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Walter Alter Poem
can't even fart anymore
without kicking up a hurricane
halfway around the Earth
according to reports this has occurred
at a great loss of life and mind
within minutes of the methane
the dominoes began to rumble
and poor Flash who was
merely greeting the morning sun
became history's first flatomaniac
Flash was burly with hair
up and down his back like
a mink in a 5th Avenue perfumery
his girl Florence was in cartoons
playing the hope card
in a séance with the laboring masses
at the Union of Opposites hiring hall
I was giving the citizens
an anatomy lesson your Honor
I should be given a stipend
for public elucidation
Flo was the key if not only witness
thought she saw the god Apollo
leaping out of a moving taxi
the effect was so dramatic
that she had to leap too
and hasn't stopped since
her testimony was a monstrosity of detail
in conclusion my rebuttal established
several seemingly salient selections
I am a dissector by trade your Worship
and a taxpaying asset to any community
Flash was sentenced with stern admonishment
you will henceforth exercise your libido
within the confines of spherical propriety
to which Flash assented
without the slightest erection
er objection
and somehow strangely unafraid
the Flasher of Costa del Mar
disappeared one night
sucked into the belly of an alien craft
over the cattle lip badlands of Montana
they commenced their hideous experiments
as Flash mused without anesthesia
on the incalculable immensity
of the starry Universe
and watched a mobile home run amok
across 9 lanes of traffic
From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
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Copyright © Walter Alter | Year Posted 2016
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Walter Alter Poem
the only tree for a thousand miles
gave him welcome if temporary shade
a kaleidoscope of mockingbirds filling its branches
it was no longer possible to be blind
but very possible to be jailed
for being unaware of our surroundings
being that we are panphibians capable of TV
where apathy and turmoil don't mix
wracking our brains for the worst solution
every day since time began again
banding bending binding bonding bundling
mind turned upon itself like minds tend to do
a moth eaten panorama of agonies
everything still broken the breakers unpunished
our narrative not telling anyone anything new
long live the revolution in wisdom
that's my drooling occupational therapy grin
it's gotten me out of more than one derailment
feeling life as a prelude to a guillotine basket
or worse a juggernaut of ambition
now that will immediately inaugurate
a prison epidemic of eyeball rolling
can we escape seeing the unseen
or is it just a bigger cage
don't let the blighters
sell you your own real estate
or discoveries in hysteria research
from the Intergalactic Whats Next Council
acting in accord with the statistics
make it more aerodynamic
everything means something
a tool for every job
daily nightly I try to be less stupid
a simple formula designed for
the sweet gurgling idiot infant within
out cold but still in the game
now you got me laughing
momentarily dazed and surprised
prepare only for the eventual
because what remains tends to
influence what is to come
in a logic both apparent and subtle
not exactly free from ahem connotation
as most doors don't open themselves
meanwhile somewhere back in history
the Dog Clan had trouble finding women
with eight or ten tits
there that opened something up
from the spare parts bin
apparently his bulging eyeballs
were on full creme d'menthe death ray
the universal sense of alarm just went off
wailing it's not all brain chemistry
he spoke many tongues in faucet mode
the ramifications came tumbling out
but often heading in opposite directions
while the oppressive crows circled
where the Wizard parks his wagon
every home from Kansas to Atlantis
instituted a reign of madness
terror and ballroom dancing
Copyright © Walter Alter | Year Posted 2021
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Walter Alter Poem
forgot what I had set out to remember
when my deconstructed self
discovered there was no authentic anything
saw through it all every granule
how we became the unwitting tools
of smarter people who really weren't smart enough
concluding if this is life
you can imagine what death is like
I can tell you this much
we are alone in this galactic theme park
alone as a lizard on a sunny rock
what percent of the totality
of all there is in all the universe
do we perceive
and what do you see with nothing absent
this question failed to sweep through
the bum fight arenas
where they need permission to think
no escaping that free means battle
which goddammit means not free
shouting to anyone my agent will sue
as the lines grew longer
and the bread grew shorter
the sly ones were trampled by their own venality
order was quickly restored destroyed restored etc.
