Thursday, September 30, 2010

poem of the day 09.30.10

technocrat

tired
she says
coming into the bedroom

she falls
on the bed
where i have small
stacks of cds piled
like fragile cities
waiting to be downloaded
onto my
new, expensive
music machine

i need breakfast
like a roll or something
we have rolls
she asks

are you doing this now?
i say
if so then i guess
i’ll stop downloading music
and just go to work

you don’t have to stop

i do
because last time
the fuse blew and
it took my pc thirty-minutes
to right itself

that was the microwave
that caused the fuse to blow
not the toaster oven, she says
besides you were
the one who did that

it’s the same outlet
i tell her
i’m just asking
do you need to eat now
or can you wait until
i get this done?

she gets up off the bed
and storms out of the room
a few of the cd piles stay standing
but most topple
like little plastic empires
brought to their knees

you know, she says
coming back into the bedroom
you’ve become a real jerk to me
since you got that computer
and the ipod

then she leaves again
and i stare a my
warped reflection
encased
in the hollow white void
of the computer screen.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

poem of the day 09.29.10

if inspiration doesn't come soon
i fear poems of this sort could become the norm.

talks talks talks….

he
talks
talks
talks
through the
hate radio that he
has blasting in the room
through his car alarm
going off on the street
talks
talks
talks
i wonder how
a man can speak so much
this isn’t natural
this is for women
this chatter
talks
talks
talks
i can feel a headache
coming on
and i’m glad the liquor store
is two blocks away
talks
talks
talks
so much
that i can’t concentrate
on the paper
that i can’t figure out
which celebrity
is cheating on their wife
or which one is going
back to rehab
talks
talks
talks
like an albatross on my ankles
like a knife wedged into my chest
talks
talks
talks
….and it ain’t even lunch time yet.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

poem of the day 09.28.10

poetry and everything else

inside this pseudo-british pub
my fingers greasy
from fish
smelling of malt vinegar
and gluttony
drinking pint after pint of cider
running up a tab
that i won’t want to look at
by the time i’m done
an amount that i know
will wake me up
in shock the next morning
the full bloom of
my careless stupidity
ruining the week before
it has even begun
i think about not writing poems
or anything else
for that matter
and how low a writer
has to get
in order to write a poem
about not writing
(pretty low)
i think the hell with money
the cost of everything
poetry and everything else
that isn’t swirling around
in the red-amber fizz
of this imported
alcoholic bomb
it is good to think this
as the drinks keep on coming
as the tab grows
and the wallet continues to lighten
as the rain begins to fall
all over third avenue, brookyn
football on the television
as some other poor fuck
plays genius writer in his apartment
while i sit here
done, down and out
ordering another sixteen-ounce draft
of my own subscribed legacy.

Monday, September 27, 2010

poem of the day 09.27.10

scotch

you take a hit on
the first one
after all those
missing months
trying to keep away
from the stuff
fooling yourself
with cheap beer
and jug wine
you take the hit
examine the sweating glass
let the ice cubes
clink again
like playing piano
on an old familiar
song
and think
i’ve missed this
simple kind of bliss
more than i’ve
missed most
of the people
in my life
upon the second hit
you’re damned sure of it
and a little bit sad too.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Carcinogenic Poetry

hell all,

i have a few poems over at carcinogenic poetry.
i'm sure you've read them on this blog. but please
stop over there to support the other great writers
on the site.

thanks
jg

Friday, September 24, 2010

poem of the day 09.24.10

for the bitch who missed her bus stop

and for the bus driver who came to
a screeching stop
the moment she yelled

yeah, that was me smacking off
of that metal pole, you union prick
that was my bag of wine hitting
the back of the plastic seat with a rich thud

we’re all lucky those bottles didn’t break
right then and there
or i would’ve killed the two of you
on the spot

no, the wine broke when i got off the bus
and you both were safely gone
i made it half a block before
the bottom of the thick, blue bag ripped open
and one of the bottles fell out
smashing all over the pavement
a river of cheap italian blood red wine cascading
into the cracks on the sidewalk

