Bugolgi Apparatus

stories from history everyone was ready  for a new situation a spontaneous feeling  lit up the room carrying the weight for several generations  nobody noticed it drop until it went boom  there were no commentators,  spectators, speculators, conspiracists; everyone was a participant we all got the lift  took that risk and the whole of the  us was better for it  stepping into that arena   with hopes  on our tongues some things can  only be  swallowed temporarily  we took that circle and pulled it into four dimensions until it covered our future As far as we could see we could laugh about it later how scared we were to move As if we had a choice who was kidding who we had found our voices how sweet was the song hidden in histories stolen in books   

Hey NSA You're my  biggest fan If I say "Bin Laden" "Ted Cruz" "Jeb Bush" "Drones" "Jihad" or perhaps "Bob Evans  Pork Sausage Links" does the  alert go off does my social profile  get passed around do you send a  scarlett jo lookalike in a leather catsuit  to neutralize me could I meet her  Saturday at 3 ? my social security  number is 572-77-2623 thanks, bob gaulke 

Bottled  What happened to him He lost it so completely As if his early work Was written by an ex-girlfriend  As if wearing the same look Thirty years later  Could bring anything back For him, much the less, us We still read his interviews For some acknowledgement  Of the betrayal; his arrogance Never serves him here Always promising a return to form In his case it was never Youthful energy That interested It was wisdom  Beyond his years That never returned Now that he's arrived there

Reading into you the fonts  you use the silences  in your rhythm  what you choose  to forward the speed  of your server brassiere  color palate choice of  yogurt  hours without signs working without labels I can see  from your selfie you're completely  with it reading into  your tone writing on  silences touch me  once I won't get  nervous kiss me  again all is  forgiven 

The lull After the lull We get back to the hill The hill we die on Pulls us on a whim We travel light Our friends are there We're ready to fight Tooth and nail  Attacked from all sides The ground opens up Taking many of our best minds And a few of their own We fight all night  Then after the lull We count our blessings And fight on

Capitalism Cant find your best friend Wonder where they've gone Ask your parents then Start to look around Hearing strange noises Behind a door You just manage to peek Inside a key hole There's little Mary There's little John Being devoured naked With their jewelry on You try pulling at Your father's  Arms He's too strong Try begging  Your mother Gone deaf And dumb Run out of the room Screaming from your house Then you feel this hunger Tearing at your gut

Now on sale from Ratstar Press. Amazing- in print after 40 years.

Drug of choice What do you cling to What's clinging to you You'll try to take it with you  Unless it takes you first Those cookies That tv That feeling the world's  Spinning at your feet This moment's got me hooked You're a chemical thing I feel withdrawal symptoms When you don't text me Our conversations This lighting The old couple Down the street  It all becomes  Addicting I'll take the first step And admit to it

Your Charger hey mister can I borrow your charger my phone’s out  I live with my mother and I’ve got to get to my new job but I don’t know the bus stop and I’ve just met a lady she could be my baby (her number's in the memory) but mister do you have a charger I’m not crazy I don’t anyone in the city and I’ve just got myself together after months in a shelter and this city turns mean with any change in the weather so mister I’m gonna buy these donuts If I could just plug my phone in I’ve always come to your shop never stole your stock and I’ll come back for a butter roll once I get myself found

The Bronx  says she’s not racist  you want to believe her  you want to sleep with her  she needs to relax  can’t do that  if "everyone grabs her ass" try to explain to her  gives you that look what a naive loser your erection starts to fade looking forward  to that return train live in the bronx where people work hard  all day long without getting off people are beautiful they leave me alone walking expressways plates thrown into the park in pizzarias  men confess  crimes  of when  they were young  america battles it out with everything that’s  coming up  

