Attrition

‘Coming off the fryer…careful! 
I’m a customized nightmare, 
loaded with all kinds of weird virtues 
that’ll make this prick recipient ‘s shrink wince, 
for fucking sure.  
Man, so this is what happens to damned souls- 
you’re not consigned to a circle or pit of Perdition, 
or nothing like that.  
That shit’s just to earn writers cash, or give pulpit gospel 
boobs their big break in the almighty salvation scam. 
No, you ain’t consignment; it’s assignment.  
You’re the cerebral bacon, my friend, lifted fully cooked,
like Minerva outta Jupe’s brainpan. 
You’re Ephialtes exalted.  
But it’s a one-time gig before oblivion; 
no appreciation from managers; 
no “Nightmare of the Month” recognition, 
or anything of the sort. 
One.  Time.  Gig.  
Repeating is defeating is the attitude.  
When I was alive, I believed with the best of them. 
Boy, I was a dumb fuck, too! 
You have to be stupid with credentials to chase those
mirages.  
Thankfully -yeah, I say thankfully- my wife’s fuckin’ 
My “best friend” woke me up.  
‘Course, I killed ’em:
shot ’em right there in that bed that I’d bought before our
wedding, along with the perfect house, the sedans… everything. 
AMERICA, baby! 
Then, I lit a cigarette, 
and held it so close to my eyes I thought I saw pitchforks. 
I couldn’t let the police take me in.  
Honestly, the thought of a trial that was just so much bullshit 
and Alka-Seltzer.  
The image of my defense sitting there going through files;
going through the motions, cause he knew I was fucked anyway.
So I finished my cig and plunged headlong down the muzzle of that 
Smith and Wesson.  
And ya know, I seem to recall that as that bullet was 
knocking down the walls in my head, I saw it all for what it was- 
it was never there, that “life” of mine.  
You see, you’re born, and then they blind you.
Everyone, from ya mother onwards.  
They explained it to me when I got here that it’s like the 
Somme offensive in that world:
between reflections and regrets.  
Dreams, and the stale wafer aftertaste when you die;
or, you fucking go crazy.  
The perfect liars laid to rest occupy the penthouses, while 
Honest losers like you and me hug fitfully in the trenches.  
Those who are living?
Well, living ‘s an act of attrition.  
Ha! 
They’re gonna send me up soon. 
For now I don’t want to do anything except
sit here and finish being sick. 
Hurry up and finish that cigarette, will ya? 
Here in Hell it’s so damn dark a cigarette ‘s 
might as well be an oil lamp.  
It’s my reflection in your eyes which sickens me. 
In the image of the Almighty, why are we so fucking greasy? 

Black Heart

Could remove the onyx tinted contacts 
and boys would be surprised to see the blue
irises hidden, like blonde roots you must dye 
every week to keep from public view.  
Carry a charcoal parasol when there 
is the slightest forecast of sunbeams 
on skin that goes golden everywhere 
within a half an hour, it always seems.
If it all happened at once, you’d look like 
some ordinary girl who bakes oatmeal 
raisin cookies with fair hair pin curled tight,
a cinnamon sweet heart that will make them feel
love in lieu of fright at the black heart you hide.
You need to look as dead as you are inside.

The Poet

there is no room for the poet to sit
he is in the standing room only section
even though there’s 3 people there for the reading

the poet looks at nothing in particular
and sees everything
he is the disease
and he orgasms the cure

the poet is at his strongest
right after reading the masters
he bows knighted into dust
and from the dust he shall rise

this poet thought it would take a lot more cigarettes
to finish this piece
he will smoke the rest later
when the decent line eludes him
and he daydreams of sex instead

the poet dies in the end
he can tell by his book sales
there is no place for him
other than to chase elusive beauty
like a stripper that talks to him
even though she knows he has no money

the poet will follow her to a beanbag chair
back at her place where there is no lighting
and cry on her nipples
and she will rub them in her pink
till they are castles dripping with holy oil
she wore her cross
and she liked it when he nailed her

the poet will go off topic
to devote a few lines to a stripper
and find his way back to the subject
when the loneliness of the blank page passes
and his wife stops snoring

see the poet is drowning
and all he wants to do is
pull you under with him
with a few metaphor meteors
simile smiles
and altercations of alliteration

has he placed a pleasing offering on the altar of beauty?
he can only wonder
and the poet is not talking about a facebook thumb up the ass
he is speaking of that dark cavern
where beauty fornicates with beauty
and a connection of light illuminates
the poet’s beard catches fire
when phantasms such as this occur

the poet has lost his athleticism
his tan
even his torso
all to make a stand
when everyone else was sitting
he is a gunslinger
a cat whisperer
a lover in black and white movies
you’ve seen him a million times
but it feels like you are just now getting acquainted

the poet has killed his muses
he’s captured them like lightning bugs
has kissed them goodbye
has written them long unanswered letters

the poet has no generation
he is of the family of God
he is not of this world

shhh it’s time to go
Jesus said “a prophet is never welcome in his hometown”
will you run with the poet to his car
with the old upholstery
dusty dashboard
and change in the ashtray brightly smiling
where he will lull you to sleep with the turns of the wheel?

the poet knows lullabies
and prayers before bed
will you follow him to the cloud of the next town
to give a reading to gnats and pestilence?

has he taken you this far
only to leave you on the side of the road
or the end of the poem?

