Mutual Masturbation

From 2300 miles away, I hear the slapping sound 
of your fist against your thigh, as you
reminisce about that winter night when 
you squirted whipped cream in my ass.

Due to a dairy allergy, I insisted that it be vegan.
You, ever eager, went to the co-op
and paid an exorbitant price for pleasure:

mostly yours. I felt like a car with a too-full tank
spilling gasoline from its insertion hole.

I fantasize about your mouth 
on my nipples, the time you slid your cock 
between my lubricated breasts,

your spilled ejaculate across my chest.
My whispered assurance that the lotion was organic.

Ten years later, I own a different bottle
of organic lotion, and I rub it between my legs
with brisk motions, until finally I come
in oceanic undulations, minutes before

my cell phone battery dies. 
Fifteen percent charge means I must 
make the most of my orgasm. 

We have a knack for climaxing together, 
even across three time zones. 

Afterwards, we speak in familiar tones, 
as you lie in the puddle of your own effluvium, 
just as you did when we were together. 
It’s both comforting and sad,

the after-sex intimacy of long-distance lovers, 
two sets of genitals in solitary rooms. 

I tell stories about old paramours, and you listen: 
your ears wide open, relaxed as my vagina,
damp and glistening on my living room chair.

Our beds finally claim what is left of our bodies.
Both of us will plug our phones into sockets,
then fall asleep on separate mattresses. 

This is the way we have always been.
We will never be any different.

the usual weapons of choice

and the poets grab
a bottle and a pen

the usual weapons
of choice

now picture your 
mother naked on 
the floor of the 
bathroom

and your first thought
is she is dead

or picture pissing on 
your father’s grave

or go visit your sister 
and piss on her utopia 
like how your future 
was flushed so many 
years ago

it ain’t some miracle 
we tend to thrive on 
chaos and dysfunction

we are wired for these
moments

trained to find the right
words to destroy, uplift,
conquer and heal

whatever the words
happen to bring us

when our backs are
firmly planted against
that proverbial wall

Ennui and bad and jaded poetry

My room looks like
Three uneducated 
Gypsies live there.

My piss has an
Unhealthy color.
I function, I talk
With people at work
I wash myself 
and work seven days 
A week
Because I can’t stand 
To be alone with myself 

Books are good 
Company. Good
Music is important
In everyone’s life.

Some people feel
Regenerated after
A bath.
Some people
will smile and yawn
And stretch with delight 
For the new day in the morning
In their warm beds.

I look at the night 
Becoming a grey 
And cold dawn 
Through my window.
I do twenty push ups 
And laugh at this 
Exercise in futility 
As if I’ll take care of myself
A twenty five kilos bag 
Of protein still sits in my closet 
Unopened three months later.

My body is crooked.
I need a chiropractor.
I need a friend. 
I put my working boots on.
I take what makes me
Productive, what makes
Me talk with people 
Easily, people I don’t know
Or care about or like,
The pills that give me enough
Life to flirt with the Brazilian girls 
At work.

Fluoxetine and diazepam 
My good friends, my only assistance, the reaching
Hand that helps me.
Codeine sometimes at night 
To drown all the thoughts 
Into the jaded swamp
Of no-thinking.

There’s a pattern 
At work. 
I go to the bathroom
And take my diazepam
I hold the reaching hand tight
I don’t want the grip to loosen 
Arielin introduced herself to me.
What a name.
What a girl.

I keep it together. 
The misery is well hid.
The mask of normality 
Worn well as well.
The boredom of life.
Why do I have to feed myself.
It’s hard work. 

At the clinic the person 
Has a kind and eager face
Behind a counter and 
A plastic surface. 
I talk through a
A small hole with
My mask on my chin.

I need a psychiatrist.
I have to almost yell it
For him to listen. 
What type of symptoms 
He asks.

Anxiety, overstimulation,
Existential despair, 
Thanatophobia and self hate.
I wake up in the morning 
And I don’t won’t to wake up
In the morning. 
I don’t want to be.

I only say
Let’s just say I’m depressed
And probably have been
For a decade and it’s time 
To try this awful process.
These pills can fuck with your 
Sex drive you know.

Have you ever been
On medication before
He asks.

I was prescribed seroxat 
And Xanax. Didn’t take them.

I’m either afraid all the time
Or don’t care at all about anything.
I think. Can I break
This plastic surface with my elbow?

A doctor calls me later.
She can’t give me diazepam
But only fluoxetine.
Diazepam is highly addictive 
She says.

No shit, I think to myself.
I’m 60 mgs a day.
But it helps to flirt with 
Arielin. What a name.
What s face. What a beautiful
Cunt at times.
She said all the Chinese 
Workers looks the same to her
And laughed.
She told me I look young for my age.
I told her she looked older for hers
Arielin laughed. A nice laugh. 
She’s so beautiful she knows 
It’s bullshit. But I don’t pamper her
Like everyone else does. 
I tease her for being lazy. 
I ignore her when needed.
She is hooked you see.
I got her frying in the pan.
I’m hooked with the diazepam.
It’s the hand that helps me.
I might have an exotic warm 
Body in my bed.
I might be happy some day
Or at least okay.

Never mind I tell the doctor 
On the phone. I’ll just get them
Myself.

A day off means pregabs 
And joyful loneliness in
My room. Music is important 
In my life. 

There’s a bud of weed
In my drawer so big
It’s a shame I’ll have to tear
It apart and smoke it.

