poem of the day 03.31.15

peppers

alvin liked to eat peppers whole

he sat at lunch with a pepper

palmed in his hand like he was nolan ryan

then he went to town

this seemed to bother everyone else

why is alvin eating his peppers that way?

they all asked each other

people in that place had a real problem

worrying about their own backyards

their peppers were cut in thin strips in dull salads

or sautéed on sandwiches that stunk up the staff room

they ate piles of chinese food

with fried peppers that looked like colorful slugs

they didn’t like that alvin sat there

on his only free hour of the day

and ate his pepper like he was eating an apple

people there had a real problem with freedom

or thinking outside the box

alvin spent a lot of time in the bathroom

this really got everyone’s goat as well

they’d sit in the staff room

eating their malodorous and greasy lunches

while alvin did his business in the crapper

they wondered why he was in there for so long

it’s those goddamned peppers, they’d say

when they ran out of all other reasons

peppers make you go

everyone knows that

that’s why i do my business

at home, they said

i never go at work

which explained the sea of constipated faces

throughout the day

usually one of them would get up

and pound on the bathroom door

people are waiting out here, they’d say to laughter

although when alvin came out of the shitter

none of them ever went inside

unless it was to check on what he did in there

sometimes they’d spray lysol for no reason

alvin has been gone from that place

for four years now

but i’m still there

whenever anyone has peppers in their lunch

they look around the room and say, hey, remember alvin?

remember how he used to sit there

and eat his peppers whole?

then they laugh

someone usually mentions how

he was always in the bathroom too

eventually the laughter dies down

people go back to their lunches

and playing games on their cell phones

with nary a hint of lysol in the air

or sometimes the hour passes

with no noted conversation at all.

                                                

poem of the day 03.30.15

the world on a string

i stare into the vodka

i stare into the void

wait in soup kitchen lines

for shits and giggles and student loans

i think of half a new york city block

taken out just like that

the barricades and the people taking pictures

above the subway rats and future sinkholes

i huff gas leaks and moonwalk on collapsed bridges

i sing a song of water contamination

dance like gene kelly in a downpour

stomp like alex the droog when a water main breaks

daydream commuter trains on rusted railroad tracks

skidding into forests or main streets

i do the evolution on the hottest spring day

in packed classrooms studying for the test

i shiver in march and deny the climate

three times before the rooster crows

hopscotch potholes and cracked concrete

pole-vault highway congestion

bawl and shout the mass transit blues

i spit runny dam water and coo to newborns

if it keeps on rainin’, the levee gonna break

i watch the buildings crumble

and the planes collide

release asbestos into the air

like beautiful white doves

i’ve got the world on a string, my friend

sitting here dining on coca-cola and oreos

in the shade of another nuclear winter

tweeting my thoughts on

my favorite super-hero films

poke my blind eye with a selfie stick

as the pundits pundit the plutocrats and oligarchs

on the  news cycle 24/7

and the soldiers do a goodwill tour after tour

like a never-ending oldies act

while the civil wars rage

                                                

poem of the day 03.27.15

poem to my sixteen year old cat

i watch you prance around the apartment

and it’s such sadness

the way you trace the same pattern

behind chairs and stacks of junk left on the floor

to climb on the couch with a thump on the coffee table

to try and lay on me always, no matter the weather

the way your pupils are dilated

blind for almost three years now

with a bum thyroid that makes you nuts

the last two teeth rotting in your mouth

i try to remember the good times

the two decades, seven apartments and three cities

but it’s hard with you meowing in my ear at all hours

warbling in the hallway at five in the morning

while i’m trying to get the poems down

were there really any good times?

