Around the Next Bend

We never know.

We’re a bunch of Scarlet O’Haras
repeating tomorrow is another day,
making ball gowns out of curtains
and curtains out of ball gowns.

Shut up, Scarlet, you racist bitch.

Tomorrow is another day off
for the unemployed, another day
off from eating for the hungry,
another day off from dreaming
of a better life as ICE is deployed
to tear families apart. You swore
you’d never go hungry again,
Scarlet O’Hara. Wish you were here,
losing your SNAPS and your mind.
Because that’s what starvation does.
But maybe there’s something around
the bend that will surprise you
and fuck up the kings and queens
not to mention the jokers.

Because, after all, we never know. 

My Pisces Boyfriend

brown hair, brown eyes
which I have preferred since
I was two years old and fell for my first Pisces
my first cousin (the one I kissed in Granny’s closet)
he doesn’t pay his taxes
he doesn’t drive
he puts it down on the page
like nobody else
Lou Reed and Kurt Cobain have been dethroned
oh my fucking god
he plays the piano AND the guitar
and his voice
fuck me to Ohio
his voice is straight
from God’s own oven
and he gets it
goddamn he knows
the shit ass score
and I have a history of being a heartless whore but trust me on this
try to believe me
I know it’s hard
but I tell you
I will love this motherfucker
all the way to the grave
even though he’s playing Coachella
and I’m so much nada in Texas
okay you caught me
yes I am tripping
I’m a Gen X crone
crushing on a Gen Z rock star straight outta Brooklyn
but in some parallel universe
I just know
we are having better sex
than John and Yoko
on their best day

Soviet Sports Halls and Young Men with Erections 

     It’s a big day for anyone 
who cares about serious literature. 
I’m so devastated 
I baked a cake for the party. 
When you say It’s not heaven
It’s New Haven  
I think of Soviet sports halls 
and young men with erections, 
satellites detecting threats 
in negative space. 

     Let’s get a discourse going 
the combat shock 
of slutty waists and jangly teeth.  
Exercise is a natural cocaine. 
The disparaged propagandist is here. 
The disgraced financier.
Send nudes. Send drones. 
The boss drives a pink Tesla. 
He puffs his chest like Idi Amin.  
What other way 

     is there to say it. Ask that Rilke(y) poet 
from Vermont 
she’s always pissing at the moon. 
Ladies and gentlemen 
of the future, I fail to know 
the world 
for what it is. 
Your biceps are strange bedfellows.  
I’m in the ratline like 
something worse than naked. 

Last Call

The cold and distant Moon, an observer.
The Moon offers neither forgiveness nor condemnation,
Never one to suggest advice.
It’s just the Moon after all.
Just an observer, a witness, for what comes next.
Lest you forget, the Moon controls the tides, 
Influences some people’s moods 
And reflects the Sun. 
Disrespect the Moon at your peril.
The bar’s patrons stagger and stumble.
Last call is last call after all.
And while the Moon remains cold and distant,
The Reaper’s night is just getting started.
Let’s keep this party going, his smile bone-white.
Where to next, He whispers.
His Scythe points the way. 
The Moon lights the path.

Like I’d Miss the Sun

No one wants to read this sad sack poem
pouring out of me after two glasses
of white wine,
so I imagine myself a melancholy
charmingly self-effacing 
country singer
with an old song about how
I wish I hadn’t done you wrong,
and how I miss you
like I’d miss the sun
even though I’ll never tell you so,
and how in another world
I’m a stronger and better man.
I would sing it at some little bar
in the Midwest on a Tuesday night.
I’d drink from my whiskey 
and strum the first few notes
and the people  
would whoop and yell because
it was their favorite song,
the one they listened to
after coming home from the bar
while pouring themselves 
one more drink.
Some of them drove 40 miles 
from their shitty little town just 
to hear this one song.
I’d pause, tune my guitar,
and then really dive into it,
singing with a cracked little warble 
in my voice like I always did.
The people would close their eyes
and sway and sing along.
Some of them would cry 
as they drank their drinks
and when I was done 
there would be a moment of reverent silence
and then enthusiastic applause.
I’d humbly nod,
pick up what was left of my whiskey
from the stained wooden floor,  
shuffle offstage 
and find somewhere quiet  
to drink and cry.

Soft Launch

Before my first inhale of 8-bit Heaven, 
I’ve only known ketamine to be 
what Publix butchers palm-pass 
in fun-size bags, some spikey 
space dust bought off single 
mothers as kids squish soggy 
fries into their backseat carpet.

