Funny Business
A Special Edition of The East Village







Nada Gordon


Voluntary Complexity Movement


the li(f)e you imagine
i don't get nervous about
was the letter H -- atomized --
in the sarcastic orange starling's
dialogic crypto-
love i've come to
feel anywhere in time --
like it was a  mound of venus:
HAVE A GOOD DAY!
if  i don't write these poems
i'll split open -- how's that
for agony?  two tall
beige objective smokestacks &
a wet heelprint.
HAVE A GOOD PEACOCK! and
when the inanimate objects
talk back to me,
i slap them. how else
to ponder the inscrutable
red R on sophistry's 
looming facade?
labyrinth? thanato-biography?
auto-genetics? the questions --
pointless, but warm --
are meant to emphasize
the HOPPING nature
of this poem's "internal
(cough) logic":  FESTIVAL.
monk drags a gordian
sack.  man in fedora
sticks tongue to chin.
ESTEFANIA (comic porn)
(conic pony)lurching over the hidden
oculi.  i had my vodka
instead of giddy toxicity -- (cosmic
pounce) the parched crevasses
of my soul's weaker anchor
spirata inflata
incantata -- afflatus --
not divine -- invades
the hidden oculi:  spirala.
ESTEFANIA! when naked eyes
opened again.  are you living
your ME years to the max?
do you totally want
some kind of web-winged
gremlin?  it's sticky --
a mournful eye looking up
at the peeling ceiling.
and shone a torch --
on eyeballs' reticence
drupelets oddity sexual
spewing swift whiskeys
ulgi dia rololnikov.

let not the naked face
of th'inconstant moon
hold fast the spongey bars
of  my vocabulary in throes.
a fraction of a fondle
releases a small laugh --
in public -- so the endless
parody of innocuousness
becomes a form of artifice
so pernicious as to privatize
the poor gremlin's
expressive freedoms.


do i care about him?
or the mendacious
demons that come
crawling out the hole
in the upper left-hand corner
of the aforementioned
peeling ceiling?  a
wan, anorexic gaze
at redder-than-red violas,
cheese shaped like yin 
and yang, magic carpets,
lamps, genies and
woe.



you need roseate duckbilled 
passion: he clasps the crag.
your imagination is a 
wrinkled sea 
split:  a la vida.

the mandrills stare their amber
eyes.  BLISS ufm OKAPI
blue ridge faces
shaggy fire beards
i don't like taking orders
cigarros cigars real puro
sometimes i don't understand
things because i'm a
poet (snakeskin pattern)
explicit pink jawing, diarrhea smell
i can jolt, i can fang
the lopsided automaton
within.  piltdown:
hooooooooors.  Relief
surged through her: 
"you did?" I hate authority.



blown sounds damaged fever's
fancy sour note.  tongue-tied prole
unmasks the song of fat
contempt: tasty morpheme.  
cheesy baby voice 
of human resources:
"we wouldn't have hired you
if you were just a poet."
i show my tattoo
in the elevator. that's not
"corporate culture"
"i'm almost an animal"
but [torrent of fear] that's
just for [gasping] "media I.D."
abs, butt -- we all come
to need caricature.

the mind is asian.
cicatrix of condensation...
choose your response:  thwawk.
like the way breasts pop up
between the shoulders with bursts
of purple and orange light toggling
"you were supposed to die" and
"passive resignation."
"we'll let the dwarves do the tunneling
for us -- the bent byronic heroes
are at it again."


required state of alertness
to subjects not of inherent
interest:  outline of oppression.
light clanking in right ear.
gruelry.  high-spirited anti-rat
washing a fall.  chick on,
finishing kink brilliantly
methodically swallowed pride in oil. 
i don't care how crucifixes
win a night bath bolt to freedom,
chick on.  future begins.  the
zen of sliders (sensor technology).

thus progress had a lobotomy:  
tune in to bang but lack,
out of synch at evidence
champion of the whirled
dancing to oil, was brave, fat,
and his mask face
or her       small eyes
surprised but needed
the whale in the room
into the pillow breathing
softly             you will be
automatically.  you will be
automatically.        a short,
shrink                 sound.

dawdle with me

oil men and oily guys.


rampant racism seen in
weakened storm pansies touting
business which i impractically hate

oh... and my poverty canopy:  lavender
rolodex, magenta copy machine,
fish earrings, whimsy hobo.

check and see the reefer peeled
on my back -- reality is unbeatable,
repercussing ad memorandum:

O  time, make concessions.
make my worse
verse, sneak circuit work.



fraud charges out whenever
"sincerity" forces me to pretend
you're deaf.  let's get a cabin
in the woods, prehistoric man,
and run down hill naked,
capes flapping -- . itsa helluva
 benevolent association: 
"i just don't feel (flapping)
like myself." -- and the parrot eats
the air conditioner, skillfully.
the glinting -- of the cosmetic 
mouth, launching the bluebird
out of my hair.  i make a quiet key
in the final minute,
i use all available dodos.
guitarist hangs off heifer,
noise in his wranglers
a light aphoristic rose --
beast in broad, sweeping
heiro-strokes. i want
loopy too even if
automatic, the name
pulled back to reveal
the matted ridges.
as the wind blows
i try to make myself
look decent in the
morning of jugular carpet -- 
am i "free"?  her eyes dark and 
moist fish, she's like a stock
option on a tingly prayer.
and i guess her love is
a button like mine --

one dripped into another
and caused a rivulet
of relaxed voice.
shake out the artificial sand
from the artificial crotch:
the prayer book's sandy too!
and full of permissions --
amateurish gushes over 
the rocky cloud bank.

all i know is
it's not flipped-up enough:

world-wide (inner) wrestling.



Volume Eleven Index