Two Poems at Poetic Diversity

Two Poems at Poetic Diversity
Published November 2016

Dante's Disco Inferno

In Dante's Disco Inferno, they are rollerskating backwards down the
nine levels of the devil's den.

In Dante's Disco Inferno, Satan is wearing satin as he twirls through
Saturday night with a fever for the seven deadly sins.

In Dante's Disco Inferno, disco is not dead, but the souls are filled with
dread, as Virgil guides the tour of the Studio 54 of the underworld.

In Dante's Disco Inferno, everyone is talkin' jive, but nobody is stayin'
alive.

Burn, baby, burn.

Fear of a Cat Planet
	(With profuse apologies to Chuck D and Public Enemy) Ain't nuttin' but a feline thing. Cats everywhere, climbing Escher stairs and melting like Dali clocks on landscapes of couches in a desert of ten thousand suns. Cats chasing spiders into David Bowie's eardrum all the way to Mars. Cats zigging when they should be zagging. Cats weaving in and out of Emily Dickinson poems, knocking over dashes and smashing cryptic symbolism under foot. Cats chewing the film reel strips of a David Lynch movie. Cats hurling up piles of psychedelic puke, which tell a complex story that no one understands but that everyone loves. Cats winning Academy Awards. Cats clawing their way to the top, and hissing at the pseudo-stars. Cats on top of refrigerators. Cats inside refrigerators, eating all the lettuce. Cats morphing into refrigerators. Cats whirring and purring and freezing ice cubes inside their rib cages. Cats coming Straight Outta Compton with a crazy motherfucker named Ice Cube. Cats censoring rap lyrics. Cats inside tornadoes. Cats predicting a 90% chance of thunderstorms. Cats inhaling rain-filled clouds and heaving up hurricanes. Cats bouncing off the walls of asylums. Cats converting to Islam. Cats reading the Koran. Cats worshipping the original Isis. Cats embracing polytheism. Cats everywhere. Cats in the fireplace, huddling together to form furry flames. Cats warming up the house for winter. Cats laughing all the way to the bank. Cats campaigning to be on the $50 bill. Cats painting themselves onto butterfly wings. Cats soaring through the skies. Cats crashing into skyscrapers. Cats calling 911. Cats everywhere, including my hair. Cats teasing it into a 80's-style nest to attract Hitchcock birds. Cats making me go bald. Cats nowhere. Cats killed by cat haters. Cats ascending to the heavens. Cats becoming gods and goddesses. Cats zapping the haters with Zeusian thunderbolts. Cats cackling wickedly. Cats reincarnating into more cats, and multiplying again and again and again.