poem of the day 05.29.15

say thanks

almost as

beautiful

as velazquez

rokeby venus

the two girls walk

down seventy-fifth

smiling in belly baring shirts

drinking their

monsanto-laced starbucks

long legs already tanned

in the late spring

they are a simple pleasure

in an otherwise

sweaty and work-filled day

when they suddenly stop

look left and curl into themselves

their smiles gone for good

they pass me with their heads down

and when i get

to where they were standing

i see them

two young men

all hats backwards and sunglasses

t-shirts with stupid sayings in neon

their hands still on their crotches

making like they want to hump a fence

a bottle of jack and a cooler of beer on the porch

like a portents of doom

screaming down the street

at the girls

the least you could do, bitch

is say

thanks.

                                    

poem of the day 05.28.15

chinese tourists at the berlin wall

they’re teenagers maybe

close to teenagers

the boys look like girls look like boys

but there isn’t an adult in sight

at bernauerstrasse they’ve kept a large piece

of the berlin wall standing

there’s a museum that informs you

about the dead zone and the patrol guards

there’s a memorial to the ones who died

trying to get across to the west

but the chinese tourists don’t care

they’re doing cartwheels on land

where blood had been shed and neighborhoods ripped apart

doing jumping jacks and taking selfies

flashing the peace sign

i don’t know if this is incorrect behavior or not

what passes for immodesty in the year 2015?

is it even right to single them out as chinese?

at the world trade center memorial in new york city

you can buy hats and t-shirts with 9/11 on them

you could almost buy a cheese plate of the united states

with three holes cut out where the planes hit

but someone got wise

you can still buy coffee mugs

and keychains though

i’m sure american kids take selfies there by the dozen

inside the berlin wall memorial store

they have bookmarks of the wall

you can draw your own graffiti on them

tag that gray concrete like a regular banksy

maybe the teenagers will buy them

because every time one of them tried to write on the real wall

they chickened out

took another photo instead

i know i’m going to buy one

because i like to bring back small things from my trips

i’m going to leave mine blank

i want my berlin wall ominous and threatening

not covered with batmans and gorbachevs

political messages or i love you notes

i want to keep the fear real

for as long as i can

soon i’m going back outside

to take a selfie of my own

maybe with a piece

of rusted barbed wire

or those chinese kids

somewhere behind me breakdancing

And....another short one:

american girls

at the east side gallery

like like you know like

sorta like oh my god you know

like seriously like yolo you know

like whatever like like you know

drink on like um yeah like you know

like like like sorta hashtag app

like like you know oh my god

like whatever

                                    

                                                            

poem of the day 05.27.15

bored digital

at

rare times

bored with myself

it used to be so easy

to find amusement

on the buses

or the trains

in lunatic wails

and gang fights

in lovers in the throes of passion

vomit

or excrement

plastered on plastic seats

trails of urine

snaking down bedbug rivers

but now

it feels like a claustrophobic

hive mind

on these things

a sea of heads down

tin soldiers unwound

from their day

playing into little machines

that have taken

all this glorious calamity

made it mute

somehow

still calling it

a future.

                                    

poem of the day 05.26.15

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.                                                         

"best of" poem of the day 05.25.15

wow...this poem is 9 years old.....it reads like it's 9 years old as well

memorial day

i told her we should

go to the park and have

a picnic.

she told me i hated picnics,

which is true.

picnics and parades

and kids and dogs

and disney and

the 4^th of july and

football sundays

and people who talk to me

in bars when all i want is

a drink.

but it was worth a shot.

the summer was coming

already the cats were laying

on the linoleum in a heat-induced

coma.

it was getting harder to fuck,

burning and sweating until

we had to pour water on each

other’s assholes just to

settle down.

in a month the apartment

would be unbearable.

we had to get out and do something

now, i thought.

maybe we could just walk up

and down elmwood avenue,

going only into the air conditioned shops

but you hate people and shopping too, she said.

which was also correct.

so we opened up a couple of bottles

of cheap wine,

then the 12 pack of yuengling,

pulled down the shades,

and didn’t answer the phone.

we watched a couple of bad movies,

and fell asleep before the sun went down.

it was a good holiday

                        05.30.06

poem of the day 05.22.15

fat german teacher

the fat german teacher

comes into the train car

shaking her seating plan at my wife and i

she doesn’t speak english

and we don’t speak german

it took us forever to get these seats

so i’m inclined to ignore the bitch

but she won’t go away

her students keep looking at us

they’re all braces and girl giggles

over traveling to prague

and whatever dumb shit german teenagers

look up on their cell phones

the fat german teacher keeps shouting

reservations! reservations!

the only english she knows

i look at my wife and say

i didn’t think there were

reservations on this train

but one of the giggling german girls

stops laughing and says,

we book the whole car

in her own broken anglican dialect

sure enough there are dozens of other

giggling german girls and boys surrounding us

the fat german teacher starts shouting

reservations! reservations! all over again

so my wife and i get up from our seats to go

but she won’t even let us out of the car

it’s reservations! reservations!

like she’s discovered a new language

pushing her seating chart into my face

ready to start world war iii

this blob of a human being

whom you don’t understand

who doesn’t understand you

who squeals like a pig when you finally push past her

your wife stepping on her pink hooves

as you hit her in the gut with your bag

in lieu of any international treaty

or public apology.

