L. Andrew Cooper's Horrific Scribblings

The ten-syllable rhymed line’s seduction

Sometimes impairs my base will to function,

As I have lost myself inside the sound,

And I doubt my feet will now touch the ground,

At least not at this stanzaic junction.

 

What of real life’s strong-held malediction

For anyone who defies prediction

That words work better in strong prose’s mound—

The ten-syllable…?

 

I understand the modern reaction,

But I will issue no choked retraction

To satisfy assholes too tightly wound

To take word music wherever it’s found—

Yes, I say “fuck them” with satisfaction!

The ten-syllable!

 

 

 

Don’t get used to it. The best stuff changes.

What takes years’ planning, fate rearranges.

Enjoy a good moment—two if you dare:

Never forget that the world doesn’t care

For you or your goals. Its best estranges.

 

All throughout life, we will take our plunges

And get back up, scraping off the grunges

And other proof showing that we were there.

Don’t get used to it,

 

For upon our absence a plan hinges,

And we won’t be counted among the whinges.

We’ll carry on with will strong like a bear

And wield sharp weapons inside each nightmare

That on the daytime darkly impinges.

Don’t get used to it.

 

 

 

Famously facile, aptly maladroit,

We know somebody somewhere is stupid,

Send a drone to make sure, to reconnoit,

Find where everyone thrown for a loop hid.

 

Send out a message, two or three meanings,

Make quite sure none of them stands out too much—

With such a message people take beanings,

Hitting their heads for clear answers and such.

 

Stupendously super, hoorahed and hip,

They know they have little foibles to hide,

For each time their ratings go for a dip

They take extra shots of formaldehyde.

 

Yes, they know everything. Isn’t it grand?

Everything’s knowable now. Understand?

 

 

 

I want to tell all the secrets I know.

I want the secrets to be worth a show.

I want the hushed show to have millions go.

I want the millions to make secrets grow.

 

Secrets transform when they get left open.

Softer memory ends crestfallen,

And forces pull you under the ocean

And speak hard truths unmeant to be spoken.

 

With bigger secrets, more people hear you;

With bigger secrets, you’re a big to-do.

With bigger secrets, amazing shit flew;

With bigger secrets, your you-know-what grew!

 

I want to tell all the secrets I know.

They get you, you see, with the undertow.

 

 

 

Fair-minded people need to get it right:

They lost the battle, time to suck it tight.

Time to accept fairness has gone away;

Too bad if you choose to get sick today;

Time to accept they have turned out the light.

 

Do I exaggerate our current plight

When I say we’re screwed by whackos’ crazed might?

The screw drills deeper each day that they stay,

Fair-minded people.

 

We must evict the heartless parasite

Who knows nothing about how people fight

To breathe, to work, even to have a say,

Even to be sorts who care anyway,

Because of so much taken by the blight—

Fair-minded people.

 

 

 

I want to form an association:

Folks afflicted with dissociation

Can join with minimal hesitation

For it requires no congregation.

 

Indeed, we have enough of discussion

On our own, with our own repercussion

Sufficient for inner-head percussion

Worthy of a world-blurring concussion.

 

So what’s the point of associating

When we might not wish to be deviating

From our patterns geared to obviating

Unwanted turns, which are irritating?

 

Perhaps in the ether we’d discover

New exciting ways to help each other.

 

 

 

I’m a volatile personality.

I’m still working on what this means to me.

Up and down and through the fickle middle;

I’ve been on this ride since I was little.

It’s frustrating, and I know you agree.

 

What about the extra chances to see

Life in its grand, extreme variety?

My oh my, ain’t that one a big shit hill!

I’m a volatile personality.

 

I seem to have a greater destiny

Making up rhymes of fameless infamy

About the fuckers with whom I’d fiddle

Because my words more than their dicks diddle.

Doing that, do I cross a boundary?

I’m a volatile personality.

[photos pending. maybe]

 

The curtain’s up. They await performance.