we seem more like beings stuck together

than anything that once spoke of love and affection

some nights i try and get you to fall asleep

cooing in the bedroom like you’re a baby

so that i can go and enjoy a book, some drinks

maybe even a movie with the wife

but you always end up back in our space

with the pacing and the meowing and vying for couch room

i look around at what you’ve destroyed

chairs, couches, lampshades and blankets

whole sunday afternoons held captive to your madness

i watch your cat hair roll like tumbleweeds

only an hour after we’ve cleaned

cursing the day we brought you home while cutting your nails

forever cleaning your vomit

or pulling out another lump of shit

that got stuck in your ass

you’ve taught me that while life is short

things can live an awful long time

relationships can fester and wilt but remain

and every day when i come home

i open and front door and hope to find you dead

the two of us finally achieving a workable peace

maybe one day it’ll happen

when is it safe to say goodbye?

but for now i’m putting the keys down

and taking off my coat

while you walk in circles and howl to the gods

the food with your meds in it, uneaten again

there’s a pile of your shit in the hallway

but the new age vet thinks

you could go another six years easy

if only we’d come up there

with five hundred dollars

and get those two rotten teeth pulled

ASAP.

                                   

poem of the day 03.26.15

campo

campo was the funny guy

at the wine store

he had a ceaseless energy

and a legion of sycophants

who followed him around and hung on his every word

i disliked him from the onset

i was thirty-two and the rest of them

were barely pushing twenty in the warehouse

which made me a road sign warning to them

a decade full of dead ends they’d be fools to repeat

campo gave everyone nicknames

c-train, hoss, j-dog and futureman

for some reason he chose johnson for me

it stuck

the bosses and even the bartender

across the street called me that

it amazed me what i’d answer to

for a paycheck and a three-dollar buyback

on the third round

but then again i always hated the sound of my own name

campo had an ease with the customers that i did not

he could sell and sell

while i just hung around dusting bottles

and listening to the 1950s music the store pumped in

i got a reputation for being surly and aloof

although i just didn’t know how to relate to a lot of the kids

on weekends we had hot looking wine pourers

come in from the distributers

to pour samples for the customers

campo spent his whole work day at the tasting center

flirting with girls and getting drunk

the assistant manager had me in his office weekly

for a conversation about my attitude

he thought campo was the greatest

be more like campo, he told me

campo makes the world his own playground

but when i went to spend my day

flirting with the wine pouring girls

the assistant manager tossed my ass in the warehouse

for drinking on the job

he made me count broken vodka bottles

on evenings campo and the assistant boss

would stand in front of a large tv

they’d watch hockey and tell tall tales about the wine pourers

campo would do play-by-play

and shout outrageous platitudes at the screen

he talked about how many of the pourers he nailed

while i ran around cleaning wine spills and hauling boxes

scratching the collection of pink write-up slips in my back pocket

when i quit the wine store

campo was the only guy i saw on my way out

he was just an hour into another nine-hour shift

in his own personal minimum-wage playground

we shook hands

and he called me johnson one last time

then i sat in my car alone

drinking the rest of a warm beer

from the morning drive to work

watching as campo played the clown for all of his boys

while they collected shopping carts and laughed

thinking some guys had it good

and some guys just didn’t get it at all.                                       

poem of the day 03.25.15

tonight’s the night

dead tired and starving

i pick neil young songs

over reading poems on the train home tonight

think of complex math problems

that i don’t want to solve

graphs and synthetic division

that my part-timer showed me

math never validated anything for me

except how stupid i am when it comes to figuring anything out

the man across from me

he must be three hundred pounds

he’s dressed in royal blue from head to toe

he has his hood up and i can hear his music over mine

he’s eating an italian hero

pulling the meat and lettuce from the bread

with his hands and shoveling it all into his mouth

there are a ring of onions around his sneakers

and the train car smells of them

his royal blue sweatpants are streaked with grease

when he’s done he shoves the bread back into a plastic bag

then tosses it on the floor along with his can of sierra mist

burps aloud

before closing his eyes and scratching his balls

i watch him

i think he’s like math to me

another problem that can’t be solved

watch his garbage roll around

i think tonight’s the night

where any grand illusions of mine

could simply end.