Good sleep is important
Why can’t I cherish what
I got?

Such a large void.
A black hole can be made 
By compressing anything 
Long enough.

I take vitamins too.
I laugh every time I take them.
But I take them.
So much wasted time.
So much bad time.

I lock my door in the morning
With a crooked key.
These random things can happen
If you’re all fucked up.
I step down the stairs 
And out into the world.
Ready to face it all
and not snap at anybody.

Love is important. 
All my family is spread
Around the globe.
Video calls can’t 
Be as wholesome
As the hug of your brother 
The embrace of your mother
The handshake of your father

I miss everyone 
And everything
All the time.

I feel nostalgia every day.
The one thing 
The meds can’t seem to kill.

I don’t mind it. 

What to Watch For

Killers with small knives 
obscure poisons known to the elect 
photographs deciphered and burned 
one bullet left in one revolver 
a woman somewhere afraid and hidden 
friendships tested and found wanting 
betrayal behind a mask 
the dream of a final score 
the dream of victory
the dream of nothing 
silence
killers with ropes 
killers with blunt objects
killers with blank faces 
bounced checks and no time left
delicious whiskey in dangerous bars
cigarettes smoked in the dark
confidences shared with pretty strangers
the child hidden well enough
easy money
easy love
easy the vanishing 
hope left in a sack in the woods
dismembered items
lovely auburn hair
shooting stars 
rage, tears, catastrophe 
the perfect moment 
the leaving 
the lovely eyes
never seen again

Report From Beerland

seedy bars are always good for songs and cities

faded posters announcing some forgettable performance

fleur de lis wallpaper—St. Louis or New Orleans

the unintentional clank of piano keys

the river roiling

Tina rolling on Proud Mary

the back door open

an unheard whisper from the night

all those tires on the road

in the morning clean-up crews mopping the dance-forsaken floors

door open to release the stench of this night’s crowd

arse and elbowed so tight

the angelic barmaid with buck teeth
holding a tray of drinks up so high
as she works her way to far tables

amazing there aren’t patrons like dogs
leaping to clench the lip of a glass in their teeth

politics and failed marriages were certainly caught in their teeth

heroes everywhere in conversations nodding off

table tops aren’t pillows for spinning dreams

outside stars as far away as a kid’s grasp on things

things are stumbling forward, as they always do, in the dark

Unremarkable

The stone didn’t seem
All that unique.
Just another in a sea
Of carefully arranged
Blocks of rocks.

A bit of moss grows
On the south side
And the base has
A few chipped spots
Created by the caretaker’s
Riding lawn mower.

Unremarkable in this
Silent setting where
Supposed equality in fate
Is belied in the last take
Of ‘one-up-manship’
In grandness of memorial.

Unremarkable other than
For the misspelling of
My name.

LIFE IS A COMEDY

Why must humor and pathos
Always be holding hands?

Life is a comedy 
And God is the audience.

The sunflowers point toward the sun
Only to burst into flame.

The darkness comes
As darkness must

And the blankets fail to warm
As they always fail to warm.

The sun comes up
And it’s just coffee and sadness.

Another day of this.
Another day of that again and again.

God is smiling. God is laughing.
God is pointing. God is mocking.

Jesus is crying. Jesus is pleading.
Jesus is angry but Jesus is obeisant.

This world is too much God
And nowhere near enough Jesus.

This world is too much
And nowhere near enough.

God laughs on his throne
And Jesus cries, writhing there alone

And I just pretend I’m moving forward
Toward something good.

Ha ha
The joke’s on me.

Ha ha
Ha ha ha ha.

No Happy Endings

A fuck don’t come for free
It grips your soul on bended knee
Chasing dreams of what could be
But with every spent load I feel more empty

A floor full of dildos and a magic wand
Enough squirt on the carpet
To fill a garden pond 
Pleasantries exchanged and then we’re gone

No happy endings
No lasting song

Then back to the game of swiping right 
Feeding my ego all through the night
I know it’s wrong but I cannot fight
Just find me a hole and watch me take flight

This modern love it ain’t really for me 
To many choices upon my phone’s screen 
I’m physically high but emotionally lean
Living in a nightmare of my own wet dream

Breaking News

Starvation and our minds gone hollow. 
The butcher hates the baker 
and the candlestick maker 
is packing heat. 

Half of us are crazy 
and the rest are bone stupid. 

The wisdom of the ages goes begging 
as we leer at young beauties 
on computer screens 
and wait for the next big movie to drop. 

Starvation and dim vision. 
The corner bakery is a distant memory.

The hospitals are broken 
and all the good songs are lost.

School children wander, 
aimless and hollow-eyed.

In various dark places, 
my countrymen prepare bombs, 
then celebrate birthdays and weddings, 
and all of that, just as they always did.

All parties end. 
Just ask Rome and John Wayne Gacy.

Starvation and laughter. 

The flies are in the web 
and the spiders are fat with plenty.

That’s how it is.
Please kill the lights, 
or something, 
when you leave.

3am Sexaphonica

Fur-lined panties an oversized dildo
and a talking sexbot named Sadie
It stunk of tequila
half-smoked cigarettes and rubber pussy
In a rotating circus of muzak elevator air 

He tried small talk 
In a drowning sea of alcoholic fizz
He looked for warm blood –
someone human who could
make the eye of failure
stop winking at him 

What did he have to show for six decades?
Vicious voices on his ass 
And his ego flopping in the gutter