Life

Life is a four-letter word.
It begins with a four-letter act
when a man puts his four letters
inside a woman’s four letters
and four-letters…
In due course, a four-limbed
four-letter version of a new life
is born, hardwired to four-letter.

late at night

people have stopped 
answering their phones 
people have stopped 
leaving their voices 
in greeting 
or goodbye 

so I knock on windows 
late at night 

long and loud enough 
to awaken  
the possibility
of an inhumane monster
on the other side

long and loud enough
to get some of them 
praying 
for that
which they 
give:
an empty footpath 
under the cold glow 
of the street lamp

the image 
they have etched
in another’s 
heart 
late at night

nothing but pain

he told me beautiful women
bring nothing but pain

i was too young at the time
to know what he was talking 
about

but now, i do understand

heartache

alimony

a fucking rolodex of what 
could have been

yet, the whole thing about 
pain is some of us need it

crave it

even think we deserve it

so, hello to all the beautiful 
women

try me

Suicide Without Commitment

If someone sells synthetic highs
Does that make them a spice rack?

He claims he doesn’t sell such things, of course
Just suicide without commitment
Oblivion in instalments 

He seems to do alright

The sky is moving further away
Though few seem to notice
This receding firmament

Like the ring of pale light haloing a black hole
We’re happier with the dark
Than with the ever-fading light

Boner Skin

Looking into the rot of the unseen muse wondering about a rosy fingered dawn slashing across moonscape illumination against the velvet atmosphere

an unceasing cycle of relentless winds will not blow away skeletal remains of our aborted futures fallen

I like the kind of sex you can’t get at k-mart anymore…

blue light special going off

in the fitting room

raw dogging and slapping some temporary meat vessel in the nose with a rotating wiener dunked in ketchup

they say we’re crazy but I just don’t know anymore when they’re the ones who made all this

dead space

inner dream time

our only escape

maybe it isn’t so much boner skin with our lusts bursting through paper bag repression as much as it is boned skin

bones

poking out the flesh

leaping skeletons that just can’t quite get free

the bells toll ptsd tinnitus

you can only stand to hear so much and listening can sometimes be a pure act of sadism

or maybe my downtrodden being really is just a colossal boner unfurling its skin to penetrate the world

impregnating with all the wrong reasons in this season of madness in unforsaken bliss

why try anymore when it’s all over

playing home movies

in my mind

more like

suspense driven horror

minus the the thrills

pumped with the mundane

ever sickening pallets

natural light hitting pastels and eggshell whites

plastic totes

with all my belongings

eventually my military duffel

eating out of garbage cans

sleeping under overpasses

ruminating over confessions of an unlived life

what keeps me sleepless at night

holding my dick

dating a series of sociopaths

no sex, no love, no affection

maybe once in a while a display of allusive kindness teasing me with what we shared before which never was there in the first place causing more than one of us to starve for more

something happened once

or rather many things

at once

sometimes

more

piled on high like a filipino box-spring hog…the way the trucker in the pink crop top and white cowboy hat described his wife 

who wanted me to see the back of his trailer at the bookstore I worked at over a decade ago

pornographic machinations in a foreign land

you can just grab a woman in a bar with a fistful of dollars and have one

are the outlets the same for filming there like they are here?

I just write scripts

So you set the mood?

deep inside

I know

I could

turn it off

but turning it back on would be a problem ‘cause it gets harder to get back towards a path of compassion

nah…

I’ll just take the verbal thrashings

the economic torture

the emotional beatings

and be on my way with a condition red soul

slipping a sense of subtle sabotage

when I can

To Her Holiness

I refuse to bow down
To kiss your shoes.

Leather boots
Might change my mind,

But there better be
Scant else above,

And a riding crop
In your hand.

Jerk Off into a Cup and You Are Halfway There 

Making a baby is easy!  Jerk off into a cup and you are halfway there.  
And they give you aids, not the disease, but help.  So many bloody aid workers 
around you get thinking that your life might be one big disaster.  And Felice knew 
she should have called in sick today.  Sat up in bed thinking about it for many hours.  
But here she was, working reception at the sperm bank when this man in a faded 
denim jean jacket walked in.  Are you here to make a deposit? Felice asked the man.  
A withdrawal, the man said.  At first, Felice thought he was trying to rob the place.  
I’d like to speak to the bank manager! the man said excitedly.  It wasn’t long before 
the boys in blue showed up.  Is there a problem here?  Jesus boys, the shield has such 
a lousy pension plan that you have to come down here and make a deposit 
for a few extra bucks?  The few men sitting in the lobby area got up and left.  
Now we can be alone, that is how babies are made, the man said.  The boys in blue 
could try to cuff him, but he wouldn’t make it easy.  Balling up his fists, 
stacks of magazine rolled themselves like a personal thievery. The corporate art on 
the wall grew wet with excitement.  It was time to make a baby.

What I Said Upon Arrival in the USA

I still believe in Emma Lazarus,
and her poem, “The New Colossus.”
So when I reach the land-of-liberty,
I’ll embrace the first stranger I see.

And I’ve long stopped reading the news;
reports of strife I couldn’t take anymore.
The plane’s landing and the tarmac’s in view;
soon I’ll embrace a stranger and maybe more.

Now upon this land where I wasn’t born, 
I utter just to start a conversation,
“I believe in harmonious race relations.”
The stranger sighed, “You watch too much porn.”

An Ode to Malice in Writerland

There are 15 types
Of Literary Criticism

There are thousands
Of writers & poets

None of whom
Actually give a shit

Keep writing 

Malice is boredom
Malice is uninteresting
Malice is dead

Malice lives
Down in a hole
And hides from the
World of it’s own
Opinions

There are thousands
Of writers & poets

None of whom
Actually give a shit

About Malice

At all

Keep writing

No More Crackies

They’ve abandoned 
the 7th Avenue exit of Penn Station
their essence still lingers
the sour smell
stains on the concrete from bodies
and body fluids
the ghosts of the pipe
linger in that long
dank corridor
with hypodermic needles swept
into a pile waiting to be cleaned up

They’ve gone to another spot
this one jammed with police 
they are unable to shoot up
within the peace of the thousands
of people exiting up that staircase
unaffected by a needle piercing
a groin or a leg

All quiet on 7th Avenue
a vein will come back in time 
and so will they