My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist

13. gone with the mind

gather the 10,000 americans in irreversible comas and book them into rooms at the sheraton center in midtown

when clouds in the night sky resemble the x-ray of chrisќs cheekbone shattered by the split-fingered fastball of the devil

the exact date of the atomic armageddon will be written in the cursive script of hairs on a bar of soap

and each smirking bellhop will be a baby elvis

and hot urine will cascade down the sides of sugar mountain

if you find one of my eyelashes on the street, please return it to me… or one of the hairs from my legs — please — take it to a police station, there's a reward particularly the right leg, the leg that used to kick field goals for pocahontas high in mahwah don't you remember? our silly adolescent pact we each pledged to eat whichever one of us died first we didn't even know the meaning of the word necrophagia then we were just real american kids with real american ids ever since then i've been swallowing garlic capsules and giving myself daily injections of basil and oregano so that i'll be properly seasoned for you each shred of dead skin that i peel from my neck and deposit furtively into an ashtray at a cocktail party is a metonymic precis of my severe instability

do you know me? my american express card says simply: perishable vertebrate — don't fuck after date stamped on bottom

i had fifteen fatal diseases induced by pesticides, exhaust fumes, cosmetics, charcoal-broiled and fatty foods and they were all cured instantly by a sugar-coated placebo called a milk dud, but then they recrudesced exponentially so that i had 225 mortal illnesses my doctor painted a grim picture of each disease he did my leukemia in acrylic on canvas, he did my mercury poisoning in watercolor on composition board, my asbestosis in day-glo enamel on wood, and my emphysema in synthetic polymer on plexiglas a listener called in to say that my broadcast signals were becoming weaker and weaker i said, i'm still on the air despite 225 diseases, but i decided to go up to the roof and examine the colinear beam antenna when the elevator got stuck, a woman in a taupe leather blazer and suede necktie kissed me, she let me put my hand in her shirt and feel her breasts, she let me put my hand down her trousers and hold her hard-on, she said: i'm the angel of death where've you been all my life? i asked, flushed with love at first sight i've been compiling a dossier on your psychopathology, she said, as the elevator launched through the roof and exploded in midair like the space shuttle challenger we checked into a montmartre hotel frequented by thieves, prostitutes, and drug addicts but the room didn't have a television set so we checked out in palermo, we installed ourselves at the grand albergo e delle palme, where wagner had written much of parsifal—our room had a 25-inch color TV with random access remote control i took a milk dud and felt increasingly spiritualized, dematerialized… i felt an abrupt separation from my body i traveled through a dark tunnel, over a field of glockenspiels and pompoms i sang the song of the extremely subtle energy-wind-mind i slept in a sandwich, enveloped in sheets of fatty smoked meats on the 6 o'clock news the police commissioner was issuing a statement concerning a woman who'd detonated her libido in a bowling alley, injuring two off-duty cops: "officers russo and mendoza of the 3rd precinct were engaged in off-duty recreational activities at the roosevelt bowling lanes when at approximately 1500 hours an explosion occurred immediately subsequent to the explosion, russo and mendoza observed the suspect — a Caucasian female approximately 18 to 20 years of age— levitating above the lanes, discharging a powerful libidinal bioluminescence officer russo and officer mendoza, as a result of exposure to heavy doses of the suspect's radioactive libido, have regressed to the anal-sadistic stage and are presently barricaded inside the bowling alley where they are whining and manipulating their bowel movements" i turned the television off, got dressed, and we had dinner with a group of moderate Iranians

in the blazing headlights of an oncoming subway car, my mother's skin is as translucent as the tissue-thin page of a norton anthology

my flesh is completely transparent; in 1956 i sat on a bridge chair in the middle of a rodeo and let elizabeth taylor watch my heart pump purple blood through my aorta and the mucous membrane of my stomach secrete gastric juice and my vasa deferentia carry sperm from the testes and i said: i hope you're not turned off by the verfremdungsefѓekt of my transparent body

my exquisite epic and lyric verse have been featured in magazines across the country

grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publications in which some of these poems first appeared: good housekeeping for "have you ever felt the cold dick of your own shadow? (prelude to a quaalude)"; McCalѕs for "shall i compare thee to loan sharking, gambling, hijacking, extortion, union racketeering, cigarette smuggling, home video pornography, or narcotics?"; cosmopolitan for "have you ever been hit in the head by a cruise missile?"; and ladies' home journal for "have you ever been lying on your back under a viaduct in a tranquil rural area with a blade of grass in your mouth and suddenly you look up as a tractor trailer veers off the road and crashes through the guardrail above and it's plummeting straight down at you and you only have time to catch its license plate 'new hampshire — live free or die' before its two and a half tons crush your helpless body?"

