So, what’s wrong?

“so, what’s wrong, hun?” she asked as I slogged into the bar near the port,
brimful with tired sailors and scantily clad women, for the first time.
I had to stay away from my regular dive for a while; too many memories
imbued within those beer-stained walls and on my whiskey-covered barstool.
“nothing,” I shook my head and climbed on the barstool. 
“how about you buy me a drink and tell me what ails you?” she insisted.
“how about,” I riposted, “I buy you a drink and we don’t talk for a few minutes?”
“that’ll work,” she said with an uncertain smile. I got us two Jim Beams, double and neat.
I chugged mine, ordered another.
“you’ve got a reason to drink?” she asked, nipping on hers.
“you don’t need a reason to drink, drinking in and of itself is beautiful,
but, yes, tonight, and for the past few weeks, I’ve had good reasons to get drunk
out of my fucking mind. how about you?”
“I need to drink to deal with the manners of some of the people that come in here.”
“right. sorry if I came off as an asshole. usually, I’m just a dick.”
“well, dicks is what I’m here for.”
we both chuckled. I drained my bourbon, got another.
she still nursed her first. “break-up?” she asked.
“yeah. the permanent kind. she died.”
“shit, I’m sorry,” she said and, for the first time, her voice sounded genuine
and her eyes stopped emanating fake sympathy and feigned lust. “are you okay?”
“no. I will be, though; after five or six more of these,” I added,
raised the glass, and sank it. “thanks,” I said to the bartender
who just refilled my lowball without even waiting for me to ask.
“I’m Jeanette,” she said. “it’s my real name. not many people in here know it.”
“George,” I said. “everyone knows my real name; well, those I care enough
to tell them, anyway; there aren’t that many, to be frank.”
“you’re interesting,” she said.
“trust me, I’m not,” I corrected her.
“get me a beer, man, will you? large draft,” I told the bartender.
“beer?” she asked, arching her eyebrow and twitching her lips into a smile.
“yeah. gotta sober up. if I don’t, I might end up paying you for sex.”
“I wouldn’t charge you,” she shook her head. “something about your eyes.
they tell stories your mouth would never do. you’ve seen stuff, done some shit.”
“get her another drink, will you? she’s way too sober and is scaring the crap out of me.”
“I haven’t finished my drink yet,” she protested, with a giggle.
“well, better hurry up. I want to get your intuition skills drunk before it’s too late.”
she chortled, then drained her lowball with tremendous ease, putting to shame seasoned drunkards.
“just so you know, you don’t have to get me drunk to take me to bed,” she informed me.
“as I said, I’m only interested in putting your reading people skills to sleep. don’t care about the rest.”
we didn’t talk much for a while; she finally stopped prodding
into learning my story and I didn’t care for talking anyway. I drank my beer,
had another, had some more double Jim Beams. as I drank,
and got drunk(er), she walked around the bar several times,
coaxing other guys into buying her drinks. that was fine;
she’d always return next to me. “well,” she said suddenly,
I was too deep into my cups, “my shift’s over and the bar’s about to close for the night. how about you come to my place?”
“I don’t have the money for special treatments.”
“I told you earlier, though it’d surprise me if you remembered, you won’t have to pay for anything.”
“fine, then,” I said, right before ordering my usual last call drink(s):
a bourbon, a shot of gin, and a draft beer. she got a double Jim Beam, on her tab. we drank up, then left the bar along with the drunk sailors and tipsy whores.
her apartment was just across the street. top floor in a three-story red-brick house. tiny place, just a living room/kitchen and a bedroom (plus bathroom). still bigger than my apartment.
“so,” she asked after bringing two glasses of whisky and water, “have you drunk enough to forget what you’re trying to forget?”
“there’s not enough booze in the world.” I almost gagged on the acrid taste of the scotch she’d served me. it was a free drink, though, so I manned the fuck up and drank it. “not enough drugs, either.”
“maybe, I can offer something different,” she said and shoved her tongue down my throat.
she climbed on my lap and my hands went straight to her ass. it felt both right and wrong sucking on her tongue while she ground her ass on my prick.
the booze had killed my hydraulics; maybe, it was grief. probably both. undaunted, she thrust her hand into my jeans, her warm palm connected straight with my junk. rubbing and massaging, hard and demanding. gave my drunken body no option;
soon, my blood migrated from my spinning brain to my pulsating cock and I was hard.
with excitement shimmering in her blue eyes, she slithered down from my lap and got between my legs. she yanked my jeans down around my knees and took me in her mouth. her auburn hair covered her face and I had to close my eyes, to stop the tears from rolling down my cheeks.
memories flooded my brain, and the booze in my bloodstream would not let me enjoy the moment without reminding me of everything I’d lost.
her slurping and gargling sounds reverberated across the small room and I buried my fingers in her hair. soon, she was back on my lap, her panties on the floor and her mini skirt hiked up.
in she took me, no questions asked, no condoms worn. the no-condom thing brought back more memories, darker memories, but it didn’t matter. her tight, warm, wet embrace managed to eviscerate most of the guilt from my palpitating heart and as she sucked on my tongue, I decided to surrender to her whims.
she jounced on me fast and hard; faster and harder as the hooch had engendered an invincibility toward her tightness. at some point, I started throbbing. she was huffing and puffing, exhausted from having to ride me for a good long while. I wanted to throw her off me before I came, but it was too late and I was too weak to pull out.
“don’t worry, I’m on the pill,” she whispered in my ear.
I wished I’d heard those words a couple of months ago. things’d have been wildly different.
panting heavily, she sat next to me and kissed me on the bearded cheek. “come, let’s go to bed,” she said. I accepted.
I wanted to go home and drink some more, but I had no strength to return to the streets, let alone wait for the fucking bus.
we lay down in her double bed, naked and sweaty and dizzy, and passed out before I could even think of how many men had jizzed on the fucking mattress.
come morning, and hangover, I thought about it; too bad a headache to care. I crawled out of bed and clambered to the bathroom. took a piss, puked.
“good morning,” she greeted me with a heavy voice when I shambled into the kitchen. “coffee?”
“sure,” I grunted and flung my numb, throbbing carcass on the couch.
rolled a cigarette and lit it. “you don’t mind my smoking in here, right?”
“no, it’s fine,” she giggled. sat next to me and I took the mug she gave me.
“good coffee. strong.”
“figured you like it black and strong.”
“yeah, unlike my men,” I chuckled. “sorry, an Airplane reference.”
“what?”
“haven’t watched the movie? you should. a funny masterpiece.”
“maybe, we can watch it next time?”
“sure,” I said, without even thinking. “well,” I cleared my throat after I finished my cigarette and coffee, “I should get going.”
“alright,” she nodded. “wish you could stay a bit longer.”
“maybe, next time.”
as I got dressed, I expected her to tell me how much I owed her for the night.
she never did. it was, indeed, free. “you’re welcome back here anytime,
unless I’m working,” it was the only thing she said as I stood under her doorway.
“do come by the bar tonight.”
“maybe, I will,” I said and climbed down the spiral staircase,
each step I too bringing a new jolt of pain in my head.
I made it home, took a shower, and had a beer. wrote a couple of poems,
drank some more beers. I got dressed and walked to the bus stop.
in twenty minutes, I was sitting on the same barstool
in the same bar by the port.

