poem of the day 06.28.13

ode to cigarettes etc.

quit you

twelve years ago

i quit you

only baby

i still want you once a day

like one wants

a piece of ass

oh, how you look so good

on hollywood screens

in the pink mouths of starlets

i’m so easily won over

like it’s the first time all over again

hungering for your cancer

in the painted hands of

young women

bitching into their cell phones

sucking you

crushing you

dangling you like a thin jewel

as they sip iced coffee

and shake their backsides

in a hail of blue smoke

down the

garbage strewn narrows

of these dog shit

brooklyn streets

in

sweltering summer

sun

magnificent                              

poem of the day 06.27.13

riot act

there were riots

in brazil

riots in turkey over parkland

riots next to every day

by middle eastern youth

people are wondering

where in the world

edward snowden and his computers are

in america

the blessed dumb youth

are sleeping on street corners

for something called a cronut

making sure they’re first in line

like it’s some kind of revolution

only he’s on this bus

laughing at it all like a kgb agent

fighting with his dull girlfriend

about his new cell phone

while i think about burning

it all

and how i’ll never mix

whiskey white wine

and red together again

on a hot

summer day.

                                    

poem of the day 06.26.13

wild beasts

it is almost unreal watching them

two on one side of the subway seat and two on the other

snorting at each other

howling so ungraciously

and taking photographs on their phones

these wild beasts of the american night

nearly all of them three-hundred pounds

in mini-skirts or corsets

their bare asses plastered to sticky seats

full of bum jizz and toddler snot

sort of human just like you

one of them looks like an ogre

with yellow flesh and red nostrils

she keeps huffing out of her wide nose

opening her wide mouth and exposing square brown teeth

she’s talking about all of the men

who are in love with her

they all want this, she says

running her thick hands down her dress

who are these men? i ask my wife

where do men like this exist?

the two who aren’t three-hundred pounds

are taking photos of each other

and spraying whore perfume

they keep kissing each other on the cheek

making like they’re going to french kiss

while the big girls eat candy out of boutique bags

as the n train rolls us across the manhattan bridge

and back into brooklyn hell

ew, you lesbians, the wild beasts chant

at their canoodling friends

and then they snort some more

take more pictures

move their fat asses on the seat

as they pop m&m’s into their mouths

and continue to talk about all of the men that want to fuck them

i imagine comatose brooklyn guidos

with death before dishonor tattooed on their arms

in need of an easy sexual fix

i hope to christ that one doesn’t spread her legs

i say to my wife

pointing at the yellow ogre

i mean i’m not a decent man

but i could use a little decency right now

or a dog catcher

whatever it will take tonight to get these cackling

wild beasts off of this train

without me seeing their underwear

and all of that glory between their legs

that they keep bragging about

get them back into whatever caged asylum they came from

until the moon goes down

and the city is safe once again

for the rest of us uglies

to keep feeling good about ourselves

                                                           

poem of the day 06.25.13

connor

he sits behind the wheel of the car

that’s going to take my wife and i to the airport

he says he knows us but i don’t remember him

from the bar, he says, from rooney’s

right, right, i say, but i still can’t place his face

i check his cabbie license and it says his name is connor

the connor

the connor of fucking lisa and breaking the bathroom sink

the connor of friday fistfights with strangers if the mets lost

the connor forever mentioned with reverence by those in the know

that connor

it’s strange being driven to the airport by a guy who used

to drink in the same hole that kept me greased for five years

to be chauffeured by a barroom legend

when did the dichotomy shift in my life?

