poem of the day 08.28.14

skinny jogger bitch

skinny jogger bitch

is in the lobby of the apartment building

she’s checking herself out

in the long mirror outside my door

when i open it

sweaty and in ripped shorts

holding a week’s worth of garbage and bottles

she turns her nose up at me

i don’t smile at skinny jogger bitch

we don’t like each other

but when we meet in the hallway like this

sometimes i’ll linger just to creep her out

i’ll scratch my ass or my balls

check out my own reflection in the mirror

pretend i forgot my keys or something

so that i end up taking the same elevator

as skinny jogger bitch

and even though i don’t like the smell

of her rose-scented sweat

her silken hair, her white teeth, or even her politics

it’s worth it just for her to have to smell

the stench of my cat shit if for only a few minutes

when we’re in the elevator together

it’s like two heated nations sharing a coke

we’d rather strangle each other

nuke the whole building

than ride three or four floors together

skinny jogger bitch

holds her nose and rolls her eyes

pats down her fancy running gear

as if i’ve infested them by my very presence

she turns up the shitty music

on her apple machine

and mouths the words

she’s embarrassed by the sounds

her own asshole makes

and never finds month old cheese on her kitchen floor

when she gets a pimple on her face

she takes a week off from work

skinny jogger bitch probably doesn’t even have a job

that kind of stress is for the asshole in apartment 1R

christ, she probably fucks like a snail if at all

when skinny jogger bitch

gets off of the elevator

i like to wave and tell her, until next time

she never says anything back to me

just glares until the door shuts and the elevator descends

taking a troll like me

back to the basement

where all of this building’s trash belongs.

                                               

poem of the day 08.27.14

home run

some of the boys at the bus stop

got it around that tonya

liked to pleasure herself with a baseball bat

they all claimed to have seen it

but none of them could give the where and when

and even though these cats

were a rather dubious lot of chain smoking mama’s boys

a lot of the other kids still believed them

as is typical many of the girls shunned tonya

they called her a dyke because they were jealous

the boys made sure to taunt her pretty good about it

they spoke in baseball metaphors

strikeouts and getting to second base

i didn’t know what to think

i think i was concerned about my future success

with women

i knew what i had

i saw my disappointment in the shower

when getting dressed in front of a mirror

it wasn’t at all as big as a baseball bat at either end

and if that’s what it took to pleasure

a fifteen year-old girl

well….

but we never got any real confirmation on tonya

she didn’t come back for sophomore year

all the boys at the bus stop had moved on anyway

to other tits and asses

the logistics of their own sad, sexual situations

they stood around and smoked cigarettes

they all claimed to hit home runs with a lot of girls

that summer i played baseball

but every time i came to bat

i couldn’t help but think about tonya

alone in her room with a brand new louisville slugger

my own cheap and juvenile loneliness

the scabs on my cock

from masturbating too much

i let each pitch go by me

strike one

strike two

strike three

then i took my place on the bench

to the boos from boys on my own team

angry, frustrated twerps with sour faces and potato chip breath

who called me a switch hitter

who swore up and down that with the way i hit

i must be playing for the wrong team

                                                            

poem of the day 08.26.14

the caged blur

back then

i was going mad in my loneliness

i was without love

because i didn’t want

the kind of love that was coming my way

i couldn’t write

because i had nothing to write about

but sitting in bars with half-friends

trying to pick up women out of my league

wasting weekend nights on my own fear and failures

vomiting it all up on sunday mornings

i decided that pittsburgh was too small

i told everyone that i was going to join the merchant marine

although i had no clue how to do it

the internet was new at that time

so i’d look up the merchant marine online

and print up a bunch of shit like i was serious about it

no one cared

it wouldn’t have made a dent in their lives

if i was gone

i’d be one less obstruction toward getting

to the end of their day

i used to sit alone on the steps of the carnegie library

looking at those merchant marine papers

chain smoking cigarettes

and not touching my lunch

wondering what in the hell i was going to do now

that i was out of college with no job prospects and no ambition

i made it a harder time than it had to be

because i took america much more seriously then

it all seemed so serious and heavy sitting there

underneath that waving flag

i felt like a scared mouse

waiting for my turn to get on the wheel

and spin and spin and spin

around and around

this fabulously, dizzy, mendacious

caged blur that we have the audacity

to try and call a life

too confused to even try to look

for a simple and glorious way out.

