poem of the day 04.30.14

talking intellectual freedom with a bare assed girl

before i can get a word out

there’s a picture of her bare ass

on my work computer screen

she says it’s for her boyfriend

he’s been in prison for a year

he’s been missing this, she says

and i can obviously see why

…but mam, is all i can get out

what? she says

i’m not embarrassed by it

it’s not that, i tell her

this can get me in deep shit here

i thought you were printing out a resume, i say

i still am, she tells me

as the two of us stare at her bare ass

it’s one of those self-pictures

fresh out of the shower

the side of her face and her toned back

then down to her wonderfully youthful ass

if i were her and her age

i probably wouldn’t be embarrassed either

i’d walk around brooklyn naked on sundays

i can’t print that for you, i tell her

she still doesn’t understand why not

but she minimizes the photo

much to the chagrin of the teen boy

who’d been standing behind us the whole time

you’re just scared, she says

tell you what

i’ll print the other pictures for you, i say

we get the one of her in her tight burgundy mini

the one of her in a puerto rican flag bikini

and the close-up shot of her mugging for the camera

all in full page black and white

do you think that’ll hold him off

until he gets out? i ask

i hope, she says

he’s out in twenty-five days

one can only imagine what he’s going to do

to that bare ass once he’s back on the outside

when i give the photo prints to her

she smiles and folds them up into an envelope

like the dutiful girlfriend

he’s really going to love these, she says

then she frowns

are you sure you can’t print that picture

of my bare ass?

as much as i’d love to, i tell her

i think i understand now, she says

then you understand america, i tell her

she shrugs and walks away

licking the envelope

the cloth covering her rear end

a mere formality between us now

the two of us having forgotten

all about that resume of hers.

                                                                       

poem of the day 04.29.14

banned books

the bookstore

has a huge display of banned books

bookstores are always

proud of themselves in this way

but these displays rarely attract the intellectually curious

instead they attract people like this woman

who before she found the display

had been screaming into her phone

about frozen yogurt and the world trade center memorial

screaming across the book store to her idiot kids

as if they were at a yankees game

now she has them all gathered here

in this hallowed place of american folly

to thumb through illicit literature

oh my god, she says

i can’t believe books are banned in america

that just doesn’t seem like it would happen here

i’ll bet they were banned in other countries

her daughter offers

they all nod

the bookstore has placards up

telling the story of each banned book

but these patriots aren’t reading those

it’s general, uninformed assumption time

here in the good old u.s.a.

the mother holds up a copy of lowry’s the giver

she looks at her son in earnest

well, this must be why they didn’t have you read it this year

the mother continues scanning the display

she picks up a joyce then a toni morrison

she picks up some steinbeck and james baldwin

then puts them down just as quickly

well, they must’ve had their reasons, she tells her kids

after all, the giver, is a pretty sad story

and our leaders probably didn’t want

to depress any of you with it

they all nod again

then they walk away without buying anything

leaving the hemingways and hellers

the orwells, huxleys, and alice walkers

to duke it out for infamy

and those of us left lingering around

to fear for the future of this infant nation.

                                                          

poem of the day 04.28.14

and i thought they only made these in america

he looks like an ape

sitting there in the liverpool hotel dining room

with his shaved head, pug nose and overly muscled body

he takes up half the table and half the room

hunched over his breakfast as if daring someone to steal it

everything is piled into a large greasy mound on his plate

the eggs, the bacon, the tomatoes, the sausage

the mushrooms and baked beans

a traditional english breakfast for sure

he’s using a spoon and holding it in a clutched fist

like a child would do

he keeps farting and huffing in his scent while he eats

his girlfriend sits down from the buffet to join him

she’s his polar opposite

beautiful with a head of blonde hair brushing her shoulders

refinement the whole way around

she has all of her food in neat little compartments

fruit and toast with jam

hot tea, and a bowl of corn flakes waiting for some milk

he greets her by burping into her face and then diving back into his food

she sits there glaring at him for a moment

then says, can’t you be proper?

