Staying in Vegas

The night began
with tongue burned
off by a manic
prostitute’s gold
lighter engraved
by her first rapist
then scrotum slit
by stiletto with balls
swapped with dice.
Mute eunuch lucky
enough to be alive
but no home as honest
as the hell of lights,
asphalt, and concrete
shining out the ass
of glitter gulch.

 

well beyond my years

I’ve never
taken a selfie

i’ve never
had a Facebook
account

I’ve never
found it
necessary
to take a
picture of
my food

my ego
doesn’t believe
the world needs
to know when
i’m taking a
shit or when
i’m trying to
decide what to
get at the home
improvement
store

they told me
as a child I was
well beyond my
years

i suppose that is
still true

although I’m quite
interested in seeing
what this Tinder is
all about

Argonaut’s Agony

naked hydras
melting sexes
slithering form unicorn skin
husk is what you’ve got
full of radioactive gum drops
he-she chants in ironic devotion
semblance of the humane
in the realm of species splendor
mythos point
Saturn’s rings jumbled
in the trench of Hades’ rainbow
Neptune washes
none of it away

When the Dick Died Inside

I think I went
too far this time
when I said I’d flay you
and use your skin against mine.
Maybe you thought
it was to be close
but I see it
as funny.

I’ll wear you inside out
and your dick up me
until it putrefies
and I die of
blood poisoning.

Suicide by dick
just to show your
irrelevance.

the poem man

Sat down
late at night and
wrote two poems

They were both
shit

Drank a
whole bottle
out-of-date
port and
punched myself
in the side of the head

Until I
felt sick
and vomited
on the sofa

Wrote this poem
and went to bed

Woke up
and nothing had
changed

Nothing ever really does

Drunk

I curl up on my favorite bench
in my disgusting blanket
I take another swig of the rancid liquid
A car rolls by playing a familiar song
with that catchy chorus:

I just died in your arms tonight,
it must have been something you said

I sing along as best I can—

I’m
Just
Dying

I’m
Just
Dying

Then everything fades to black

these boots

have outlived
six pairs of laces
a wife
and the
banal affections
of seventeen other
wax
suitors.

they’ve seen me though
a suicide attempt
three minor stays in jail
and stints as
a door to door
vacuum cleaner salesman
and hired man
on a hog farm.

they were there
the day my grandfather
died on a hospice bed
from cirrhosis
of the liver
and the evening
my ex said
she was pregnant
and i tried talking her
into an abortion.

before that
they spent ten years
under my father
as a bug man
for presto x.

this morning
my three year old son
gets them
on his feet.

trudging
across the living room floor
of my apartment:

look daddy
look at me
i’m a big boy
just like
you.

What Happened to You?

I’m pretty desperate
so when she calls
I say OK and go to Pinole
because she was hot ten years ago
and not entirely insane.

“I’ve been arrested
12 times,” she says at the bar
and then calls the police
to ask them if I can park overnight
in a tow zone
because I’m drunk.

Her spine has gone crooked,
she’s partially bald, and
she claws at my chest
when I try to leave.

I get home, shaken,
thanking God I’m not her
as I look in the mirror,
but then I wonder
if she’s thinking
the same thing.

The Fuck Circus

Metallic scraping of machines
Announce the heraldic arrival of sin,
All along the horizon, glittering with despair:
petrol bombs filled with perfume,
The lone renegade wrapped in lace, leaking lilac;
Glistening orifices, await degradation,
Scorched lips, speculating, soliciting for love,
unwelcome, repetitive penetration and devastation,
Slippering into existence, two parts per million,
floodlit orgies, with inconstant waves of medication,
welcome to the fuck circus,
drenched in clown saliva and popcorn cartoon slits,
the stench is overwhelming,
confess to the acrobats,
as they can still see the
sky.