William Taylor Jr. 

There’s a poet 
I admire, 
William Taylor Jr. 
He’s kind of like 
the underground voice 
of San Francisco. 
He’s not aware 
that he’s on 
my radar 
but maybe after 
this poem. 
If I get a chance 
to talk to him 
I’ll say 
listen, 
enough with 
the references 
to the old writers – 
Kerouac, Ferlinghetti, 
and Bukowski. 
I’m guilty of it, 
too – 
I know 
you miss them. 
But all this 
name-dropping 
isn’t going to 
bring them back. 
It’s up to 
you and me 
now 
to carry the torch. 
We both live and write 
in California. 
You cover the North 
and I’ll cover the South. 
We’ll be correspondents 
for the written word. 
And if you get 
a collection published 
with City Lights, 
would you mind 
name-dropping 
for me?

***

Originally published at The Beatnik Cowboy

Glory Hole

I looked through the glory hole.
I saw a pearly bone eruption.

With Portnoy’s Complaint in my pocket,
I Ejaculated into the breeze
Under a bridge
In the full light of day,
Until all of the pearl drops
Were gone with the wind.

I visited the Red Rooster
To watch the couples fuck,
And gratified myself
With piss porn in the orgy room,
When nobody else would gratify me.

I went to the gay bath house,
And standing naked in the steam
It felt on my exquisite body
Just how far the sperm can fly.

I played bukake bingo with myself
While driving a company car
Near the surge tank
On the other side
Of Sunrise Mountain.

I planted my seeds into a graveyard
With bicycle tucked away
Hidden within the blackberry bushes.

Yes, I went to the park near the river
Next to Skinner’s Butte,
And in that tiny men’s bathroom in the park
I discovered a glory hole,
And when I looked through the glory hole
I saw a pearly bone eruption.

So, walking away now from the glory hole
I keep thinking…
All of this really happened, and others do it too,
And so shall I, as I always have,
Sometimes walking toward the glory hole,
Sometimes walking away.

But, always walking…
Without shame.

Pissing on a Wall

The words seem to come out right,
but dry up too soon
when the sun hits the bricks in the alley.

All that’s left is the odor
of something you can no longer see
and may not want to.

The stream as it came out
felt so much more than it was.
That’s okay. You left your scent.

Dogs will remember your passing
longer than people will.
They will follow you along the street,

tails wagging and tongues hanging out,
begging for more of what’s inside you
to be spilled out for their noses to enjoy,

much more appreciative than the critics
who never salivated
while reading your work.

It’s So Damn Long

When night shrieks in 
skirts the very edge
of my nervous system
six degrees below zero
truckstop baren
a penny for any lonely man’s thoughts
who venture 
in to Sally’s Gas Station

I pine for the dawn
watch for skeletons lurking
in doorways
of surrounding hollowed out buildings
a great horned owl
screeches past me 
attempts feebly to solve its hunger problems
or die quietly in some slovenly hovel

Bones littered about 
beer bottles
needles
some old stuffed teddy bear
so worn and dirt trodden
it became its own disease
Ima die out here…….eventually
after a certain number of shooting stars
die in their blaze of glory straight over the mountain tops
its scrawled somewhere
under my rib cage
like a barcode

Jesus sends an angel 
every so often 
to give a scan check
when I feel that heat
a smile cracks my frozen face
I’ll stare up at those billions of stars
every one of em named by Jesus
every one of em a fiber of this long-ass night

Look north 
the mountains glare threatening
ain’t no home in those hills
but I watched a few takers 
locked and loaded
with knapsacks and water bottles
take the trek with stubborn praise
not one sorry sap made it back

Some stars are born to glory
some are deadass blazers
until they fade
to space dust

Ima stay right here
watch the stars drip down
dead and alive
into this gorge of Edom
brimming with agony

