At the End of the Day

animals in the city
holding what we love most
against our chest, close
to the night’s heart

five fingers around her neck
wrapped tightly

i am your life-size
suicide pill, with claws

and teeth

All I Wanted Was a Pepsi 

Me and Z. were talking about dope 
“I’m worried about my pancreas,” I said 
“Half my pancreas is a giant cyst,” he said, 
“it’s dissolving itself.” 
Z. was losing weight  
one of his eyes was mostly closed 
and half his face was always red 
“Is your pancreas why  
your face looks like that?” I asked 
“The thing about opiates is  
they make you thirsty,” he began, 
“Where I live there’s a spare refrigerator 
in the basement for sodas. 
I was going down to get a Pepsi 
but I’d done a shit ton of heroin 
and I fell down the stairs. 
At the bottom I started crawling.  
I didn’t know I was pushing 
my face along the concrete.” 
“You must have really wanted a Pepsi,” I said 
“Yeah, I’m tenacious,” he said, “Anyhow, 
a few days later I went to the doctor. 
He said if I’d waited one more day 
they would have taken out my eye. 
Now I can’t really see out of it.”  
“I guess you’re lucky,” I said 
“Yeah,” he said, “I can still see
out of the other one, 
I can see just fine.”

SOMETHING TO WRITE ABOUT

I don’t hang out with the devil
much anymore but he still calls 
from time to time; when it’s night
or when it’s morning or when 
these stubborn feet don’t wanna move
or when the bed calls me to sleep 
before it is even ten pm 

I don’t tell my girl 
but he leaves voicemails every so often 
asks me can I even remember 
the last time I’ve tasted three am? 
Asks me can I remember the last time
I’ve felt like Adonis? Been the Uberman?
Grooved my footsteps into the wooden floors?
Can I still get it up without a burning nose? 
Do the whispers still keep me up at night? 
Do I really feel comfortable 
in the realm of the living? 

Because I’ve lived a thousand lives before dusk 
I’ve haunted midwestern cow towns 
for cigarettes and adventure 
I’ve sold my last ounce of honor 
for a bowl of Elysium in dim-lit rooms 
I’ve slain friends in my hearts 
over minor quarrels and burned effigies 
of my future in gasoline pyres 
linoleum melting from the house 
like crystal balls dripping through the hands 
of the soothsayers 

I’d say I didn’t know any better 
but I’d be lying, I saw the crash 
before I ever even signed my name 
but I guess I needed to find my way 
I guess I needed to see oblivion 
for myself, I guess I needed a scar
I could write about 

~

Originally appeared in Big Hammer 

WHICH WAY DOES THE WIND BLOW

Which way does the wind blow for you, my brother?
Does it come in and cover you in despair?
Does it come from behind
like some kind of ethereal sodomy?
Does it manifest your guilt
into a torment of heartburn,
and gut-wrenching indigestion?

Does it bring back the ghosts?
Does it raise the dead?
Does it comfort you,
when you’re curled up in warm covers,
on moonless nights when all your crimes
surface into your dreams?

Does it blow cold, when your woman
leaves you in the middle of the night,
without a whisper, without a note?

Does it blow dust in your eyes as you watch
the war machines pass through the streets?
Does it blow hot when you kill?
Which way does it blow when you bleed?
Does it blow furiously when
the hounds are at your heels?

And I ask you at last;
which way does the wind blow for you, my brother?

The Way We Came

all that we lost
returning to us 
somehow / in the dead 
of light / this mad laughter 
carried on the wind

the man just barely holding on
against a 7-Eleven wall 
repeating the word “mom,” 
into the night 
reminds you 
how important it is to care 
for a stranger’s pain
and why not start now

and so you do
you ask him his name
and a little about his mother 
who, come to find out
has been dead for 20 years
“still feels like yesterday,” he says 
through a wet slosh of hair 
and it’s all right there

“are you helping or are you hurting?“
someone has painted on the walls all across town,
are you getting this down?

you need to know 
that there are so few reasons why
we are here at all
and they start small 

and like this thing that will only get worse 
if you don’t do something about it 
like opening up a window 
and instead of jumping out
just breathing in
you gotta know sometimes
that just holding on is enough for one day.

swimming in a river

she told me to dream
about her
 
i asked her why would
i do such a thing
 
she sent me a pic of
her naked and i said
i understand
 
she asked me the 
next morning about 
the dreams
 
i said we were swimming 
in a river and you tried 
to kill me
 
she asked me why
 
i said i started to kiss you 
underwater and you thought 
it would be funny to keep 
my head down there for 
hours and when i tried to 
do the same thing
 
you wanted to kill me
 
she laughed and said that
was probably exactly how
she would have reacted
 
i asked her when she 
wanted to go swimming
 
i haven’t heard back
from her yet

Allegory of a Junkie

We’d gather at this one kind of a house,
more of a gallery hub

The underground nest of maveric philosophers,
wacky artists, dropout painters, depressed poets
and their drunk ass dads, sometimes,
hoping to get laid with any kinky tutee.

