Spongemaster 

I’d rather lick the dog crap 
off your shoe 
than wait in line for brunch 
I’d savor it, too, 
the pulverized bits of chicken bone 
the re-digested cat poop 
knowing I’ve avoided 
that line around the block! 
But, as a busboy, 
I have a unique perspective 
I’m also a foodie 
but instead of pancakes 
I’m a connoisseur of the bodega watermelon 
I spend all my extra money on them 
“Better not be mushy!!!” 
“Claro! New crop today!” 
They puzzle over me, 
the man in dirty chef pants 
spending $100s on melons 
(My secret is to forego toilet paper 
How? I use a sponge instead, 
I rinse it twice, trés francais!) 
In my tiny hotel room 
I’ll cleave one down the middle 
and devour its very heart 
the juice dribbling down my chin 
I love a good liquor store watermelon 
and I love there is never  
a line to get one, 
no cackling, selfie taking 
waffle wafflers, “I’ll do 
the million dollar bacon!” 
Though that’s not to say 
I don’t take my job seriously 
I’m an excellent busboy 
if I do say so myself 
“Look at him!” they gush,  
“the work ethic!!! Why, 
he even brings 
his own sponge!” 

Red Skies  

Endless patience 
of a vulture 
in the desert 
without eyes  
for mercy. 

Following me,  
he swoops down 
to whisper to me 
crazy fortunes 
and peyote  
truths. 

Death comes 
when your path 
is lost or denied 
or your car 
in the desert 
gives up all ghosts. 

You walk 
across nothing 
but endless sand 
sweating 
with an empty  
gas can. 

Various Hells 
panting reddish skies 
its flames 
lick your face,  
heat ticking 
stolen time left 
with your number plain… 

And the vulture 
waiting to sing 
to your 
last breath.

MRS BARNES REQUESTS THAT YOU FORGO THE EUPHEMISMS

He didn’t pass on.
He’s dead.
It wasn’t an unfortunate accident 
involving a sharp object.
I stabbed him with an ice pick.
Nor does he look
so peaceful in the coffin.
His face is a frozen scream.
True, he is going to a better place.
Anywhere would be
when you’ve been living in a trailer.

Things Along the Way

Such obscurity as to how these monstrous
obstacles land in my lap
must have been an awful wretch – the me before me
as they say souls are recycled

The last broken 
busted Goliath in my path
shut me down
almost took me
like a cancer

tsk tsk…..what to do with this behemoth
y’all know I’m gonna invite it in
have a chat
probably sleep with it
maybe keep it around
for a bit
every coil it wraps around my wrist
pulls me closer to its poison
I want it so

Later
bored out of my skull
dump it out there
cuz I’m done with its menace
place it strategically along the way
for some other sad and sorry sack
to pick up
where I left off

loiterer 

i have yet to love where i live 
almost 52 
& never been really home 
five decades of lostness 
the wine helped 
i looked thru dark red lenses 
& felt better 
but i was still a stranger 
w/ out a real home 
i often felt like i was loitering 
in my own room 
wherever it was 
as a boy i’d walk the streets 
looking in windows 
everyone else seemed home 
pushed in at brown tables 
reclining in green chairs 
standing at the sink 
holding up a yellow plate 
when i got older i’d gaze at paintings 
of cafes 
& the patrons seemed more 
at home than i ever was
i’d look in hotel lobbies 
in vestibules 
into plate glass windows 
full of beads of rain 
like i had a thousand eyes 
but nothing 
who put me here ? 
why? 
even my mother’s golden kitchen 
didn’t quite seem right 
all those rooms & people 
& walls & beams 
& doors 
& sinks 
yet no home 
tonight i cross my legs in this strange bed 
in this strange room 
on this strange avenue 
in this strange town 
& think the graveyards i stroll in feel more like home
the starlight feels more like home 
the bluebirds feel more like home 
& you, goddamn it, you, wherever the hell you are

