as good as buried
so ball-drained
cause he has to have a chick
on the kick
a boomer today and a blow-out tomorrow
he thinks he’s a cool aviator
but it’s not so cool where he always ends up:
another piece of debris among floaters
and when he’s back on the ground
his gears are jammed
for the pleasure has turned to pain
and will remain
until another connection.
— Zumwalt (1974)
A poem without
a title
rhyme
meter
or proper punctuation
— Zumwalt (2012)
Afternoon Off
Muscling for the right of way
With horn-blast exclamations
Traffic mutters its scat song score
The sun today
Like most days
Doesn’t shine postcard gold and honeyed
It glares
Through the inversion layer
A klieg light in a smoky cabaret
But
Just the same it warms
The square
Sprawled on the grass
Midtown midday characters in
Pershing’s street show
Young Chicanos scout for chicks
And advertise adolescence
Studied, casual, tough
Some shirtsleeve transient
Sporting scrimshaw arms
Scans a racing form
His shoe leather face focused more
On Santa Anita
Than the saints
Shouted, proclaimed
By an antique black
Whose white wisps of whiskers
Cling to his accusing chin
Clouds about a crag
That trembles with every thundered damnation
As the old man makes the park
His pulpit
Basking in my own insouciance
I consider
How best to consume the remainder of the day
Perhaps a saunter to the Biltmore
To grab a joe and watch for ghosts
Or a march upcountry to Bunker Hill
To glimpse the glass castles
Mercantile and magnificent
Then again
I might, like a rookie on the bench,
Sit attentive, listening
To the traffic
And the sermon
And see what happens
Next
— Zumwalt (ca. 1977)
a single word
words, words, words
static over static
drilling deeply thru the dentine
scraping invasively against skull and skin
your line of supply is inexhaustible
arguments, propositions, explanations
predications, exclamations, excuses
all unecessary barking and bow-wowing
at hidden celestial objects
I am here
don’t chase me away
unless you want me
to be chased away
I am yours
don’t bombard
your own firmly secured posessions with
ammo best saved for those territories still unconquered
give me short compact sentences
phrases and single words
ideas as consumable as quarter pounders
don’t shove a hose down my throat
filling me with mashed escargot and foie gras
words, words, words
I can’t sustain a relationship with them
pelting me from every angle at every moment that
we’re together
take your finger off the trigger
I surrender
make me a prisoner
not a confirmed casualty
words, words, words
they all sound the same
they don’t mean anything
they just demean, meander
and make me end up thinking
that when all is said
I haven’t heard
a single word.
— Zumwalt (1990)
asleep
My arm fell asleep
one night
and I wiggled my fingers
and then wiggled my hand
and then even my entire arm
yet numbness prevailed.
My heart fell asleep
one night
and I didn’t much care
about the starving children in East Africa
or the endangered whales in Western Alaska.
My brain fell asleep
one night
and I could no longer sort out
why I was here
or where I needed to go.
These tiny thin-tooth bedbugs bite at my body
munching on my toes,
pilfering fluids from my fingertips.
I stay awake itching
but itching only
makes the itching worse.
I, myself, somehow, finally fell asleep one night
and since then
I bounce from night
to night
forgetting everything
that happened in-between.
— Zumwalt (2011)
Alizarian Grand Slam
Manifest crescendos
Homeopathically kneepanning Santa Fe plethora
Safely soaking with the mangoes. Are there
Any removable transversals
Balancing on the Pawnee Indian?
Aaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiii!
Saliva adorns my peanut butter.
— Zumwalt (1973)
zumpoems 