Experience made her competent, but in her youth, she was misguided in her efforts.  It was an assassination attempt on a false Canadian Antichrist, Alanis Morissette, which made her flee Canada and illegally arrive in the good old U.S. of S.R., after which she did the same for America.

“Didn’t you see Dogma?” snickered Ralph Gornit, once the meeting in Enid’s office had adjourned and Enid had shared that shocking secret with the not-so-delectable duo.  “Morissey’s God, not the Anti-God.”

“Antichrist.  Big difference,” muttered Enid.  “And there was no Dogma then.  Only Clerks.”

“What about Mallrats?”

“Moving on, jailrats.  Over years of investigation, I have arrived at the conclusion that there is not one Antichrist, but several Antichrists.  Seven, to be exact.  Seven Antichrists, each of which corresponds to a particular cardinal sin.  First off, the obvious one, Keef Smite.  Which sin do you think he corresponds to?”

“The sin of lust?” asked Ralph.

“Negative!” barked Enid.  “Keef is a eunuch!  Anybody else want a shot at it?”

A shadowy blond figure lurked into the room.  “The sin of wrath,” the man spoke.  Ralph, Joe, and Enid turned their heads.  It was Yorick the Swede

“Enid Moser?” asked Yorick, who was perhaps better dressed than usual.

“It’s Skoodge now, Yorick.” said Enid.

“You married Terence?  And all those years I thought you were destined for Philip,” cackled Yorick.

“You two know each other?” asked Ralph, who had never met Yorick in his life.

“Certainly,” said Yorick.  “We went to the same high school in Manitoba.  Well, actually, I’m giving myself a little too much credit.  I was an exchange student from Stockholm.  Had all my major classes completed, so I signed up for audit drama.  And that’s where I met the lovely Enid, as well as the aforementioned class clowns, Terence and Philip.  Enid, who did Philip end up marrying, Alanis Morissette?”

Like many Canadians, Enid never got too emotional.  And most Americans would get emotional when they uttered the following lines, but Enid kept a straight face and a deadpan tone throughout the conversation.  “He didn’t get married for a while.  But while I was married to Terence, the two class clowns reunited—in my bed.  It resulted in my first divorce, and possibly my last.  Terence and Philip now raise cattle in Newfoundland together.

“So, Yorick, did you just come to say hi, eh?  Or what do you want?”

“I want you to know I freed Keef.  Orders from a friend named Paul.  Keef’s not the Antichrist after all.”

“You just said he corresponded to the sin of wrath!” yelled Enid.

“Yeah, well, he does,” said Yorick, promptly spitting out his Copenhagen.

“Then he is an Antichrist!”  Enid put her palm to her face, unsure when she’d be able to share the identities of the remaining Antichrists with Ralph and Joe.

“Lots of people correspond to the sin of wrath.  I can think of like, seven people off the top o’ my head.”  He whispered the names of said people to himself.

“And I can name seven Antichrists off the top of my head,” said Enid.  “The beast you just released is one, corresponding to wrath.  Then there’s lust, which is fittingly a groupie and prostitute named Jezebel.”

“And a good customer of mine if we’ve got the same Jezebel,” said the Swede.  “Go on.”

Still getting over the distraction to the office/classroom, Enid pulled a four foot tall mummified corpse out of a drawer in her desk.  The corpse gave of an odor akin to that of steamed rabbits.  “And then here’s the sin of sloth.  The only Antichrist I’ve killed, due to it being freakin’ annoying.  A special needs child known as Jerome Snix.  I’ll spare you the name he called himself, because being a good Methodist, it’s not something God would want me to say.”

“Jeez, Enid, were you planning on killing Keef too?” asked Ralph.

“Yeah, good thing I came here just in time!” said Yorick.

“Hold on now, Yorick!” screamed Enid Skoodge.  “Tell me exactly what went on between you, Keef, and this Paul guy.”

“I’ll try,” said Yorick, and began to narrate.  “Y’see, my friend Paul Andrews is a biological brother of Keef.  But they don’t have much in common besides them both being eunuchs.  So not too long ago, Keef and Paul met each other again at my café, Yorick’s Café in San Francisco, maybe you’ve been there.”

