I Can Only Respond With A Poem

I sent the poem you sent me
to a devout, widowed, Catholic woman;
and, upon seeing it, she gave up her life of prayer,
certain that God either never existed, no longer exists,
or that He exists but must be evil. I can’t say why,
but I hope that this little poem somehow
brings you the peace you’ve been looking for.
Oh wait! I forgot! You keep reminding me
that you’re looking for war, not peace.
So you see, all of my theology
is either unworkable or unmarketable.
Conservatives reject my religion
due to my penchant for hookers, gambling,
smoking, drinking and blasphemy.
Liberals reject my religion
because I can write and they can’t.
Hence, my poetry career is ruined forever.
I actually prayed to God about this
and He said that he doesn’t like poetry,
or poets; and therefore I’m standing
on solid ground. My fan club now
has no members. My book sales
are zero. Immortality stars right here.
My last letters from the late Donna Lane
are etched in my mind. As she lay dying,
she told me to tell everyone to fuck off.
Because of her courage, I’m hoping
the people of the world will erect shrines
in her honor. She forever refused
to believe anyone’s bullshit.
You’ve got to love that.

Midway Home

She had a blue ribbon face
on a state fair body

He was a duct taped tilt-a-whirl
living on rock

She whispered secrets to elephant ears
He saw himself in Mötley Crüe mirrors

Switchblade combs cotton candy
roasted corn and melted butter
scatter on the floor of the camper trailer

Together they part
and walk away
on pixie dust

Scheduled Simping 

ah yes that scheduled simping, 
Sunday morning, hungover n’ 
horny, where one wank won’t 
do it and the dehydration and 
a takeaway and the shame and 
second wank and often the 
weight of the blues setting in. 
but Monday welcomes a fresh 
menagerie. then there is a 
love letter of endings I 
never expected in the pages 
of a Carson McCullers book 
from the NI lass who’s 
impossible to forget. 
I’m feverish, get the paracetamol. 
’cos spring snogs summer pure slop. 
today I feel like a boy who got 
his pants pulled down 
at the public pool. 
I gape at the long running sitcom 
suddenly going into syndication.

rejuvenation

you cheap whiskey vomit into the pig pen
bent over the fence 
with your ass in the air

and the fat sows squeal and run for the snack 
if your ass falls in and you passout
those bitches will gnaw you into another dimension

and the old woman up in the trailer
is glued to the QVC on-line
she’s spending all your money 
on a robot vacuum cleaners
and jars of rejuvenation cream 

and she’ll want to screw 
after wasting all that cash
it happens every time

but can you get it up when she spreads her thighs?

will you even make it to the door
with those sows closing in 
and your head spinning like a broken bladed fan? 

upping the irons

by the age of twelve
my bedroom was wall-papered
with Iron Maiden posters.
Eddie in every guise,
my crown jewel being
Live After Death,
Eddie busting out of a grave,
corpse musculature straining,
stringy white hair streaming
away from his skeletal face.
lightning strikes the hinge
securing his skull cap.
the poetic couplet engraved
on the tombstone
introduced me to the
literary cosmic horror
of H.P. Lovecraft.

I remember fondly the
door-sized poster from
Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.
the occult overtones
titillated my young mind
already simmering with
the writings of Aleister Crowley.
the poster illustration depicts
Eddie seated at a desk,
demonic candle burning
to his left, angelic candle
casting light to the right.

I purchased that one
with my paper route money
at the local flea market
along with three Chinese stars
from the ninja gear booth.

every poster was titled:
Phantom of the Opera,
Aces High, Piece of Mind.
Stranger in a Strange Land
with the iconic Eddie
portraying a mash-up of
Blade Runner and
the High Plains Drifter.

these posters and so many
more were procured at the
August Fest, a celebration
of dodgy carnival equipment
and deep-fried junk food,
the highlight of my summer.
every poster was a prize
for busting a balloon with
a dart at a dollar a pop.
Number of the Beast
appealed to this devil-
loving Catholic boy.
Two Minutes to Midnight,
Flight of Icarus,
Somewhere in Time.
Eddie brandishing a cutlass
and a Union Jack as
The Trooper.
Can I Play With Madness?
Powerslave.
all these images supercharged
my hyperactive imagination,
horrified my mother,
perplexed my father.
when my school buddy, Cas,
stopped by to fire up my
newly purchased Nintendo,
he took in my shrine to
this mysterious Iron Maiden
and their monstrous avatar
and asked if I had 
any of their albums.

we looked at each other,
blankly, for a moment.

albums?
Iron Maiden’s a band?

Code Blue

What exactly do people have against the dead?
They don’t pick fights or treat others dismissively,
they’re quiet, they don’t litter or play music past 10PM,
and they prefer to lie quietly in their coffins, with no
demands except to please keep the air cool and circulating.

People have even been known to scream upon
coming across a dead body despite the fact that no
harm could possibly come to them; some folks 
turn away from the dead at funerals and wakes,
which is particularly rude since great pains
are often taken to dress the dearly departed in 
their best attire, and to employ makeup artists and  
hair stylists to ensure that they look their best.

