poem of the day 03.31.10

everyone’s a nigga

the white boys rapping
as they walk up third avenue
checking out the rims on a black car
calling each other nigga
they are like the group
of middle eastern kids that i passed
on fifth the other day
standing in a pack outside a hookah shop
with their hats on backwards
nigga
nigga
was all i heard coming from their mouths
i know this asian kid
keeps his hair cut really short
wears baggy clothes
talks with an affixed street accent
he’s best friends with
the token black kid on the block
they both call each
other nigga too
i didn’t understand it
nigga
oh, i’m sorry
the n word
i was always told that the word was taboo
but i tried it using it
in casual conversation
just to keep myself current
i called up rosa parks
i said
what’s up, my nigga?
she hung up on me
i guess she’s not down
she’s living in the past
that sullied, muddled time
when words were loaded
when they had historical context
she doesn’t understand how it is now
i tried again
i called up martin luther king jr.
i said to him
what’s going on, nigga?
but he hung up too
same thing with malcolm x
frederick douglass
benjamin banneker
sojourner truth
and booker t. washington
zora neal hurston
said that she was going to wash
my mouth out with soap
langston hughes threatened
to kick my ass
i didn’t understand it
what was i doing that was so bad?
i called up w.e.b. dubois
he said that i got it all wrong
that we got it all wrong
all those white boys rapping
the middle eastern boys
the asain and his black friend
you and me
all of those rich rap stars making
millions off of the word
nigga
nigga
but i’m not sure i believe old w.e.b.
his voice is like dust
floating in a light breeze
he doesn’t have the latest technology
i can’t find his blog anywhere
besides i just passed two indian kids
on the street
they were wearing football jerseys
that hung down to their assholes
they were hitting on girls
and calling each other
nigga
so i think i’m going to keep up
with this for a while longer
nigga
i’m a nigga
you’re a nigga
you’re dead grandmother
was a nigga too
so go and scratch it on her grave

equality and diversity at last

ain’t it grand?

poem of the day 03.30.10

jesus freaks on the midnight train

there is never a good time
for these people to show up
they seems to always show up
at the wrong times
like when you’re drunk
and fighting with your wife in public
or when you’re just trying
to go back to the job from lunch
tonight they are on this train to brooklyn
it is one in the morning
we have been delayed forty minutes
because someone on the train has gotten sick
you can hear sirens wailing
on the street above us
but they are not our saviors
the jesus freaks talk about holding a vigil
for the sick and lame
thankfully they don’t
they are holding playbills from a broadway show
talking about where they’ve seen
the actors before
gossiping about which of their friends
are going to make it to heaven
they are laughing and taking bets
the way some men do about
the outcome of a football game
or the size of a woman’s tits
i’ve often thought about heaven
i’m a curious man
i sometimes wonder what it would be like to die
to end up in a utopia
where everyone and everything has come to rest
tonight, tired and half-drunk,
i think if there is a heaven like that
it is probably akin to being stuck on a train
at one in the morning
and if these people are destined to go there
then i hope i go someplace else
i hope i stay on the earth and become worm food
a light breeze on a spring afternoon
or a new oak tree
my trunk so thick
you wouldn’t even think
to try and chop me down.

poem of the day 03.29.10

staring at a statue of jesus christ
cradling the world trade centers
in his arms

staring at a statue of jesus christ
cradling the world trade centers
in his arms
i’m reminded of how
we’ll make a monument
out of anything these days
and of how that long-haired bastard
is never around when you really need him

03.02.10

poem of the day 03.26.10

dirty fingernails

she has dirty fingernails

she stops us and asks
for a quarter

i dig in my pockets
then look at my wife and shrug

my wife finds two dimes
and hands them to her

dirty fingernails
on a warm saturday afternoon

then we find our bar
on st. mark’s place

the last storied joint
on an increasingly gentrified block

i buy us two pints of beer
breaking a crumpled twenty
that i’m betting
against next week’s paycheck

nodding at the bartender

i feel good
for a change.

poem of the day 03.25.10

bacon

outside the
butcher shop
at 78th
and 13th avenue
sits a pile
of skinned
pig carcass
wrapped in plastic
they are stacked
one on top
of the other
pig upon pig
their bodies
spread out
they look like
leaping rabbits
or jumping sheep
the smell is outrageous
acrid and decaying
like a war zone
death on a spring
morning
there is one man
standing next to the pile
he is wearing
a bloody apron
and smoking
a cigarette against
the sun’s light
he has a look of
utter apathy
on his face
this carnage means
nothing to him
but a paycheck
these pigs are
bacon frying
on a sunday morning
after a cold glass
of orange juice
while the church bells ring
for the holy
and the lost.

