The lone occupant and fatality was the driver,
extracted from the remains of his Chevrolet Impala
that crumpled head-on against the unsuspecting lamppost.
His car radio, fractured and bloodied as he,
was still playing a song by The Supremes.
There was no evidence that it was a case of DUI,
and the last words that he struggled to whisper on the stretcher
were a justification on why he ran the red light: I only stop
in the name of . . .
Too many poets smiling from back covers
quilts festooned with praise
too many dedications to estranged wives, hated husbands,
once innocent children, forever guilty parents
the usual weeds that stifle Bosch-like imagination
and now twitter, this moment’s rage
preempting the tweets of undomesticated birds
with the cawing of the art
I
a singular curmudgeon in my own eyes
dismiss the sisterhood of clucking hens
that praise everything like an over-conscientious mother
and syllablelize so insincere “ohs!”
as if each poem was baked with such love
that serendipity licked the world clean
the pristine vistas were all of enchanted harbor views
even the grief departed on a Cleopatra barge
and that silence, that place-setting without my name
that surprise that walked through the front doors
the lifted eyebrow, a monumental nudge of recognition
soon lowered by those infinitely false lashes
batting welcome like dust under a rug
my buddies, those rough drunken louts
await for descriptions of how the broads broadened their formals
the golden imitation silk narrowed into two straps
each holding the girder for those mammary treasures
that only poetry could grip at their nipples gently
and moisten and playfully chew and suck
primordial conscious adult joy
the veneer of civilization is thin
and the fancy dresses, the uniform tuxedoes
only hide the naked orgy of procreation, survival
like religion clothes the body’s death with mythic
smokes and scents into a rarefied undulating imaginative heaven
where doilies hold glasses of ambrosial adoration
and God is a light show like years back Janis at the Filmore
the poets at this party of awards, recognition, reverence
get not to talk but to sit like a musician’s score
and their part, this chorus of so serious moon-faces,
is to applaud, is to nod the head, as if each node of language
weighted the balance of expectation and memory
into that momentary echo, that riotous polite nod
of an empty head or one so demonstrative
of its own good taste—ah, the eyes closed reaction
of poetic orgasm, of social approbation, of spontaneous
murmuring from an intelligentsian heart, so educated
and degree’d agreeable in the community of
approved art—Art—the art of using words
like arranging place-settings, the rolled up napkin,
the perfectly planed napkin ring,
the pleasant pheasanted good china, the shining silverware
elegantly patterned as if Boucher were a smith
I
certainly a body of gluttonous appetite shrink into a corner
sipping a glass of water, watch while almost hidden by a column
and with others in the overflowing crowd, take all the beautiful in
with lust and hunger and thirst and inordinate unexplainable frenzy
as if a woodwind or a reed or a string atremble
with the jazzy improvisation of the moment
the swell of brotherhood, the identifying with the silver candlesticks
the medium to rare slices of a cooked carcass
juice tastefully flowing from each bit of pressure on the meat
like the poems that address the senses, the carnal feast of love
or the mythic mirages assuaging the knife of death
how civilized the pawing of women, the meows of their eyes
how they entrance me, like vampires their pride is nourished
with my adoring blood, my eyes bleed with desire
oh the imagination, devoid of any puritanical restraint
reaches its invisible arms and strips the society
of its pantaloons, and oh, if for only a fleeting moment
the dance consummates itself, all that death-forgetting,
that death-denying, that ego imprisoned in the solitary pod of skin,
the beans burst, sprout, shout in temporal exaltation
Hallelujah the bodies groan en masse on the shining hardwood
Oh, that moment before imaginative exhaustion and commonplace fact
return like the symphony of a left on cell phone
and the disrepair of a moment is too visceral
to continue private reverie
I
truly nominated for nothing but an early exit
or complete invisibility, am water left out in a glass overnight
and out of sight in the morning, not even a brush of wet
on the leaves of the social hedges
I
who am the beginning and ending of all my own personal paragraphs
clap politely for my art is the art of the extra, the nit of applause
the hush of sucking it all up
the river of movement and stillness collected between rock
and walls and channeled response, oh the irrigation of the arts
I am a drop of a river of funds raining down on the receivership
the universally universitied degreed, sealed, approved memberhood
of good experimental taste and outrageousness, socially accepted aberrations
and pushing the envelope ad infinitum eternibus ah-ah-opprobium
I
accepted like a dollar on the street
buy my stay in the arty palace of the rich, famous and recorded
I
after the party breaks up into many a ménage a trois
or retires to where it lets its envy down,
drops the formal dress and swigs champagne
with the grace of a construction worker
finally 23 stories down and relieved of all that rarefied air
I
become little i again
walk to my used car
dents, rust pits on the bumper,
rubber insulation peeling from the appointed crevices of the door
turn the ignition key
and hurry home to write my very own unpublished, unheralded
poem
I
spike my imagination with a beer
and the ghost of Charles Bukowski
the barbarian
I strip nude
Exposing bear belly
Dream tits and a black bull ass
And that’s all I get?
I bend and pull and reach with my phone
When the only thought is to position myself perfectly for you
Spreading my bull ass for a hole exposure
And that’s it?
Thighs spread wide on my mother’s ottoman
Jacking my fucker of a dick slathered in Vaseline on video
And that’s it?
That’s all I get?