                                               

poem of the day 08.25.14

1985

if i had any real talent

i think i would’ve invented

a time machine by now

instead of sitting on this bus

dog tired of this dead, dull world

hanging on this asshole’s plastic benevolence

as he plays this shitty salsa music

out of his crystal device

hoping that he doesn’t decide to do any worse

he’s looking around this bus

like the most contented motherfucker in america

and why shouldn’t he be?

no one is going to say a word to him

not me, not the other exhausted fools

not the bus driver dreaming his huge city pension

he’s singing along for everyone’s pleasure

we could go and hang ourselves on his noise

hang him if we had any guts

and i think it’s moments like this one

staring at this prick’s unused headphone jack

that maybe i should hang it up

stop wasting poems on this madness

quit the job, get a bungalow in the woods

learn to grow vegetables and start frying up squirrels

take up landscape painting and chess

read robinson jeffers with a wink and a nod

because this place is done

it’s just getting worse

with the race hating, the murder

the cycle of war, the beheadings

the android people walking down android streets of commerce

with their digital heads firmly up their digital asses

and still another NFL season to trudge through

yes

i think if i had any real talent

i would’ve invented that time machine

and maybe gone back thirty years or so

like to 1984 or even 1985

when i was younger and not so bothered

by so many things

although i’m pretty sure

everything was for shit then too.

                                               

poem of the day 08.22.14

dystopia in the canned food aisle

i keep thinking maybe she’ll move her cart

so i can squeeze by and get those

cans of cat food that i need

but there’s too much for her to do on her phone

status updates and games of chance

when she looks up

she gives me one of those asshole smirks

scoots the cart aside an inch

just to let me know how much i can go and fuck myself

so i think the hell with it

and back up toward the next aisle

which is a sea of rusted carts and angry faces

flabby bodies junked up on antibiotic meats and chemical tomatoes

scratching off items from their lists

and playing on their cell phones too

the stock boys are flinging boxes against displays

cackling mad as cans roll all over the ground

they look as if they’ll never escape this degradation

this dystopia in the canned food aisle

where there is a sweating kid in a carriage screaming

but it’s mine!  but it’s mine!

wailing, holding her hands toward a can of chicken noodle soup

whose sodium content seems to baffle everyone

as her mother says out loud

hey, i don’t even think there’s chicken in this

right before a display of baked chips

comes raining down on my head

hit from behind by a woman pushing a cart the size of a tank

slowly rumbling its way down red square.

or the streets of suburban america.                                           

poem of the day 08.21.14

the incredible loneliness of west virginia

at times it was true

i felt alone in that housing plan in west virginia

fresh from a concrete yard full of kids

in the great city of pittsburgh

it didn’t bother me as much

as maybe it did my parents

there were no kids my age on the street

most of the people in the plan

had been there for several years

they were coal mining democrats

with plastic on their furniture

and reagan/bush 1980 bumper stickers

still fresh on the back of their cars

i was alone but rarely ever lonely

there was one kid, ronnie

he was twelve to my seven

but i hung around him anyway

because the two of us

were out of options during the summer

ronnie liked bb guns and atari

i liked his baseball card collection

when the boredom was too much

we’d sit in ronnie’s living room

he played video games

while i looked through his card collection

when i found a pittsburgh pirate card

i’d drop it from the pile and hide it under my thigh

then get them into my pocket

when ronnie got up for pepsi or to piss

in my bedroom i had pirate cards galore

i’d use the cards to draw the players

and then hang them all over my walls

until my west virginia bedroom

was a sea of black and gold

they reminded me of everything

that i was missing back home

when the fall came

ronnie had school friends again

but i still hadn’t made any

i went by his house to look at baseball cards

but ronnie and his friends were sometimes on the lawn

holding their bb guns up

looking for low flying birds or rabid bats

or they were playing football on the street

ronnie said that he didn’t have time

he said he’d run out of pirates cards

and then all of the other boys would laugh

they’d go back to throwing the pigskin around

or searching the sky for an animals to pelt

while i walked back home

against the fading sunlight

of the wild and wonderful landscape.

