The stone didn’t seem
All that unique.
Just another in a sea
Of carefully arranged
Blocks of rocks.
A bit of moss grows
On the south side
And the base has
A few chipped spots
Created by the caretaker’s
Riding lawn mower.
Unremarkable in this
Silent setting where
Supposed equality in fate
Is belied in the last take
Of ‘one-up-manship’
In grandness of memorial.
Unremarkable other than
For the misspelling of
My name.
Why must humor and pathos
Always be holding hands?
Life is a comedy
And God is the audience.
The sunflowers point toward the sun
Only to burst into flame.
The darkness comes
As darkness must
And the blankets fail to warm
As they always fail to warm.
The sun comes up
And it’s just coffee and sadness.
Another day of this.
Another day of that again and again.
God is smiling. God is laughing.
God is pointing. God is mocking.
Jesus is crying. Jesus is pleading.
Jesus is angry but Jesus is obeisant.
This world is too much God
And nowhere near enough Jesus.
This world is too much
And nowhere near enough.
God laughs on his throne
And Jesus cries, writhing there alone
And I just pretend I’m moving forward
Toward something good.
Ha ha
The joke’s on me.
Ha ha
Ha ha ha ha.
A fuck don’t come for free
It grips your soul on bended knee
Chasing dreams of what could be
But with every spent load I feel more empty
A floor full of dildos and a magic wand
Enough squirt on the carpet
To fill a garden pond
Pleasantries exchanged and then we’re gone
No happy endings
No lasting song
Then back to the game of swiping right
Feeding my ego all through the night
I know it’s wrong but I cannot fight
Just find me a hole and watch me take flight
This modern love it ain’t really for me
To many choices upon my phone’s screen
I’m physically high but emotionally lean
Living in a nightmare of my own wet dream
Starvation and our minds gone hollow.
The butcher hates the baker
and the candlestick maker
is packing heat.
Half of us are crazy
and the rest are bone stupid.
The wisdom of the ages goes begging
as we leer at young beauties
on computer screens
and wait for the next big movie to drop.
Starvation and dim vision.
The corner bakery is a distant memory.
The hospitals are broken
and all the good songs are lost.
School children wander,
aimless and hollow-eyed.
In various dark places,
my countrymen prepare bombs,
then celebrate birthdays and weddings,
and all of that, just as they always did.
All parties end.
Just ask Rome and John Wayne Gacy.
Starvation and laughter.
The flies are in the web
and the spiders are fat with plenty.
That’s how it is.
Please kill the lights,
or something,
when you leave.
Fur-lined panties an oversized dildo
and a talking sexbot named Sadie
It stunk of tequila
half-smoked cigarettes and rubber pussy
In a rotating circus of muzak elevator air
He tried small talk
In a drowning sea of alcoholic fizz
He looked for warm blood –
someone human who could
make the eye of failure
stop winking at him
What did he have to show for six decades?
Vicious voices on his ass
And his ego flopping in the gutter
Bukowski said
that money is magic
and the older you grow
the more true this rings.
Like most people out there
I’m over informed in matters
not cohesive enough to evoke
a tendency towards some career path.
So much random knowledge
In the basic person,
Unhelpful and unused but
in random conversations.
And then there’s this whale:
The fuck to do?
Like the careerists
you yourself as a bum too
are enslaved by the need
to accumulate.
You have to have the money
so that you don’t need the money.
And like many other thirty years olds
Between the yes to this and the no
to that offer
an ocean of useless knowledge
and almost crippling indecisions
where I suppose many years are wasted.
Many of mine were.
Maybe it’s also laziness,
because it keeps on happening.
I witness many people stuck in
dead-end jobs.
Not even the fake promise of a ladder.
And they mix. I watch them
they mix
out of loneliness
and the weight of the solitary struggle.
Two paychecks are better than one.
A more humane house.
The first step into normality,
into that pleasant boredom.
Two years later
I’m balls deep
into somebody’s wife
and many more doing this.
People are alone
even if they’re with people.
Temporary solutions
that become long term problems.
