Wednesday, September 30, 2015

poem of the day 09.30.15

cleveland interlude

calvin calls talking mad
something about cleveland
and have you seen….
have you gone…
so we’re west on pa turnpike
passing all the vast pa farms
with stand-up cows grazing in bowing grasses
does standing mean rain or no?
these silly superstitions we make to explain it all
calvin smoking my cigarettes
talking about relationships
i tell him i still haven’t figured out
the end of mary he loves some laura
we hit cleveland off 77 north
really cleveland is no bigger/smaller than pittsburgh
hit e 9th street north harbor complex
lake erie stench glass pyramid rock and roll hall of fame
$13 dollars of blood and sweat money for
and have you seen…
have you gone….
did we even last an hour in there?
music doesn’t need a hall of fame need just be heard
we walk lakeside street dying of hunger
i tell myself i’ll remember cleveland
as gray city smoke stacks mills along the river
shuffling people with heads down waiting for forever buses
just another dirty city dead on sunday afternoon
rubber stamp sculpture blues outside their library
calvin stops everyone on the street
asking for open restaurants
tired clevelanders ending weekends
they don’t know what’s open they smell the pittsburgh on us
euclid street comes to us like a dream
big italian festival with $4 dollar sausages and $2 beer
cleveland girls walking around in pre-summer sex strides
filled with food with girls we walk in wonder
talking excitedly these young lives we’re living
two old friends feeling comfortable
in cleveland for no other reason but to be
calvin tells me great secrets
that i’ll never repeat here
or by christ even in heaven
if there really is a heaven

when this circus finally ends.                                         

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

poem of the day 09.29.15

calling marilyn

sitting here
listening to the
lonely scratching voice of mark eitzel
singing a goffin/king song
that i don’t know the name of
marilyn’s phone number
on the nightstand next to an untouched pepsi
jesse says shit or get off the pot
as if it’s that easy
like looking up the addresses
and birthdates of coeds on library computers easy
like how he randy and i spent the night
cyber stalking girls in sundresses on the campus
that has already forgotten me
all these women get younger every year
but i wonder when they’ll be easy
probably when i’m old and don’t care anymore
when they cease to recognize me
when the world finally fails to see me
i think i should just throw away marilyn’s number
walk the earth like cain
finish this pepsi oh anything
but sit here and let mark eitzel make me feel worse
looking around a room full of
beatles posters kerouac posters
liz phair wet and american-flag draped
feeling bad for myself
i clutch the number clutch the phone
dial in a mad sweat
marilyn isn’t even home anyway, you fool
i fall back on the bed in a fever
shat and got off the pot, grochalski
imagine that
calling a woman as simple
as pinching a loaf
of glorious morning dung.


                                  

Monday, September 28, 2015

poem of the day 09.28.15

replacement umbrella blues

wednesday night i sit
in dead rosebud café
nursing budweiser specials
calvin waiting on a woman
it’s so hard for calvin to meet anyone
worse than me he keeps falling in love
with the girls he works with
they keep falling in love with everyone else
i realize i’m still wet because the rain pissed on me
the umbrella portia gave me
to replace mine a month after the fact
fell apart on craig street
so i was soaked all the way through
pittsburgh has been a monsoon since march
and i should’ve called portia on monday
she left tuesday now it’s wednesday
and calvin keeps checking his watch
i think i still haven’t called marilyn
when did i become someone
with so many people that i had to call?
calvin says, so what’s going on?
as if we haven’t seen each other in weeks
as if we hadn’t been here in rosebud not four days before
picking each other up off the floor
of another beer-drunk saturday night
i should tell him my grandmother is dying
cancer here cancer there cancer everywhere
she has no hair now and can hardly get food down
the fiery whiskey throat of her life going out
but calvin takes grandmothers hard
like he takes women and falling in love
and i don’t think this woman is showing up
so i tell him the fucking umbrella died on me
he shakes his head like it’s this grave
understanding between us
umbrellas die like grandmothers die
like romance dies and phone call never get made
i finish my beer and order another round
get up from the bar to piss
as calvin leans back to check the front door
i tell myself i’ll write portia a letter explaining everything
i’ll tell her the umbrella works like a charm.