The Daily Catch

She came to the Halloween party
in black fishnet
and someone asked what she was
and she said: a fisherman’s net.

Smells like you caught something,
I said.

Not very nice, I know.

It just came out.
Like a nasty drunk.

She kept staring at me
for the rest of the evening.
Trying to murder me with her glare.

I knew that was what she was doing.
Then I didn’t feel so bad
about my insult.

I mean, out of all known proportion,
the crazy bitch was trying to kill me.

Under the Gun

Roll out of bed. Bed rolls out of me. The floor rolls like a sailor at sea.

Slouch toward the kitchenette. A guy occupies the couch – hubby of the gal I, at the party last night, screwed on the toilet seat? Points at me a gun. Large revolver. Classic .357? I don’t know guns; though I love the precision of their build, and of the ammo they hurl.

I say, without interrupting my death-march to the kitchenette, “Your wife always fart when she cums? Or that because my dick so much bigger than yours?”

A click – as of a hammer cocked – clicks.

Hope to make it to the finger-smeared fridge, and the iced Nescafé inside. Hope to get down enough to wake up and realize this all a nightmare – the party, the toilet, the too-high wife, the gun, the guy…

Not the couch. I need the couch. For those occasions I coax a female down here; because she often kicks me, for sundry reasons, out of my own bed.