then i think of the taped up kitchen floor

the living room window that’s been busted for two years

a perpetually stained toilet

dining room light bulbs that i haven’t changed in years

and i know that nothing is really that different

just connor doing his job and me doing mine

as we head toward the downslope of this life

man, that place was great, he says

it had some characters, i say, watching coney island breeze by us

and hoping that my wife doesn’t mention lisa

and the bathroom fucking incident

because i don’t think she knows who connor is

but then the conversation dies

connor listens to an afternoon mets game

loud enough so that we can’t talk

as he weaves us in and out of traffic on the belt parkway

while my wife sits dazed with daydreams of europe

and i wonder whether or not i unplugged everything

and shut off the lights

i know people who are doing it much worse

with the hours and days that they’ve been given

and connor seems just fine navigating this leather interior

he seems almost regal

a king again

like it doesn’t matter who the fuck i am

or where i’m going

i’m no legend to him, i think

and when we get to the airport i give him a ten dollar tip

on top of the cab fare

but connor seems unfazed

he folds the money and pulls away

before my wife and i are even in the terminal

probably heading to froth’s, i tell her

which is where some of us rooney’s guys drink now

i still don’t know him, she says

and like that another legend is shattered

it just as well.

poem of the day 06.24.13

employee of the year

they had us in a windowless room doing data entry

one of the supervisors was this young thing

and she had a great ass

she used to shake it up and down the aisle

asking us if we needed help

most of us were temps and had done little data entry

but we had quotas to meet on a weekly basis

the best was when someone

in the row in front of me needed help

she’d bend over to peer at their computer screen

practically shoving that wide and juicy ass in my face

of course, i wasn’t getting any data entry done

when she was like this

i’d watch her ass and then look around at the other men

but most of them were typing

like sweating novelists or playing computer games

it was like i was the only one alive in that place

one friday after work

hot ass pulled me aside and handed me my pink slip

she smiled sadly and told me

that i wasn’t pulling my weight with the data entry

then she walked away

with that tight ass packed into her jeans

and i went outside to the car

thinking they next place the temp agency sends me to work

better be full of old men

with fat bellies and flatulence problems

because i could win

the employee of the year award

in a place as horrible as that.                             

poem of the day 06.21.13

miguel

on the bus i listen to mellencamp

but mellencamp does nothing for me

he makes me feel old

besides i can’t hear him over miguel’s wailing

i’m tired

i’m beat from five nights

without any real sleep

and a job that just won’t quit

as miguel slams his fists on the seat next to me

i’m probably getting laid off

i’ll probably be on food stamps by this time next month

while miguel slaps his thighs

and screams so loud the goddamned bus driver

swerves and almost kills us all

i have sore legs

sore knees

my hair is getting gray all over

and in mirrors it looks as though i’ve gotten fatter

still miguel pounds on the window

and continues crying with reckless abandon

i probably won’t see fifty

the way i eat and drink

i have insomnia on my best nights

and having a pet does not calm me

but miguel gets up and starts running around the bus

putting his snot on everything

this world is going to hell

it’s either one-hundred degrees

or the flood waters rage

as i sit there watching miguel’s mother

chase him around the bus

trying to buy the kid off with boxed fruit drinks and toys

yeah, a lot of shit is bad

we’re all one mass suicide

only we don’t know it

but at least none of us are miguel’s mother today

cooing sweet words into that huffing beast’s ear

while apologizing to a row of strangers for his antics

begging him not to throw another tantrum

because being that bitch

trumps all the other misery right now.

                                                                        

poem of the day 06.20.13

young and dumb

my old man asks me about the job

because sometimes he likes talking about jobs

and it’s that time of year again

i don’t know about the job, i tell him

they’ll either lay us all off or they won’t

does that worry you? he asks

i don’t care either way, i tell him

honestly, i could use the break

oh, to be young and dumb, he says

looking at my mother

i’m damned near forty

and no longer sure if i qualify as young and dumb

those union swine, i say

don’t get me started on those yellow cowards

all they want to do is make concessions

longer work hours

no contract and no retroactive pay

sometimes you have to do what you have to do,

my old man says

we’re spread thin as it is, i tell him

any more hours and i’ll be living at that fucking job

i have a good mind to quit, i say

young and dumb, my old man counters

but it’s no life

being stuck at a job all of the time, i tell him

i told my union rep this but he didn’t care

i told him i’d rather no job

than work every night of the week

so young and dumb, my old man says

shaking his head

you’re just conditioned, i tell him

work home work

which was kind of a shit thing to say

because of all of the years

i watched my old man scramble for work

the years when work home work

put food on the table and got me through school

but i’m young and dumb

and when you’re young and dumb and angry

like me

sometimes you don’t think when you speak

or you just don’t care

what you say to anyone

no matter what’s happened to them in the past.

