Monday, December 28, 2015

Hiatus Time

hello all

taking a small WineDrunk/writing in general break so that i can play tourist in my own city.
see you all again w/more mediocre poetry on Monday, January 4th.

jg

Thursday, December 24, 2015

poem of the day 12.24.15



little flies

the little flies
are still alive
as the year ends
they don’t understand it
as well as i
but there they are
flying around the apartment
getting drunk
on dregs of leftover wine
the  true champions
of climate change
who must want the earth
more than we do
the little flies
are still alive
the carcasses of their
unlucky brethren
littering my bathroom wall
and kitchen cabinets
as the survivors
fly into my nose
circle in my vodka
bounce off the window screen
like lottery balls
waiting for me to open the window
the drunken benevolent emancipator
sending them out to revel
in the unusual warmth
of an early winter fog.

                      

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

poem of the day 12.23.15

a most wonderful time

they have christmas music
playing out of the computer

three hours of jingles on youtube
because it’s the most wonderful time of the year

unless someone is dropping drone bombs on your homeland

i must be the degenerate here
because i never understand it

they have music playing out of their cell phones
dueling symphonies of comfort and joy

and everyone is feigning happiness until december 26th

until they can hate again freely
and talk their war talk and xenophobic glamour

everyone is wiggling in their seats
while i sit there begging to be struck down
by fat fucking santa’s sleigh

there is something lost in the translation for me
at this time of year

something they all have that i never got
like good looks and rich parents

maybe i’m worn down by living in perpetual war
tired of stepping over the homeless
on the way for a pound of meat

their ring tones play joyful and triumphant
and they say, turn that music up!

it heals them in some way
like a good stiff drink or three calms my savage beast

good god i wish this music was all it took
a little jingle bell rock to salvage the liver
and bring peace on earth

instead of the inevitable hangover and guilt
from the garbage and bodies piling up
like gifts underneath another browning tree

but here they are
singing feliz navidad with the passion of dylan zealots

like fucking aliens awaiting the deluge

and here i am
trying to keep the bile of another year ending
trapped up inside this sack of aging flesh

it’s all i can do to be in this room
and i can’t even do that well

so i get up and leave
go outside to stand in the warm yuletide rain

as assholes stuck at red lights wearing santa hats
honk their horns and call each other names

give the christmas middle finger to each other
with frosty the snowman
blaring out of their cars like rap bass in the summer

as wrapping paper roads
glimmer with the spectacle
of the climate change blues

and another newspaper headline
rolling in the breeze
tells me that someone else has died for their country

in afghanistan or on these very streets

for this glittering artifice
for this shit stain seasonal memory lapse

fa la la la la….la fucking la.

                                                



Tuesday, December 22, 2015

poem of the day 12.22.15

christmas tip

he shook my hand
and handed me an envelop
with a card and some cash stuffed inside

while i tried not to think
about how many times a week
i’d jacked-off to his hot wife

all of that sperm
splattered on my bedroom floor
and into paper towels

as i took her any way
my fifteen year-old mind could figure out

merry christmas, he said to me
then he shut the door

yeah, you too
i said to no one

before walking off to the next home
on the old afternoon newspaper route.


                                    10.06.12

Monday, December 21, 2015

poem of the day 12.21.15

crossing over

ray says
my wife has been gone two years
but i still try to talk to her every day

okay, i tell him

last month her old hair dryer
fell off the dresser where i’ve kept it
and i took it as a sign

ray says
i haven’t moved that thing in two years
and then….BAM

all right, i say

when my wife was dying
she said she saw my mother, her father
and my brother all in the sky

ray says
my brother was a fireman
gone ten years
but my wife told me that he was still wearing
his uniform
everyone was calling him cap

some people live the job, i say

ray says
i found a one dollar bill in my pocket last wednesday
and on friday i found a ten on the street

good luck, ray, i say
that’s good luck

he said, my wife died on the eleventh
get it? one and then a ten

uh huh, i say

she’s always telling me stuff, ray says

always knocking photos over in the apartment
or sending a breeze on a hot day

for two years she’s been doing this to me
that’s why i got all these books, you see