Set myself up
with my teddy
wait for my star to turn

drydream 

i wake up one morning with my mental cereal
in the fridge and my milk in the cupboard
my penis holds up my glasses
my eyes gauze in prayer
i have already begun to slip
worms in mouths and tongues on hooks
the arrhythmias have foretold it all along
if i flip it along the purkinje fibers
the heart becomes an insular sun
don’t forget to clean up
the semen on the catastrophes
i haven’t even cum yet and i’m already asleep
so the changes have begun crow craw on
vinyl and thelonius twinkles through the
tinkle i don’t reason this is a slack-kneed prophecy
that this is a foreskin lantern of lost gods
i can’t shake the rubbertongue
can’t breathe without cost can’t dance
without rubbing some nipple can’t wash
this electric fence with holy hoses and yes
when i wake i am a lobster in an egret suit
with a case of dildos and a jesus bicycle
i can’t ride either so this must be
another broken river regurgitating
milk-bloated sirens all their eyes
coins

Dr. Seuss Was a Junkie

I love Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss was cool
Dr. Seuss was a writer
Who could really groove
I learned something recently
It was kind of disturbing
It burst my bubble
It was rather unnerving
The news was this:
Dr. Seuss was a junkie
He’d stick a straw up his nose
And act real funky
He was addicted to speed
china white and smack
Ecstasy and acid
black tar and Prozac
All his stories
Were censored from view
His original titles
Were way more cool
I.e., e.g.
Ipso facto, thusly:
Listen up, kids
This is a trip
Ain’t this a title
To wet your lips?
Howzabout “Son of Sam I Am”
“Horton Marries a Ho”
“The Grinch Does Dallas”
And “The Cat in the Hat Blows”
“Cocks in Socks”
“Horton Hatchets a Queer”
“Hop on Pop”
And “The Grinch Diddles a Deer”
“Foot Fetish Book”
“Oh Say Can You Spray?”
“There’s a Rocket in My Pocket”
And “The Grinch Hates Gays”
“One Sperm Two Sperm Red Sperm Blue Sperm”
“Thickdick, the Well-endowed Moose”
“I Had Trouble Getting Solla to Swallow”
And “The Cat in the Hat Rapes Mother Goose”
“Did I Ever Tell You How Fucked-up You Are?”
“Marvin K. Mooney Traffics in Smut”
“And To Think I Smelled It On Dingleberry St.”
And “The Grinch Humps Sluts With His Pants Zipped Shut”
Dr. Seuss was a junkie
Dr. Seuss was cool
Dr. Seuss fucked monkeys
And flaunted the rules
Dr. Seuss a rebel
Dr. Seuss a role model
He deserves a medal
More than Colin Powell
Dr. Seuss was a junkie
And though this is grim
You can do a lot worse, kids
Than to emulate him
So throw away the calculator
Throw away the TV
Dump it into the incinerator
And get strung out on speed!

Board of Nails

Once upon a time, there was
this guy walking down the street,
arm around his babe,
when these three mean dudes
standing in a doorway started
making crass comments
as they passed by.

She was a gorgeous
Asian babe and they said:
“Hey, is her pussy slanted too?”
Then there was this board of nails
just lying there on the ground nearby
so the guy picked it up and started 
BEATING THE LIVING CRUD
out of them with it.

The three mean dudes took off,
all of them bloody and shaken.
“We tangled with the wrong guy!”
they could be heard to scream as
they ran down an alleyway,
never to be seen again.

But the moral here was that the babe,
who was thinking of breaking
up with him anyway,
probably that same week, 
changed her mind and decided
to break up with him
right there on the spot.

“Sorry you had to go through all that,”
she said through half-moon sad eyes.
He wasn’t sure he heard her right,
as he was panting really hard,
wiping splinters and dirt from
his cashmere sweater.

He got the message clear enough,
though, as she click-clacked off
in her sexy strap heels at a pace
as though she were trying
to catch a train. 
The click-clacks grew fainter
and fainter as he watched
her shrink to nothing
down the street.