i managed to catch the other bottle
before it went straight to hell, too

i’ll have the both of you know
that i picked up most of the glass
with my bare hands and carried it
like a dead bird
the four remaining blocks to my apartment
much to the riotous joy of a group of teenagers
who love to revel in the pain and misery
of the hapless working class

i even went back to sweep up the rest

this morning the remains of the broken bottle
sat there in my garbage can mocking me
as i nursed another mean hangover

you’re lucky it was payday
you wailing bitch, you chauffeur for the rabble
and that i had the money to go and get
a replacement bottle
from the iranian wine merchants
on third avenue

but fuck me, i’m still out ten bucks
ten bucks that i’ll need two weeks from now
for a goddamned bottle of wine
or a pint of scotch
the day before next payday

and why does shit like this happen
to a guy like me anyway?

i never try to hurt anybody
and i stay out of everyone’s way
i even turn my music down on the bus
so that people can read their books
and so you could shout on your cell phone

remember that?

even the bus driver didn’t give you that courtesy
blasting his rap-rock the whole ride home
while you kept a finger pressed into your ear
so you could hear your asshole friend
on the other end of the line

why even mention any of this to you guys?

neither of you care
to you i’m just a whining working schlep
with a penchant for blissful inebriation

all the same, you wailing harlot
you probably missed your stop again tonight
chattering away on your phone
like the dumb damned always do

and you
you eight-wheeled assassin
you’ve probably sent half a dozen
poor bastards
flying across your piss-scented death trap today
hopped up on adhd drugs
hoping you pull your back on a sharp turn
so you can collect a ten week vacation
on the city’s dime

the city replacing you
with another reckless asshole
sucking the tit of pension and privilege

until he can retire
at the ripe old age of fifty-five.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

poem of the day 09.23.10

...and now for a slice of the trivial:

ode to an ipod

40,000 songs
oh wow
and you must think
you can walk
on water

ipod

i’ll admit that
i came to you late

and now
i have anxiety
waking up
in the middle of the night
wondering
if i got all of my
lou reed on you

did i even put
lou reed on you yet?

ipod

everyone tells me
that you’ll change
my life
you must be some kind
of machine

ipod

because the last thing
to change my life
was a little girl from
monroe, new york

and before her
a french-canadian
from lowell, massachusetts
who helped me toss away
futile, common ambition
and all reason
all for
the word
the word
the word

so you must
be something

ipod

some kind of god

ipod

you don’t seem
so life changing sitting there
gray and metal
inanimate
1,000 songs and counting
stored inside of you

ipod

i’ve seen the eiffel tower
and the london bridge
i’ve seen shakespeare’s grave
and the english channel
at 15,000 feet

ipod

but i’ve never played
the beatles
for two straight hours
or elvis presley
until my heart
was content

ipod

are we a good match?
secret lovers?

Ipod

what is this dance we are doing?
the future samba?
a shake of the technological limbo

ipod

i’ve got a special playlist just for you
and my heart is on shuffle

ipod

i promise to never
leave you for an e-reader
or an ipad
even if they
both have a 3g network
with a million different applications
and google maps

ipod

i’m a whore
and i want you to know this

ipod

i said the same thing
to my cd player
just last month.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

poem of the day 09.22.10

Working on a lot of fiction, so the poems are in short
supply. So here's a poem from almost one year ago....funny
how things don't change in a year.

taking out the trash

in the elevator
with one woman
and two men
on cell phones
the small box
smells like a french
whorehouse
one bag of cat shit
in my hand
the other bag
full of rotten vegetables
and rancid meat
½ a bottle of scotch in me
an old t-shirt
with blood and sweat and wine
stained on it
shorts ripped all over
and falling down
feet naked and dirty
from my hardwood floor
a week-old beard
and they look at me
like i’m the madman
crowding their space.
they’ve never suffered.
obviously
they’ve never lived
a day in their lives
as well.