Red lights and ambient music,
antique pieces of furniture,
some broken, some taped,
Some broken on purpose

Surreal paintings and interrupted thoughts
written in lipstick and manicure
Strains of paint and booze on the couch,
an old dusted piano at the corner,
a ripped lampshade from a white bedsheet,
piles of best books one could ever find
And a large painting of many public toilets
would welcome us for the weekly poetry night.

There was plenty of good stuff
but we would bring our own, just in case.
That night, after reading his poem,
under the melancholic sounds of a guitar,
he stood up and left the room,
probably disgusted by his own pathetic life.

I was too careless after 3 shots of GHB,
which i mistook for some vodka or raki.
Enough, not to even question why it didn’t smell like booze.

Fishes were floating from one painting to another
and red eyes of amorphous creatures
were penetrating me right through.

I never paid that much attention
to what before seemed like scribbles of an autistic child.
I was awestruck, until i heard his faded voice
from the back of the bathroom door
and a white thin arm reaching for the knob to let me in.
There he was, drenched in his own vomit,
pale as dead against the wall painted in red wine
but making an effort to smile a bit
and spit those horrible words ” i love you”.

I felt like I could swim in this red sea of puke and piss,
admiring the aesthetic of a drunken miserable poet
who had already lost 5 years of his life
on a book which would probably never see the light.
But he loved me much, and i loved him for that.

Nobody was giving a damn about him,
but still preying on me like salivating hyenas over fresh flesh.
Called a cab and we drove to the emergency room.
The doc put the needle on his skinny arm,
with some good shit on it while I silently stood in the back.
I think, he needs some more diazepam: I told him.
He did coke also.. and, some other stuff..

I myself was sweating alchohool but looked pretty collected.
He gave me a suspicious look, doubled the dose
and disappeared behind the green sheets
of the hospital compartment.
Alex was still unconscious and I thought:
He’s sleeping at least.
I took out the needle from his arm,
put it in mine and i layed beside his pale cold body.

When the last honey drop was over,
i shaked him hard to wake him up
and we left the hospital, like 2 white ghosts,
running to find the only bar open at 4 am.

I heard, everybody had got sick that night.
We kept drinking beers and telling jokes
until the sun rose and threw a golden shade
over his still pale face.

2 days later, he left to Prague.
Not even booze and dope could drown
the pain of unrequited love.

He wrote me a poem which i hold dear
as a requiem of those cold decembered days.

Yesterday, Manxhi died.
In a car crash they told me.
Good, sweet Manxhi who’d take care of me
every time i would fall like dead
amongst the blood sucking hyenas.

I would go for dinner at them almost every night.
His girl would call me often because she needed help.
But, we didn’t make it.
I couldn’ t do much because i was in deep shit myself.

And here, Sweet Manxhii gone at 33.
I never felt worse but, that first month
he learned he had cancer.
His girl called.

She said: Manxhi is asking for you.
Don’t be a stranger.
It was February.
I promise I’ ll come, i said. I lied.
Not only did i not call,
but I dissapeared for months,
unreachable, dragged by my own shadow.

Until I later learned, he died.

As a friend of mine once told,
Drugs are no good anymore.

hipster in tight jeans 

asks for a craft beer in a PBR bar 
accepts his fate 
takes his drink out to the patio 
and i follow 

creeping up from behind 
he is pretending straight 
nothing but bro and dude, and hey man 

chats up a waitress who just rolls her eyes 
she looks at me and says, this one is yours 

and i say, am i that obvious? 
i’m pretending straight 
as i get my turn 

he chats me up and i ask 
about his tight jeans 
and how good they’d look 
on my hotel floor 

he smiles nervously 
says I’ll be right back 

and he will  

we all play games until we finally  
wake up 

waiting for girlfriend’s bus

I needed a piss, so 
I went into the men’s, stood to a urinal, took it out and started 
doing my business …
someone stands next to me.
our elbows touch.  
there’s three other shanks and a cubicle, 
but this guy has to piss next to me? 
whatever. I finish pissing, zip up and turn – 
he’s looking right at me. 
up for it? he says. 
up for what? 
come on, he says. you’re Jim forty-five, aren’t you?
no, I tell him.
oh come on, don’t chicken out now. is it cos you don’t like what you see?
I looked at him: he was little and skinny. kinda feminine. 
and I hadn’t done anal in ages …
show me your arse, I said. 
he undid his belt, pulled his jeans and boxers down and bent over the urinal. 
spread ‘em, I said. 
he did. 
nah, sorry, I said. too hairy. 
you said you didn’t mind hair, he said. you fucking said! 
look, I’m sorry, I said. but I’m not Jim forty-five. 
fuck you aren’t! he turned around, his pants hanging around his knees. 
coward! get off on humiliating me like this, do you? he said
as his stiffy waved around. 
I went to the mirror and washed my hands. 
I checked my reflection,
buffed my quiff up, 
went back out
and waited.