the pace was feverish so were the faces
on State TV at 6 and 11
self denialists saw their heads roll down the lane
towards the ten pins at Bowl N' Boogie
in an educated kind of idiocy
for which there is no help
a scandal of poor illumination
you never know which is the foreground
and which is the background
discovering heaven is not overhead
OK I’d better let up on the enthusiasm
too many grimacing faces in the popcorn
too many bushwhacking gargoyles
plump like 3-D bratwurst
in this Biblical sauerkraut mamodrama
making the world lounge safe
for my blindfolded baptism
for both the seen and the unseen
beneath the scum covered water
on a need to know basis
I now reveal a deadly secret
there is direction there is magnitude
densities and rarities
we mime we imitate
we steal what we are
and are beaten with sticks
for having a mind and knowing it
I meme therefore I am
Defection Control had him by the throat
blow a kiss to the camera
it's all just a really big index
From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
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Copyright © Walter Alter | Year Posted 2016
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Walter Alter Poem
The Perfectionist is Listening
the rich are committing suicide
and taking us with them
the prosthetic limbed bastards
Fort Darwin tottering on fewer stilts
once the masters of the universe
presently picking through garbage
looking for an Icarus to pilot
some way back among the clouds
their telepathic goon squads
armed with the hard on of God
squat in the darkness of doorways
lightning strikes all around
even their machines were clairvoyant
several thousand watts went up my leg
shorting out the only attention span I own
left me perforated but not lacy
wearing all my masks all the time
fragments of self are selves
in a bulemic deconstruction
where form and content
mud wrestle incessantly for attention
on the crazy train to 3 color hell
the protagonists the antagonists
fornicators masturbators liquidators
pariahs and unlicensed poets
preaching hellstone and brimfire
apparently the ancient gods still rule
in their madhouse heaven
petulant and stupid gods
thought their figures included all the angles
sword point conversions gun point perversions
now their carcasses are steppingstones
what quirk of an infinite being
makes this burning plague village
of a planet so alone and necessary
of course none of this is protection
it's psywar out there kids
better find where they hid your dossier
mesmerized of the world unite
you have nothing to lose
but your failed methods of addressing reality
said his twisting tongue
struggling for ratings like any media
the soul cannot erase it can only go sightless
a phantom trapped in melancholy
when we were built to dance
with the twinkling stars
he finally learned to undestroy memory
being an ascended master of non sequitur
carried aloft in the arms of Mother Goose
his metabolic hurricane of why
an inferno of intrigue and superstition
our embryo-headed UFO ruling class
have me inside their fence of skulls
an investment in diagram futures
the idiots
From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
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Copyright © Walter Alter | Year Posted 2016
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Walter Alter Poem
he parlayed a condom full of nouns
in bold thrusts of the quill
for the para structuralist cadres
many of them freeway orphans
who won't even read a stoplight
on the other hand
there's a lot of other hand
upon hearing the chimes of midnight
I opened the door
another surprise party
that I knew about all along
arranged by my body building therapist
who was a notorious sadist
requiring humiliation ab astra
went in after my scenario gland
in an act of divine pity
sewed me back up real fast
couldn't handle the pixel rate
the audience shrieked and laughed
it was the great awakening
after the Treaty of Lucky Seven
in which all nations pledged
to honor their accidents and idiocies
as though they were instruments of divination
uh oh here comes my chiropractor
a known mob boss
never found the need to knock
cracked his knuckles at the door
and politely asked may I enter
he spoke 7 languages
and several materialist dialects
and could talk without
moving his lips
many were blamed for
things they never said
a hundred times a day
nothing is uncontained
archaeologists in the city dumps
using a subway map with all the stops
snorted and toiled through Winter
at their historico-revisionist comedy
piecing convex to concave
any idea past its prime is stupid
this is the unfortunate fate of all humanity
nobody really likes change
unless it’s more money
oh I know I’ll never work in this town again
but with a bankroll
the size of a chewed pencil
you get the picture
now buckle up kids
mommy's going to drive a little faster
there's a cop on my ass
and I think I can lose him
From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
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Copyright © Walter Alter | Year Posted 2016
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Walter Alter Poem
dialog with myself invariably involves others
we are all perceivers nobody escapes
no really and truly trust me on this
no manufacturing of childish evasions
