poem of the day 10.31.13

devil’s night

i watch the sirens

swirl the projects

down the street

from where i wait for my bus

ambulances, fire trucks

and the cops

a hat trick of whirling

red and blue

stalling traffic

every october thirtieth

for the past four years

they say devil’s night

is the night for evil

and that may be so

but only if they’re

talking about

playing party to the

redundant violence

the ghoulish sameness

of this urban landscape.

                                    

poem of the day 10.30.13

simon

simon’s mother starts yelling at him

the second they get on the bus at bay parkway

because the kid races to the back on his toddler feet
and starts climbing the row of seats

simon is maybe two, maybe he’s over two now

he’s kicking at a man who’s trying to read the post

the old guy is smiling at simon

but you can tell that he’s pissed because his face is red

and he keeps trying to move further away in his seat

simon’s mother thinks this is funny

she laughs as simon starts scaling poles

she laughs as he squeals and shouts and stomps

she looks around at the rest of us for confirmation

to prove that simon is as endearing as she thinks he is

some people would call a child like this precocious

but they’d be wrong

because precocious denotes intelligence, being clever, gifted

simon is a moron and you can tell it

by the way his slobber hits the bum-piss-stained floor of the bus

i hate children like this

they are road blocks on the path of my peaceful existence

kids like simon should be chained in backyards

or made to wear one of those baby leashes that you used to see

but simon’s mother is liberal with her child

she doesn’t care that he’s still kicking at the old guy

or stumbling around trying to knock over my beam bottle

maybe simon’s mother is just tired

i’d be if i had to put up with this kid

i look at her and i think, yeah, she’s tired and done

and she’s letting simon be our problem for a little while

the chick is young too

she doesn’t even look thirty yet

i should feel bad for her for having a kid like this

for wasting some good years shouting his boutique baby name

carrying his stroller and nursing bag on brooklyn buses

but i don’t

it’s not my fault that something was missing in her life

that she needed to create simon

infest this bus with a simon

plague the world with a simon

who squeals and cries and screams and kicks old men

i can’t empathize with a woman like that

in truth, i’d like to see her reach her end and lash out at simon

give him a good whack on the ass

the way simon’s got it back in my day

but instead she reaches for the child and tries

to coddle him like he’s a teddy bear

of course simon screams at being captured this way

he worms out of his mom’s arms and falls to the stained floor

he reaches for my booze bag but i snatch it away in time

i try not to be too cross because simon’s mother

is giving me a dumb, red-faced, apologetic smile

as simon gets up and goes careening down the aisle

face forward when the bus hits a red light

another old man tries to reach for the kid to brace him

but simon screams at him and slides like pete rose

his mother has no choice but to get up

cumbersome stroller and thick nursing bag in her arms

she reaches simon but he runs away

he’s heading toward the front of the bus

where the driver sits protected by a pane of unbreakable glass

as blissful and ignorant of this kid

as a fat buddha daydreaming under a bodhi tree.           

poem of the day 10.29.13

milwaukee

i’m supposed to live in milwaukee

at least according to these online surveys

that i take every few years

find your spot one of them is called

or where do i want to live? is another name

i don’t know why i still take these quizzes

i’m perfectly happy in brooklyn, for the most part

i do it to amuse myself, i guess

or maybe to gaze into this other life that i could be having

the one in milwaukee

i try to be honest with the quizzes

but honesty for me means i mostly answer middle-of-the road

i need to have lots of bright and sunny days

i answer neutral

i love a thick white blanket of snow in the winter

i answer neutral

i need good public transportation

having water nearby is a plus

there should be a strong arts scene where i live

i answer neutral

neutral and neutral

and i always end up with milwaukee

i can’t figure this one out

i’ve done it with a number of quizzes

and being a middle-of-the-road kinda guy

always gives me milwaukee

this is unfair to the fine people of that city

i’m willing to bet the approximately 600,000 denizens of milwaukee

don’t feel very ho-hum or neutral about where they live

milwaukee means gathering place by the water

it’s the 22^nd largest city in america

some call it the jewel of the great lakes

the typewriter was even invented in milwaukee

the new york times just did an article

about spending thirty-six hours in milwaukee

on purpose

but sure as shit if i answer neutral to:

i’d like to have good museums nearby

i enjoy local theater

or do you want to live near a major medical center?

