He was the CEO of CEOs.
Hotboxed his spacious workplace
in the clouds.
Felt his heavy eyes fall in on themselves.
The highest office in the land.
Getting on the phone to listen
to some strange voice say a bunch
of even stranger numbers.
Then under his desk to construct a fort.
Shooting staples at imaginary armies.
Looking at his plant in the corner
and wondering about photosynthesis.
Trying to figure out why rain was wet
before the munchies kicked in.
The cricket sings the dark
the dark to sing away.
To his own gut feeling
the frog responds.
The whippoorwill skims the pond,
intercepting in the dark
moth, beetle, firefly;
calls his name the moment he forgets
he has no name, calls his name
the moment he forgets
the moment he forgets calls.
The owl intuits the soul of chance.
The mouse, in owl claws,
with no further complaint
than a phrase of squeaks,
leaves this plane for perhaps a better
place; but the frog, the cricket,
the whippoorwill on it do not bet.
i went dancing with a train
but never got the ride i wanted
sometimes you never reach
the bottom of your depravity
the ghosts don’t even bother
to show up anymore
and the hours and days start
to pile like trash
like old phone books used
for kindling
spread my ashes in a field
and cover them in shit
just an old poet
nothing more
nothing less
some fucking sage that
warned all of you but
none of you ever bothered
to listen
to understand
to squeeze the marrow
out of life before the
powers that be squeeze
it for you
we were once young at this
ready to conquer the world
or something like that
“It sure is beautiful here,” he says, overlooking the thriving nightlife of the city that never sleeps.
“Not yet,” she interrupts, grabbing his hand and pulling him back to reality, her eyes glowing in the black light of the party awaiting them. “But it will be.”
The man hadn’t been seeing the woman very long, but when he knew, he knew, and you know what? He knew. He loved her. He felt alive around her. Something he hadn’t felt in years. Not since his ex left him. No note. No explanation. Just a ghost from his past who left him with the chains that would hold him from his future.
Until he met her. The new woman. The one who didn’t drink but partied like she did. Drinking in a crowded room full of strangers listening to live music while the woman you love dances around you is the very definition of being alive. And that is how he knew. Because he felt alive when he was with her.
“It’s almost time,” she screams into his ear, only slightly audible as the bass kicks in and the crowd looks younger and younger and he starts to get cold feet.
“Maybe we should,” he starts, but she’s not listening. She has put in her air pods, listening to the song he wrote for her. The party becomes a concert and the concert becomes a rave, but she is slow-dancing with the man who loves her and his fear is only outweighed by his need to belong. His need to be alive.
She reaches into her back pocket and pulls out a highlighter, marking both of their foreheads with the symbols of her people. Offering protection from a God long-forgotten and incomprehensibly angry. She kisses him. He tastes a mixture of bubblegum and blood. Not hers. Not his. But now theirs.
The lights turn from black to yellow to red and then white and she covers his ears as the hundreds of rooftop dancers and late-night would-be lovers begin to bleed from every orifice, scream the screams of their past selves, and shed their earthly skins, growing wings and fangs and talons and flying off into the night that will know His name again.
All of this, for the man, occurs in silence.
Cars crash into one another. The lights of the city all go out. Fires spread and the prayers of all but the woman go unanswered. He starts to wonder if he did the right thing, as she removes her air pods and walks over to the DJ’s equipment, turning the music off so they can hear the destruction of everyone who hurt her and her kind before she met the man on top of his rooftop after the breakup with the ex that almost did him in.
“It sure is beautiful here,” she says, overlooking the hell on earth that will become her Father’s kingdom.
And, looking at her, directly into her eyes, the man whispers, “It is now.”
He lost her in his River Ouse
Habitual her morbid ritual mood
Upper East Side between Second and First
Sex in the city and the big black hearse
December is cold, but May cherries are red
His love in the tub, in the tub, there she bled
But he is the victim — a fear he can’t handle
Coverage of a congressman’s adulterous scandal.
The boogeyman
Lives inside
My closet.
He has been there
All my life
Haunting me.
For a time I kept
Him at bay by
Sleeping with a night-light
And Grumpy Bear.
But through the years
He has grown
In might and terror.
But I too have grown
In knowledge
And power.
Now I stay awake
In the dark,
All night,
Every night.