poem of the day 03.24.15

i’ll miss the liquor store man

soon to be displaced

for six months or longer

while they repair my office building

i think change is inevitable

i think i don’t like change

it is akin to a certain kind of death

all the new relationships and the scenery

they’re no good for the soul

there is an ease in being stuck

with the same people for eight hours a day

it is a simple, honest hatred

like an old marriage where it’s okay to fart in the bed

like what i have with the liquor store man

high on his perch with his pop music on the radio

the way he never says hello or goodbye

how he casts his judgement down upon me

as i haul another jug of vodka or magnum bottle of wine

into his sphere of influence

there’s a beautiful vulgarity to the way he grabs

the money from my hand and slaps down the change

turns away in disgust as i walk out of the store

i don’t know if i’ll find that anywhere else

i think i’ll miss the liquor store man the most

during this exile

his dead stare and the twinkle

of marquee neon in his eyes

as the sun sets over the elevated d line

and i head home from here

to do the damage once again.

                                                           

poem of the day 03.23.15

sexual harassment

trina used to blow all of the janitors

it was well known amongst them

that if you were hard-up

five minutes in a basement men’s room stall with trina

could cure all of your ills

she wasn’t anything to look at

most people aren’t

she didn’t dress the part of the organizational tramp

but trina was willing in a way that others weren’t

she and i used to smoke together

on a big orange bench when we didn’t feel like working

trina talked about her douche bag husband and their bills

as we sucked away breaks sharing my camel lights

from time to time

trina would tell me….you know…if you need a little

i was a clerk

and i think trina thought this meant moving up in the world

because i didn’t wear a uniform

even though the janitors made double what i did

from time to time i’d think about taking her up on her offer

every night i went home alone

i’d been going home alone for almost two years

i wasn’t much to look at either

i didn’t really see the harm in a little men’s room action

but then trina got weird on me

everywhere i went in the building she seemed to be

she found me on lunches and always seemed to be at that orange bench

once she attacked me on the elevator

and tried to bite my neck

when i worked nights it became a given that trina would call

she told me once how good she’d suck my cock

she said if i didn’t believe her, go and ask one of the janitors

i didn’t know what to do

i went and told my boss

who laughed at me when she found out it was trina

my boss had been noted for her blow jobs back in the day

and had a notorious hateful streak for her rivals

she said, what you need to do is write everything down

every word trina says to you

so we can build a sexual harassment case, my boss said

then she laughed again and went to the orange bench

to smoke half a pack of virginia slims

well, i didn’t write down anything and i didn’t say anything else

it seemed pointless and unmanly

i just avoided the orange bench

and started smoking my cigarettes in front of the building

where the homeless guys stood in packs

and bothered the college kids for change

at times they shared my camel lights too

but it got back to trina anyway that i’d squealed

when we passed each other we kept our heads down

except one time she was on her way

to the men’s room with a janitor

when she saw me she whispered something in his ear

and they both laughed

then they dipped into the men’s room like a couple of spies

and i went out to the orange bench

for my first smoke of the afternoon

knowing that i had

at least five minutes of peace.

                                                           

poem of the day 03.20.15

five for five

i feel like

i’m in a harvey pekar comic

standing in this grocery line

listening to the two women in front of me

arguing the price of soda with the cashier

it says five for five, they keep shouting

one of them is shaking the grocery flyer

soon the manager comes over

and three other cashiers who could be ringing people out

he’s trying to sooth the situation

but he’s just pissing the women off

i picked this line because it was the shortest

i should’ve known

there’s no such thing as a free lunch in this town

and no one ever gets behind old ladies

hot on the heels of sunday mass and jonesing for a sugar fix

at least it’s not election day

everyone else in this joint

looks wiser than me in the moment

people with their ice cream and cold cuts

who will pay and be out and free

while i’m stuck behind these old bats

as they continue to plead their case

five for five, they keep on

there aren’t even any hot cashiers

too look at to pass the time

so i look at the things in my basket

fruit, vegetables, club soda for vodka

meats, cheese, toilet paper and cat food

everything is an essential part of my human wheel

i can’t even toss the basket and leave

i just stand there watching my minutes tick

high noon on sunday

with a six-day work week staring down the barrel of a gun

as the women and the manager and even more cashiers

are leaning over the grocery flyer

like they’re examining battle plans

in this dirty little war we wage

and call it a life.

