I've seen a monkey trying hard to love a robot, yo

but all they ever do is fight to the death for your soul.

They're on a planet that I never meant to visit at all.

Got a sign on the wall — the decree: you don't go.


So come on, make your trespass, get your flesh fast

turned to dust by the death rays. These are the best days

of our lives: mad scientists with swirly eyes;

people with supernatural powers who live in disguise,

who live in the skies, swing between the sky scrapers,

capes all-a-drape in the words on the shiny papers

that the stapler turned to a booklet, or otherwise perfect bound

so when the glue dries in my old age, loose pages all around;

sound of the wind rustling; cowboy zombies ride,

lassoing up the carrion calves and a skeletal bride.

I'm telling you I don't study the phrenology no more

but I'm astounded by the size of the heads in the store.

And I score my pull. Full moons and the howls commence;

tear through a stack in a night with little reticence.

I'm eating venisons in the woods, get an axe to the dome.

Ken is in pieces behind me — I can still hear him groan.

I should have known from the warning encoded into the name of the place:

forbidden planet, in impermissible space.


And on the surface of the planet, insanity abounds.

Eternal beings shape my sleep and every waking sound

that I make is loud. “Shazam!” I'd say, just to startle you

(a geek ejaculation in between a wave and a particle).

Did a part of you just die just like Clay Loudermilk

shaving information out of a dog without a head? And now the silk

smoking jacket worn by the smartest kid on earth

[Back off, nerd! This library's my turf.] ...and give berth

to the brick hats from Ignatz that fly in posthumous volumes.

At once coeval and incompossible: all rooms

at all times, silver age and foil covers mingle.

Something eldritch in the aisle: soul of the man who filched a single

glance at the most forbidden object on the whole orb.

I hint not at quixotic wandering; take the whole tour.

Look on the shelf under Rapper next to Elf,

you'll see a Frontalot one-fold if I have to smuggle it in myself.

I'm gonna hand-scribble it onto a napkin and then scan it,

print a pile of ‘em out, deliver ‘em to the planet.

I'll acquire a quire and if you don't know what I mean,

look it up: it's one twentieth of a ream.


[Got a song, listen fondly, don't hear a mondegreen]


You think you surrender me to the funny animals who inhabit

but I camp out in the cockpit of the crash land cause they're all rabid.

Don't jinx me now, I'm about to escape from here yet.

I'm on an island in the vastness of space [facing regret].

And I'm stranded alone, in need of some rescue,

already ran out of food, masticated my left shoe,

built a robot companion — on accident programmed it to feel.

So when it spared a little monkey from despair, its fate was sealed.


I've seen a monkey trying hard to love a robot, yo

but all they ever do is fight to the death for your soul.

They're on a planet that I never meant to visit at all.

Got a sign on the wall — the decree: you don't go.