From The Storybook 

She prostituted while the husband
bled his lungs through his nostrils
at the paint factory fourteen hours a day
and for ten of those fourteen she fucked
then napped
then cooked

She had her baby girl 
white as paper with raven hair
later when there was no heat
nor hot water
they wrapped the child 
tucked her between them
burned their table and chairs in the fireplace
and watched their polar ends pull together 
like yanking two continents to fit the jigsaw

The child became a woman at thirteen
longed for addiction and found it
in the bottle
that bottle
became the suckling for decades 
even through the child’s own pregnancies
two of which plopped dead in the toilet
the third born blue – survived 
sickly and ugly
grew breasts at ten
gave birth to her own at thirteen

Found solace in a needle
and was content leaving her baby
with its alcoholic grandmother
as better the grandmother than her own
wretched hand 

Later grandma
found dead – drowned in the bathtub
the grandchild then five
sent to foster care 
to grow at the mercy of foster pervs
and at sixteen sought her own ruin
at the turnpike truck stop 
in the parking lot
of the twenty-four hour diner
under the help wanted sign
tending to the boys as they cruised by
hungry and raring

Icy Home Remedy Works Out Best 

I had been on a two-week drunk
trying to get over a longtime girlfriend
when I ran into her old roommate 
in a hidden-away piano bar 600 miles
away from where they shared a condo
and where I’d last seen them.

The likelihood of that?

She was sweet and very cute but
I’d always kept a distance as things
had become rocky enough without
my inadvertently complicating things.

She looked good and we spent 
a few minutes catching up before
talking about getting together,
going out on the town for some fun,
then agreeing to a date that coming
weekend. On the designated night, 
we got massively hammered and
started humping the hell out of 
each other while dancing at a gay 
bar. I found out later that evening 
that she liked having three ice cubes 
slid into her cunt before getting fucked 
doggy style. Something about the 
cockhead banging them deeper 
inside her really set her off.
It took weeks for the rug burns 
to wear off and allow me to walk
normally again but it turned out 
the pain my body endured that
night was the best damn tonic
I’ve ever found. Saved myself
thousands of dollars in therapy.

Ache

To Constance Plumley

your wrists restrained
with a tie I’ve had
since you were six
years old, the kisses
applied to collarbone,
belly, nipple. How we quest
with only our mouths
when denied the use of hands,
find the given information
that much sweeter, hotter.

Is the wafer
on your tongue bread?
ice? something darker,
muskier? Your fingerprints
ask the question,
but the answer lies
in skin slid between
your lips.

Deck of Muses

There’s a whiny voice shrieking from the jukebox
some high pitched wail
“If you leave me I’ll just die”
in that case

i’ve died a thousand deaths

They leave you for a jerk with drugs
they leave you for a jerk with money
they leave you for a jerk with friends

But, but butt butt…

i have no drugs
i have no money
i have no friends

What do i have
i’ve got edgar allen poe’s muse

i’ve got delia derbyshire’s muse
i’ve got rahsaan roland kirk’s muse

I’ve got a pack of muses
i’ve got a full house
chips stacked sky high on the table
i’ll never fold

Saint Danielon

Saint Danielon was on his way to sainthood
In the Seminaries of Madrid and Segovia
Where the struggle against the flesh and its lust
Was the most longed-for victory.
He prayed and made sacrifices
In the mysticism of his soul and his ass.
Among his sacrifices were:
“When I go to bed
I sleep on the mattress
To drive in the irons and rings.
At midnight
I masturbate like a donkey
Even with my hands tied.
In the morning, when it is midday
Praying on my knees
On very hard chickpeas
I levitate better than any saint
Raising it to the Lord
To fall after the seventh mansion
With my pants wet and ejaculated.
My fellow seminarians
Are very envious of me
Seeing that my imminent ascent to the altars
Is closer every day in this life
Envious of seeing
How my penis grows more each day.”
Senior seminarians
Went to their spiritual director to tell him:
-Look, Father Liborio
Danielón isn’t fulfilling his duty
To curb and subdue his lust.
-If our beloved Danielón
Can’t overcome temptation
He doesn’t ask anything of you
Not even your arsehole.
Let him be
But let him go to confession.
Danielón has two great books with him
From which you should learn:
The Bible, full of love affairs
Obscenities, lies, plunder
Incest, and whoring
And Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary
Where he attacks superstition, metaphysics
Religious dogmas
And the dangers of authoritarian governments.
Make your own as Danielón does
Voltaire’s famous phrase:
“Think for yourself and let
Others enjoy the privilege of doing so as well.”
One day Danielón left the Seminary
Without even saying goodbye
To the superior and confessor
Encouraged by his brothers-in-law
Who were a pair of lecherous womanizers
Who gave him a sketch of Madrid
With the places marked in color where he could find
The best and worst prostitutes.
He, not being stupid
Wanted to find out about the places by experimenting.
Near the Seminary
They pointed out the back
Of the Royal Basilica of San Francisco el Grande
Which stands out for its majestic dome
And its art collection
With Goya and Zurbarán’s works
With an observation in black pen:
“It’s not worth it.
The prostitutes fuck with their legs spread wide
On a rock, and for a peseta (a penny).
There’s a long line, and you have to take your dick out.”
They also pointed out the Plaza Mayor
And the Habsburg Quarter
Between the Sol and Opera metro stations
With this observation:
“The women aren’t bad
But they cost an arm and a leg.”
They also pointed out
Tirso de Molina Square, the Rastro flea market
And Ballesta Street
Located between Malasaña, Gran Vía, and Chueca
With this observation:
“Areas of divine, eternal prostitution
Where prostitutes advertise themselves
As sellers of sweets and contraband tobacco:
“Sunflower seeds, chewing gum, candy, tobacco
There’s a plan”
At the price of two or three pesetas.”
They also highlighted Paseo de la Habana
And Orense Street
With this observation:
“High-class whores
But with vaginas as ugly as those of the monkeys
At the Zoo in Casa de Campo
At a price of five to ten pesetas.”
Danielón decided to find one
In Tirso de Molina Square
Or the Rastro flea market.
Passing in front of 
The Royal Collegiate Church of Saint Isidro
And Our Lady of Good Counsel
He saw a very attractive woman coming out
And, standing next to her
He said her:
-I’ll lick your cunt and fuck it so.
She looked at him and smiled, replying:
-Come and follow me.
We went to Tirso de Molina Square.
There, in the doorway, were three hunks waiting.
The whore told them:
-I’ll finish with this one right away.
He just got out of the seminary.
Danielón acted like a real macho man.
He rode her like a donkey
Leaving her cunt a beautiful mess
With the meringue of his ejaculation all over her.
She left her legs spread wide
With all the meringue still there.
The three hunks from the doorway appeared
With their hard pricks
Together and inside her cunt
Continuing fucking and enjoying her.