life after life stuff, i say

ray says
if she’s gonna keep talking to me like that
i gotta know what to say
how to communicate

i see, i say

ray says
because i don’t know how long i’m still gonna be here for
could be today
could be tomorrow

the way i’m going it could be another ten years

and if my wife is gonna keep knocking things over
i need to find out what she wants

ray says
man, i need to figure out
this crossing over business

because yesterday the old lady knocked down
this whole row of collectable glasses

they shattered all over
the goddamned place, ray says

and now the set just ain’t complete
in fact, it’s gone

and, ray says
i don’t understand
because she always loved those things.


                                                            

Friday, December 18, 2015

"best of" poem of the day 12.18.15

santa claus is coming

santa claus is coming to town
only not for a few more weeks

but you wouldn’t know it
by the looks of this house that i pass
on my way home from work every night

it has more lights on it than a detroit freeway

there’s this fiberglass latticed santa
with a gift in one hand, waving with the other
while a reindeer of the same ilk
bends slowly, eating fake hay off a dogshit lawn

the place is truly an abomination of the spirit

but i think its worst offense
is the large loud green and red music box on the porch

it plays christmas music in that tinker-box tinny way
that makes the songs all the more tedious and annoying

you can hear the music half-way down the block
in both directions

the whole scene is enough to make you realize
that they put drug addicts and alcoholics in rehabs
tax evaders and government whistle-blowers in jails

but they let sick fucks like these sick fucks
sit in front of their television set
watching christmas film after christmas film
stuffing their faces with hot chocolate, candy canes
and their own good cheer

wishing every other face on the street
a merry christmas
NOT
a happy holiday

while holding a neighborhood captive
day after day and night after night
for twenty-some days a month
until santa finally sails his fat ass back to the north pole
and the regular avarice can begin again

it shakes a man’s faith in decency
to see a display such as this

i don’t even live in the neighborhood
but my heart goes out to the sad, blackened homes
that surround this monstrosity

that can never get a break
from this joyful and triumphant misery

i wish that i could do something for these people
to spread a little cheer

maybe decapitate the santa or topple the reindeer
string a couple of elves up in a noose
of multi-colored, twinkling lights

take a rusty mallet to that music box
and swing away like henry fucking aaron

until this beast of burden
smashes into a thousand green and red pieces

shout ho ho ho on the lawn, like a crazed killer
scaring some sense into that family of yuletide terrorists

until they call the cops to come take me away

finally giving everyone a silent night
peace on earth for sure.


                                                            12.04.13

Thursday, December 17, 2015

poem of the day 12.17.15

the ghost of pennoak manor drive

marilyn finally calls
on this night of all nights
says, you sound like you’re
in the middle of the street
five cop cars racing up
my little dead end block
i tell her i don’t know what’s going on
marilyn says, anyway i heard you called
four times, i think, while she was in jersey
as cop cars surround my neighbor’s house
marilyn back from two weeks in jersey
where she roamed her kid streets
and dropped her prudish act
to drink in bars with old friends
sweet lemony sugar drinks, she says
cops going up the neighbor’s driveway
to murder screams tv blasts electric guitar chords
and the sound of a motorcycle revving in a garage
are you sure you’re not outside, marilyn says
it’s my neighbor, jim, i tell her, and the cops
she says, i thought about you drinking those drinks
and wouldn’t you know it?
but on the plane ride back to pittsburgh
i got stuck sitting next to some christian fundamentalist
who kept asking me what i’d say
agnostically, of course, if god to spoke to me
impossible, i say
but not to marilyn to cops frog marching
crater-faced restless jim down his driveway
pressed up against the white car swirling blue/red lights
marilyn says, that’s what i told him
she says, you know i already feel comfortable talking to you
and i laugh
thinking she feels comfortable talking to me?
comfortable in my humorous madness restless heart
that wants to just finally get on a greyhound bus
and shoot straight to d.c. with colby and hit bars
drink the same sugar lemony drinks and make love words
to d.c. girls who don’t know me from anything
girls i’ll never have to muster the courage to see again
or have to call four times while they’re in jersey
this is what marilyn is comfortable with?
what’s happening? she says
i mean with your neighbor
they’re arresting jim letting jim go, i think
but the cops stick around
marilyn says, so are we getting together or what?
late may i’ve been at this with her for a month
to no success
yaass, yaass, i neal cassidy into the phone
groucho slouch around my room
looking for a paper and a pen to transcribe our fate
look out the window
jim whose crazed antics are legend on this street
jim who begged his wife to knife him last fourth of july
jim rumored to mentally torture his family
jim rumored to have killed his girlfriend’s dog
back in the sixties
jim the great satan shroud of pennoak manor drive
dressed year round in camouflage 
ghost white skin and bones
screaming
i’m sorry
i’m sorry
into the black night
while his wife and kids cry on the porch
while the cops slouchwatch against their doors
while the cops pushpullshove him into the backseat
and marilyn says, it sure sounds crazy
where you live.

