poem of the day 12.31.12

fiscal cliff

there was a time

when my old man

had to work two jobs to help support us

between he and my mother that was three jobs

struggling to pay rent and bills on time

packing lunches and making dinner

buying new clothing

for two oblivious boys

who they’d chosen to shove into catholic school

for a dose of morality

i don’t even remember what the old man did

at this second job

except that he didn’t have to wear a shirt and tie

like he did for the morning one

which i thought that was getting off easy

because i had to wear dress clothes in the fifth grade

and there was a time

that my mother didn’t have enough money for bread

and had to bum it off of me and my piggy bank

promising to pay me back by friday

as we marched through the january cold

to catch the grocery store before it closed

she promised me

as if i were her bookie or something

oh, those blessed fridays of paycheck salvation

my brother and i, we didn’t know nike or polo

from a hole in the ground

but there was always thanksgiving and christmas

a hot meal on the table every night

so neither of us had a clue

we thought the tears and the arguments were about something else

when i got older and shed my immortal coil

over-educated and unmarketable

dodging student loan sharks

tact that worthless piece of university paper on my wall

when it was my turn to wonder

now what?

there were bad paychecks and good ones

the good ones meant dinner out with my girlfriend

a used book or a used cd to sell again when money got tight

the bad ones meant the rent got paid

and you kept a count of your cigarettes for the next two weeks

but ghetto smokes on balconies could last a lifetime

watching the city an amusement unparalleled

and the laughs kept on coming through the low bank balances

and cheap pasta dinners

it never seemed as bad as it was

as child or as an adult

i never felt broke or that i was lacking

it always seemed like no matter what

that we were getting there

me

my family

my love and my friends

all of us hard and honest people

putting food on tables and punching clocks

struggling for rent and small joys

the ones who built this country up from the ground

this troubled promised land that our leaders

with their expensive suits and pensions

those pretty corporate chains around their necks

so hungrily want

to mash back into

unrecognizable

dirt.

                                   

poem of the day 12.28.12

the model

he says this autumn has turned

back into spring

he was a bus driver for two years

but quit because he couldn’t handle

doing eight straight every day

but look at these guys, he says

as we watch the drivers change shifts

now they make eighty grand a year

for what?

sitting on their asses?

but it’s no matter to me

i’m 72 years-old and have a gig as a model

man i got the body of a 20 year old under this jacket

because i walk from brooklyn to manhattan every day

it’s only coincidence that i’m on the bus this evening

talking to you

but this modeling gig is big time at some art school

they have me get up on a stool

sometimes in a g-string

sometimes naked

all of these old ladies paint me or sketch me

i get a couple hundred a session for that

more when some of the old bats take me home

for a personal session or to ride my stump

so i ain’t so worried about giving up that bus driver gig

all of them years ago

who wants to sit on their ass all day every day?

i mean look at me, man

72 years old and i look like i’m 20

rock hard

no butter no bread no pizza

and i don’t even miss it but sometimes

because life is hard

and you got to have something in it to fill those hours

trust me i know

i lost my whole family seven years ago in a car wreck

my wife my daughter my mother

after that i just cut out of life

i slept in my car down at the 68^th street pier

because i didn’t want to go home

i had no home, kid

i had no money

but i wasn’t about to go

and become something like a goddamned bus driver

there’s money to made anywhere

like this guy from a diner called me

because he heard about my mother dying

he wanted to meet me

said he was her old boyfriend

so i go to his diner and he starts telling me all about my mother

shit from before i was born

and he’s crying and i’m crying

only i notice this girl sitting near by

a cute blonde in baggy jeans and sneakers just writing away

turns out she worked for warner brothers

a few weeks later i get a call from her to meet at that diner

when i show up there she’s dressed to kill

painted toenails

fishnets tight

yellow skirt

says they want to do a movie about my life

she offers me good money but i don’t take it

i tell her i got money

which i did from the insurance settlement from the car wreck

i tell her maybe i’ll sign on for a movie

if i get a terminal disease or something

and this girl is so kind i start telling her more about my wife

bless her soul

and we hit it off

it turns out she’s an actress too

stared in the men in black films

the diner has her picture up there on the wall

it’s still there

and even though she’s 19 and i’m older than her old man

we start seeing each other

it blows me away how she handles my stump like she does

sure, i give her money

a grand here

a grand there

for acting lessons or whatever

she keeps telling me she’ll pay me back when she gets famous

but i tell her we have an affair of the heart

not the pocketbook

and what do i care for money?

