The Power of Persuasion
First he
said it
this way
& then
he said
it that
& then
he bought
a gun &
said it
another way.
Author Archives: Klaus
the power of persuasion
Filed under poems & short jabs
the power of inference
The Power of Inference
The Committee sent in a poetry prof with a published-books list as long as your arm, an NEA writer’s grant, and three chap competition wins under his belt. He gave me to understand that the obvious comes across more persuasively when it’s inferred and not shoved down people’s throats–the Committee would be pleased if I were to take this into consideration.
“What are you inferring?” I said.
“What?” he said.
I whipped out my dick and pissed on his shoes and he ran off down the road like someone was chasing him with an icepick.
Filed under shards
the way life & death collide head-on like freight trains in a pop culture popularity contest
The Way Life & Death Collide Head-on Like Freight Trains in a Pop Culture Popularity Contest
He jumped into the sand pit like a dried-up mud wrestler and the camera swiveled his way.
Up on stage someone from South Central sticks in his thumb and impales a plum, does the same with the other thumb.
The camera pans to catch his act and misses the mud wrestler getting sucked down into the sand.
How far down do you go when that happens? What are your thoughts, your chances? How much horror does it take to shatter the sitcom mind?
Plum Boy goes down on his haunches and begins banging away with his plum thumbs on two Folger’s coffee tins half filled with pebbles. The panel holds up its score cards–3 tens, a six and a nine.
The plumbs get battered to pulp. Plum Boy keeps right on drumming, his trifocals splattered with plumb juice.
The audience either hoots or cheers in response to a cue card.
The global prime-time television audience masturbates, fornicates, devours bags of potato chips and vast quantities of beer.
The dog lies on the hallway rug with his head on his paws and his eyes closed, thinking, “Alpo. Science Diet. Dog Bone.”
Megafiction, mega churches, mega-ton bombs. Almost seventy years after the Holocaust, the hand-me-down story is still being told. The remaining survivors were only five or six when it happened. Until they were liberated and given Hershey bars they thought people everywhere were either well-fed and wore jackboots or were nothing more than rib cages with large melancholy eyes that went off to the showers and were never seen again. Or got made into lamp shades.
Ronald McDonald, nine feet tall and growing taller by the minute, marches into Berlin and takes over the Wurst trade.
Filed under shards
the edge
The Edge
Getting up
at sunrise
gives me
an edge
over the
whole town
except maybe
the black
schizophrenic
who has
been railing
against the
spirit world
since 3 a.m.
Filed under poems & short jabs
the candyman of hope
The Candyman of Hope
The Candyman
of Hope.
Glazed like
a jellybean,
glowing like
kryptonite.
Filed under poems & short jabs
the fool on the hill
The Fool on the Hill
I wrote a synopsis. I wrote a cover letter. I wrote an apology to the Fool who lives on the hill.
Right away someone thinks that’s hill with a capital. Capitol Hill. Not as important as a hill of beans when push comes to shove. Push comes to shove and the Grand Idiot slams his fist down on the shiny red button. Up, up and away. Missiles raining down all over the place. One way to draw attention from a failed economy and a corporate war.
There’s no way to turn back the tide. This thing will play itself out like an angry tsunami. The band will not play on. The band will be washed away with the rest of us. Except the Fool on the hill.
I’ve been driving up here for years now. I drink a mocha and smoke ten cigarettes and stare out the dirty windshield, across the valley at the jagged Cascades. Then the voices start. I write down what they say. This is the eve of destruction, they say, it’s all over but the gnashing of teeth. Rest easy in the flow of things, they say. Don’t hate the man in the mirror, he was just following orders. Back off, but not too far. You’ve taken the high ground and they’ve crowned you Fool. Even the Buddha’s going down when the hard rain starts to fall. You knew all this when you were just a boy out on the Wyoming prairie watching the wind blow up dust devils. That’s where the nightmares came from. And the migraines. But you beat the odds and now you’re right where you’re supposed to be. Stay the course.
Those mountains are listening. Great things are about to happen.
Filed under shards