                                                           

poem of the day 08.20.14

simply beautiful

on the radio

another million dollar

reality television whore

is talking about her latest project

she says you need to take about thirty selfies

to get the right one

they say that next year she’ll make another

eighty-five million off of her latest app

and her self-help book looks to be a big seller 

the guy driving this car says to me

this is going to be a glorious day

tons of sun and no humidity

he waits on me to give my two cents

but i’m half-hungover, tired,

and i don’t like where he’s taking me

so i say, yeah, it’s the sort of day some people might like

it’s a day for everyone, he says

it’s simply beautiful!

i look out the window

just in time to catch a man in a three-piece suit

step in a pile of dog shit

he stops and throws his hands up

to ask the gods, why me?

as the million dollar

reality television whore

chuckles about her wealth into the radio static

billions of ancient photons

at her beck and call

this morning’s flaming yellow dwarf

and all of  sleepy-headed america

bowing for her too.                                           

poem of the day 08.19.14

fag-itis

his voice is almost female

it booms through the 59^th street station

ladies and gentlemen

this is just an announcement

this is to let you know that johnny svevo

is a fag

he has fag-itis

whatever you do stay away from johnny svevo

and sure enough there goes johnny

pouncing through the station

with his buzzcut and ironic t-shirt

followed by another little shaved nazi

with his hands clasped over his mouth for echo-effect

i repeat, johnny svevo has fag-itis

do not approach

and here i thought kids these days

were supposed to be more liberal of mind

good ol’  johnny takes a swing at his friend

for good measure

of course, he misses

johnny is the perennial charlie brown of his set

he’ll be the last one of his pals to taste pussy

his friend does his girl laugh and it echoes

up and down the station

as loudly as his warning about johnny’s fag-itis

people are kind of watching them

most are playing on their cellphones

but we’ve all been through this kind of torture

it’s such a rite of passage

then the voice comes again

high and giggly

ladies and gentlemen

this is just an announcement

this is to let you know that johnny svevo

is a fag

he has fag-itis

whatever you do stay away from johnny svevo

well, i guess we’ve all been warned

ebola and now this fag-itis business

then the two boys

run around the station

slap-boxing and laughing

some yells for them to shut up already

it’s another nice night in america

for as nice as nights in america can go.

                                                           

SOMETHING CALLED A BLOG TOUR

My wife spent a good three days explaining to me via email and at home what exactly a Blog Tour is.  I guess I don’t get out much online because I’m still not quite sure what it is.  What I’ve gathered is that one writer sends two writers a Blog Tour invite, the two writers answer some questions about the writing process, and then they send along an invite for two other writers to do the same.  Everyone answers the same questions.  Everyone helps to promote each other.  As you’ll see below I utterly failed at the small task passed my way.

First and foremost I was invited to do the Blog Tour by Lori Jakiela.  To be honest I have not read much of Lori’s memoir work but I’m a huge fan of her poetry, so much so that I’ve read what she has out there quite a few times.  Lori is one of those folks who can really get the line down.  As a writer she’s one of those poets whom you want to be envious of when you read a poem that knocks your socks off, but instead of wallowing in envy you want to do something just as amazing.  That’s my kind of poetry.  So thank you Lori for the invite.  I’m sorry I pretty much failed you, but hopefully Ally Malinenko will hold up her end and keep this Blog Tour going.  For all of you taking the time to read this, here’s a link to Lori Jakiela’s blog and her answers to the Blog Tour.

Now….without further ado, here are my answers to the Blog Tour questions:

What are you working on?

I just finished two rough drafts on two novels.  Both use the same character from my 2013 novel, The Librarian.  The first is called The Wine Clerk, and pretty much picks up the action about six months after the end of The Librarian with Rand Wyndham working in a wine store and living back in Buffalo, New York. 

The other novel is called Mary Bermiano.  It’s about a much younger Rand getting involved in his first real relationship.  It takes place in 1994.  I had the draft hanging around for a number of years and basically rewrote it as a Rand book.