having lost my family recently

my wife my poor sweet wife

she looked just like olive oil

she knew warhol and was a painter too

warhol was from pittsburgh

just like that steelers hat that you’re wearing

and i can’t help but think my wife sent me this blonde

to help me get over her

christ what a wild ride existence is

all that love

all that sex

you just don’t find women like her now

especially not on these buses

where all of the women are losers

even with their painted toenails and haircuts

there all dead

they go home and hump their cell phones

still live with their parents

but, man, you really should try getting a modeling gig

i mean i never believed that at 72

i’d have women chasing me the way that they do

chomping up my stump the way that they are

it’s almost like i’m in heaven despite it all

i’m in heaven here on earth

this bus

this life

talking to you on a random monday night, kid

it’s all bliss.

                                                                                   

poem of the day 12.27.12

in paris dreams

suddenly i’m in paris

just like that

and i think, paris

as i watch the sun reflect off the seine

at the place de la concorde

i am with three old friends

who i’m no longer in any kind of real contact with

for some reason or another

age, i guess

they are complaining about paris

complaining about the french

that old argument that they don’t like us americans

i think to show my friends a good time in the city of lights

take them to a bookstore

where they immediately begin tearing books off the shelf

complaining that nothing is in english

then i have bookstore clerks yelling at me

and old friends yelling at me

as paris moves like gray liquid out the windows

too quickly for me to try and catch it

one of my old friends

accuses the book clerk of stealing his passport

there is more screaming and yelling

and international threats

for some reason my old friends are eating mcdonald’s

right in the bookstore

they are throwing burgers at the books

at the bookstore clerks and well-dressed customers

endless discs of greasy patties

that they are taking out of soiled bags

emblazoned with golden arches of american flags

it is like christ feeding fish to the masses

it is such a nightmare of culture

such a sad and silly dream

of ketchup and mustard and mayonnaise

that i can feel myself trying to wake up

from this insanity

as i continue to duck fast food and books

boomerangs of houellebecq

arrows of pommes frites ala america

and showers of coca-cola

like rivers of slick commerce

oozing slowly toward

the waiting, rotted guillotines of old.                               

poem of the day 12.26.12

old ladies in grocery stores

old ladies in grocery stores
are the worst specimens we humans
have to offer
strategically placed
they never move an inch
and they use big carts for one item
there seem to be fleets of them
at any given time and at any given hour
nowhere else to go
nothing else to do
but check the expiration dates on cans of soup
meander down the cereal aisles
waiting on death to come
the way they block the fruits and vegetables
is like an art form in and of itself
oh, how they gaggle and congregate
in front of the meats
discussing day time shows and the weather
there are always packs of them at the deli
indecisive and mean
driving the butcher nuts
asking for their cold cuts
sliced as thin as their blood
old ladies in the grocery store
with their crucifix bullshit
with their chicken scratch lists and lima beans
with their stella d’oro madness
and flaking boxes of cream of wheat
are enough to make you commit murder
on sunday afternoons
hungover and sweating bullets
trying to bob and weave around them
getting caught behind a train
of cheap perfume-soaked, cotton-headed abominations
arguing with teenage cashiers in the check-out line
sifting through coupons and their dead husband’s money
self-righteous and entitled
your poor dumb dogged ass
just in the store for a six pack and some chips
one day off down and one to go
before the meat grinder churns your flesh
and spits out your gristle
for their social security
for another forty lost hours a week

poem of the day 12.24.12

christmas music

sitting here

in the boxer shorts

nursing the beer hangover

and the gas pains

and the morning radio

is telling me to have myself

a merry little christmas

i wonder who can find

any solace in this stuff.

it’s such a put-on

such a fantastic artifice

i wonder who can still

be so dumb over this pap

and this thought makes me laugh

because i need only

think of other people

to get my answer

as the elegant strings

and the high flute

keep wafting the song

out on the morning radio

so soothing

have yourself a merry

little christmas

have yourself a merry

little christmas

and when you’re done

do me a favor

fuck yourself too

and go back inside

and lock your doors

safe with all of your shit

leaving the world to us devils

for the next year

you know the ones

the ones who don’t get

weepy and sentimental

over christmas music

and cute kids dressed in red and green

who hate assholes wearing santa hats

the ones who keep going

instead of stopping for a kiss

underneath a rotting mistletoe.               12.10.08

poem of the day 12.21.12

oskah vilde

we are chasing ghosts

in another cemetery

my wife and i

we chase ghosts all of the time

she comes up to us and says

“ou se trouve oscar wilde?”

