Carma Bums
Press
The Performance Worlds of The Lost Tribe and the Carma Bums Liminalities, A journal of performance studies. Vol 6. No. 4 November 2013 http://liminalities.net/9-4/bruner.pdf
Collaborative Poem by the Carma Bums
Theme Song For The Movie of the World News :An Eerie ElegyThe Revenge of the Vending Machines & The Hotdogs of War 2003 The Carma Bums – Los Angeles/Atlanta, M. Lane Bruner, S.A. Griffin, Doug Knott, Mike M. Mollett & Scott Wannberg
somewhere just before the end of this fractured film of ours
long before the blind off-track bettors
declare the winners of the three legged horse race
long before the apocalyptic think tanks lurch
blindly forward in the final strut of
we don’t remember what we were
over the glowing desert with brave new stolen languages
free to reap & mine
the bittersweet nuclear harvest
of blood and oil
and sugar-souls that got liberated
even before the bastard bite of history calls home the false rewards
the bounty hunters of glory
come ready to rock
all powered up all right
but repeatedly stalled
at the gate
it was a beautiful blaze in shattered baskets of chaos
that lit our way to see us through the afterglow of fetid victory
& you’d think it was that damned
d-u-m, dumb like dirt Sadaam who’s insane,
but no,
just Sodom & Gomorrah lit by burning Bush, by George!
now you know we’re just acting positive to say that
(don’t look back)
Oh, stink me! We are a happy atomic pillar of love
stumbling piecemeal into the
ancient heat of frankincense and myrrh
over there, on the field of battle
modern muted verses of epic spear-throwers
split the artless air full of ticking gusts and empty promises
their wild history never told
stuttering into bomb-deaf ears from undisclosed locations
while nuclear winds of niggling network news
sweep clean the antediluvian hands of, time’s up!
those hands hanging in the air like
so much plenty dirty laundry
racing against the crusading world of news networks
washed red, white and blue
with subliminal pornographic x-tra-hi nipplefocus chic -
I mean ABC the happiest place on earth
NBC just another stock exchange of information
Generally Electric CBS
(well, not all the time, but just generally)
& CNN & TBN & can ya add two or three more ack-ack acronyms?
I’ll B-E-T betcha!
the cosmos has misplaced its parking ticket
and there is no validation available at this time
the violated cosmos crying out once again for the ice-blue Krishna moment :
Eve & Adam
apple & snake
Ali & Babba
T.B. & Dubya Dubya III
licking clean
the radioactive rib of victory -
Yum!
strip teasing reality TV
enticing the swelling prick & womb of interest
anticipating the fateful ending
wrestling with the awful results of the stupid truth
in the unforgiving photo finish flash
the impatient ticket holders shuffling uneasily
while history takes inventory of
the next recipient strange love holocaust
Who will win?
Who helps Who control Who?
together, gripped in shrouds of mortal mud
we were the horse and empire riders of HumVee/SUV and ATM -
we had a good run,
running the last fake races with them
again, we thought it was real, but we learned that
angels of fate
angels of mercy
angels hovering over other angels
angels grimacing over other angels
looking over our shoulders at the
angels of death
angels in the Texas out&oilfields
our better angels of Lincoln’s tomb
and even the angels of a merciful war & peace
who may or may not be accountable or even available
for deep flight surgeries to the other side where the dead rest dreaming transpersonally hammered into ethereal sentience by everything
they never understood or spoke of
while the spirit gives back to itself,
mirrors like a river said, Hegel on his toilet, what once it was
at the camp of forgotten holy warriors on fool’s errands
where no one is anyone really anymore
except Buddha-face, who is looking backward
at all our immigrant fantasies
chanting about how to get it cheap, and real,
as our real dream lay abandoned in pieces all about us
slim hope broken & blowing away
like the desert sand we capture vanishing
with our pawnshop Salvador Dali melto-hands
we must buy gas masks, and safety, real, and cheap
and lots of duct tape
for a safer world right now! GET IT?!!
(we had to buy what we were directed to buy into at any price)
OR ELSE!
forget having a good time -
Goddamned humanity!
what the hell’s it all good for anyway?
Hey buddy, could you spare some peace for the change? Peace a chance?
Hey sister, would you sell away our blood for a rich shot?
Hey friend, do you hear the clarion call hip-hop forever may we be blessed?
Can I grope you? I am a needy society!
some sound track thank you fevers
lick unruly continents of wounded bones
that claim they can hold a tune
no one can dance to
I can’t, and I’m glad
the monster makes perfect sense
as certainty compels the converted over the cliff
Gods & Generals are driven by protesters
along with their signs of mad cowboy disease
the new Romans thundering again into the born-again wilderness
sent there
by God,
to learn their lessons over again
& again
when we lose our way
we take our useless tickets home
left in a drawer with the rest of what we've lost
we do it for you who are what we were yesterday
who have never won their right mind honestly
half-life time spits inane love songs from the abyss of the stomach
a strange file indeed over an Internet of sincere liars
while at the see thru internment camp for fleas at Guantanamo
elephant audience demands something better than
dogs for best friends
meanwhile,
back at the oasis
the best music of all is late in showing up
with its weary resume
attached to its sad but sacred heart
but it does arrive
stop and listen
it is what you have been waiting to hear all your life
and its really good news!
we are more than we would have been.
otherwise,
we’ll all get up tomorrow with our new, sandy-desert-colored faces
with tank parts for arms
and missile legs
mortar recall
night vision
and transformer everything
in time
we suck in our enemies
with sweet justice for all
and they become every good old-timey Republic Western we ever saw
with John Wayne
Tom Mix
Hoppy & Roy, Trigger & Silver
& hey Lone Ranger, don’t forget Tonto, Kemosabe
as we Hi Yo & AWAAAYYYYY!!!!
