desperate

i was called again after the firehouse ran out of water and the fellas were left to wring their acid guts for the beer they wasted on commradery and pleasure, when they got to me i was totally delusional, eating canned sardines and weeping into my own miserable ejaculate stains, while you slept so harmoniously, you feverish nude, with dreams of gardens and opium and garbage bag winters taking walks along the road and ridding the world of the trash it had created, but you slept nonetheless, soundly, the soft slosh of an almost empty three dollar bottle of wine titling upwards, down your throat, as you drank to the pillow, gnawing on the thought of food the nonstop reguritation of a birthday party celebration still ringing the balloon pops in your ears, remember when they were so young, and they shat themselves with a smile, the days were unbearably long but filled with the slight buzz of happiness, the neuroflood of scenes inside the screen when we held each other and slapped back the devil with another bow to the floor, splintered our heads and kept going because we were in love with the rhythmic motion of the prayer, the salutation you learn crossing the street, the monster you feed under the bed when the children go to sleep, to keep them disciplined, to force them to listen and to love you, the wildness of the thoughts as they grow in paranoia-rick soil, the mental ravine we all get caught in and eventually learn to orangutang our bodies through the vines, thorns, sleeping sloths, murder in the jungle, blood on the leaves, death hanging stealth deep in the bark of the trees, rings, again, rings again, faster than it can explode the thought is out of you, you called for me and i was awake waiting and nervous, but i'm here and none of what you said ever made sense to me, i was completely lost to begin with, stop.

Patholodge

Illinois darkness, winter approaches
flicks you in the face
as you step off the evening train,
cars packed tight on the street
and no one can see
the warmth beneath the eyes
hidden under long coats and hats
no pinkish cheeks swaddled by scarves
no color, only dark steel bodies
of rolling machines and it makes me
miss new york all the more
with the lights resuscitating the city
through the long winter, keeps it
beating with amphetamine IV deep
in the core of the beast, all of it
working together all the time
all the time, faster than a thought.

prospects/delusions

I saw a beautiful girl sit all alone on the train and i had not the courage, not the impetus to tell her i loved her, though i did not know her and though i did all the same, she was calm as the moon, delicate as piano notes, equally pale but a woman i could keep, her hair shock bright, bleached blonde like california but her hips belonged to a goddess and i would remain content for the rest of my commute if we said not a word to each other, only kisses for half a moment for me to press her lips into mind and glide my hands down those hips to grasp the bulk of her buttocks and hold her muscle alive and warm and real in my hands for a lifetime, but the chance never does come and my stop is too soon approaching.

Unkempt

i had no idea what to say to say in the first place, love wasn't as simple as a bear trap it was more like hunting for grizzlies without a shotgun and i left all my liquor down by the river, the next thing you know she's got a tab on the movements of your eyebulbs and when you find the pen you'll forget where you left the paper, it's the same thing over and over, a falling piano, dawn-tinted cobblestone streets and cigarettes and coffee next to the blackened river, down by the port your lose yourself, untie your shoes and start saying things you would never do in the presence of friends, but this is different, you are a fish with wings, you a snowball tossed in blood, you are a pilot with a feather obsession, the ink and paper and the octopus are all for show, nothing but a cabaret cut loose from the strings and a marionette swinging to the breakdown, so typically incoherent I hate myself again for permitting my own liberty, but here it is as a second, an instant of nothing, of vomitus onto the screen, kagney and carter with their bowties, looking down from the balcony remembering the fiery edge of summer and humming in their sleeves, beautiful, nasty and altogether absent. what a putrid nuisance of words so far.

