Miranda Iwataki challenged me to spontaneously write a poem about soap. I tried and failed, but the need to do so burned within me. So much so that, six months later at 1:30 A.M. in darkest Kyoto I began to write what sits before you today.

"Soap"

Clean me
Take my insides and give me clarity
Fix me
Make me sterile, cool, and crud-free
Be my heroine babe and, save me
I'm shooting gysers of neutronic energy
I vomit flowers like you were on LSD
I sing with the forces of 500 horses
Pushing El Caminoes and Porches
And worse is I CAN'T STOP
Out of control like Regis Philbin
Forget the Million, just get me some AIR
I'm everywhere
Tasty and rare
Pent up like a package in Calvin Klein underwear
Let's not go there, let's go here
No, not here, here
You call this creativity?
It's a nativity of naivete and fear
See, here's Mary an' Joseph
An' a pipe bomb wrap'd in swaddling clothes and laying in a manger in fair Verona where we lay our scene
Count down to explode--DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER--
Set the world on fire
Three wise cracks adding fuel to the blaze
In back of the place is an ox and an ass, which is me
As seen on TV
As exposed to the world by David Duchovny
Soundtrack by Thomas D
Written and reflected in the eyes of every man an' wo-man
A novel adapation by Neil Gaiman proves lacking
With the Sandman sent packing
An apropos cameo by Delirium seems hackneyed
My friends are all drag-kings with acne
Ninth-level rogues who backstab me
Rolling up plenties of natural twenties
I go down like a prom date
Come up like what you ate when you mixed Pepto-Bismol with tequila and Kaopectate
You can blame it on fate
But it's a mistake to relate the victor with the winner in a state of debate
A love affair straight out of Greensleaves
Online like Keanu Reeves
Disconnect equals brain-freeze and Lawrence Fishborne needs me
Rip off Ghost in the Shell with dime-store philosophy
Knock, knock, sell some punk an expensive MD
Tip my hat to John Woo and make out with Trinity
Hey it's all about me, I'm #1
You've Come A Long Way, Baby
Now we're almost done
Want you to be my heroine
Like you to be my heroine
Want you to be my heroine
Want you to be my only heroine
Clean out my insides, defuse me
Bliss me out and use me
Radioactive tingle like Spiderman can be fanned or made bland
Can't you see I need to be put down?
Run my energy into a hole in the ground
My life-force has powers
My grave will sprout flowers
Their seeds will cure cancer, turn cripples to dancers
Prancers, and Vixens, Comets, and Cupids and Richard M. Nixon
Give me hope I'll be saved
Clean me up, Joan of Arc
Hold me down, give me hope
Want you to be my heroine
Need you to be my soap