                                               


Wednesday, December 16, 2015

poem of the day 12.16.15

anonymous

bernice
likes to catch me working the desk
oh, you’re here! she says
she sounds so excited
but i never feel very good about it
bernice looks like one of those kind old ladies
she wears a plastic head scarf
in inclement weather
and she has that grandmotherly way
knowing and doting at the same time
she also likes to call the people i work with
idiots and fools and morons
bernice is nice to me because i’m the new one here
i haven’t let her down
my failures are still anonymous to her
not like such and such
who just walked by
oh, that fool, bernice says with a knowing eye roll
not like so and so over at the branch on 13th  avenue
what a jackass, bernice tells me
while i’m looking down her list
of hallmark hall of fame movies
or finding her more items on helen keller
some generic tome
by another charlatan who’s crossed over
bernice is a god fearing woman
not like that heathen desk jockeying it
over on 21st street
she didn’t even know that st. luke
wrote one of the gospels
how do these people get jobs here?
bernice asks me
there are thousands of people out there
who could do it better
like you she says, smiling
after i find her a couple of lifetime originals
personally, the pressure
is getting to be too much for me
when bernice comes in
i think i’m going to sabotage
this whole thing we have going
fail to find her books or movies
insult helen keller
tell her that heaven isn’t for real
stop being the superstar in her eyes
let her go somewhere else
and find the next big thing
so i can go back to being like such and such
so and so
you know who
that one over there
faceless like the rest of them
in a long line of fleshy blurs
who eventually let this world
and poor poor bernice
down
by simply being human.


                                                

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

poem of the day 12.15.15

chillin

smirking abomination
standing outside of our kitchen window
drinking a twenty-four ounce bottle of bud
in a brown paper bag
like some kind of teflon tough guy
basking in this climate change pseudo-december slop
who just told my wife
hey, babe, maybe you shouldn’t live on the ground floor
eight in the evening
screaming outside of our window
for fifteen minutes
wonderful, ecstatic white boy woo-hoos into the night
dude, dude, but duuuudde permeating the air
killing my vodka buzz
drowning out beethoven’s ninth
i’m going to throw him into the estuary
strangle him
i don’t know but what
storming out into the night
he must think me a madman
the way i circle, point, jab at his beer
ask him how much of a tough guy he is
you a tough guy? you a tough guy?
just like that
but what the fuck am i?
really i only want to be back inside
with my wife
with the vodka
with the beethoven
instead his friends go, bryce, yo bryce
maybe we should go because this dude looks pissed
bryce, i spit, because of course he’s bryce
bryce who can drink a twenty four ounce beer
in front of anyone’s apartment
bryce who thinks he can talk to my wife like that
of course your name is bryce, i say
he says, we’re just chillin
because bryce owns america and can chill
wherever the fuck he wants
he can talk to women however he wants
he can scream and shout and dude
and none of us can do a thing about him
bryce can interrupt vodka and beethoven
and hard-working people’s nights
you look like a bitch, bryce,  i tell him
a pampered little bitch
who can’t even do drinking in the street right
yo bryce yo bryce, his friends say
they’re already half-way down the block
i’m just chillin, bryce says
just chillin dude just chillin dude just chillin
like a fucking mantra
but bryce doesn’t know that i’ve been waiting on him
for months
for over a year
since my wife got diagnosed with breast cancer
and i wanted to fight the world
i say but tonight i’ve got you bryce
and your little bottle of beer
but he doesn’t know what the fuck i’m talking about
my wife watching me in the window
i don’t know what the fuck i’m talking about
the beethoven playing low
all i feel is sadness for this mess
i wish sometimes life handled things differently
i wish i did too
just chillin dude
bryce says, one more time
slipping past me
he hurries down the street
while i stand there neighbors watching
my wife saying, honey, come inside
but i can’t move
can still feel my worried heart
beating inside this hollowed-out chest.