i get milwaukee time and time again

i suppose i could answer the quizzes differently

be more assertive in my views

on whether or not i need to be near a major international airport

or if i’m hooked on fishing

how much i enjoy cultivating my green thumb

maybe if i answered in the emphatic

i’d get somewhere like los angeles

or san francisco or even back here in brooklyn

but you know what?

i really don’t give two shits about any of that stuff

i am middle-of-the-road

i’m neutral on most things, if not everything

i mostly sit in my apartment and drink beer and read books

watch movies or sports or i go to the bar

milwaukee had 26 local breweries by 1856

and it has almost a thousand taverns now

gene fucking wilder was from milwaukee

and the brewers ain’t so bad

…of course jeffrey dahmer was born in milwaukee

but he’s dead now

so i figure if we moved there

the wife and i would be all right

we’d be content enough

we’d probably spend our days snacking

on sausage and cheese and beer

watching the packers or the bucks

and if my wife ever asked me how i was doing

i’d probably say okay

i’m doing okay.

                                   

poem of the day 10.28.13

From East Busway Blues 1995

(50)

lou reed songs
of city life
ringing in my ears
fingernails bitten
into the flesh
tired of my reflection
in the smeared window
this east busway blues
is no longer
as undiscovered poem
that i can't wait to unfold
in the morning
sun

RIP Lou

poem of the day 10.25.13

my fortieth birthday

my fortieth birthday

isn’t even for six months

but for almost a year now

i’ve been having phone conversations

with my mother about my fortieth birthday

she loves to talk about my fortieth birthday

she wants me and my wife

to come to pittsburgh for it

or they could come here to brooklyn

either way….

it’s some kind of milestone for her, i get it

but she doesn’t seem to understand

that i don’t want to celebrate my fortieth birthday

who in the hell wants to celebrate

something as futile as that?

why not celebrate a coming hurricane or a blizzard

or some other harbinger of doom?

i don’t want to be forty

hell, i didn’t want to be thirty-nine

at thirty i tried to jump onto subway tracks

if i was done then imagine how i feel now?

forty is a deeper downslope to me

it’s pulling white hair out of my beard in work bathrooms

crying for no reason on the walk to work

becoming more and more paranoid

and less trusting of everyone around me

it’s a glaring example of all that i haven’t done

the number is wearying

it’s a cancer 

it's a mom and day birthday

and not suitable for a guy like me

forty

forty

i say it aloud and i get sick

i shouted forty at some twenty year-old dude’s

thin, slouching demeanor and he smirked at me

i shouted forty at some twenty year-old chick’s ass

and it jiggled at the audacity in numbers

but my mother wants to celebrate it over a dinner

some wine and beer and tickets to a baseball game

so that i can watch twenty-five year-old kids

run around the base paths like golden gods

what shit

i want to celebrate it by hanging myself

or drinking a tin of lighter fluid to doors albums

and then turning myself into a fireworks display

still, i know i should be nice about it

someone offering to take me out on the town

celebrate my life

all my mother does is love me

my family loves me

my wife does too

but i already told her to expect a motherfucker of a day

when i turn forty

so we aren’t talking about it right now

unless we want to kill the night at hand

i’m thinking of locking myself in a room

on my fortieth birthday

listening to music that used to make me feel good

reading books that used to matter

watching movies that gave me hope

drinking beer that never made me fat before

and smoking all of the cigarettes

that i gave up once i turned twenty-seven

but all that’ll do is make me feel bad and sick

and more like a rerun than i do now

maybe i’ll leave america for my fortieth

i like being out of america

i feel better when an ocean separates me from the u.s.a.

more human and less stale

but what would it really matter?

i’d still just be some forty year-old fucker in paris

i’d still be the same wastrel

wondering around the louvre and waiting on disease or death

or the age of forty-one

looking at young people and hating them

for being so dumb and vibrant

my old man tells me that forty is still young

but what in the hell does he know?

he’s sixty-three

so of course forty is young to him

fifty is

if i live until sixty-three

someone will probably have to institutionalize me

because i won’t be able to handle it

i’ll be paralyzed physically and emotionally

unable to communicate my thoughts to the outside world

i’ll have to be bathed

force fed, dressed, read to

and have my hair combed by some stranger

probably some young forty year-old

who thinks he knows shit about shit

and probably hates wiping the ass

of an old fart like me.