                                    

poem of the day 06.19.13

surveillance state

she comes up to me

with her prune face and shitty james patterson novel

i want you to check the surveillance tape, she says

pointing at the security camera that’s always aimed at me

why? i ask

because some kid spilled candy outside

and i stepped in it

i want to find out who this hooligan is, she says

lady, last week some kid got stabbed on this block

she rolls her eyes at this

what’s a little stabbing

when there’s jujubes scattered all over the pavement?

get the tape, she says, shaking the patterson in my face

this isn’t 1985, i tell her

huh?

there is no tape, i say

it’s a dvr

jesus christ, she says

can’t you do anything?

rewind the dvr?

i mean someone needs to get this kid

and teach him a lesson about decency and respect

mam, last month the bodega across the street

get held up at gunpoint

so? she says

nothing, i say

they sell outdated meats anyway

then we stand there looking at the video screen

as it flashes the interior and exterior of the building

as it shows us around the corner and down the block

the front entrance with the smallest trace of candy littered about

see? see? she shouts

like she’s just caught bin laden or dillinger in the act

there it is!

there it is!

evidence

evidence to get that little bastard

get the surveillance tape, she shouts

to whoever will listen

while i grab a broom and a dustpan

and head out into the horrible heat of the day

to clean up the crime scene

forgetting to tell her that back in january

two girls were mugged and almost raped in this neighborhood

but what would it matter to her

without there being even one

snickers bar wrapper at the crime scene?

                                                                        

poem of the day 06.18.13

house

it was me and charlotte

playing house in my parent’s basement

we were nine or ten

and all we did was cuddle in the dark and kiss

we kissed like parents did

like you did playing house

even though my parents were fighting all of the time

and charlotte’s old man had already left her mom years ago

neither of us saw much kissing

but we played house that way regardless

we kissed and cuddled like good television couples

our teeth clinking

because we didn’t know how make out

our breath tasting of lunch or dinner

like canned spaghetti and peanut butter

and for whatever reason growing kids had

our game eventually ended

charlotte stopped coming over to play house

but instead hung with her girlfriends in the street

playing pop music on tapes

pointing and laughing at me

and calling me fat ass

of course i’d push her or call her a bitch

we were an aftermath of love and family

distilled down to brutalities and insults

just like our parents

like all the parents we knew in pittsburgh

like families everywhere in america

playing house until they died inside

and love transformed itself in to a flower called hate.

poem of the day 06.17.13

misery women and me

she used to come

into my parent’s basement

with her little dresses and little smiles

she used to lay on top of me

her breath faint with pasta

and kiss me

and tell me that i was her husband

and that she was my wife

we’d stay like that for a while

her on top

two kids cuddling

quiet in the dark as the other kids played outside

our breath heavy in the stale summer air

that little brunette

my little bride of suburban pittsburgh

the only action that  i’d see

for at least ten years

full of misery women and me.

                       

poem of the day 06.13.13

don’t bet on it

the people are outraged
because there are national scandals every week

the people are outraged
and are tossing out their cell phones in protest

unplugging from the internet
and building barricades with laptops and ipads

they’re storming the corporate headquarters
of apple and google and microsoft

the people are so outraged

they’re going to cuba to close gitmo
they’re having love-ins on youtube
they’re planting marijuana plants on the interstate

they’re liberating chinese workshops
burying all of the precious metals that
we’ve stripped from the soil

used to spy on us in our own homes
to have our phones conversations logged
our videos stored in utah bunkers

the people are outraged beyond belief
you can see it in their overworked eyes

and the president better watch it because he’s flipped sides
and congress better play nice or they’ll be gone too

because we’re composing new constitutions in the street
putting pen to paper under the red lights
of surveillance camera america

and there’s nothing that the government can do to stop us
nothing these tech giants can create to quell this momentum

because the people are so fucking outraged
that they’ve turned off their televisions
and are rioting in the streets

tearing down the strip malls
pouring starbucks coffee in the bay

chanting we shall overcome and give peace a chance
and all of that other stuff

shouting give me liberty or give me death
sitting in parks in the silence of the sun

yes
yes

you political motherfuckers
you lobbying grease backs
you bullyboys of the corporate elitist state

the people are outraged this time

more so than last time
than the time before that
and all of those other times they sat on their asses
and let you all treat them like whores
birthed only to feed your economy

the people are outraged
and your time is up

we’re so pissed off
that we’re marching on washington d.c.

