IS CHICAGO, IS NOT CHICAGO

A man
drives a plane
into the
Chrysler building

Saskatoon is in the room
Poulsbo is in the room
Bennetsville is in the room
Palmyra is in the room

Is Chicago!
Is not Chicago!
Is Chicago!
Is not Chicago!

A man
cuts in half
just like he
snaps a pencil

Khartoum is in the room
Phnom Penh is in the room
Pyongyang is in the room
Cairo is in the room

Is Chicago!
Is not Chicago!
Is Chicago!
Is not Chicago

SUGAR FREE JAZZ

Normalize the signal and you're banging on freon
paleolithic eon
put the fake goatee on
and it booms as cool as
sugar free jazz

Schools he bombs, he bombs

Stack wax lie like a placemat
won't lap
or help you at the automat
and it's clear and clean as
sugar free jazz

Schools he bombs, he bombs

Fossilize apostle and I comb it with a rake
you can't escape
you pull out the brake
and it booms as cool as
sugar free jazz

CASIOTONE NATION

The five percent nation of ________.
(repeat X 12)

5, 10. 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, 95, 100

The people's republic of ________.
(repeat X 12)

BLUE EYED DEVIL

Blue eyed devil.
Blue eyed devil.

Born to be a God among Salesmen.
Working the skinny tie.
Slugging down fruit juice.
Extra tall extra wide.

33 degrees
Six hundred and sixty six
Dig digging it, come on.

Moving door to door to door.
Stoned motel room.
Nice cool on the bathroom floor.

King of Siam
Get the trouble frying.

Spoon to the lighter to the lighter to the gun
Devil lapsed out in a pool of sun

BUS TO BEELZEBUB

Get on to the bus
That's gonna take you back to Beelzebub
Get on to the bus
That's gonna make you stop going rub a dub

Your words burn the air
Like the names of candy bars
Your mouth is cold and red
All in rings around your
Laugh laughing laughs

It's a grind grind
It's a grind
It's a grind grind

I'll scratch you raw
L'etat c'est moi
I drink the drink
And I'm wall to wall
I absorb trust like a love rhombus
I feel I must elucidate
I ate the chump with guile
Quadrilateral I was
Now I warp like a smile

Yellow no. 5
Yellow no. 5, 5, 5

Voulez-vous the bus?

TRUE DREAMS OF WICHITA

Signal got lost to the satellite
Got lost in the
Rideup to the
Plungedown;

Man sends the ray of the electric light
Sends the impulse
Through the air
Down to home

And you can stand
On the arms
Of the Williamsburg Bridge
Crying
Hey man, well this is Babylon
And you can fire out on a bus
To the outside world
Down to Louisiana
You can take her with you

I've seen the
Rains of the real world
Come forward on the plain
I've seen the Kansas of your sweet little myth
You've never seen it, no,
I'm half sick on the drinks you mixed
Through your

True dreams
Of Wichita

Brooklyn like a sea in the asphalt stalks
Push out dead air from a parking garage
Where you stand with the keys and your cool hat of silence
Where you grip her love like a driver's liscense

I've seen you
Fire up the gas in the engine valves
I've seen your hand turn saintly on the radio dial
I've seen the airwaves
Pull your eyes towards heaven
Outside Topeka in the phone lines
Her good teeth smile was winding down

Engine sputters ghosts out of gasoline fumes
They say You had it, but you sold it
You didn't want it, no
I'm half drunk on static you transmit
Through your

True dreams
Of Wichita

(freestyle verse)

Punch it
I got, uh, fed
I got, uh, too much things on bounce, uh, my head
I got to burn 'em up
I got to burn 'em up now
I got to go uptown, uptown
I got a thing
I got a little bit pushed
got to stand on the corner and bellow for mush
I got a bomb
I got a baby bomb bomb
got to stand on the corner and bellow for my friend Tom
I got a thing, I got to thing it
I got to thing--team
I got to run my side

true dreams

SCREENWRITER'S BLUES

Exits to freeways
wisted like knots on
the fingers
jewels cleaving
skin between
breasts.

Your Cadillac breathes
four hundred horses
over blue lines
you are going
to Reseda
to make love
to a model
from Ohio
whose real name
you don't
know

you spin
like the cadillac was
overturning down a
cliff on television
and the radio is on
and the radioman is speaking
and the radioman says
women were a curse
so men built Paramount
studios
and men built Columbia
studios
and men built
Los Angeles

it is 5 am
and you are listening
to Los Angeles

And the radioman says
it is a beautiful night out there!
And the radioman says
Rock and Roll lives!
And the radioman says
it is a beautiful night out there
in Los Angeles
you live
in Los Angeles
and you are going to
Reseda; we are all
in some way or
another going to
Reseda someday
to die
and the radioman
laughs because
the radioman fucks
a model too

Gone savage
for teenagers with
automatic weapons and
boundless love
gone savage for
teenagers who are
aesthetically pleasing
in other words
fly
Los Angeles beckons
the teenagers
to come to her
on buses;
Los Angeles loves
love

it is 5 am
and you are listening
to Los Angeles

I am going to
Los Angeles
to built a screenplay about
lovers who
murder each
other
I am going to
Los Angeles
to see my own
name on a
screen, five feet
long and luminous
as the radioman says
it is 5 am
and the sun has charred
the other side of
the world and come
back to us
and painted the smoke
over our heads
an imperial violet
it is 5 am
and you are listening
to Los Angeles.

You are listening.
You are listening.
You are listening.
You are listening.