Madge, what's your secret? What's that in the sauce What makes you water your mouth How about the sound of a dog Who's alone in the house What makes you want to love In a world full of automatons  What's holding God above  Who tells you you got it wrong Fear, the secret ingredient  Fear behind every decision Fear you're paying its rent Fear's got your money spent  Haunted by your dreams You don't know what they mean Sands of time in the vaseline Feel lucky you're so fucked Fear behind every face Fear of things unsaid  Fear of what you really meant Fear will hold your breath

Games I find it strange you spend hours playing games without learning anything  you invest hours  pressing buttons like a slave  it makes you hungry  for something  you'll never attain maneuvering  in this world  is not the same  the extra dimensions  aren't levels  out of reach  life will kill you the music's good but doesn't always rhyme

what's news? in the country of angry commenters  they've closed all the borders running out of toilet paper their flag is an eye for an eye losing a flight of daughters  to the nation over the border they're confident robotics  will see them through the night the gross product is vitriol  shipped in tankers to China  where it's mixed with cereal stamped "organic" and sent home  the country of angry commenters spends its winters in Florida  cursing out communists for digging up ghosts signing an agreement with India  comments will now be outsourced  they're planning their retirement as statues on the ocean floor

Like Snowden blow me away like snowden tell me everything you know about me then I’ll take you to an undisclosed location and we can dick around like cheney  you present as mild mannered and innocent but I know what’s lurking  under that vanilla email address in a pair of wolford stockings  you want security you want privacy yet you post everything you feel  you’re heading for an identity  apocalypse baby  without Coppola in the chair  blow me away like Snowden give me the certainty of the real  I need to know this madness flirts  with externals all too willing to deal

keep on writing follow the line as it wraps around everything rubbing leaving it shining take your time basting it in mind it comes out thick smoking honey keep on writing stick it in blood carve your thoughts into the walls keep on writing till you break your arm then change hands and do it backwards

be prepared hungry dog eats  'til it explodes man destroys a house  to make his home students insist  there’s nothing to learn bottoms don't fit  seats twenty years old be prepared  don't be scared it gets close it gets weird   will's on a hinge  swinging on a binge straight through  an open door another question  strips the system another section  gone missing I was a girl scout  didn’t merit badges did the research  never published pitched a tent  settled damages mangling oaths under my breast

Insiders and Outsiders  He always kept to himself What did he do with the money He had something to express Why was he always hiding  He wore many hats  Got the sense he was playing Was he ever really himself Afraid he'd come up empty After he confessed We started to see him differently Yet our warmth came back When we found how he was suffering It's all too late I guess "I'm sorry"'s just too easy We'll be picking up his mess  For as long as we're still crawling

I like it rare  not too done precious  uncommonly put on would you dare  leave others out make something  by rough hands, untouched contradictions are the only things that interest  people like us in situations that'd drive  most others mad i'd play the eccentric  if that's what you'd want I'd play the skeptic forever caught holding his own heart  too close to your chest

Music is memory as unsentimental as you want to be
 you need to touch an instrument, two chords, a melody on a string
 is sufficient to make you delirious through dreams and disappointments 
 feelings haven't aged beaten clichés you're holding 
 for the return of a golden age the radio isn't helping internet's there to ambush those things you've been holding 
 won't be carried with you everyone addicted to something
 she falls asleep to symphonies her son haunted by a blank wall 
 where he hears traces of feelings

there are those moments that seem to be leading us on the way to civilization collapse like when the bus drops us off across the street from the mall and we have to walk across miles of asphalt to get home dodging SUVs the size of things that ate our ancestors and this new sun isn’t the one I knew as a kid and the faces of people have the same hardness of bedouins to us it’s a desperate sort of survival/happiness going on

She lives in photographs Quite happily On beaches At parties With her family With attractive young men If she has a job, It's just smiling Out at us from The comfort Of our own  Phones Sometimes  I put my phone sideways When I'm lying down On my futon I can zoom in on her I can see the drink in her hand And then I can  Almost hear The sound of Distant parties in the night Against the ocean of my  Wall to wall carpeting