Surely being miserable with somebody
is better than being miserable alone.
Two years ago
I was alone, yet again
in Hague, Holland
while the cold dark of the night
descent
in a deceiving speed
and walking on the rails
a Spanish couple of girls
and boys, laughing
asked from me to take their
photograph
and I did
and I tell you
it was one of the most beautiful photographs
you’ll ever see.
And when I got on the pier sky view
and the Ferris Weel went up
and then down
and then fucking up again
the city looked nothing
but lights on concrete
and I got bored
there, fifteen minutes on my own
realising that feeling alone
can be a passing feeling
and that’s all well and done
but sometimes it can last a decade
and then you can truly catch a glimpse
of things in yourself
that will be difficult
to make peace with.
Things you won’t be able to shake off
so easy.
Things that follow you.
Things you fight on the daily.
But today, on bank holiday
as I smoke on my bed
and I take one diazepam after the other
it all looks doable—
all of it looks doable, the being alone
the being not alone, the unpleasant fact
that most conversations in your life
will contain very little meaning to you,
the morning alarm clocks
and that dangerous mess
of human affairs that can derail you
like no other.
There’s a time for a full heart
to be opened up simplemindedly
from hinges to hinges
like a playful child
And a time
to be closed shut
to be considered
as a fortress.
in dreams i will follow you to rooms which
cannot be true. knock doors with holes as small
as me where you appraise every inch
you see, timorous, in a half lit hall.
a freshly shaven babydoll closes eyes,
pulls up her dress, ritual you request
before turning the lock. tiptoe by
your flock of gargoyles asleep abreast,
the broken ones you loved the best, unleashed,
still animals at your behest, with teeth
for any who fail your tests. make a feast
of me upon egress if i’m not bequeathed
the night to serve the master, as is right.
only good girls get to stay the night.
i remember as a boy
my father taking the receiver
off the hook
& resting it on its back
on top
of the phone
so nobody could call in
“don’t put that back
or i’ll break yr fingers,”
he’d growl
i’d just stare at the way
the ear & mouthpiece
jutted up in the air
like a pair of horns
a demon on the wall
silencing the outside world
as we busily burned
w/ in our little inferno
Walking by the bus stop,
Spotted this dude sittin’ there
With these ultracool sunglasses.
Gotsta be a freak or a head.
I thrust one of my chapbooks
Into his hands. And tell him
That my book is full of vulgarities
But he wouldn’t go blind reading it.
He just said, “Smart ass!” And
Struck me with his white cane.
Thank God he didn’t sic
That dog on me.
Is there a right way?
Is there any way?
To heal from something that
haunts you every day?
I didn’t start grinding my teeth
until after it happened
Because that night
he didn’t just take my body,
he held my thoughts at gunpoint
He mentally overpowered me
I’m still his
Maybe it’s the Luke and Laura syndrome
He raped me, but my body liked it
He raped me, but I still crave it
And this is the truth
The horrible, awful truth
It’s another type of limbo
Another type of hell
If he only knew, what would he say?
Maybe he’d say, but you liked it
It was the best night of my life
And it was yours, too
Don’t deny it —
You wanted to be overpowered
You wanted to be taken
Don’t act all innocent
Maybe… maybe he’d confess:
I drugged you
But he wouldn’t blame
how wet I got on that
Maybe my body was just
trying to protect itself
That’s why I was so into it
Or maybe I was betrayed
by a sense of fight or flight
An urgency
I couldn’t fight,
so I flew into ecstasy
Naked and vulnerable
in his bed
He knew what he was doing
I have no idea
what happened that night
I can only go by what he said
I was never attracted to him
But my body said otherwise
You have to know,
I’m not happy about any of this
I’m broken
I feel broken
My body isn’t mine anymore
It’s his
It’ll always be his
because I can’t get over it
I can’t stop thinking about it
Do you know how awful that is?
I cry about it
I get wet again thinking about it
I want it again
I want him
I hate it
I shouldn’t be feeling this way,
but I do
It’s suicidal
And that will always be the difference
between me and you
Horror Sleaze Trash 