Or, if this real – hope, in that last frame, as the slug flies ahead of the bang, to see why the ugly – especially when bad – always feels too good.

Paris Hotel

Drunk at noon in the city 
of Baudelaire, I am back at my hotel, deprived 
of sleep, 
here for an afternoon nap. 

I yank the curtains shut, lie down on the bed, 
think about all the ghosts 
who’ve occupied 
this space 
before me. Ghosts. 

I can almost see them gliding 
across the carpet, laughing, arguing,
making love in the milky 
maundering moonlit
hours. 

This hotel is ancient. It’s at least 200 
years old.
I can hear a strange occasional 
clicking
inside the walls. I can hear the floors 
groaning. 

I can feel the heavy rumble 
of the metro 
as it passes 
underneath the building. 

I fold the pillow around my 
skull, throw the duvet 
over me. 

But after about 10 minutes, 
it becomes clear – I’m too wired to sleep. 

How can you sleep in bright liquid 
August 
in the city 
of Picasso, Hemingway, Cendrars? 

I ponder the question for a bit, 
though I know the answer. So, 
I climb out of bed – I too 
am a ghost 
in this hotel’s memory – pulling 
up 
my trousers, lacing my shoes. 

I grab my wallet off the dresser 
and, 
remembering 
I am in the city of that big-souled thief
Villon, remove bank card
licenses Deutschland Ticket
everything 
but €30
and head up to Montmartre.

No Need of a Map

devils in my head
angels on my shoulder
telling me which way to go
horns or halo
salvation or damnation
i know the road i’m on
i turned that corner a long time ago
there’s no turning back
not now
not ever
as the bodies pile
the blood flows
the whispers continue
another mile
another life
one way
all the way
you can’t be first
you may be next
and miles to go before i sleep
and miles to go before i sleep

Average American Asshole

my teenage son bullies me into recycling
my husband bullies me into writing a werewolf novella
because literary fiction doesn’t sell at horror conventions
pretty sure I’ll get into some kind of heaven when I finally die
but right now I’m busy spraying baseboards with orange oil
and shuffling tarot cards to pay bills
because I’m not hot enough for OnlyFans
and not trending enough for Penguin Random House

Oranges

The antique jar contains shards
of pottery from the “ones that
came before” near the Puya
Cliffs in northern New Mexico

I stare and wonder if I can continue,
my robot mail throwing elbow is 
worn out, surgery and cortisone no
longer work, drugs help, but not
when mixed with alcohol

I failed at suicide three times,
trying to make it look accidental,
so my lady and kid could collect

Robins are pulling worms from
the ground, winos are pissing in
doorways, cardinals are all red
on telephone lines, they all have 
more freedom than me

Perhaps a spectacular car crash
into a river or lake, deciding to
continue and laugh at the orange,
that spreads its legs all juicy
like an excited woman

All tomorrows seem like yesterday,
but, I will live at least for today.

Nothing Happens in June  

The news in Berlin this morning is about 
what you’d expect: a 19-year-old was stabbed 
in the back and gut by a stranger 
on Möckernstrasse; there was a femicide
of a 34-year-old mother in Köpenick; 

a group of neo-Nazis confronted a man 
outside a Späti calling him a longhair 
and a leftie and a tick. Zecke 
is the German word for tick. It’s also a pejorative 
for a foreign-looking person. 
“Du Zecke!” hollered the neo-Nazi,
then smashed his beer bottle 
over the long-haired skull of the tick, 
concussing him.

Elsewhere 
in the city, a drug dealer was beheaded 
by a client 
with a machete; a climate change 
activist 
is nearing death on day 90 
of his hunger strike and here 
on my street where someone used blue chalk 
to scrawl ALLAH IS 
A DWARF on the sidewalk, a drunk 
is drinking beer from a tennis ball
can.