like red-faced maniacs
with turds poking out of our chaffed assholes

and not a decent bathroom in sight

poem of the day 06.12.13

anniversary

you call

from the shit swell

of an art festival

two days before our anniversary

and tell me you are lost

between saleable junk

and some hippie selling

his dog,

and that you will be going

to a bar because you can’t

find your friends.

that’s all right

i think

as long as you are safe

because when you left me

an hour ago

the feeling hit me that we

would one day no longer

hear each other’s voices

that everything we know

about each other

would one day cease.

so i’d rather picture you

alone in a bar

than gone from me

for all eternity.

            06.10.06

poem of the day 06.11.13

beyonce in vienna

beyonce is in vienna

she’s on every block actually

spinning on ads for bikinis at the h&m

plastered on to the sides of buildings that are

over four hundred years old

she looks good for someone so well-traveled

fit and golden

worth her millions for sure

even though she’s overshadowing mozart’s statue

in the burggarten

but wolfy i guess that’s the price you pay

for hanging around some three hundred years

and strangling this city with your genius

people get sick of you

you get overshadowed at times

by some american pop princess

with her tits and ass hanging out for everyone to see

beyonce outside the albertina

beyonce watching over the museums quartier

without a thought for egon schiele

too bad they didn’t have that kind of marketing

back in your day, my man

i mean just picture it

you and constanze on some yacht in the mediterranean 

your music pumping out of each and every car

the global adulation

the paparazzi hiding along the ballgasse for a candid shot

the packed stadiums and arenas

more millions than you could blow

on clothing and whores and gambling

all of the opulence with none of the guilt

plus scientology instead of the freemasons

your genius on a reality show to be voted on weekly

by the masses

those luscious corporate sponsorship dollars

a picture of you in your underwear

plastered in times square

or just one ad hocking good wine in neon

somewhere on the piccadilly in london

the great mozart pushing pepsi

instead of beyonce scantily clad in canary yellow

blocking the view from belvedere mansion

no more wigs just a ballcap cocked to the side

but time is a bitch wolfgang

it serves none of us well

plus i don’t think i’d like it

if you were trying to sell me a watch or some stale beer

and, of course, we all know that when beyonce croaks

it’ll be a global days of mourning for her

her shitty music will play from continent to continent

in america they’ll hang the flags at half-mast

and the president will give a speech at her gilded grave

the one overlooking the fresh brush fires near los angeles

because if we’ve learned nothing else, wolfy

in the two hundred and twenty-two years that you’ve been gone

it’s that we treat our celebrities well in life and in death

even when the rest of us are starving

we sure as hell

don’t bury them in pauper’s graves

                                                            

poem of the day 06.10.13

why not smile?

he used to pull me into that office

almost weekly

it always smelled of coffee and his bad breath

i would sit there thinking

that he should see a dentist

while he ran down this week’s list of my infractions

curt on the phone with customers

curt on the sales floor

five days without shaving

wine and food stains on my pants

and my eyes red from whatever i did when not there

then he’d tell me that i was lucky to have this job

this isn’t a bad job, he’d say

which was easy for him to say

because it had become his career

but for me it was the only job

that i could find in buffalo

i get it, he’d tell me

sometimes a job wears you down

sometimes the public does

but these customers put my kids through college

they put food on your table

which explained why i hadn’t enjoyed a meal

since i took this job

this job is a piece of cake, he’d say

but you, i don’t get you

you’re an enigma

you walk around this store like you hate everything

you don’t smile

you don’t talk to your co-workers

you show no emotion at all

then he would smile wide

and the room smelt worse than before

see? he’s say, pointing at his face

it’s easy

it’s easy to smile, john

why not smile

every once in a while?

then he’d dismiss me like we’d made real progress

he’d unleash me back onto the sales floor

where some lonely old woman

would start yelling at me

about why we were out of stock on sale white zinfandel

or some kid would knock over a whiskey display

and his mother would yell at me about lawsuits

and i’d start thinking about how

there were no other jobs in buffalo

how i was stuck in this place for nine hours a day

how i’d commit suicide rather than smile at this place

and i knew i’d be back in his office the next week

smelling his bad breath

the two of us hopeless

and worn out with each other

but doing that same song and dance.