Dead Dawn Dependency 

The urge to step out rises like a fever dream 
An infective sense of what a person does
The night there to be inhabited 
For the expenditure of youth
             And you alone
             With the ghost light of your cigarette
             Burning away from a balcony platform
             Straining against the imprisonment of self
Heed this call to discovery 
Though it comes without causation 
Where getting ready is a form of foreplay 
Leading to uncertainty 

          Outside 
                     Before it’s too late

The vastness of the night 
Restrained by the city-glow 
The non-dimensional Mundane Egg shell
Beneath which tower blocks fizz with energy 
Unpeopled booths of uncurtained office space
Making voyeurs of emptiness of us all
Those strip-neons flicker
Cinematic remembrances 
Of the stars whose light they’ve leached 
Burn the old constellations
Into your crumbling memory
           They’re taking that as well
           Eroding it away
           Through the developing muscle-memory
           Of micro-transactions 
Those stellar bodies
Cold astral corpses
Once guides for the weary
Are the only magic left to us
            ‘Here be monsters’
At the black edge of the street-lights 
The mysteries beyond the urban forest fire
Where Pseudo-Leviathan consumes Leviathan 

This atheism of the city 
First-and-only possible child 
Of the steel dome sky-mask
A dull reflection in pewter
Nothing more than a pareidolic face
The age-faded identikit
Piecing together of memory 
Which night’s awareness brings
In the palimpsest of history 
It’s corpses all the way down 
Transience the only certainty
            And health, a respite from the living sickness
Manifesting in the 
            Dead dawn dependency
The conviction that the sun will rise
            And imbue it all with meaning
A totemic rebuttal to the singularity 
            Of the ghost-lit monument of the midnight hour 
The hiding place beneath the city-glow
            Obscuring the true face of existence

Take Care of Yourself

A mangled stomach of the ocean?
No, your chest split open on a stainless steel table
between two wounds of darkness 
in my house.
I swallow your mucus, the clots of salty blood,
and think about a tempestuous sky 
above the ocean you dreamt about last night.
Tonight I’m dreaming about it, too,
with my hands deep in your open chest.

Love Tentacle

Verge of a foam-white ocean
eating out insides like tidal
waves, tidal pools, muscle stuck
suction cups curved around nipples
near the jetty water pulling out
hot macaroni drip from hot lips
sea stars drop, gnawing out stubborn
flesh on a beach fogged in limbo
dimmer now the sun setting
a curve of a banshee beacons
some incomplete burning ritual
submitting Lovecraft to turn pale
blush like some rapeful barbarian bent
on spooning sand and injecting a
tentacle glistening in the mouth
nightmare of a nightcraft I pant
moan into a rock bleeding as
the inner thighs I’m locked with 
wave over me toward the ocean
temple lights sing and lure
in only to encounter myself
altered
transformed

Flat Sausage

We were over at her place 
watching Braveheart 
when the idea came to me.

I’d always had a problem 
with impulse control.

Walking into her kitchen
to grab the Panini Press from the pantry
and dropping my pants.

Sticking my cock into the middle of the press
and pulling the top down.

Trying to create some flat sausage,
a Scottish favourite, I’d been told.

When I pulled away,
the shaft was steaming.

A wonderful waffling pattern burned 
into my squished dick.

She screamed like travelling banshees.
A single uninterrupted wail.

I figured the English must be coming.

Quick, grab your makeup bag,
I need my war paint!

She kept looking down 
at the flat sausage between 
my legs.

Now was not the time 
to be hungry.

Marriage Or Booze

as everyone I know is
getting married or settling down with
kids and whatnot, of course I
get asked why I don’t do
the same.

I usually just shrug, smile, and ignore the question.

no one wants to hear the truth; they think
they do, until it’s too late.

they think they want to hear my reasons for
not getting married, for not wanting a serious
relationship. until they hear my wherefores.

met the love of my life when
I was twenty. we drank bars
dry, we drained bottles of gin and bourbon
every night.

we smoked crack cocaine. we snorted blow, too.
we dropped acid. smoked pot.
we also smoked, inhaled, and eventually shot heroin.
it’s what killed her; the best and worst
fucking thing I’ve ever encountered: junk. it took her
away after she had an abortion, because we both knew we
were unfit to become parents.

she OD’ed. I survived. went cold turkey.
relapsed. cold turkey again.
continued drinking. and smoking ice. and rock.
and anything else I could find.

anything and everything that fed the insanity
residing in my soul.
until I quit everything but booze.
now that I’ve reached the age I’m supposed to
be settling down, and people ask me why I
don’t, I wonder if I should tell them the
truth or if I should just go back to
chasing dragons until the moronic
questions dissipate.