03.24.10

first things first...happy birthday to Oscar Varona, a great fiction writer. the world doesn't know what it's missing, pal.

blonde at the bar

the blonde at the bar
is an ubiquitous creature

this blonde at the bar
is sucking on an aluminum beer bottle

she is singing the wrong words
to every song that comes
on the jukebox

shaking her ass and pointing
at her friend

i have a stomach ache
from the work week
and from bad mexican food

i haven’t written
a decent poem in months

right now i couldn’t care less
if i ever wrote another poem again

i want to tell the blonde this
and many other things
only she’d probably ask me
to buy her a beer first

beer costs
six dollars a bottle
in this joint

to hell with her

the world isn’t short
on blondes, i think

but i’m short on cash
until next wednesday.

poem of the day 03.23.10

broken toe

the streets are flooding rivers
and the trees come down
like junkies
the people are like statues
and the birds are boiling
in their new nests
while you make rings
on the coffee table with scotch
and wine glasses
while you cry over the past
and pull at your shirt
while you stagger around
drunk for the last time
kicking at your boots so hard
you just know that second toe
on the left foot is broken
if it isn’t
it’ll hurt like a mother for a week or longer
but it won’t matter to you
because the sky is the color of car exhaust
and you’re finally happy
you have a perfect lack of ambition
and the noise through
the walls is like a symphony
tomorrow could be a paradise or a hell
they are the same thing
there is still enough to drink
there are still enough tears
there are enough poets to kill us all
the sound of the burning birds
is like an angel’s wail
the pain has not yet reached your brain
tomorrow you will wake before dawn
to send out more nonsense
then you’ll limp along the pavement
heading for the gallows and the noose
hoping for a cheap place
to get a cup of coffee
and somewhere far enough away
from the middle school
where you can vomit
in someone’s trash can
and call all of these years even.

poem of the day 03.22.10

star treatment

online
and in the papers
there is a story
about another
celebrity sex scandal
it seems like we get
two or three of these a year
in between
the rape, murder,
business, and baseball box scores
it is always the same thing
some picture of the famous
with their spouse or partner
and in a box in the corner
of the front page
the whore, the stripper, or
the co-star
that they fucked around with
these stories are boring to read
they are redundant
and come without surprise
they add nothing to the current zeitgeist
except more trivial shit
but they serve some purpose
they make the rest of us feel good
if only for a moment
sex scandals and the like
puts the celebrity in question
down on our level
even though this isn’t true
for when people get tired of fucking us
and they move on to someone else
we are often alone for months or years
we drown ourselves
in booze or tears or god
or television or food
we get fat and ugly
and while we may think the celebrity
goes through this as well
they are most likely healing their wounds
on a white sand beach
with lobster and sweet drinks
swirling in crystal glasses
they have the pity and empathy
of millions
at their fingertips
the world is poised for their big comeback
these celebrities
they nurse their sorrow
in seaside villas
with muscle bound trainers
keeping them honest in the gut
with tons of available ass around
willing to do whatever it takes
to help them forget their loss
to help them get over the hardship
of never truly getting fucked
the way that you and i do my friends
when losing love and comfort
when we find ourselves
suddenly spending away our money and souls
just to heal
just to crawl back up
and begin carving ourselves out
another mediocre existence

bartleby snopes...story of the month

if you have the time...check out bartleby snopes. i have a story there that, provided you like it, you can vote for it for story of the month....or you can vote for one of the other great stories there.

