This Is The Jacket

Last night my girlfriend came to bed 
wearing only a brown leather jacket.
Wow, I said, cool jacket, but then 
she pointed to a hole in it. Oh, that sucks, 
I told her. It’s ruined. No, she answered
in between kissing me and reaching 
into my boxers. This is the jacket
Andy Warhol was wearing back in ‘68 
when that crazy woman shot him.
My Aunt Donna was working then
as Warhol’s mom’s visiting nurse.
She wanted to throw it out,
so my aunt just grabbed it.

The jacket ended up somewhere
on the floor by the time we finished.
I whispered in her ear if she was thinking
what I was thinking. Of course, she said
swinging her legs out of bed. Two bowls
of Campbell’s tomato soup, coming right up.

The Superhighway of Samsara

How many ways 
can I say
“I’m not dating 
your resume?”

You can put your dick
back in your pants,
take your SEAL training
and your surgical skills,
get in your Jaguar,
and take the next exit back onto
the superhighway
of samsara.

Because I’m not
auditioning to be your
next trophy wife,
and I’m not 
your mistress,
a woman you can call
when you’re bored 
with your wife or
when it’s convenient,
in between your 
real priorities.

If your wife can’t trust you,
neither can I.

I may have wandered into
the arctic wilderness of your heart,
but I’m an emotional survivalist
and can find my own way home.

I’m not an accessory
or a toy to play with. 
My dignity 
will always be worth 
more to me 
than unlimited access 
to your assets.

I could be a spiritual master,
incarnation of a goddess,
accomplished artist,
attend a college more difficult 
to get into than Harvard,
have a heart of gold,
model on the latest runway,
use remote viewing 
to help solve a sexual homicide,
and speak to the dead regularly,
be as loyal 
as the sun 
rising every morning,
but in your eyes 
I’ll always be reduced 
to my tits and ass.

You do know how to divide by
the lowest common denominator.
I know I’m only as valuable 
as how often
you want to fuck me.

I don’t give a shit
about your PhD,
your BMW,
or that you won
the biggest verdict
in history.
What I care about 
is the way you treat me.

Excerpt from a Bad Day 

It wasn’t a real shit
It was hollow
spluttered
drawn out thin
he was too weak to wipe
so his wet arsehole just hung there
like a petal in the morning wind
– dew drop about to drip
a sore eye
welling up with tears

The air freshener clicked 
and sprayed outside the cubicle
the sound like the hissing gas 
of a turning cap
on a cola bottle

Damp electricity
coated the filthy tiles 
as his bony face
and the hard to reach bog roll
bathed
in lonely fluorescent light

Our Secret Places

Tell me something pretty like you mean it
because we’re cut loose and drifting

wading through terrors and half-bred joys
strewn about the landscape like 
somebody’s garbage

I hear the dark’s been asking around
it knows our names
our numbers

all our secret places

The day is coming 
when we’ll be 86’d from every 
heart and every bar

and there will be a reckoning

and we’re as guilty as any guilty thing
that was ever naked beneath the slivered moon 
blinking in the judgment of the sun.

Abort 

A big bang births a universe. A universe births a woman. A woman births a uterus. A uterus births a body. A body births a thought. A thought births communication. A communication births a language. A language births a letter. 

A letter births a word. A word births a sentence. A sentence births a stanza.  

A stanza births a first draft. A first draft births a second. A second births a third. A third births obsessive compulsion. Obsessive compulsion births a poem. 

A poem births a pen. A pen births a typewriter. A typewriter births a computer. A computer births a document. A document births a submission.  A submission births a publication. A publication births a book. A book births into a collection. A collection births a career. A career births retirement. A retirement births death. A death births abortion.

Airborne

Wrath & desire are easy to catch
if the wind catches the air just right.

Emotions run rapid in intense situations
where fear is more prevalent than the plague.

Shit, just a scent of sex can capture
a man in the depths of his thoughts.

We’re wired to fornicate and spread
seed to replenish the population.

Truth be told, this sudden blood rush
remains independent from procreation.

Biology still has its tricks & triggers
& yet, all I want is the flesh.

Soaking wet like a never-ending storm
which brings comfort with its warmth.

Man wants and wants despite the urge
to be a respectable person in society.

I’ve found myself light-headed
in situations where I need to be clear.

The only cure for man’s rage
is self-mutilation, perhaps.

Those Daze

One of those days when I can’t decide 
how many humps in an m, the number 
of an’s in banana, how Achilles 
could ever overtake the tortoise, Death 
and I go walking. Arm-in-arm, he with 
his disarming smile, filling my ear with 
foreboding and despair. Would I like to, 
would I care to, step around into the shade 
to share a drop of something cool and 
not-so-sweet? After quaffing, after quenching, 
after swapping tales of lying and of wenching, 
he a bony forefinger raises: 
“Now’s the time to discuss,” he hisses, 
“succumbing to after-life-lust.” My jaw 
drops. Lightning fractures the air.  
Death with a rusty can my mouth waters. 
The mind a garden of rot and food for no thought.

Diego Rivera is My Hero 

Diego Rivera was very fat 
hugely overweight 
all day long up and down 
the scaffolding, holding brushes 
over his head 
it didn’t matter 
he ate the world 
Diego Rivera didn’t  
go on a diet or quit smoking 
yet the women flocked to him 
his ponderous belly 
his cigarette breath and 
infidelity only made him 
more attractive 
Diego Rivera was a man 
of the people 
who had no defense  
against his monstrous 
appetites 
and Frida was tiny and strong 
and put up with him 
Maybe I need 
to be a man like him 
to find a woman 
like her. 

In the First Place

Who would have thought I’d become famous 
so late in life—and for my poetry no less. 
It’s quite exciting, but at the same time 
it doesn’t have as much meaning as it would 
have If I’d become famous when I was a young man 
and could easily do it four or five times per day, 
drink a good deal of liquor without getting sick, 
and still had a desire to travel the world. 

“Well. . . better late than never!” a good friend said 
to me, “when you consider there are millions of poets 
who never get any attention at all, many of whom 
commit suicide because they feel that what they have 
to offer is completely ignored.”

Hearing this, I did admit that I appreciated finally 
getting paid for what I do best, because up until I was 
discovered I’d only made around 40 dollars in 50 plus 
years of writing the stuff. . . but then, I never wrote 
to make a lot of money in the first place. . .

Amelia

her 2am
red velvet voice
stroked me miles
to the lakes of
my ancestors,

weathered many a storm since,
she stumbles sweetly
vulnerable
inviting me to
dine in the dark night
windswept land
of poets