Mr. & Mrs. Nobodie 

I saw your skeleton 
in every moonlit chuckle; every warm beer  
spilled across my cold and compliant nipples, 
every sun-cursed coffee-kiss-shuffle, every  
was-that-really-the-last-fucking-beer tantrum. 
I saw you, and still counted  
and adored every 
stupid bone. 
You could always dig mine up 
just by walking into the room. In return,  
fuck yes, I was gonna be the disco ball  
in your coffin as you lit the dancefloor 
of my soul. I was dedicated to dying  
more and more each night  
to be the bag of bones you’d imagine  
being buried with; kindred dirt-glam 
kisses, I’d dig you forever and play 
dead on command. 
I wanted to save us from bone-splintering 
boredom. But it seems 
the Moon was only dying 
for a good joke. 

Greg, or Nothing

Greg used to come to my shop to sell stolen tools. 
“You in need of set of needle nose
vice grips?” he’d ask, 
and dredge the set from his backside, 
the packaging still on it. 
“No thanks.” I’d say. 
“Is there anything you do need?” 
“I don’t know, does your supplier
carry diamond blades?”
He’d scratch his head 
as if pondering the word supplier. 
Confucius couldn’t have looked deeper 
in thought. “I’m pretty sure 
they do,” he’d say. 
“I’ll have to check. I’ll get back to you.“ 
He’d then exit the shop and I wouldn’t see him 
until he’d come back with something 
else I didn’t need.
This went on for an entire summer,
and then I guess
he gave up, or something 
happened: prison, rehab, his girlfriend kicked
him out of the house, etc. 
Years went by. Hurricanes happened. 
Presidents changed. 
Wars erupted. Monte Hale died. 
And I’d all but forgotten about 
Greg when one day I glanced at the surveillance 
camera and saw a man 
who looked just like him 
pushing rapidly
an empty 
wheelchair 
along the west 
side of the building. 
At first, I thought it might just be 
the graininess of the camera or the angle
that made it look like Greg. 
But two nights later, as I was walking through 
the parking lot of a strip mall a few miles 
from my shop, I saw the same man 
sitting in the same wheelchair, 
and asking for donations. 
“Greg,” I called out to him.
He looked at me, 
adjusted his legs with his hands.
“What happened?” I asked. 
“You don’t 
even want to know,” he said, and did 
a slow 180°
wheeling 
away from me.

sometimes, writing for yourself just isn’t enough

I tried writing another
children’s book just last night.
it’s titled “Guess What I Do
To Your Mommy While You Pretend
To Sleep” which is a direct sequel
to the yet unpublished YA epic
“Kara Has Two Mommies and a
Drunk Polack Who Likes To
Come Around and Pay Fifty
Dollars To Watch Them Play.”

it is difficult, I have to admit,
to pour so much of my time,
effort and creative spirit into
these works of literature only
to be told time and time again
no audience exists for the art
I have to offer, yet the best
writing advice one can pass
along is to write for yourself
and trust there is an audience
that will find you, eventually.

you understand what temptation means

slip away to the 
bathroom to tie 
one off

life has reached 
the final extremes

a full flask always 
on your hip

most people where 
you live would have 
a gun there instead

you understand what 
temptation means

these slit wrist nights 
of loneliness start to 
stack up

and we all know 
the avalanche 
is coming

brace for impact
or start running 
now

the end will 
blindside you
before you 
know it

A Dryness Hollering Out for Death        

Men that I have known
who once had the strength of the mighty
Pacific in them, with backbones
made of molten organ pipes, and minds in torrid
wakefulness;
to see them now reduced
to the echo of an empty conch shell,
to husks of long departed
insects, thinning, dried-up,
cracked.

Men that I have known
who once were brimming with wild
stories and undiscovered ferocities,
washed-up now,
longing for long-gone
days, subsisting off songs
the world has long since drawn
the spirit out of and left for dead.

Maybe you’ve seen one
standing in line at the supermarket,
mowing his lawn, or driving in the car next to you,
this angry, decomposing,
pot-scraping infertility,
a dryness hollering out for death,
a stone-gray shadow.

With nothing left to say.
With nothing left to be.
With nothing left to give.
(The worse tragedy of them all.)

The men I have known.