maybe it is best to be born into a family
with family values
ablaze with comfort and sanitation
lost in a forest of memories
amusingly arrayed for shoppers
exactly like the TV version
fortunately I was in touch
with my inner juvenile delinquent
unlettered by any known normalcy
nor crazed by the expectation of gold
or even gold paint from a rattle can
our addiction to pleasure
is no Darwinian accident
we really do learn to act from movies
no really and truly trust me on this
our tune is a complicated little number
in several keys at once
upon your mother's pedestal is one
between cognition and reflex is another
in the keyhole universe
location location location
I may need an axe to free my thoughts
just so I can play dumb
when you know too much
you go for the guts
in a trail blazing effort to avoid
media suppression by the CIA
Clairvoyant Intelligence Agency
chronically in for interrogation
OK let's play who's more paranoid
if this poem is minus the above line
then it has been tampered with
754 million hand sewn Humpty Dumpty
nerve connections later
sutured like Frankenstein's test dummy
a bungee cord full of existential tension
I seem to be strapped to a microscope
plunging to new vistas and panoramas
recoil in horror from what you were
behavior can also be modified
by better info if you let it
how's that for mind warfare
pretty propaganda pretty pretty
for the young and the innocent
left screaming in a gas station toilet
wrapped in today's newspaper
comics section puzzle page
how long can the charade continue
when autonomous is still an illegal word
this is an audience participation piece
from the Federal Pencil Council
and for the terminally nostalgic
the night arched quietly above
From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
Artist Portfolio: http://walteralter.byethost32.com/
Copyright © Walter Alter | Year Posted 2016
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Walter Alter Poem
i hope you don't mind
if I wander in through your front door
and reset your clocks to headlight savings
life requires humor he said to the lens grinders
as he rode his all terrain moon beam to heaven
where they were eradicating stupidity with fairy tales
same shit greater magnification was basically it
slipped on their own icy hearts
applying one clever artifice after another
but after all one wants to hasten
the modern world along clippity clop
impediments to traffic flow were to be shot
what happened next is not in the dictionary
which is fine don't get me wrong
beats the nuts off hunger
but the world is not nice anymore
isolated pockets of rebellion perhaps
out in the bleak lizard sands hanging from a tree
but the rest stuffed with foam peanuts
that could turn you to ballroom dancing
your narrator being the test case
for daisy picking the numbers the samples the statistics
I love you just the same she whispered after the operation
the entire ABC unit was called in from the chalk mines
and the XYZ crew was called in from the slate quarry
but no amount of preparation could have warned them
of the melancholic yet piquant sagging of standards
his mind had turned upon itself out of shame and envy
he had an entire city in his head
that wasn’t in Architectural Digest
honkings sirens gunfire breaking glass
spasms and outbursts and phobias and anxieties and
compulgings and obsessities and hallucinotions and
mysterias and distortoons and damplifications and
twitchings and itchings and may I add bowel flux
we haven't even begun to look at his libido
which had shrunk from a blacksmith's forge of intensity
to the vague expectation of an afternoon nap
better than living the prelude to a beheading
you decide if hiding in the bushes permanently
like a grinning jack in the box with a message
is the same as dancing through the forest
dressed in leaves and emeralds
pantomime after all is deception
random at first then shapes intervene
there is no random he said over and over in proof
they say the devil spoke Hebrew
and Popeye smoked his spinach
a contemporary exercise in
signal location
From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
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Copyright © Walter Alter | Year Posted 2016
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Walter Alter Poem
hi I'm Baxter Belknap Mandible IV
the Ninth Earl of Burneydick
I'll be heading your inner assault team
would you like the wine list
we have a nice Retaliation 666
somewhere over the rainbow
where every two-bit overheard whisper is an omen
and other vile statistical deceptions
where the big wheel spins like a drawbridge ratchet
but it never stops too many numbers
and the future continues to remain hypothetical
in degrees depending on the reading
an experiment in capitulation and submission
it was the War of the Parasites
but when has it been otherwise
this is a mathematical demonstration
bold as a distillery padlock
that insanity is the flip side
of merely more insanity
that would be Mandible IV driving
his dream hearse down memory lane
smoke from burning bodies
badly needing a wick adjustment
apparently fogged his lens
the horrors of the world are entertainment
weather permitting we'll visit the ruins
and insist upon representation
in the government Pilgrim Travel Advisory
you see the difficulty
