poem of the day 12.01.09

miss you too

a beer at nine in the morning
isn’t as good as that white wine
tasted at eight forty-five.

my parents are somewhere
in jersey now
fiddling with their gps system
and looking for a crackle barrel
for breakfast.

dvorak is playing his american
and i’m trying to keep down
tears and budweiser
on an empty stomach.

i wonder what in the hell
has happened
to me.

the apartment feels too empty.

i’ve gone soft

sentimental at the close
of the decade.

my parents are racing through jersey
en route to pittsburgh
and my wife is at work.

it feels like she and i haven’t
talked for days.

i miss everyone.

dvorak is still on
antonin isn’t enough sometimes.

i’ll bet his wife felt that way too.

poem of the day 11.29.09

so you’re the one

so you’re the one, she says.

i’m in the wine store
with a handful of cheap french bottles
trying to replace all of the wine that my wife and i drank.

you’re the one who’s been
drinking all of my wine.

your wine? i say.

the store owner laughs nervously.
he dresses nice, better than i ever could.
i’m probably putting his kid through college
with how much money i spend here.

yes, she says.
she points to my bottles.
that’s my favorite wine.
it’s so smooth and it doesn’t give you a headache.

that’s nice, i say, putting the bottles down.

the store owner rings them up
on his brand new, digital cash register.

vivaldi is playing the background
and i realize then and there
how much i hate vivaldi and this wine store owner
how much i wish there was somewhere else to go.

now i know, she says, putting her
wine on the counter
as soon as i take my bagged bottles.
now i know who’s been drinking all of my wine.
i can put a face to the culprit she says.

i guess you can, i say.
then i leave the store
and begin the slow walk up third avenue
toward the apartment
bracing myself against the wind
coming off the ugly, brown river.

poem of the day 11.28.09

comb on the floor

my father is on his hands
and knees
he can’t find his
comb on the floor
and he is blaming my mother
telling her she’s the one
moving shit around
all of the time.

they have been here
for two days
and i started drinking
at eight in the morning
on thanksgiving.

my father is on his hands
and knees
he finds his comb underneath
his own travel bag
he then proceeds to move all
of his things
across my living room
away from my mother’s things

and the two piles
of luggage stay like that
for the rest of the holiday
separated
like two boxers in their respective
corners
waiting for the next round
to begin.

poem of the day 11.25.09

stuffed

i take another beer out
of the refrigerator
and drink it

i shouldn’t be taking these beers
because they are for holiday guests.

the apartment is a wreck.
i do not know how to clean.
i do not know how to entertain.

i’ve already had to replace
half of the holiday wine we bought
because my wife and i drank it
sitting on the couch
complaining about how
we don’t know how to clean
about how we don’t know how
to entertain.

i get drunk and i blame her family
for making ten of us get together
for dinner on black friday

she gets drunk and blames my parents
for staying with us for three days
in our cramped apartment.

i accuse her of spending
too much money on trifles
and she accuses me of not liking
the brand new cranberry colored tablecloth.

it would be easier to just slit
our wrists now
rather than go through with any of this.

but we don’t.

my wife and i are survivors
of this holiday bullshit
suffering the good will of the many
as we get drunk on wine
suffering the laughter and the conversation
the inquiry about jobs
and people talking about
their mundane lives
as if each moment were great literature

my wife and i have this shit down pat.

we know what to do.
we keep something of ourselves buried
in the basement.

we wait on january 2nd
when the holiday lights go dim
and all the garbage bags are full of
animal carcasses and bones

when pulpy gift boxes
rest against christmas trees
that are losing their brown needles
in bulk

and the people are off the streets for good
in the malls returning everything
that they were given
or in the movies theaters watching this years
oscar crap
or in their warm homes, stuffed,
beached like whales
waiting on the sacrifice of 365 more days

we wait until that day
and we crack open a new bottle of wine
pull up the blinds
and watch the snow fall
on the desolate street
grinning like a couple of assholes
at the slaughter.

poem of the day 11.24.09

what ails us all

most people catch colds
in the winter
but i stay sick
all year.