09.16.09

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

poem of the day 09.21.10

francois villon and i

i knock over
a stack of used books
in the narrow row of this packed
bookstore

swear and curse my luck
when this woman asks me
where she can find the francois Villon

she doesn’t know it
but we are looking for the same thing

maybe she wouldn’t care

i tell her that
i don’t work here
but then i proceed to go
through the carts of books with her

i don’t know why
but it’s important that this woman knows
that i know who francois villon is

poet, thief, vagabond
and whatever else

i want her to feel
as though we are partners in this quest

it’s not a sexual thing or whatever

i’m starting to reach the age
where i don’t even look anymore
where everyone, every woman
is just another dull body on the street

someone else’s problem
like i’m my wife’s problem
and she’s sometimes mine

love works fine like that

i tell the woman
it is an old book that we are looking for
blue with brittle yellow pages

it costs around ten bucks, i say

she looks at me as if i’m lying to her
about not working here
some clerk pulling a fast one
getting small laughs out of
the frustration of her quest

but i’m not
i’ve just held that book in my hands so many times
that i know the contours of it
the smell of the molding pages

when we both determine
that the book is gone
the woman begins looking
for another poet on her list

one that she’s not inclined to share with me

i drift off toward the novels
watch the sweating masses spend their paychecks
on a warm saturday afternoon
then i go and find my wife
where i know she’ll always be in this place

i tell her that the book i wanted is gone

i tell her all about
francois villon, the woman, and i

she says isn’t that the book
that you are always looking at

yes, i answer, and it’s gone

you probably would’ve given it
to her, if it were there

probably, i say

then my wife looks at her watch
our favorite bar is opening in five minutes
she asks me if i want to get a few pints
and put this day to rest

yes, i tell her

we leave the bookstore
poetry and francois villon be damned

Saturday, September 18, 2010

poem of the day 09.18.10

as far as a payback goes

i open email
there is a note from
an editor
of one of the rags
that i keep sending poems too

he’s been rejecting me
a lot these days
even though the writing
in his journal
is no worse than mine

we used to have a good relationship
but for some reason
my stuff hasn’t been doing it
for him lately

the last time
he managed to reject me
within the hour

instead of taking it personally
i was impressed

i need submissions
the email says

submissions

submissions

submissions

it is a group email
that he sent

it must be, i think
all things considered

then i delete the email
and send this batch of poems
somewhere else

Friday, September 17, 2010

poem of the day 09.17.10

sacred ground (mosque)

this is where it happened
this is sacred ground
this is where the glass and stone fell
and the bodies
this is a holy place
this is where people worked
this is violence
this is where we go to remember
this is somewhere we can’t forget
this is ground within the pulse
of the nation
this is ours and not yours
this is a place for heroes
this is where history split
this is where battle lines were drawn
this is an iconic spot
this is where they made a cross
out of twisted metal
this is where we went to pray
this is rebirth
this is where we’ll rise again
this place is america

i’m surprised we haven’t built
a shopping mall and a starbucks
on it yet.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

poem of the day 09.16.10

tea bagged

the muslim family
on the street
spend their morning
looking at their car
the one with
the windows busted out of it
the green glass
scattered on the sidewalk
in tiny cubes
the day after a primary election
in brooklyn, u.s.a.
the political postcards
still hammered into yards
the smiling faces of politicians
promising disgust
the muslim family stone-faced
their big american car broken
no other big american cars touched
on the whole block
the muslim boy looking at me
fat from the land
with my long hair and beard
safe and white
a three-hundred dollar toy
in my pocket
playing my whole music collection
as i walk along
toward a sea of flags
and traffic
dipping down the next block.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

poem of the day 09.15.10

our kids

she used to write
the names of our kids
down on notebook paper

of course we didn’t have kids
we were still kids
just nineteen and in “love”

but there they were
our kids’ names
on the back of my history notebooks
and my poem journals

i don’t remember their names
just that seeing them used to bother me

i’d be on campus taking notes
looking at all of the other women in class
and there’d be one of the kid’s names
looking right back at me
in her bubbly script
along with hearts and other sentiments

how in the hell am i in this? i used to think

because i grew up and fat and alone, i’d answer
because it took me until nearly twenty
to get myself a woman

looking at those scrawls
looking at those names

i’d become sick

drawn out and pretentious little names
affixed with my surname

how in the hell could i
ever take care of that?

