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.

out of my league

a night so cold 
the river to hell froze over 
and I hotwired a Kawasaki mule
and I spun and skidded my way back among the living

why, the living asked

because, I said
I saw the ice
I saw the mule 
I didn’t hesitate
I didn’t deliberate
I didn’t ponder the consequences
I just hopped on
and goosed the shit out of the motor

no, the living protested
you didn’t want to be one of us when you were here
you wrote horrible things about us in your poems
you refused to make small talk with us in checkout lines
you spit on our holidays and mocked our beliefs
why would you come back and bedevil us?

for the cheap beer at Vern’s Tavern
and a game of eightball
I inform them

too many superb hustlers in perdition
they beat me every time
I’m so out of my league
I’ve been barred from the tables for eternity

mom 2.0

what’s far more painful than your absence
is the knowledge that you
lied to me 
and snuck around 
behind my 
back 
and refused to discuss your
feelings with me, 
despite the fact that for ten months I had to endure constant 
accusations
of lying cheating satanic sacrifice and murder, despite the fact that every emotion 
i could give 
was given willingly
with no strings attached, no recompense demanded–
except for openness 
and 
honesty.

odd,
now that i think about it,
how much you resent your mom for cheating on your
dad,
how much you resent her for not appreciating all he 
sacrificed for you, your sister, your mother,
how much you resent her for playing games with your dad’s emotions,
how much you resent her compulsion to shut down her heart when situations get too stressful,
how much you resent her for running away rather than face a difficult situation head-on,
how much you resent her for molding you into a newer,
more elegant and sleeker version,
of her.

Jam

Now I know why 
Bukowski quit at 35 
and went on 
a 10 year drunk 
after 10 years
of hammering 
the keys 
with little 
to no return

I am in 
a similar boat
35 is a scary age – 
especially when 
you’ve worked 
so hard 
for so long 
at something 
with little to show

Especially in 
a society where 
we have to show
Maybe that’s why 
show and tell 
was such a big deal 
in grade school
Maybe that’s why 
there was so much 
ridicule 
if you didn’t have 
much to show

Bukowski didn’t have 
much to show 
after 10 years of 
pouring his soul 
through words, 
so he quit 
temporarily
Luckily, 
he bounced back
I don’t know 
if I’d be so lucky 
if I quit

I’m trying to use 
the wisdom at hand 
not to quit
It’s not my wisdom, 
but I’ll borrow it 
for the time being 
if it gets me 
out of a jam

The Stranger

Now, here’s a bearded wonder
Wandering into the bar,
Red suit, boots, hat and all.
“Ho, ho, ho!  Drinks all ‘round!
When Santa drinks,
Everybody drinks.”  Okay,
Fine by me.  He could be
Tinkerbell for all I care.
But, I’ll have a drink
Or two or three on him.
Whoever this guy was,
He came in on ‘empty’.
Guzzled down whatever
Like he was a fish.  Hell of a
Dayshift bender.  Ol’ Nick
Could really put it away.
Then he headed to the door,
“Merry Christmas to all!”
Barkeep says, “Who’s payin’
For all this booze, Santa?”
“Why, my elves of course.”
“What elves, Mr. Claus?”
“My elves, everyone drinkin’
Here with me.”  Ain’t nobody
Pullin’ that stuff at Fred’s Bar.
Me, and the rest of the ‘elves’
Ran out the door chasing after
That fat bastard.  Didn’t matter.
He eluded us all.  That’s the fastest
I’ve ever seen a fat man run.
Drained our pockets and gave us
A good reason to look forward
To Santa’s next Christmas visit.
We’ll surely be waiting with
Milk and cookies and a
Baseball bat.

Impression

after Thom Gunn’s ‘Expression’

for several months I’ve been reading
the poetry of my juniors
or maybe they’re my contemporaries
it’s hard to tell 

who’s who these days
there’s so many voices 
battling in best of 
the beat cover bands

and there’s still much talk 
of Mother, the abandoner
and Daddy, the angry alcoholic 
both hated equally

however 
all that hatred 
was confessed better 
long ago.  

I go to the Art Museum 
though I’m not sure what it is 
I’m looking for 

Pop Art 
doesn’t pop 
and Impressionism 
fails to make 
an impression 

then I reach it, I recognize it

I’ve acquired a taste 
more primary than art considers proper
so I head out the emergency exit 
to find a blowjob and a sandwich.