Most of us prizefighters will fall for fashion

My American Land Is Not Brave
-- by Jack Micheline

My American land is not brave
Nor the silence of the dead who buy flowers
I open my heart to love without question or pity
I open my heart and weep because men seek the easy road of books and
speeches
I extend my hand to the bosom of the earth dark and dirty
I extend my body whipped by poverty and the sky of poets
The world seeks an open soul to breathe
The world seeks
Man seeks
Woman seeks
Child seeks
The cold night seeks
The open wound that strikes at the heart
The pulse of fever in tears of lonely nights
Nothing
Nothing
That man has built on this earth will remain
Nothing
Nothing
But the bare heart and soul of creation
Among flowers of pain
And the faces of children playing in the sun
No I do not speak of power or bridges of steel
I speak now of the open wound that is the heart that is silent
The sea weaves
The feet wander
The heart ticks
The soul speaks
Open the wound and hear all that is
The lips of frightened lovers

God Bless The Unknown
-- by Jack Micheline

Born in a daze
I wandered across the cities
Ablaze with lights
Hospital, tower, prisons and all hells habitation
Tap in cry and die and keep going
What did I know or anyone know
We knew nothing
Not a god dam thing
A blind man searching in the night
A child poet
Bug eyed from the real racing
The need for what others seem to have
Appearance certainly a sham
This worlds a sham
So what has it been any different
The devil turns the wheels of the world
The devil with his fucking big hat
His ritual of deceit and murder
Slave, politician, banker, stockbroker, pimp entrepreneur
The need for money
Learn to make honey baby
That is the switcheroo
The birds are singing in the trees
The flowers are blooming
I got my eyes
We are all the light

Nachtmusik
-- by David Markson

The women said:
Is there any point in reducing
Every damned question to sex?

There was Mozart on.
And what she really
Meant was: Couldn't we maybe delve
Into a few dozen more of her neuroses
Before we screwed again?

Now here is what was actually
In my own head around then:
That funeral, in that rain,
Where nobody could spare the time
To set some shabbiest of signals
At his grave.

I assume I've already
Telegraphed the last part of this.
Naturally I forgot her name.
But I could diagram exactly
Where the turntable stood.

* High Plains Business Loop has the goods on the outrage resulting from University of Pennsylvania's decision to book Sonic Youth as the headliner for their Spring Fling campus concert.