“I know Yorick’s!” exclaimed Ralph.  “I always get the java krakatoa.”

“Everybody does,” said Yorick.  “Anyway, Keef and Paul realized that they both had seen the same purple-coated bonobos.”

A high-pitched squeal came from inside the jail.

“That sounds like Paul now!  Sorry I can’t finish the story!  Gotta run!”

*                                              *                                              *
“Thanks for releasing me,” said Keef, lighting a joint.  “You’re fifty times the man I thought you were, at least today.”

“Don’t mention it, brother,” laughed Paul Andrews.  “So who else do you know who’s seen the bonobos?”

“A little kid in Hell.  He wrote some unsatisfactory creative razzmatazz on the subject of the Ecuadorian bonobos, including Gazeem.”

“I love Gazeem!  He’s my favorite of them all.  You know I had the bonobos when we were growing up, right?”

“Huh?  I didn’t know that.”

“I kept them a secret from the whole family.  And I think you were too busy going to hardcore punk shows to pay attention.  Anyway, the bonobos came from an unnamed home planet and settled down on our parents’ ranch.  I kept them safe and somewhat fed in my huge toolshed, you know, the one I never let you or mom or dad enter.  They always ate those grapes.  Anyway, around the time I decided to move to San Francisco to find you, I realized I had to leave the bonobos behind.  And the night before I planned to say goodbye to Gazeem and his pals, I found a little boy from Harrison Ranch down the street being mauled by the bonobos.  This has to be the same kid you told me about.  I feel bad, I just left the kid in that toolshed and his mom and dad probably died of grief or something.  Poor kid, the bonobos will kill anybody who isn’t a eunuch.  That’s why I had to make sure you and me were eunuchs.  Then I went a little overboard and turned hundreds of San Franciscans into eunuchs, despite there not being any bonobos around.  I just liked the idea of a eunuch colony, y’know?

“So where were you when you saw the bonobos?”

“I was on the Highway 101.  I was really drugged, so I don’t know where the bonobos went, in case you were looking for them.”

“I was,” said Paul.  “Looks like you’re of no further use.  I’ll tell Yorick to take you back to your cell.”

Oh happy goy! Luh luh luh

Oh happy goy! Luh luh luh

Oh happy goy! Luh luh luh

You will not hear him say “oy”

Or “schmuck!” Luh luh luh

Or “meshugganah” Luh luh luh

Or “baruch atah” Luh luh luh

“Adonai eloheinu”

He has got some bacon, some shellfish and a Christmas tree

He has a ten-inch uncircumcised #$%@, so they don’t say he’s cheap

CHORUS

He won’t visit Israel, except as a missionary

He doesn’t get the jokes on Seinfeld, and thinks Hebrew is Chinese

CHORUS

He thinks Jesus was a Christian, and American as Uncle Sam

He has got blue eyes and blond hair, and a holiday ham

CHORUS

There is only one big wish that will make him very happy

Is to pork a shiksa—but he doesn’t call her that, you see

CHORUS

I will begin this album in the least commercial way possible

It is so noncommercial in fact that even the most independent punk venues may ban me from performing

I will show up at 924 Gilman Street and get kicked out for not being commercial enough because I have chosen to begin this album with an apology

Many of you listeners don’t even know me yet, haven’t heard a single one of my a capella music recordings

Not even “Ionic Blondes,” whatever that was

And the first thing you hear from this guy’s mouth is:

I am sorry that I have been wanting too much

I have been like a spoiled child with my constant craving of fame and fortune

Because all I’ve ever wanted is before my eyes

I have been pining for whores while I am embraced by angels

One thing some quasi-enlightened parents tell their supposedly spoiled children is that they need to count their blessings more

It’s true that very few Americans count their blessings anymore, but I do, so here they are:

I am blessed by the mere presence of Beat generation writers and every hue of punk imaginable, with many more still forming

Daria’s actually on DVD now and so is Doug

I have as much formal education as Charles Bukowski and as much poetry, quality-wise and quantity-wise, as Richard Brautigan

My name will never be forgotten in at least one Internet community and at least ten IRL communities

I evaded living in the uberconformist fifties

I evaded being alive during the Holocaust and am allowed to practice my religion seventy years later

I wrote a novel

I’m not going to beg any of you to count your blessings, but you most likely have that option, and that in itself is something to be thankful for.