turns out i didn’t have to
she broke up with me a year later
right before she got a chance
to put the kids’ names
on the back of my new notebooks
for the next semester

she found someone else to write with
very soon after

while i found that
the clubs and bars of pittsburgh
were full of women
who had no need to write our kids’ names
on anything
much less want to learn mine.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

poem of the day 09.14.10

the names of the dead

sitting here
in this diner
a woman next to me eating
country fried steak and home fries
i hear the names of the dead
as they are read over the radio

the waitress
calls me handsome
she asks me what i want to eat
with my coffee
i tell her that i will eat
the names of the dead
scrambled with a side of bacon

outside the flags are hanging
at half mast
and each storefront has a sign
that reads: 9/11 we will never forget

years later
i fear i have to believe them
with the names of the dead
ringing in my ears
bleeding the pages of my newspaper

americans never forget anything
except that which they are doomed to repeat

i ask the waitress
what it’s like to wallow in misery
every year
what it is to swim
in the cesspool of our antiquated anger
and global impotence

i tell her that i have forgotten
nearly everything in the last decade

she asks me how
the names of the dead taste
in my dirty mouth

she winks at me
she calls me handsome again
but i do not believe that she means it
then she wipes off the counter
with an american flag

she hands me the check
the names of the dead
are scrawled all over it

along with a total of $8.95
written beneath a smiley face
and the word thank you.

Monday, September 13, 2010

poem of the day 09.13.10

horsefly horseshit

all the words
have been swimming
in the sewer
for me
as of late

they are shit covered
worthless

like life this week

and you
you fuck
dive bombing me
on 78th street
like a kamikaze pilot

what in the hell did
i do to you
to deserve this?

an icepack on my shin
scratching an itch that
won’t quit

cortisone-scented
and mean

a red egg of flesh
bulging out of my leg

wondering why i’m always
coming down the street
at the wrong time

passed the flags
and garbage cans of america
full of insects like you

having a bone to pick
with the common man.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

poem of the day 09.11.10

janey

my buddy
tom mcdannen
warned me about you
said you had problems
liked men too much
which is how
you ended up with
a kid before the age of twenty
but i didn’t think
it was men that you liked
so much as…

still
we ended up in his car
rolling around
lips on lips
breath all over breath
hands all over clothing
not even each other’s
blind date
as tom and his girlfriend
sat in the front seat
like puritans
passing judgment
through his rearview

i never thought we’d
end up together anyway
or even fucking
not with you having
a kid so young
not with my aversion
to all things matronly
we were just having
a little bit of fun
rolling around
on all of that leather
your vodka regret
on my beer tattered conscience

besides
i’d seen you kiss two other guys
in the bar that night
right there on the dance floor
as i played pool

two virtual strangers
with the kind
of common, dumb faces
that make men like me
hate their world

i sort of wrote you off after seeing that

but the way you attacked me
in the car
janey
like you were starving
or putting out some kind of eternal fire

i just couldn’t say no to you.

Friday, September 10, 2010

poem of the day 09.10.10

the poetry of the mexican day laborers

the poetry of the mexican day laborers
comes through a dusty window that has holes
in the screen
it comes in with summer flies hiding from the autumn wind
as i’m drinking wine at 9:30 in the morning
pretending that i have no place to go
in order to make a dollar

the poetry of the mexican day laborers
is like a jazz scat
they talk in bluesy staccato
banging old hammers against crumbling steps
backing up ancient trucks with corroded engines
and bald tires

they’re polluting the dull silence
fixing the unfixable house, hanging gloomily
across the black street
while i’m trying to get the goddamned radio to work
to ease my soul
before i commit the average man’s suicide

the poetry of the mexican day laborers
is rough like the cancer of a whiskey throat
its black market bootleg music
the clatter of a battalion of woodpeckers
the noise of a week that has yet to sputter and die

i watch the mexican day laborers
through my half open window
i eat the flies and sip on my wine
thinking that i having something over them
by doing this
by drinking wine before 10 a.m.
on a lost thursday in good ol’ america

