THE ZUGEBRIAN FILES

A GRAIN OF SALT Productions Presents:

A Dr.Jekyll & Mr. Hype/TreeHouse Publishing Situation!

THE ZUGEBRIAN FILES

Edited by W. Marmoset Yarn

Co-Edited by Lord Godfrey Helpus

I.Podrovsky &

S. Logan

(All Proud Graduates of the Ben Dover Academy).

Poem 79/R (‘We Don’t Hate Yeats’):

We Tend to Blame what we Don’t Understand, on the Things We Can.

& He Wins who Dares, to Cut instead of Splitting hairs

At least that’s what I’ll tell my heirs

In case they don’t become millionaires

& Screw Up All My Plans.

If They Take up much of my Airs & Graces

& Step on my Sepulcher to reach beyond

Their Golden Faces,

Upon which Sunlight stares

Drawing Freckles from the skin

That connects the dots

With Aces, then I will find them places

Where they can ‘go within’.

One day they’ll be wearing braces,

While My Bones the Earth to Bear.

My Nimbus left to Open spaces

To Echo what I Hear.

& You & I

Will Both be There

It will be MY hand

Running through your Hair,

To Stimulate my thesis

That once I Loved You from

Kalamazoo to all the way

Where Greece Is
&

From the Ruins of Static Rome,

Now Scattered In Many Pieces.

Poem 239. ‘Mephistopheles In Memphis’.

The CROSSROADS are the point between the Lifetime Behind Us

& the Questions ahead.

But I Missed the connection on the next stop’s doubt, what was once a hip, hop & a jump

Is but another lump that I feel in the back of my head when the lights go out

(& I have to take a dump).

The nitrates crumble, & the Hammer’s Thorax

Plays host to the Butcher’s Bread Meats

Before I turn to toast. Whereupon I fumble

& Eat humble pie instead.

I MAKE MY OWN BARBECUE,

Mephistopheles Makes My Roast.

In Memphis Where my Burdens Weigh the Most,

& My Soul Already Dead.

“If it gets too callous

In the palace

It tarnishes the chalice

& Turns to Dread

All the rest of

Rust & Malice,

That wayward highways cross”,

The Queen Of Envy Said,

Before she went to floss.

SANANDA’S MANTRA:

‘The Aim of an Idiot is to Wear You Down with Repetition,

Which is to a Fool, What Patience is to the Wise, A ‘Tool’.

(They taught me this, where I went to school).

THE AIM OF AN IDIOT Is to Wear You Down

With REPETITION.

Now, Please Keep Repeating This Line Until You See the Light!

(I was taught this at the Ben Dover Academy where I Matriculated.

Although it Must Be Acknowledged that since taking the Proper Medications,

My ‘Matriculations’ Have Been Kept to a Minimum)!

IT IS BETTER TO BLEED THAN TO BURN.

But better to burn than to wither away

Without the chance to earn,

Staggering and flailing about

Looking for a page to turn.

Tequila flooded lip stained

Worm from Apples Fallen

From Trees he’s Already Picked.

Though Always One Less Orchard

Than he needs to Fix & One

More than he can discern.

The BEN DOVER Academy Poem:

Speak Carefully What You Say,

Our Mouth is our Master.

WORDS DOMINATE.

Though Mute quotations might kill you faster.

Pride Without Substance Is Cruel.

To Put Our Spiritual Needs Beyond Our Physical,

Is to place heaven beyond our reach.

That’s what they teach in school.

Don’t Be Afraid!

Just Don’t Be Stupid.

And Never Raise your Name to Nominate

Any Ridicule

& Do Not Place your Business

Before the Open Lips of Fools

Who radiate and spout

The most they know nothing about

There are Golden Rules,

Though the Silver ones discriminate

Before the Mercury dips

& Then trips the fire’s called to Incinerate

The Copper left to Cool

Along with other metals exchanged too late

That had lost their clout,

Deadened by all the lead they found.

What we believe we become

And then we shed our skin

For acronyms,

Like salamanders beneath

The sun

Savoring the source

Of future hymns

Whose fractals make us one.

Poem: The LONGFELLOW Opinion17 S 24:

THE ‘MIDDLE WAY’ Is The Path

Between TOO MUCH & Too Little.