And....how about a little extra poem today.....

richard brautigan

watching the girl

at the old hamburg rathaus

eat french fries

and all i can think about is

mayonnaise.

                        

                                   

poem of the day 05.21.15

ich bin goebbels?

in 1933

the nazis burned

20,000 books here in bebelplatz

einstein and mann and marx

amongst many others

hitler’s swanky old lapdog, goebbels

gave one of his inspirational speeches beforehand

now there is a monument of shame

dedicated to the night

a borrowing library

cushioned seats that you can sit in

to soak up the little bits of german sun

you can think of history

lost and gained here in bebelplatz

how the world doesn’t need goebbels

when it has shit like ISIS and Fox News

israeli zionists

republican controlled congresses

and modern day parents

think about how the world

keeps spinning on its own rusty axis

without any sense of history

like right now

i’m thinking about all the shitty books

written by poets that are out there

the ones i’d take a match to and burn

if only people wouldn't get

the wrong idea about me.

                                   

poem of the day 05.20.15

angst und schrecken in der david quelle

these stairs are designed to murder a man

who’s had too much to drink

narrow, they wind like a medieval dungeon

to a bathroom that smells like death

upstairs where i left my wife alone

you can hear the six german men laughing

crowded around the tiny bar over their bottles of astra

and that black liquor the bartender keeps pouring out

i can still eat their cigarette smoke in the air down here

fourteen years off of those things

and i still think about cigarettes every day

think about them more than love or my own mortality

i wonder what i’m doing here clasping the sweating wall

in a german dive bar where i don’t belong

four thousand miles away from brooklyn problems

beers deep into an early hamburg afternoon

i’ve understood next to nothing that anyone has said to me today

i’ve done nothing to make myself heard

the light from the bottom of the stairs

looks like an oubliette

and i’m tired of trying to make this world my own

if i ever make it back up those steps

i think i’ll grab one of those german’s cigarettes

smoke it until i’m sweating and sick

like the first time i ever had one of those things

ask those laughing bastards

what their german word is for sadness or loss.

and......because Fleet Week is starting here in NYC:

fleet week

the three of them

were sitting at the end of the bar

in their starched white uniforms

like returning heroes

like princes of new york

christ, they all looked like sunburnt popeyes

drunk and liberated from their duty

waiting to go back aboard their ship

to shower with each other again

we were drinking nearby

drunk and liberated from our jobs

waiting to back to our apartment

to shower with each other again

when one of the little soldier boys asked me

is that you’re wife?

as the other two in their starched whites

just kept looking around

waiting for another drunk patriot to buy them

a congratulatory drink

for their volunteer service

or for someone to pat them on the back

and say, hell of a job, soldier

like conquering titans

like golden gods

only we’d been watching clowns like these

harass women all week in the city

he said to me, they must be fun

he started laughing

he put his hands toward his breasts

like he was holding two balloons

when the other two

saw what their sailor friend was doing

they tried putting his hands down

but then he fell off of his stool anyway

into a puddle of stale beer

and popcorn kernels

another brave soldier gone down

protecting my freedom.

                                                            05.23.14/05.20.15

                                                        

poem of the day 05.19.15

john wayne, my wife and me

all saddle up to a bar

blocks off the reeperbahn

the place is full of three old hamburg drunks

who stop like a record when we walk in

my wife and i order an astra

john wayne takes a coke with ice

because they don’t have any budweiser

but the bartender is too put back

by our american skin to draw them

he just stands there staring at us

looking at john wayne out of the corner of his eye

one of the drunks lets out a moan

he points at us with his shaky trigger finger

john wayne says, we didn’t come for any trouble, partner

so put the gun down

then he gets off his stool to take a piss

the bartender draws our beers

let’s my wife and i get through half of them

before he starts talking

he says, america, you shoot them up?

cowboys and indians?

i turn back looking for john wayne

because he’s always better with this stuff than i am

i try to go through everywhere incognito

but my wide gate and the jingling spurs always give me away

i weigh the odds

three old drunks

john wayne, my wife and me

the bartender says

hey, america, you make hamburgers

but i’m a hamburger you can’t eat

then he laughs and the far off drunk laughs

the one near us keeps pointing and moaning

he says, america, bah

then almost falls off of his stool

when john wayne gets back i tell him what happened

i tell him we should’ve stayed home

gone and seen the grand canyon instead

but john just takes his coke down in one pull

lights a camel and says,

courage is being scared to death

and saddling up anyway

plus i know a place by the hotel that does ribs

better than they do back in texas

my wife and i finish our astras

we thank the bartender for his hospitality

he gives us a double-barrel shotgun farewell

then shoots down a shot of jaeger

as we ride off into the sunset

a chorus of their laughter

left behind us on the trail.

