Like a Cigarette Should

In the 1960s, news came on 
at 5 and 10: then midnight, 
to recap the same stories. 

Your parents always said something 
disparaging about Nixon, 
before turning their attention 
towards the consumption of

as many Benson and Hedges 100s
and Schlitz Malt Liquor tall boys
as their bodies could stand. 

Cigarette commercials 
featured grizzled cowboys, 
glamorous women, and

dapper men with black eyes 
who refused to switch 
from their favorite brand.

You liked beer commercials better:
Hamm’s, with its cartoon vistas 
of pine trees and tumbling rapids, 

and Lowenbrau’s promise 
of eternal friendship. In 1971, 

cigarette commercials were banned, 
while beer ads continued. It was
still legal to advertise smoking 

in magazines, billboards, 
and other forms of media.

Sunday newspaper supplements
overflowed with cigarette ads. 
It seemed like consumers
smoked more than ever.

Fifty years later, 
fewer people smoke, 
but almost everybody drinks. 

Beer ads have become 
sophisticated and boring, 
while folks die from cirrhosis.

Advertisers still want you 
to buy lethal products, but
they read the side effects
in ten-second soundbites,

or not at all. In the meantime, 
your body weakens a little each day. 

Still, you miss those commercials: 
the innocence of addiction,
the promise of eternal bliss,
and those goddamn pine trees.

She Let Me Adore Her

They say ‘The struggle is real’
But let’s talk about the spell 
The dark magic only works though, 
until you realize your own– 

The spell is broken, shock takes over 
and you leave with your lessons 
learned. You weren’t truly aware before, 
beauty and darkness are partners in crime 

You suddenly feel strange  
about enjoying all those horror movies 
to the extreme. You’re always extreme
because you feel things deeply

That’s how you she was able to spot you, 
suck you off and suck your spirit dry 
Deserts envy you, a cactus double-takes; 
your thirst’s a bitch, your heart, a prick

*** 

From The Ones Who Adore Your Veins, RaVenGhost Press

Common Ground

I gave up  
all my little empathies,  
just like that 
I was his slut-angel, sincere 
and sick with adoration; 
pathetic 

I was a sucker, yeah 
I guess that’s what we had in common- 
in our own fucked-up ways 
I handed over my wrist with swirled eyes
And we knew only   
of hunger

Perspective
is never anyone’s bitch  
It snickers in the bushes 
and
comes out of hiding 
when it damn well fucking feels like it

***

From: The Ones Who Adore Your Veins, RaVenGhost Press

Movement and Play

Will you write a poem about me, 
I want to be a muse

I move through desecrated boneyards
through empty vessels

I move through the memory
of time and what time is,

the burden of healing is upon me
and only me, generations of

will you write a poem about me,
I want to be a muse

cast upon the month of April
cast upon the sea

cast upon the water, dark water
which seems to be the whole world,

wearing nothing but a kimono
in dim thunderstorm evening,

I move through deserted cobblestone
move through drunken alleys,

move through play and ropes,
move through nurses and klonopin,

move through eternity with one eyeball
locked upon the sunlight

casting shadows upon darkness,
I want to be a muse

will you write a poem about me?

Toasting the French Symbolists with Phony Absinthe at Vesuvio’s on Columbus

I hate poets, I said.
why do you write poetry then, she asked.
because I’m one of a kind, I said.
what about the Beats, she asked, what about Emily Dickinson.
you want Chinese? I asked. Yee’s is good, and cheap.
you said you idolized e.e. cummings, she said, when you were in high school.
I’d rather talk to a painter any day, I said. poets are filthy animals.
but one of a kind, she inclined, like from Noah’s Ark.
don’t be funny, I said. let’s have a toast.
why’s this stuff green, anyway, she asked.
the leaky brain of Verlaine, I said, with a hotshot of Rimbaud.
how about some pasta, she said, how about Little Joe’s.
I’d commit suicide, I said, if I could afford to.
you could jump off the Golden Gate, she offered.
but that would tarnish my renown, I pointed out, as a maverick.
I guess it’s easier than getting a job, she said.
fuck the police, I said.
speaking of, she said, how’re we gonna pay for this.
toilets don’t clean themselves, I said.

Reflections on Willing Affliction

I pick and choose my captors
make them a merciless muse and a dear of a drug
i like to be captive to that endless flow
of literary jizz from the collective jazz mind
that is the backdrop to teacup terrors
smashing plates as i avoid mirrors

I adore the toxic defined
and refined me as little I as can be
the guardsman of my heart keeps me in check
and travels away from me not more than a sec
so i do not have to fend on my lonesome
for heart scraps and sympathy
like the victim complex they labeled me
pity PITY!
I do not want your pity,

I’ll keep to his pride and tend to it
like an overgrown garden
because i pickpocketed this project
it keeps me busy and writing
effortlessly in my journal,
with inspiration riveting
from every isolation

Those hard-hearts had left me
i’m content with this burial i arranged,
they already fashioned the hole
and pre-ordered the flowers
i liked for my gravestone

And now the knight is mine
he felt it was safest in my tower
if he was there
and placed me in his lap
his pride and joy
his queen the spazz

Plastic Girl 

She could have been a plastic girl.  Left bruise 
blue sheets for an artificial world of 
synthetic putting greens, some lighter use 
by an aged man of means.  He might love 
her if she would submit to rhinoplasty,
breast augmentation or at least a lift,
a tummy tuck, nutritional regime.  The 
nude photos she DM’ed  show an adrift
corn fed abused nineteen year old he’s consoled
so many nights via chat room/telephone 
in her childhood bed.  Could she give control 
to some old man in Hilton Head who’d own 
a waif or a synthetic blowup doll 
just not the ordinary girl he saw?

such luxuries

a parade of rain

high heels on a 
freshly tiled floor

like fingernails 
digging into 
your back

this is why you 
work the extra 
hours

so, you’ll be able 
to afford such 
luxuries

the pain is a gift

enjoy, lean in

with any luck
she’ll give you 
a discount

another punch 
on the card

three more visits 
and you’ll actually
get to use your hands

RANTING AS THE CLOCK STRIKES THREE

It’s another night where it’s too hot
But not so hot that I can comfortably 
Sleep naked
So I don’t sleep and the fan overhead
Whispers almost imperceptibly 
Whir whir whir whir whir

Tomorrow will be another morning
With either the sun like a cudgel
Coming down on my body
Or the rain an endless rasp of tears
Crying down to the oblivious earth
Or, worst of all, both alternating

Sometimes I think no one wants me
Sometimes I can’t be alone enough
Sometimes I wonder when they’ll come 
To get me
And now I can hear them trying to get
Deep inside

They’re in they’re in
I feel like they’ve gotten in

They’re going to kill me because they think
I know too much
And I want to die
Because I think I know nothing

I’m floating in the river of shit
I feel right at home

I’m falling asleep

Waiter Poem #10

you hear all sorts
in kitchens
tall tales
of chefs
fingering 
women
without 
washing 
their hands first
fire! fire! fire! 
mythical sirens
wailing through the ages
passed from employee
to employee
you hear 
of elite professors
& their imaginary dogs
about train drivers
speed stripping naked
of fathers pretending 
to be homeless
about the seemingly homeless
out of breath 
& blotched red 
losing their clothes
in the name 
of Christmas 
hilarity

you hear of spice girls
in hotel rooms
& second hand 
cars that come with 
dinner plate sized 
spiders
free 
of charge
you hear 
all sorts
of weird ass shit

and sometimes
you hear something useful
about wine