The pretty young lady in the black wig
And I
Got into a conversation
And during the conversation
She told me she liked to collect dead things
And when I asked her what dead things she collected
The pretty young lady in the black wig
Became disinterested
And began talking to someone else
So at that point I surmised
That one of the dead things
The pretty young lady in the black wig
Had no interest in collecting
Was ugly old
Me.
He thought he heard
some kind of muffled hiss
like the pop of a carp’s swim-bladder
He fell nine stories
smeared upon the asphalt
without so much as
a ‘holy shit’
Passers-by formed
in an orderly circle
staring down at the sight
Ice-cream cone like the holy grail
in the hand of a big-assed woman
greedy licks with elongated tongue
heavy with the plaque of decay
At such times
the wrecked remains
are abandoned beyond
all perception
The departing cool is pale
light as the breath
that fades from
pink to white
Piss trickles down
from under her skirt
wrapped around
broken thigh bone
Bicycle tires
and shoe prints
strange jewels
in a pool of blood
At night she kisses my wrist
where there used to be a dagger
trailing along the skin of a snail,
I thought I saw you downtown,
the girl I loved.
A friend of mine
tried to die by suicide,
thirty blue pills on the tongue resting,
a tongue which never touched mine.
Tonight I am at a party
in West Philadelphia
with a woman I used to
deeply share a love with.
We are sharing a drink
in a stranger’s kitchen.
I watched another woman
the night before remove
all of her clothing and say
I want you to fuck me.
There are too many main characters
in this story.
we’re mice
hunting the
cheese
but there never
is a prize at the
end
only death
i had a friend
tell me that we’ll
spend all our lives
as men trying to
get back in where
we came out of
i chuckled and
told him i was a
c-section baby
he offered his
condolences
i wondered if that
meant i would look
for the ones that
were into anal
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.
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
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
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?
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.
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
