Revised Twit Haiku + Jungian Dream

Birds twitter outside
A message across my screen
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Also: Yesterday in the post
A letter came
Addressed to:
Stephen Darjeeling
c/o Middle Creek Winery
From the C.G. Jung Institute
Entreating me to attend
Their seminar:
Ultimate Winemaking,
Then I had a dream
Of a burned out church
Where people jumped fully clothed
Into a coffin shaped baptismal font
While the pastor preached in hot pink shorts
Saying: “Hold on, brothers and sisters,
We are almost there”,
And the Everly Brothers sang:
All I have to do is dream.

The Shroud Of Browne - A Dream Yoga Experience

She told me that in her past life
She had been a dogcatcher in Palo Alto, CA,
So living in Kansas
Had been an adjustment,

Before that she had been in charge
Of the Queen’s Kennel,
Raising whippets for sport and pleasure,

Three lifetimes ago, she said,
She raised sheep in Scotland
Her Border Collies mistreated and ill-fed,
Karma is a real thing, she added,

Now she lies under her burial shroud
Safe from the vultures in the trees,
Who peer down upon her
Waiting to hear her last aspiration,

Poised over her I lift her head
To pour water out of my hand
Onto her dry tongue,
Mantras flowing from my consciousness to hers,
She looks up,
Her tail wags once,

“Oh, Sentient Being, there will come a bright light.”

A Guitar Is A Girl's Best Friend

It can bring you glass slippers,
It can bring you some wine,
It can bring you fine cuisine,
On which you can dine,
It can tell your life story,
From beginning to end,
A guitar is a girl’s best friend,

You can wear it like a diamond,
Just for the show,
You can take it to bed,
Pretend you’re Marilyn Monroe,
Sleep on sheets of white satin,
Study Nietzsche and Zen,
A guitar is a girl's best friend,

You can take it to confession,
To tell all your sins,
Take it to choir,
Sing a thousand amens,
Ride it up to Heaven,
Visit all your Dead friends,
A guitar is a girl’s best friend,

You can do anything,
If you’ve got a guitar,
Pick up a big paycheck,
Become a country western star,
Take it down to the pawn shop,
When you’ve got no money left to spend,
A guitar is a girl’s best friend,

A Madman Is Oft Wont To Walk About Naked

He had a habit of pissing off the neighbors
Standing outside yelling:
“Take that Leawood!” as he pissed off the deck
Into the backyard hostas,
They had made him move into town
When they found him naked in the vineyard,
Pruning the vines and singing the Hallelujah Chorus,
He just looked at them with that
You’re gonna get what you ask for look,
Saying “Howdy Ma’am” to the neighbor lady
Doing his best John Wayne impression,
“Cute little scudder,” he switched to Jon Voight,
Pointing to the dog she was walking,
All this without a thread,
“No shirt, no shoes, no service,” he cackled
Switching to a Nicholsonish voice,
As he continued his morning walkabout,
Yelling at the top of his lungs:
“The Emperor has new clothes!
The Emperor has new clothes!”
Then: “Eureka! Eureka! I found it!”
As he clutched his privates,
So they moved him back to his country place,
Sewing his clothes on backwards,
Putting a pair of Converse Ozzie Straitjackets
On his feet,
Relieved, to say the least, that Leawood
Had once again regained its sanity.

While My Guitar Gently Sweeps

After the Dementia
They found him out in the alley
Sweeping up
With an old Gibson Hummingbird.

Crop Futures

Crop circles appear
In the oddest of places
The eyes of a horse

Guitar Slinger

They walked out in the street at high noon,
The Palladin theme song played
From little Bose speakers
As they stared each other down,
The man in the long black coat
Unbuttoning with his left hand to reveal
The Eddie van Halen Frankenstein Replica underneath,
The deputy sheriff squared off
Reaching behind his back,
Bringing the vintage 1965 Les Paul Sunburst
With Paulverizer
Into view,
The gold Humbucking pickups flashing in the sun,
Tension mounted as they tuned,
Women and children ran into stores,
Men in the saloon laid their money down,
Everybody knew he was the man
Who shot Liberty Valance,
That the deputy had little chance
Even with the big iron on his hip,
Then it happened!
Twang!
The Eddie van Halen blew an E string,
The deputy drew back the Les Paul,
While, I shot the sheriff,
Played in the background,
Everyone knew there would be
Another day, another time,
And the colored girls sang doo, te, doo, te, doo.

Homo Aliensis

Homo Aliensis walked the streets of Kansas City
Looking for 12th Street and Vine,
She had come such a long way
To see what crazy little women looked like.

Homo Aliensis

The 1950 Ford came to an abrupt stop
Out in a roadless area of the Flint Hills of Kansas,
The driver barely conscious,
Having overindulged in Valium and Ripple Wine,
His head sunk against the old steering wheel,
The harmonious horn honking and honking,
Honking him back to realtime Kansas,
“Thanks a lot,” he thought, “Better off dead,”
He got out and fell down,
Then steadied himself on the doorpost,
He reached back in to grab the Pagan Pink Ripple,
Punching in the eight track tape,
Then falling backwards onto the Big Bluestem prairie grass,
Taking a pull, he scratched his head,
Noticing the silvery grey boulder,
The one that had stopped his forward progress,
The one that was now smoking from the anti-freeze
Leaking from the busted radiator,
He drunkenly sang along with the tape:
“I’m a melancholy man, doin’ what I can,
All the world astounds me and my ass is on the ground,”
Laughing as he changed the lyrics to fit his predicament,
Grabbing his American flag sleeping bag off the back seat,
Flopping it down and propping himself up against the rock
Before passing out,
The green shaft of light appeared as a sunshaft,
It sought him out, bathing him in light,
He awoke and tasted the manna,
Sobered up and stood up,
His car fixed, the engine running perfectly,
The eight track playing:
“A beam of light will fill your head,
And you’ll remember what’s been said.”

Homo Aliensis

The skull that they found
In the dumpster on 6th Street
Didn’t fit any mold

Roadgrader Samurai

His mind was focused
On the end of the blade tip
Cutting road ditches

Blade Man

Ichi!
Ni!
San!
The katana cut the air
Making contact with the orange
He had tossed,
Blade meeting flesh at eye level
Cutting the fruit precisely in two,
Then following with the short sword
To impale one half on it,
While the other half
Met the point of the long one,

He lowered the blades to his lunchbox
Placing the orange halves with the rest of his lunch,
Returning Long and Short to their sheath
As he sat on the grassy shoulder of the country road
Out in the middle of Kansas,
He contemplated his life as he ate
Looking down the gravel road
That was as straight as his blade,
He finished eating and climbed back into the cab,
Lowering the blade to just the proper angle
To meet the Earth and to cut,
As he put the road maintainer in gear
He looked up at the horizon,
Saying out loud,
“There is a time to use the Long Sword,
A time to use the Short Sword,”

The sharp blade cut a new ditch,
He looked up briefly at the farm pickup passing by,
Then returned his focus to the point of the Long Sword.

Killer Guitar

Lobbyists for the NGA had
Presented their new slogan
Some months before:
“When guitars are outlawed
Only outlaws will have guitars,”
Hearing a noise outside
His bedroom window,
He pulled the Dimebag Darrell
Out from under his pillow,
He kept it there lengthways, always,
Tuned up and ready to go,
Without turning on the lights
He crept toward the Marshall half stack,
Waiting in the shadows
He heard the breaking of glass,
The turning of the kitchen doorknob,
He fingered the volume control,
Switched to three pots
As he heard the footsteps of the perp,
Queen, full blast, took the burglar down,
Another one bites the dust.