                                    

Monday, December 14, 2015

"best of" poem of the day 12.14.15

the asshole at the end of this bar

has been playing nothing but rap music
on the jukebox

it’s been going on for over an hour now

the entire oeuvre of the beastie boys
and now it’s eminem

he won’t play the black shit
in this joint

all the old drunks are grumbling
but it’s okay
the asshole at the end of this bar
is a new york city fireman

he’s been telling us stories about 9/11
rehashing that bullshit
while the rap music molests our heads
and rattles our bones

he has touched all of the old drunks’ hearts
it’s the only reason that they haven’t killed him yet

suddenly we are all taken back
to that fateful day

they all want to share where they’d been

the asshole at the end of this bar
tells us he wishes he was able to help more people
that he just missed the towers falling down

he arrived too late in my opinion

he gets misty-eyed retelling it
as ol’ eminem
still the poet laureate of the american idiot-ocracy
raps about raping and killing his ex-wife

i stare at
the asshole at the end of this bar
trying to see something in him
trying to see what they are all seeing
a modern day hero

but there is nothing to him

there is flesh and blood, bone
and a little gray matter

that is all

except for his penchant for rap music

so i shoot down my beer
i ask the wife if she wants to go somewhere else
as all the old boys start in on
obama and illegal immigrants

we find another bar about two blocks down
where the asshole at the end of that bar
is nursing a pint of coors light
and bobbing his head
to a cher song

and this is all right with us

for now.


                        07.29.10



Friday, December 11, 2015

poem of the day 12.11.15

walking 5th avenue christmas blues

santa trump nazis
blasting hate talk
and yuletide jingles
out of unseasonably warm
rolled down windows
honking horns
an orchestra or gridlock and anger
their gray faces melting faster than polar ice caps
sixty degrees in december
feels more like columbus day
the sweat collects in my boots and on my balls
forty one years on this boiling planet
forty one christmas seasons
is enough to make anyone hate anything
yearn for something just a little bit more subtle
as the overworked honk
and honk and honk and honk
scream tender mercies into the water-tipped air
as if it’ll get them anywhere faster
on these clogged corrupted streets
i think they should put electric shocks on car horns
meaning if you’re gonna use it
you must really mean it
but on the sidewalk chalk people move like slugs
in the dance of jingle bells blaring out of store fronts
old people shuffle taking last steps
babies wobble taking first ones
everyone getting in my way
and i’ve got nothing to blast them with
except another futile sigh and the wane promise of a new year
forty one spins and i’ll probably end up dead
on the shitter at work in full-on santa party hat mode
what years i wouldn’t give up
for a little bit of eternal sleep
moving along this baklava-scented avenue
where every world collides
menorahchristmastreefatjollyelfkwanzaa
passing papaya box mountains
and avocado sculptures made for god
some drunk collapses into the middle of the intersection
curls up busted like islamic calligraphy
and i swear
i daydreamed
a new america.                                  

