I am Fat, Frustrated and Cannot Write a Poem

          Hippopotamus, platypus, fungus, Queen Victoria
with her lavender spiked dog collar

                    frustrated with the boredom of beach life and leashes

          contaminating the entire coastal regions of China
(if this was China)
with her spray on bronzer
                    pounding and pounding down the sandcastles of children
                    with her nylon fists like a child screaming
bang      bang       bam,      you’re dead mommy!

          (as if someone would open the door (to China))

          she believes in the existence of one Zombie Fred and the portrait
of the artist as a young man, though,

                    she would never have gone to the fair in the first place
because tanning

          is addictive and she wants to see the folks she digs
                    a pony-shaped castle.


          Calm thyself, California
          with your overhead compartment of ocean water,
black box, air strips,

skiffs the           color of Sun In inside pills the
                    consistency of trans fat Skippy peanut butter

like a crooner or a crock the high rollers, a phage
                    spreading sand on a Petri dish, infinitely gross and spreading

and as for the clean up crew, in their orange jumpsuits

          swift and suave pitchforks
to tetanus’s lockjaw song
          no
elbow room
          inside the last heavenly body ever to record

Geronimo, the tomb
of the unknown solider and
          how I wanted to tell you that
this poem eats strawberry ice cream by the gallon
                    and doesn’t stop to burp.