I’m getting ready to start another Rand book…The Poet.  It’s hopefully going to be about Rand working once again as a librarian and dealing with the poetry scene.  I plan on bringing back Carolina and basically doing my best to write a classic Three’s Company plot with subtle mention of Don Knotts.

How does your work differ from others’ work in the same genre?

It doesn’t really.  I’m one of thousands of little Bukowskis out there.  My writing is pretty straightforward because I hate reading shit that I can’t understand.  If I try to do anything different, at least different for myself, is I try to add more humor.  Especially in fiction.  All the old fiction I wrote was always so heavy.  Some of the poems too.  Everything has to be so precious.  It was as if I’d learned to write by hanging out with Zach Braff.  I realized around my mid-30s that I really wanted to tell dick jokes, and would’ve been better suited writing a sitcom than poems or novels.

Why do you write what you write?

Ah….the eternal question.  The eternal answer: I don’t know?  To be honest I write what I write to please myself.  The subjects that I choose to write about are the subjects that I want to read about.  It’s as simple as that.

How does your writing process work?

Monday through Friday I’m up at 5 a.m.  I write.  Hopefully I have some ideas floating around so I’m not spending too much time on Facebook or looking at internet porn.  Hopefully I’m not hungover.  I generally write from everyday life so it’s not that hard to come up with something.  I do well with anger and disgust and humans being humans there’s always someone out there who raises my ire.  Two days ago some kid was calling another kid a fag at the 59^th Street station.  I thought kids these days were post-social and didn’t call each other fags.  I’ll probably write a poem about that today.

okay, so that’s it.  Lori here is where I failed you and this whole gig.  I tried for a week to find writers to do this.  Some didn’t respond.  Some weren’t interested.  The truth is that I simply do not know a lot of writers.  I know bartenders and waiters and waitresses and, sadly, a ton of Librarians. But I don’t really know any writers.  Especially writers with blogs.  If I do know writers I’m usually not aware that they have blog because other than my blog and reading the NY Times I try and spend as little time online as possible.  So I’m very sorry.  That said, if people get back to me I will be posting a link to their blogs.  Let’s hope Ally comes through.

Tomorrow....a return to the poems!

poem of the day 08.14.14

juiced

they are waiting in lines

in neighborhoods at all hours of the day

the caffeine fixed

the juiced

these junkies

sucking up the oxygen and the bandwidth

rabid philistines foaming at the mouth

with a sixty-four ounce cup of iced java

running into each other

knocking old men off of curbs

internet zombies with infested blood

i can’t crack open a beer in broad daylight

and stroll around minding my own business

but these hopped-up, wide-eyed tit suckers

can get behind the wheel of a car at all hours?

where are the cops when you really need them?

probably in line at starbucks

these addicts

these slaves to the grind

see them flipping out at red lights

cursing at the top of their lungs

in between tapping out diatribes on their phones

gps guided doing sixty in a thirty-five

flying from one costumed dealer to the next

for the next coffee fix

before this great american buzz runs out

forty plus hours a week at the job

kids with extra-curriculars

rents and mortgages galore

drowning in free amazon shipping

and a dvr on full-tilt

bowing before the faces of ugly men and women

cheap suits and stultifying offices omnipotent

serving the servants the fifty-two inch television nightmare\

and then back in line

sucking it down

sucking it down

wondering why in the hell

none of us can get a good night’s sleep.

                                                           

poem of the day 08.13.14

don’t go to 9^th avenue

the sound of her shrill voice

pulls me right out of the frank o’hara

she says into her phone

why didn’t you pick up by the 2^nd ring?

and i find myself looking at the cellulite

on the back of her high-kicking thigh

it’s not a judgment

it’s simply where my focus lands

instead of on the frank o’hara

oh, don’t give me that shit, she says

you’re supposed to be heading to 9^th avenue

to pick up your son

because he’s been waiting for you all day, she says

i look away from the cellulite

to the boy standing on the orange plastic seat

watching dull brooklyn go by on the d train

he’s smiling

either clueless or like a buddhist

he just accept his life for what it is

if he’s smart he misses no one

that’s fuckin’ bullshit, she says

i mean what exactly are you doing?