Thursday, December 10, 2015

"best of" poem of the day 12.10.15

the carolers

the cops are lined up
in their little cop uniforms
at the atlantic avenue station
they are in rows according to height
the tall cops in the back
the ones with short guy syndrome
shoved up front
there are a couple of women cops
interfiled with the boys in blue
the head cop is stalking in front of them
he’s pacing
he looks like he’s ready to give it
to the whole group of them
little town of bethlehem
jiggle bells, deck the halls
the whole works
last week the cops were out on broadway
singing rudolph and frosty
like star-studded musical extras
while the protesters chanted at them
from across the street
no justice, no peace
as the cops kept on singing into the lights
of a paddy wagon van
there are no protesters today
they’ve cleared out or have gotten bored
there are just a couple dozen of new york’s finest
laughing and smiling
movie cops in christmas mode for the tourists
the head cops says
white christmas in three
then he starts counting down
as we make our way across the station
where the less musical cops
are checking bags for bombs
standing against the wall on both sides
single file as far as the eye can see
with flak jackets and machine guns at the ready
german shepherds
with silver bells around their necks, snarling
waiting to bite your balls off
give you the true meaning of christmas
in new york city.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

poem of the day 12.09.15

go back (american love song)

go back to kenya
go back to mexico
go back to china
go back to cuba
go back to the domincan republic
go back to el salvador
go back to ecuador
go back to india
go back to korea
go back to pakistan
for god’s sake go back to the philippines
go back to honduras
go back to vietnam
go back to canada
go back to germnay
go back to italy
go back to poland
grab your shit and go back to mother russia
go back to norway
go back to sweden
go back to ireland
go back to hungary and bohemia
and austria too
go back to japan
go back to nigeria 
go back to haiti and jamaica
i’m sure the weather is fine
go back to france
go back to spain
go back to the netherlands
go back to england
go back to portugal on your tiny little boats
everyone just get the fuck out!

                                                



Tuesday, December 8, 2015

"best of" poems of the day 12.08.15

Today is the 35th anniversary of John Lennon's death. Not to be profound or anything, but with the way this world is we could probably use a guy like Lennon around now. Because I'm more morbid than celebratory I always try to write a poem about Lennon on this day, as opposed to October 9th when he was born, when he would've turned 75 this year. So today I offer a smattering of those poems, some going as far back as a decade. please, as always, excuse the bad writing.

Also....you may see more of these "best of" days cropping up. Am knee deep in fiction writing and time for the poems hasn't been there lately. And, as evidenced, when one shows up they've been rather wondering and lackluster. So while I will still post a poem a day some may be oldies but goodies.

jg

john lennon

25 years ago i learned about death.
i was groggy
it was morning in a kitchen,
one i barely remember now.
on my mother’s knee
we listened to the broadcast,
moribund jockeys inter-spliced
with your songs & the sad laments
of people from around the world.
folks were already talking about
your legacy, john
& like all good people
they’ve been shitting on it for
a quarter of a century so far.

in kindergarten i had a band
it wasn’t much, but there were 4 of us
sometimes there were 3 because the drummer
needed a nap.
we played all the old beatles songs,
air guitar & lip syncing to my mother’s LPs
on a beat-up fisher price turntable the school owned.
the nun would gather around the girls
& they swooned & i understood the attraction
to all the sound & madness.
but that day we gave no show & the nun
let me keep the radio on to hear more news.
such sadness & loss was so hard to comprehend.
later our band quit playing
ringo slept
george moved away & paul changed schools.
i was you, john
but you were dead
so i choose to be myself & i haven’t looked back
until today.

                                    12.8.05


we are alive

i hear the morning people
talking outside of my window
the morning people with their cigarettes
and coffee

and they are alive
and we are alive

even if there is nothing in our guts at the moment
even if we are caught in meetings
in horrible jobs with no hope
in debt because it takes so much money
just to pretend to be average

we are still alive

as the cold wind blows and the rain moves in
as the months and seasons change again
waiting for the economy to rebound
waiting for politics to work
waiting for religion to die

waiting in vain

we are alive
and they are alive

the news will always be bad
the world will never get it right
humanity has had it wrong from the start
and mahler will never rise
john lennon will stay mortally wounded
in our minds

but they are alive somehow
and we are alive too

you are alive reading this
or just sitting there watching the hours die
in a polite fashion