Poets Out of Service

Like a full-service gas station
or postal service workers
displaced, racing to Staples retail
for employment against the rules of labor,
poets are out of business nowadays, you know.
Who carries a loose change in their pockets?
Who tosses loose coins in their car ashtray anymore?
iPhones, smartphones, life is a video camera
ready to shoot, destroy, and expose.
No one reads poets anymore. 
No one thumbs through the yellow pages anymore.
Who has sex in the back seat of their car anymore,
just naked shots passed around online?
Streetwalkers, bleach blonde whores,
cosmetic plastic altered faces in the neon night;
they don’t bother to pick pennies
or quarters off the streets anymore.
The days of surprise candy bags for a nickel
pennies lying on the countertop for
Tar Babies, Strawberry Licorice Laces
(2 for a penny), Wax Lips, Pixie Sticks,
Good & Plenty are no more.
Everyone is a dead-end player; he dies with time.
Monster technology destroys crump fragments of culture.
Old age is a passive slut; engaging old age
conversations idle to a whisper and sleep alone.
Matchbox, hand-rolled cigarettes,
serrated, slimmed down, and gone.
Time is a broken stopwatch gone by.
Life is a defunct full-service gas station.
Poets are out of business nowadays.

Scrubbing the Toilet at 6 AM

Cleaning up the mess
left behind
by someone,
possibly even me.
It’s hard to remember
what happens
in the strangeness
of night.

I take my time,
make porcelain shine,
while doing what must
be done,
putting all the new ideas
that arrive in my head
into the movements
of the brush.

It is all art
if you want to see it
that way,
everything you do.
Same as with
the old monks
who viewed
all actions
as a form of prayer.

The results from
this morning’s efforts
may be as good
or better
than anything else
I have done
or could possibly do,
and I may have 
saved the world
in the process
without ever
meaning to.

Ooey Gooey Goodness

is what she said
after making me cum
with her hands

my dorm bed
her top off
but no actual sex
because of boyfriend
back home in the States

she really went rough
above & beyond 
previously explored 
parameters

told me the girls 
in Wales 
didn’t know
what they were doing

I silently disagreed

a few weeks later
I walked into Boots
and saw her shopping
for toiletries with her man

ooey gooey goodness
I said to myself
& walked straight back out

***

Originally published by Hickathrift Press

WHITE ON WHITE

I’m schizophrenic. I’m on TV, watching myself watching me. Persuaded by amoeba mind to rhythm time’s new measure I look for love in cold desert winds of prehistoric pleasure. A classic toy of delight the dildo I prescribe covered by a black mantilla and a fog-shrouded valentine.

Cancer cells chaotically repeat themselves in the clouds above my shoe. Adapted to catastrophe I dream lost cities and biodegradable mystical emptiness.

A disappearing trail through a nonlinear series of juniper arroyos where a mountain lion roars diaphanous screeches that magnify a zoo adjacent a red box in a cathedral of gothic sound where I crisscross space four times and with a perfumed delicacy fly into a dragon’s winged shadow nailed to a crucifix.

Distance disappears within my last breath a presence sensed there not there. Words pile up create a rattlesnake’s lexicon. A blind raven is my totem. I eat organic skunk. Road kill embellished with Ayurvedic herbs. Framed by sun splashed chrysanthemums, I barbecue the Holy Ghost. Blind with love I walk out the front door into the fresh rivers of morning.

Clawing through shadows

of dreams  
to find her again 
real as a reflection 

water trades 
for depth when touching 
only the ephemeral. 

Her words, false 
as a pawned ring claiming 
absent ghosts in stolen 
photographs. 

I miss the outlaw 
she was before 
escaping the noose 
of excitement’s gallows, 
induced by narcotic 
entanglement. 

She is now  
like the others, 
safe.

It is her victory  
I do not begrudge,  
or misinterpret 
and nearly accept 
as I will 
her wedding invitation.

For only dreams 
bring her  
former lives to me. 
Most nights 
it’s all I see 
when my eyes, 
starved for magic, 
close without it.