They demand action, with hints of romance.

I have worked too long on this silent dance;

I have lost all faith in the arts of chance.

 

The curtain’s up. I guess I’ll be moving.

For some it’s easy to grind while grooving,

While I find songs of despair more soothing,

Curtain-down feelings that need no proving,

 

But curtain’s up, boys: it’s time for a smile!

I guess we can fake it a little while.

Audiences mistake depression for guile

And think you’re malingering, artist-style.

 

Ra-ta-ta-tap goes rhythm of despair—

If you can move you can act like you care.

 

 

 

Observing the world while not quite a part,

My body pumping blood without a heart,

I see everything better than you do—

I see the grooves and the point of the screw—

My vision links nowhere to being smart.

 

It’s disconnected from all at the start,

Pushing reality off in a cart,

Eying the shelves for what’s next in the stew,

Observing the world.

 

No, it’s not smart, but it’s a shopping art

To spot which screws hold you up at the mart.

What I’ve been cooking serves more than a few.

It’s based on seeing the mart looks like you.

I’ll take my druthers and tear you apart,

Observing the world.

 

 

 

Violence and words are out of control,

Uppity in their pushy pretension.

They do some damage that they can’t console,

Although they have a healing dimension.

 

Everyone knows that cleansing brings rebirth,

And birth is violent—mothers can tell.

Violence burns with the turns of the Earth,

And moves its cycles to keep them all well.

 

I could praise words in similar fashion—

Keys to discover, and to share passion.

The problem is, both forces can cash in

And multiply as parasites dash in.

 

When they multiply they over-consume.

Each person you meet acts like a legume.

 

 

 

Songs for the weird would placate the hurt soul

For the true weird are seeking to be whole.

Forget all this nonsense, being badass,

It’s just a stratagem to help us pass—

Revealing the weird serves nerves on a roll.

 

Is I am our not? Questions take a toll.

Sing it aloud to make answers a goal!

Don’t sing it soggy; sing it with sass—

Songs for the weird.

 

When will this babbling donkey go foal?

He’s so fucking normal, I’d pelt with coal

Each of his soft parts except for his ass

Because if he popped out a real jackass,

Then he’d be weird, a part of the fol—

d. Songs for the weird.

 

 

 

I come by it honestly, this contempt—

When bigots in red states offend exempt

From penalty, as their cronies run law,

And they offended where everyone saw,

I’d say I’ve a right to roil unkempt.

 

What if I get lost in the mad attempt

To lash out with forces I shouldn’t tempt?

I look at the prospect with a guffaw.

I come by it honestly.

 

I still play on fields where evil has romped,

With demon fist-fights where devil-hooves clomped,

And having been so close to Satan’s maw,

I’ve come out feeling rather far too raw

Not to want to see my enemies stomped:

I come by it honestly.

 

 

 

Inevitable logic of parting

Will articulate algorithmically

Given the temporal parameters

Appropriate to suddenly starting

A newer way to live, and to be

Among the many predicted quitters,

 

Which is not to say all will be quitters,

Which is not implied by common parting,

Which turns out, here and there, often to be

Precipitously, algorithmically,

Engaged in the act of up and starting

Conflicts with similar parameters

 

For those with similar parameters

In relations, never before quitters,

Now cataloguing problems, starting

The protocols of practical parting,

Proceeding, in step, algorithmically,

To determine en masse what will soon be

 

The new state of what’s no longer to be

Which will have, certainly, parameters

For them to observe algorithmically,

Ceremonious in being quitters,

As is ordained by logic of parting,

And that is only how it is starting,

 

For they know parting involves a starting,

And stopping, and starting, looping to be

Synced with logic that feels like brains parting,

But this halting follows parameters,

Like everything—they’re not being quitters

Now, as they approach, algorithmically,

 

Problems that you solve algorithmically:

They move to doing, transcending starting,

Discarding notions of being quitters,

Preferring, at last, what was meant to be,

What answers all of their parameters,

The only logical thing left, parting.

