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

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.

                      

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 26^th

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.

                                                

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

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.

                                                            

"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

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.

                                               

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 13^th  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 21^st 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.

                                                

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.

                                    

"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

poem of the day 12.11.15

walking 5^th 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.                                  

"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.

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!

                                                

"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.                                                                                                                                                                                    

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.

                                                            

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.

                                                                       

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.