                                                          

Friday, September 25, 2015

poem of the day 09.25.15

vicious mystery

all women
all men
all people
all of it a vicious mystery
and so i chase marilyn
waited fifty minutes in sick sweat
sweat-matted hair
ears red
follow her down cathedral steps
through vast collegiate corridors
and i track her down
like prey
this vicious mystery woman
call her by her god-given name
marilyn
marilyn
she turns in wind-blown sad pittsburgh gray
smiling like she’s known me forever
talk such rapid talk
in one minute
i find out her major (sociology)
career goals (social worker)
home state (new jersey)
forty minutes out of new york
artist mother
artist father
what does she even ask me?
still she says
you should move to new york
move to the village
become a stereotype
(or do i think this?)
and through all of these months of pitied hell
i felt and hell i probably looked like
i ask her out
promise big holy pittsburgh saturday nights
in big holy pittsburgh bars
glorious drunks
marilyn says she’s a prude
won’t get drunk
ah, hell, i say
i’ll get drunk for all of us
she doesn’t laugh
i tell her this spring will die
this summer will come
you should come out with me
i say
yes, she says
or maybe, she says
but first new jersey, she says
we walk away so bashful with plans
her phone number
clutched in sweaty hand
immediately i sink into me
thinking one date
leads to two dates
leads to a relationship
comfort
complacency
then alienation
break-up desolation
i slap my face and say
what are you doing?
i turn
marilyn not even a speck on big pitt campus
walking huddled
across bigelow boulevard
coal hair blowing up
she looks back
she waves
and i know
i’ve already ruined this


                                               

Thursday, September 24, 2015

poem of the day 09.24.15

the king of america

brooklyn blows
trump gas
5th avenue
apple hookah smells
for a tuesday night
i think
i mean i hope
they never fix this liquor store sign
so beautiful
half-pink neon
uor
like an exotic language
mixing with the night
my stomach hunger growls
at the scent of kabobs
lamb pyramids
hanging in restaurant windows
i walk
behind two arab girls
big american flag bags
slung over
small shoulders
talking pop music
new tv shows
still not enough evidence
for him
who
dips down low
sneers in their faces
says something i cannot hear
stop stuns them
walks off
ofay proud
like the king of america
strolling home
on a dead
summer
night.


                                    

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

poem of the day 09.23.15

waterlogged

and then
there is portia
portia with her boyfriend
sweet portia whom i’m infatuated with
and you want to know
where i was on tuesday?
face deep in three pints
because i couldn’t be anywhere near you
sit next to you in this class anymore
january to april and i’m worn down of you
because some tortures are too simple
portia with her boyfriend
and your cat got out?
and your dui last summer?
and how you shouldn’t be buying
or drinking alcohol?
so much happens in a week!
portia wants to know why i haven’t
visited her at aussie’s yet
portia with her boyfriend
she says she’s quitting come the twenty-second
portia talks like she’s on speed
and because i want her to keep going
i interject as little as possible
she wants to know
what i think about her maybe staying
in the city this summer
i think the sun and moon and stars about it
but i tell her that’s pretty cool
portia with her boyfriend
at the arts festival regatta fireworks at the point
on the south side shadyside squirrel hill
polish hill lawrenceville bloomfield north side
her big eyes red hair lip ring
in my bars in my clubs
a damned shroud over junejulyaugust
portia wants to know why i still haven’t
come down to the sharper edge for a pint
i laugh i tell her i will really will
once i pick which of one of
these three blessed rivers
i’m gonna go down
and drown my sorrows in

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

poem of the day 09.22.15

not my kind of girl

she’s cute yes
has a dorky charm
sneaks up on me at the bus stop
camel lights and all cassandra-filled me
says she’s carnie
which has me thinking circus folk
the fat chick from wilson-philips
oh, i don’t have time
to be cordial this morning
politically correct
a stone-cold gentleman
it’s late march and i’ve had it with the year already
have a cough from giving portia my umbrella
and getting stuck in the goddamned new spring rain
but carnie says she knows
some brother/sister combo i no longer do
says she’s an english lit major
but i never see her in any class
kris and i no longer go to anymore
this carnie translucent ghost white skin
her straight brown hair has tints of ruby
she stands like someone is getting ready to scold her
a punished dog
a soaking wet cat shivering in the cold
i bore her with bored babble because it’s all that i got
wonder why every time i meet one these types
i get apocalyptic visions of the future
i mean where are the knockout brown skinned girls in my life
danger nicotine-scented mouth women
who can fuck up and down frankstown road?
would they scare me?
carnie likes matthew sweet and the gin blossoms
she’s read kerouac, yes
but….
she probably likes to cuddle afterwards
i wonder would it be improper to check my watch
gee, the bus is never this late, i say to my fate
putting on my headphones
to slip into a d’angelo brown sugar haze
carnie says, hey, i’ve met your mom too
and man
i just know this thing
ain’t gonna work out.