poem of the day 03.20.10

charles bukowski has a website

i am sitting on the shitter
reading a selected book of bukowski’s poems

i have read this book before

it’s better than listening to the weatherman
call for another ten inches of snow

i take a look at the back cover

it says to read all of bukowski’s books

(i have)

it says that i can visit charles bukowski at

www.charlesbukowski.com

which makes me wonder what hank would
think about the internet
all the online journals he could get published in
like the ones i do
with all of the other bukowski retreads

(of course, i’m including myself here)

the pervasiveness of the exposed life
in the 21st century

bukowski has a facebook page, too

i’m his friend

but i’m not surprised by this
anyone can make a facebook page for someone

i have a page made for hitler
only i haven’t told anyone
if someone becomes a friend of
hitler
then they are becoming a friend of
me

funny thing is, i don’t care for hitler
and i’ve never even read mien kamph

i imagine it’s the same for bukowski
someone just made his page up

but the website is from the corporation
that now publishes his books

that makes it official

sanctioned

who gave the approval on this?

surely not someone who knew hank

i didn’t know hank
i assumed he kept the blinds drawn
i just imagined that he drank less than he said
loved more than he let on
and mostly let people think about him what they wanted

am i talking about hank or me here?

i keep the blinds drawn
i don’t have a website but i have a blog

www.winedrunksidewalk.blogspot.com

you can come visit me there if you wish

i don’t mind

but this charles bukowski website kills me
it makes me laugh

i’d check it out
if the telephone line didn’t go dead yesterday
and i had internet connection

i went to verizon’s website

www.verizon.com

but they told me
that it would probably take
a week to get me back up and running

so i can’t check bukowski’s site

i can’t update my blog

all i can do is sit here reading this book
finish my shit
and wonder if maybe
richard brautigan has a website too

Blood Drips

in case any of you new (and greatly appreciated) followers of winedrunk
are interested, i have a fiction blog as well that i update from time to time
over at blood drips from the drunken pen

poem of the day 03.19.10

little napoleons

little napoleons
are also short of thought
they forget where they came from
where they were just months ago
little napoleons
like to pass down policy and edicts
to stir the masses in whose company
they used to mingle in
you can find them at any job
or in bars during happy hour
huddled at their new, exclusive tables
they won’t spare your feelings
those little napoleons
they’re so precious
they’re the future and they know it
it would be easier for them
to step on your heart
rather than give you a hand
ask them about waterloo
and they will say
what and huh?
they won’t understand
those little napoleons
because failure doesn’t compute
look into their eyes
and you’ll see bloody ambition
the right kind of style
they’ve got the look
little napoleons
the hunger
they’ve been groomed
to get messy in this type of sty
they love to play in the mud
little napoleons
you can pick them out of any crowd
they are the ones crushing
the shoulders of giants
wiping their medals with their own spit
they are the ones with long
corsican noses
the nostrils big enough
so that they can smell
the musky aroma
of their own runny shit.

poemS of the day 03.18.10

sitting down to write a poem
like one of richard brautigan’s

sitting down to write a poem
like one of richard brautigan’s
but i just comes out
like all of the other shit
that i write



i think of amazing things to say

i think of amazing things to say
all the time

there’s never anyone around
to listen to me

but the cat

she just turns her asshole
toward me
jumps off the couch
and prances across the room

to where her dinner sits
the same thing every day
in a dirty, silver colored bowl.

scratches

reading a quick
history of france
i hear muffled
crying behind the wall
i let it be
at first
but it’s a horrible
wail and moan
a thrashing
that i really couldn’t ignore
much longer
you can’t ignore shit
like that
so i put the book
down and open the door
and there she is
matted hair
in front of her face
black t-shirt
black jeans
scratches down her arm
blood in streaks
face red with tears
i think she looks like death
a nightmare of adolescence
holding her arm
a caged animal
ready to pounce
heaving breath
a common tuesday
afternoon in brooklyn
in the twilight
of winter
mumbling to herself
how it burns
the scratches
something else
as people move away
from her
as others crowd around
gazing at the wreckage
of the soul
asking what is it
asking her why she did it
who she did it for
but of course they
don’t care
and of course
she doesn’t know why
most of the time
they never know
but it’s always
someone
something
life
you and me
and everyone who looks
as we do
a priceless madness
when we can’t hold
it in any longer
when decorum goes out
the window
and it feels good
to let the blood flow
toward the bright sun
shining in the ugly
blue sky.