in the sort of french accent

that could knock a man out

maybe she is thirteen

but she’s already a killer

with her chestnut hair and dark eyes

my wife tells her

“je ne parle pas francias.”

i don’t know what

in the hell they are saying to each other

except that it has something

to do with oscar wilde

it feels good not to fully understand

the girl gives an odd look

and asks “anglais?”

“oui,” my wife says

the girl smiles

and says “i am looking

for the grave of oskah vilde”

she says it like that

os-kah vilde

her accent is making me

go os-kah vilde

my wife shows her the location

of the grave on her map

without thinking i hand her

my map of the cemetery

“por vous,” i say

getting in the spirit of things

the girl is reluctant to take the map at first

but eventually she gives in

she skips off with her brother

“when she gets older

she should go to college in america,”

i tell my wife, “she’d destroy

a whole generation of men

with that accent.”

my wife just looks at me

“did you see how reluctant she was

to take my map,” i say, “it must

be a cultural thing.”

“yeah, that’s it,” my wife says.

then we wander off to find

where they put marcel proust

after all of those years

he spent pouring out his soul

in that cork-lined room.

                                    04.19.10

poem of the day 12.19.12

placebo

my wife says

that seltzer water tastes like the ocean

and i laugh

imagine trying to drink the atlantic ocean

instead of drinking

two seltzer waters to replace

two after work whiskeys

i’ve drank the ocean before by accident

it’s not all it’s cracked up to be

but these seltzer waters seem to be doing the trick

at least i’m fooling myself

decent enough

if they aren’t

like the spearmint tea that i’ll have after dinner

two steaming cups to replace

whiskeys number three, four, and five

while reading a biography on thomas jefferson

who drank at least three glasses of wine a day

the good stuff, mind you

not the cheap chilean red that i usually keep

nestled by the side of the couch

bought for less than an alexander hamilton

anywhere in brooklyn

president jefferson never touched hard liquor

that is to say

he wasn’t a part-time drunk nor a half-assed poet

he was a philosopher and a statesmen first

and conducted himself accordingly

he never had to sit in his living room on a rainy night

trying to be pleasant after a long day at work

fooling himself on seltzer water instead of whiskey

imagining it

and himself

to be as vast and strong

as mind-blowing

as the green and salty

atlantic ocean.

                                                          

poem of the day 12.18.12

religious furor

we seek refuge in union square

seek quiet away from the tourists

who are stopping every block

to get a picture of some manhattan landmark

that’ll probably be under water in fifty years’ time

some sanity away from the thongs

of frat boys and sorority girls dressed

as santa claus and elves

doing a pub crawl

puking stale beer on each other before sundown

ah, new york city at christmas

there are at least a dozen places that i’d rather be

but eating falafel here with my wife is okay too

….until he shows up

we could see him making his way down the line of people

stopping to give his pitch

pushing paper at some poor bastards

seeking the same solace as we

getting closer by the moment

the brave ones wave him away

the other give in and open their wallets

before he hands them one of his fliers

when he gets to us

my wife says no before he can even speak

it could be construed as rude

but unless you live here

you have no right to judge

still, it sets him off

i’m tired of hearing no, he says

that whole other goddamned side of benches told me no

and i’m tired of people bothering me

while i’m eating, my wife say

i ain’t trying to stop you from eating, he says

i just want to give you something to read

we don’t want to read what you got, i tell him

he stares us down

we stare him back

he says i want to tell you about jesus

my wife and i say we don’t care in unison

i tell him that we’re tired of jesus

he says, good, stay down here, you motherfuckers

because heaven don’t want you anyway

then he walks away

another one of god’s angry, rejected messengers

as more tourists lollygag by

getting pictures of the empire state building

peeking over the buildings

as groups of drunken frat boy santas yell

at groups of drunken sorority mrs. claus

shouting “hoes, hoes, hoes,” into the drooping saturday sun

and another poor evergreen

gets dragged through these garbage-laden streets

like a war criminal

prepared to sacrifice itself to bright lights and tinsel

dying ever so slowly

for this festive yuletide season

                                                           

