MILK DUDS FROM THE HOMEWORLD an electronic chapbook by JEFFREY LITTLE ________________________________________ an orbit is above it's bad enough my colloidal suspenders were left soaking in tuxedo sauce again, i won't even begin to think about those trees - no poultice, no umbrella - the calligraphy of the clairvoyant corresponds w/the rain. my face i paint it i blot it w/a wad of spackling like an aztec spine i glance at my cereal & sure enough there's square dancers in my cocoa puffs kicking it up to the shout chorus of "it's a hailing side-a-ways in the alley by the old grain exchange", i consult the star charts for the perfect pencil - strop sharpened - a #2 about as big as Allah's clarinet, to wit: circular shibboleths & the apple trees battened along an array foxholes at the front. a chimney sweep straddling three fruitcake dispensers it's the pinnacle of obsolescence - me? - i'm knee deep in gelatin molds cooking up a batch of tar salve for the ghost of pappy little's hard hat, the loose change i can hear it jingling in the thinning pockets of the blue mountains as a biplane trailing a banner for kosher beef franks orbits overhead - i am my own worst berber - a civilization of extricated teeth colonizing a blowpipe & all of the witch hunts & porch lights of the ore. standard stoppages when i look into your eyes now i see nothing but the terra-cotta of two balding chia pets adrift in a watery aspic, it's obvious, you've let yourself go. this is a common complaint. the optometrist shrugs & puts down his crowbar--just what future could there possibly be in karaoke w/out an elk's head hooked to the wall? reconfiguring my platinum jockstrap i make a mental note to phone home. for the first time since the spidery woolens of the restoration the forecast's all concur : tomorrow these pavements will be greased by a rain wearing the 20,000 shoes i shined during the blackened tenure of my game show years, every window dervishing like a tribal slot in its sill. hurricanes have categories like in jeopardy & inside of each is an eye. i take an hour or two to sort through my things: boxes of albatross parts turtleneck sweaters & a plastic trumpet set to high C, & in the cabana that is my ear to the ground the contrapuntal crooning of drunken jockeys only gets louder, it adopts a decidedly caribbean lilt & i once again i feel that irresistible yearning to eat chili on a ferry boat while the sea gulls pitch pennies & place their bets on the rising tide. a pair of sunglasses rests atop a six foot obelisk of sears catalogues the price of plant food ringing bells in my head. this is not so much a matter concerning the transmittal of information as it is a calling which notifies nothing but for the 20,000 shoes of my advance tectonics #1 the nervous ear i clutch melted brush fires across iron papers that celebrate the curtain of burned ears collapsed on a cold morning free at last. national geographic p. 105 april 1991 #2 purple to red tomorrow the sect of absolute terrain will not recognize their warm tree as the icy water & lung-stopping pencil of transformation force manifestos of photomechanical craft toward a volatile 30 year journey of disconcerting line. hurry! constructivist the prophet of impact recapitulates plunge arts p. 54 march 1991 #3 a bright flash of light the frontier of bitter dream worries candlelight stars so much french brides flush like a bird, exotic in spotlight & delicate the jewelry of reason working lunch. suddenly marriage & the reinforced bank discuss autonomy they hold candy flowers for 6 months because tuxedos are credit cards important hands woo once a week. observation & ornament agree, the explosive wedding of self-disclosure remains a restaurant of international gowns. modern bride p. 52 apr/may 1993 #4 case history banned from the roaring courthouse a silver pawn clutches the failed go-go of its personality & the huckster of shrewd conclusions emerges as king to the toys that crackdowns & bonds made a portrait of enthusiastic thrift, running despite the auditors & their magnetic junk of collapse. time p. 36 oct 1, 1991 #5 scrub-brush when the explosion of pine changes sand to a foreign expression the best bunkers will lack confidence & realize the displacing action of heavy water will power needles through tight spots & effectively clean a forearm from the hazard of technique. golf p. 93 may 1990 chin music baseball, psychoses & duchamp ****** outside it's raining stained glass mists back & forth blown across conrad street opened & glistening a glazed ham on a plate w/backhoes jackhammerings moveable feasts its gas & water lines heaped by the curb. i'm grabbed a mustachioed cartoon glove 4 fingers by the ear & thrown into a closet an otis elevator plummeting rocks tossed a window concentric circles in a pond i'm carted off to the Lost Islands of Tongue a horse's ass darkly wagging & strangely silent the critical constants coursing the bloodstream like baseball, chin music & headstones in queues along the sidestreets rain the drops fracturing oceans & an old bird in her