garble

I've got nauseous thoughts of a 200 pound grey haired grandma waiting in the autopsy room with an abscess in her belly the size of Toronto and the native americans probably never had this kind of problem, enough bear blood to cure the whole country back then, I could stew any animal for days without water if they tied me to the ground, but today it's a whole lot different, you can't leave the house without a chainsaw or something silver, come to think of it I haven't worn my japanese bladed blazer in over a year, but anyways when you find the tumor, you rip it out, the guts of this old woman falling flat onto the steel table just like vomit, shapeless and miserable, stank like satan's asshole, the inside of her, evil smelling, so human, so deathly, so empty i wanted to wretch my heart up through my throat and just hold it in my hands to make sure it was still beating, cuz at this point i can't feel anything, not even sure the things that move are alive, you were made of dust and clay they write in the books and i got all the ink in the world for a solid book on metaphysics and a good recipe for guacamole but if i spent another minute in that goddamn human meat locker i might just kill myself there in the room and never get to the good stuff, anways what the commotion of placenta and the celebration of birthrights for if you can spill a little wine on the sheets every once in a while? to hell with punctuation, you're here for the booze, the cheap sex and the dirt in your blood every chance you get, pass a long-blade and slide it under your pillow, you know what i mean once you've hand dreams of deadened eyes staring, the fear of being alive, of wishing endlessly into a well you should just throw yourself into, not enough grass in the whole world to pick the worms from out my nightmares, she said it first and she was the last one, too.

blank spot

there were junkies drowning in my children's water fountain the night the dragonflies revolted for the queen and the business was terrible for everyone else involved in the makeshift manufacturing of lightbulb repellent, you ought to know the difference between a light scented sheet and a sabertooth ache from the size of the bullet, read the instructions and you'll know you were never meant for the job in the first place, at least that's what she said to me when I stole the liquor from behind the bar, i could have slugged the whole town with that bottle of jack but it was half water and the ice had black soot particles frozen in it, i wish i could have wretched my disappointment all over that shit-town floor and i would have danced in their shrieks because, after all, what is a good pair of dancing shoes and a gallon of kerosene good for if you can't use either of them on a boring sunday night, the mantra of the month preaches it's peaches to all those who fall short, every single lazy schlup who carries his weight by the ounces and finds his tune clogged in the vomit filled bathroom sink, we know what you mean, you don't have to pain a picasso every goddam time you want attention, that what she said anyway, she says a lot of shit when she's horny and when she loses her sense of self, but times she's the truest are when she's pulling out her hair on the train and selling it to strangers for a kiss or for some kind grandiose drama she's dreaming up, i know the boys back home, they love the feminine squeals and sneakers on the bed at 7am for a breakfast without breaking any eggs only rubbing them 'til they crack, you know the feeling, you've had it writing in your gut since wednesday and it won't leave as long as you got that stupid smile on your face. hear it? it's crawling into your past.

Toilet words

review conundrum kisses, it's her bridal shower tomorrow but nobody gives an orange meringue what she wears or who she marries because it was over the second she opened her eyes, the guitar strings play something spanish, something about dawn-tinted cobblestone streets with too much wine, woozy next to the stone, thinking of jumping in the river to prove it is not made of glass but we've all had those feelings of death creep in our throats, the stiffness of melancholy in our knuckles, we can't crack every nut that they throw at us, the buckets are full and we're over it, over it like a tuesday massacre, like a button-up fly police station deranged waitress or something maniacal and boisterous, another whiskey on top of the gin and then again with the tonic bath ritual. Not enough tea in this joint to keep my nerves cold and blue, uninflammed and korsakoffing by way back to last years chicken fights and kfc dinners. garbage. such complete and utter verbal, linguisitic garbage here and i'm spewing like the queen just tried ethiopian sloth chutney, heads up, here it comes again.

wooden wallpaper cafe

this is a long road to the same starting point, ashes to wine, earth to blood, mixing mixing mixing inept cauldrons heavy swirls, deep processes of undulating pioneers the beginning of behavior bred in a turkish coffee cup, researching the western ideal of dying in a clothing store without religion without blinding the individual curious curious animals without rightness who are you with all your knives and your uncut tomatoes, you sit by the cows all afternoon and count the thread pattern of the barnyard pastures, and you never have good things to say about the cynicism of ants, they've survived this long with the heat of two drunks sipping sangria in the corner of the cafe, spitting their laughter like hyenas, with the sympathy of a volcano in polynesia, they know nothing of the receding horizon, nothing of the sun without its shine, who would you bring if you could neuter the situation altogether? The arabian princess finds her belly dancing in her genetic code on with the double helix traces in the burning sand, the soft wrapping of dissection around a lilting square, bad mouth tastes before the beer garden oasis, what scale do they teach the monsters to terrorize the children. you are nothing but a secret, a question of envy. no substance, no bitching.