I only know it has something
to do with nailing roommates
to lumpy couches. Wall-eyed
meditation among sunrise weeds.
What blacks out embarrassment 
after Kraken oil Rum rummaging
past midnight that leads to thrown
phones and punched houseplants.

But in your bedroom, in the tufted 
quail-blue office chair, K sounds
safer, kinder, described as LSD lite,
sedating like BNW Soma, short-lived,
not life-consuming or -threatening.
It looks like cocaine, an icier snowfall.
We cut pale worms on a paper plate.

In the minute before ignition, I paint
smiling snails and obese bumblebees,
put on a gravelly podcast that makes 
the apocalypse sound like a nuclear field day. 

Nights in a Booth

her chiseled body swirled down the pole,
her high heels kicking in the air as she landed on
the platform. she was breathing in the gasps of
the crowd, drawing life from the lustful gazes glued on her.
the spotlights made the sweat on her silky skin to glisten,
and her long, auburn hair flowed down her shoulders.
with a smile that could hypnotize anyone she unbuckled her
top, revealing her monstrous tits to the astonished crowd.
I was in my booth, swigging Four Roses out of the bottle and
holding a pencil between my fingers, ready to violate another
cocktail napkin. she crawled around the
platform, almost had sex with the steel pole standing there
like a massive phallus; most of the men in the room
ordered drinks and the song came to an end.
she picked up her top and strutted away. they wanted
an encore; someone else climbed on
the platform and a rock song (guess which) blared from the speakers.
“liked the show?” she asked as she crawled into my booth
and stole a sip out of my bottle.
“you’re a true artist,” I said. “the Rembrandt of stripping.”
“you know you’ll get laid even without the cheesy compliments, right?”
“I’m aware,” I chuckled and had a long pull out of the bottle.
she wrung the bottle out of my grip, had a good sip, then blew a kiss
on my lips. it was time to do her rounds, give lapdances to desperate
fuckers eager to feel a woman’s touch no matter the cost.
I remained on the booth, drinking and scribbling cheap poems on
napkins. none of the other working girls approached; they were
all afraid of my Gina. the night was
over, I had more than a fifth of Four Roses in my bloodstream,
and we took the bus to my apartment. the ride sobered me up
just enough to get an erection; we fucked, and at eight in the
morning I cracked a fresh bottle of bourbon, toasting the saps
coming to work at the office building across the street.
Gina was fast asleep on my bed and my fingers were on
fire, typing out meaningless poems faster than my
hazy brain could process them. two hours later,
I passed out and her kisses riled me out of
my beautiful slumber, forcing me to make coffee
and share a kiss with her before she had to
shower and get ready for another long night.

Fame & Fancy Literature

I am sitting in Harry’s Corner Bar
listening to the din
of people talking loudly
in the summertime heat
of New Orleans.
I am on a two-day bender
out celebrating something
I really don’t know
and cannot name.
I am pushing myself too hard
trying for something,
for anything to spark.
A middle-aged woman
with silver streaked hair
puts a five into the old jukebox
and plays,
Luckenbach, Texas by Waylon Jennings.
She doesn’t know that I wrote a poem
about that very song.
In fact, the poem is called,
Luckenbach, Texas!
It is in my book, Disposable Darlings
whose cover was photographed
right here in this same bar,
blowup dolls and all.

If I had the book with me
or the poem memorized
I’d recite it for her
under the purple neon Abita beer sign
but she has since moved on
to Garth Brooks
and that is just not conducive
to respectable literature.

I Arrive In My Voice

Hello, my dear.
You look like cut glass tonight.
You smell like gasoline.
I love it when you smell like gasoline.

Hello, baby.
Are we still married 
to our own self-destructive
self-regard?

Hello, child,
can we still talk on occasion
without starting a five
alarm fire?

Hello, precious.
Tell me you’re tired
of being admired
for being a liar.

Hello, my dear,
I find you simply
irresistible when you’re
combustible as this.

Hello, future blaze.
You remind me of Corvettes
and Tab and glossy magazines
Love it when you smell like gasoline.

Unsolicited Advice

Do what you can
with what you have
take a stab at stuff
throw everything
against the wall
see what sticks
bounce your
ideas around
watch what lands
have a devil-
may-care approach
don’t let depression
encroach or impede
your needs
look at the flowers
not the weeds
feed your body
and your spirit
don’t even listen
when you don’t want
to hear it
do whatever the hell
you like
what does it matter
anyway
all you’ve got
is today
for tomorrow will
come and wash
the past away…
I hope this helps you
and you don’t take it
personal
for I have given you
every self-help cliche
in my arsenal