With few other options,
he took the board home instead,
admiring the glistening red blood
upon its faded yellow surface
along the way.
He thought he should be proud,
but his pride was slowly
hissing through a tiny
puncture wound.

He turned the board over
and over in his hands
as he walked inside,
gingerly counting its spikes.
On his third run-through
it came to eleven.
He liked that number, so
he propped it up in the corner,
lording over dirty shoes
and umbrellas.

Clinging

Clinging to your bogus patriotism
and your antique religion:
your misguided and blind acceptance of 
– and deference to-
the family,
as if they are a connection of lily pads
leading from shore to paradisical shore.

Each false feeling, every comfortable untruth
sinking you deeper into your complacent morass.

You redesign your mind in orange florescence
and knock down all the load-bearing walls
for the sake of aesthetics.

There you are,
clinging to the life raft of sentiment.
There you are,
clinging to the clods of misguided duty.
There you are,
shining a torch into the already well-lit corners.
There you are,
behind the barbed wire
of blanketed rage and human frailty;
of human stupidity and human pride.

With the subtlety of a rhinoceros,
charging to the foot of the volcano
then standing fast;
painting little acrylic islands
on fingernails that have never felt dirt underneath.
The lava escapes the volcano,
down the other side,
rushing down toward all you know.

As you pretend standing guard,
all of your life and love is devoured
in the flame and the spew and the ash;
in the vitriolic spume much like that 
which constantly emerges 
from your own dumb and insatiable,
platitude-filled,
execrable mouth.

He says

He says
Let’s get naked
And do ketamine
While we fuck

You’re bleeding
So you spread
A moss-green blanket
On the couch

He dreams
Of decadent abandon
Watching you
Undress, obey

You get on top
Dip the spoon in the bag
Hold it up
To his nose

The crystals sparkle
In your head
Drip down
The back of your throat

He is a wave
Beneath you
You’re fucking
The sea itself

Rolling and roiling
In your depths
(And when you tell him so,
He only laughs)

You come up for air
Open your eyes
The city glitters
In the windowpane

He will say “please”
When he takes off
The condom, later
And you won’t protest

You’re high
On his desire,
His need,
However false

This sea may
Swallow you
It’s time to
Learn to swim

Nong Kai Train

An old Bangkok hand, 
was drinking with me 
on the Nong Kai train.
“Same old story, I’m afraid,
‘Don’t ever rent a room without 
a spy-hole and a chain, my friend.
The girl says she’ll get more to smoke,
and calls someone, then gets the door,
they burst into your hotel room,
she’s gone, and now you’re ransom bait 
for crooked cop extortionists
that work out of their station
in Thong Lo.
Your wrists are cut from
handcuffs, for a while, but …

The girl? … sold you out
to stay out of jail, probably.
None of them want to go back
to the monkey house, certainly.

In the station, as cops pocketed 
my cash, and checked my cards,
I recognized the officer in charge
as one of my ex-graduates 
from TLAK University. He’d been one 
of the few with any English skills.
Guess the family business never will be
sexy as the drug trade in a uniform.”

He laughed aloud, as the night blew in, 
and the fields rushed by,
and I’d rate that as a major high,
that night on the Nong Kai train.

“I got off with a less than crippling bribe.
He wouldn’t want the TLAK Alumni
tribe at their bullshit banquets,
hearing he’s corrupt. But, after all,
why else do people join the police?”

Never, never rent a room without 
a spyhole and a chain.
Sounds like a comic opera song 
or some virginal refrain; 
or the cool night breeze 
he’s shooting 
on the Nong Kai train.

“You bear the wounds of handcuffs
for a while, but …
that gut-paranoia never goes,
ammoniac fear that whips you sober.
Could be a social paradigm in there, 
who knows? For students of police states.”

The steward brought more drinks;
and the night was far from over;
with a sweet breeze off the ricelands,
as the night blew in, 
and the fields rushed by;
and we rode, with the immortals, 
on the night train to Nong Kai.