he stops shoving the food in after that

looks at her for too long a moment

then says something slow and deliberate that i cannot hear

before he gets up from the table and storms out of the room

smacking into food trays and tables

the proverbial bull in a china shop

while she follows after him sullenly

nary a bite of toast taken

and a cup of lady grey waiting for its first sip

                                               

poem of the day 04.25.14

crossing abbey road at forty years old

it’s a beautiful day

only there’s this guy at the famed crosswalk

he’s got a tweed blazer on

and he’s wearing his abbey road t-shirt

like that guy who wears the band t-shirt

to the same band’s concert

his wife looks pissed

because he keeps directing her on how to cross the street

how wide her gate should be

how far apart her arms should swing

like mccartney, like lennon

do it like them, he’s shouting across the street

there are a number of people waiting to do the same thing

rainbows of flesh and blood from all over the world

trying to get to that other, magical mystery side

the cars are patient enough

i mean no one honks at the horde like they would in america

my wife and i are waiting at abbey road

to get to the other side to look at the graffiti

scrawled on the walls of the studio

we don’t need the photo op

we crossed abbey road five years ago

and it wasn’t the enlightened experience everyone claims it to be

i’ve had much more in the way of visionary moments

just crossing the street to buy a six pack of beer

but it would be nice to pause and stop for a picture

just to ruin tweed blazer’s fashion spread

have a laugh when he makes his old lady cross the street yet again

but she’s given up anyway

she’s sitting on a bench by the bus stop having a smoke

while other people are checking their cameras

to see if they got it all right

tweed blazer keeps screaming at her to give it another go

like george harrison, he says  like ringo

she tells him to go to hell then checks her phone

so he takes a picture of the famed pavement instead

and when my wife and i cross abbey road

she sneaks a picture of me

making musical history with a dozen others

my tired eyes and drunkard’s slouch

snapped for posterity

that fab, fat forty year old belly and all

                                                            

poem of the day 04.24.14

leisure

watching a french film

i take note that the characters

often pause to sit in parks

to have a smoke or to drink

the french seem to have created leisure

as the ultimate gift to mankind

one time in paris i killed half a day

just sitting in the jardin du luxembourg

drinking wine and feeding bread to pigeons

i felt very un-american

and at peace with myself

not at all guilty

being so far away from a land

who’s idea of comfort and ease

was to once create something called

the leisure suit.

                                  

Shakespeare poemS of the day 04.23.14

american high school tour group

at anne hathaway’s cottage

dude

like

shakespeare

was only

eighteen

when he

like

banged

this twenty-six year old

and then

he

like

left here

for london

or something

and

like

banged all kinds

of chicks

in london

for all

of these

years

and then

like

he

only

became

the most

famous

writer

of all time.

dude

i told you

that

shakespeare

was

fucking cool

or something

huh?

                                                10.13.09

adam

adam

works the tours

at hall’s croft

stratford upon avon

he dresses proper

in a suit

with a constant smile

and he’s happy

to see a couple

of americans

have come

in out of the cold

adam

tells us about

john hall

shakespeare’s son-in-law.

hall was a doctor

the first to document

cases of patients

or something like that

i don’t know

because i cannot stop

staring at adam’s yellow

and natty teeth.

it’s an american defect

that i’ve developed

toward the british

in my half-week here.

that

and i’ve developed an addiction

to british cheddar cheese.

adam

wants to know where

we are from

and he squeals when he finds out

that we’re from new york.

he wants to know what

theater we’ve seen back in london

back in the u.s.a.

i tell him we’re more like

ghost chasers

going after shakespeare

and the beatles and the like

adam

says we must

make time for the theater

and then he talks our ear off

about his trip

to new york city

back in the 1980s

and how different new york

must be now.

yes, yes, new york city

is different now

times square is like disneyland

my wife says

although new york is the farthest

thing on either of our minds.

i want to tell adam

that i’m over four thousand miles

from home

that new york could sink

into the ocean for all i care

but i just stand there and smile

as i do with most people

while he talks about

seeing a chorus line

and strolling the east village,

wondering when i can get

a pint of aspall cyder

or an abbot ale

in the garrick inn

a pub that is over six-hundred

years old

one where they say a plague

had started in 1564

wiping out enough people

that stratford upon avon

was kind of like a ghost town.

i wonder if adam thinks

about that sometimes

when he’s alone

and finally runs out of things

to say.                                                  10.13.09

slightly shakespearian

some bored young thing

at a production of hamlet

gave it to my wife first

this nasty bug that makes you

hack and ache

and sneeze the most horrid yellow mucus

and mostly makes you wish

that you were dead

so my wife

in turn

gave it to me

and i guess that’s shakespeare for you

but because i’m stubborn

and maybe a tad bit vindictive

i took this plague to work

trying to inflict them all

but i only lasted two days

before

home and couch-bound

i did nothing but mainline o.j.

and read comics and richard dawkins

and try not to drink

all of the whisky in the apartment

when i returned to work

they all asked me how i felt

and when i said, slightly better

they all laughed at me

as if no one had ever said the phrase before

it was bizarre

not shakespearian at all

and they walked around for a good hour

saying to each other, did you hear him?