                                                

poem of the day 03.19.15

the poetry rejection

in 1999 i was

three years out of college

working in a library basement

checking-in magazines and newspapers for a living

delivering mail and stocking book donations

making fifteen grand a year

which mostly went to rent, bills,

gas money and smokes

she had written three books of poetry in twenty years

but was well-known around the city

for being one of the hard-working literary big shots

she’d been my teacher in college

had given me c.k. williams and a b minus

for missing too many of her classes

in one small stretch

i’d read two of her books on a plane

from florida back to pittsburgh

then proceeded to forget them both

but i was hardly getting by

living bad paycheck to bad paycheck

growing green on peanut butter sandwiches

and hardly writing a word of my own

i thought the only way

i’d ever make it was to go back to grad school

and get an MFA degree

hide in some college until i died

i needed a recommendation

so i thought about the poet and her books

the c.k. williams and the b minus

i started leaving messages for her

but she never got back to me

when i finally got her

she said, well, you know

in that soothing poet voice she’d used in class

usually i do recommendations

but i’ve just been so busy with my own poetry lately

the new book, readings

that i simply don’t have the time to write a letter for you

she laughed her flighty poet laugh

said, you know, this is the first time

i’ve ever said no to anyone

then she said, good luck with the poetry, and hung up on me

as i sat there

surrounded by a pile of mail

that needed to be sorted

a dull ache in my belly

half a pack of cigarettes left until payday

and another peanut butter sandwich waiting

with my name written all over it

for her next book to come out

eleven years later.

                                                           

poem of the day 03.18.15

tammy

oh tammy

with your tall tales

of twelve cocks over

french fries and beer

at the squirrel cage

who could forget

the leopard print thongs

that you showed us

under the streetlights on forbes avenue

tammy

mixing beer and happy pills

was that a smart choice, doll?

taking hits on my joint too

making hints and hard-selling innuendo

tammy

drunken lipstick smeared tammy

climbing in my lap to bite my neck

with your new boyfriend outside

it was a forgone conclusion

that someone was getting laid that night

still it wasn’t going to be me and you

tammy

no matter how nice those nibbles felt

your tongue on my chin

i was licking my wounds

nursing the blonde hangover

who’d been jerking me around all summer

tammy

you and i were never meant to be

although at times

i’m curious what  you thought about

a couple of hours later

taking his virginity

outside of that mcdonald’s

on mcknight road

was it him

tammy

me

tammy

or one of the illustrious dozen

that you hungered down on

when the nights

got too hard

to catch your falling star.                                              

poem of the day 03.17.15

ireland forever

come to think of it

i’ve never been in a bar on st. patrick’s day

i’ve never shouted, what’s the craic?