it ain’t like you have a job

and now others are watching the evening show

i look into her face

haggard, too much eye make-up

i have no room to talk

today two separate people told me that i look like hell

and they were most likely right

she squints at me

i figure if i don’t turn away

i’m next on her hit list

but she’s like watching a car wreck

yeah, she says into her phone

well, you should’ve thought of that

when you knocked me up

and don’t take that tone with me, asshole, she shouts

her boy stops looking out the window

she turns to him and gives him an eskimo kiss

in twenty years he’ll be on the other end

of a phone call like this

then she says,

if you’re going to be like that

we can just go to my mother’s

we all wait on bated breath for his answer

what do you mean good? she shouts

look, i don’t give a shit

you just get your ass down to 9^th avenue right now

or i swear, anton, i fucking swear, she says

she hangs up the phone

before she can complete the threat

she grabs her standing kid and puts him in her lap

smothers him with kisses and future psychosis

while somewhere out there

anton is sweating bullets over 9^th avenue

or he’s sitting back and cracking open another beer

happy with the buzz of silence

before the phone will ring again

and he has to suffer the cadence

of her wonderful, motherly voice.

                                                           

poem of the day 08.12.14

comedian

when the politician

can no longer lie with a straight face

when the media

no longer searches for the truth

when genocide gets sandwiched in between

comic strips and cartoon ads

when the citizenry disregards its compassion

for another caffeine and bandwidth fix

when the food is poisoned

and the water is rank

when the roads are potholed

and the bridges creak and sway

when we give ground more than stand it

when the wars rage on and on without end

when another millionaire

finances our future into rubble

and another celebrity takes a picture

of her gilded tits and ass

when epidemic becomes the norm

and god replaces the human heart and mind for good

when there is no hope in science

when philosophy has reached its apex

and benevolence becomes the crime

when new persecutions

stand around the edges of our borders

when hate is glorified

with patriotism and commercial dollars

when corporate sports become our only refuge

when loves becomes

just another four-letter-word

and art and literature have failed for good

when tree bark peels from the dying trees

and the shit-stained concrete lies bountiful

with the bodies of dead baby birds

when rabid dogs howl into the soda can ash

and the comedian can no longer

find anything left to laugh about

when the sun burns out due to boredom and sloth

perhaps then my friends

perhaps then.

                                                            

poem of the day 08.11.14

after work caste system blues

the ones who

have to – run

for their cars

the buses

the trains

and the ones who

don’t have to

stroll like grand debutants

with all

the time this diamond world

will allow

                                    

poem of the day 08.08.14

my phone call with larry

i was feeling idle

arguing with schopenhauer in my head

about what constitutes original thought

when the phone rings at my desk

kid, larry says, it’s me

noon and i could already tell that he was

three sheets to the wind

you like cheap scotch and i like cheap cognac

but let’s not make this about us, he says

okay, i tell him

i wanna talk

i wanna talk about those israeli motherfuckers

and those palestinian pricks

larry says, i want you to know that women aren’t worth it

believe me when i say that a piece of ass is fleeting at best

he says, i’m no racist

but everyone at the food stamp office ain’t white

and that president we have shouldn’t even be president

not because he’s black

but because he was only a two-term senator

we should’ve elected that broad, larry says

what’s her name?

clinton, i answer

yeah, her.  at least her old man was president

he did it two times, larry says

he was good at two-timing, i say

larry doesn’t laugh

he just says, so you think you’re a comedian now

you need to drink more cheap scotch and i need more cognac

then he stops for a drink

if i’ve learned anything in this world, he says

it’s that i’ve learned nothing except that everything is misery

i wonder if larry is reading philosophy too

he says, this ain’t no life, kid

two divorces and medical bills

a daughter who wants a tummy tuck

and breast augmentation surgery at thirty-five

larry says, i mean what the fuck?

i don’t know, i tell him

two rooms and a shared bathroom, he says

food stamps and government handouts at my age

larry says, this is why i get lost in movies

in the old ones and in the new ones

i’d rather live in a film than drive these ugly streets

he says, if it weren’t for my grandkids

i’d buy a gun and do myself in

i’d take some motherfuckers with me, you know?

