"This Giant Shoe is the Farewell Kiss, You Dog!"

The Mayakovsky Tree suffered, plumed with ice from the storm.

Then the temperature went up to 60 and the windows opened. I was hiding in the bedroom closet. I slept in the Lafuma shoe box all afternoon, sweating like the Baby Jesus.

"My limbs are brittle and querulous," the Mayakovsky Tree said. "I would go back to my childhood just for a piece of candy, a smile, or an embarrassing parting kiss."

"Mayakovsky Tree, do you know what throwing a giant shoe means in the Arab world?"

"The White House is a common pimp and cardsharp, Shimmy. The President of the War on Terror struts against the sky and teases us with his callused feet."

"Invading and occupying a country and killing 1.3 million citizens is a deep insult in the Arab world, signifying that the country being invaded is as low as the dirt underneath the sole of a giant shoe," I said.

I stretched on the bean bag chair, pretending I was Barbarella. The shiny yellow vinyl made a delicate, crunchy noise when I licked my left paw.

"Giant shoes in breathable leather turn themselves inside out," the Mayakovsky Tree said. Melting snow dripped from his limbs. "Waterproof giant shoes made by overpronators are great for middlebrow downhill biking, remarkably successful waterboarding, or fancy wear and tear!"

"Hitting someone with a giant shoe made with a satin toe and a medium-width platform is a deep insult in the Arab world."

"Giant shoes gallop on their giant nerves until their legs give out, Shimmy!"

Hooray For Our Chains (5)

Hooray For Our Chains (4)

List XV

Chamundi slew Mahishasura and taught the world how to play cards.

Chamundi is an ideal. At an elevation of nearly 3500 feet, Chamundi studies early maps and cold, dark matter.

Chamundi Die Cast Ltd. lets you choose any doctor you wish.

Drawn on a single sheet of vellum, Chamundi haunts cremation grounds and fig trees.

Chamundi's 12 arms hold a Damaru, a trishula, a sword, a snake, a khatvanga, a thunderbolt, a severed head, a pack of 78 cards, a gorgeous cathedral, a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi, a violin, and a kapala filled with blood.

Chamundi Explosives Ltd. is committed to working with classic texts for lowbrow mass-appeal entertainment and sheer corrosive power.

The Vatican vs. Gertrude Stein (Part XVIII)

THE VATICAN: The priestly ministry, understood and lived as a conformation to Christ, bridegroom and good shepherd, requires certain abilities as well as moral and theological virtues. The church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies, or support the so-called "gay culture." Such persons find themselves in a situation that gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women. A candidate to the ordained ministry must reach affective maturity. Such maturity will allow him to relate correctly to both men and women, developing in him a true sense of spiritual fatherhood.

GERTRUDE STEIN: There is no pope.

The War on Terror Crosses the Threshold of its Own Abundance

"If you voted
for Barack Obama,
"I urge you to go
to confession
before receiving
communion.
Don't risk losing

your state of grace
by receiving
sacrilegiously."

Without
Proposition 8,
"a man
can have
27 wives"

"The spectacle

is the stage
at which
the commodity
has succeeded
in totally
colonizing
social life"

Don't
brush me

"You can be
terribly wrong
and stupid
and remain
a Times columnist
indefinitely,
but you must be
terribly wrong
and stupid
in the service of
the conventional
wisdom"

"'Since the nation’s
founding,'
the brief said,
'persons lawfully
residing in
this country
have correctly
understood that
they can be
imprisoned for
suspected wrongdoing
only if the government
charges them
with a crime and
tries them
before a jury'"

Brush
the other side
of me

"This roll
of quarters
can start you
on the road to
financial security
or it can be
spent on
Left Behind books.
It's up to you."

Quit looking
at me

"When it was time
for the Senate
to discuss
intelligence
regarding
the Iraq War,
he literally
skipped work
to go out
golfing."

"I thought you
would torture me,
and when you didn't,
I decided that
everything
I was told
about Americans
was wrong."

Saxby Chambliss Means the Flight of the Soul Toward God

Saxby Chambliss is content with what's happening. He is more severe than his prelude. The complicated phonemic code, "Saxby Chambliss," approximates traditional orthography. As your 41st senator, Saxby Chambliss records bestial mental images and buries them in your backyard. Saxby Chambliss looks in the mirror and sees a baby-blue-eyed spirit with a bad knee. Saxby Chambliss says he is content with what's happening, and for the next six years will scapegoat the bathtub spigot with no water coming out of it. Passengers on a luxury cruise liner said Wednesday they were surprised by Saxby Chambliss's boldness. "We didn't think Saxby Chambliss would be cheeky enough to attack Max Cleland," Wendy Armitage, of Wellington, New Zealand, told The Associated Press shortly after disembarking the ship for a daylong filibuster in Americus, Georgia. Saxby Chambliss freed Max Cleland and a Yemeni cargo ship after Sarah Palin paid a ransom of B-major with five sharps and a hissy fit.