Masturbating World Creators

abandoned needles dance in deserted
playgrounds during the crepuscular
hours of dawn; seagulls soar over
parks, hoping for crumbs of food
from hotdogs ordered by fat men in
suits and skinny women in no clothes; amber
alerts ring up on
the television every ten minutes, every minute
someone’s going missing, most never to
return; flaming meadows visited by
knights in dark hoodies and the dolled-up
princesses remain forever imprisoned in
charcoal towers; ships made out of matchsticks arrive
in ports built from bricks of cocaine, the sailors
eat the
ports before they dive back into the
waters infested by carnivorous dolphins; dreams fall
from the black clouds, like poisonous rain scorching
fields and killing cattle; nightmares emerge out of
the planet’s core freezing peregrinating corpses into
monumental statues of a lost age; exhausted from
the same old dances, masturbating gods swill
absinthe and reform the world in accordance to
their wildest fantasies.

hopefully she bites

trace her tattoos
with your tongue

fresh ink tastes 
like caviar

she seems 
fascinated
that you’re 
a poet

this search took 
how many years

play it cool
hopefully
she bites

hopefully she 
wants to play 
the game over 
drinks

told me i looked 
handsome after
cutting my hair

flattery will get 
you places in 
this world

Gibbous Fall 

The wind is blowing, 
the moon is high, 
the dead and dry leaves 
chattering the price of sole in China. 
The gibbous moon moves 
fishmouth-like through the Virgin. 
Spica, star of an ear of wheat, 
peers down, drowning in moonlight, 
from over two hundred years ago. 
The wind, an old song about a youth 
killed on a midnight highway, 
blows stiff and sad. The oak, 
gloomy godzillas and kongs, 
stand tall, air-shampooing their hair. 
Leaves over the concrete scatter, 
cling a moment in the grass, 
hoping the coming rain 
will raise a memory from their fall. 

The Oldest

From a distance, it could be anything
from an overgrown mausoleum
to a blue elephant raging in a garden.

This is the oldest apartment building on the street.

This building was here before flush toilets.

It remembers the First World War,
the forced labor camps down the street,
when that madman
with the funny mustache turned its radios into earthquakes.

This building remembers the families
that were torn from her belly
and dragged off to Siberia,
never to be heard from again.

Cryptic bloodlettings, narcs with ears of schnauzers,
snub-nosed revolvers
hidden under fruit bowls
the papered walls trembling with intrigue
and shotty electricity.

This building doesn’t forget; it remembers
even the nothing years
the sunlight swept under the rug,
the old woman in classy old woman’s clothes
stepping out onto a windy balcony.

This building’s balconies are always
windier on the north side
where delivery trucks rumble into the blood-mist
of the dying day and drunks with pushcarts
piss in blue shadow.

The President’s Daily Briefs

One morning in the White House Situation Room
I gave a briefing that lasted ’till noon
And afterward during the lunch break, I happened to peek
In a drawer where they kept the President’s Daily Briefs

They lay in a stack, all pristine and white
It was said he received new ones each morning and night
What a thrill to imagine our Commander In Chief
Handling those very same President’s Daily Briefs

Who knew what secrets those articles contained
They didn’t appear worn, showed no evidence of stain
As I ran my fingers over each fold and crease
I resolved that I must have the President’s Daily Briefs

Perhaps my brush with greatness had robbed me of my wits
For I found the temptation too strong to resist
So looking both ways, I gingerly reached
And swiped me a pair of the President’s Daily Briefs

I carefully placed them in a folder between
Two Senior Executive Intelligence magazines
Then walked down the hallway to return to my seat
All the while feeling the President’s Daily Briefs

But as I was rounding the corner a man
With dark shades and earphone seized hold of my hand
You should have heard the shouts of anger and disbelief
When I was apprehended with the President’s Daily Briefs

I swore they were my own briefs, that there’d been a mistake
But the presidential seal on them guaranteed my fate
They took me to a back room and made me spread my cheeks
All for purloining the President’s Daily Briefs

The news soon reached Langley, where they placed me on leave
Investigations followed, polygraphs without reprieve
For at first they thought they’d found the source of White House leaks
In the person who had ripped off the President’s Daily Briefs

In the end I convinced them I wasn’t a spy
My clearances were saved, but in ruins my career would lie
For all around Headquarters I was known as the freak
Who tried to leave the White House with the President’s Daily Briefs

So now I sweep floors in the CIA basement
But rather than wallow in my debasement
I dream of a transfer, to launder White House sheets
… And another chance at glimpsing the President’s Daily Briefs