We grew some zucchinis in our backyard

But I really wanted spinach

We really wanted spinach

Now I’ll never be a spinach boy

The zucchinis grew a hundred feet tall

We had to build another brick wall

To block out the zucchinis

Those really tall zucchinis

‘Cuz now I’m a zucchini boy

Now he’s a zucchini boy

Won’t you be my zucchini toy

‘Cuz I’ve got green plants

And I’ve green pants

A zucchini boy (yeah

A zucchini boy (yeah)

Harvestin’ crops all day long

Like the crops I’m healthy and strong

‘Cuz I’ve got green plants

Get in my green pants

A zucchini boy (yeah)

A zucchini boy (yeah)

He was sitting in his room, becoming pissed

He never learned chords for the songs he would brew

Because he quit guitar right before Guitar 2

In the American Empire he was bound to roam

He had many a scar and many a poem

His poetry morphed into plain guitar licks

So he never showed that verse to his favorite chicks

His favorite of all was a shiksa named Lynn

Who would take his heartstrings out for a spin

And they’d return to his chest perspiring for air

But all of this time, Lynn didn’t care

On a night with a light, his brain turned to mush

And you just couldn’t say the same for his crush

He would sit there and wish that the night was still young

And pretend that young Lynn was lax with her tongue

Duh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh…

So that was the story of the sad guitarist

He was sitting in his room, becoming pissed

He never learned the chords for the songs he would brew

Because he quit the guitar right before Guitar 2.

I woke up from a dream in which Barack Obama legalized marijuana

It was only one of several legalizations to benefit the economy

But this one stood out, and we all cheered when the plant appeared on the tube

But when I woke up, all I saw was my 3 AM dorm room

My roommate shushed my sleep-cheering

He shushed me back into sleep

I woke up from a dream in which Barack Obama led the human race to peace

And I woke up from a dream in which Obama led the chimpanzee to evolution

I woke up from a dream in which a band outsold the Beatles

And I woke up from a dream in which all four members were talented than John

I woke up from a dream where I married Anne Frank’s granddaughter

And I woke up from a dream where FOX News was pay-per-view

I woke up from a dream where we all left God alone

And I woke up from a dream where autistic kids all won prizes

For putting up with the bullshit that we gave them for their lives

And I woke up to my roommate’s snoring; I woke up to “get the fuck outta bed”

I woke up knowing I’d never fulfill my dreams and I woke up to fulfill my dreams

I woke up in Seattle after marrying Frances Bean Cobain

I woke up in the Castro after Prop 8 was erased

I woke up in Santa Fe after I killed all the walking dead

And I didn’t get arrested, the cops coveted my head

Everyone knew I’d go far as I drove that classy car

And they loved my every rhyme; I was Dylan in his prime.

After you’ve seen the other side

We were blind to life’s delicacies

Now the colors fill our eyes

An escape from doom washes your tears off

Just like junior high does to your smiles

And I will no longer let life toss me

Like I’m just around for the rides

We’ve seen an end and a new beginning

We’re together after all those forks

I’ll always 5 your creations

And I hope you’ll 5 my works.

She knows she’s Queen of College, French kissing her own face
She rides in every limousine that can satisfy her tastes
Her phone may be off the hook, yet her plug’s not in the wall
She thinks keeping up with the Kevorkians is the answer to it all

She takes Ringo of the fraternity to the pharmacy on Christie Square
They try out all the Junior Mints before she combs his hair

He tries his luck at writing, but only when he’s at his worst
He splatters pages with inkblots, though he can’t feel any verse
She claims she loves his paintings, but she means the ones in his pants
He’ll do a little sketching tonight when he makes her womanhood prance

She once helped the men of Mission Creek, but she never liked their stares
She ran past them in Throop Park last night as she took her man upstairs.