things are tough all over, larry, i tell him

you just drink your scotch, he says

and i’ll drink my cheap cognac

he stops for another drink

he says, you still there?

yeah, larry, i say

i’m at my job

larry knows that he has me until six

good, he says

you see, i went to the doctor the other day

and he says

well….

he seems to think

that it’s something about my liver, kid

poem of the day 08.07.14

the camel

is always on my back

she always wants water

she comes in sweating from the summer

with her one tooth missing

huffing her bad breath on me

and airing out her hairy armpits

water, she says,

shaking her cloudy bottle at me

like i’m some kind of dealer

when i take it from her

she says, come on, fill it to the top this time

because i’ve been cheating her and we both know it

i’ve let her down

the camel

she has a big hunched back

everyone says that’s where she keeps it all

liquids, her life

while i fill her water bottle

i’m careful not to touch the top of it

like she’s got ebola or worse

i wonder if anyone’s ever fucked her

laid the camel on that big back of hers and went to town

humping and bumping

licking the space where that tooth used to be

got caught up in her mane of natty black hair

told her that she’s loved

when i give her back the bottle

she doesn’t even say thanks

just takes a drink right there under those hot lights

letting the good water spill out of her mouth

on her stained shirt and all over the floor

later, she says

before limping her way out of the front door

back to the concrete and glass-strewn desert

where she’ll walk another five miles

until the sun dips and another day commits suicide

leaving me here, thirsty

and in need of a shower

hungry for something more than she and i

ever got.

                      

poem of the day 08.06.14

physiognomy

in the face

of the loud, fat child

in the got freedom? t-shirt

the old man trying to spray me

with his garden hose

the lady trimming flowers

and pulling weeds

with her wide ass farting saturday morning

in the teenagers on the train

playing rap full blast

and the prick blowing smoke in my face

the cop on the corner

watching me cross against the light

on dogs and cats

bending in tall weeds to shit

in the glare of old women

past their prime

and men still trying to relieve their youths

the slothful in restaurants

drinking gravy boats of fat

as the big game plays on infinitely

the bored and stuck on the bus to work

waiting on death or retirement to come first

in patients watching bad television

in waiting rooms of the damned

the men killing the sun in dark bars

on the liquor store kid

as he takes another one

of my hard-earned twenties

in the look of contempt

on the deli man’s face

another lost afternoon in america

as we standoff over lunch

right before he asks me what i want

and still

all i can see around me

all i’ve ever seen around me

are miles and miles

of dead meat.

                                    

poem of the day 08.05.14

gwen

there were many girls

whom i chased on campus

but few that i actually talked to

gwen started talking to me in art class one afternoon

because we were both drunk in the middle of the day

a drunk can always tell another drunk

especially when he’s staring right at you

but i couldn’t help myself

she had the most wonderfully wide eyes

and dyed red hair that she was always blowing out of her face

after that we hung out on campus a bit

i was getting over someone who wouldn’t let me go

and she was just getting into someone

some days i’d walk her to the bus stop

on others we’d sit on the library steps

eating vendor hot dogs

watching our coeds go from class to class

gwen talked at times about him

but i never felt the need to mention her at all

she worked at a bar down on st. clair street

that had over fifty beers on tap

you should come by one night, gwen said

but i never knew how to take her invitation

what with all of the boyfriend talk

so i never went

when class ended we offered to keep in touch

but who really does?