happy trails to you, whoever you are…
until we meet again
in our sad agrarian nowhere
in our present rapture
here in Camp Heaven
as the movie flickers away
Vaya con Dios my darlings…
framed
one
frame
at
a
time
somewhere just before the end of this fractured film of ours
long before the blind off-track bettors
declare the winners of the three legged horse race
long before the apocalyptic think tanks lurch
blindly forward in the final strut of
we don’t remember what we were
over the glowing desert with brave new stolen languages
free to reap & mine
the bittersweet nuclear harvest
of blood and oil
and sugar-souls that got liberated
even before the bastard bite of history calls home the false rewards
the bounty hunters of glory
come ready to rock
all powered up all right
but repeatedly stalled
at the gate
it was a beautiful blaze in shattered baskets of chaos
that lit our way to see us through the afterglow of fetid victory
& you’d think it was that damned
d-u-m, dumb like dirt Sadaam who’s insane,
but no,
just Sodom & Gomorrah lit by burning Bush, by George!
now you know we’re just acting positive to say that
(don’t look back)
Oh, stink me! We are a happy atomic pillar of love
stumbling piecemeal into the
ancient heat of frankincense and myrrh
over there, on the field of battle
modern muted verses of epic spear-throwers
split the artless air full of ticking gusts and empty promises
their wild history never told
stuttering into bomb-deaf ears from undisclosed locations
while nuclear winds of niggling network news
sweep clean the antediluvian hands of, time’s up!
those hands hanging in the air like
so much plenty dirty laundry
racing against the crusading world of news networks
washed red, white and blue
with subliminal pornographic x-tra-hi nipplefocus chic -
I mean ABC the happiest place on earth
NBC just another stock exchange of information
Generally Electric CBS
(well, not all the time, but just generally)
& CNN & TBN & can ya add two or three more ack-ack acronyms?
I’ll B-E-T betcha!
the cosmos has misplaced its parking ticket
and there is no validation available at this time
the violated cosmos crying out once again for the ice-blue Krishna moment :
Eve & Adam
apple & snake
Ali & Babba
T.B. & Dubya Dubya III
licking clean
the radioactive rib of victory -
Yum!
strip teasing reality TV
enticing the swelling prick & womb of interest
anticipating the fateful ending
wrestling with the awful results of the stupid truth
in the unforgiving photo finish flash
the impatient ticket holders shuffling uneasily
while history takes inventory of
the next recipient strange love holocaust
Who will win?
Who helps Who control Who?
together, gripped in shrouds of mortal mud
we were the horse and empire riders of HumVee/SUV and ATM -
we had a good run,
running the last fake races with them
again, we thought it was real, but we learned that
angels of fate
angels of mercy
angels hovering over other angels
angels grimacing over other angels
looking over our shoulders at the
angels of death
angels in the Texas out&oilfields
our better angels of Lincoln’s tomb
and even the angels of a merciful war & peace
who may or may not be accountable or even available
for deep flight surgeries to the other side where the dead rest dreaming transpersonally hammered into ethereal sentience by everything
they never understood or spoke of
while the spirit gives back to itself,
mirrors like a river said, Hegel on his toilet, what once it was
at the camp of forgotten holy warriors on fool’s errands
where no one is anyone really anymore
except Buddha-face, who is looking backward
at all our immigrant fantasies
chanting about how to get it cheap, and real,
as our real dream lay abandoned in pieces all about us
slim hope broken & blowing away
like the desert sand we capture vanishing
with our pawnshop Salvador Dali melto-hands
we must buy gas masks, and safety, real, and cheap
and lots of duct tape
for a safer world right now! GET IT?!!
(we had to buy what we were directed to buy into at any price)
OR ELSE!
forget having a good time -
Goddamned humanity!
what the hell’s it all good for anyway?
Hey buddy, could you spare some peace for the change? Peace a chance?
Hey sister, would you sell away our blood for a rich shot?
Hey friend, do you hear the clarion call hip-hop forever may we be blessed?
Can I grope you? I am a needy society!
some sound track thank you fevers
lick unruly continents of wounded bones
that claim they can hold a tune
no one can dance to
I can’t, and I’m glad
the monster makes perfect sense
as certainty compels the converted over the cliff
Gods & Generals are driven by protesters
along with their signs of mad cowboy disease
the new Romans thundering again into the born-again wilderness
sent there
by God,
to learn their lessons over again
& again
when we lose our way
we take our useless tickets home
left in a drawer with the rest of what we've lost
we do it for you who are what we were yesterday
who have never won their right mind honestly
half-life time spits inane love songs from the abyss of the stomach
a strange file indeed over an Internet of sincere liars
while at the see thru internment camp for fleas at Guantanamo
elephant audience demands something better than
dogs for best friends
meanwhile,
back at the oasis
the best music of all is late in showing up
with its weary resume
attached to its sad but sacred heart
but it does arrive
stop and listen
it is what you have been waiting to hear all your life
and its really good news!
we are more than we would have been.
otherwise,
we’ll all get up tomorrow with our new, sandy-desert-colored faces
with tank parts for arms
and missile legs
mortar recall
night vision
and transformer everything
in time
we suck in our enemies
with sweet justice for all
and they become every good old-timey Republic Western we ever saw
with John Wayne
Tom Mix
Hoppy & Roy, Trigger & Silver
& hey Lone Ranger, don’t forget Tonto, Kemosabe
as we Hi Yo & AWAAAYYYYY!!!!
happy trails to you, whoever you are…
until we meet again
in our sad agrarian nowhere
in our present rapture
here in Camp Heaven
as the movie flickers away
Vaya con Dios my darlings…
framed
one
frame
at
a
time