You had such grace in the end. I wish I could remember what color your eyes were.

Keep your fingers
crossed, somebody might
get it right this time,
your cloudy mirror shows
a brother, a son, past and future
lover, wide-toothed friend, spoiled
milk liar, insect infested personality
wound, one that refuses to use
normal band-aids, simply hidden
like not lifting up an arm to a handshake,
like water-buffalo in the plains of missouri
a mime, a piano falling.

Others I used to be.
They were like you, too.
Caution, because too much
telling can lead to cerebral
swelling and i might split
like an overheated bag of popcorn.
we are not at the circus so take off
your mask and start yelling
into this bucket
of shallow water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVKDQgT_b-Y

"Never make a poet mad."

So Soon?

I can't wait
to read those letters
forwards and backwards
I can't wait
to feel that concrete brick
hanging from my organs
I can't wait
for the cloudy scarf and coffee
malaise to drip into
every fucking pore
of my body
I can't wait
to have my memory
surgically removed.
I can't wait, I can't
wait, I
can't wait.

Always Right

Very private men
Speak loud ideas in public
But without applause

Spring Broke

Bus towards Boston
Claustrophobic cushion trap
breathe earth's sunset trip.

Thieves

Old man Claw's asleep
Stole wine jugs, sheep skin, ran but...
Sun rise, skeletons.

Waiting on the Roof

There are only six minutes left
on the clock before it explodes.

Nothing is ever complete,
only abandoned at a certain time,
perhaps we may never find satisfaction
in that pre-packaged, saran-wrapped
blue light discount aisle.

Of course we can talk of cupcakes,
or pickled vegetables, but i'd rather
roll around by the river
in the dirt, and taste the blood
that prickles up on my skin.
I want to know how
the earth tastes me, too.

One more minute.

It's not that we were ever necessary
for each other's survival, it was simply
a matter of convenience.
The garbage will pile up even when
there is a garbage truck to haul it out
every morning.
5 am.
You need rest.
Your thoughts are fried from the computer
screen. You've forgotten what you
were originally made out of.
Blood and dirt. Like me.

About eight more seconds left.

ppff

"You cannot argue with the weather."--Mrs. Eskin (my landlady)

Oh, Roberto. Enough with the threats.

Four a.m. philosophies make
the idea of something mundane
like murder much more manageable.
Besides, the bag of saltpox
has eroded through to the second floor.
If the neighbors call the cops again
I'll show them the inside
of a wasp's nest for the insane plea
we're bound to make, regardless.

Hey. Hey. HEY!

The thieves have loosened
the blood hounds from their cages,
the aviary conductor conducting
something more orchestral
than detective.
More morphine for my mint julip,
darling.
I can't bear to watch
all the fumblings this morning
I've suffered from the most awful
dreams.
I imagined everything
was governed by geometry
and nothing chaotic.
Oh, it simply sends me
the shivers.
Double the dosage on that, dear.
I don't want to feel my feelings
just yet.

Good Morning, Osiris

Waking again with limbs of lead
in the crumpled position of wrinkled
cloth wires wrapping around me
like an unsalted fish floundering
in a newly shaken pan, i'm coming to
last night's pseudo-cocaine binge
really got me itching the inside of my
skull this time
so bad for you.
The river is less than a quarter of a mile
from my bed and the sun is directly over
Uncle Apollo's Lower East Side apartment,
lets drown out these dried up thoughts
and talk of deep things.
Meet me at the bottom.

Over and Out, Connecticut

Two rusted pennies by the
Riverside Park
Fountain.
Sunsink so deep
red, the clouds
combusting like God's
wednesday night heart
burn.
Sky is aflame. My wishes
materialize into Armaggeddon,
too soon to leave,
besides,
the trees are beginning
to unwrinkle.
Catch my spray
when i dive, will you?

can someone please proofread my DNA?

Waking up on the floor

When we get angry we say things
we don't mean,
or maybe just the things
we never meant to say.