Greasepaint Inferno

Bring the fire crew for the open pit,
strewn dead graveflowers stinking up the smoke like garlic,
a morbid joke. Cretinous clowns emerge from the smoldering wreckage, faces peeling off, black gloves shocking with zapper buzz wounds, their creepy libidinous psalms propounding lunatic poetics 

Tombs with a view, their blazing polka dotted costumes run askew to logic,  nightmare-fuelled jettison setters sitting on a fuselage eating rainbow-tainted meat, gore mongering harlequin androids atrophied in their body suits

Discolored lips enlarged with malformed paint which drips, 
yet another inferno underneath burnt out eyeballs
and giant jiggling shoes filled with red jello shot jism, loaded with tiny toy guns that will not stop protruding their way inside this never ending nightmare circus

The latest flame burns all the perverted clown shoes off, forces them
to be replaced with stripper heels, insists they perform grotesque 
dance moves in front of the sizzling open mic which is programmed to explode 

The poltergeist clown doll is pole dancing within
your bedroom closet, waiting for you to open the door
into hell. Bells of satiety peel, the notorious harlequinade spread like
jam on sex sandwich bread, as she executes the funeral dance, bump and  grindcore romance, wounds from charred, twisted and bizarre wombs rippling like curses through the circus tents, as bent, deformed and violent nether-clowns down their party favors, drugged and lulled to sleep in cotton candy ecstasy, with one, two, three times three maledictive curses spread prodigiously 

The oldest of the clowns forms the apex of a rotting and sadistic pyramid in which hellbent volcanic ash pours out of the mother clowns mouths like a gravy vat of drying blood. A mass attack heap of gelatinous grits, another fusion mix of horror sauce, grinding in to the griddle cake, singed dressing, a side dish of slasher porn, broken clown neck bone

Torn recipes for macabre meat and greets, faded out photographs of 
the St. Valentine’s Day Strip Bar massacre, where the lush and lurid 
gothic clowns pour themselves down the poles of ice and woe 

in an orgy of bloody telepathic silences. The thin blue Picasso clown and the fat pink Rubens jester fester like Bubonic buboes made of boobs, gawked at by randy rubes. Two clown girls face off in the ring, with outsized boxing gloves made of corn meal, landing kill blows down to reeling iron toes. 

A hawker of phlegmy circuses clashes with the berzerk and seismic flirts of the clown hookers union, that stoops to conquer time with pyroclastic rhymes for days, mirrorhall maze of hallucinated stitches down the back of catastrophic events in which a strained amalgamation of Snow White’s Stepmother applies a ton of clown makeup to cover up her aging face, then stares at her evil clown head until every mirror cracks, the glass breaks through the windows, the windmill splits in half, revolving clown heads drip with blood

Convulsing clown heads split in half, one black eye, one dark red eye
with giant millipedes crawling out, unfurling, preparing to light another fire, turn the whole human race into damned clowns, place the most hideously diabolical clowns in leadership positions.

The Painful Sunrise

When you realize, uh-oh, the last two were probably three too many and you should’ve been in bed hours ago, but the music kept playing and the company’s so good! So good! So good! And her skirt, too revealing – her legs, too far apart. And the way she throws her head back with every shot, and every laugh, it’s just the way – aha aha – you like it. So, you chase down one more dark alley and, sure, her lipstick’s too red – her dyed curls, too wet and too coincidental, but you don’t stop ‘til you get enough and it’s not enough ‘til it’s way too much. 

And the moment arrives when you say, “Throw your head back like that one more time, baby, I’ll keep you up all night.” And she laughs a laugh too reckless and bites her lower lip – and so do you – and her eyes roll back in her head, and you taste the lipstick on her teeth… You’re two strangers in the night exchanging saliva… Soon she’s back to doing backstrokes and you’re still keeping up, but her face matches the lipstick now and she starts blowing out the candles, starts pissing on the sparks. You’re not the reason why she came and you’re not the reason why she stayed. There’s a place she needs to be, but you try, “Ooh babe, what would you say we go watch the moonset together?”

And the music keeps playing and you soldier on alone in a company unfamiliar. When another skirt sits down, and your tab’s still open, and you can only see her with your fingers, but she doesn’t seem to mind (your tab’s still open). And you tell her how you really feel in your comfortable despair, but she thinks you’re just paranoid, and she may be right cause there are shadows on the wall that weren’t there before and the light is getting stronger and you wish it would hold off just a little while longer. But the sun is on the rise. It waits for no one. It’s tapping on the window, hurling insults, asking questions you don’t wanna answer right now.

***

Previously published in Dear Booze