these spicy, violent, superbly plotted verses are perfect for television

across the tundra snow did fall

flecked with blue like fab and all

my father slapped me across the face with his hairy knuckles and his fraternity ring and he said, tell the horrible story! tell it! and the earth shook because of the earthquake, near Cleveland and the drag strip was busy… you couldn't help but stop and listen even in the newsroom every once in a while the typewriters would stop there was one drag race after another the caterwaul of two engines did you ever put your ear right up against someone's fly when he unzips his trousers— that's what it was like the obbligato of screaming engines, of berserk motors also against that background you could hear the sound of teenagers opening their cans of coke — that simultaneous pop and sibilance throughout the night this special sound occurred it was incessant, but exhibited no discernable pattern my father took a sloppy swig of chowder from his thermos and spit a diced clam onto the table i'll let you off this time, he said to it and dispatched it with a fillip into the starry starry night tell the horrible story! he said to me, brandishing his chapped fist oh god, he said, coughing up blood and sputum don't tell it, he said, sing it to me, son sing it — you have your grandmother's sweet irish tenor, son — sing it i was going to tell the story about the time my mother kicked me down the steps and she was standing back at the top looking down at me — she was in her black bra and panties — and she said… i said sing it, son! sing it!!

my mother kicked me down the steps

she was standing at the top

in her black bra and panties

laughing shrilly

etc.

this father is smoothing his hair… he is making half a dozen psychodramatic gestures like tackling the son and giving him a kung fu chop to the throat this father's nose is so big that it blocks the sunlight, hindering the photosynthesis of green plants and leading to the breakdown of vital food chains

this father's nose is so big that if you took each of his nose hairs, tied them together, and put a hook on the end, you could stand on the moon and fish in lake michigan

in the pitch-darkness, i could hear the sound of grandma's guitar in the early mesozoic era, grandma played a slide guitar solo that lasted for eight years, causing the universal landmass to break up into continents

grandma, you are the primordial monster you are the monster who predates chronology when the big bang was heard, you were already a fearless businesswoman, throwing back your head and laughing yes! to all of life's challenges you are grandma, the great bulimic divinity, who roams the moors with a flamethrower and a spray gun filled with barbecue sauce and when you see a lamb you douse it with sauce and you say stand back! and you charbroil it with your flamethrower and then when you've eaten an entire barbecued lamb you go behind a bush and stick your finger down your throat — and you leave a business card in the jawbone of each carcass that reads: you've been ritually sacrificed, bolted down, and barfed up by granny — america's preeminent flesh-eating deity

grandma, help me sing — help me sing of the nude gladiators who are tan except for white buttocks, who flex their glutei maximi in unison help me sing of grandpa who went to the store for a tube of toothpaste 16,000 lines of dactylic hexameter ago and never returned

some people say that grandpa lives in the bekбa valley and that all he has in his cupboard is a swollen can of vichyssoise and a container of nondairy creamer; some people say that he's become a human ashtray to a gang of sadistic girls who hold court in a lavish trump tower apartment; and some people say that he's fallen in love with a pink rose in his garden — they say that each night he creeps out in the dew, wearing an expensive ribbed scented condom made from a sheep's intestine — and he bicycles to the center of his maze where his pink rose lives — and he gently bends its long stem and he cradles the rose in his arms and kisses its petals, mumbling — and he snorts the yellow powdery pollen from its stamens… as bees stand on the sidelines waving hi mom!

the rain is intermixed with tickertape

the desolate plain is littered with costumes of the commedia dell'arte doffed in great panic

from a lone mesa in the distance comes the numinous voice of my grandma, the grandma of all men: you with the tiny degenerate eyes, the $200 loafers, the mohair suit, and fat gold pinky ring, compulsively massaging skin moisturizer into your hands — you are the only grandson who does not flee in terror

i am estranged from most men my american express card says simply: multicellular animal with specialized digestive cavities — requires corrective glasses

will you purge my mortal grossness so

that i shall like an airy spirit go,

i mumbled, writhing like a stripper from chippendale's

a guitar chord of incalculable decibels is strummed, rending the earth between my feet

grandma, speak to me

you speak me, she says… and with these words my own larynx resonates

grandma, take me in your arms

these are my arms, she says… and i feel my own elbows ache with rheumatism

grandma, let me sleep in your womb

this is your womb, she says… and my testicles inflate like two balloons and my penis unfurls into the air like a paper noisemaker

now sing of the nude gladiators who are tan except for white buttocks and if anyone tries to stop you, remember, not only do you sing under the auspices of grandma, the primordial bulimic monster who predates chronology and flame-broils sheep, but your singing is also supported by logistical elements from the army's xviii airborne corps, marine attack planes, and naval gunfire from the battleship new jersey i have spoken

