criteria was met for Hückel

You seem extraordinarily stable! Why the fishy smell?