i feel like a border guard
with a shaky finger on the trigger
but i am just a fat white fool in a wine stained t-shirt
that covers my white belly and my blackened heart

i feel like
the poetry of the mexican day laborers
is too much for me
its happiness too depressing for the new york times
it is the verse of the good man toiling for nothing
but a one way ticket home
it is the sun finally burning out
and the moon wearing out its welcome

it is the laugher of the kind idiot soul
with nothing left to lose
shakespeare with his pants down
and kris marlowe trying to find his good eye
walt whitman given the 14th amendment on his death bed
in order to wipe his ass

the poetry of the mexican day laborers
is a gross distortion of the truth

i can’t listen to it anymore

so i close the window
shut off the radio
sit on a green couch in an orange room
and pour myself another wine

my soul the soul of a common house fly
swimming slowly up the crusted rim
of the cracked and aged glass.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Eviscerator Heaven

Hello all

I have a few poems over at Eviscerator Heaven today. here's the link.
If you read this blog, you've probably read them already. but there
are a lot of fantastic writers on Eviscerator, so it's worth the look.

pome of the day 09.09.10

humming death

reading the newspaper online
listening to the hum of the computer
i get a sharp pain in the top of my head
that sets my heart fluttering
faster than a morning coming off of
half a pint of scotch
i think this is the big one
the hemorrhage
the medical gift passed down
from my old man’s side of the family
if this is it
then suddenly i want life by the balls
to feel the lion’s roar of youth
come raging out of me
i get up from my chair
the throbbing in my head dissipating
although i am ready for the next one
the glorious blood clot burst
that’ll send me into black eternity
i walk out of the office
into the main quarter of the job
nervous, dizzy
waiting on the collapse
i see the faces of the beginning of the work week
scowling, angry, hateful faces of the dead
bickering and handing each other
another week’s worth of misery
and i walk back inside my dim room
thinking, please, if there is a god
don’t take me this way
not here
not with these people
with these faces of doom
the hum of this machine
if nothing else
i at least deserve a last golden copulation
a final spot by the beach
with the sun going down over the ocean
and someone with a soft voice
telling me that it’ll be
fine
fine
fine.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

poem of the day 09.08.10

my last fight

c.c. was the first
vegetarian that i knew
and his old man was crazy

it was rumored
that c.c.’s old man had killed
his girlfriend’s dog back in the 60’s

he played guitar in the street
while we tried playing wiffleball or football
just to throw us off our game

c.c.’s old man made
his wife nurse, until c.c.’s sister turned three
the little girl biting her mother’s nipple so hard
yet the old man wouldn’t let her scream

it seemed that there were tons of rumors
about c.c.’s old man, on our street

i was friends with c.c
before anybody else
the other kids didn’t like him
because he couldn’t play ball
because he was a vegetarian
and ate things like carob chip cookies

i liked c.c. because he wasn’t
like the other kids on the street
because he knew about music
because he knew about art
and ate things like carob chip cookies

his crazy old man had taught him about both
even though he claimed
to have thrown kids out of airplanes over in vietnam

c.c.’s old man never went to vietnam

i don’t remember how it came about

we were throwing around a nerf football
and one of the guys got hungry
he said he wanted to go to the pizza shop
and get a pie

the other guys wanted pizza as well

i asked c.c. to come
but he said that he couldn’t because
his old man only let them eat wheat pizza

it’s wheat pizza
one of the guys said
winking at the rest of us

yeah, another said
all they serve is wheat pizza

i was sure c.c. didn’t believe the guys
but he went along with us anyway

when we got to the pizza shop
c.c. handed over his money like the rest of us
we waited for the pie
when it came out you could tell that it wasn’t wheat pizza

i need my money back, c.c. said

well, you gotta go and talk to that guy,
one of the guys said, pointing to an ape-like
smear of grease, in the shape of the pizza maker