poem of the day 10.24.13

write through it

even if you are beaten

by the world

exhausted

devoid of words

write through it

something could come of you yet

if you’re the type

who hates poems about being a poet

or having writer’s block

write through it

put it down and shove it in a drawer

no one has to know

that it exists until you are dead

there is no greater joy to you than getting it down

and you know that

so don’t sit there

looking at the weather and porn

worrying about the government

going into default

put down a sentence

because the government has always been full

of assholes

even if all of your old friends

have become republican jack-offs

who hate immigrants and gays

who claim their favorite book is the bible

there has to be a poem somewhere

in there

find it

and teach those lying hypocritical bastards

a lesson

remind them that you remember

when they used to beat their women

get drunk

and get head off of underage hookers

and it doesn’t matter

that you are coming down off scotch

bloated from beer and sodium

that the heart is racing

and the head feels like an anvil

that the job is an unforgivable noose

write through it

take a shit

hurl into the porcelain god

pour aspirin down your throat

call the doctor a fool

grab a cup of coffee or water

and swear you’ll never do it again

but then get back in there

face the machine

face the white void of computerized paper

call up all the demons from this cesspool life

put something down

for immortality sake

be your own hero

be your own god

you won’t regret it

                                                

poem of the day 10.23.13

crying over kerouac…again

i wanted to do some damage

deep down i wanted damage

i had four scotch and waters on the rocks at vieni vieni

as 1970s cop shows played on the tv

and some blonde kept glaring at me

because she probably thought

that i was some kind of tourist poseur

and i probably was to her

drinking in her dive bar

on the recommendation of a writer

whose first book was sitting in my bag

but i wanted damage

i was on my way to damage

because i understood car wrecks

better than the passive ocean

so the scotch and waters kept coming

i watched the blonde glaring at me

as old man heads fell like soldiers

on the battlefield

another day shot to shit

and i left vieni vieni giving the blonde

a smug drunken look of significance

as she did shooters of some brown poison

meant to help her forget her life

and in the hotel room was a bad bottle of red wine

which got drunk to baseball games

to the chatter of chinatown

and car horns blaring down broadway, san francisco

while i thought about where i was

where i was going

six months to forty years old

with the hangovers getting no easier

the poems getting no better

my belly hanging over my belt

life a brick wall on every garbage strewn street

and inside vesuvio’s café i went

considering damage

considering pictures of jack kerouac

hanging on the wall

young and vibrant

holding cigarettes

holding court

his eyes wide with angelheaded hipster majesty

and i looked at them while jazz played

while sucking down sweet dark and stormy

after sweet dark and stormy

damage

thinking jack you fool

jack you fucking fool

you could’ve made it through the storm

jack

until i felt it well up in me again

like an ancient volcano coming to life

my vesuvius in vesuvio’s

waterworks for a dumb, dead ghost

crying over kerouac

again

and again

and again

as my wife sat there staring into the black neon

of west coast glory

holding my hand

the sick blubbering husband of her youth

until the waitress came over and shook our glasses

asking that eternal question

care for another round?

                                               