Monday, September 21, 2015

poem of the day 09.21.15

the college failure

i think marilyn is making eyes at me
i think all women adore me
two months of this torture
i gear myself pump myself tell myself
kid, this is the day
lunch or anything to push me past dumb stares
marilyn and her post-class routine
the pitt news and lunch at roy rogers
bottom floor of the cathedral of learning
i’d make my last bold custer move
flying down cathedral stairs
i get smacked in the head with a paper roll
kris in bearded flannel saint mode
we tumble steps talking our british tongue beatle talk
marilyn back in her gray navy clutching books
she always dresses so goddamned nice
whisper to kris secret words about her
my grand plan my last front in this war
and then i’m a done gone thomas merton monk saint
no more women no more heartache
we stand in roy rogers
examine the menu like a fine work of art
our own brown-bagged lunches waiting
poor kris who’s been through them all with me
wendykrissymelaniemarycassandraportia
now marilyn with her tray of junk food
christ, look at all of the ketchup, he says
but i’m sweating mad sick of the smell
of this food this notebook this pen in my hand
useless poem notebook full of blank pages
i make my bow-legged jingle-jangle way across
the weight of gravity this moment of truth
…………..and like that the magic is gone
the wind knocked
marilyn sits her dainty sit with some beast of a co-ed girl
a lion’s mane of hair loudest person in the place
yang to her yin to her yang
i turn to kris
oh, i’m not making a fool of myself in front of that
so we
back in the hallway
kris checking the glass doors of roy’s every minute
to see if the beast leaves our heroine alone for just a second
while i whine and pace and curse the gods
that things never go right
this women business never works the way it should
and soon marilyn and the beast
come rolling past us in girl laughs and giggles
down  the hall and fade to black
the chance gone
what would you have said anyway, kid?
dumbsainted kris and i stumble toward gray light
our stomachs growling for food
the dim promise of something else.

                                                


Friday, September 18, 2015

poem of the day 09.18.15



silly string

road weary
colby stands
in the driveway
red eyed messed hair
90 miles an hour from maryland to pittsburgh
april spring is still a virgin
but he’s wearing jeans shorts
shivering cardboard suitcase
he hasn’t been here in months
we head to my room
lounge in silence
cindy crawford  playboy spread passed around
colby with two jobs in maryland
a party store a chuck e. cheese
where he works the kitchen with russians
hears russian all day
yells back american english to reignite the cold war
he rises and sprays
a can of silly string all over calvin
all over cindy crawford naked and glossy
laughing maniacal
we head further into the suburban abyss
to get drunk on beer
reciting the poetry of kevin smith dialog
monty python sketch scenes
the waitress blush says
i think you better leave after this round, boys
in the parking lot colby silly strings
some rich prick’s porche
and we lie in wait
until he comes out with his little girlfriend
a big bulk of american nothing
ocean city boardwalk bar hoodie and plaid shorts
screaming bloody murder at the sight
he scans the lot
we stifle prankster cackles
as i think how sad it’ll be
to watch colby drive away from all of us
again.

                      

Thursday, September 17, 2015

poem of the day 09.17.15

winona soul

winona ryder
could love me i think
watching welcome home roxy carmichael
with kris and angie
winona my last hollywood crush
oh, how she used to make mary so jealous
as if winona would just show up at my home
and whisk me off with her to california
but i think this is a good night
a quiet saturday night at angie’s
tacos tori amos the sea & cake winona soul
i’m not going to think about
how steve told me that i was pussying out
how even calvin got into the act
making whiplashes over the phone
as if i were some kind of kept man
for wanting one night away from the neon drag streets
one morning where the bile didn’t rustle my stomach
i bet winona ryder could love me
like kris and angie holding hands on her couch
like the way they looked last night
toasting martinis and sinatra at the balcony
i bet in los angeles i could learn to love the sun
sit poolside helping winona rehearse
write me a sunset strip blues
but i haven’t written in weeks
just lay in bed sleep listen to liz phair
listen to my old man ask me when i’m getting a job
maybe the next time i’ll tell him
i’m waiting on winona like waiting on godot
to come roaring up our little shit street
in a cherry red convertible singing
i can turn your gray skies blue, ah
before we burn burn burn burn west turning gold.


