When We Were Dogs

Do you remember when we were dogs?
Fighting for every scrap of flesh and bone
While the protesters screamed for a freedom
they’d never known and would never have
The powers that be just didn’t have the machinery,
or the will to build it.
We were happy in the dirt.
Breaking the necks of vultures
Who were they to starve us?
Who were they to take our bones?
Times were simple.
Until your rising
When my wounds were still open
You left the dirt to transform the world.
All you got was a chainsaw
and a rusty pail full of empty promises.
It wasn’t just bones buried in the dirt.
You didn’t understand that we were surfacing history.
The only truth is that it’s real.
So, tell me; tell me from your podium,
flags blowing behind you, and the starving at your feet.
Do you remember when we were dogs? 

Some Poets Are Like Porn Stars

Some poets are like porn stars
And that starts with the ease in earning the title.
Just fucking on film makes an actor a star;
Just breaking up lines makes a writer a poet –
At least to the disinterested general public.

Anyway,
They come out of nowhere to appear in every pop-up journal around
For a year or three or four. 
They hustle here and there along internet streets
But without a suitcase pimp to push them along.
They go it alone.
They collect credits like checks from storefront modeling agencies,
Holding on as long as they can
Until the bloom is completely off the rose
And one acceptance gets lost in another
In a great swirl of blurring days
And just as quickly they are gone because the payoffs became too small –
Their poems now hidden away at the back of the internet
Like stag film reels in a hatbox in Uncle Phil’s closet.
Forgotten.

Then there are the few who remain for decades –
The Nina Hartleys, if you will; 
Knocking on door after door with endless single pages pumping out.
Never getting to the big show, the legitimate acting jobs
But undaunted by that. 

The need, just need to appear somewhere.
Anywhere. Everywhere.
The true exhibitionists.

The rest just stop writing
Or go back to writing behind closed doors,
Showing it to one person or two
Or maybe even no one –
Like masturbating with the lights on
But remembering those salad days
When they thought not only should people see all their naked parts
And how they work,
Those people should even have to pay for the privilege.

Old Boy

Restful days 
of uneventful
contentment 
meddle into one
like obscure parts
of a life lived 
through the peripherals 
of one’s eyes 

hard to believe it
but you can become 
numb to boredom

only reason 
of knowing the date 
you’re living in
is the obligation of a job.

Ian, the forklift driver goes:
“work hard 
and have fun, kid.
Took forever to get to 18.
All of a sudden I’m 49.”

it hits in full
time goes by fast,
too fast,
sometimes I’m afraid
to sleep

to blink

how does 
the galloping time
equip you
against the incoming loss
of your parents?

“loss is the standard trajectory
of all things”

how to endure it
how to cope with it

A natural fear 
coats your thoughts 
but you have to follow
the fear 
otherwise it starts following you

there is so much waste
in most people’s lives
as they age 
as they so irreversibly age
that it pains to look at
and yet
your waste is just as big

some times I don’t feel like 
a 31 year old adult
but more like 
a boy who grew older.

sometimes it rains
for weeks

sometimes 
I’m starving for a meaningful 
conversation

some times
I’m so lonely 
I make small talk 
with my barber

and when he cuts my hair
I look at my puffy face 
in that mirror
staring into my own 
eyes for twenty minutes 
with the knowledge that
I have to lie a lot
about who I really am
just to get some pussy.

guts to water

sunlight detonates off
a thousand splintered
shards of glass like
god’s stripper glitter
strewn across the alley.
stiletto heels of honed fire
pierces my eyeballs
threatening to create
a second migranial sun
lap-dancing my brain.

two sun-bleached Strohs cans
peek out like a couple winos
hiding in the tall weeds.
I grab those babies up,
shake out the piss trickle
from their skunky innards
and push the empties
into my jacket pocket.

I catch a whiff of rot,
a bloated garbage bag
split asunder with its
entrails undulating
and I think for a moment
I must be hallucinating
until it occurs to me
I’m staring at a buffet
of maggots and I wonder
what they must taste like,
these squirming protein pills.

a scream turns my guts to water,
a woman’s keening wail
so much like my late wife’s
post collision dying octaves.
I’m running toward its origin
before I can even realize
I should be running away.

I recognize the brick bunker
section eight apartment complex,
the laundry room vents
beneath which I sometimes sleep.
I recognize the brunette
flailing on the ground
pleading for her babies
to run and get help.
her two howling children
watches a strange man
squirt lighter fluid on the
crotch of her blue jeans.

the man speaks to her with
a voice like colliding metal
with words I no longer possess
the ability to understand.
he withdraws a Zippo from
his pocket, the silver catches
the sunlight sending kaleidoscopes 
through my pin-wheeling brain.