poem of the day 10.22.13

egoist

the airplane goes

from rocking to swaying

back and forth

i’m trying to watch the superman movie

but i can’t concentrate

all the crashes and thuds

i can’t tell if they’re from the movie

or from the plane

i pause the movie and try to stand up

what are you doing? my wife asks

i can’t do this, i tell her

as the plane sways from left to right

i have to get off this thing

and go where? she asks

she has a point

i mean we are 36,000 feet in the air

which makes this swaying over utah

all the more unnerving

fuck this, i say

fuck traveling and going anywhere

because i can’t do this shit anymore

it’s just turbulence, my wife says

look around you

no one else is freaking out

it’s true

one lady is reading the san fran chronicle

and some kid is eating popcorn and playing on an ipad

to hell with them, i say

they’re all fools and commoners

c students with loan debt

office drones

blank video game kids without a chance

retirees sucking up our social security

when this plane goes down

the only people who will miss them

are the census takers and the irs

oh that’s real nice, my wife says

i’m a poet, i tell her

a goddamned wordslinger

and i have a novel coming out this year

small, minute enclaves of people

will be devastated when i’m gone

are you listening to yourself? she asks

yes, i say

as the plane sways and bumps

and dips left

when it comes to life and death

i’m an egoist and i can’t help it

uh-huh, my wife says

she returns to watching her movie

while i sit there surrounded by calm dullards

playing nose dives and other death scenarios in my head

eventually the bucket of bolts settles and so do i

i go back to the movie too

back to superman saving the world

striving for truth and justice

while i go the american way

of self-righteous indignation

me versus everyone else on this plane

as i leave one coast rocking

readying myself once again

for the turmoil of the next                                              

poem of the day 10.21.13

the right kind of man now

he has done

everything right

he’s moved to the suburbs

he got married to a smart women

out of his league

he found god

quit his job because his wife said so

and started preaching the good word

to impressionable children

and the mentally handicapped

his wife squeezed him out some babies

to complete the picture

they all dress the same at baseball games

and when they go to the zoo

he stopped drinking

puts nothing in his body

harder than lemonade and ice water

he runs marathons to stave off

the frustration of daily life

he’s got a ton of friends

pasty, white suburbanites

in plaid shorts and golf shirts

whose wives look built to procreate

and do little else

people who go to church every sunday

and believe in the fine art of brunch

fifteen to a table

dully smiling and talking

about jesus and the weather

as their kids scream and throw food

he’s got a back lawn

that he’s always going on about

flowers and birds and trees

and a swimming pool full of chlorine

he’s forgotten all about those ten-dollar blow jobs

and tranny whores

vomit nights

and coming in his pants at strip clubs

unless he thinks about them

while he’s scratching his ass

and watering the tulips

he’s the right kind of man now

with an office and a den

a sensible car and a crucifix in every room

he’s against abortion and welfare

thinks the poor should go out and get a job

the walking, talking definition

of the american dream

with 300 channels of nothing on

his favorite book is the bible

and i’ll be damned if he doesn’t sleep with it

under his pillow every night

just in case those temptations

start to rip him away from the good life.

                                                            

HIATUS

hello all

Winedrunk will be taking a little break from October 11th-Oct 20th.

poem of the day 10.10.13

black tranny on 4^th avenue brooklyn

the black tranny was on

4^th avenue again this morning

she was wearing a jean skirt

cut up to the crotch

high snakeskin heels

and a top that didn’t cover the belly ring

she was fixing her make-up

in the rearview mirror of some good citizen’s prius

some self-righteous voter

who probably has no clue

that there’s a black tranny

on 4^th avenue sometimes

but i see her a lot

always in the morning

always seemingly on the go

i think she might be a prostitute

but i can’t be certain on that

she fooled me once on 5^th avenue

it was early and i had a hangover

i saw this ass sauntering down the street

in a pink leather mini

and i thought, jesus christ, the world is full

of small miracles

it was sunday morning

and i almost believed in god

until she turned around

to fix her hair in a bodega window

and i saw that it was just the black tranny

but i didn’t mind

i’m a pretty liberal guy

not like most of the italian gorillas

in this neighborhood

sometimes when the black tranny

passes a group of these walking turds

they start laughing and slapping each other silly

a few give out catcalls

one in a jets hat called her a faggot

but the black tranny

just turned and smiled at them

with her mouthful of white teeth

she’s probably making a bundle

on those good old brooklyn boys

when their wives and girlfriends aren’t around

this morning i’m glad the black tranny

is on 4^th avenue

even if she’s not with her

red-headed white tranny friend

it’s good to see her

out here mixing with the assholes

walking their dogs

the jerk-off dude-bros in business suits

the dumb american blonde girls

with their huge ice coffees, cell phones,

and bug-eyed starlet sunglasses

smiling and puckering her lips

as stressed out parents

drag their little brats to school

singing whitney houston songs

and shaking her little ass in the autumn sun

she gives this neighborhood some character

she saves us from being

as bland and dull

as your neighborhood is.

