i was washing the dishes
having a drink
wiping the pear juice off our Armenian rug

i was making coffee
returning a phonecall
flipping through a Sears catalogue
looking for sleeping bags
for the soft arms and smooth legs of the women dressed in khaki
and it's a funny word isn't it - khaki -
and a sonata by Beethoven was playing on the radio
a member of the audience coughed
then stood up and took off his toupée

with a small knife he removed his own scalp
then broke open and discarded the lid of his skull
tossed his brain beyond rows Z and AA
pulled out his own spine as if boning a fish

and before he fell to the floor
an empty pink bag
he proclaimed:
OJ Simpson is free
climb onto your roofs wearing ill-fitting gloves
appear before the blue talk-show of the sky
sporting Newt Gingrich philosophical underwear
Nation of Islam inflatable skis
an image of a mathematical Barbie reading
the poetry of Clifford Olson to Ken:
A life that is clean, a heart that is true,
And doing your best ... that's success

i have never been a brave man
nor particularly well dressed
but i dived into my radio to help this fallen man
i found a bicycle pump under his seat
attached it to the empty bowl of his head
i inflated that man until
floating high above the dark red seats
he was a huge and featureless balloon

i jumped in my car
arrived at the zoo
i found a small child
crying beside the llamas
have this pink balloon i said
look where it once had ears

i have travelled then returned from the tombs of the dead
their words soft and smooth like sea glass
i have shed stone-washed tears in the khaki night
waiting for day to return like a newly-charged golf-cart
over the finely combed hills

i ride not with a burning cross
or an American flag
but with this slim lizard that i will set free

we will travel across the roof-shaped waves
me and my lizard
we will begin again once more