there is a man
on the steps of the
train station

he’s on his back
surrounded
by the cops
and paramedics

people rubberneck
and tie up the foot traffic
just to get a look
at his
wincing face

they want to know
what’s wrong with him
what happened?

but i know

i can look into any of their
salivating faces
into their dull, competing eyes
peer up into their red, sickly nostrils

and i just know

what’s wrong with him
what weakens me
what ails us all.

poem of the day 11.23.09

wrong conversation

you see
without kerouac i don’t know
what would’ve become of me
maybe i’d have become some office drone
or a teacher living in the suburbs
with a wife
and two kids that i hate
or i would’ve stayed in the warehouse.

it was his message and that verse
that got me
it’s what i tried to emulate for years
or recreate in my own stuff

the exuberance
the joy

but i’ve never been a joyful person
i’m spiteful and mean most
of the time
i never saw things with any kind
of holy glee

humanity has been a horror to me
ever since i was a child

and that might be why
i picked up bukowski
and fante, and all of those stone cold
others
why i like ray carver stories

i don’t know

that stuff just seemed real to me
raw
like their guts were spilled out
on the street
instead of being stuffed up buddha’s asshole

don’t get me wrong
i still love kerouac
and i still get that tingle of youth
when i read on the road
it’s ginsberg and corso
burroughs
and all the rest
that i can do without now.

and don’t get me started on gary snyder.

i just don’t care for that
holy
holy
holy
shit anymore.

that’s nice, she said,
but can we get back to talking
about why
you don’t want to
go to dinner
with my family
and your family
next friday night?

poem of the day 11.21.09

cockblocker

there is nowhere to sit
on the train
except across from a lady
with a huge baby carriage.

i usually avoid sitting across
from baby carriages.
i find most children to be ugly
and a sick representation
of the future
but my back is hurting.

it is a pleasant surprise
when i sit down
to see that the woman with
the baby
is wearing a miniskirt
with fishnet stockings.

she is black
and the baby is white
and neither of those details
have anything to do with this poem.

i take out a book
and pretend to read
but i am really looking
at the woman’s legs
or, more to the point,
in between them.

i’m wondering what kind
of panties she has on
if she’s even wearing them.
at first i feel bad about doing this
but when i look up i see that the woman
is playing videogames
on her cell phone
and the music on the device is low
but still annoying to me

i figure fuck her
and i keep looking.

i turn the page on my book
for good measure.

it is then that i feel a tugging
at my hands
i look away from the woman’s crotch
and there is the baby
really a one or two year old
he looks like an ape
reaching across and grabbing
at my bookmark.

look, you little fucker
i whisper
stop doing that.

the baby looks up at me
and laughs.
he pulls out my bookmark
and it falls on the floor.

little prick
i say
picking up the bookmark.
the whole time the woman
is still playing video games
on her cell phone.
she has yet to spread her legs
to give me a look.

i put my bookmark in
and keep at her.

the baby lunges forward again
and tries to grab at my book.

look, you fleshy turd,
i whisper,
i’ll drop you out of an airplane
i sell you to africa for food
or make a delicate soup out of you

the kid gurgles at me
and squeals.
he puts both hands on his carriage
and rocks the thing.
the woman stops playing
her video game
to slap his hands.

then the fucker starts to whine

shit, i think.
i’m never going to get a look
at this woman’s goods.
i look around the train
but there’s no other seat.

fuck it, i think.
i’ll be there shortly.

then the baby really gets
going
crying and shaking the carriage
murdering the silence
in the train.

he rocks back and forth
moves his head up and screams.
the woman sighs
and puts away her cell phone
she spreads her legs
as she attends to the little brat
but all of that golden paradise
is being blocked by his ugly, wailing head.

goddamn it, i say.
the man next to me gives me a look.
i’ll tear him apart, i think.
i’ll tear this man apart
and then i’ll beat his corpse
with that wailing devil
of a child.

but i never get the chance to.
we come to the next stop
and the woman gets up.
she straps back the howling bastard
an in an instant
they are gone.

suddenly the train is silent
i put my book away
and close my eyes
praying to god that i’m impotent
and that my wife took her
pill on time
the other morning.