to some pasty eejit mainlining jameson

and pouring green beer down his throat

i’ve been in plenty of bars

the day after st. patrick’s day

have sat there drinking beer with the regulars

eating left over corned beef and cabbage

getting it all over themselves and the floor

i’ve been in forgotten bars in may

that were too lazy to take down

the shamrocks and leprechaun decorations

but i’ve never been in a bar on st. patrick’s day

have never watched the parade

with the other drunks

have never hung my head

to danny boy by the chieftains

put on the pogues, van morrison or u2

sang songs while pumping a guinness

and watching the tits on a woman

in a kiss me, i’m irish t-shirt

i’ve never found my pot of gold on march 17^th

in fact, if there’s a day that i don’t go into bars

that day would be st. patrick’s day

i’ve never liked crowds

especially of the drunken, white, vomitus persuasion

i prefer bars that look dead all of the time

the ones that wouldn’t know st. patrick’s day from christmas

where the beer is green as a matter of course

and the television is always off

but i’ve never been in a bar on st. patrick’s day

oh wait, i was once

about a dozen years ago i was in this joint

in midtown manhattan, waiting for my wife

it was called the mica bar

the staff inside was wearing black

most of them looked like they struggled to take a shit

i was the only patron in the joint

and the bartender plied me with

green napkins, green coasters, green straws

she put a green hat in front of me and begged me to put it on

she said, erin go bragh, dude!

while the two of us looked at the piece

of conical plastic

when i asked her what that meant

she said she didn’t know

so i got up and left

and figured i’d try it again

come memorial day

                                   

poem of the day 03.13.15

rites of spring

i sit here

hearing birds chirping

the rustle of trees

feel the soft air

coming from the ocean

bath in warm light

still see the sun at seven o’clock p.m.

like a fat ball of gas in the sky

reflecting off of windows

and the remnants of dirty snow

chase the tussle of winter

as it loosens its grip

think about rome

and young women in short skirts

hear the people outside

talk the dumb talk  that keeps them alive

as i drink boatloads of vodka

to the sound of every fucking dog

barking its return

leaving their mounds

of incredible shit

outside

my living room

window.

                                   

poem of the day 03.12.15

two oranges

we are no hungrier

than any other two people on this train

although i think about peeling the two oranges

one in my bag one in my wife’s

feeding on them like everyone else seems to do

when in transit in this city

some mornings these trains look like full catered breakfasts

when not disguised as a hair and make-up salon

we were just at the oncologist’s office

my wife checked out good

like she has for the past six months

but all of that worry while we were there

it felt like hunger

going over cancer again and again leaves a hollow ache

it’s strange being the two youngest people

in the doctor’s office

strange and it can bring you down if you let it

my wife and i lose the fine art of conversation

when we’re in that office

and only regain it after when we’re back on the street

the doctor has a ton of picasso prints on his walls

the cubist stuff that i really don’t like

if we were looking at them in a museum

i’d tell my wife that i’m not a fan of cubism

and then we’d move on to something else like degas

this has nothing to do with being hungry

or the two oranges in our bags

but my wife and i still aren’t really talking on the train

so i pass the time focusing on picasso

and how hungry i am

there is only one other person on the train

an old woman eating a bag of peanuts

she’d just finished a bag of barbecue chips

and a bag of pretzels beforehand

she’s not helping things along

a few stops before we’re supposed to get off

i see my wife turn to the woman

i lean in, catch the woman say

i said, do you have anything to eat?

my wife looks at me, shows me her salad

says, i have enough money in my wallet for something else

i look at the bandage on her hand

where they drew blood like they draw blood every month

i take the orange out of my bag

give it to my wife to give to the woman

my wife takes her orange out too

although i don’t want her to because of blood sugar levels

although we’re probably way past that worry

the woman takes both oranges

and only says, both? after they are in her bag

yes, my wife says, both

god bless you, the woman says

as we’re getting off the train

i wish that i could say it felt like a benediction

but we’ve both got eight hours of work to get through

and by four in the afternoon

someone is going to be emailing someone else

about being hungry and depressed

wishing they had a big juicy orange to eat.                   

