the death days

says that fucker camus

says the idea of ideas, and i
see what he means but i 
still believe in both words and the
silences between them

i still believe in love as something
more than some cynical
top 40 hit

and sid, who killed nancy,
or sid, who didn’t, but she’s dead either
way while the ghost of god endures

and were you drunk on the
night you pulled the trigger?

jesus

just give me a straight answer, okay?

spare me all of that
patti smith bullshit

spare me rimbaud & burroughs &
horses and all of 
that vacuous 1975 hipster crap

all of that self-righteous sanctity

what’s left at the end of each day
is a false king waiting to
rape your children

a ship filled with fire moving
slowly towards some new world

the death days, which we
always mistake for
the best times of our lives

Pop Poem from the Pew

The old widow in black mantilla
knelt from the black bench
near the altar and prayed the rosary.
Rumor has it she mourns
not her late husband
but the lover she had
before she married.
(Perhaps it was Rudolph Valentino.)

Her arthritic fingers, bead after bead.
Her melancholic eyes, teardrop after teardrop.
Her muttering mouth, drop after drop of blood.

When she finished her prayer,
she stood up and dropped the rosary,
shed a final fountain of tears,
drooled a gush of blood.
(The spot she left, you’d think
Jackson Pollock dropped by
and dripped his art.)

Now I don’t know her true story,
but I swear there was blood
on the church floor.
(And I heard Michael Jackson
sing his song.)

Eyes Stuck Open

My eyes are stuck open.
My eyes were blue.
My eyes are marbles now.
I look like a taxidermy,
This expression frozen on my face
Almost life-like.
My stuffed body behind the glass,
Hunched over the typer,
A glass half-filled with amber
At the side,
My hair a little wet and down into 
My face.

My eyes are stuck open.
My ears rest beneath my hair.
This museum is made of paper
And there is graffiti all along her walls.

Sometimes I am alone
But I always feel like someone is watching,
Even when the lights are dimmed,
The doors locked.

I see the people who come to gawk
In the silty air of day.
I hear what they say
But I cannot reply, argue,
Confess, agree
Or refute.
None of them know who I am
But many pretend
That they do
Because it is embarrassing to be ignorant
In a place of learning
Even though to learn
Is why they came.

My eyes are stuck open.
At least where my eyes
Used to be.

floozy

she was a heavy set
blonde with curves 
in all the right places
 
piercing eyes and a
tattoo on her left foot
 
as she told my mother
about her recent cardiac
event, i was undressing
her with my eyes and
wondering if her panties
were edible
 
i’m sure she noticed me
as our eyes met once
or twice
 
she was the kind of doctor
that probably has fucked
a patient or two
 
or maybe that’s just one
too many porn movies
i have been watching
lately
 
when we got back to 
the car my mother told 
me she didn’t like her
 
i chuckled and 
said i understand
 
mom said she looked 
like a floozy
 
i laughed
 
that was exactly 
why i liked her

Tears Of An Editor 

I rejected an aspiring poet today.
There’s a bad feeling in my stomach.

Maybe it was wrong to crush their dreams.
Then I burped and now it’s gone.

I’m oh so very remorseful about it. 
Time for the next one.

Fascination Hallucination

I open up 
spill out the sea 
with it all the lies  
and all the fake leads 
float in
sand castles flattened by heavy boots 
slide down as I erode 
under your fist 

I long to be crushed by something larger 
than a tidal wave of goodbyes 
and the flaccid vacancy of hellos 

We’ve succumbed to the Netflix gods 
they seduce us with their series upon series 
I’ve yet to feel anything 
even if it’s a pin prick 

When I feel something other than numbing delight 
I’ll be sure to call you in – 
to share this fascinating hallucination 
if it takes you over 
we can plug the holes of our treachery 
with our stubbed toes 
our tears 
and our ripped $2 bill 
each torn half tucked into our wallets
centuries ago
written in black marker on each: 
when all hell breaks loose 
tape here

Tuesday’s Child

Tuesday. 
I was going to kill my neighbor’s dog.
Somehow, I never got around to it
And it slipped into Wednesday
Thursday, I had lost the mood for it.
Friday, I couldn’t remember why
I wanted to do it in the first place.
The weekend was wonderfully
Wild and crazy, ups and downs,
One of the usual weekends for me.
Monday, I sunk back into normality.
Tuesday,
I was going to kill my neighbor’s dog.
Of course, I never got around to it.
That’s crazy, I’m due for a change.
Now Wednesday… by Wednesday,
I was back in the asylum by then

Hanging Out the Window

Still, in our underwear,
we yell, “Murderer!” 

at the man hanging out his window
– next building over from us,

as he knocks the pigeon nest 
off his brick window ledge.

Yet, we will support his store
in the morning when I buy 

my $1.50 24oz Budweisers, 
and you will comment 

on how the shelves have dust 
and the prices are almost at cost.

dog-ended 

you stupid piece of fuck meat, I told her
and smacked her tit. I don’t even love you. 
you love me though, don’t you? 
uh huh! she nodded. 
why? I asked her. 
because I’m a stupid piece of fuck meat! she said. 
atta girl, I slapped her tit some more …

afterwards we passed a cigarette back and forth:
I don’t think I liked that, she said, staring at the ash.   
don’t worry, I’m not saying you raped me or anything. 
I wanted to try it too. I just mean, it’s not for me.
she held out the smoke. is that ok?
of course, I took it off her. sex is about communication.
we’ll do what you want next time. and thank you for telling me how you feel. 
she hugged me as I toked on the last of the dog-end …

I’m pregnant, she said, pressing her heel into my scrotum. 
urgh, uh, I squirmed. whose is it?
your brother’s. and you’re going to raise his baby, she said
twisting the heel. won’t you?
urgh! yes! I said. yes mistress! 

I enjoyed that, she said afterwards, taking a deep drag. 
can we do it again? 
if you want, I said. 
she laughed.
what? I said. what’s so funny? 
but I don’t think she heard me.

I adjusted the bag of peas between my legs 
and waited for her to pass me the smoke. 

Baseball Before the Apocalypse

Cluster of bodies, soap
bubbles at a Cubs game:
1983, our bicycles shackled
to poles outside, entwined in

a steel snare. To saw through
tempered metal would
give thieves the pick of several. 

We smuggled imported 
beer in white bottles, eight 
bucks a pack, and salads 
in sturdy plastic containers
from the Bread Shop.

Bleacher seats three dollars, 
nicknamed the “Animal Section.”
No one at the entry gate
ever checked for weapons.

We were good to go, unless
bottles protruded from the 
sides of our backpacks, 

or we spilled marijuana 
on the sidewalk by mistake
as we entered Wrigley Field.
A friend once said,

“If you were one of the lucky
people who got to change 
the scoreboard by hand, you’d
be so fucking cool by default.”

We drank beer, passed
joints, ate salads, and
when the game was over,

we took our trash home
and disposed of it properly.
We were good citizens.

No one patted our thighs,
thrust their hands up our shirts,
groped under the waistbands of 
our shorts, searching for explosives. 
No one checked our health records

for evidence of compliance.
It was just a goddamned Cubs game,
a few 23-year-old kids,

and a summer that would end
like all the others after.