With night vision goggles,
Emerson ES1-M, AR-15,
And Grumpy Bear.
We left the Circle of those poets who
had published their friends and the cries of Best
American editors—my guide moved
me out into a desert of cactus.
A group of demons pitchforked two figures
rolling on the ground and, until they saw us,
forced to suck their own dicks. And I was sure
I recognized one—an old teacher. ‘No!
David! What have you done?’ The demons stirred.
My guide sighed. ‘This place all poets should know
is for poets-as-editors who choose
their own poems for publication.’ ‘Oh
David,’ I said. But he pointed at this
companion. ‘Major made me, and besides
my poem was in The New Yorker. His
was in The Paris Review.’ Major cried,
‘So what?!’ I said, ‘I saw your friends above.’
‘But Trump! Defend Democrats!’ he replied.
My guide said, ‘Now on to the Circle of
those who award contests to those they love…’
My guide then led me to a field on which
knelt thousands of poets all sucking dick.
‘Behold,’ he said, ‘the poets who all wished
to write poetry for bad politics.’
He pointed to a man licking around
a demon—’That one sold his work to fascists.’
and then I recognized the mighty Pound.
‘But wait,’ I said, ‘I know some of this group!’
Hearing us, they stopped to gather around.
‘Beware,’ said one, ‘the desire to stoop
to publishing in The New Yorker or
through the Best American Poetry hoop—
We thought the Democrats were honest, for
the people, so we spread our talent thick
over their nothingburgers—’ But before
she could continue I turned away sick
and they turned back to sucking centrist dick.
The California Dream
is burned
and damned,
not alive
and well.
We’re not fooling
anyone.
I’ve been here
for 10 yrs. now.
Come splurge
on a 1 bed, 1 bath
$500 thousand dollar
abode
built in the 70’s
in a shit-ass
part of town
where the homeless
creep
and stray cats
weep.
Come die
in scathing traffic
on hell-bent freeways
where it takes
1 hr. to travel
7 miles.
Come roast
in frenetic
forest fires
or get
swept away
with the ghoulish
Santa Ana winds
to another place
that might have
your “perfect”
weather.
It’s not here.
It was once,
maybe.
But that Dream
has crumbled
into rubble,
shit out
by Nightmare,
the replacement
for his successor –
The California Dream.
Samantha, there are Sixty-Three-Thousand
Two-Hundred-Forty-Three holes in my ceiling
and I feel like I’VE LOST ALL CAPACITY FOR HUMAN EMOTION.
There are One Hundred-Thirty and Two-Third tiles
crookedly and amateurishly applied and painted white
hanging over my head every night
and you hang over my head
like an amateurish application of fidelity
On each of the One Hundred-Thirty and Two-Third tiles
are Twenty-Two rows of Twenty-Two holes
that’s Four-Hundred-Eighty-Four holes per tile
that’s a lot of damage
I like to wallow in the thought that I have a lot of damage
One-Hundred-Thirty and Two-Thirds
multiplied by Four-Hundred-Eighty-Four
is not technically
Sixty-Three-Thousand Two-Hundred-Forty-Three
but some more exact figure that doesn’t make sense
in words and only exists in a long string of decimals
I have rounded up
to complete an abstract conceptualization that quantifies insurmountability
Technically the holes aren’t on my ceiling
I don’t have a ceiling
I live with a woman that looks like you
and I sleep in a separate bed in the basement
every chance I get
but she wakes up to go to the bathroom
several times a night
and she finds me and has sex with me sometimes
and I stare at her ceiling while she bounces on my cock
which, because she looks like you,
is like a concrete Frankenstein,
and I count the holes
and I count the rows
and I count the tiles
but I don’t count the days since we last spoke
and I’m only addressing this to you because I don’t believe in god
and this is a prayer to feel human emotions again
and I need a holy ghost
and I’ve made you so much holier
than that woman I used to know
who I named you after
Samantha, there are Sixty-Three-Thousand
Two-Hundred-Forty-Three holes in my ceiling
and I feel like I’VE LOST ALL CAPACITY FOR HUMAN EMOTION.
Samantha, you are the only constant in my life
besides alcoholism
in the last Three-Thousand-Six-Hundred-Fifty-Two days
and both of you have done one hell of a job
of convincing me that I can’t live without you
and people only hurt me.
Horror Sleaze Trash 