And horror movies and post-apocalyptic television
shows only serve to increase the prejudice against
the dead. It is a well-known fact that a very low
percentage of the unalive actually become blood-
thirsty zombies, but despite this well-researched
information many still panic when a ghost stops
by to pass the time or to say a simple hello.

The one way that kindness is shown is often
based on hypocrisy, the notion that it is uncouth
to speak poorly of the dead. Even Hitler has many
defenders who point out his vegetarianism and
claim that he really only wanted to build a better
Germany, in other words, make it great again!

An exception to this code of behavior is disgraced,
former gallery owner Andrew Crispo, who, in all
of his obituaries is raked over the coals; Crispo
was responsible for only a handful of deaths as 
opposed to Hitler’s millions, but nobody seems
seems to have anything good to say about him,
and we have not even touched on the many
ways necrophiliacs are stigmatized. Some of them
are even arrested! Does anyone take the time 
to ask the dead if they objected? I think not!

A true democracy is inclusive of all, whether
or not one can find a pulse or hear a heartbeat.
We must remember that until all us are dead
none of us are dead, we are simply floating
in that place between breath and suffocation,
hiding from the unknown, embracing a world
built on false knowledge and blind hindsight.

SHOW ME DEM TIDDIES

I was really drunk
and I told her SHOW ME DEM TIDDIES
and she just laughed
a nervous laugh –
uncomfortable
but aware that I was harmless.
She didn’t say no
but it obviously wasn’t
a yes.

We were alone in her place,
in the kitchen.
She was drinking 
but she wasn’t drunk.
I tried to compose myself
but then I said it again:

COME ON, I said,
SHOW ME DEM TIDDIES,
I JUST WANNA SEE EM
and that time
she sighed
and lifted up her shirt,
removed her bra,
showing me dem tiddies.

I stared at them,
a drunk attempt to memorize them.
I really liked them
and I told her so.

As she began to put them away
I wanted to ask her 
if I could touch them
but, even as drunk as I was,
I knew she had already
done her good deed for the day.

night shifts

I hear them 
late end of the 
graveyard shift
thumping the window glass
leaves cracking outside 
under their faint steps

do they wander with purpose
these ghosts?
are the blind trails 
of purgatory
fenced in? 
the walls hidden 
the walls 
never known 

the distant howl
of the way to go
the traffic flow of the living
echoing in the long night
or echoing 
imagined 
in the lost mind

teasing sprinklers
dropping dark thoughts
like lone thick rain drops 
leering 
from my roof

I don’t think they see me
I don’t think they want me
but I think 
they think
the same question 
that calls me
awake 
this late 
in between 
days 

what was that? 
what 
was
that. . .?

Neighbors

It’s my neighbor.
It’s the one my landlady warned me about.
It’s the unemployed anthropologist.
It’s the one with the 5-tier shoe-tree
outside her door
because shoes are forbidden
from entering
her home.
I see her sometimes mounting the stairs,
or in the check-out line in the grocery store,
or down by the trash cans,
and she returns my hellos
never.

I can hear her through the bathroom wall.
She’s masturbating again.
She does it under the faucet.
She does it in the evenings around 8.
I exit the bathroom,
go into the other room,
and start going
over the piles of German
bureaucratic paperwork I’ve been bombarded
with lately:

Sehr geehrter Herr Powers…

I wade through a couple pages with the help
of Bing Translator,
then take the plug out of my laptop,
take it and my piles out onto my balcony,
and sit down
with a bottle
of French red.

It’s warm out here for a September night.

I can hear dishes clanging in the Italian restaurant.
I can hear the muttering of Germans on the sidewalks.
I can’t hear my neighbor masturbating
from here,
but after couple minutes, she appears,
a lonely
silhouette
on her balcony.

I’m done saying hello
to her,
I tell myself.

I slouch down a little more in my chair,
take a big swig of wine
and attempt to conquer
words like Unterhaltsberechtigten
and Zahlingsmodalitäten, and Vermögensverhältnisse,
but it’s no good.
I can’t go on.

The night’s too beautiful to waste on bureaucratic German.
Should I answer some of my unanswered emails?
Should I start in on a poem?
Should I have a couple drinks at one of the bars down below?
I look up.
My neighbor is looking.
She looks away.
She goes inside without acknowledging.

She’s right.
Small, superficial
courtesies
aren’t worth the trouble,
and we know well enough where we stand
with each other.

We don’t.

A Dead Bird

A dead bird appears in a hallway
like a fragile piece of poetry thrown against a wall
the first act the play of the day
a woman who writes and fucks and dreams
lays naked on a bed of nails
sullies the sheets with the written word
spews her rage onto notebook pages
turns on lamps at the break of dawn
pulses at the howling the riotous song
looks at the cage cuts it with snippers
while snipers parade their latest kill
homeland heartland zealous anthems a prayer
a mountain of bullshit a life of despair