Yeah, I may still feel a spark of a spark
of a spark on Valentine’s
And I may let two fingers put on spiked heels
and go walkin’ downtown,
to remind me the pain of Cupid’s arrow
And just how long it takes to crawl back up
from the depths of Hell
Oh yeah, I may still see the shape
of him dancin’ around me once a year
But that doesn’t mean
his fine ghost ass has permission
to treat this construction site like his graveyard
The zone fee is a heavy one, better know,
I’ll write that ticket
I’m a work is progress; my boo-ridden heart
stitched up nicely by the stars,
and he’s a lost soul who lives for the haunting
aspect of Life. We are too different
Of course, I know he’d have me back
on the aloof loop of wandering aimlessly;
to be a side boo,
a peek-a-boo,
his sweet, sweet boo-berry icing
on the cake he always has and eats too
But I already buried that cake
Only underworldly things still try to tell
half-truths on a full moon,
so I had to put him in his place
And now,
I have day visions of colorful worms
that I sometimes mistake for his face
My hunger is rare
Pearl divers plunge in the sea
Thick cum on my tongue
How big is too big?
The waves rush into a cave
Your cock pushes deep
Kneeling is pure joy
Hot wind bends the tallest reeds
My mouth is open.
The bull mounts the cow
Dragon flies over the pond
Your cock makes me moo.
I finger my cunt
My dog’s vulva has swollen
Two bitches in heat.
Your palm filled with cum
Dew is heavy on the grass
I lick it all up
Cum blesses my face
Showers drip down the windows
Your cock is my God.
had me one of those nights out
drinking gin and i ran into a stripper
with a cast on her right hand
i told her i’m sure the other bitch
looks worse
she laughed, we went into a bar
and had a few drinks
since i was drinking gin, the dirty
part of my imagination was running
the show
i asked her if she was a squirter?
she smiled and said yeah
i said i’ll give you $100 if you let me
watch you get your clit excited and squirt
all over my face, $50 extra if you get it
in my mouth
like a clown? she asked
yes, like a clown
we went to the bathroom and she hovered
over the toilet like she had done this before
she got it going rather quickly and told me
to squat like a catcher
ooh, she knows sports, i might have to marry
her
she exploded, first getting it on my eyebrows
before getting a really good stream into my mouth
i handed her $150 as she gave me some toilet
paper to wipe my face with
i refused it
i have this long goatee for a reason
we’ve been together for a few months now
All the Teddy Boys say Florence is the squeeze
and I see Ronnie reading a book of poems
at the hot dog stand on Rockaway Beach.
The men, gunning fast trucks
and all the sad captains pulled thro’ the pier.
Let’s sing switchblade operas and keep outrageous diaries.
Let’s walk mean streets with weighted leather belts
drink rum and Cola in a Dixie Cup
suffer on and on and on
like a whip of red cake faltering in the sun.
O, Ronnie —did you book a rocket to Russia
pill heaven with the angels in chains?
Our love was fast and simple.
Now my drainpipe trousers pool
with blood and you’re still on the move.
I wanna smash cheap crockery.
I wanna drink at the Bird and Brat, cry oof
like a gun dropped, watch suicides from the Tappan Zee.
What happens next
is everything and mist.
nocturnal goings on
like thunder dreams of
a dark, dank hunger,
like when the sperm
hits the back of your
throat, you blink &
swallow, like bitter
tendrils of ghostly hands
forcing you apart, like
the boogeyman hiding
in the eternal closet,
waiting & wanting
you & me too,
us,
i,
me,
knowing he’ll wait
& strike, tearing
& gnashing in a
horrorland violence
of murderscene,
& flimsy, going
too hard & fast
nomore
life
like a giant
jagged hole
art dreams
in the head,
your head,
until it hurts
& you wake
you wake
you wake
to sweatsoaked
vision of cum
dried gash, having
black bush in the
hand worth two
birds at least,
panting & heaving
&
vowing and knowing
***
Originally published in Driver’s Side Airbag
Everything’s happening just as it should
with hateful lucidity
& cringing coherence
& perpetual moments
of vile clarity
everything that falls apart
must face its own collapse
every being that brings destruction
must witness what it’s wrought
the sublime arousal
the culmination
of every booming vision
the gripping hand
the stacked odds
the dubious dyslexia
& maddening myopia
that needfully bends
to conservative pegs
We slough ourselves down
& slime ourselves open
knowing no better
’cause better is beyond
the frittered
& fruitless ken
of our decimated soil
All we are
is all we can possibly do
& doing is deaf & dumb
a dead-end death drive
up an endless slope
but still we flail
fellating the cock of fate
licking Sisyphus’ calloused sole
maybe a mosquito on Achilles’ balls
in final measure
a laughing stock
in our masters’ cannibal soup
Stand back, for real,
she warns
You might get your
eyebrows singed.
I’d heard the rumor.
Some miracles need to be
witnessed firsthand
A woman scorned sure but
a pussy that could scorch?
Granted, I’d been burned
in past relationships but this…
this transcended love, transcended sex
this was magic.
Primitive, tribal, no fucking CGI.
As the music played, we held our drinks high in tribute.
Let there be Light, motherfucker.
And there was – an orgasm of flame.
I felt changed, improved, better
still I pitied and applauded
her lovers, easy to spot
by their 3rd degree burns.
Horror Sleaze Trash 