 

Trouble in algorithmically parting

Is re-starting lies in parameters—

Parting won’t end; quitters never can be.

 

 

 

I can be abstruse where no one will look.

I don’t need all my poems in a book.

I can write whatever the hell I want:

Down with the dick and glory to the cunt!

It’s my website; only I’m on the hook.

 

You might read on your Fire or on your Nook

A site such as this, such as gods forsook.

You won’t lose a dime on your surfing hunt.

I can be abstruse.

 

Bask in my weirdness—it’s like drugs you took!

If you don’t eat it all, at least we cook.

On lots of my words you might choose to bunt,

But most of them are common as currant,

And rhythm and rhyme are meanings that shook!

I can be abstruse!

 

 

Interplanetary destruction is

Sometimes required by vengeful feelings

Spurred on by series of bad businesses

And underhanded, cheap, dirty dealings.

 

“Send out the death rays!” The good people cry.

They all want carnage, they want big fire:

They want to see their space enemy die,

To crash and burn in some acid mire.

 

Ships have technology to serve up death;

As you know, space is where no one hears screams,

As there aren’t soundwaves, and no source of breath.

Serving are quiet and won’t disturb dreams.

 

In all, destruction in space is truly fine.

Get your revenge while the bright lasers shine!

Your downtown is not at all my downtown.

Yours is a sexy and exclusive clown;

Mine looks at more than black and white and brown.

Your downtown is not at all my downtown.

 

Your home feel is not at all my home feel.

Yours gets injections to create appeal;

Mine at times falls short, but at least it’s real.

Your home feel is not at all my home feel.

 

Your fairness is not at all my fairness.

Your ideals would profit from a huge mess;

Mine would find ways to help, a decent guess.

Your fairness is not at all my fairness.

 

You get the message: you can’t pass the buck.

This poem is about how much you suck.

 

Never explain your life to anyone,

And if someone asks, get set to have fun:

Make up some ripe lies—yes, spin out a tale

Of dones and didn’ts—don’t let them exhale!

Surely you’ve got a daydream that’ll stun.

 

Why not offer a good explanation

For all the craziest things that you’ve done?

Nobody’s going to roil, reel, or rail:

Never explain your life.

 

Maybe I’m all wrong: you’ve not yet begun

To really live, to have days in the sun.

Maybe you’ve got the bug, the banshee’s wail,

And you would shriek it all, every detail,

But you still shouldn’t—you’d best choose a gun.

Never explain your life.

 

Seamus awoke on the dull scratchy side,

Unimpressed by his own dry sentiment,

Burdened by grouchiness no one could hide,

Weighted by some grumps to his detriment.

Having lost track of all tact, which had died,

He called being awake experiment.

 

Much else in life, too, was experiment;

The trick to knowing was choosing a side—

Bully or bully—the real champs all died—

But the one you chose would show sentiment

That props you up to others’ detriment.

Thus the social experiment won’t hide.

 

But on days like these, Seamus would rather hide:

He’d not perform for an experiment

Or even process others’ detriment

Because his brain was deep on the fried side

And he’d have to scrounge for a sentiment

Even if he found out the whole world died.

 

Maybe overnight something inside died,

Some animate force you typically hide

Because it’s tender, loose with sentiment,

Prone to trust, and prone to experiment

With activities on the free wild side,

Freedom found to be of great detriment.

 

How much of this was fearing detriment,

Fearing what would be after something died,

Fearing having no one else on your side,

Fearing having no place left to hide,

Fearing love was a cold experiment,

Fearing the costs of sharing sentiment?

 

That seemed too grandiose a sentiment

For a morning of grouchy detriment

To no one but himself, experiment

To no one but himself, who may have died

To no one but himself, so he would hide

From no one but himself, on his own side.

 

Even the scratchiest sentiment died

With the detriment he would never hide

As he performed experiments inside.