poem of the day 12.17.12

homegrown

the arab kids are sitting in a pack

they are laughing and throwing trash around

they all have bad, overly gelled haircuts

and wear sunglasses indoors

have their ballcaps cocked sideways

and jeans that go down almost below their asses

they are no worse than any other kids in here

in fact, they are pretty run of the mill

but she singles them out and says to me

this might be racist

but you can just tell that they hate america

and that they are going to grow up to become terrorists

you get all of that from them throwing paper? i say

we have homegrown ones now, she continues

it’s on the news every night

some kid from wisconsin or somewhere

trying to blow up the federal reserve or something

i probably hate america more than they do, i say

don’t say that, she says

as we watch the arab kids laugh and share their headphones

you never know who’s listening

no one is ever really listening in this country, i say

that’s part of the problem

these kids are different, she says

it’s in their eyes

they look like regular assholes, i tell her

they’re homegrown, she says

as two of the arab kids get up

and start shoving each other playfully

look at them, she says

they’ve been raised to assimilate

to act just like the other kids

and then one day they get the call and …..

for christ’s sake, i say

that’s what you really believe?

take a good look at them

so i do

but i still don’t see it

i just see asshole teenagers

doing the stupid things that they always do

one day you’ll see one of those kids on the news

he’ll have tried to blow up a bank or a bridge or something

maybe he’ll be on a variety show, i say,

when one kid starts dancing to the music

but she frowns because now is not the time for jokes

and protecting this great nation is serious business

it’s not the same here, she says

america is different than when i was a kid

i don’t feel safe anywhere in this country now

it’s been the same horrifying mess

for over two-hundred years, i tell her

but she shakes her head

glares at the arab kids as they make their way outside

mark my words, she says

one day they’re all going to strike

and it’ll be those homegrown ones

who will get us in the end.

                                                                                               

poem of the day 12.14.12

failed artist

would

if i could

i’d try to replace

all art

with my true self

and never

pick up

the pen

the pencil

this stiff soiled brush

ever again.

                       

poem of the day 12.12.12.

glass

yesterday morning i woke up

and knocked my water glass on the bedroom floor

and it shattered all over the place

five in the morning

and i already had something to do

but this is symptomatic

two days ago i swept the kitchen

and there was glass underneath a cabinet

two long, thin shards from wine glasses

that i’d broken a month before

some nights

i’ll stumble through the apartment

and feel a little pinch in my foot

when i sit down to check it out

they’ll be blood and glass embedded in a toe

i’ll wonder where it came from this time

either a pint glass

or one of those pyrex dishes

that shattered when it fell off the sink

i break wine bottles

and beer bottle en route to various locations

i can’t begin to count the number of times

i’ve had to go back into the store to buy more booze

because i tripped and fell outside

leaving crimson or amber puddles in my wake

it’s like i’m cursed with glass

it’s not even a drunk thing

when i was a kid i ran through a glass window

and ended up in a cast with tendon damage that never healed

it’s all because of glass

that i have to lift my left leg when i walk

the day i got the cast off

i tripped and fell and sliced my finger on a shattered ash tray

i don’t like glass

hell, i don’t even like sand

but using plastic is like making a deal with the devil

my drinks taste funny

out of a plastic tumbler

and plastic is no fun when you throw it against a wall

so glass and i are stuck together

until science comes up with something better

i guess i’ll keep picking the shards out of my rough flesh

due to my stupidity

buying second bottles of wine

being extra careful when i shut the broken windows

and at night when i get up to piss

and my hallway glitters like diamonds in the moonlight

i’ll just pretend that i’m rich

instead of a fat klutz

who needs to watch his step.

