Dancing Bear - Two Poems

     We shot poor fucking Phil!

           moving through tall autumn grass

           - a deer among men

           blurry-eyed men with high-powered rifles

           bubbly burpy drunk on cheap beer

Haven’t you heard
I steal other people’s work
call it my own and submit it to magazines?
That I wrote ‘bout beloved Lenore?
I told my father not to go gently into that good night?
That I stopped by the forest to watch it fill up with snow?
Or that I wrote about Daddy?  Or the Colossus?
Or held a celebration of my Uterus?  (under an assumed name,
of course!)
How ‘bout that night I howled?  Or was on the road with the
Dharma Bums?
You know these words are stolen, too?
Didn’t you hear that stuff?
Ah, man!  Where were you?
Don’t say you didn’t hear about my threatenin’ little
old ladies for their social security checks?
Or that I like to look up big chicks on the net and ask them
for a date?  Or phone sex?  Or something,
anything!?!
Damn!  You been around at all, lately?
Didn’t they tell you that I will send you death threats
and letter bombs if you disagree with me?
That I hate everyone?  That it don’t matter what you are?
Don’t tell me you missed the one where all the kids and animals
in my neighborhood are missin’?
Did you hear how I like to paint in blood?
And I’ve even sold one or two?
Haven’t you heard that I’m a secret agent workin’ for the Chinese?
Or that the Oklahoma Federal building bombing was my work?
That I set that dumbshit McVeigh up as the fall guy?
And that the World Trade Center bombing was just practice?
You did hear that it was me on the grassy knoll in Dallas?
How about King and Bobby?
And you know Hoffa’s buried in my backyard?
Did you hear that I was Deep Throat, Anonymous,
and the Zodiac Killer too?
You knew I sold real-estate in Arkansas
guns to the Contras
junk bonds?
You did hear that I worked on Dean’s brakes,
right?
You did hear that I sold drugs to Jimi, Jim and Janis
backstage
well…
when I wasn’t busy outside the elementary school selling ‘em?
Haven’t you heard that I sold a gun to Marvin’s dad or
heroin to Kurt, just before I let ‘im borrow my shotgun?
And didn’t they tell you I’ve worked for Amtrak pulling
all the wrong switches for years
well, when I wasn’t moonlightin’ for NASA working on the O rings?
So you must’ve heard I’ve done time in all the right places
Q, Attica, Folsem, all the places Jonny Cash sings,
right?  (well…
not a lot of time, ‘cause as you can tell,
I’ve been busy)
You must’ve heard that I was reincarnated?  Right?
That I was the Torquemada, Andrew Jackson and King George III?
Or Caligula, Judas, Ivan, Vlad,  Stalin?  How about any other
black hearted bastard from history?
Or that in a previous lifetime I told Richie, Big Bopper and Buddy
that it was okay to fly?
And that I fueled and inspected Earhardt’s plane that last time?
You did know I stole the Lindberg baby, right?
That I used to whisper into Alexandra’s ear?
Did you know I told them to paint clothes
on the images in the Sistine Chapel?

Yeah, the kids have a million of ‘em
If you can’t look like everyone else on this street
then they’ll write you a history to explain why

You know how kids are