Brevity Weeps, But LONGEVITY KILLS

With Levity playing the Captain’s Fiddle

While the Woodpile is Sawdust

After the Totems

We Whittle

Settle the Debts We Can’t Adjust.

Our Boldest Act of ALCHEMY is turning URGE into WILL,

To Take Our Ashes & Make Soil of Dust.

Living Long Will Kill You, Whatever Shape Your Pill.

NO ONE UNDERSTOOD poor FREDDY LIKE US

& Even His mother forgot his name.

Beano sent the Pirates back with Rum they had to Chill

Before the Wine Stains turned to Rust,

Bottled up in Treasure Chests that sank before they Spilled

Anything that Left Evidence that they Drank before they Rebelled

And Kidnapped the Captain while the Cannons Fell

& Exposed their Mood for Lust.

They who Broke like Diamonds before they lost their Spell

While Gathering dreams like Grain

(On a Yellow bus, more short Than Longfellow* & shorter still on fuss,

We Do What We Can While We Dream What We Must

& All The Rest In God We Trust & then try to explain).

Our Dragons aren’t necessarily Slain,

If they can be put to Work

Swords at the High Point Waving

Aimlessly At words

If Night Lays Down Its Shadows First,

Or the Knights Dream On In vain.

Shamelessly Mocked by the Famous

Who Feign Chagrin before they Grimace,

Or Lose their Foreign promise, Or Heaven forbid, their Thirst,

& Being Summarily Replaced by Pixels

That Pickpocket their Purse

& Who Can Never Change A Sentence of whatever they rehearse.

PRESSURE BUILDS TOMORROW

Sachets of Dissension like Fallow Roughage

Returned to Earth

In Olive’s Green

Bolted Barrels

On the margins that grip her

Girth (as it narrows)

Horizontal Planes

And the Vertical Slit

She Often Gains

But of which she also complains,

When not singing carols

Or Dismissing Senseless Parallels

That language has assaulted.

And When Immersive Sorrow,

Devoid of wit;

Intrusive in its Assumptive Swell

Comes at my furrow’s nest to Borrow my Pride,

I will throw it in the Fountain

And let HIM

CLIMB THE MOUNTAIN,

A fate I know Too Well

From Time Spent on the Mountainside

Orchestrating the Evening Bells

& Burping Broken Brides.

Siphoning sympathy

From the Tides of Kelp

That Circle the Waves

Neptune Rides

When his Trident

Returns from Hell,

Always looking for Help

When Not Torched by Thoughts

Of Suicide.

‘OF CORSICA’:

It is Hard To Change Your Speed, Once You Catch Up To It.

& Much Harder to Find your Equilibrium when your Environment

Has Lost the Plot & Vanished like Iridium.

And we can only change the need to feed

What We Haven’t Got,

Mindful we don’t turn to seed and become more noble rot.

The LONG Hand vs. the WRONG Hand,

The Middle Finger Flicking Snot.

AND OF CORSICA

It Goes Without Saying

Never Leave A Flame Unattended

Or it volleys up the backhand

Of all the time we’re killing

& No One Hip Would Recommend It.

I wanted to be Bob Dylan

But my pen wasn’t willing

Yet I couldn’t rescind it.

So here I sit chilling

Laying in bed with a Chilean

Of Malaysian Skin

Whose praying that her sins

Won’t receive second billing

After the liquor swilling & nicotine

Shifts the shape she’s in.

(As well as her ‘Mise En Scene’,

& Other productions she may have seen

While rebounding & driving down the lane,

Or Milling On The Village Green).

At least that’s what I thought

I heard from what I

Comprehend of the difference

Between Gladiators & Gladiolas,

Gypsum, Gypsy’s & the Gyre

And other words I heard decaying

While lost in ‘Gunga Din’

(& Formally Attired)

As she lost HER feeling, as textured

As Astronauts in Astrakhan

While my mind & tongue were reeling,

My nerves & teeth were wired

& My Patience Was Unpeeling.

OF COURSE THE BOYS WHO DIDN’T GET

THEIR COOKIES ON TIME

Are The Dragon Slaying Kind,

From kindergarten when their fists drew uneven lines

Lions, Lambs & Lizards, and the wizards they all go to,

Looking for the signs.