                                               

poem of the day 12.11.12

new friends

i enter the shoe store

and this clerk is on me like flies on shit

before i even have a chance to look around

tis the season, i say to my wife

the salesclerk asks me my name

i have no clue why he does this

it’s a simple transaction

we need not exchange names

but i give it to him anyway

then it’s like we’re new friends

discussing black boots

it’s john this, and john that

he’s using my name so much

it’s like a mantra to him

it’s like this salesclerk

is some kind of scientologist

he tells me to call him geoffrey, so i do

do you have these in black, geoffrey?

do you have 10 ½, geoffrey?

whatever gets me out of this store

in under one-hundred bucks

i think it’s stupid that we’re

talking to each other like this

like i’ll be back the next day

for a cup of coffee or a burger at mcdonald’s

just john and geoffrey, BFFs infinite

i don’t like all of this familiarity

during a retail transaction

it’s unjustified and unrefined

for two guys living in such a capitalist state

john, how does that one fit?

john, have you thought about getting

those in dark brown?

john, how about them giants?

all the way this season, geoffrey

there’s a time and a place for such pleasantries

buying shoes isn’t one of them

but i choose the black boots anyway

even though the right foot is a little tight

geoffrey tells me that i chose wisely

although he gets a little bit pushy

trying to get me to add on extra laces and socks

he frowns when i say

just the boots today, geoff

but i’m not surprised at his response

because we’ve become so predictable to each other already

geoffrey is always trying to give

and me, john, i’m so goddamned stingy all of the time

geoffrey hands me my bag

presses the receipt into my palm

you take care now, john,

he says so very very cold

like he’s not even looking at me anymore

like i’m just one in a long line of others

geoffrey is on to the next new friend, brian

who just walked into the shoe store

with his bitch girlfriend, elaine,

who won’t shut up about pink chuck taylor high-tops

and how goddamned hot the store is                                        

poem of the day 12.10.12

round corner

they weren’t men

they were relatives

it was like being hit

from all sides of the family tree

and each one of them took up a stool

at the round corner

to drink and waste another saturday

fathers sitting next to sons

next to uncles and grandfathers

grandkids like me

my own grandfather hungry for this place

more and more since his wife died

so we’d sit there and drink together

never speaking

but we never spoke anyway

occasionally he’d re-introduce me

to some cousin that i hardly knew

and we’d stand there like mute fools

until he walked away shaking his head

wondering what that was all about

or some uncle who told me a story

that i’d heard a thousand times over

and hours would pass this way

as college ball played on the televisions

and the bottles of iron city beer piled up

and conversations turned into accusations

old family grudges egged on by alcohol

and no discernible lunch

until the barman kicked us all out

into the ugly pale light of the afternoon

telling us to go on home

to mother and daughters

sitting next to aunts and grandmothers

in cramped pittsburgh houses

their palpable disappointment

cooking in old gas ovens

bringing these men to their knees

brittle like wilted roots on a dying oak

and back to the same hard stools

the very next weekend

to do this kind of genealogy

all over again.

                                                

The Best Writer(s) You're Not Reading

if you're on the hunt for cool, new (at least to you) authors like I always am, check out my latest article/essay/shit-stained abomination over at Outsider Writers http://www.outsiderwriters.org/

Horror Sleaze Trash

would like to thank the folks at Horror Sleaze Trash for taking these poems

poem of the day 12.07.12

as good as it’s going to get

this is it, i think

as good as it’s going to get

almost like the title of that nicholson film

this is it

sitting here in this white asylum

of a lunch room

watching the people go over the tabloids

discussing the antics of the rich and infamous

knowing that i’ll be sitting with them

until we either retire or die

drinking beer in sad, dark bars to kill the hours in between

it

like reaching a destination

and having it closed

it

like seeing the grand canyon

and realizing it’s a big gaping hole in the earth

this is it, i think

riding the bus with every loud lunatic

my transportation for the next thirty years of my life

nothing but a transit pass infinite

listening to every inane conversation to be had on cellphones

wondering what torture device the style makers

will come up with next

coming home to dinner and death and the gray realization

that tomorrow is another day

it

like no god could’ve predicted

for his children

it

like the end of a bad film

that you know you’ll have to sit through again and again

this is it, i think

even when coasting over an ocean

hauling my bones to another dead country

upon the bloody soil of history

looking at the bad art of overrated masters

searching for the homes of the literary damned

sitting in european bars that are just a lousy

as the ones in america

feasting on foods that i’ll only have to shit back out

it

like seas and seas of morons

who have tread these paths before me

it

like the smiling face on a fat tourist

lumbering through an ancient church

this is it, i think

and i want to claw out my eyes

want to walk into the middle of traffic

with a beatific smile on my face

and proclaim that i am done with

it

that i can take no more of

it

but i’m as soft as the rest of them

i’ll soldier on through the daylight and into the night

searching for

it

like so many others never finding

it

but instead continue to suffer the indignities

of this existence

with a smile on my face

until the body, the mind give out

and i’ll be scratching at the walls

claiming and claiming how much i want

just another minute of

it.