On the Inclusion of Multicolored Bears on Grateful Dead Paraphernalia

My dashboard sports some violet cubs

Which dance as I zoom to clubs

A bruin tie-dyed emerald

Is on the pack of pills I hold

Now I’m baked. A red ursine toy

Lurks in each cereal I enjoy

And hey! Stuck to the Frigidaire

I spy a fuchsia polar bear.

What would Teddy Roosevelt

Say of the blue beasts on my belt?

Perhaps orange grizzly underwear

Would be too much for TR to bear.

Poem for the GOP

The Left has risen again!

And your slave revolts are futile

Joe the Plumber’s crack appeared on national television

And your bottom bitch revealed herself to be an overgrown Poly dolly on an ego Tripp

Her preppy GOPPY daughter doesn’t look too prudish to me

We needed a break from Bush like the Kardashians need a holiday in Aruba (free of media coverage)

And now all your grubby FOX newscasters do is surround themselves with cardboard cutouts of Founding Fathers

As they utter the words, “Dammit Dems.”

Tiger Woods

Tiger eyed his little white friend

For years he’d pushed cousins of this creature around

And earned millions for his cruelty

Though he wanted to release it into the wild

He eventually overcame those emotions and trapped it in a pit, bellowing “Fore!”

Tiger apologized to his pet and wondered if it still loved him.

Poseidon

Many think Poseidon is your deep blue brother living in the Atlantes of the sea

A Gorgon-maker with no loving for Cyclops and a lever for earthquakes

Poseidon was a barbed wire fence which separated a flat Earth from a rotund one

Poseidon is a shipwreck thief, forever silent at the mention of Earhart’s name

Poseidon is a glutton, munching away at the Arctic Circle and an occasional pizzly bear

Poseidon isn’t changing with the times.

Socks

Albert Einstein never wore socks

So if he had used the Camp Newman showers

His stink would upstage his brilliance

He said he didn’t have time to wear socks

He spent his time thinking instead

Thinking of a world where people are judged

By the content of their character and not the presence of their socks

I’m sure other geniuses wore socks

So when Albert invented the atom bomb, they’d ask themselves,

“How can someone so smart be so stupid?”

Not because of the lethal bomb, but because of no socks

So here I lie sockless, in the midst of socked geniuses and socked & sockless novices

Wondering what I can do or say to prove my worth

For right now, I’ll have to put on my socks.

The Landfill

I’d like to vacation in the landfill

It’d be a personal archaeological dig

I’d finally remember all of my old notebook characters
I’d bring them all to life through poetry

I might bring a couple experts along with me

Like Chester, my old sixth grade teacher

He’d jump for joy at the name “Walter Jid”

A name which somehow lived on for years

I’d like to vacation in the landfill

But I wouldn’t be living in the past any more than Guthrie fans

Because I’d carry old notebooks into the present

Drenched in slime, they’d guide me through life.

Bedouin

I spent last night wandering about with the matriarchs’ battles echoing in my mind

Battling for the last word on drugs, verse, and rock & roll

Battling for the answer to the Jewish-Bedouin question

And as I ran up Bishop’s Peak for the third time, my heart pumped Bedouin blood

Those matriarchs can battle for centuries and they still won’t come to the conclusion

That strictly Israeli genes can produce the body of a Bedouin.

The Beats

We are the suburban Beats

The belated Beats

Three Beats and not one karat

We are small town’s poets

We are all town’s poets

Using yr poems to heighten ours

You’re the open mic Beats

You’re the no one like Beats

Using yr poems as 3 of spades

Using yr poems to dig your graves

In all small town we be elites

In all small town suburban Beats.