alive if for no reason at all
then to rise and hope do it all over again.
                                                                                    12.01.10


around this time of year (what remains)

around this time of year
the joy of the season sets in for some
the melancholy for others
you, you just wish that night
could’ve been dramatically different
the five bullets out of that fat fuck’s gun
missing their mark
the aorta in tact
lennon whisked away unharmed
as the police wrestled that
demented freak to the ground
kicking away the piece
and the salinger
until they hit the sewers
and gurgled into the hudson
so then there’d be no candle vigils
no sing-a-longs to fill the void
no mosaics in verdant rounds
no thirty years of this
just more music and madness and art
and for a world still trying to get
the message right
who would think something as simple
as peace and love
would be so hard to come by?
because what we have instead of him
is humanity like a shell
hope and change as greasy as snake oil
and wars raging on
droughts and floods as common
as dime store combs
millionaires dancing the tax break jig
as people starve
cholera in haiti
and general bullshit seeping out
of everywhere else

but what remains
is the spark
a chance
the chance that by dumb luck
we’ll one day get it right

and let no death
no matter how great or small
ever be dealt in vain again.


                                                12.08.10


the day after john lennon died

the day after
john lennon died
thirty years after
john lennon died
we are walking briskly
down 75th street
the wind off the estuary
smacking us in the face
one ear bud in your ear
one ear bud in mine
a little drunk
a little happy
singing instant karma
in the glow of christmas lights
hung outside the warm
homes of neighbors
we don’t want to know
we are children gone
just a little bit gray
free from the bar
free from religion
free from america
free to sing in the quiet street
as loud as we never are
and as i turn to take in
that large tree
the one dressed in purple
and red lights
the one that illuminates
the whole block
i think nothing is wrong
goddamn
if only for a moment
nothing is wrong in this world.

                                    12.10.10

john lennon pub

the john lennon pub
is around the corner
from the john lennon wall in prague
it’s full of tourists and ex-pats
who’ve just got done flashing peace signs
for their cameras
i like john lennon
so therefore i like the john lennon pub
even though they’ve mostly played
ringo songs so far
i’ve even found my nook
which is important to me in a bar
somewhere semi-private where the wife and i
can sit over three or four beers
with lennon and beatles photos surrounding us
and talk about how pretty prague is
i don’t really mind the americans sitting in the pub
the ones talking about
what geniuses beyoncé and kanye are
as beatles’ songs play
the three girls who keep trying to explain
to the czech bartender what hard cider is
because they don’t have to differentiate between the two here
or how when happy x-mas (war is over) comes on
they all have to sing it
and talk about how much they love christmas
how they wish they were in prague at christmastime
i think maybe it would
be nice to have a john lennon pub in america
a break from the sports bars and dives
we don’t do that kind of stuff for artists
in the good old u.s. of a
set up graffiti walls or pubs to remember them by
we keep fbi files on them
or they live in obscurity
as lesser talents get called geniuses
we ban their songs on the radio in times of war
and if they still get too loud
rock the boat too much
we send out one of our lunatics
in the guise of a hardcore fan
to pose for a picture with them
only hours before putting four bullets
right in their back.                                                         05.13.15


OKAY....here's a new one:

average standard garden variety
christmas poem  that came too soon

bukowski  always wondered
where the christmas music was in july
when people were hot and suffering
where was that joy?
in here they have the music going
almost three weeks before the holiday
i’m tired of it already
all i want for christmas
is to shoot mariah carey to the moon
step on michael buble’s windpipe
be glad that sinatra isn’t around to sing this tripe
every time i turn it down they turn it back up
like the same game we play here
with the heater on a fifty-five degree december day
i wonder about the people
who like christmas music this much
what black hole do they have in the pit of their stomach
that this horrible shit fills?
i can’t think about christmas music with war going on
i can’t think about christmas music with terrorism
how can you shop for anyone
when it’s sixty degrees outside and the stores are like an oven?
i can’t walk around with
simply having a wonderful christmastime
stuck in my head and still call myself a man
i want us all to safely slide into january
i’d like to take this radio and throw it out the window
but i really need this job
and the people they are moving and shaking in their seats
they really need this christmas music
the karen carpenters and whitney houstons warbling
seven swans a swimming in a sea of avarice and commerce
i need john lennon to come on
and set them all straight
john lennon who’s been gone for thirty-five years
would he even understand this senseless world
where people get murdered by the dozens
and those of us lucky to be alive
mouth rudolph the red-nosed reindeer in our sets
hoping the guy sitting next to them
isn’t the one who’s finally going to go mad
and blow up the bloody block in bright reds and greens.                                                                                                                                                                                    




