The poet wrote a poem
About a black-eyed dog
A pink moon on its way
A fruit tree flourishing on the ground
And a road that’ll see him through.
Not many understood.
He sung songs about
The things behind the sun
Local clowns, tramps
Oceans finding their shores
And a troubled cure for a troubled soul.
Not many understood.
Now we all do.
He was a drama major
took voice lessons
studied the art of gesticulation
and facial movement
(he can say volumes
with just an eyebrow.)
He combs his hair
dresses tastefully
doesn’t want anything to distract the audience
from his art
wants to connect with the largest number of people
like a real estate agent
or a car salesman.
He’s got a nice smile
a complexion a 24-year-old girl
would kill for, damn
does he sleep in a vat
of Vaseline?
And he stands erect and confident, the microphone
is his best friend.
He doesn’t read his stuff, this mo-fo
has memorized it!
He’s practiced
he’s trained
he’s not messing around.
He PROJECTS
and scans the audience
back and forth
to and fro
totally natural
no one feels left out.
What a performer!
He gets them hootin’ and hollerin’!
The applause, oh lordy
deafening
2, 3 minutes long, people
are on their feet,
creaming themselves,
their heads are spinning,
they’re speaking in tongues,
they’re crawling around
on all fours,
jumping up, saluting, drooling,
reaching out, arms waving,
smacking themselves in the face, crossing
their chests,
shitting their drawers.
Sing it brother!
Preach it man!
He supports arts and teachers, he’s very
supportive, he’s passionate.
In fact he IS a teacher.
He loves his job.
He’s like a supercool teacher
on a PBS special
who treats all the students fairly
even the poor and the ugly
and the stupid ones.
He is severe when needed
and compassionate when needed.
He’s a good guy, he’ll loan you
a dollar
or a pen.
He corrects his friends’ grammar
at barbecues
he knows how irritating that is
but he still does it.
It’s cute, he can
laugh at himself, he’s a regular
fella.
People adore him, he is simply
adored.
I watch his Youtube videos
and am in awe.
My mouth drops open
and I laugh
and nod my head at the perfection
of the openings
and closings.
The middles are good too, it’s all
soundly cadenced
and crafted, like a symphony.
The occasional cuss word, you know,
for effect.
Polished, sober, sane, what the hell
planet is this guy from?
How to Win Friends and Influence People
is sticking out of his back pocket.
Firm ass.
He’s a kick at cocktail parties.
His wife is pretty
but not too pretty
and his kids are cute
but not too cute.
The man is talented, no getting
around it.
Probably jogs.
Perfect teeth, I’ll bet
he flosses.
Does he have a shed
out behind his suburban house
lined with newspapers
where he cuts up stray dogs
wearing nothing but a
pair of flip-flops?
The sonorous, handsome
bastard,
we’ll see how big he is
when I post my one-star review.
The streets are vacant; only the dead walk this eternal night. Packs of hounds are hunting and educating themselves from horribly written books and scattered coupons that blow through the alleyways.
Corpses are piling up in community parks and the rats have come together, massing and breeding at unbelievable rates, forming unions and delegating sections of the city. The black rain never seems to run dry.
Why has the daylight left us? Is this some sort of divine insurrection?
Long ago, traveling in Mexico after the tourist season, the ocean started to throw up all of its natural and man-made garbage onto the beach, the quantity of shit covered everything like a blanket, and the stench was fucking unbearable. I asked a friend “what in all fuck was happening?” He simply replied, “the ocean is cleaning itself.” Apparently it happened every year around the same time.
I wonder, in these troubled times, if the earth isn’t cleaning itself of us. We’ve had a good run at it, but we upset the balance, and for all intents and purposes we’ve ripped the living shit out of it.
We seem to forget that we’re only guests, and under the ravens’ watch.
We’re here awhile and then
we’re somewhere else
we’re confused and sad
we fuck around
we’re often ugly
occasionally (arguably)
beautiful
mostly something between
the most important thing
is that there’s not much
time left
so best not to get too
worked up about it
the sun and the moon
will do their thing
the poems will come
or they won’t
it doesn’t matter much
either way
lean back, open a
bottle of something
listen to the music
of the rain
breathe it in
and out
remember and forget
remember
and forget
When I was sixteen,
I stopped by my girl’s house
one Saturday afternoon
and her entire extended family
was in the backyard
grilling, throwing horseshoes
and just hanging out.
Everyone seemed to be
having a good time,
so after saying hi
and visiting for a bit
we slipped away
to her bedroom to fuck.
Back then, anytime I came
over we were in her room
and we were fucking.
We tore off our clothes
and went after it.
After a while
she got on top
and started riding me
moaning,
with her family
and loved ones
right outside
her bedroom window
on the back porch.
I guess it must’ve been
a combination of
fear and excitement
because when it was my turn
to go, she jumped off
and I shot my load
all the way up the wall
nearly to the ceiling.
We just lay there stunned
laughing hysterically,
me still twitching from one
of the best orgasms
of my life.
anguish and disorder
keep the fingers typing,
and a little wine
is always
good for the neck pain
that comes with it
when the muse
keeps you
strapped to your chair
feeding you cigarettes
until either
she goes away
or you drop unconscious.
personally,
I’m a few loose vertebrae away
from my first collection
although I am yet to write
a poem
about my scoliosis—
but there’s plenty of wine
for that and my flat feet.
