Sleep? Why Bother?
I write Dear You from the middle of the nightThe only difference
between being asleep and awake
these days
is that, with my eyes open
I have a fighting chance
against the Fantasy Pope's Soldiers
who keep killing me
I am more frightened about this upcoming battle
than I've ever been about anything in my life
In the dream that woke me up
just now
I saw the face of an actual guy
from Facino The Dog's Company
with whom I partied in Milan
We will be facing those guys
within 36 hours
He killed me, of course
in the dream
I'm Not the Only One Awake
Regine spread us out tonightso that we can have our own fires
and our own thoughts
and psych up to fight in our own ways
A Model of Mind
The mind is a 600-channelsatellite TV system
The On/Off button is broken
(the receiver is On all the time)
. . . and the battered Channel Up/Down button
only works only erratically
Through diligent effort
(pointing the remote in different directions
and mashing the rubber Up/Down button just right)
one may, in life, learn gradually
to select the channel, the images
Right now my TV is stuck
on an all-weekend
Pope's-Army-Kills-Berto-Alto Marathon
In The Meantime . . .
I'm trying not to be bummed outabout you and me
I know how tiresome that is
believe me, I know
sorry
little things
. . . like how we usedall the antibiotics we brought
treating stupid little scrapes and nicks
and now we have almost none left
for the battle
Skip's Kockamamie Kaper
No wonder Skip's been nervousHe finally came clean with me
(Going through that battlefield yesterday
put the Fear of Dog
in a lot of people)
Skip fucking traded
a geurilla CARE Package
of 21st century materiel
(explosives, vitamins, unwrapped granola bars)
for one (huge) (stolen) diamond,
three emeralds,
a gold crucifix and change!
and his plan is to bury them
near a Tuscan landmark
and fucking go on vacation to Italy
this summer of 2002
and dig them up
Every aspect of this plan
is so forbidden it's not even funny
not to mention being an insanely long shot
that they'll still be there
Skip feels he's gotten around the
proscription against
leaving anything tracable behind
by the fact that his stuff was all biodegradable
I was really pissed at him
and yelled at him for the first time
To do something so stupid
when we're so close to going home!
"What, do you think you're in a fucking
pirate movie?!"
Our Four Following Friends
. . . who are out there in the darkness right noware Mobsters (Skip believes)
who know about Skip's diamond
and are waiting patiently to acquire it
This job sucks
In the Meantime . . .
. . . I'm not succeedingin not being bummed out
about us
little things
. . . like the sleepy cricketon my knee
Fighting Dreams With Dreams
Maybe we work back-wor(l)dsfrom the Dream World to the Waking World
Maybe that's what Quixote-ing is all about
Maybe that's why
we watch The Matrix over and over
Maybe that's why
all us people decided
it would be "a good idea"
to dress up in costumes and come back here
Maybe it's our way of
trying to produce our own program
and get it on the TV in our minds
instead of all the unwanted programming
that pours through
Signed Sincerely Yours Truly
Berto Alto the Wolf Giant
star of
"The Berto-Alto-the-Wolf-Giant-
Who-Kicks-Ass
and-Doesn't-Get-Killed-in-the-Middle-Ages Show"