poem of the day 03.16.10

strange

nothing is right
in this joint this evening

everyone looks the same

tired

the world is tired

he comes over to me
after i’ve stood two quarters
upright on the bar

he says
something isn’t right

i know, i say

he grabs his chin
and rubs it
he means my face
something isn’t right with
my face

what is it? he asks

i shaved
i got rid of the goatee

that’s it, he says
i had a beard for like
three years
and this one night
i was in here
you remember caroline, right?
she moved to australia
well, caroline was here
she was standing right behind
mara and i
she said to me, she said
you look like an asshole like that
i just let that one go
you look like an asshole
then i got up and went into
the bathroom, back there
i punched the wall
broke my finger

shit, man

well
oh, one more thing

he slams the bar and my quarters
fall back the way they were

then he laughs
and pats me on the back

strange, my wife says
when he walks back down
to the end of the bar

very, i say.

poem of the day 03.15.10

tires

tires
on the pavement
all kinds
buses
cars
trucks
and bikes
listening to them
i am reminded
of that single room
in that communal
apartment
with little more than
lamplight
and cigarettes
the sounds of tires
on the pavement
without sleep
with a hunger
that i couldn’t control
all those years ago
and many thing behind
me now
that had yet to come

poem of the day 03.12.2010

new liquor store

the new liquor store
that i go to opens up
at nine in the morning

much earlier than
my other liquor stores

it’s cheaper too

the liquor merchant sits
behind a glass desk
that is filled with pints
of expensive booze

he’s a beady-eyed little asian man

he doesn’t say a word to me

i thought he didn’t speak english
until i heard him talking
to someone else

i tried saying hi once
but it didn’t work out

so we don’t talk

that’s okay because
it’s easier like that

i just come into his store
and get what i need

my cheap french red

the nectar of the gods

i think the only problem
that i have is in the way he judges me

because it’s early
because i look the way that i do

i’m not up for explaining myself to him
i’ve been judged by better
and i’ve had to explain myself
to nearly everyone

friends, parents, lovers, bosses,
and other liquor merchants

none of them seem to get me

neither will he

so i slam my money down
on the counter
he rises from his throne to take it
slamming my change back
the same way

he wraps my golden jewel bottle
in one of those plastic bags
that is strangling the earth

and i leave

safe in knowing that he and i
will go through this comedy act
tomorrow
at the same time

it’s some reassurance
one more common thing
to help me get through the day

unless, of course, he raises his prices
like the last one did to me

then the fucker and i are through

poem of the day 03.11.10

teenage poem

i think i should break
up with sean
i mean he’s been a real dick all week
and chris said that i needed
to make a choice
and i don’t know
what to do, you know
like alcohol makes
you do some stupid things
and i didn’t like want
to do what i did with chris
but that party
shit, i just think maybe
sean’s being a dick
because his grades are for shit
and chris like unloaded
on me yesterday
and told me that he never
wanted to get married
or have kids
right?
i know
like what the fuck?
but it probably doesn’t
even matter anyway
chris isn’t catholic
so there’s like no way
i’ll ever get him to church
and i can’t bring a guy
home that won’t go to church
my mom would flip
but i think sean was
just being a dick
and at least he goes to
church on sundays
yeah
i know
alcohol makes you
do some dumb things
well anyway
blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah
blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah
blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah
this is my stop
so i’m going to get off the phone
text me in like five minutes
‘kay?