he’s slightly better

then laughing at me as if i were

the funniest man on this side of the east river

while i hit the bathroom to hack up

a lung

spew bile

and think about how while maybe

this is slightly shakespearian

i still should’ve said fuck them

stayed home another day

drank all of that whisky in the apartment

for sure.                                                                        10.19.12

my bedroom wall doth mock me

sitting here in a silly hat

as the commuters make their way to work

in the middle of one of the worst

writing weeks of my life

writing poems about why i can’t write

and i realize that i’m doing it again

with this one

i look up and shakespeare

is looking down at me from a postcard

that i bought in stratford-upon-avon

i’ll bet you never had trouble

with the word, you son-of-a-bitch

i tell him

but will says nothing as usual

he just looks as smug and self-assured

as he always looks

and you, proust,

with your cork-lined room and madelines

with your legendary memory

i think of tearing both of their postcards down

same with fante and hamsun

fitzgerald and henry miller

but then hemingway would have to go too

papa

pounding away another classic

on his typewriter

who needs him?

kerouac doing the same

even the beatles

and roberto clemente

are starting to piss me off

on a week like this

shit, roberto’s last hit was immortal

and the most immortal thing

that i’ve done this week

is take a shit

van gogh

with his olive trees

and starry nights

van gogh

with his whore ear

and lonely legendary death

don’t even get me started on picasso

picasso wrote poems

when he was too bored to paint

i tell anne sexton

take your top off, baby

because this is a party for the damned

this week is a banquet on the titantic

bukowski looks at me

and shakes his head

glances to his left to whitman

and harvey pekar

as if saying that kid never had it to begin with

and i’d have to agree

sitting here in a silly hat

waiting to join the commuters

on their way to work

writing another poem

about why i can’t write

wishing that i’d taken up something easier

like nuclear physics

instead.                                     06.15.11

poem of the day 04.22.14

the world cup

british soccer hooligans take the national rail

and are drunk on beer before noon

case upon case of foster’s pounders

that they’re tossing around fuzzy seats like lawn darts

as they shout about players from the past

and chant team songs in my ear

while i’m trying to read the sea-wolf by jack london

i can’t even drown them out with my headphones

can hear their r&b music above the david bowie

watch helplessly as they play computer games

on their cell phones and then try to rip apart

the national rail seats when they lose

and these are the old fans, the geezers

gray-haired, fifty year-old men built like mountains

with stacks of empties crushed in front of them

or rolling on the floor of the train

old bastards on a gent’s weekend away from their wives

bitching about their women

bitch about each other’s women

threatening to smash skulls when they get to liverpool

all over a soccer match

the younger ones are two cars up

blasting music from five different smart phones

terrorizing the tourists and their girlfriends

drunk dancing in the small aisles and saying

‘scuse me, mate, when they bump into me

like they’re telling me to watch it next time i need to piss

i wonder what these guys would think of american soccer fans

because american soccer fans are kind of effete

thin, wispy men and women

looking for yet another excuse to wear scarves

i was on a train packed with american soccer fans once

they were all drinking iced coffee and playing on facebook

you could hear a pin drop

while one of these blokes on this death ride

screams bloody murder over a goal from six years ago

and looks primed to put a pin through his best friend’s eye

if it’s even suggested that the foster’s might run out

i’d love to see american soccer fans mix with this breed

place an easy bet on who’d come off of this train alive

film it for posterity and my own amusement

and watch it on the television over and over this summer

call it the world cup.

                                               