                                               

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

poem of the day 09.16.15

drowned rat

wet
b/c it rained
b/c i had no umbrella
b/c i gave it to portia
b/c she needed one
b/c that little drizzle that started on forbes
turned into a monsoon by bellefield
b/c it was raining so hard
water ran like rapids toward gurgling drains
b/c everywhere i walked i kicked up puddles
b/c i stepped in a pothole up to my ankles wet
b/c i tripped and landed on my knee wet
b/c nobody noticed
b/c i can pass these streets like a ghost
b/c i’m a writer bum
wet
and i needed that umbrella
and i didn’t realize that when i gave it to portia
and i didn’t realize it walking up bellefield
and my shirt was drenched
and my jeans were soaked
and my shoes were done for because of that pothole
and gene kelly can kiss my ass
and b/c the 77B bus took forever
and it was raining when i got home
and i never changed my clothes
and i listened to music wet
and had dinner wet
and read henry miller wet
and went to bed wet
b/c i work up the next morning in the same damp jeans
b/c i have the same jeans on again
casing this depressing campus with a sniffle and cough
and i didn’t realize anything until this moment
b/c i’m oblivious to everything
except the fact
that portia has a boyfriend.


                                               

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

poem of the day 09.15.15

outplayed

portia
walks with me from class to hillman library
as snow turns to rain
spring
i swear it takes too long to get here
and when it does i long for the winter
portia says she has two jobs
one waitressing one bartending
she knows the world about beer
porters and stout and lagers and pilsners
ipas and a swiss white chocolate beer
that sounds like hell
i tell her as long as it’s cold and frothy
but she doesn’t laugh
she stops me in all seriousness
we stand under my umbrella
says, have you ever had a flaming dr. pepper?
close red lipstick lip almost whispered in my ear
like she’d say, let’s just run away from all of this
it’s made with amaretto
i’ll make you one if you ever come down
the sharper edge on friendship avenue
aussie’s on liberty avenue
and i can’t tell her that i was in there
last saturday night
have those bars emblazoned in my mind
calvin and i amidst aging night owls
violet-white neon light
meeting steve to drive off to wherever
rustic shinny wood with a long bar
round wood tables and girls galore
but no portia
and at midnight on the lord’s day
i’m sitting drunk in anthony’s gentleman’s club
more half-naked women dry humping poles
for my hard-earned dollar
portia stops me again and lifts up her shirt a little
pierced belly button under my umbrella
she’s sunburned from a tanning salon
says, this hurts so fucking much
but like a good catholic boy
i make sure
not to look.