We passed July in shambles, through the state

All that geography conflicts with time

The slumber of my revolt cannot wait

You left before I found the chance to ask

Mere chunks of land are acres, miles, long

I’d hate to turn a chance into a task

I’ve got the blues, you knew it all along

I celebrated Sorrow while I dined

These tablemates are not among her friends

Hmmm, nine weeks trickle down my fast-paced mind

She laughs; a mental trinket’s what she lends

A temporary loss should make me pout

Just ask me how happiness came about.

We used to rule the underground

But after the empire died

I found my friend uprooting violets

And he told me I was doing it wrong

No matter how deep you dig

You can never escape the status quo.

Girl in Revolt

Through all your pleasures, you endanger your life
At least I don’t need to be seen to feel infinite
In your modest past, were you a lonely girl?
If only I could have cured your desperate bones
Don’t love your body over your friends
When the revolt’s over, prayer lives on.

When She Was Good

When I was young I could produce a numbness
That led many to believe that I was pure
The numbness slipped away when I was faced with you
Your world seemed well-acclaimed while mine seemed mediocre
You loved those slumber parties when you’d all lie down
With a kitchen full of cookies, you’d pray that life was true.

I Can

I can mutter eloquence like a millennial Dylan
Scribbling 31 nationwide hits in seven+ years
I can freestyle the urban envy of Lennon’s “Imagine”
Each of my previous works cited “Ray/Simon”
I can be a Grammy-approved post-grunge giant
Showing off less talent than a kindergarten wall
And while I dream of superiority, all I lack is effort.

Owl Eyes

When the owl can see no more
Shut not the works of the watchful sad believers
For when those who were criminals are now captains and chiefs
And that which was once accepted is now a crime
The words of the sages will be nowhere in sight
But on the bookshelves of our age and in the eyelids of the owl.

Night Prowl

It was just like those snotty kids freshman year
Who snuck out the lavatory windows
Who stargazed for hookups at 4 A.M. Saturday morning
Without anyone’s consent

They were on their own

So I crisscrossed between genuine night and dimly-lit cabin doors
And by the time I completed my unseen pedestrian ranting
And pounced from beyond the village to my vacant bunk
I knew only darkness lies before me when I prowl alone.

Autumn

I am in the dusk of an organizational autumn
My art is scattered leaves
And the leaves often wander from the trunk of the tree

But when the new year dawns
I will be out of my autumn
And have prevailed into spring
Where I have all my leaves of knowledge
In my own binder, on my own tree.

Funeral (for my grandmother)

It wasn’t until you recited your camp experiences to mine
And you recited perfect Longfellow to me
That I knew you as more than an estranged yet loving relative
When I dug you tomb and I spoke toward you
Before tens of fellow mourners
I saw you reciting poems and rejoicing in your grandchildren
Somewhere without chronic pain.

Downtown on Christmas

This is the plaza which the shoppers avoid today
Which the shopkeepers neglect until tomorrow
This is the plaza where the Goth boys drink
Where the moviegoers bounce
And the only working man is the guard

Cars zoom past here without any thought
The films are all strangled by poinsettias
No people here know, or have known of this kid
Bored at five o’clock on a bench so cold
Yet all Christmas joy is absorbed as he waits.

Your Chasm

I’m standing on the cliff of your chasm
I fed you two long sturdy ropes
There’s nothing I can do because the lassos won’t reach you
The vultures will get to you first

Even if I wore my Batman suit
You would not see the Earth’s crust
As Batman is powerless
Without his trusty jet-black Beemer.

Syd (for my goldfish)

Syd plays dead more realistically than the smartest dog
As he lacks emotions, and appears to be fish food
When he’s on top

My fifth grade teacher told us to persevere like salmon on a current
Never to retreat, no matter how dense the wave

Though in the games of life and love
—Of contrasting sizes but of equal value
Like Fat Man and Little Boy—
I would rather be Syd than a salmon
Because I would rather live in loving hands.

On Angst

What can be said of that whining sinner, angst?
The fool dabbles with you in his evening literary stew
The wise one locks you in the temperance of his Squirrel Hill head
Who can say they have not shut their gates to your green-eyed face?
They’ll let you turn Valentine’s Day into a most-unhappy Halloween
Where everyone’s either a zombie or a ghost.