poem of the day 03.10.10

saddy’s girl

saddy’s girl
is wrapping a box in tape
out of line in the post office
while saddy holds her place

it is saturday morning
and finally decent outside

yet we are all here
the line in the post office
is almost out the door
it is full of us fools
running errands on our only days off

people are yelling about their packages
about stamps and shipping rates
they are shouting
to apathetic postal clerks
waiting on their lunch break

saddy’s girl
is laughing as she wraps the box

she is sipping an iced coffee
and singing a pop song

she has a tan although it is march
she has perfectly white teeth
long, silky black hair
and a thin, athletic body

the post office is a joy for saddy’s girl

for her, this place is an amusement park

saddy, he just looks at his girl and smiles

he can’t believe his luck

he doesn’t mind suffering
the post office line for her

he has his iced coffee too
he pressed sports coat
his painted-on stubble and pointy dress shoes

i’ll bet twenty dollars that
saddy has a small dick
and that his girl fucks like a snail

finally the box is wrapped

saddy’s girl makes it to the line
just as their turn is being called

she’ll never understand the horror involved
in mail, i think.

i get called to the next teller
i go and send my poems
for the editors of the world to laugh at

i get an angry postal clerk
one who’s only minutes away from her break

saddy’s girl has their clerk in stitches

some people have that good american charm

i smile at my clerk
she’d kill me if she could

soon i am back outside
i think about getting a bagel and a large coffee
i am heading toward the bagel shop
when i hear saddy’s girl start to squeal

she is laughing and singing again

she and saddy are finishing their iced coffees
and talking

“i’m hungry,” saddy’s girl says.
“let’s go get a bagel and some more coffee.”

suddenly i’ve lost my appetite

fuck it, i think

i walk the fifteen blocks home
wondering how in the hell people live like that

when i get inside i open
a new jug of wine

it’s only ten-thirty in the morning, but i don’t care

i sit down and sip the wine

it tastes good

then i take it all down into the gut

i pour another
while i try not to think about anyone
or anything

i begin humming a tune

it’s a pop song

the one saddy’s girl was singing
while she wrapped that box in all of that
post office tape
as the rest of us stood there
dying a little bit on a saturday morning

i sit there humming, drinking the wine,
in silent torture
as the rest of the world wakes up
to do the chores that they have to do

saddy, you and your bitch

with your perfect world
full of post offices and pop songs

now i’m going to have this shit
in my head all day.

poem of the day 03.09.10

Zygote In My Coffee

this is one of my favorite online/print journals.
and i have the pleasure of being back in zygote in my coffee.
take a look

poem of the day 03.08.10

first...happy 36th to Kris Collins. A great poet

genius at work

i wonder what rabalais
would do in a moment like this

what would fante say?

hamsun?

hemingway?

i sit back and listen to the radio
wondering how anne sexton would
capture this moment

the kind of spin that f. scott
would put on it

i think i know what shakespeare
would do

kerouac would set his typer
going like a machine gun

or was that bukowski?

whitman would howl
and jeffers would shut the door
to the word

villon would steal this moment

so might jean genet

in a moment like this
i think about what all the great ones
would do

then i update my profile picture
on facebook

i read a celebrity gossip site
look at old lady porn
and wonder what’s to eat
in the fridge.

poem of the day 03.06.10

it was either a martini or a glass of scotch

these young kids
with their gadgets
with their digital playthings
with the whole world at their beck and call

they don’t know anything
they don’t know shit

how ghandi took lead for all of india
and kennedy took lead for pussy and the mob

how lennon took lead for his generation
and cobain ate some lead
because he listened to too much neil young
while wrestling with oscar wilde

these young bastards

they don’t know how de sade suffered
in a cold oubliette
writing elegant smut with his own shit
or how sexton fucked a gas tank

young kids
with their gadgets

with the top-40 at their fingertips
and bad television shows on a zip file

they’ll live eternal

eternally dumb

one-thousand photos online

while dust collects on the top of the bastille
and no one on this block remembers
what f. scott fitzgerald was drinking
the night he and zelda took a dip
in that pretty fountain
here in new york city

poem of the day 03.05.10

light bulb

and then i remember
that we forgot
to buy a light bulb
for the living room

i go around the apartment
turning on lights
seeing which ones match
so that i might borrow it
just for the morning

i grab a chair from the kitchen
and examine light fixtures
picking up the chair
moving it from room to room

none of them match

or else they are the last working light
in a fixture that already needs
new light bulbs

jesus christ, i think,
sitting on the chair in the middle
of the hallway

what is a man when he can’t even
get light?

