DONALD
BLUMEAU IN THE UNICYCLE POEM
Words of former import cannot impel
you. Who would ride high upon my carriage
is one that has style, as well as balls.
All depends on the swift pivot of flesh
with steel, of rubber with a single wheel,
as you who have ridden well know. The urge,
no matter how hard, nor often, you fall,
will not allow your desire its crash
to futility, for failure has worth-
whether you know it. Donalid, it is you
who move this poem. Long after I am earth-
eaten iron, all that was your effort
will be nothing more than I am, as you
become what it was that you always sought.
Copyright Ó by Dan Schneider
JUDGE ROY BEAN PROMULGATES JUSTICE
You,
Jose Manuel Miguel Xavier Gonzales,
guilty
of murder,
I sentence you to death by hanging. In a few weeks
snows will flee, ice will melt, all nature will be glad,
Jose. But you
shall not see summer.
You shall hang from a tree's
branch until your corpse draws vultures from its reek
and naught remains but the bare bones of such
a cold-blooded, copper-colored, blood-
thirsty, throat-cutting, chili-
fed, sheep-herding son-of-a-bitch!
Copyright Ó by Dan Schneider
MIDNIGHT AT A WHITE CASTLE IN BLOOMINGTON, MINNESOTA
The girl recalls 7:37 p.m.,
and its twilit heart that the nighthawks whiled by,
as she presses her nose against the smudgeless glass
to watch them eat. A colder lean in to learning
engages her eyes as the customers glide by
the burgeoning white, that vanishes up close, as
the night loses dominion within the light square
and she drools for a slider, a hunger that stems
from a place that she shares with them: unawareness
undiscovered. The manager sees her prying
gaze, and orders the child away. So, she leaves
the bushes, till onions recall. It is not fair-
this notion of unawareness that no one grieves
for, or reflects: a boundary which never was.
Copyright Ó by Dan Schneider
TRICERATOPS HERD RUNNING
*a trisonnet for Chris Cornell
It cares not what will name these trodden plants
in later times. This now is all there is.
Now, in what will one day be Wyoming,
it rumbles through the steppes with stamping feet;
by the thousands its brown shag littering
the dusty earth. The living sun glowers
over it as it swarms the shaking plains,
and a pack of juvenile T. Rexes-
with time, enemies- now, just meat on horns,
victims of this driving primitive dance,
collective soulless minion of its genes,
this push over hills and trails. For hours
it lasts- so long that no known reflexes
can be branded cause of this dino-swarm.
+ + + +
Skulls enjoy the cold fear heat. It ends them
with a ceaseless rush. It trumpets its claim
with a violent swagger. It turns mid-stream
and heads for the hills where once it began,
as the small primal mammals hide within
their holes in the ground. The living cyclone
rages, for nothing will quell its demands
as it sunders the sod within these lands
it renders first fear. A T. Rex suspends
its own hunt for life, by another's death,
it smells its others' end in every breath
it takes. It retreats, abandons the heath
for the moment- then its eyes snag a chill:
Rhinosaur sees it from beneath its frill!
+ + + +
The young Rex waits for the pass of the storm
as the old bull, also, waits for alone
to descend. In the distance goes the horde,
straining itself against emergent I's-
as this- which can only define its meat-
these wars between atoms, clashed bone-to-bone
the beasts war once more, driven by the warm
impulse of blood. Under flesh-riven skies
a poverty of bones sketches defeat
for the callow. Does the cosmos take names
or make note of the slaughter? An old call
summons the bull, red hollowing its horns,
brings it home to the oneness, always all
until it ends. Soon, they all will be dead.
Copyright Ó by Dan Schneider
Fuck Apatosaurus! That deceptive-lizard
moves no boy to grand wonder. But Brontosaurus
does!- the thunder-lizard of film, mythos and dream!
With its fifty foot tail whipping a sonic boom
it called to its mate, and made all comers cower
as it rumbled its mass, cracked its sinuous tail.
How can we fail this great beast? What is wrong with us?
Or they who name it so weakly? Damn cladistics!
When I hear Apatosaurus I want to scream
Viva Brontosaurus! Call plenary power
to bear! Bad nomenclature sticks in the gizzard
when true natures call! Send priority to Hell!-
along with those fools stuck on rules and statistics!:
Take heed as the beast heralds your name's doom! Doom! DOOM!
Copyright Ó by Dan Schneider
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