AND....because it would've been Kerouac's 93rd birthday today

 at jack’s grave

i always feel

like i just missed you

if we go to one of the houses

that you lived in

the apartment where you wrote

on the road

if we find one of your old

frisco or new york city haunts

i like to think

that we’ve just missed you

that you were just at the bar

in a red flannel

with a notebook on the table

shouting, red faced

talking brilliant gabby-gook

pushing your black hair back

on that french-canadian head of yours

piercing the room with your sad eyes

or maybe you’re taking a piss

and i think that i’ll just sit here

and wait eternal

restful and content

like walking down your shrouded streets

on october nights

daydreaming the soul of the nation

jack, i know i’m being a child when i do this

i’m being hopeful in my own way

but it’s been forty-one years

and the heavens haven’t spit you

back to us yet

i’m laying down next to your grave

in hot lowell, massachusetts

my brother watching the blue sky

my wife and sister-in-law

snapping pictures of me

coming here has taken me too long

it’s taken me thousands of miles

to find myself and this piece of home

i am helping ally run paper and pencils

over your name to preserve it

but i don’t know where i’m going

to hang it in my room

we are fixing the debris around your grave

adjusting a small maroon buddha

putting the cigarettes and joints

back into perfect rows

leaving tickets to paris subways

and poems given to us by friends

we no longer have

at the base of the faded granite

you honored life

and i finally have to accept that you are gone

i am thinking of roads and rivers

of mighty veins stretching down the back of america

spools of highway and interstate

of apple pie in diners that no longer exist

like lowell isn’t really a mill town anymore, jack

like america isn’t what you painted her to be

i’m at the end of the illusion

but it’s all right

you and i

we’ve always been good at pulling the wool

over our eyes

seeing what we want to see

it helps paint the picture

it always helped us to vomit out the words

those precious words, jack

our gospel

those heavenly, pooh-bear, holy words

are what it always came down to

despite the reality

what it still comes down to

those rocket words that you could never hold

in for too long

the ones i’m suddenly finding hard to spill out

on this hot, brooklyn morning in late june

forever your disciple

mosquito bites from a new hampshire carnival

sprouting up all over my body

another morning in america aching over the ocean

like a poem

like a novel whose first words hit your tongue

then unravel on into the infinite

                                                06.28.10

                         

poem of the day 03.11.15

band-aid wrappers

mornings of death

caked toothpaste and cat litter back rubs

toilet rings that elucidate decades of deep thought

bath tub stains of misery

with empty shampoo bottles loitering

a thousand soy sauce packages

and rotten tomatoes

antarctic freezers

full of vodka kamikaze ice cubes

broken blinds to keep the world out

a man could do much much worse, i know

dust ball racetracks

yellow paper hoarding and snot rag piñatas

memories nailed to the wall like crucifixes

and calendars marking off the days

the traces of last month’s meals

make splattered pollock’s on the kitchen floor

coffee grind fortunes

tea bag mountains and beer can havens

cracked floors, drawers that have given up

mounds of clothing strewn from porno daydreams

mingling with loose change and chapstick

an everest of poems unsent and unwanted

broken screens

and cracked window panes

bookshelves of failed genius

thin walls full of fetid breath

and other dull lives

static radio and cigarette smoke

wine bottle chimes

telephone horrors and internet virus ghosts

nights alive like suicide

with bloody feet splintered from decaying wood

and nothing left in the medicine cabinets

but empty boxes

and band-aid wrappers

stuck to the floor.

                                                           

poem of the day 03.10.15

romeo

romeo comes in

with his girlfriend who is seventeen

but looks twenty-five

they kiss discretely behind bookshelves

sometimes they go into the bathroom together

when they think no one is looking

at the tables, she always has him show her his muscles

the girlfriend takes pictures

as romeo sits there with his arms flexed

she snaps away like it’s a photo shoot

when she’s done the girlfriend

kisses the altar that is romeo’s biceps

then she puts her finger to her lips

warm and wet to press into his dimple

before she plays with his long, slick hair

it’s only a matter of time before

they take off behind the stacks again

or rendezvous in the public restroom

romeo likes to look around like he’s got it made

he has a gaggle of sycophants

that he only speaks spanish to

when his seventeen year old girlfriend

walks away with her twenty-five year old body

to get some water or a book

romeo says something and all of his boys howl

they slap five like a pack of lily white boys at a football game

to everyone it looks like romeo has got it made

he’s probably getting more ass than half of brooklyn

or so it would seem

because just yesterday the girlfriend came in

with a different guy

this one was short and stocky

with neck tattoos and a little punk goatee

he didn’t pose for muscles shots

he just put his tongue down girlfriend’s throat

and fondled her ass while she checked out exercise books

he still had his hands on her cheeks when they left

ten minutes after, romeo waltzed in

like he owned the place

he sat in his usual throne and waited on his lady

after forty minutes he got the hint

and our romeo left with his head down

those muscled arms flat and at his sides

to wander alone in the late winter sun

like any other young tragedy in the making.