serenity having been proven
a monstrous violation of reality
pause
every idea is a unit of measure
another pause
the pixels swirled and another
unholy vision drifted past in the tide
riveted to my screen
and it's trauma etched engrams
picked up on my middle finger antenna
in the last act you find out why
good bad and maybe mostly maybe
just trying to be more numerological
be certain of your conclusions
or call them something else
sure people's faces can be read
most are possessed by a mad hunger
or acts of cosmetic genius
proving it's more than brain chemistry
they told me that self-creation has its dangers
lots of mockery out there in hammer land
but there's no mocking your best efforts
kept them off my back for a while
set free for the propaganda value
and still always curious
From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
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Copyright © Walter Alter | Year Posted 2016
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Walter Alter Poem
my soul is the shape of a bloodstain
poured there by Nadine Maraschino
my right eye sits
in the ruby voodoo goblet
that she wears upon her head
Nadine was a 3-toed egg laying harpy
from the cauldron of shame
but she used her brain cleverly
with candor and anti-obfuscatory ardor
it was the mystic East
humping the mystic West
so said the gaming industry statistics
don’t believe me then
talk to my lawyers then
Circumstance & Circumstance
writs tarts and exonerations
they’ll tell you of the settlement
coded instruction to the next generation
Nadine's heart was as big as a catcher's mitt
her white garments billowed
like clouds passing before the moon
we met in an emergency room
after I pulled my best pickup line
hi I'm a friend to the entire human race
and she countered with
want auntie Nadine to show you
how to be a big boy
a buzzard shadow passed over her face
she pulled me close and hissed
if no one wants to look foolish
why so many truth murdering fools
I weakly countered with
if thoughts are differentiated
one from the other then so are you
Nadine’s lizard tongue gave him
the secret to the garden
descending down his throat
like a black lung miner
how can you tell if it's morning noon or night
hint you'll need a sense of sequence
hers was a dangerous mission
for both covert and overt ends
the life's a bitch and then you die cynics
took us for a pack of numbskulls
well we were arrayed in a tatty splendor
consisting of zero camouflage
but there was no substitute for living deep
even in Happy Valley
the slightly assisted living community
well hell we're all assisted
aren't we supposed to get smarter
as time scurries us along
and last I'd like to thank
my non-existent financial backers
for timely script development
From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
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Copyright © Walter Alter | Year Posted 2016
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Walter Alter Poem
the serene people whose ease of manner
once made him yearn and confabulate
are laughable cartoonish and piteous now
could have been much worse he said
as his last breath left his scarred throat
feral hand closing his own eyes
St. Pudenda greeted him at the tall gates
under the lights at Checkpoint Charlie
Mariachi trumpets rolled out the mauve carpet
and a dog barked from behind the garbage cans
from all infinity we end up with this
a realm of syntax governed by ambiguity
she read from a large ledger atop a marble pedestal
why a ledger rather than a laptop is anyone's guess
apparently the vanguard party had been evicted
by Frankie Boxcars and the Hollywood mafia eons ago
in the great schism over the digitization of paradise
no jury of his peers he noted with unease
nothing of telling import she imparted casually
eyes darting up and down the pages
as if something previously detected had been airbrushed
arrested for self amplification she went on
and sorcery and coughing in quiet places
how did you sleep she asked with a beaming smile
I don't know I was asleep he intoned
I suppose we can reveal the joke she mused
but I was dreaming he countered
backed into a tight corner by snarling lap dogs
tossed into a kidnap taxi with a sack over my head
marched with a gun in my back
through a forest of clichés
fed lines from a hideous new sitcom
about sex among the homeless
a weekly broadcast on Piñata Vision
of course it was more fun
not being an active target
but what choice did I have
knowing what I know
poor dear thing she continued
there is a better version of everything
a law of nature completely natural
and yes it is densely beautiful and
smoldering with awe like a corpse in a bathtub
try to avoid the truly grotesque
in favor of the marginally grotesque
we love having you in our science dept.
with the state secrets and midget porn videos
masquerading as the way things actually are
where the misty cows moo in contentment
and the Vaseline runs hot behind sanctuary doors
horrors altering the course of suns
between the here and the there
every bit of it needless she giggled
From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
Artist Portfolio: http://walteralter.byethost32.com/
Copyright © Walter Alter | Year Posted 2016
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