Today I am in mourning

for those who have nothing to offer the world
but an obscenely malfunctioning sowing machine

for those who no longer wrap the daily newspaper
in the body of a fish

for those who receive packages of frozen birth control
in unreasonably loud mailboxes

for those who cry hosanna to a politician who has nothing
but a tea cup inside his head

for those whose hymens are regularly inspected
by men wearing religious hats

and for those who have never gotten drunk with a genius.

And I celebrate my grief
by raking myself with urgent, spiritual penises

I drink wine through a radio antenna

I plan to liberate everyone
using my voice, my beard, my prick,
a multitude of brilliant essays, and
the two fingers on my left hand that haven't yet stiffened
from years of hurling snowballs at blind librarians.

In the time it takes me to reach you
you will be raped by approximately 35,000 robots.
Also,
a redneck who will not even bother to eat me
has installed an enormous reptilian vagina in the center of my chest
with a new laser weapon that he's very proud of.
So we won't be visiting one another today:
we won't be making love to each other's girlfriends
on a bright blue tarp in the backyard
while Elton John plays in the background;
we won't be cooking steak with mushrooms and onions
for one another, we won't be performing
oral sex on one another, and we certainly won't
be roaming the town at midnight, or taking photographs
of the very pretty skunks who live behind the local pharmacy's dumpster.

*****

--luke buckham