                                               

poem of the day 03.09.15

young women at the symphony

tchaikovsky is no match

for the lure of cell phone light

status updates and the ubiquitous selfie

he doesn’t hold a candle

to the gleaming shining presence of the now

it comes with the territory of being dead

not even two visits from the usher

is enough to stop you

from chattering in between each movement of the fourth

coming on the heels

of destroying one by gabriel faure

yes, sweet young ladies,

all of the looks over the shoulders are for you

it doesn’t matter if most of the audience

looks just like the walking dead

a sea of pasty, white haired corpses

maybe it shouldn’t matter anyway

everything is silly if you think about it

tchaikovsky was a head case

and  in no time the world will be yours

to forget all about him if you like

so when the music ends

no needs to get up to applaud

just whip out the phones

young heirs to this crooked and wasted empire

snap, snap snap away

until your lion heart’s content

                                   

poem of the day 03.06.15

hand soap

masturbation

was always ruined

by the smell of hand soap

dial hand soap to be exact

i’d get finished and it would be great

the breasts on the female news anchor

the nude scene i had frozen on a vhs

featuring some actress astride her male co-star

sitcom mothers and madonna

mtv v-jays with their leather minis

the cuban-american one

and the black one who spoke in a british accent

the women in short skirts

from another make-up infomercial

living breathing fantasies

that i manipulated into writhing flesh in my head

doing ungodly things to such a young boy

at least until i exploded

for some reason i always did it in the underwear

this was a result from doing it the first time

rubbing one out to my old man’s playboys

after my parents had left for work

ejaculating into my underwear

and then thinking

holy shit!

i didn’t think to take it out

and just shoot it into a napkin or tissue

there was no one to ask about how to do it right

not my old man or the other boys in school

who were talking about jacking off all of the time

how to even broach the subject?

i thought this was how it was done

just sit there rubbing until you came

i can’t begin to account

for all of the chaff marks on my prick from the friction

but after the joy was over

it was always the hand soap

the dial hand soap in a clear plastic tube in the bathroom

a golden tan goop just waiting for me to come in

with those soiled underwear in my hand

to run warm water and pour it all over the mess that i’d made

the smell of that hand soap

the clean stench of my indiscretion 

my bare ass on a summer afternoon

wringing out the underwear

and then throwing it under my bed until laundry day

where it became a crusty mess

a sign of my budding manhood

but more than that one more embarrassment

in a continued, bungling youth

that seemed so never-ending.

                                                            

poem of the day 03.05.15

little by little

the faces on the train tonight

look cold, damaged and dead

in this city we are killing ourselves

little by little every day

this afternoon a twelve-year-old asked me

what i’d like to do for a living

if i didn’t have my current job

in that way twelve-year-olds have

of asking the right kind of dumb questions

i told her that i would’ve made a good

unemployed son of a wealthy family

she laughed, told me to be serious

asked me why i took this job in the first place

i thought about the years working

in warehouses, retail and white collar offices with no windows

the clerk jobs that allowed me to live part-time

i told her that this was an easier death

that now i was only killing myself little by little

instead of in big chunks

the twelve-year old laughed at me, snapped her gum

and started playing with the pens on my desk

like the little flirt she’s becoming

she winked at me and said, i think i understand

but sitting here tonight

on another train ride full of the dead

that smells like the world’s bathroom

going home only to gear up for another tomorrow

little by little i begin to think

that she just didn’t get me at all.

