Roll Over

You sit and just tilt the head and think:
Damn, this shit’s fucked up.
Whatever happened to life’s rewards that
The teachers said you would get for hard work?
The ethereal bliss the preachers promised
For leading a gospel life?
You gotta steal the chicken to put in your pot.
The world’s too busy helpin’ themselves
To worry about you.  So you got lied to.
Ain’t nothin’ new, been goin’ on even
Before politicians made it legal.
Take your licks and like it.
Roll over, baby, more’s comin’.
When you get tired of it, kick some ass.

Creep Feed

I am a crusty curmudgeon, a cranky,
cantankerous old fool; dead and bitter.
Short on temper, long on drivel and drool—
a Creep.

Feed me your lies, stoke my bitterness…
with collard greens and canker sores,
cram into my face your hatred, your vehemence—
feed me.

I am past zero, divided by nothing, emptied;
curled upon a couch floating in sewage,
legs expanded, bloated, flesh melting painfully—
a Creep.

There is nothing wanted more, hated more
than warm bowls of acrimony, battery acid,
served with cold cream of revenge and anger—
feed me.

I am a disaster, desolation and death,
destroyed, depleted, drunk on pain;
Pain of knowing others have pleasure—
a Creep.

Feed my gluttonous, distended stomach
Imbibe of me; deep within, without—render and pull,
I’m a skulking, creeping, crippled heathen, hater of fun—
feed me.

Creep.

Kidchella

the bounce house smells like piss
they’re pissing themselves 
now, the kids 

hopping around 
after mainlining 
hot sunflat coke

snot helicoptering 
like the oversized greenery 
hung like vegetable chandeliers 
from the rent-a-tent

‘a bunny-theme,’ eyes roll
& members of the Rainforest Alliance 
tisk tisk the Mylar balloons
‘End up in the ocean.’

Cries, two teeth 
asphalted & blood, lots of it
cheese pizza vomit clogs 
the pool drain 

more kids, more piss
the bounce house wheezes 
like Baby Jane huffing menthols

after cake 
dads wheel out
Tundras packed w IPA

jackhammer moms 
Yeti butt like sorority girls 
& a game of pin-the-tail 
is underway

Pandora awaits

bald rubber
frays on all four wheels
black smoke pours
from the tail pipe
and rusted out fenders flap
with the ruts in the road
but you jam
the old half ton ford
in granny low
and let her crawl up the road
while you hop out
unzip your jeans
and piss

what’s the point of living
if you can’t freak out the neighbors 

they built that big house
up on the hill and watch over everything
they call the sheriff
every time somebody sneezes
they host lavish parties
for the connected and the pompous
and they’re scheming to buy 
the property you rent

finish your pee
hop back in
shift to second
spin the tires
and pepper their mailbox
with gravel and mud

what were you put here to do
if not get under the skin of the pious

but it’s lunch time
enough with the petty subversions
Pandora O’Jesus awaits
in her usual booth by the juke box
and she’s already ordered 
your double cheeseburger and cold draft beer

Porn Site Poem

I’m not an ordinary mom,
I’m a cool mom

I heard you like mature,
single and experienced women
Then contact me
Not wearing bra makes me happy 
I’m not an ordinary mom,
I’m a cool and strong mom in bed
Contact mom here

I’m an Amazing Mature Woman
I’m a different girl from other girls
I like to do something hot
Being braless makes me very happy

enjoyment beyond what your wife gives
I’m bored alone 
I love dirty talk and role play

I really like not wearing panties
just a fan

I am willing to be the pleasure
and extasis that you need
contact me immediately 

Amsterdam

the potato eaters is on loan
peeled & disrobed 
from the museum wall

& then the mushrooms
the magic ones, not the trip truffles 
which are magic-lite & 

the little printed card from the hotel lobby 
cheerfully suggests the bad feeling will pass
coca-cola can help, fruit juice, a walk

dredging thought-shards the next day
like drowned bikes from the canal
we bench it, drink Heineken tallboys

could be worse
(dead after jumping from a bridge near IJ-tunnel—)
(Frenchman stabs his own dog after eating hallucino—) 
could be. But

bereft, we wonder if Amsterdam is bust 
until the girl in the lobby of the Anne Frank House 
asks if we want to party 

the poor taste 
of animal shamelessness 
fumbling at a moral-zipper

twenty years on
I still feel bad saying yes 
but the bad feeling will pass, 
always does

Full Nudity 

We sit down to dinner 
and a movie
that promises some violence
and full nudity.

I pause the movie
and see that the running time
is 2h and 7mins.

That means everyone is naked 
for the entire movie,
I say.
Over 2 hours in the buff.
Anything less would be
“partial nudity.”

She laughs
and says she doesn’t think
that’s what it means.

When the first clothed person appears,
I tell her we should stop it 
because they have lied yet again.

But she wants me to keep it going.
Like laryngitis running a four minute mile.

They’re not even topless,
I complain.
We’re not even halfway 
there!

Awful things happen to good people

Car wreck. Cancer. Lightning strike.
Stray bullet. Shark attack. Bee sting.
Eaten by alligators, cats, or some flesh-eating virus,
Or by a neighbor.
You’ve seen the same headlines I have.
You know it’s true.
War. Disease. Natural disaster.
Death by mudslide. Death by Bologna sandwich.
Death by Botox. Death due to shopping.
Why do you think it’s called Black Friday?
Wrong place. Wrong time.
Victim after Victim.
You know it’s all true.
Assuredly, they are all awful things.
But good people…
Assuredly. Probably. More often than not.
But I’ve been around. You’ve been around.
Some of the awful things were, in fact, awful people.
They had it coming. Had it happened sooner
You and I, the good people, or at least us,
Making the attempt would be better off
As would the World.

Murder, We Wrote

When we played Clue as a family,
Miss Scarlet always was the killer.
It was my mother’s warning 
about a certain type of woman.
As a young Professor Plum
In the study with a candlestick
Guess who I pursued?

I don’t like to dedicate poems
But this one is for the harlots
In the room.
The ones who don’t yet want to kill me.
The ones with scars where they shouldn’t be.
The ones that actually need the unpoetic trigger warning I should 
Have just given.

Passion by both its definitions
Is a form of consideration
And the passion you gave me was a roll
Of the dice.
Through laughter and lacrimation
Verity and vulnerability 
Your crazy intertwined with mine
As we took each other’s meds
Which were the same.

I suspect
It is a crime
Against all genders
That the game lacks
A character, masculine and moonstruck,
Easy and wild.

Make an accusation,
Open the envelope
And pull out the card I drew of myself.
My mother hated when I did that.

Into the Wild

The limp of the tiger 
stalking the ragged ape 
under a dying moon. 

Nothing lasts. 

Even the kudu understand. 

They don’t run. 
They don’t even skitter. 

The limp of the tiger, 
the puzzle of a dead man 
beside a dirt road, 

a man roaring 
just yesterday. 

His woman will never know
the truth. 

The ragged ape
turns to face the tiger, 
sizing up the limp. 

In a small house
miles away
a woman
who does not yet know
she is a widow
makes hard love 
to a boy half her age. 

Everything is vicious. 

The boy basks in his good fortune 
as the ape continues on his way
and the tiger gives up
and looks for a place 
off the beaten path
to sleep.

Waking up
or sleeping forever,
each is just the same. 
The tiger is ready for what comes. 

The widow screams in ecstasy.

The boy believes he 
understands something  
he had not known before, 
but he is wrong.

Love is a possibility 
but, as even the most ragged ape 
will tell you, a good death
is less certain 

and definitely matters more.