MOON SAMMY

Moon Sammy walks. Across the floor. Below the floor. There is a wall.
Behind the wall. There is a chair. Moon Sammy knows. The chair is there.

But that's OK, that's OK, you can do that--if you're wound up, full of tension,
incoherent. Your mouth is buttered with lies; you ask why, but you could
call it enigmatic; all your thoughts about the chair are full of static.
Automatically your mind goes down the stairwell to the chair; your body
says Moon Sammy, can you come back?

Strum it.

Moon Sammy washes. In the sink. Below the sink. There is a drain. The drain
goes straight. Into the sea. The sink itself. Is porcelain.

Obsess yourself with causality. The information you hear is a loophole,
technicality. Behind every object is a mathematic; an obscure substance
infused with a kinetic force, energy, an obscure conscience shoots a gun at
the feet the world dances.

Babylon, mystery, mother of harlots, and all these abominations of the
earth, that sits on many waters, drunk with the blood of the martyrs of
Jesus.

And I wondered with great admiration.

SUPRA GENIUS

Something I can't comprehend
Something so complex and
Couched in its equation
So dense that light cannot escape from

In the dark your brain glows
And it goes
Way um way, way um way um

I know you're a supra genius

Will you shoot the blue earth down?
In the space station
Polishing the ray gun
You say correllation is not causation

CITY OF MOTORS

Three times dark, first in the mind.
Second on Java street, the dead car there.
The hood blown off with a BB gun.
Manuela said she saw the brakes fail.
Manuela said she saw the brakes fail.
An empty body but it still bled
Oil from the axle and it left a trail.
Ran down Java street and formed a pool.
Manuela saw the moon in there.
Manuela saw the moon in there.

I hear a rumbling.
I hear transmission grind.
I bear witness.
I have the clutch now.

Three times dark, third on the rooftops;
Man jumps between and grabs the rail.
Man pulls the door but the door is locked.
Man gouge the hinge and goes down the stairs.
Man gouge the hinge and goes down the stairs.
Dull bright morning and the tools are gone.
Detectives with flashlights in the elevator shaft.
Manuela tells detectives she saw him there.
Stuck in the hinge is a sliver of a fingernail.
Stuck in the hinge is a sliver of a fingernail.

Stack of tools in the Oldsmobile.
From the Motor City to the City of Dis.
They trace his travel by his credit card.
No sleep, smokes, and he's nauseous.
No sleep, smokes, and he's nauseous.
Flicks an ash like a wild loose comma.
Ash hits the oil around the pump.
Travels to the pump and the pump explodes.
Witness said he saw the car jump.
Witness said he saw the car jump.

UH, ZOOM ZIP

Zoom zip and uh wake up, uh zoom zip

My eye like a noisegate the number 8 frustrate and I roll to the floor fruit
to the fruit to the core of a spheroid embedded in my skull the round the
zero the symbol of null and void and well I toyed with the concept of
vitamin B-12 the synapse the synapse it feeds itself on a nutrient
contained in sunlight the blink the lid the fight to snap open

Moving up to the double M 2000 I eat up a decade like a flan your turn of
the century turn it up turn it up clock seconds to the hour go and cash the
millenium Um Um and it hums like a migraine to the brain in the time yet
remaining but uh ah melancholy nonsense and I crack nouns brotherfuck
the verb tense

Recombination, then Viacom, Safeway

DOWN TO THIS

You get the ankles
and I get the wrists.
You get the ankles
and I get the wrists.
You get the ankles
and I get the wrists.
You come down to this.

Nerves are up
and the eyes all screwy
Blood like a panful
of boiling ratatouille

Hang from the axles of a box car
Follow the dotted line
Like a steer to Chicago
to the hooks of the Chicago man

I get all tripped up
my eyes turn to water
rug burns from a shag rug
struck dumb in the presence
polyester burns from a jacket
rub the skin thin
break down in a diner
then I pay the bill

cashier toothpick stuck in the ground
tiny lawnmower to mow me down
I could get lost in a lunchbox
lie low in the mittens in the lost and found

MR. BITTERNESS

There is a bar they call The Bitter Sea.
And she sits and drinks a velvet crush--that's
Kool Aid and gin--casing the clientele
Like a relentless cameraman. She is
Elsewhere. She says You keep a-knocking
But you can't come in, and I say
Little Sister, don't you do what your Big Sister does

Spiral down down down down down down down

Well desire looks just like you with an uzi nine
Gundown fifteen bystanders in a roadside driveby
Desire is the grassfire drinking gasoline
And she says Open up your mouth, man, let me come inside

Spiral down down down down down down down

She cracked
Now they call me Mr. Bitterness
She snapped
Now they call me Mr. Bitterness
She's gone,
Gone gone

Aaah, leaning up against the wall
I will lash out dancing like a madman when you're gone
I will spit the blue flame and hurl my glass against the wall
And I will hear your name coming out from a boom box
I will hear your name called out from passing cars

Spiral down down down down down down down

She cracked...

JANINE

Janine, I drink you up
Janine, I drink you up
Janine, Janine, I sing
If you were the Baltic Sea and I were a cup, uh huh

Varick Street and I drove South
With my hands on the wheel and your taste in my mouth,
Janine

Jesus to my left, the Holland Tunnel on my right
Angels shine down from the traffic light,
Janine

I fell asleep by the blue light of Live at Five
And as I drifted off, I heard Al Roker say to me:
Dial one nine hundred
Four Jay Ay En Eye En Ee.

Slap myself to waking but now it's too late
Cause I spelled your name out on my licence plate,
Janine