You Go, Me Stay, Two Autumns

行く我にとゞまる汝に秋二つ

— Masaoka Shiki

Wipe the lipstick   off the milk cartonGet off your high horse   and wicked palanquin

Dye your ancestral roots   kryptonite Day-GloPaint your opposable thumbs   Urban Decay bonobo

Photobomb a grief group   confess you’re happyHang upside-down off a moonbeam   screech like a banshee

You go   Me stay   two autumnsYou go   Me stay   two autumns

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Donne and Keats   scratching tunes   in the kitty litterPurring poetry and God   thru a negative-ion capacitor

Air-hug your Biker neighbor   not too tight   she might bite   Rock roses and jasmine   bathed   in chain-link light

Queen B’s a hivin’   Beyond Meat on the barbieSquid-ink gnocchi   6 ft away   still looks nasty

You’ve been knocking down mojitosFace-licking boychicks at the Grotto

Auntie’s decoupling   sending you back to Idaho

You go   Me stay   two autumnsYou go   Me stay   two autumns

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Catch a midge in midair   kiss her skinny lips   let goA raven attacks my wig   He’s Edgar Allan Poe

Twittering in twilight   raptors killing doves   Some singing about inequality   some crooning love

Don’t fall for the pool boy   ain’t got a poolDon’t fall for the girl-boy   can’t do ambiguity

But please wear an N95 face mask   if you wanna see me

You go   Me stay   two autumnsYou go   Me stay   two autumns

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June says you’re too quiet   Mei Ling   go shout at a rainbowAdrienne says   Come visit Michelle and me   for Utopian fish gumbo

(Why do I speak to the dead?   ’Cause the living are a-holes)

Fat Man   Little Boy   someone will hit bottomWhy worry about Nuclear Winter   our species will be forgotten

You go   Me stay   two autumnsYou go   Me stay   two autumns

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The Princess on the left   says you rhyme with “rich”The Princess on the right   says your poetry is she-eeeet!Over a million dead   better stay home   you might be next

I’m not funnier than Stevie Smith   waving her undiesNot funnier than Margaret Cho   I’m not that boldFunnier than Aristophanes?   (the frogs croak No!)

You go   Me stay   two autumnsYou go   Me stay   two autumns

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Is that a 19th-century Mauser   or are you happy to see me?Don’t brag about your viral load   you’re a peon amongst peonies

Hating Black people   though one is your brotherHating White people   though one is your mother

Killing racism     like killing liceBomb it Raid it   will return   Minnesota Nice

You go   Me stay   two autumnsYou go   Me stay   two autumns

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Visited Granny Wong   in her raised metal bedHelped her to Root Erase   Aubergine Drag

She told this story   (sorry, my translation is bad)

    One day whilst shopping at Walmart    A hoodlum grabbed my brocade purse    And called me a stupid old chink!    I chased him down the parking lot    Hooked his ankle with my phoenix-claw cane    Dragged him home in my flying wheelchair    Reciting the dharma of six thieves    Steamed some butterfly shrimp dumplings    In celestial garlic persimmon cream    He gorged three bowls and licked the spoon    Then napped in my La-Z-Boy like a prince    I said, “I’ll call your mother to fetch you”    He said, “But my mother is dead”Praise the mysterious female   mysterious femalePraise the mysterious female   mysterious female

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I met a masked Vaquera   at the border fairWe line danced to “Cupid Shuffle”   and “Achy Breaky Heart”

She loved   Selena   Shakira   and cumbia bandsDon’t remember much now   but the pony can dance!

You go   Me stay   two autumnsYou go   Me stay   two autumns