To Be or Not to Be . . .

                              "Without deviation from

the norm, progress is

not possible."

Frank Zappa 

**************
robert d. wilson's
The  Notso- Wonderland
Amusement  Park

 "Castles made of sand
fall in the sea
eventually."

Jimi Hendrix 
 

you're
     absolutely right . . .
I'm all that
and more; a teeter
totter from outer space

robert d. wilson

Ever since I returned from Nam, nothing's been the same. It's gotten worse, living a life viewed through the eyes of egotistical poets who don't give a shit about Buddhism, Jesus Christ, or Japanese short form poetry . . . living in a world where women, co-workers, spouses, I'm on number four, and my two oldest children think I'm self serving, arrogant, a con artist, a manipulator, the masturbator of trusting people's minds.

i'm a
goddamned mirror,
a fried
chicken gizzard boiling
in two day old lard?

robert d. wilson

Either I'm fucking mad, socio-pathic criminal mind with a hard on for getting whatever I want regardless of who I hurt, or . . . I'm not.  And if I listen to most people, I'm forced to opt for the "fucking mad, sociopathic" label, which means, I'm related to one of the angels who fell from Heaven to earth with Satan, when the Devil said, "No way, Jose" to God; and Michael Dylan-Welch blew a gasket.

 "Oh little Cody Pomeray if there had been some way to send a cry to you even when you were too little to know what utterances and cries are for in this dark sad earth, with your terrors in a world so malign and inhospitable, and all the insults from heaven ramming down to crowd your head with anger, pain, disgrace, worst of all the crapulous poverty in and out of every splintered door of days, if someone could have said to you then, and made you perceive, 'Fear life, but don't die; you're alone, everybody's alone. Oh Cody Pomeray, you can't win, you can't lose, all is ephemeral, all is hurt.'."

Jack Kerouac 

"Let us learn to appreciate

there will be times when 

the trees will be bare, and

look forward to the time

when we may pick the fruit."

Anton Chekov

I went to Nam a person who had friends, didn't take drugs, hated the taste of alcohol, loved to dance, surf, and make out with girlfriends, and, believe it or not, I was still a virgin, having never learned a thing from the videos they showed us in high school assemblies of a bull and cow coupling, and my parents never told me about the bird and the bees, though like all guys my age, my hormones were on hyper-drive without a driver, and I'd learned on my own how to masturbate (and a few other things). The only sex education I knew was the advice of my parent's childhood friend who called me aside after a gin rummy game with my parents and his wife, and whispered, "Remember to wear a rubber, Bob, whenever you do it with a girl."  Wow, I was set.  I now held the key to the chest of sexual knowledge!

she hustled
me, knowing i was
a virgin . . .
taking my money
that night in saigon

robert d. wilson

On your mark, get set, go!  My first night in the dragon's belly, hot and humid isn't the word for the weather AND the emotional tension in the air there one week before the TET Offensive, and I was going past every titty bar in downtown Saigon with my fellow
naval lab test rats, on the prowl to prove to myself and the world that Bob Wilson was a real man.  Half dressed babes in sexier clothes than anything I'd seen in the States, we're clawing at me, grabbing me by the balls, putting their blouses over my head (bra-less, of course), and no parents to say "No, no, son!" The first girl who asked me out right to fuck her, I fucked, after she took me for $50 instead of the usual $5, having me tip the bartender, the janitor, the girl who led us to our room, where she laid there without emotion or movement like a dead, light brown Patty Play Pal Doll, after telling me to stick it in her pussy, and oops, I was so sexcited I forgot to use a condom, and I cummed 10 seconds into the act, thinking I'd died and gone to heaven, when in reality, I was the Saigon's biggest sucker that night, the prince of fools, getting, as I learned the next day, nothing for the money, and paying her a giant fee after I'd blown my jets, without entering airspace. My first night as a stranger in a strange land, and that was just the beginning of what became the wild toad ride through hell, and when I got out of the toad's jalopy eleven months later, hell followed me home disguised as a psychedelic dragon.

girl-child

you make me wild!