 

Bad days begin with a bang, inner din

To wake all the demons feeding on sin

From past encounters with people I’ve known

In deepest mistakes, each one that I own,

And demons latch on to each with a grin.

 

If each demon could prick me with one pin

I’d end with ten million pricked deep within.

Like one accustomed, I would merely groan:

Bad days begin.

 

I prattle of demons, saved in a bin,

Barrel of monkeys, drowning in fine gin—

I seek the treatment for seeds that I’ve sown—

Drinking and smoking won’t do it alone—

How do you tend what goes under the skin?

Bad days begin.

 

Ansel the Anvil goes down to the line.

He dashes enemies’ brains every time.

Dressed up for tennis with racket to mime,

He serves up bombs knocked from heights near divine.

 

Coifed by professionals, he looks quite fine

Drinking his tonic and gin with a lime

Behind a shower of self-shielding grime

That basically serves as a quarantine.

 

His motivation’s a slippery force,

As he only takes orders from Ollies.

He doesn’t seek fame or care for money

But from reality wants a divorce

To escape humankind’s many follies—

Thus Ollie science is good as honey.

 

This is the quiet that goes forever.

Nothing will ever work out in the end.

The time for moving was then—now, never.

 

The wind had your back—swoosh, like a feather—

But in a pillow in stasis you blend.

This is the quiet that goes on forever.

 

You have brought a map—well, aren’t you clever!

Didn’t they tell you that paper will rend?

The time for moving was then—now, never.

 

You and your pals will make it together?

How often you see the back of a friend!

This is the quiet that goes on forever:

 

The words hold you in place like a tether,

Blocking each meaning you think, you intend—

The time for moving was then—now, never—

 

Never to be, forever to sever

From the relations you couldn’t defend—

This is the quiet that goes on forever—

The time for moving was then, now, never.

 

A world that got stuck with no solutions,

Rising tide levels, global pollutions

Rewriting keywords in constitutions

With increased profits, low contributions—

 

For the rich folk have destroyed everything.

Mermaids have been canned; that’s fried dodo wing.

They don’t care what’s dead; they don’t feel the sting

Of the dreaded apocalypse they bring.

 

When it’s us or them, we vote suicide.

We’re so darned clever—check out our huge pride.

Cheer America! Who’s on Russia’s side?

We screwed ourselves because rich people lied.

 

Hey-ho, it’s a-go, the end-of-world show!

You wanted to know. You do. What a blow!

Changes in genre take new perspective

And might require a true directive

From a bright muse whose strength I accuse

Of making me the type of guy to abuse

Formula so displayed it’s reflective.

 

Don’t get me wrong—this is no invective

Against any quick turns, introspective,

Or likely to feel like one to accuse

Changes in genre.

 

This sharp turn has made writing more active

And my characters much more attractive

With strings of battles they will win or lose,

Flashbacks and foreshadows bound to confuse,

I’ve not been farther from science factive:

Changes in genre.

 

Gnomes in the nethers are knocking away.

They open your mind like a heavy book.

Gnomes in the nethers say have a nice day.

 

They’re pretty friendly—well, in their own way.

They get in your eyes, share your mode of look.

Gnomes in the nethers are knocking away

 

Because down inside we know you’re kray-kray.

Inside the old bin we’ll make you a nook.

Gnomes in the nethers say have a nice day

 

As they get inside you like a cheap lay,

Swoop into your brain, like it’s on their hook:

Gnomes in the nethers are knocking away!

 

They are stoic creatures and hard to sway:

They lead you about by stick or by crook.

Gnomes in the nethers say have a nice day

 

As they insist that your mood not decay.

Ingratitude’s something gnomes will not brook.

Gnomes in the nethers are knocking away.

Gnomes in the nethers say, “Have a nice day!”

 

Lunatic fringe is a knitting mistake.

It simply ruins each scarf that you make.

Wear it outside in the sun, and you’ll bake.

Say it’s a fashion; they’ll call you a fake.

