Give us burn-outs, bars, and battered schools,

Streets of litter, needles, walls,

Smoke and smog and drugs and drab,

******, and heartbreak, liquor, ****;

Fury, ****-ups, fear and fights,

Cut down trees, and sleepless nights;

Polluted rivers, dead-end jobs,

Tell us that there is no god.

Then wake up each and every morning,

Embrace and kindle global warming;

Watch as wars and famine strive,

And watch your poems come alive.


For that is what we writers need.

If one compressed a smile into

A brew, a concoction, a molecular grin.

Would you trade what makes you who are ,

for the artificial kindness within?


If what once could flood a page with words

From tobacco clouds and whiskey rain,

Was that which sent you off, and into

The nether kingdom of Dante's reign.  

Would you become a soldier

For a life of Chemical Happiness?


I would sooner swallow my sadness.

For at least I know it is natural.

Be not afraid to **** your darlings,
For they will fall as humans do,
And bleed their words upon the page --
A bandage wrapped around a wound

Be not afraid to **** your darlings,
For they will litter every shelf,
Their headstones will compose the cover,
Of books which you have built yourself.

Be not afraid to **** your darlings,
They will not grudge nor hold in strife,
For bestowing death upon your darlings
Has instead bestowed upon them life.

I, one day, wondered, whether I,
Was loved by she whom spent my time,
My money, patience, days and nights;
I wondered if her words were true.

So lost, and feeling loveless, I
Wondered long into the night,
With nothing left to warm my heart --
For my burning joy had smoked them all.

I decided that I was not loved;
From me she stole the very last
Inch of thought, and sleep, and cigarette
And not a thank you, from her lips, did pass.

I awoke to find myself alone,
Her presence preserved in mountainous ash;
And beside me where she used lay,
Was a house made out of cigarettes --
Graffiti'd with a note which read:
"A pack for every one you gave."

The drunken poet drinks his strife:

He stumbles, falls, and tumbles rhythm;

Vomits verse unto the ground --

That he cleans up in the morning --

Before passing it off as poetry.