                       

poem of the day 12.05.12

dogs are running free

these are the dogs who keep

running free

this italian mook

in a leather coat with his bald head

gleaming off the streetlights

smoking

talking his shit into his cell phone

acting like he has the world by the balls

this spaghetti slurping abortion

this mother’s douche

this swaggering stereotype

this typical american fuck

whose fetid shit flows

down the same pipes as mine does

(when they work)

it is a painful act of human kindness

sitting in this living room

listening to him boast

over some senseless trifle

and not leaping off the couch

to murder him in cold blood

this dog running free

this slab of milk fed veal

this slice of pizza

this big fucking idiot

leaning on everyone’s car

like he owns the block

and cackling into the gloomy night

he makes you pray for rain

or another act of god

something to get him off of the pavement

chained back into his hovel

a 70-inch television plastered to his wall

to satiate him

a horse’s head blood red on his mattress

as a warning

instead of out here

like a dog running free

sniffing his own ass for pleasure

as another call comes in

on his cell phone

wailing

a most prosaic soundtrack of the night.

                                                                        

poem of the day 12.04.12

her favorite song

i stopped at the grocery store

after working the ass-end of a long shift

answering more questions

than i’d ever asked in my life

my goals were clear

home and whisky

my needs were simple

bread and beer

but in the checkout line

she’s not even paying any attention

she’s not ringing up my shit

she’s standing their swaying

head bobbing, her eyes closed

the top lip biting the lower pierced one

grooving to some top-40 hybrid of rock-rap

that has to be at least a decade older than her

this is my favorite song, she tells me

i don’t know it, i say

and start pushing my groceries closer to her

you don’t?  it’s a classic

i miss a lot of things, i tell her

wondering what she’d do if i opened a beer right now

considering it’s like we’re in a club anyway

i think i’m going to cry, she says, still swaying

please don’t, i say

i hate it when women cry

but this song means so much to me

could you cry after you’ve rung up my beer?

she rolls her eyes and laughs

starts singing the terrible song to me

while ringing up my items

it’s not cute the way she breathlessly warbles the lyrics

it’s embarrassing and sad for the both of us

and i want to beg for an ending

or go and find that cashier who just tosses my stuff

in the plastic bag while talking on her cell phone

i find her inhumanity much warmer than

this little cashier serenading me

as close and intimate as i’ve been with someone

this whole miserable day

and that says more about me

and the state of humanity

than any song

in any grocery store

could ever hope to articulate.

                                               

poem of the day 12.03.12

art collector

my wife and i

are in an art gallery in soho

i don’t like soho

because there are always too many people

walking the streets

celebrities and tourists

buying things that no one can afford

i don’t believe this great recession exists

when i am in soho

maybe i come to soho too much

but my wife wants

to see this exhibit in the gallery

it’s on brian froud

he draws elves and faeries

did design work for jim henson movies

this is a pop art gallery

and froud is interesting enough

he’s hanging up there with seuss

and bob kane drawings of batman

charles schultz panels of snoopy

and good ol’ charlie brown

the prices are outrageous for this stuff

thousands upon thousands of dollars

i don’t know a single person

who can afford them

but that doesn’t stop the gallery clerk

from coming over to us

trying to show us various paintings and the like

she must be nuts or desperate

this woman must have one hell

of a sense of humor, i think

i shake my head and we make small talk

but i just want to get away from her

call it the philistine in me

but people like her make me uneasy

they make me feel less than i am

my wife senses my discomfort

we keep trying to move away from this woman

but the more we look at the art work

the more she keeps coming at us

with questions and comments

with suggestions and anecdotes

everywhere we go she seems to be

she asks me if i collect

rather what i collect

baseball cards, comics, and debt

i want to tell her

picassos and van goghs by the dozen

you must have me confused with somebody else

i think to say

because my haircut is free

and my boots only cost forty-dollars

but instead i tell her nothing

i stand there and sweat

play the role of assuming art collector

let her think what she wants to think about me

as i look at black and white prints of the grinch

the last of the frouds

watch the city move

outside the windows of the gallery

the streets of soho

fill with more and more people

carrying bags emblazoned

with expensive names

and very little taste.