 

Lunatic fringe has no grasp on the facts.

It hears itself, feels surprised, and reacts.

It flies in freefall, which never retracts.

It bounces off real: that’s how it attracts.

 

Lunatic fringe decorates power’s halls.

It wants to preach hate; it wants to build walls.

It wants to make sure competence means balls

And police who’s who inside bathroom stalls.

 

Lunatic fringe is a fabric that kills:

Why does it occupy our knitting skills?

 

In each of our lives, there comes an hour

When we have need of more firepower.

We see all our enemies in a line,

And we need action of blasting design,

Something to make them bend knee and cower.

 

Now’s no time for some peace-loving flower!

Find caches of ammo—and devour!

Recall that guns are how the West works fine

In each of our lives.

 

Somehow when things go far south of sour—

Everything’s blown to bits—lawmen glower—

You know it still wouldn’t be asinine

To blast your way out, resist, undermine,

But know that failures always will tower

In each of our lives.

 

If I’d rely on me, that’d be why

I’d lied to the ones who on me rely,

For truth’s when what’s better’s always a lie,

As counterfactuals open an eye,

 

Which is as, say, presently, with a sigh,

But rely on me to chat like I’m high,

Carrying on ’til you just want to die—

Really, I should let this go, shouldn’t I?

 

Letting go isn’t so easy, you know.

It’s more of a pageant, less of a show.

Full of formulae about letting go,

They’re numbers, you know, you go, and it’s so.

 

If you relied on this poem’s about,

You might go with it, end up hollowed out.

At the threat center, the hot threat venter

Takes comfort: he keeps a grand eye on things.

Life is for the surveillance presenter,

Who will drone on until eyes have grown wings.

 

Without being watched the world could be botched

And bungled: we need strong hands with our gaze.

The herds can all be beered, bourboned, and scotched:

No one gives a damn as long as we graze.

 

So we submit to the worst we’d admit—

It’s shameful: each day becomes a striptease.

Someone says we should bow down and eat shit;

We drop to our knees and ask for more, please.

 

The eyes of great gods mean nothing today:

A holy vision would get in the way.

 

I don’t mean to gush if you’re in rush,

But late at night, when you listen, it’s lush:

City secrets get whispered in water

In fountains run clear while sensing slaughter:

Businessmen, criminals, all in a hush.

 

But this babbling bit must be mere mush!

Downtown décor adds excess for the plush:

Make no more of this fantasy fodder—

I don’t mean to gush.

 

Think of a fountain and start feeling flush;

Imagine each burst is a dam you crush.

Smacking down hang-ups with a prude-swatter,

You may get wet, but you’ll get much hotter—

The dribbles tickle you like a hairbrush—

I don’t mean to gush.

 

Select symbols for versatility.

People know shapes will mean just what you say.

Spiraling down has strange ability:

 

Biking downhill has risibility,

A laughing good time to wind down the day.

Select symbols for versatility.

 

Downward spirals’ full visibility

Would signal a person bound for dismay.

Spiraling down has strange ability

 

To dull sensing life’s livability.

Things black and white look increasingly grey.

Select symbols for versatility,

 

And you’ll see their endless utility,

The magic of twisting any which way:

Spiraling down has strange ability!

 

When you’ve absorbed complete futility

And seen all meaning as mere joyless play,

Select symbols for versatility:

Spiraling down has strange ability.

 

To help those who like the world well-labeled,

Columbus was a great deal enabled.

People who fetishize taxonomy

Enjoy the fringes of astronomy

Because of things they’ve arranged and tabled.

 

Around here for folks it’s widely fabled,

Dude said this was that (with God he cabled),

That’s how things got to be for you and me

To help those who like the world well-labeled.

 

The problem is, we Tower of Babeled.

Which label’s whose—we’re whited, we’re sabled—

We don’t know we all have the same decree,

Reverence for life in philosophy—

We know what we are, not why we’re stabled

To help those who like the world well-labeled.