                                                

poem of the day 06.07.13

punchable kinds

young boys

ages twelve to fifteen

walking brooklyn streets in packs

hurling plastic ice tea bottles

and invective my way

are the most punchable kinds of people out there

if only there weren’t laws against it

i’d beat the shit out of them

in front of their little girlfriends

shove those middle fingers

straight up their asses

until they come out their mouths

before dragging them home to their parents

so their moms can cook me dinner

in their underwear

while i watch tv

and drink up all the beer

in the place.

as their fathers spit shine my shoes

and beg that i don’t do

the same job on them

                                    

poem of the day 06.06.13

gonna buy me a dog

my wife toasts our pints

and then says,

i worry about you if i die first

she’s thirty-six years-old and worries about this

why?

because you don’t talk to anyone but me

with me you talk my ear off

but with everyone else you clam up and sit there

this is true

i’ve never been to a dinner party

and i’m too afraid to knock on the janitor’s door

i worry that you’ll get a dog, she says

and that you’ll talk the poor thing to death

my wife has some beer

i’m basically worried about you

and some poor dog you’ll buy when i’m dead

i won’t buy a dog, i tell her

well, don’t say you’ll be too busy

with your twenty year-old girlfriend

because i’ve seen you around other women

if they aren’t bagging my groceries

there’s nothing between us, i say

i have some beer

you might be right, i tell her

maybe i will buy a dog just in case

i’ll get a german shepherd and name him hunter

that poor dog, my wife says

it could be good

me and hunter drunk walking the neighborhood

after a day with wine and beer

and movies

i’d play him the radio

all the great ones, i tell her

and we can sit there passing the time

listening to the masters

there’d be no need to talk

hell, i’d probably forget the sound

of my own voice, i say

my wife laughs

that animal will be deaf or crazy within in a year

probably

but then i think

i’m not gonna buy me a dog

i won’t have to

because without you, dear

i’ll howl so horribly every night

the dogs will come running to me by the dozens

and together

we’ll yelp sonnets for you

and aim them at the moon.

                                                

