heat wave
sitting here sweltering
the life of mozart in my hands
trying to keep from kicking on the a/c
to save a little bit of cash
eight o’clock in the morning
and the pavement is already crackling
with the blazing sun
a string of ninety degree days behind me
another set glaring on the horizon
this is a catastrophe,
i think
i want to yell outside at someone
but there’s no one on the street
they’ve closed all the windows
and locked their doors
they’ve all gone to the beach to sit in the shade
we’ve all hung this world out to dry
and now we’re paying for it in mercury
flushed faces and chafed thighs
even the pigeons have given up
opening up the window
the air hits me like a blast furnace
listening for the bird’s song
but it’s as silent as a morgue out there
good christ, i feel like a prisoner in this place
four humid walls and an old cat
crying for release
even the lazy flies climbing
on old sticky wine bottles
look ready to succumb.
07.04.12
heat
upstairs i can smell
the neighbor’s dinner,
something pungent
with garlic,
fried so that the oil
oozes.
in the kitchen it
reeks of dishwater
and rusted metal,
the pipes feeding
the corroded water
i am drinking.
in the living room
it’s cat shit
and in the bedroom
the scent of last night’s
impromptu sex.
nights like this i can’t
keep a meal down
nights like this
the young kids in young
houses
get rowdy.
everyone on the block
is insane.
sirens wail.
the cities are mad.
one could start a revolution
in the right kind of
bar.
but who would want to?
07.17.06
in heat like this
there is really nothing to do
i would say that it is akin
to being a prisoner
but there is no danger here
however, the smoggy brown haze
settling in over the city
is most certainly manmade
humans are by far
the most dangerous animals
there are some who would prefer snow
for others it is not hot enough
give me an autumn breeze
on a lonely pier and i’ll show you
my form of happy
the morning d.j. thinks
that this weather is a joke
he’ll keep on laughing
reading the thermometer
like he’s whipping off one liners
until the murders start
yet no one is on the street in this humid abyss
this is the only good thing about the heat
no conversation
no dogs
eighty-five degrees at six in the morning
no poems to be written
no stories to tell
in temperatures like this you almost want
to believe in a god
get on your knees
and pray for some kind of respite
even though you know
you’ll look like a fool
no, there is nothing to do
but sip the tepid weak coffee
nurse last night’s whiskey hangover
sit here and sweat
try not to spiral, worrying about
health and debt as the electric bill goes up
there are no emotions left except hate
hate for the calendar
hate for the month of july
the way that some hates are reserved
for certain people
i hate july
i think that t.s. eliot must’ve taken
a vacation to antarctica during this month
for july is surely the cruelest
in eliot’s april the average high in london
is fifty-seven degrees
and the only reason
that you’re carrying an umbrella
is to keep dry walking in
the mother fucking rain.
07.22.11
paranoid in the heat
is it slowing down?
i don’t know but the heat
is a bad dream
like bad poems
like bad poets.
how bad is it getting?
man, i can’t think.
so what do you do?
i sit there in the dark
with sweating beer mugs
dripping
on shirts and couches
and the scotch giving me
a headache.
and then?
and then, i stay up
all night
outlining wine rings
on the nightstand
with the feeling that
i have to piss.
with the shits
and paranoia.
with the fan blowing
hot hell fire up my ass
humming because
it is dying.
i think i hear classical
music
in the white noise
of the blades.
but what is it?
i don’t know.
it is probably nothing.
it is always nothing
which can get you
just as badly
as when it really is
something.
06.09.08
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