                                                           

poem of the day 03.04.15

password

she came in

blowing stacks of paper

to the ground

she marched over to me

with her magic phone

pointed it like a gun

and said, i need to print this

whatever it was

when i told her that i couldn’t

print from a phone

she rolled her eyes

looked at me like

i said the world was flat

said, give me a computer then

but she couldn’t remember

the password to her email

the phone remembers it for me, she said

she showed me the phone again

as if i’d somehow forgotten its chrome

i said, well, that’s the trick with those things

she said, you know how these phones are

actually i don’t, i said

smug, like i was the only guy

left on the planet who could

recite his telephone number by heart

then i watched her sit there

phone in her hand, computer at the ready

the whole technological spectrum

rendered useless

as she pushed buttons and sighed

eventually she said, well, what do i do now?

remember things, i said

like passwords

she got up from her seat

made to leave

carrying that phone like a limp appendage

gave me the finger at the door

as i got up to go

and put those stacks of paper

that she’d knocked over

back into a neat pile.

poem of the day 03.03.15

written on paper

i assure you this poem was

written on paper

but how can you be so sure?

most likely we don’t know each other

or if we do you know

i’m not the most reliable thing out there

you’re probably reading this poem

on a computer

or at the very least on a phone

but i guarantee you it was

written on paper

at best i made a few changes

when i was typing it into the machine

the line: but how can you be so sure?

was originally just: how can you be so sure?

i added the fourth, fifth and sixth lines just now

and the line breaks i did the next day

but for the most part this poem was

written on paper

i can even describe the notebook i used

it was a tan boardroom series

seven inches by five inches

stamped american made

for all of you patriots out there

i have poem notes and movie times

and even a new york city address for dvorak

written on the cover

there’s a smudge on the second line of the poem

the one that conveniently reads

written on paper

it was made by a thick 1.0 pilot g-2 pen that i’m using

and helped along by the shitty driving

of the B4 bus driver

i don’t write so many poems on paper anymore

almost all of them used to start out that way

these days i read on the way home

listen to neil young

or just zone out and take stock of my life

i’m less the go-getter than i used to be

i think that comes with age

but i’m feeling lonesome this evening

lonesome for something tangible

it might be the american made stamped in me

that’s making me feel this way

but i wanted something solid tonight

something concrete and real

like these words

written on paper

that only took up two pages and half

on this notebook

whose metal spirals are starting to give

from age and a lack of use.

                                                           

poem of the day 03.02.15

musicians

manhattan is full of musicians

hocking their cds

they hang around the tourist areas mostly

hitting up the stiffs from out of town

the musicians shove their cds

into people’s hands before they realize it

then they’re asking for twenty bucks for their art

you see it all of the time

some poor sap in times square

with his red sox hat, his camera and backpack

a silver disc held limply in his hand

surrounded by five or six of them

each holding their own stack of cds

the cops don’t do anything about this

not when there are terrorists in brooklyn

and jaywalkers in the bronx

so the musicians are free to solicit

whatever money they can get

using an old school kind of persuasion

some of them will follow you for blocks

telling you how much you’ll love their music

they’ll say you look like a rap fan or a rock fan

i’ve been called bon jovi, aerosmith, and john lennon

as a form of flattery

the musicians say, hey, rod stewart,

you look like you dig music, man

then they’re practically throwing cds at you

if you don’t say anything to them

the conversation turns belligerent

you’re no longer rod stewart but some fag peckerwood

who thinks you’re better than they are

by keeping your hands in your pocket

staying silent and going about your business

you think if those guys were really good musicians

they wouldn’t have to be selling their stuff on the street

but, of course, just turning on the radio proves you wrong

instead you wonder

if there’s actually anything on those cds

whatever passes for music these days

then you turn the bend

and there’s two or three more of them coming at you

shouting, yo, jim morrison, jim morrison

you a rap fan or what?

then you don’t really fucking care at all.