A Reprieve

It’s the plague times, California’s on fire
and most everything you can name
has gone to shit.

Each day we wake to learn how easily
200 and some odd years of more
or less democracy can be dismantled 
like a makeshift stage by a television 
con man, his assemblage of toadies
and an indifferent population.

The days are are dreary, nebulous
and each the same.

But Jon comes by in his old car like some
broken saint and he takes us 
to North Beach where the sidewalk cafes 
are just opening again after months 
of being shuttered.

We sit outside Mario’s Bohemian Cigar Store 
across from Washington Square Park
drinking wine and beer and the world 
feels nearly right again.

The air is filled with good talk and laughter
as we look at the girls and shoot shit about the poets
and you can imagine the neighborhood 

how it was back when Kerouac got dead 
drunk in the alley that now bears his name
and Brautigan sat in the park with a jug 
of wine and one of his pretty girlfriends.

It feels like the day after the end of a war
and the giant sky and the lazy sun
and the people alive beneath it all miracles 
you thought you’d never see again

but in truth the war’s just gearing up
and the afternoon just a quick gift of light, 
a tease to give us something to maybe 
remember or fight for, and me and Jon 
we’re like prisoners on a holiday sucking 
it all in as best we can before everything 
goes dark again.

drowning sorrows

boredom is always
a concern for me
 
too much time on 
my hands leads to 
endless thoughts
of death
 
drowning sorrows 
in liquor
 
and dreams of pissing 
on my father’s grave
 
i remember when 
my imagination
still had a sense 
of wonder
 
of course, i had 
money and drugs 
during those days
 
now i have neither
 
soon, i feel like they 
will be taking me 
behind the old 
barn
 
and we all know 
what happens
there

artist

i can show up at your address
with a mask and duct tape
probably a crowbar to break in
and for my killing tool
i’d use my hands
but i don’t want to choke you

if i were gonna kill you i’d want
it to be that personal and that violent
but not so abrupt and
i’d like to be more raw

maybe i could stick my hands in your mouth
gripping both sets of teeth
and just push.

push with all my might till your jaw
separates and the skin tears
leaving your neck exposed
blood gushing everywhere

then i’d grab the tongue and pull
and pull until it snapped out

maybe explore the rest of your organs
i mean, the blood loss you’ve suffered
by this point your dead
but the rest of this isn’t about
shock factor or sexual release
it’s about exploration

a sense of wonder
to hold an appendix sack
in your palm.

all these little cogs
we’re comprised of

so very sensitive

and then i’ll put it all back together again
into a big mountain of pure carnage

i’m not an engineer
so i take many liberties
in this stage of conduct

and this
is the painting i made for us

Part Of The Show

I’ve always been afraid of clowns,
coulrophobia, I guess they call it.
In fact, I remember the first time
I saw a clown up close in person,
I wet my pants. Unfortunately,
this happened just yesterday
at a backyard birthday party
for my friends’ grandson.
When the rent-a-clown tried
to give me a comic hug, I lost
control of my bladder in fear.
The little kids all noticed and started
to laugh hysterically; they thought 
it was part of the show. I started
them singing Happy Birthday,
covered my darkened crotch
with my baseball cap, and walked
hurriedly to my car, thankful
it was only piss that the goddamn clown
scared out of me. It could have been
a whole lot worse.

PEOPLE YOU ARE LOOKING FOR

People you are looking for
The land of salvation
Well fucked up you got it
Although you raise your eyes to the sun

Not the Covid vaccine
Nor any other vaccine
Will conquer Death
Since the land that I promise
Flows fire and lava
Even if you plant your skin in it

Your thirst for life
Drink in springs of gall
And with each step that you advance
Battered you will rest
In my cold hugs

This is your inheritance
Of dust or ash on the head
Or in my land meek
Being your Word and verb
The cold darkness

Slapped

“Slap my pussy,” she said,
as I kneeled above her, 
staring down at her naked body.
I happily obliged her request
and later on, as I was about to fall asleep
I thought of all the other men out there.
men who made more money than me
men who had better jobs
and better cars
men who had wives
and men who owned homes
men who were nicer than me 
smarter than me
funnier than me
better looking than me
tall men, short men, fat men, thin men,
muscular men who loved working out.
all kinds of men from all over the world
who went to bed that night
without having slapped a pussy…
and I felt good 
and momentarily 
everything seemed all right.

Missing

I miss the dude who drank a pint of Jim Bean
on summer weekends at the beach,
not by himself necessarily.
He had friends, was willing to share, 
and rose like Lazarus from the sand,
fresh from the grave, with no place to go.
Life was easier then. Less demands.
Less expectations. 

I miss the dude who loved comic books,
wrestling, horror movies, and Heavy Metal,
the glory days of VHS and CDs.
When you could smoke in clubs and restaurants, 
when kids went to school and the worst
they had to deal with were bullies, 
instead of being target practice.

This dude drives 45 minutes to work
and at least 45 minutes back.
He hates his job, tolerates his co-workers,
and barely survives his daily drive
without inflicting physical violence
on his fellow commuters.
God knows he thinks about it often enough,
but his road rage remains internalized. 

This dude spends his time analyzing stocks,
worrying about the cost of being a homeowner –
dead trees to be cut down, house to be painted,
the fridge dying a slow death,
etc, etc, fucking etc. 

This dude scrolls through the tits and asses
on Instagram instead of fucking his wife.
He masturbates when he can maintain an erection.
He blames it on his high blood pressure
and means to reduce salt, get more exercise,
switch to red wine instead of bourbon,
and finally see a damn doctor.

This dude…
He sucks.

Nice to Meet You

After we met

I thought of my hand wrapped around your throat

& how you’d close your eyes and beg for pressure

I pictured you crawling my figure
Positioning
Preying and pawing and slithering

I want to watch you thrash

Brand me with your claws
Fill my pores with your sweat
Stick your taste in me

Make me breathe the air that doesn’t deserve you anymore

The pleasure’s all mine

The Psychonaut Discusses Life’s Goals

“A quaint Victorian term
widely used in the fifties
to describe a woman who couldn’t
have an orgasm during sex,”
the Psychonaut explains to the stranger
he’s just met at the cocktail party.
Was his name Jim? John?

“So this woman, writing
under the name of Constance Newland,
describes her participation in an experiment
using LSD to overcome ‘specific neuroses.’
Her neurosis? Her self-described ‘frigidity.’”

The Psychonaut takes a long drink
from his gin and tonic,
waiting for Jim – or John – to comment,
but he stands there transfixed,
like a cat watching a squirrel
behind a pane of glass.
So the Psychonaut goes on.

“‘For the first time, under LSD,
I found pleasure in sex,
rather than terror and pain,’
she writes in her 1962 book,
My Self and I.

“Psychedelic research has demonstrated
LSD can enhance sensations,
the pleasure involved
in touching and being touched.

“Which makes me think of the Kama Sutra,
the ancient Indian Sanskrit text
that says desire, sexuality and emotional fulfillment
amount to one of the proper goals in life.”

Oedipus Jesus

He was born
to a virgin whore,
who convinced
her own husband
that GOD came 
inside of her
in a threesome
with an angel.

At the age
of thirty-three,
GOD’s rape baby
found his best friend,
a prostitute with
the very same
Christian name
as his mother,
who believed
he was the 
biological child
of the almighty
omniscient
sexual deviant.