is he no man at all?

i realize that this isn’t time
to be philosophical

it’s time for action

but i just sit there a while longer
wondering how regular people handle this shit
without wanting to kill someone or themselves
without wanting to throw a chair
through the living room window
laughing like a maniac
while some good neighbor calls the cops

poem of the day 03.04.10

i’m going to fuck you in a paris alleyway

she gets her period today
just over a month before we’re leaving for paris

i tell her let’s count the days
and see when the next one is coming

we flip the calendar and count away to march
shouting out the numbers
like a new year’s eve countdown

she says the next one will come
around the 26th of the month

we should be fine for paris, she says

i look at her and nod

i pour us more wine while she tends
to the chicken frying in the skillet

i’m going to fuck you in paris, i tell her
you’re going to get fucked real good in paris, i say

she smiles and flips the chicken

i’m going to fuck you in a paris alleyway
up against a wall just like henry fucked june

we’ll scare away all of those french alley cats

we’ll wipe away a thousand years of literary tradition

what do you think about that?

she puts down the tongs and comes over to kiss me

then she gives me some of her wine
because i drank the last of the bottle,
making my grand statements

she goes over to check the chicken again
her face flushed, while i sit down in a chair

goddamned don juan after all of these years

poem of the day 03.03.10

just in case you ever wanted to know

bus drivers often change shifts
in the middle of driving routes
the new driver taking the seat
previously occupied by the old one
who’s now taking the bus home
tired and frustrated by the work that he does
just like you and i

poem of the day 03.02.10

on another morning

i started reading henry miller again

miller is all right

most of the time i enjoy him
but when he tries
to get philosophical
i tend to get turned off

but no matter what, i’m always in awe
of how it poured out of him

the words

the way they streamed

they said that he could sit at his typer
and hold a conversation with someone
while pounding out words

i get angry at the cats if they come in the room
and meow
while i’m trying to be a “genius”

miller did it all right

so did proust, locked away in his cork-lined room

he was sick most of the time
but still able to fill pages and pages
of the most literary madness

i can’t do it like them

most writers can’t do it like them

we stare at the snow and hope the power goes out

we go online and read the sports or look at porn

we don’t pour out our souls
the way that miller and proust did

we give it away in emails
or on social networking sites

like them or not, the prowess of henry miller
and marcel proust is something to behold

they had the majesty of the word
and the gods smiled down on them

me? i’m just waiting on eight o’clock this morning
so i can shut this operation down

be done with playing writer today

go outside in the driving wind and snow

accept my fate with humanity and the job

on another morning, i’d probably feel different

i’d feel like zeus

but on this one
i just don’t feel like i have it anymore

bench me or force me to retire
because i don’t have it to give

tapped

bankrupt

devoid of meaning

and i just can’t stop this poem

so this’ll be the last line

Down in the Dirt

sorry to post again, but having on of those days where i end
up in two places at once. check out some writing over at down in the dirt

Gutter Eloquence

hello all,

i'm here today with a bunch of other great writers

poem of the day 03.01.10

no men

brooklyn was pounded again
with sixteen inches of snow

i waited three and a half hours
for a bus that never came
while some guy coming off
a 15-hour work shift
bitched to his girlfriend over the phone
begging her to call him a cab

in the bedroom now
still somewhat soaked and frozen

the radio on to nothing good

i have jacked-off twice today
to no one in particular

outside the super’s wife and her daughter
are shoveling mounds of snow

they are panting and laughing
while i peak through the curtains
in nothing but a t-shirt
and my jizz and shit stained underwear

two beers and a few cheap glasses of jug wine
in me

i’m thinking of making it a hat trick
with my cock

but something about the scene outside
gets to me

the super’s wife and her daughter
so happy in all this mess

like they had no choice but to just give up

i think i want to help them shovel
but i know i’m not going anywhere

it’s okay though
there are no other men helping them

in all the world
there are no men

out there in the snow

or in this tiny bedroom either.