he has all of our money, they said

c.c. looked at me
i can’t eat this, he said

you knew it wasn’t wheat pizza, i told him
you had to know

c.c. got up out of his chair
and tore out of the pizza shop
i watched him as he raced
across the parking lot
stopping to talk to himself,
as i’d caught him do a lot
when alone these days

the other guys laughed
and dug into the pizza

we left the pizza shop
c.c. was waiting behind a corner
he started throwing sticks and rocks at us
the other guys thought
it was a joke at first
but i could tell that c.c. was serious

i want my money, he said
then he started to cry

c.c. came after me
why, i do not know

i was his only friend amongst the crowd

i hit him in the face
before i even knew what i was doing
then i came with another and another

blood and tears on a saturday afternoon

a neighbor stopped us
he started yelling at the group of us

that’s when c.c. tore off toward home

back on the street
i was feeling nervous and scared
it had been years since my last fight

all of the guys were congratulating me
talking about the sound
that my fist made against c.c.’s face

the sound had made me sick

it was then that c.c.’s old man
opened his front door

he asked me what happened

i told him about the pizza shop

did you know that c.c. wasn’t allowed
to eat regular pizza? he asked

yes, i said

did c.c. know that it wasn’t wheat pizza? he asked

yes, i said.

thank you, c.c.’s old man said

he closed the door

we stood there in silence

then the group of us guys
played the quietest game of nerf football
that you ever heard

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

poem of the day 09.07.10

old lover

the old pc sits
in the hallway
like a dejected lover
while i’m up before the sun
trying to figure out this new one

these machines get to be like lovers
you learn their basics
their hidden joys and terror
every subtle nuance
and you either get
comfortable with them or bored

in the end you lose them
no matter what

that old machine and i
we wrote thousands of words
poem and stories
that the world sometimes wanted
but most times didn’t care

it never mattered to us
we did it within the lunacy of the morning
through the caffeine and booze
the sweat and chill of the season

better friends with me
than the human race

we took on all comers

now she sits there
with the cat bowls, the cockroaches
and the dust

i know she doesn’t deserve this
but what am i to do?

i’m a man
stricken with the pangs that comes
with new love

typing this poem
on an hp pavilion phenom
with an 8gb system memory
and a 1tb hard drive
that holds countless songs
and over 176,000 pictures

how can i say no to that?

Sunday, September 5, 2010

poem of the day 09.05.10

today is D-day for getting the new PC. so i'm posting a poem
today, instead of tomorrow, because tomorrow i'm hooking the machine up
and expect, as per my luck, to be on the phone with
the customer service rep of my choice asking why my MS Word
no longer works, why I can't get my Internet to come on, and why
my MS Word XP docs won't convert to Windows 7. so here's a poem in
case you don't hear from my for a while.

jg


transition

i’m not that surprised
to find mona sitting at the bar
when i come in

they tell me she’s been
coming back in here for a few weeks now
since benny beat the shit out of her
for fucking all of his friends

benny is out on long island, rehabbing,
maybe still trying to kill himself
and nights here at the joint
have gotten quiet
without his and mona’s constant bickering

nights here have become predictable and dull

there are poker nights now
and the fucking u.s. open is on the television

this is how an era dies

mona smiles at me
when i sit down
she smiles again and then i take
a long pull on my beer
thinking that woman could tear my eyes out

i’m not scared of many people
but i fear mona

she gets off her barstool
and stumble-walks down toward me
the beer and johnny walker shots making it all okay

mona leans on me
puts a hand on my shoulder
while i try not to smell her breath

her teeth are yellowing
her face is puffy in that irreversible way

maybe she used to be attractive
before benny and this bar got to her
maybe she’s always been damaged goods

i suppose i’m no prize either

i check her face for signs
of the beating, but there are none
so whatever benny did is a visual memory

mona stopped wearing sunglasses
around brooklyn a week ago

i haven’t forgotten you, she says

it takes me a moment to figure this one out
what in hell did i do to her?