those

hard brown titties,

a map 

of the park

i'll

call

wonderland

years

later

in

the philippines

after 

a road trip

to

hell

with

reverend green

aka

the wild toad

to

the

San Francisco

museum

of

modern art

on a weekday

when frank zappa

and

ferlinghetti

are 

sparring

with

chopsticks

in

a 

chinese restaurant

serving

green tea

in

plastic

glasses

laced 

with

koolaid

robert d. wilson

Here I am again (TODAY), inside the circus mirror, a day dream dream of infant's breath, dangling on a clothesline made in the Philippines which means it'll last two weeks before it snaps, and my wife will blame me for it, because it's the Filipino way to blame another for what you, yourself are doing, and admit it's you, the O po's (yes sirs, yes ma'ams), a self defense mechanism left over from a need to survive during Spanish rule, the American rule three times over, the Japanese occupation, Marco's dictatorship, and the current reign of the "New Spanish," the rich Filipinos (and Chinese) who own 5% of the country's wealth, and keep their compatriots the least educated of anyone in any country world-wide, and so underpaid and void of the ability to adequately feed, house, or obtain medical care for themselves so that they'll willingly bow down and kiss the 5%'s asses for the privilege of existing, although they wouldn't have to if they had a backbone and weren't afraid to look in mirrors . . . and my wife gets pissed off and ignores me for the remainder of the day and night because I noticed on . . .

and in that minute, the circus mirror explodes, shattering every hollow cement block in our subdivision . . . the cards across the street unable to play croquet to the Red Queen's liking, leaving poor Alice unsure if she was ten feet tall or too fat to flee the rabbit hole filling rapidly with shards of flying glass.

"and the walls came tumbling down!" 

"Man must evolve for all human conflict

a method which rejects revenge,

aggression and retaliation.  The

foundation of such a method is love."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

think me

an asp striking the

dragon that

doesn't exist, a

monk sweeping lies

robert d. wilson

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes "Awww!"
 

-Jack Kerouac

The world is mad and only the mad can comprehend and feel their way around the Wonderland Amusement Park, finding kindred spirits in those unable to afford mouse ears, who parrot the wind, and sing with crickets under logs felled by puppets working for greedy lumber companies. . . those living in the wild west and east of the night, fighting dragons adults don't believe exist because thy lay still after dusk under semen scented sheets, afraid to look into their own closets where skeletons wait patiently to reveal what they don't want to hear, because the walls will come tumbling down, without a chariot to come forth and carry them home.

and still,
the dredges of
wonderland . . .
scales clinging to
to autumn's tail

the east . . . 

a sun dining

on teas leaves

troll with me

for feelings we haven't

felt before . . .

our critics, cartoon ducks

with empty captions

shadows

stare anxiously . . . 

dawn vespers

you insist

i am normal,

labeling

me a mumu

caught between moons

the patter

of handmade drums

. . . rain song

made, insane,

building square flower

beds for

the obese, and

. . . staring through them


mute, the
egret's swipe over
quilted mirrors

she too will

die because of the

dark colors

i paint on clouds

used in restrooms

he paints the

backs of cows chewing

summer's tail

autumn dawn . . . 

a young girl in torn

clothing

watching playmates

parade like camels

toddler, the

shadow you sculpt into

. . . a cockroach

henna

tattoos, the talon trail

on my arm . . . 

to convince me

i'm not crazy

deep thought . . . 

nudging clouds in

transit

think me

an asp striking the

dragon that

doesn't exist; a 

monk sweeping lies


her skin, and
the snails picked
for lunch

haiku

isn't zen, a piece 

of play dough

stretched across

gasping chasms

it could be

anyone, clacking

bamboo

tarry on

the "t" in moments

spent with you

shedding me into

a thousand pieces

jump with me,

alice, into the

march hare's mouth

savor the 

sick crunch of a hen's

neck, her bowels

gargling syllables

you pawned on me

madness, your

fingers trace what mine

wouldn't

that voice

again this morning . . . 

my smile 

replaced with an

emmet kelly yawn

sanity,

if only your finger

touched clouds

as if

i can do something

about their

being late, the

clinic, jousting toadstools

toad, where 

is the lab you make your

poison in?

side windows . . .

balinese puppeteers

cough up

phlegm with their pants down

this starless night

why should 

i hit you, scattering

blossoms?

i hate the

dance of rice when

jeepney's sing . . .

her beef jerky arms;

the slouch of bridges

robert d. wilson