sunday best daffodils jammed in her hat barehands a baltimore chop 3rd baseside arms raised to the crowd's adoration. telephones demand much, they ring. **** ships i'm beached as ever conrad its inner workings a wristwatch beaten w/a ball peen hammer spikes honed meanwhile & mitts broken in, no need for any shrunken head elvis-hipped incantations it's astroturf, o ye cursed & tongue-lashed plastic grass grant 5 full be beneficent no glee-clubbed anthems please & howzabout a .400 hitter huh ted williams!join the navy be gob or tar don't soil your radiant whites on battlefields even if they are grass & dirt float on the water like a cork! & if this is a poor man's last roll of the bones or worse poor posture then what of it?let it ring! housekeys turn specific tumblers i'm the skeleton of keys i turn many locks cesar tovar the 9 positions fielded in 1 game. **** "40 days rain ain't jack"--the johnstown flood. a triple play around the horn turned by the mariners the confines the memorial kublai khan metrodome they paint the grass a deep green it never needs mown & all the fish there are keepers. "rain don't cut it, what we put down"--agnes. **** real life just like life runny eggs the bituminous roadways of toast bills white bathtubs brimming suds aren't there enough drownings isn't baseball enough? the alou bothers kneejerk retort: "GIVE ME 9 INNINGS OR GIVE ME DEATH!" all aboard her majesty's ship the MIMETIC goddammit which building is yours? ronald reagan you've become a literature & a celluloid horse there's 2 on 2 out & a 3-2 count here's the wind up the payoff pitch...& still you've got "ring around the collar." **** the tidy bowl man he's sinking his boat's been hit for god's sake toss him a painting! "oh the humanity" unwinding twin strands of spaghetti & improperly cooked they rise like cobras from a plastic plate teeming pasta & speak at length to me of moderation & the evils of drink but how often do you pitch a perfect game? **** water coursing below concrete the other network the sewers its lamps like canary suns kept pent in wire cages drilled into walls for when it backs up it clots it gathers in pools rallying itself through the other neighborhoods beneath ballpark schuylkill & brine. in the bullpen the stopper warms sockets trained on his yogi & drying the aspirin tablet on his pantleg he whirls into motion & toilets perhaps thousands in unison flush the porcelain crescendo it's descending nude a bicycle wheel mounted & spinning upon a stool. **** "it's a suicide" squeeze executed by the book & what w/the water table steadily rising turning end over end it's the world series it's hotcakes in the big house it's noah petitioning The Council of Arks for lumber & a rudder w/kick it's the whole biscuit & by god it's getting wet mabel i demand a word w/your god! the window it's cracked it's a puddle a pothole tire rims fly like insane frisbees off the ford wagon against the front door they too spin & come to a stop at the crack of a bat. the infield fly rule in effect it reminds you of grammar of growing up nervous under the thumb of the unnameable but it passes it's nothing the 7th inning stretch won't cure or a snub-nosed .38 frozen roped over the centerfield fence it's spring!12 tongues rooted growing weeds in my mouth we would like to take a walk we would buy each other beers then to an accord broadcast live on CNN bigger than baseball in boats. **** a runaway truck lacks discretion doesn't blush when it runs reds or even as it forces a train of glistening wheelchair through a plateglass window hawking bridal wear its intentions its foghorn blast do not equivocate it has 18 wheels & fear damn well had better quicken you, yours downstream, "a truck" **** never cross against the light swaying a clove it's garlic!swaying hung from a wire midvale the fish it's flashing reds & yellows swallowed w/out water or highballs, even as i sit spinning on a wooden stool salvaging moves for the coming invasion: hot dog wrappers their not to be trusted!loose tongues accurate only at close range & newspaper umbrellas deposit thick deltas of ink upon the concrete which atop the siamese rowhomes east falls philadelphia passes for the calligraphy of the ancients, li ho & ty cobb cursive i cannot fathom etched into the palms of my hands. i pop the tab on a beer that i might approximate purple mountains only to trip over delaware bruising the constitution, then harry's preamble & play by play microwaved from sunny san diego they dream nightly there of rain falling as 60 watt bulbs that pop off aluminum awnings & the paper plates of lawns. here though there's just these runny egged canary yellow centerfield seats 4 bucks removed w/the memory of soft pretzels & mustard gas still fresh on the white t-shirt i save for occasions such as this i move toward the wooden door, it looms inscrutable like a ham mailed from spain & i'm looking through it the 2 holes & i swear in the background by the waterfall the monuments to dead yankees "oh how we climbed" the hangovers conrad's hammerings the terrible backhoes & dawn.