poem of the day 06.05.13

stiffs

if there are no atheists in foxholes

then there can surely be no god fearing human beings

in the office or the warehouse

accepting in return for their faith and devotion

a forty-hour work week chained to a desk

the sales floor or the stockroom

fifty weeks out of the year

for three to six decades of this unreasonable insanity

and there can be no rational human being

who accepts this fate for what it is

without becoming dependent on drugs or alcohol

church or hollywood entertainment

or perhaps it is that we endure like stiffs

taking our pittance as just due

living in fear of being unable to provide

for our families or ourselves

worried that we’ll be let go at any moment

for the shape of a haircut or the length of a skirt

and sent to drift in the outskirts of the colorless babylon

and there is no love

no friendship

no devotion strong enough

to help one truly escape this fate

for we are all partners and prisoners to this horror

locked into this self-created system by a base desire for survival

and there are moment, yes

an orgasm or a sunset

to help keep the stench of servitude away

if for only a moment or a few hours

but these anchors of sanity are as fleeting as the wind

they seem unreal

when we are pushed back into this

carousel of the damned working stiff

fracturing our souls and cutting short our dreams

for our profiteering masters bottom line

killing the good years for a whiff of the almighty dollar

my christ, it’s such a cruel joke

that we’ve played on ourselves

that they’ve played on us with our time and our life

there should be executive and administrative blood on the streets

swirling crimson rivers of madness and anger

from the homicidal march for salvation by the masses

only there is not a peep on these streets

there are no effigies either

just the docile acceptance of the working man

stuck in traffic on another lost morning

drinking dirt coffee out of paper cups

as radio blowhards offer stale homilies

taking more work for less pay

as either a penance or an award

trained dogs

trained monkeys

weeping lions hiding in the back of a piss-scented circus cage

the fight stamped out of us

taking these prescription drugs of marvel

that will keep us alive longer

sucking at the resources of the planet longer

wielding hammers and the pickaxe

manning the cash register or chained to the desk

for years longer than we’d ever imagined

feeding social security beasts that deplete by the hour

until our addled bodies give out

on sales floor america

in officeland america

in gloomy warehouse america

where the newly installed corporate morgues of the future

are being built to keep us on us ice

then we can kill three birds with one stone

retirement

funeral and burial

a gold watch and a company mug

handed over to our dumbstruck spouses

for services rendered

a glossy slab of marble

an american flag and a pot of flowers for you

on a hillside plot in the company cemetery

just a few quick paces away

from the employee parking lot

where a new, choice spot

has just opened for rent

close to the front entrance of the building.

                                   

poem of the day 06.04.13

queen of sheba

we are down an a/c unit

with one cat left in this dusty apartment

drinking iced decaf coffee

that puddles from the heat

and makes brown rings on the wine-stained table

it’s too blistering to drink wine

on a night like this

we hit the bedroom an hour early

lay in the cool of the dark room

with the fans blowing their mercy on our flesh

when i think to save

that remaining cat from the heat

go into the living room and pick her up

though she howls and tries to hang on to an old blanket

with the city of pittsburgh stitched into it

turns tail and runs out of the room

the minute i set her down

right back into the stifle

just like a fucking idiot, i say to my wife

then we both talk about you, sweet belle

gone a year now

our little siamese mix of quiet joy

who used to lay on my pillow on hot nights

like the queen of sheba

letting the fans blow and blow their offering

the smartest cat ever created for a sweltering

spring night

missed

so sorely and completely

missed.                                     

poem of the day 06.03.13

atheists do believe in the devil

                        --for father gabriele amorth

atheists do believe in the devil

i can assure you on that one, padre

they just don’t believe in your devil

the fire and brimstone one

the hot poker up the ass stuck in traffic for the rest of eternity

one

ours are a little bit more grounded

like the ones who murder by the thousands

calling for jihad after jihad after jihad

the swine in pin-striped suits who poison their people

to keep their stranglehold governments in tact

the ones who send robots planes into mountainous terrain

to kill kids in the name of freedom

the devil who dresses young boys in priestly vestments

and then fucks them in the ass behind closed doors

the devil who forces himself upon our sisters, mothers

girlfriends and wives

atheists do believe in the devil, you human shit-stain

only ours keep draining the land of resources

while denying that this climate is changing

then sit in political chambers denying aid for the damned

when the hurricanes and tornados, the flood waters strike

our devil lets the poor go hungry in order to build bombs

and capitalist shelters for the wealthy

they let our education systems die with less than a whimper

we believe in the devils putting chemicals in our plants

the ones that sell us sugar and fat as necessities

and then pump us full of medicine because we’ve grown too fat

our devils still don’t get it that everyone is equal

they try and keep love down in the name of their great god

fighting senseless crusades against their own kind

all the while seeking blow jobs from drifters in airport bathrooms

these devils, they won’t give the workers their rights

and work everyone to the bone so that they’d rather be dead

than on the picket line

they’ve bankrupted a generation with benevolent smiles

mortgage balloons and faulty credit systems

would rather save their pale idea of country than all of humankind

our devils are the ones blaming immigrants for the continental drift

they are the great satans fighting last ditch efforts

to keep the black from the white from the brown

from the red from the yellow

as their twisted empires seem poised to go down in flames

oh, atheists do believe in the devil

you can bank on that, you archaic ecclesiastical fuck

but they are no fallen angels

they are the flesh and blood demons that live right here

amongst us

the ones who should’ve been aborted

exorcised at birth

or cast away

to save us from all the atrocities that they’ve committed

through centuries of blood and dust

reckless hubris and greed

that have spread like hardened vein lines

across this scorched and barren earth.