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The Blog Bog
The Mag Rack
|
THE COMEDIAN
for Michael Moore
The way the comedian
tells the joke
& everyone laughs and laughs
because it is as funny as hell
but also because it says
something serious
about race & sex & class in America
but it is not a bomb
or a hate letter
it is encoded in the form of a joke
so you can't touch him
& what is the matter, buddy,
you can't take a joke
this is America
as the guy at the luncheonette
loves to tell me
whatever that means
as I hand over the moolah
to buy my newspaper
while the poor are trampled every day
& the rich grow richer
and black panthers fighting back
were assassinated
for saying some of the same things
but this guy!
this guy does his number
with the greatest of ease
the boob tube
professional wrestling
Democrats
and Republicans
and the powers that be!
nothing escapes
the flying leaps of his monologue
as when an acrobat
balances
on the slenderest of wires
and does not fall
to his death
beneath
it makes me want to dance
and sing!
the way the comedian
tells the joke!
and everyone laughs
and laughs
Chris Butters___
|
WHY DON'T YOU SAY
Why don't
you say you love me,
the way you did
those days
of wine and roses
before we
were married?
You never buy me
roses anymore.
You are too busy
climbing the ladder
at your treacherous
office.
Every night
we sleep together
in the same
bed.
When you say
the word, your penis
inside me, softening
and hardening,
shadows flickering
on the ceiling,
our hands and lips
having lit the fire,
it doesn't
count.
Chris Butters___
|
AS WE DRIVE
As we drive
past the barbarism
of the broken school,
ancient book
and leaking roof,
he asks why
on the TV last night
all the poor
were black babies.
As we drive
past the jaws
of the shopping
mall,
stream of customers,
sky of blue,
in one window
gazing out at us
latest action figure
of the war economy,
he asks why
his penis
in the bathroom
grows bigger.
The black babies question
I can handle,
in the tradition
of me asking
my father
a million years
ago
why the sky
is blue
or the grass
is greener.
The grass was green
because of photosynthesis
and the sky blue
because of wavelengths.
The penis one
I admit is
a little trickier.
The penis
lifts off
like a balloon
from its anchor
on the voyage
to a strange new land
as in the story
of the papa lamb
lying down
with the mama lamb
and that is how
we all began
I read to him
last summer.
But let me
tell you:
it is a terrible thing
when you can't drive
your own son
to childcare
without seeing
the obscenity
of capitalism.
Chris Butters___
|
OH NO
Oh no,
here it comes again
that slightly sickening, ,
slightly beautiful
illumination
that I am just
like everybody else.....
Chris Butters___
|