                                                

poem of the day 10.09.13

hack job

he calls my wife

while we’re on 3^rd avenue

drinking root beer and  ginger beer

in the hot autumn sun

the cat is ready, my wife says

when we pick her up

she starts meowing and hissing

clawing at the cage

at the sound of our voices

the cat groomer is too scared

to put her in the carrier

maybe you should do it, he lisps

so i do

without looking at the shave job

i couldn’t do her legs, he whines

she just wouldn’t let me

the cat is fifteen years-old

half-blind

with kidney problems

…but okay

we apologize and pay the man

while a bichon frise barks and whines

because it knows it’s next in line

when we get home

we see that all four of the animal’s legs

are unevenly shaved

and there are clumps of fur all over her body

jesus, look what that queen did to her

i say to my wife

we could’ve done this kind of damage ourselves, she says

if this weren’t such a horrible hack job

it would almost be funny

but this motherfucker got eighty-dollars out of us

i should go up there and complain, my wife says

go on yelp and rip his business a new one

as the cat prances around the room

like a bad shag rug from 1976

like a dancer with two different go-go boots on

what good would it do? i say

what’s done is done

i think about the ginger beer and root beer

that we were unable to finish

consolation prizes for not drinking for two days

that was four more dollars

that cat groomer caused us

i think i should probably go up there

and fix his ass good

save that bichon frise from the same fate

i mean eighty-fours bucks is no slouch

but it’s too goddamned hot

this late in the year

and i’m thinking today might be the day

where i start drinking again

after all.

                                   

poem of the day 10.08.13

the world looks like god

someday

i know i’ll probably quit drinking

but for now

i’m pretty fine with it

for there is no other elixir

for dealing with mankind that i’ve found

that works as effectively as drink

and regardless

of the buckets of poison

that i pour into my gut

i’d take the ritually soused me of now

over the wide-eyed twenty year-old one

on any given day

but i still know

that one day these shenanigans will have to stop

the blurry bliss

leading toward torrential hangovers

the grand drunken party that i throw for myself

on a nightly basis

will have to cease

by choice

by doctor

by death

or when the world finally opens up its arms

to me

and looks like god

                                   

poem of the day 10.07.13

spitting

she rolls

through the stop sign

texting someone on her cell phone

almost leveling me in the crosswalk

out of instinct i spit

getting her passenger side window

with a wad of backwash phlegm

that’s thick and yellow like custard

and for a moment she stops

she looks from me

to the spit

to her cellphone

then moves on angrily punching words

into her device

because i’ve finally given her

something of interest

to tell her itty bitty little virtual world.

                                               

"before winedrunk" poem of the day 10.04.13

hello all

this last little poem thus ends "before winedrunk" week.
thank you all for putting up with the ancient ramblings of a crappy poet
while i muscled through a ton of revisions this week.  i have a novel due
out entitled, The Librarian.  the main character, Randall Wyndham is featured
in a new short story at Rind Literary Magazine.  The novel is due out in late December.

anyway....here's a little Pocket Change from 1995 to close out this
"blast from the past."

pocket change

broke

and as broke as america wants

me to be

like allen ginsberg standing on street corners

with only pocket change

eating and drinking my last dollar

in the form of two bagels

and a coffee refill

broke

and still convinced i’ve got pride enough

to care completely for myself

hence the struggling, pulling match with mary

in a clothing store

over a yellow summer shirt

that she wanted to buy for me

broke

and as sick as i’ve been

in the last two years

in a beating sweat on a cold spring day

splattering my last gulp of coffee

on the pavement

and hoping kris collins will round the corner.

                                                                        03.22.1995

"before winedrunk: poem of the day 10.03.13

snowflake

full mouth

    cold lip

kiss

snowflake, you are

cover my streets

freeze my feet

dance around my head like a

long-legged ballerina

smack me silly

with your wet love

snowflake

                                    1995

"before winedrunk" poem of the day 10.02.13

a bowl of soup…

and the things i love

about pittsburgh

in the fall

early october

up on top of

mt. washington

first specks

of frozen misty

morning frost breath

the cool city sky

is like a blanket.

                        1993

"before winedrunk" poem of the day 10.01.13

pretzels & frank o’hara

the copy of lunch poems

    kris gave me sits on the counter

in the staff room

       next to my can of mountain dew

i’m eating pretzels

  it’s 3 o’clock

    & i’ve gotta go back to work

but dear frank o’hara

     had words that couldn’t be late

for lunch

    words that had new york city in their grasp

its empire state building

                                      broadway

                                                      harlem

times square

                   brooklyn/queens

i got pittsburgh

      3 rivers

& a 40-cent bag of

     sour dough pretzels

in mine

                                                1994