your books, mona says
they’re still at my apartment
i just saw them today

i’m going through a transitional period, she says
i’m moving soon and things are everywhere

that’s okay, i tell her
get the books to me whenever you can

i’ll just leave them at the bar, she says
i don’t know when i’ll be back in here

that’s fine, i tell her
leave them with jason, the bartender

then i have another pull on my beer
thinking that i’ve now become the kind of guy
who has things left for him at the bar
maybe b.j. will just leave the dvd i let him borrow
with the bartender too

i’m not sure what to think about this
except that maybe life has taken a few
wrong turns for me

all i ever want to be was dostoevsky

well, anyway, mona says
she removes her hand from my shoulder
stumbles back down the bar to her seat
the one she’s been in for the three years
that i’ve been coming here

goodbye mona, i think
i raise my glass to her, and half finish the draft

then i turn to the television
one blonde from russia is playing tennis
against another blonde from russia

they are sweating and grunting
and i wonder if anyone else here finds this hot

old man, john, is reading a chuck palahniuk novel
nursing the one beer he buys

at least i still got him.

Friday, September 3, 2010

poemS of the day 09.03.10

the end of an Era might possibly be here today. if all goes well
i will be purchasing a new PC this week, and putting this old
battlehorse to rest. of course, knowing my luck, the new PC
won't work well, and i'll be spending the rest of the weekend fighting
with some tech person on the phone. all the same, if things go
the way they should, this marks the final writing morning between
me and this machine. a lot of poems and a lot of storieson here.

so two poems about the machine that i wrote over a year ago.

adios, old friend

paper and a pen

i say what am i going to do now
with the computer down and out?

well, she says, you always say that all
you ever need to write is paper and a pen.

but that was years ago, before the machine,
before hundreds of documents and thousands
of pages at my fingertips.

it’s still the same.

yes, but....

...but hopefully you’ll have the computer back
by the end of the week.

i hope the cleaning works.

me too.

thousands of pages of immortal poems
and some decent prose hang in the balance.

and many pictures from our vacations
and holidays too.

yes...and them.

so what are you going to do?

finish this drink. go to bed.
lay restless while the cat spits up hairballs
on the floor before she lays next to me for the remainder
of the night.

and then?

then hopefully i’ll wake to the ugly sun
grab some paper and a pen
and reinvent the wheel before it’s time
to go to work.

07.07.09



new kinds of love

i left the computer repair shop
after the tech gave me
instructions
about how to back-up my system
should a virus
hit my machine again

i was listening to him
well
half-listening
really i kept glancing
over at the machine
sitting on a bin with a white tag
on it
it looked cleaner on the outside
wiped off with care
like an old battle horse
that had been given a bath
and a chance to rest

i thought of all we’d gone through
together in five years
the immortal words
the embarrassing prose
the mornings and nights battling
hangovers and the shits
the depression and anxieties
the rejections and small successes
the heartache, the failures,
and the joy

i looked at that machine
and i welled up, man,
while the tech printed up my receipt
and handed it over to me to sign.
he looked up at me like i might be a little bit mad
but i didn’t care.
i handed him his pen back
and grabbed my machine off the bin
as if it were a best friend that i was saving
no, my child
no, my lover

when i finally
got outside
i held it up
all gray and black plastic
with usb ports and plugs
along its metal back

i held that machine up to the sun
staring at it for a moment
before planting a big kiss
on its side
and then moving on down the street
past people who kept looking at me
who wouldn’t know
what that kind of love meant
even if i spent all day
explaining it to them.

07.10.09

Thursday, September 2, 2010

poem of the day 09.02.10

fly in the bathroom

now
you’ve been here
so long

you son of a bitch

that i’m done
trying to kill you

and am thinking
of charging you
one half of next month’s

rent

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

poem of the day 09.01.10

burning, burning, yet never lit

the day
a disgusting discord
of darkness and light

voices
a cacophony of sound
the dull talking ceaseless nonsense
because they cannot find
anything else to do

the heroes vanquished
lunatics running the asylum

tainted breakfast sandwiches
rotting in hidden fat crevices

the naked and the famous
taking up thousands
of gigabytes of memory

the world
a cesspool
of death, humiliation,
traffic, and endless war

humanity
like a wet cigarette
like a scentless candle at its end

its tepid intellect

burning, burning, yet never lit