                                                           

poem of the day 05.15.15

05.08.15

it’s v.e. day around europe

leaders are laying wreaths for the long dead

in russia they are still finding gas masks

and pieces of soldiers at the bottom of swamps

there are soldiers and tanks

ready to parade down red square

on a bright saturday morning

in berlin we’re more subdued

almost too quiet for a friday night

there are no packs of tourists on the ebertstrasse

heading toward the holocaust monument

or the brandenburg gate

just protesters laying crosses along the tiergarten

and a ton of police idling next to parked vans

should a riot pop off

on the corner there are russians

chanting and waving the old hammer and sickle

as berliners walk home from work

ride their bikes along the pavement

heads down and paying yearly

for what almost a century has done

i try to imagine these celebrators

getting away with this in america

huge packs of vietnamese

waving flags on fifth avenue in new york city

every april thirtieth

or maybe a wall running through manhattan

for twenty-five years

separating lovers and families

because four big, bloated nations couldn’t get along

to the victors go the spoils, i guess

unless you’ve got the bomb and rambo films

then you’re always in the right

but time has a way of forgetting

and soon these celebrations will die down

generations will die off

and all of the old blood will cease to matter

the cranes that are all over this city

will remake berlin into its own future

and somewhere else

one lonely man with an idea

will start the killing all over again.

                                                

poem of the day 05.14.15

dog mauling ii

just as sure as someone

once loved hitler

there are people out there

who love the pit bull

it’s probably not the man hitting it

with a broom handle

or the people gathered around it

smacking it with their fists

it’s most likely not the woman

screaming bloody murder

as the pit bull tosses her yorkie around

like a rag dog

or the people who have to walk by the beast

every morning for coffee

or for their jobs

it’s not the neighbors staring from their porches

who love the pit bull

or the woman’s husband

who’s running up the street

on his cell phone calling the cops

it’s not the children who are crying

watching as one animal destroys another

as their parents stand there too dumb with grief

to shield their innocent eyes

it’s not the person who will be charged

with cleaning up all of the blood

and it’s not, i, standing in my kitchen

watching my second dog mauling in ten years

who loves the precious widdle pit bull

but as sure as someone once loved

osama bin laden

someone out there

loves that dog.

                                   

poem of the day 05.13.15

upstairs downstairs

upstairs

my neighbor put on his music

the kind that reigned terror

and held an apartment building hostage

while downstairs

my fiancé unpacked the kitchen

as i tried getting our living room in order

i shouted to her

do you hear that shit?

my fiancé came into the living room

of our shit-hole railroad apartment

she cast her eyes up to the ceiling and sighed

again, i said

we’d been through it with neighbors

club girls and party girls

a bitch in pittsburgh who blasted steelers games

at top volume

when she wasn’t killing us with garth brooks

the dog who barked into our window at 3 a.m.

until i threatened to kill it and its owner

on new year’s eve

upstairs

my neighbor was pacing to his music or dancing

or whatever the fuck he was doing to create more noise

while downstairs

i grabbed a broom without a handle

and started pounding into the ceiling

the rusted metal leaving pock marks all over

and chunks of plaster on our floor

we hadn’t even been there three hours yet

day one into a one-year brooklyn lease

and things were already looking bleak

but at least the music had stopped

is it me? i said

is it just my luck, my lot in life?

my fiancé shrugged, went back to unpacking the kitchen

while upstairs

my neighbor shouted and punched walls

made idle threats into the unknown

before slamming his front door

and pounding his way toward me

all the way

downstairs                               

poem of the day 05.12.15

rather be in madrid

there are so many people in here

grabbing at their own shit to throw it

that the old cliché comes to mind

opinions are like assholes

or is that a saying?

a prophesy of humanity?

oh, but it doesn’t matter

for all of the gums flapping in here

the sucked up oxygen

the poison carbon dioxide blues

this one has her hand up

so does this one

this one speaks of something

no one was talking about in the first place

all this flesh clamoring

to get a word in edgewise

searching for significance

like anxious street whores on the gran via

cliché after cliché

making fartfaces at each other

in between sucks on the caffeine tit

sweating wild jacked-in automatons

with nowhere better on earth to be

while outside

these locked windows

the fat pigeons of the city

look like airplanes

dive bombing

into the pregnant yellow sun.

                                                          

poem of the day 05.11.15

baltimore burns

while i sit

in a hotel room in berlin

drinking vodka and wine

in my underwear

like the prince of germany

the final speck of DNA

bridging the gap

between a country

that enslaved millions

and one that just went ahead

and gassed them.