poem of the day 04.21.14

the garden of gethsemane

i can taste

the first of a few scotches

i think two weeks away from a job

a man can get too used to freedom

but one day back can strip it all away

and leave his dignity hanging by the noose

and then she comes in

she looks like the nun

who taught me all the way back in eighth grade

this old hen who used to torment me

with declarations of hell

because i never bought into the bullshit

never accepted that sad imp jesus

as my one and only savior

so i take an instant dislike to this woman

i don’t appreciate her smile

it has a reverent smugness to it

safe in the knowledge that she’s always right

always stuck talking to assholes like me

and, oh, how i can taste that first scotch

one little, two little, three little scotches

she asks me for help

schedules, tax forms, reading recommendations

for genres that i don’t give a shit about

and there is under five minutes left in this work day

when i look at my watch

she asks me if i have somewhere else to be

i tell her yes, it’s called my life

i tell her the sun has gone down on my benevolence

and now it’s time for the real me to rise again

she says but isn’t the customer always right

not in my tree, i say

and then i go to shut off the lights in the building

so i can spend the night forgetting myself

letting my liver make love to a bottle of clan macgregor

four little, five little, six little scotches

she just stands there

that smile still plastered across the face

like that old nun before she’d tip over my desk

or kick me out of her classroom for a week

i give her one last look and think fuck it

i let my river of alcoholic bliss take me away

as a final salutation this woman calls me lazy

and storms out of the building

then i pop the first switch

i let each light click off slowly

until the whole space is dark and silent

devoid of nearly all flesh but my own

finally holy

after all of the hours that it tangled

with my mortal coil

and made a sacrifice of my soul.

                                                           

"best of" poem of the day 04.18.14

lent

i go into the one room in the office
and she has her head on the desk

what's the matter? i ask

god is punishing me, she says
my laptop, it's all gone
the internet and all of my files

i pay my bills online, she says

i go over to check out her computer
sure as shit everything is gone

you have that malware, i tell her
one of those fucking viruses
those little anarchist pricks have plagued us with

this happened to me once, i say
cost me two hundred to get the machine working again

god is punishing me, she says

god isn't real
and if he was he wouldn't punish you
for looking at porn, i say

she lifts her head
i wasn't looking at porn

well, i was, and that's how they got me

i don't want to tell you how this happened, she says

okay

i get up from her laptop
and go into my office to check my email
and pray for a better life
because god is punishing me too
by burdening me with certain aspects of this one

she comes to my door with tears in her eyes
i have to be honest with you, she says
i was looking up your poems again
 
i look at her sideways because
we've had this problem before about a year ago
i thought my cover was blown at this place
but she never said a word to anyone else

it's just that your stuff is so deep and real, she says
you come off as dull and boring at work, but you're not

i'm just a good liar, i tell her
i really am this dull and boring

no you're not, she says
you're lucky, she tells me
i always wanted to do something like that
but i never could
there was never any encouragement

i just did what my parents told me, she says
i got married and i had a child

there's always time to get the word down, i tell her

she shakes her head
god is punishing me, she says
this is what i get for being nosy and interested in something

malware, i tell her

that's why i'm giving you up for lent
i have to give you up for lent, she says

and then she laughs
tell your wife there's a crazy woman at the office
who's giving you up for lent

i probably shouldn't, i say

god,i bet you find this so hysterical, she says

then she leaves the office
to go back and tend to her broken machine
thinking that some god has punished her
for trying to be more than this criminal world will allow

and i sit there, as always,
trying to find the humor in anything
and everything else in this life.

poem of the day 04.17.14

dream job

i had this dream last night

that i up and quit my job

it felt good for a moment

but then my wife said

what are we going to do about your share of the money?