I think I should stop this
before it gets out of hand but
I haven’t taken my protein pills
and I don’t know what words to use.
these thoughts for and dissipate
like exhaust from a laundry vent.
the man flicks the Zippo afire
and tosses it on her lap.

flames erupt from her crotch.
her screams siren supernova
promising my cranial implosion.
backing away, my eyes catch hold
of the children, eyes rolling in horror.
I’m bearing witness to the creation
of me, two more hollow bodies
with minds like sieves set to
wander the alleys of the world.

and this knowledge, this destruction
at a soul one molecular level
spurs me forward charging into
the man with all the force of 
the locomotive that ended my wife.
the stranger collapses beneath me
as I drive my knee into his groin.
when he attempts to shatter me
with his screams, I gouge my
thumbs into his eye sockets,
evicting the jelly orbs on
bungee cords of bloody licorice.

I roll onto my back, crying,
the entire world spinning
with the stench of burning denim
and charring skin and agony
and ruination, all of it
twirling around the nexus of me.

Been Drinking Most of the Day

I sit here tonight
Writing these words
Like I dream as they
Come to me
Telling me the way
Telling me the truth 
As the bar suited me earlier
& tonight I know,
It’s just gone 8 and it’s
Time to do this.
I shall sit here and write
As I drink my wine and
Smoke my smoke and 
Beautiful serenity comes
To bless my soul.  The 
Bar closes at 10 but I
Get in about 2 when
The crowds are few
And the freaks are more
And life is beautiful as
I drink the drink and 
Very occasionally step 
Foot outside to smoke
A bad-boy and then 
Run off home with
The thought, hot-damn
50p pints tomorrow and
After that a day hungover
At work before, hallelujah
A few days to work on
This god-damn novel.

Mt. Olympus

At the seafood buffet  
David Carradine opts for oysters,
dead by autoerotic asphyxiation,
his face is like a blue moon
as is Anthony Bourdain’s
(they often sit together
though seldom speak)
No one gets drunk
on Mt. Olympus
but everyone tries
“Have another!
Afraid you’ll wake up
having your stomach pumped?”
the vomit chokers cringe, Jimi Hendrix,
Jon Bonham, Bon Scott…
The only efficacious drug
is angel’s piss
but the high
is seeing everything
for what it really is,
“I won’t touch the stuff,”
says one and all,
“not on your life.”

2023

It is 
a horrible time 
to be 
a writer 
and still 
it chose 
me, 
maybe for 
a reason. 
I see petitions 
to fight 
A.I. intelligence 
knocking off 
journalists 
and content writers 
at Buzzfeed. 
Damn you 
20^th century
writers  
whose print 
publications 
meant 
something. 
I knew 
I was 
a fighter. 
But this fight 
seems 
virtually 
impossible.

Fancy Language

I used the word “creosote”
in a story the other day
and this guy (another writer) said,

“What’s with all the fancy
language?”

“Fancy language?” I said.

“I hate it when writers
try to act like they’re
smarter than I am,” he 
said.

“Creosote’s a
plant,” I told him, “hardly
highbrow.”

“Fuck plants,” he said.

Well, I thought, 
fuck people too.
In fact, fuck stories,
fuck communication,
fuck feeling,
fuck words,
fuck history,
fuck it all.

(Creosote bushes live 
where almost nothing
else can. 
They decorate the desert
and when you crush the 
small green leaves 
it smells like rain.) 

“The Exquisite Relief of Alphonse”  or “Fuck the Alps”

february, lemmings scurry up powder mountain
snort blue air
dip fine wine firelight boogie
very-white shapely sloped alps
ski vacation it’s called here 

foggy town paris
the poor stick around, stocking
grocery store shelves, sweeping rue de funk
afterhour sip the slippery slopes of alley cheap booze

keep your powder dry
store king hollers
over zoom gloom
to the working crew

alphonse takes a horse-size piss
scratches his
daily double, lady luck
shines him a quarter moon 
over three cent town –
takes another shot and says
fuck the alps

Isis in Sweatpants

from where I lay across
the mattress altar,
nude as a sacrifice
trussed in bed sheets,
I bear witness to my
Isis in sweatpants
dancing before her
full length mirror,
this propped portal
to an inverse world
of realized possibilities.

two frenzied goddesses
match motions
to the furious beats
of playlist natives.

her whipping  black hair
creases reality.
the reflection of her
chameleon eyes
mesmerizes me,
inspires rigid worship.

her hips bend my will
to her contours.
her pores soak in
my adoration
until her skin glows 
with sweaty divinity.

her moves send
ripples of resurrection
through my flesh,
seducing my nerve endings
with the desire to break
my Egyptian cotton bonds
and dance beside her.