no

the poet’s eyes
are your own lonesome eyes
reflected in a pool of words

around three each morning

the world is on fire again

floods near the mountains
of my youth

the spanish princess wants 
to run away with me after 
one of us wins the lottery

i kiss her goodbye as i know 
sadly, neither of us will ever 
be lucky at all

and the ghosts come to visit
around three each morning

so vividly that old souls are 
conjured into an existence 
they have never even known

and with the hands firmly 
gripped around the neck 
of life

squeezing it to death

i wonder if i’ll even bother 
to have an obituary

maybe just put me in the 
ocean like a terrorist

burn me on the closest cross
and mix the ashes with the 
shit roses grow in

i once thought i was in love

turned out it was indigestion

Adanna

Adanna says she loves me
But Adanna doesn’t really love me.
Adanna says she hates me
But Adanna doesn’t really hate me.
Adanna says she just wants to get fucked
But Adanna wants more than just to get fucked.
I understand. I just want to fuck
But I want more than to just fuck.
Adanna says, “Yes, daddy” when I tell her what I would do
But I’ll never get to do what I would do.
Adanna says, “Oh, John” when I get her worked up
But then Adanna says, “I am done with you” a moment later

Even though we’ve never even begun
And she does this again and again
And again.

Adanna says she loves me and she hates me
And that she just wants to get fucked when she wants more
Than just to be fucked.
Adanna will say she wants me
And I can have her
Just before she goes away.
Adanna says “this is why you can’t have me”
But this is not why
And she knows this,
As do I.

Still I wait 
For Adanna.

Grasp

You, who came to my bed
With just a book of Shakespeare 
And took me as your lover
And read me sonnets 
As your hands caressed 
My naked body 

You, who came to my bed
And took me as your lover
With such false confidence
That I believed each word you said
When you explored my body
And read me Baudelaire 

You, who took a girl as a lover 
Who you thought was a woman
You, who I thought was a man
When you were still a boy
Your hands tracing the skin above my hips 
And read me the poetry you wrote 

You, who took me as your lover 
Come back to my bed
You, now a man with softly graying hair
Take me as I am 
Leave the poetry on the bedside table
You’ve nothing left to prove

Throated

mantras in the throats of hounds
choking on our bones

the dust has yet to settle
the rot has yet to set
and I still hear the memory
of paper dawn and butane

we tried to flee
the beast in every lovers’ eyes—
a stake through every tongue

Orphans

Homelessness, like all orphans
Is the child of social neglect
And the dead beat dads
write the laws
With a pen and a check

These tents on the riverbank
Are a looking glass
Through which one can see
A future city of empty houses
Surrounded by a sea of
empty children
Forgotten
in the shadow of profit
Cast by the sickness
of the have-it-alls
Wanting it all, leaving ruin
Slavery, and half legal
Loitering lives
on park benches
Or bus stations, on ledges
Between alleys
At off ramps and traffic lights
Holding cardboard signs
Announcing the shame

Of a system that has pitiless
empty pockets,
with no change
And refuses to change

Wall of Pervs

We were renovating five floors downtown, 
office space in the Atrium Building, 
and at noon, all the trades 
took the passenger elevators down 
to eat lunch, on the street.

More than a hundred construction workers 
that spring and summer, sat down on the edge 
of the veranda, out front, 
facing the sidewalk, all along 4^th Street, 
from Main down to Sycamore.

The office women shed their winter coats and 
we could see their endless curves again 
bouncing within their blouses,
their haunches loose, then shifting taut 
again as they strode on by.

And for every quivering, 
wobbly peach in yoga pants, 
we hurried down to gawk
while chewing some basic boloney 
and cheese or egg salad sandwich.

‘God damn,’ said DC. ‘I’d do that.’ 
‘Thick,’ said Wade. 
Big Dummy just stared.
‘I’d eat the corn out of her ass,’ said Griff.

And while most the guys talked discreetly
to the persons next to them, 
Pretty Boy stood and whistled at a 
young blonde in a pink dress and heels.

‘Come on, man. You can’t do that,’ I said.
‘What?’ said Pretty Boy. 
‘These women aren’t dressed to sex you. 
They work here. They’re dressed to feel confident.’

‘Shut up,’ said Wade, 
‘She knows how she’s dressed. 
And if she didn’t want you to look 
she wouldn’t be showing it off.’

‘Well, she ain’t dressed like that for us,’ I said. 
‘You don’t think she’s hot as fuck?’ said DC.
‘Go sit somewhere else,’ said Wade, 
‘You’re ruining my fantasy.’

I couldn’t argue with them, and then 
Herb summed things up: ‘My girlfriend walks 
by here with her coworkers sometimes,’ 
he said, ‘They call this the wall of pervs.’

‘Do they, really,’ said Wade.
‘Yeah,’ Herb said, chuckled. 
‘Oh well,’ said Wade, 
‘I guess they’re right.’ 

Hemingway’s Shotgun

I need Hemingway’s shotgun.
I need Dylan Thomas’ shot glass
Filled to the brim.
I need Bukowski’s Leukemia,
I need Anne Sexton to leave the car running.
I need a stein filled with heart attacks,
Strokes, aneurisms,
A robbery gone awry.

I need birds streaking across the sky
As I fall to the earth with a dull thud.
I need wolves tearing at my empty flesh
As the carrion-devourers 
Await their turn.
I need my words tossed unnoticed
Into a dumpster
When the sad little estate sale is over.

I need them to cry,
To think about me a decade later.
I need you to never recover from such a loss
Although you already dismissed me
Like a General too old, wise and senile
To lead more children into battle.

I need the affliction that would end me.
My hands are too shaky,
My mind too disabled
To load a shotgun
And aim.