poem of the day 01.04.10

the same old

it is the same old
pile up
of morons
in front of the apartment
wringing out the old year
with dick jokes
and stories about tits from the past

we are drinking wine
and watching movies
we’ve seen a hundred times
listening to the action
their inane laughter over
dialogue we’ve memorized
years ago

“dude, they were this big,
i swear.”

i imagine him showing
the measurements
with his hands
as they all laugh

what the fuck? i think
when did this happen?

the building used to be us
and old people
my wife and i
we were the mad ones here
the ones the superintendent warned
about the smell of pot smoke
in the hallway
the ones whose wine bottles
caused an uproar in the basement

now
we have these cackling braggart idiots
outside the window
and the yuppies who let their yapping dogs
shit all over the sidewalk
we have the ones
who have wine and cheese parties
on the fire escape
during warm summer nights
and the whores in their loud shoes
and loud perfume
carrying their underwear in their back pockets
talking about how fucking drunk
they always are

what happened?

i get up from the couch
and look outside
at my tormentors
there’s four of them
but i focus on the fat one
with black wavy hair
the one who’s always hogging up
the elevator
using all the washing machines
to clean his various football jerseys

i think if it ever goes down between me
and this pack of guys
he’s the one i’m taking out
he’s the one coming along to hell with me

my wife says something short
that i don’t hear
i make her uneasy when i get like this
and i get like this a lot
she says why don’t you just tell them
to be quiet
tell them that people live here

i tell her
they already know that people live here
they live here
i tell her i’m going out there
with my fists and a baseball bat

you don’t have a baseball bat, she says

not everything has to be a fight, she says

yes it does, dear, i say
looking out the window again
after the pack of morons cackle
into the dying embers
of this hard decade

some things
almost everything these days
i tell her
is a fight

it’s blood sport, i say
from getting up in the morning
to going to bed at night

it’s murder
this life

it’s endless, suffocating war

it’s dog eat dog, i tell her
these long and endless days
this shit slide
from the womb to the grave