Then they unwind their defiance of the damned

Determined to swim along their livers, even better

If they live near rivers whose banks slope toward Science,

& Whose Heather Gives Birth to Arts & Letters.

And if when boys they got their milk

In tandem,

Their ties are made of silk,

You will usually find them with the rest of their ilk,

In Random Squares Exercising their Compliance.

Next to fichus they once saw

Confucius Covered in Mucous

Discussing their General Alliance,

With a group of Men On Bikes & other bearded seekers.

Drowned out by the Sound of the Splashing of the Breakers that depend on our Reliance.

THOSE WERE NO DAYS, THESE ARE THE DAYS THAT ARE!

And our friend ‘Cerebral Cortez’ says:

“What Noah Knows & When He Knew It, No One But Noah Knows”

It could be ‘SZECHUAN’ & A Half Dozen of the Other

Before It Even Blows Your Nose.

‘ A HARD HEAD SUITS A HARD ROAD’

(Though it could always do with one less of one

when the lesson comes from ‘Lecithin’ or a B12 overload).

They Told Him:

“ Son, YOU AIN’T VAN MORRISON,

Hell, You Ain’t Even ‘Van Morris’,

Son!”

(Just In Case He Might Suppose

An air of hubris before he’d Sung.

Because If you are going to get them

“You Have To Get Them While They’re Young

Or There Won’t be many Takers”,

I learned this from

A Woman Who Inherited Her Bread

From A Family Of Bakers.

(I called her ‘Pita’, though her name

Was Anita* & I was her favorite spread).

And once we get bored with our old story

A new one can begin unfolding as a

Morning glory waving in the wind hissing

Like cobras whose hoods & teeth are missing

Especially after 40.

(I once had to murder my twin before he managed to abort me,

And only won my last trial because my lawyer’s name was ‘Courtney’).

Even Undersea They Don’t Agree

Whether Baked or Fried

Or battered by the Salt that

Borders tide from Riverside.

Yet Seahorses are corralled

By waves of current that swell

Like symphonies,

& Burp the foam above them

Whose gulps of Air Usurp

Melodies That Shape the Sandstone in the Wells

With A Vision that Comes to Bathe in A Faith that Never Dwells.

But for the ‘Halibut’

It’s said that Swordfish Never feint,

Their fight is based on Countering

& All the Carp go on about is how much

They are Floundering

‘Salmon This & Salmon That’

They may be Overrated,

At least Salmonella gets publicized

& Salmon Rushdie* Compensated.

And Minnows, though highly prized

Must come circumspect & circumcised

Or lose their Worth as Bait and even as

They are mating, Seal their Fate if they

Wait Too Late and their Skins for Gills

They’ve traded in someone else’s eyes

Erased by all ‘Bitter Pilsner’

Swallowed before the sunset faded.

What Lies In Another Hand

Can Only Be Abused!

And this is why love is for sale

And far more often ‘used’.

This is also why ‘Stasis’

Stays close to Dionysus

& He to familiar places

& Wears his woven clothes,

Dressed like Pan to suit the day

In the wool that the sheepskins

Grow, I Once Was Lost there,

So I know.

DRINKING GOOD WINE

Keeps Us Close to God

Only ‘Alcoholics’

Would Otherwise Nod

I’m not talking about

Me or you, but those other

Bitches that spoil our view,

Upon whose opinion we dare

To trod while uncorking a

Sparkling ‘Grand Cru’,

Putting ourselves to shame,

Putting THEM on the spot.

IF HOMER WAS HOME

WHEN I WAS SOBER,

How come the bases were

Never loaded when I came over?

Especially deep into October

When the leaves turn trees into poems

PHANTOMS into thieves

Who FIND THEIR Destiny

INSIDE THE CIRCLES they roam.

Was he grandstanding or was it a slam?

Dogs find future glories imagining tomorrow’s bones

The rest don’t give a damn

Digging beneath the blushing clover and the sunlight

It condones as Pantomime speaks the language of lovers

Furiously shaking their phones.

& Cursing One Another.

The thing about HOMER is that

He’s ‘Odd To See’

Winks Every Time He Looks at Me.