gwen said that she was leaving pittsburgh anyway

for a while life grew aimless

i had the first of many dead end full-tine jobs

and in my spare time i knew

where every quarter draft night was

in the fine city of pittsburgh and its surrounding suburbs

i was floating by

and content to do so for however long it took

one night i was drinking in the bar of an italian restaurant

with an old friend and a blonde whom i just met

a girl who would try her best to destroy me

later that very same year

when there was gwen dressed in full waitresses regalia

her hair a bit longer and pulled back into a ponytail

but still tickling her cheeks

when she saw me those eyes lit up

and i felt some hope creep up in there with the failure

she called me over to her and gave me a hug

she said,

i’m glad you never came down to that bar

because they all ended up being assholes there

i wanted to ask her about the boyfriend

about how she came to stay in the city

but gwen started writing something down on her order pad

she ripped a piece of paper off and handed it to me

there was her name and phone number

finally

but then i noticed a bunch of fractions

with prices listed next to them

pot, gwen whispered

i’m selling pot now

then she blew the hair out of her face

and left me standing there

i went back over to my friend and the blonde

she was underage

she liked to wink at me while he talked

and when she bummed a smoke off of me

she didn’t even ask

she just took one from the pack

and went out into the night

shaking her ass

and craning her neck every few steps

to make damn sure that i was looking at her

instead of that space in the archway

that gwen had left.

                                               

poem of the day 08.04.14

the car alarm

a late model

silver piece of conspicuous consumption

with a sunroof

parked in front of my kitchen window

and for three days now its alarm

has been going off

at intermittent moments

breaking the continuity of thought

and life with its blaring wonk

i look outside like a man about to commit murder

and see the car’s warning lights

flashing like some beacon of hell

when the noise stops it’s as if

chest pains or bad gas has passed

it’s the closest that i’ll come to god

you can hear the whole neighborhood yelling

at this car alarm

kids crying, dogs barking

the old decrying the fall of their civilization

yet no one comes out to fix it

no buff asshole in reflector shades holding a clicker

no dim blonde giggling to her gal pals

and dangling a set of keys

they are how i picture this car’s owner to look

some overly tan and privileged trust fund baby slumming here

one who revels in keeping a neighborhood at his mercy

someone who loves summer

when the alarm goes off again

i think about all that i’d like to do to that car

smash its windows

slash its tires

key both sides of it or pelt it with eggs

leave a nasty note that says

fix your car, asshole

but i do nothing for there is nothing to do

no one else does a thing

because we are all prisoners here

we know that these kinds of people have won the war

the last great american revolution

so i close the window

put on the fans and blast the radio

i sit on the couch and drink cheap wine

try to think about hot legs or autumn in europe

as the car alarm goes

beep

beep

beep

ad nauseam

under the din of life and death

in rotten brooklyn.

poem of the day 08.01.14

where have you gone eddie murphy?

up to cartoon donkey heaven?

hiding away in a bubble hill mansion

of the mind?

on some film set in l.a.

waiting to drop another cinematic turd

on your old fan’s heads?

i remember when you were the baddest motherfucker

to stroll across the stage

the thing is…do you?

ten years old and getting up in the middle of the night

to watch delirious

trying not to piss myself while my parents slept

then sleeping through school the next day

eddie, the way you made mr. t look

man, i could never watch the a-team

with a straight face again

eddie murphy, every white suburban mom’s nightmare

on a hot summer day with the ice cream song

i don’t know a drop of shakespeare

but goddamn it, man

there are entire bits from raw

that this pool fool can recite by heart

where have you gone eddie murphy?

knocking up spice girls and hiding behind prosthetics

another beverly hills cop movie in infinite development

i think of those years buying used vhs copies

of 48 hrs., trading places, beverly hills cop

and the golden child

hoping that the pimple-faced fuck

working the video store counter wouldn’t give me shit

hiding the movies underneath my bed

like illegal contraband

eddie, i suffered harlem nights for you

i did it for jasmine guy too

and now she’s gone as well

i even bought both your shitty albums

i don’t want to think this has all been a waste of time

can’t you see we need you?

it’s not just the prostitutes on sunset boulevard

who want you back

what’ll it take to get you to make another classic?

five million?  ten million?

fifty-percent of the profits on another hit?

if we could just get you up there on the silver screen

think coming to america, boomerang,

robin givens in a horizontal position

eddie, whatever it is that you need

just come on and give us something new laugh about?

bill cosby is still out there

he’s having a coke and a smile

so go on and dust off that red leather outfit

and take it out for spin

i’m sure it still fits

hit the comedy clubs and give them all a scare

eddie, stand under those hot white lights

and tell us a joke or two

then turn to the crowd and do that magical laugh

make this tired, cruel world

bust its big fat gut

just one more time for old time’s sake.