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)
Overweight Legionnaires
Ripening wine
And a greedy fire
Throw on another log
While the fog coagulates about the limes
And chokes Eboracum
In a clammy shroud.
Hadrian’s Wall’s gone mossy—
Too cold for laid back Latins
Pouring libations
While we watch the
Gonzo Celts
Digging up the peat.
— Zumwalt
Cousteau and Darwin Move to Suburbia
Like pilot fish
Affixed, transfixed
Upon the gluttonous chin
Of the maneater,
We give thanks and
Humbly suck the detritus
From Fate’s
Serrated mandibles.
The irony of Sophocles
Is just the symbiosis
Of little fish
And unevolved vertebrates
Scrubbing their gills
With polluted waters,
Lacking the initiative
To crawl up the bank, and breathe.
— Zumwalt (1981)
TICKER TAPE PARADE
Parody Worship
Smiling in the Dusk of Midnight Eyes
Acting in the Bleakness
of Frosted Minds
Paced Paper Parade —
Pausing Promises Pleading
Past the Cineramic
Sycophantic Sharks
a Coldness Recedes
and Faith Breakers Retreat
into Placebos of Reeling Celluloid
— Zumwalt (1981)
Bull Market
The gardeners have hit the pavement,
Bulldozed by smiling engineers
Optimists—peddling bromides.
Take your pick:
Withdraw your last fiver
For a philosophic Wheel-O;
or,
Hands in your pockets, sardonic
Watch Babel climb.
“On this spot will be erected utopia”
Yeah, sure.
But, the wise man knows Penelope
Has taken on Ithaca
And counsels Odysseus to put his
Money in Krugerrands.
— Zumwalt (late 1980’s)
deleterious habitat
hot southern heat
baking your alaska
the smog fills your
lungs like sand
in a dersadrop humidifier
breathing is a function
and we are approaching an asymptote
three toed sloths trek through the treptremanian soil
burning air and burning phylum
cough…
cough…
cough…
It is time to let me out.
— Zumwalt (1974)
might as well forget her
she's
dropped
like a hot rock
pizza pipers peddling pieces of purposeful product
not at all like
lipstick, perfume, deodorants
and other such shallow items
cleatamenthate degarglycide throntine
it does me no good to say i miss her
i don't
and if I ever find myself missing her
then something's missing in me
craters, black light, dew drops, frozen stages,
and a topping of dehydrated marshmallow sauce.
the world is full --
it's full of fools
and common sense has vaporized
like an ice cube on the sun.
— Zumwalt (1974)
Not sure if it’s something to celebrate, though clearly an excuse to blog, 40 full years have passed since the first published Zumwalt poem, “Trilogy of the Oblique Carbide” appeared in the inaugural issue of GHLM, a low budget literary digest with a circulation of only slightly more than 500 copies.
In this deeply epistemological tribute to the bebop musicality of the beat generation poets, Zumwalt loads the existential bases with the three most essential questions: where does life come from, where does it go, and what is the meaning of life; hinting that the essence of life is eat, get eaten and reproduce.
In the next few months, it is our intent to cajole Zumwalt in releasing any unpublished poems from various dusty scrapbooks and coffee house napkins for initial presentation here at zumpoems.com. Until then here is a reprint of the first ever published Zumwalt poem.
TRILOGY OF THE OBLIQUE CARBIDE
I. Judge Crater Is No More
Help!
There is a fandango up my nose;
This is justice?
O ironic gods -- can they
Really repossess my pancreas?
And Black and Decker tread on the cosmic puddles
URRRP!
II. Moira
My ravioli molded to day...
The wispy green fuzz eating
Away the corrupted entrails of Alpha Beta
Ground sirloin.
Pathos. Tragedy. Tricanosis.
Such is fate.
III. Cry the beloved wingnut
Bladderwort lied.
Bigot! And the hungry children cry
In their farina. Would Rothschild give
Them Twinkies? Ha! Let them eat Spackling paste.
Spush! Time, the rain-bird, spews
Its indifference towards the continuum of OHM.
— Zumwalt (1973)
no purchase necessary
available
conveniently
select and seize
no contract
no lease
no terms
no conditions
the wild sunbreezed days
spawning and spawned
extra innings without fouls or errors
endlessly imaged in a corridor of mirrors
cloud nine working overtime
free and without obligation
but paradise has a hidden cost
when it is ultimately misplaced
no clue,
no expectation,
no indefinite hunch
no single crumb to munch
just the indigestion
of a bait and switch free lunch
which in retrospect,
not an attractive offering,
even though free,
and initially,
relatively
needily/speedily
back-seat, magic-carpet-ride breezily easy.
— zumwalt (2011)
hairytoes
By being able to select
from unlimited, boundless choice
I confuse a frightened mosquito mind with
possibilities and potentials
and so I restrain
and constrain my selections
by a dreamed reality
that has up/down,
right, left
front, back and
then and now (now and then.)
So much like Crazy Eights, Monopoly and countless sit-coms
there is a start and end:
a start I don’t remember but have been retold,
an end that I can’t know or even squint at.
My hairy sister has hairy toes
but we keep her in a closet amongst the clothes
and pinch her cheeks with feigned hospitality:
a time-tested approach to growing this pretended, sequential, unexplainable, territorial reality.
— zumwalt (2011)