Monday, September 14, 2015

poem of the day 09.14.15

sirens

sandy comes to the door
hair wet in something tattered
mutters to calvin about buying a watch
we’re early by forty minutes
one of those nights where calvin and i
have nothing to say to each other
and all i can think as sandy pounds back upstairs
is that she gave colby bad head years ago
after his senior prom
where is colby tonight?
down in maryland down in maryland
all he did was die
calvin leaves me alone with sandy’s fiancĂ©, ray
while he calls in reinforcements for the night
ah, the socialist, ray says
he and i don’t like each other
last time i was here he started in on his whole
white-bread-clean-cut-closet-bigot-conservative-extremist routine
to try and get a rise out of me
so i started in on my
gop-abortion-war-mongering-classist-liberal-extremist rhetoric
but all i could do was sit there sober
wondering if sandy gave him bad head too
ray has no beer for me tonight as well
his fridge as dry as some southern towns
i’m holding one joint in my camel lights pack for later
but might go onto windy forbes avenue
and smoke it now
calvin on the phone with stevetomgeorge
sandy pounding upstairs on her own clock
ray says, you fellas haven’t been drinking tonight already?
strolls like jay gatsby around the place
no old sport, i tell him
but i’m a few up and so is calvin
so i trip stagger down steps
in the car to wherever we play it drunk to scare ray
can feel him clutching my headrest
legs navigating calvin’s backseat full of
coats papers tapes cds bowling balls mickey d wrappers
the passenger seat goes off its hinges again
me sliding back and forth ray sliding yelling
sandy telling calvin to stop the goddamned car
we laugh and tell them it was all a joke
everything except the car seat, old sport, i say
what are we doing tonight? i think
breaking apostolistic bread with these wet blankets
in a strip district primanti bros
with so much to do in the city?
calvin and his mundane loyalties
his jesus christ cyo friendships
his coleslaw and french fries on the side
ray says to me, you don’t believe in god do you?
of course he does, calvin says answering
halfway through my second jack daniels and ginger ale
this joint burning a hole in my pocket
ray finger-waving homosexuals downfall of america
calvin and i leave those lovebird christ children
go outside into the night of the city of my birth
this city of bridges and rivers and holy immaculate disappointments
get high down an alleyway
as women saunter in high heeled majesty
toward rosebud or the metropol
if cassandra is in there tonight
i just know i’m gonna play her fool
stevetomgeorge arrive and we end up in north hills
kangaroo’s bar tv pool tables dart boards
frat boys and frat girls crawling in expensive flannel
women walking around like hooter girls
with neon liquor in test tubes
saying, sex on the beach anyone?
to hootie and the blowfish national anthems
i pump ten bucks into the jukebox
play the whole of oasis (what’s the story) morning glory?
pump pint after pint of buck-fifty honey browns in my stomach
as tom tells the table he’s in love with colleen
as calvin tells the table he’s in love with amanda
as ray and sandy are in love with each other and god
and america and newt gingrich and bad head
as everyone’s in love
colby in maryland in love with a teenager
as i got the cassandraportiamarilyntombstone blues
as steve says, wonderwall? who in the hell played this shit?
as ray and sandy join hands and pray over
a bucket full of chicken wings and fries
i stumble into the men’s room singing
down in kangaroo’s down in kangaroo’s
all i did was die.


                                    

Friday, September 11, 2015

poem of the day 09.11.15

watching the girl
watching the hot dog vendor

drunk on
jasper johns
we stumble from the frick into white light
portia moaning hungry
and i think i’ll catch the earlier bus home
but she pulls me across bigelow
two for two-dollar hot dogs
on the steps of hillman library we eat
me watching the girl
watching the hot dog vendor
screaming red hots! red hots!
flipping dogs and calling out to everyone
sizzling chicken soda can flip top
portia says
she likes watching people
comes from a small town and all of this city
is still insane to her
and it made me smile like a fool
big goof smile
because i’d fallen out of wonder with here
and yesterday’s cold and bright sun
had me on the verge of tears
and the hopelessness can be so overwhelming at times
damned youth hopelessness that can’t see beyond the self
the way we suffer at nothing
only portia
only her bright eyes and smile
let me see how things here weren’t all dead
how she watched everything in the way i wish
i still could
i longed for things to be like they were
i longed for kris to feel the same
for us to sit together on the steps of hillman
no blues
no soul
just me and kris eating hot dogs
but portia she
mustard smiled me ketchup smiled me
with heaven’s cloth i’d wipe her mouth
if only
if only
but our kid’s still not bold enough

to make a simple chess move.                                     

Thursday, September 10, 2015

poem of the day 09.10.15



home again

i’ll cop to nothing
i’ll admit to being a little drunk
solemn and angry
because she hadn’t returned my calls
because she stopped talking to me at the job
but i wasn’t driving
this wasn’t my idea
a dozen eggs in calvin’s lap
we drive slowly the frankstown road
horror of both our youths
steve playing his jock rock cd
breath in breath out
he navigates us past closed fast food joints
the 24/7 chain restaurants
packed with bored stoned high school kids
kids that i could never be like here
says, dudes, that club was a dog show
as if he expected more
from a joint in a strip mall
when we see him coming slowly down the road
jogging hugging the berm
frost sweat and steam rising off his body
calvin grabs an egg from the dozen
the electric window rolling down
as steve slows the car to a creep
breath in breath out goes the egg
splattering him he stops starts panting wiping frantically
i catch his what-the-fuck look
what-the-fuck arms in the air
think maybe he was one of the assholes from grade school
as steve kicks the car into gear
tearing down my youth road a mile
this white ghetto suburb that tried to slaughter me
so we can pull into the mcdonald’s
of so many hell scenes so many lovesick moments
to turn around go back and do it again.

