'17:50...
Record #4472...
Deceased...
1 Smith and Wesson .45 Caliber handgun,
1 handgun magazine, 1 spent shell casing,
1 slug and 1 fabric handgun case.'

One page in the typewriter,
The note just read 'counselor'.
Dated February 2nd 2005.

'counselor'

Shaman,
Snake handler;
a thousand serpents of liquid luminescence flood the floor with their ethereal coils...
Blood boils; every nerve ending fraying and fraught in the flat-lining thoughts of city dawns...
Some rancid bad trip morning comes...
With the drip and patter of poison bled from broken gums...
Clapped out lungs slicked black from tar and sputum...
Heart attack tremens arms and torso shaken...
Is there no serum?
palpitations of psalm cold sweat premonitions of a naked sermon for the human condition...
teeth grinding the sacred hymn of the junkie...
hero and victim strapped to a gurney...
Space monkey...
experiment...
a shaving kit...
a droplet of adrenochrome...
the poem unprocessed the words not yet minced...
the red meat stripped from the bone by brutal cleavers...
the white powder and drone of the moth lamps in the bathroom,
under the watchful eye of the razor -- the razor -- the flicker of doom,
the horror and sinister laughter...

Lights out...
'counselor'
The truth is monster.

The typewriter pulsating the electric beatnik mantra
of scuzzy morality on the mojo wire:

'A televangelist sex offender'...
'a monster in the white house'...
'they murdered Kennedy'...
'freak power crushed by apathy'...

And the chimpanzee came back from space he's trying out the swivel chair in the oval office,
the red button the big bang the joystick the sick possibility of power...
too much of this can drive a man crazy...
Mad dog crazy.

Mad dog scurvy and scorched from the highway,
swatting horseflies under the high white noise of perfect possibility...
with a bottle of wild turkey an arsenal of weapons
and nudity for the Nixon administration...
Mad dog dead and buried in the dust bowl under a slab of very serious
Granite - mad dog howl... for the desert...
for the deserters...
for the imitators who bury their heads in pink pussy tombs...
who bay the blood red glow of moons...
Mad Dog high noon with a trunk and head full of acid and dodgy 'shrooms...
Mad Dog licking his wounds in the cheap rented bedrooms of Oakland...
Whole swarms of lice and wet hair matted the smell of Mad Dog shaken from heroin...
Mad Dog dreamt then of bohemian presidents burning children for sacrifice...
Mad Dog smuggling legal advice from Mexico on the back of a brown buffalo...
Mad Dog rabid and put to rest... lying in state amongst affiliates of the gonzo press...
Freak power tyrant dictator of aspen...
Or just failed politician...

'counselor.'

Soap box soothsayer and lone ranger of Barstow... homeless angel fallen of vengeance into the twilight of clarity 1971... flesh and blood meteorite, smart bomb, liability, come to smite the mediocrity of fifth avenue in one terrible three ring suicide drop twenty eight storeys of vertigo below to a death a new life.... his amphetamine brain machine burning diesel for that final compulsive dive to a strange and higher truth... a grand gesture... he didn't jump then and considered it a failure... he did jump later... one page in the typewriter, the note just read 'counselor'...

The law is monster.
Million pronged organism of closed circuit television... Monster of the recidivism of the sprawling middle class... hydra of propaganda... countless and blameless their hearts hypothermic in the shadow of monster... monster of fear... monster of loathing... monster whose justice swings from a rope... monster of crew cuts and jack boots... monster of drug squads and prison blocks and barrios... monster of 18 year olds incarcerated for smoking dope.. monster of seizures and sorrow and hysteria... monster of middle America and Bat Country, Barstow... monster of Guernica... monster of Guantanemo... monster of the massacre of Kent State, Ohio.

And the government is monster also,
Semi-state mother... fürher in drag... burly nanny... totem of slavery... blasphemy of freedom... idol of commerce... merciless mistress of a passionless fiefdom of sadness and suicide and gin... iron king with twisted grin and outstretched hands and burnt out eyes... merchant and nabob and salesman of lies.

And the truth is monster.
Laughing lotus-eyed monster... Diethyl Amide monster... monster that chews and grinds the ultimate questions of reality... digesting the inner truths on the scrap heap of humanity... finding always rooms, doorways, highways and alleyways all filled with oblivion... revealing rhythms of perception that are invisible to all but the naked human mind'¦ or to those who ought the ticket, and took the ride.

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