so i had to get another job in the dream

the only one that i could get

was as a traveling salesman

i had to wear a suit and carry a clipboard

i don’t have a clue if this is how

traveling salesman actually look

my boss was my old boss

back when i was a teenager

and worked in a suburban mall

he looked the same as he did twenty some years ago

same bad moustache and same receding hairline

he was still a dick, too

on my case about my facial hair and baggy pants

he was still showing pictures of his wife

in her bikini on their hawaiian vacation

although i didn’t jack-off to her in the dream

like i did back in 1991 just to spite him

i was too busy driving around trying to sell shit

getting yelled at by that prick for my goatee

i kept wondering why i quit my other job

in the first place

it wasn’t that bad of a job

everyone has to work

it’s true

i didn’t create the system

i just work within its confines

i didn’t really have it that bad to begin with

i’ve had it much worse

but it seems that i can’t stop doing stupid shit

in dreams or in real life

and when i woke up i was covered in sweat

i realized that i had the same job that i always had

i laid in bed in praised the gods

for being gainfully employed

a viable member of this capitalist society

and it was very much unlike me

so i wondered if i was still in that dream            

poem of the day 04.16.14

cavern club

the place is packed with tourists

doing a ringo starr sing-a-long

and you can buy everything here from matchbooks

to full scale models of the joint

the beatles never played this cavern club

theirs got torn down in the 1970s

while they were making those mediocre solo albums

but a lot of beatles shit is framed on the walls

this isn’t a place for a kindred connection

or to wonder at the spectacle of what once was

this is the place to sing yellow submarine

with packs of day trippers

and business blokes getting drunk after work

maybe buy a cavern club t-shirt on the way out

before you have a pint at lennon’s pub

the quarry bank tavern or the rubber soul on matthew street

there’s no history seeping from the walls

no blood and sweat from 292 fab four performances

just an asshole who recognizes your american accent

who won’t move when you say, excuse me

so you have no recourse but to brush past him

spilling some of his beer

and if you didn’t have to piss so bad

you’d wipe that sour look right off of his face

but you can’t really see him anyway

with the flashbulbs going off at tables full of people

who’ve found their graceland along the mersey

and in the toilet drunk men in suits

or with cameras and fanny packs strapped to their waist

sing octopus’s garden out of key

as the bathroom attendant shuffles back and forth

humming something that isn’t a beatles’ song

trying to douse you with come together cologne

before you head back into the club proper

making sure to slam that motherfucker hard

when he won’t move out of your way again

laugh when half his pint hits the floor and he calls you a cunt

as the whole club begins a john lennon sing-a-long

with a guy on stage

dressed in shorts and a beatles t-shirt

who can’t even get the lyrics to jealous guy

right.

                                               

poem of the day 04.15.14

american confederacy embassy (liverpool)

standing there on menlove avenue

about a block from where john lennon dreamed the beatles

my wife and i are waiting for a bus

to take us back toward penny lane

when this old man tells us that there’s

an american confederacy embassy building still standing

somewhere in the heart of downtown liverpool

although he’s not sure what street it’s on

he thinks it’s near the slavery museum

i say, oh really? in an inquisitive way

but i’m not at all interested in seeing it

we’ve been in england less than a week

and there’s already been a mass stabbing in pennsylvania

and another mass shooting in texas

i can’t escape the savagery of america from across an ocean

so i don’t plan on seeking it while i’m on these shores as well

i wonder why the old man would think

we’d want to see something like that anyway

maybe we look primed for a good joke

the american confederacy was as much of a folly

as anything else produced in the united states

the edsel of self-rule

the old man takes my liverpool map

he starts scanning the streets looking for the place

i really should tell him to stop

but i’m too tired to tell anyone what to do

he seems like a nice guy anyway

he’s been to america

brooklyn, seattle, houston, and san francisco

so he probably knows how fucked up we are

how addicted to the bloodshed we’ve gotten

maybe if we met in new york

we could have a nice chat about the falklands

get those fine english hands a little dirty too

but i really don’t want to see some confederacy building

while i’m on vacation

i just want to get on and have the #76 bus show up

see some more beatles stuff while the wife and i are in liverpool

maybe where george harrison or paul mccartney lived

see some beauty, something positive

let the history of violence in america

wait until i’m back across that ocean

where the barbarism wafts out of every window

like the rich scent of dinner

on a humid summer night.

                                               

poem of the day 04.14.14

saturday afternoon at the health food restaurant

and it’s the first decent saturday afternoon in months

so everyone is out

only there are no leaves on the trees yet

and the sun is blinding

so everyone is inside somewhere else to escape the light

this health food restaurant is packed

with muscleheads from the gym across the street

i’m standing behind some blonde

with a baby carriage the size of a small tank

her kid isn’t even in the thing

she’s running around the cramped space of the restaurant

screaming for her calypso smoothie

whatever in the hell that is

it’s her second one too

the little brat dropped the first

and it’s still sitting in a pink puddle on the floor

because no one has the time to clean it

the kid is stopping the waitress from getting salads and protein shakes

to the bodybuilders

the massive baby carriage isn’t helping the matter

but the blonde is too busy texting to notice her kid or the carriage

the muscleheads are too busy flexing their muscles

to see that they aren’t getting their lunch

me?

i should’ve gone food shopping at lloyd’s met

instead of coming in this damned place

but the food here is pretty good

nearly everything on the menu

has a picture of a little heart next to it

just to let me know that i’m treating the body well

i figure a good meal will counterbalance

the whiskey and wine at home

after all, i’m forty now

and i need to start taking care of myself

but coming into this place was a mistake

the first of many that i’ll probably make today

the girls that work here look so put upon

they are sweating and taking too many orders

the sexy one with the tattoo on the back of her neck

keeps looking at me because i’m the only one

standing there not texting or flexing my muscles

or yelling and crying for something that looks like vomit

she thinks my complacency at doing nothing

means that i’m being impatient

but i just don’t have anywhere else to go

on this fine saturday afternoon

the best we’ve seen in months

she keeps telling me that my order is coming

although i haven’t asked her for it once

when she finally hands me the food

she does it with a dramatic gesture just to let me know

how hard this life is

she tells me to enjoy the nice weather outside

but i can tell that she doesn’t mean it

and that’s all right with me.