Docket Sheets

sometimes when the curtains
still shield my eyes from the sun
and the things living here
aren’t stirring
I pull open
my laptop
to look up the docket sheets
of the people
(I guess) I once knew

see if Twan
got off
or caught a murder charge
for that dead kid from Warren,
the one
whose parents
surrendered his cell phone
and the DEA
did what they could
with us,
a bunch of strung out junkies
killing time
in Andy’s mom’s attic

see if Tony
stayed out of trouble
since his first DUI
or if
his temper got away from him
like it had before

see if my exes
committed crimes
no matter how minor
no matter how expungable
so I could
feel vindicated
for the pain I put them through
and then
later in the day
–maybe about lunchtime
maybe before–
feel guilty
for that ill will,
for thinking about
some shit
I can’t change

see if
there are any new charges
under my own name
if the old fever dream
of my addiction
is ever made manifest
in black and white,
in bench warrants,
in dollars and cents
owed

I’ll look up a few more
–guys from rehab
people from high school
names I fail to remembers–
and shut the lid

I’ll let my family
wake up
and never mention
how I spent the
early
hours
while I write a poem
to describe a feeling
that
evades
words

 

 

Valentine

My friend Shane picked me up
and drove to the flower shop
near Wickie’s Pub
on Burton Avenue.
He picked out the flowers and the wrapping,
then it came:
you’re good with words,
can you write something
that will get me laid
tonight?
Then I wrote something
and the saleslady
melted.
We picked up his girl from work
and she saw the flowers
and read the card
as I sat in the backseat
waiting.
She couldn’t keep her hands
off him
the whole way home.
After they dropped me
back at my place on Jane Street
they drove off
to have some wild unprotected gorilla
Valentine’s Day
sex
as I made my packet
of chicken-flavoured Mr. Noodles
for dinner
and was in bed
by 7.

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.