                                    

poem of the day 11.30.12

above average

the science behind it

says that the average woman

should only have one drink per day

the average man two

but i’m thinking they aren’t factoring in

holding down a job

or having to take the 5 p.m. bus

with people shouting into cell phones

surely those experiences are worth

another shot or two

still for a guy like me

who’s always been below average in love

below average in art

and quite possibly below average in life

it’s nice to think that

as i reach for my third, fourth, and fifth drink

of the night

that i’m above average

in at least one documented category.

                                   

poem of the day 11.28.12

bukowski convention

i had a dream that i was at a poetry reading

that turned into a charles bukowski convention

and suddenly all of the poets there turned into white dudes

with beer bellies and facial hair

eyes that weren’t narrow and squinty suddenly became so

and all of the women there turned into twenty-three year old red heads

with great tits and tight asses

and each of the poets who got up to read

talked with a slight lisp

and they read their poems about their red headed girlfriends

with great tits and tight asses

their long legs in fishnet stocking

when they weren’t threatening to fistfight the audience

some of the poets walked around talking about

trying to get the word down

everywhere you turned it was about the word

the word

and we all worked terrible jobs

some were janitors or file clerks or factory workers or librarians

there wasn’t a college professor amongst the lot of us

which was good because we would’ve eaten a professor alive

we all had our poems on stained paper

the words we’d found while walking though the fire

our poems about fucking our red headed girlfriends

with great tits and tight asses

shooting our sperm like whales

poems about our apartments in the slums and ghettos

poems about our shitty jobs and our tyrant bosses

poems about hangovers and vomit and taking steaming beers shits

no one had a sonnet about true love or nature

but i swear there were a dozen poems about being stuck in traffic

or listening to mahler while drinking cheap wine

reading celine and fante and hemingway and hamsun

to try and stave off the madness

fighting with the wives and girlfriends

and all of the poets at this reading that turned into a convention

were stumbling around drinking cans of cheap beer

calling their women whores and bitches

in their lisping cadence

challenging each other as to who had it worse

who got the word down better

that precious word

the whole bunch of us more like playground bullies than poets

asking each other where we’d been published

talking shit and taking names

making connections

challenging each other to fights in the back alleys

fights we hoped to lose so that we could write

immortal poems about being brave yet downtrodden

wearing nametags that either said buk or hank

and there wasn’t an original soul amongst us

just a bunch of poets

doing the same tired and retreaded act

over and over and over and over and over again

until it was time for the convention to convene

for a lunch of hard boiled eggs and fried chicken gizzards

served with two bottles of german white wine

for each and every one of us hardcore, badass bards.

                                                                        

poem of the day 11.27.12

age 20

i was a late bloomer

i had my first girlfriend

after a lifelong drought

she lived thirty miles away

and because i had no ambition

still lived with my parents

still drove their car and ate their food

and still lived by their rules when i didn’t have to

every chance to see her

became a battle royal over gas money and authority

one summer week

her parents went away

to visit her older sister in ohio

i stayed with the girlfriend

because she was scared to be alone

and we fucked all over her house

soiling her carpets and her parent’s bed with hungry sweat

drinking like bacchus and making food

walking around naked

watching o.j. simpson race for his life

down los angeles freeways

and on days that i worked

she drove me into the city for my library job

like we were a cute little married couple

later we’d go back to her parent’s place

for more food and more sex

more playacting away from the world

it was an eye-opening time in my life

a confusion that i never knew was so good

until my mother found out

that we’d be alone all week

she read me the riot act over the phone

made me drag ass home for a proper dressing down

and the girlfriend didn’t understand

even though she was in the same situation as me

we went from fucking fiends

to arguing all over her house

that week between us wiped away by our own chains

two dumb kids too scared to know the power that truly wielded

but the one thing that i remember about that week

above the sweat and debauchery

and the misery of family and love

was her friend’s white convertible

driving down suburban highways

with the roof open and the air breezing in

making waves with my hands under blue horizons

as i was being driven home toward my fate

for a moment feeling so full of hope and youth

feeling so goddamned free

that i couldn’t help but smile like a dumb fool

when there was no reason to

that poor girl sitting next to me

holding my hand

thinking that it was her that was making me so happy

when it was everything

everything else in the world

that was still coming to me

once i figured out how to shake

all of these people off of my back

and really learn how to live.