Monday, December 7, 2015

poem of the day 12.07.15

dancers

three times a week
they are dancing
in the handball cage at rappaport park
this lovely asian couple
with smiles on their faces
swing dancing
ballroom dancing
they are shimming in ways
that i’m not accustomed too
they are not thinking about war in those moments
like i often am
about how quickly we’ve gone off the rails
the fear on tv disguised as tough talk
no, he is spinning her
dipping her, twirling her, lifting her toward the sun
and just holding her in the sky
for a few lingering seconds
smiling up as she smiles down
there is no murder or terrorism in the faces of the dancers
no fear or deceit or subjugation
just fluid motion
this couple, they are an oasis to my morning
the bright spot when i’m rushing toward work 
with all of the others who are tired and stressed
paranoid of the subway and wide open spaces
i see them and i think
i’m no warrior
but maybe i’d fight something to save this
for every last one us here
i’m no dancing man
but maybe i could learn
get in that handball cage with the two of them
learn the two step
or the tango
let the gray morning ride its way
toward the afternoon
forget about this world wide suicide
find the peace inside of me that’s been missing
for far too goddamned long
as we hunker down with beautiful intent
to do the hand jive
or the twist.


                                                            

Friday, December 4, 2015

poem of the day 12.04.15

an education

they say love wins
in the end
but it could just be hatred
turned cold
there’s a lot to be said
for anger and apathy melding into something
seemingly benevolent
and his anonymous comment
say the only muslims he knows
are the ones killing people on tv
i guess my opinion
is skewed here in brooklyn
passing signs in arabic in chinese in russian
in english and spanish
most often on the same building
i think this is what america is about
my anonymous comment
tells him to shut up and get educated
although i could tell him
about the arabic kids on the street here
on skateboards
on cell phones
playing video games and defying their parents
just like every other kid in america
do my part to bridge
this chasm of hate and misunderstanding
but who wants to hear that in the heat of the moment?
no one wants to hear how much we’re the same
when there’s so much to gain
in losing it all
another anonymous person writes
love wins
which is what got me
to this point in the first place
i wish that i could be that kind of optimistic
to walk around in the rosy world
just waiting for everyone else to blossom
that kind of bliss
must feel nice
but in the end i write to her
because i think it’s a her
and tell her
that she needs to get educated too.

                                                                       

Thursday, December 3, 2015

poem of the day 12.03.15



iceland

iceland  has a near perfect literacy rate
i’m willing to bet the murder rate
is pretty low there as well
i’d like to visit iceland one day
go to reykjavik and eat some hangikjot
visit bobby fischer’s grave
take a car trip to places
where you can see every color reflected in the ice
in america more people got shot today
fourteen are already dead
some say we haven’t gone a week here
without a mass shooting
some others say it hasn’t been a day
that doesn’t even count the cop killings
and domestic assaults
one wonders what the president will say
one wonders what’s left but for him to say nothing
go home
hug his wife
hug his kids
lock the white house doors
and wait for his term to end
but even that won’t get him away from the madness
i wonder if iceland has any mass shootings in their history
or does a near perfect literacy rate
deter one from opening fire
i think i’d like to move to iceland sight unseen
or maybe retire there one day
leave the bloodshed and murder of america behind
but i don’t know
if i’ll ever get there
we’ve had more mass shootings than days here this year
380 people have already died
chances are good
that before i get to iceland
i’ll probably get gunned down by some patriot
or madman
like i’m nothing but a lame horse
roasting in the hot nevada sun.