It feels stale—
wanting some dramatic destiny
to be drugged into my dreams
but being only
perverted
into a poet
and wanting and feeling nothing more,
and so that poetry is spat prepubescently
into a dented trumpet I play,
sheepishly swaying an imitation of a dance
on marbled romances, absurdities;
On a quest to deify myself, honestly,
and finally be shown to the world
as a donkey.
This line of work will make your mother faint.
This will make dad drink again,
advise knocking it off while he nods off.
This is a sick fetish for the
self-proclaimed mystics,
a poor excuse for laziness, really,
a lie for some disgruntled manager.
I’d’ve gotten my head straight, I swear,
but I knew I’d use too much force
and twist it ‘till it breaks in its place,
would’ve popped my head out of
those rippling pages,
but I knew it was too late,
Too late to stay safely crouched into
computer friendships and households,
or soaked in a sexy self pity,
too late to be lazy without the constant
drag of a dream, too late to stay
behind, rolling my eyes
at the dreamy poet who dies with
each word I sacrifice.
So goes the work and it’s slot eats your coins,
and so goes another hungover morning
as I slowly bend and deeply,
in my own dreamt destiny decline,
to write out some beauty which I know
will rot in the hideous sundown
of a horrible caffeine comedown.
But, by god, in the face of all that,
I will be the most insane mistake to ever
sneeze upon a sunny face;
the worst retired beauty,
fat and sick like hospital flesh smells;
a terrible screech cracking golden bells;
a hellish, disruptive, degenerate smear-
Yeah, that’s it alright,
drink up over there, friend,
sure, I like your lips stained red, humor me now,
and pass that red kiss onto a furrowed head—
another bum poet is burning his words,
letting each dog-ear come to life with flame,
hoping to bake loaves of bread to break,
and feed to crows for misery’s sake.
i thought i wrote to tell you
everything is fine
but the bottle slipped
pages got wet
here, you want honesty
smell my honesty
burning in the field
under this junkyard sky
bobby lint and the 12 year shadow
my phone is disconnected
but I’m not
i got 32 flavors of razor blades
and base hits, one shoe wonder
up and down the highway in the freezing rain
i thought i told you i wasn’t shit
how come you never believed me
how come you fight the dark
i got laid out every damn place
i ever laid my sorry head
here to Tuuscaloosa
prison yards and my mama’s back porch
day i died in her heart
i went dark
i went dark
i thought i wrote to tell you i wasn’t dead yet
but who can be sure anymore
feels like dead is everything i do
you know what i mean?
aw shit, you don’t know what i mean
give it time, you will.
Today
Romance comes like Venus
Riding a seashell
The zephyrs
Pushing the vey naked
Naturally curvaceous
Botticelli babe
Onto a 21st century beach
A nudist beach
And I
Am wrapped in a towel
Too much fat to fry in the sun
And a little old
None of my bathing suits fit
I just want to be incognito
Catch a peak at the women au naturelle
Venus has a dimple on two cheeks
One on the face
One in another place
And she is so tan
She wasn’t born yesterday
But her skin is so smooth
A mole here and there
Like an exclamation point
Saying
The woman is real
Just out of Penthouse’s pool
Dripping wet
Brown eyes wonderfully smiling
And I would jump up
And say
With a cock-a-doodle-doo
“hi”
If I knew her
And the lifeguard
With big muscles
Wasn’t guarding her life
Her telephone number
Her email address
I turn seaweed green with envy
Watch them
Kiss furiously
As violins come from somewhere
And a voice
Gruff
A smoker’s voice
With intermittent coughs
Chokes out
“that is my daughter
Watch it”
I watched her
The goddess
Of Black’s Beach, California
And I said almost out loud
“gawd, what a woman”
A disembodied voice said
“That’s right, fatso…
Only in your dreams”
The experts are convinced
it’s a bull market
or maybe a bear market,
either way
they’re certain it’s a mammal
with four legs, possibly hooves
but just to be safe
they’re not ruling out claws.
They are convinced
trickle-down economics does work
but only if you have a white collar
or
if you’ve ever attended a
three martini lunch meeting,
even more so if you can
write it off as a business expense.
Choosing to buy into this
provides a guarantee of residual income
and a lifetime of resentment
and complacency.
The fix is in;
I’d be remiss if I didn’t state the obvious.
A metric shit-ton of regret is in store for you, mister.
You can’t deny
the devil has the best deal
when it comes to plea deals.
He’ll get you prime real-estate
on the 9th green of the
9th circle.
You’ll be a scapegoat,
the fall guy
caught red-handed
holding a red herring.
You’ll be first in line for an ass-whooping
and last in line for your parole hearing.
If the road to hell is paved with
good intentions, then the road to heaven
is littered with anal fissures.
The saying goes “if you mess with the bull
you get the horns.”
They failed to mention the bull cock.
You’re prime ass, prime meat
in prime time
delicate sensibilities are a delicacy
in the prison yard.
You’ll be sewing golden parachutes
into white collars
in your sleep
in no time.
It’s a bull market after all.
Or was it bear?