We hope the desert cured whatever

‘Ills He Had’ while Sketching HIS Sorrows

In Spain

Everybody comes back from Cordoba

With Grenadine fantasies that adrenaline

Whets & Then Sustains.

St. Vincent takes the tracks,

Smokey Robinson* takes the trains

Even more convincing

While stretching his golden back

From the Tip of his Tongue to Ticonderoga,

He blows the smoke from its stacks.

From Mississippi’s girdle & on through the loins of

Memphis & Minnesota

& Throughout the Western Plains.

NEVER GIVE UP GAINS

Even when at the doorstep of Trieste.

Bonfires favor confession

Even among those who give their best

Until they find their rest

(If they are lucky & Heading west).

THE BRASS BANDIT Awaits

A Thick Oil Lubricates Well Most Debate!

Splitting Hairs between the Arrows

That Escape Cupid’s Bow’s

& The Bends that Narrow

Heaven’s Gates and the

Smoke it may have Sown

For sin’s if not its own Sake

When Hell had gone for Broke

& All The Helen’s In The World

Were but ashes that the fire poked

Before too late in the game.

First, I’ll sip some sake

& Then I’ll watch a little hockey.

EVOLUTION IS ALL ABOUT ‘COSTS’

RESPECT YOUR BROTHER’S CROSS

No One Has Managed To Avoid This,

Or Family Trees, nor an Albatross

Like a skeleton, blown about by

Barren Winter’s Breeze.

Which only serves to entice

More Barons than one can please.

The Prometheus & Pandora Poem # 6:

THE MORE WE LIE,

THE MORE WE Find We Have To.

FALSE INDIGNATION ALWAYS Plays Well On TV.

The Bigger The GUILT, The Bigger The DENIAL.

And Don’t Forget to Smile,

Especially in HD!

(To Humpty Dumpty, even
Stevie Wonder* would have to be

Blind not to see a

Harley-Davidson’s thunder

& Leather upholstery)!

And We All Know the Game,

And How We Are All Expected to Play It,

While accepting the BIPOLAR

World we are tossing around in

Like coins in a can,

Backed by policy, if not by demand.

Coughed up by Pandora’s purse

And worse, all the Currency we can Count

But with nothing left to pay it,

Whatever the Amount.

WE ALL KNOW THAT IT IS CRAZY,

But won’t say it out loud,

At the risk of sounding crazy.

Because the crazier it gets,

The crazier you look seeing it!

And to say it is to risk sounding insane,

Since only the insane say what they see.

‘Re-Framing’ Facts is called ‘History’

& Always covers its tracks.

While uncovering new rules for the game

& When in doubt;

One Can Always Accuse the Blacks

That serves to shift the blame,

There is always a slow boat assailing!

With many fresh fools to hang

Choked by their own slack

& Then buried beneath

A flock of daisies that

Butterflies ordain.

The more we resist calling a thing what it is,

The more power it siphons from us and then

Uses to contain.

All Of Our Pasts Have The Right To Be Forgiven!

& All of our Horses the Choruses to Us Refrain

Before We Jump the Cliffs of Devon’s Heaths,

Constrained by Sunrise to Somerset’s leaps

& All that the Soil Has Smitten,

Which Chafes

Hidden in the Dust Storms the Hounds of Hell Have Ridden.

(Vouchsafed to me, thy golden waste

Before our lips lose their taste & our flavors become forbidden).

From where Prometheus & Pandora,

With laurels replacing their halo’s aura

With the Flow of Fauna, the Leaves of Flora

& The Smell Of Marijuana.

Raising their young ‘Sabrina’

To be Chaste from the Sediment

Of the River Severn

That bore her,

While severing ties with

BORA BORA

(Though Not In Haste)

& Tethering the Sighs

Of Anna Karenina*

To those who would ignore her,

As She Was Being Written,

Cut From The Cloth Of

Saint Philomena

Carved from the Scales of

Novelty’s Eyes

& Other Dragon Tales.

There is great wealth in poverty,

Just not for the poor themselves.

Lilac Poem 18:

Roses are red,

Violets are dead

At least that’s what

The Florist said

Once my ear became his grip

Trying to change others is our favorite trip.

CHANGE YOUR SOCKS INSTEAD.

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