                                 

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

poem of the day 09.09.15

pocket change again

broke
as broke as america wants me to be
these bars
these damned clubs robbing me blind
for a little bit of clarity
but we skip class anyway
pocket change again
i’m a bleary broke follower
kris has all of the answers in his smirk
to bookstores
down used cd alleyways
cups of coffee in the beehive
that burn our flesh as we walk rickety steps
but we won’t sue
though i could use the cash
it’s good to not be on the campus
it’s taken our soul and our money
left only questions and desolation
i have debt i haven’t even realized yet
kris says he’s moving in with angie
once we graduate
from these environs
this student loan subsidized respite
from the countless women i can’t stop chasing
like a low bent groucho marx
cigarette in my mouth on the cathedral of learning’s lawn
when i’m not chasing them drunk
on friday saturday nights
can i graduate from this life too?
he says, maybe you could move in
an instant vision of poems
of novels
of coffee and soft music
but i’d just be infiltrating a young love nest
also and give my mother nothing to worry about
when i’m stumbling in drunk somewhere else?
but there is d.c. to consider
colby and whatever dilapidated hell he’s discovered
calvin wants to get a place
but his mother still cuts the crust off of his pb&j
i’m so west so i’m west
go west young man
like kerouac
but i’m so broke
i shouldn’t even be discussing moving out
so we discuss the world instead
the hours pass
somewhere in whatever class it was we skipped
someone has made a point
someone else has refuted it
student loan subsidized intellectuals
soon we’ll all have jobs
that’ll make us as sad as our parents
and everyone else
one grand nationwide parity in pursuit of the dream
this afternoon could last forever
afternoons only last in poems
and kris
and me
we parted company
so soon
you see
i walked the cold
pittsburgh streets
alone
again.


                                              

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

poem of the day 09.08.15

buffalo wings
            --for d-shot

some dive so far out of the city
we don’t believe that it exists
but george and carrie are telling us
that this great band is playing
and bands play every saturday night
so that’s nothing special
this joint is so far
you can’t even see the pink hue of pittsburgh in the sky
when we reach this magical far off place
they charge us five bucks at the door
and you see there aren’t the usual club girls here
or the punk party girls from east carson street
but the beer is cheap
buck and a quarter a draft
so we park at the bar
promise george and carrie we’ll get the beer
and the chicken wings slathered in buffalo sauce
two orders and two pitchers
but we don’t move from our pock-marked glitter-red stools
we listen to the muffled sound of the band
watch the townies dance
oh, how did we get here calvin?
we’ll never talk again like we do this night
rapid fire about girls and life and our desires
selfish sucking down the two orders of buffalo wings
and two pitchers of beer
without even thinking about anyone else
sitting there like lifelong friends
like brothers, you say
sharing a pack of smokes in between the food and drink
like the only fools in the place
and later on, drunk and gobsmacked by fleeting youth
i see you slow dancing with carrie
you look like two delicate angels
underneath such soft lights
i pray to anything just to make time stop.                              

Friday, September 4, 2015

poem of the day 09.04.15



11:58 a.m at the panther hollow inn

third beer
back of the bar
smell of french fries for the first lunch comers
air thick with oil
i look up the long steps
that lead to long bathrooms
think it too much a journey
lonesome traveler at my side unread
where i’m at
surrounded by old brick and college pennants
old waitresses
old bartender who examined my i.d.
like fine wine in the light
who on this campus
is sitting getting drunk at 11:58 a.m.?
no, 11:59
and soon the place will be swarmed
with traffic from craig street
with library janitors and clerks
with shop owners
with bank tellers and comic book merchants
watch the old waitress slip on grease
yell, goddamnitphil
grease oozing down the walls
to the sea green tile floor
i wonder if i have time for another beer
would only make me miss
maybe half the american art class
but four beers would
ensure a conversation with the red-head girl
portia bauer
got the name on only three beers last week
three beers and french fries
then dropped my books
my notebooks my journal
all over frick fine arts auditorium
DRUNK, she said laughing
two fat bald men drinking the same as me
three well-dressed ladies walk in the phi
then out
eat the rich
high noon now
officially my first liquid lunch
i watch a library janitor stumble in
to an already poured beer
like clockwork he plays the slot machines
like clockwork the jukebox plays bob seger
pittsburgh you common whore
in the glare of a cold bright march afternoon
phil cleans the grease
only to grease again
shit, i remember its kris’ twenty-second birthday
hoisting my pint class student
sucking down the last dregs of colorado piss diet beer
i celebrate him
i celebrate myself.