there is total darkness there is a flourish of horns there is light three beach towels blackout pause lights up three nude gladiators on beach towels tan except for white buttocks scars from whips, lion bites, spiked balls, and chariot wheel blades nude gladiators flex glutei maximi in unison flex relax flex relax flex relax pause three phones ring nude gladiators slowly crane necks over left shoulders to survey audience and then reach for phones upstage with right hands as if making synchronized swimming strokes hello, say NGs in unison voice of telephone interlocutor (audible to audience): moaning NGs: who? voice: more moaning nude gladiators take receivers from ears, hold aloft, and then smash down into phone cradles blackout pause lights up receivers held aloft blackout sound of receivers being smashed down pause voice: i do not need your primitive telecommunication devices to make myself audible lights up nude gladiators have scrambled to their knees in obeisance, bowing up and down and up and down NGs (scared, awed): identify yourself voice: flood of exquisite lyric verse NGs: oh, that was good, that was good voice: did you like that? NGs: that was really good! voice: can you three guys work the grabber? NGs: what's the grabber? voice: it's a special rescue crane NGs: standard or automatic? voice: standard NGs: we could learn voice: good, i'm sending you three to el paso blackout pause lights up a woman is on the ledge of a tall building, covering her armpits a policeman yells up to her through a bullhorn: no one's going to arouse you! woman: no te creo los conquistadores no vinieron solo por oro! policeman hands bullhorn to priest priest: isabel, me llamo padre vallejo absolutely nobody is going to kill you softly with his song you have my solemn word of honor policeman gets on squad car radio: get the grabber over here now! we'll try to stall her voices of three nude gladiators: we'll be right there blackout lights up three NGs are in grabber cab operating controls grabber pincers rise high in air and pluck woman off ledge woman is waving arms hysterically: it tickles! it itches! quй mъsculos! blackout

when the lights come up again, the seminude gladiators are driving to newark airport after learning that kim il sung has been shot they are wearing jeans designed by le corbusier they are displaying severe psychomotor agitation, nihilistic delusions, and ego-syntonic obsessions i give them the minnesota multiphasic personality inventory

what fruit can soothe the mind,

but mellaril?

what soup, but stelazine—

the intravenous broth that's just like grandma used to make

the semi-NGs are exercising their first amendment rights they are singing the song of the extremely subtle energy-wind-mind the singers are dead, they sing, the singers are dead dead dead wasn't it mallarmй who said, "when a superhuman being shampoos its hair, it thinks of death?" in the sky, a thin crescent of cloud punctuates the empty azure like a single comma two of the semi-NGs have prophylactics in the back pockets of their tight jeans, one has a packet of duck sauce there goes the fuji blimp, says one there's a redhead from scarsdale in a saab, says the second and what are you reading? i ask the semi-NG with duck sauce in his pocket of sinuses and nephews it's superb did you know that alexander the great's nephew had degenerative sinusitis? did you know that chuck yeager was scheduled to fly the U-2 spy plane that the russians shot down but he had to take his nephew to get his sinuses drained so francis gary powers got the assignment instead?

a scented nuclear warhead manufactured by mcdonnell douglas in collaboration with estйe lauder passes overhead, leaving in its wake a light, floral fragrance with a touch of citrus and spice, and winds of 750 miles per hour children tie strings to their anvils and fly them in the supersonic turbulence and the yellow sheets of enuretic adolescents are torn from their clotheslines and sail through the air like magic carpets and these magic carpets bring me home, to the glory that was greece, and the grandeur that was rome

a bongo-playing cuban bandleader fell on the field of battle today innovator, he had been the first to shoot with three cameras in front of a live audience, succumbing to lung cancer in all the years since their divorce he never maligned lucy caused by his unrepentant passion for strong cuban cigars he was the only bongo-playing cuban bandleader in the history of broadcasting to succumb in front of a live audience caused by his unrepentant passion after their divorce, lucy released a statement through her press secretary, saying: "i'll never marry another bongo-playing cuban bandleader… none could compare to him — he was the first to succumb to his unrepentant passion for my strong press secretary" sic transit gloria mundi foucauіt died of aids before he could finish the fourth volume of his history of sexuality after he divorced lucy, he sold her his interest in their production company and with the exception of cameo appearances he retired from the history of broadcasting pindar wrote: "… to all comes / the wave of death and falls unforeseen / even on him who foresees it / but honor grows for the dead / whose tender repute a god fosters" so perhaps someday a schoolboy will stand before a class in the history of sexuality and recite these unforgettable words: "a bongo-playing cuban bandleader fell on the field of battle today / he was the first to shoot a live audience he never maligned"