In reverse ketchup
imagines an episode of "I dream of weenie"
but red goes better with yellow
than red with red;
with a bun as a breaker
Condiments are not so casual in taking over the world
With their lowest common denominator turnover
put in and on the crass squeeze

Ketchup mustard and the perfectly bedded dog wedded
betrothed to a wholesale Catholicism
I take this communion as sacred upon my entry
into marriage with the idea of a person spread among us as overlord- cookies and cake and the pastry chef
the garlands of flowers
and the whole grouping rising up in the theater's
seats
like Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
I stand bags chucked out for a handstand grab a plan
a woman or a man there is no such thing just an unending grandstand

Ketchup or was it mustard
and I am not sure
arrives at the front of the long table
across from where I sit
and all along after us are tour guides
he says we have a little problem
with our next hearing and he takes out some
stapled clippings from my file in a manila folder
short magazine pieces now seemingly followed by a bad review in a longer one
and then he said here I have like three firemen
who took your tour on 911 -though I was not even
working and I yell at him to go home while one of my cohorts chuckle and I call him a bastard
and he gets up from the table
and comes back to the table and his face is all red
ok well he must have been ketchup

you know I am not going to sit around here waiting for bottles of condiments to explode
as you reproduce yourself in simulacrum
go to a shopping mall in Beijing and win the clone contest for motherhood
take it to a Chelsea gallery parading as a museum and exhibit your predecessors’ organs in formaldehyde
whatever the answer make sure you know which bus
has the wheel chair lift when the crowd is dispatched out the door
to follow the umbrella
for a quick downtown
rushed by a driver
who does not give out his phone number
rushed out the door as the aging are harassed by the dying
I am not going to sit around here waiting for bottles of condiments to explode
who imagined a tour company needed a military hierarchy
who knew handbags would have to protect their copyright at the expense of the true scope of existence verbalized
who knew that we would try to navigate ourselves through this age of meaningless?
this age of infinite meaninglessness
Looking for the circle un-squared
according to the Chinese the square is the world
and the circle the universe which surrounds it

I should have stuck with the mayonnaise
or Serge perhaps a sage
in if not in robes of white;
at least a white shirt
only saying what has to be said
if only not or not because
of resignation to fate
standing at the expanding mandala
of a staircase where polygonals and tortillas rise
looking out over the vast plateau
of forever repeated sustenance and quasi stability
ready to walk the m through the winter garden again
Although out in nature leaves and branches are frozen over
sometimes trees in a pas de deux
looking weeping willow as if pink flamingos
while the diva orchestrates in contralto
Hey I should have stuck with the mayonnaise