From a mirror none can see
his reflection stares
a starving copy of myself
with sunken eyes
and dark hollow cheeks.

He picks at old scabs
on his pockmarked face
while my hands
remain by my sides
fists clenched.

His eyes twitch
grey lips whispering
dark prophecies
while my mouth
remains silent.

He's like a tweaker
or a dope fiend
but no pill or powder
or god filled syringe
eases his jones.

His pleading eyes stare
as I turn my back
and walk away
whispers trailing behind
like a comet's tail.

It was good, you know...
in the dream
I could taste the ice cold beer
that fizz and bite
that I miss so much
that pleasant floating sensation
after the first two

I should probably run
to an AA meeting, but...
strangers
cult like eyes
are you new here?
clammy handshakes
held too long
hugs with my nose
inches away from
malodorous armpits

And this morning,
at the coffee shop
stray bottles of beer
on a table
outside the bathroom
leftover from the owner's
weekend bbq

I'm going in to
take a ****....
and my hand
wants to reach for one
no one's looking
take it in there
uncap and guzzle it
lukewarm
big belch afterward

Then I'd be ready for work...

"Wipe that smirk
off your face!"
You will hear this often,
though you are not
aware of smirking.
"Lose the attitude!"
Though you do not speak.

In your face
and body language,
they read their own
not quite swallowed lies,
their self betrayal
in the service of a futile
and shallow existence.

Their own misgivings reflected
in your rebellious twinkle
and shuffle,
must be erased.

Their hands reach
from schoolbooks,
from newspapers,
from billboards and screens,
with gleaming spoonfuls
of stinking horseshit,
their lips humming airplane sounds,
"Mmmmm-mmm."

Keep your lips pinched
in disgust, boys and girls,
and seek out
your own brand of futility.

The hard stare,
the stiff upper lip,
the cocky bark,
and the smart *** reply
elevated to an art form
are old habits by now.

Polished by years
of abuse from guys like himself,
like cons in a prison yard
exploiting every crack
in a newbie's facade.

He flips the radio on
while stopped at a red
on the drive home
from the job site,
after a day of kicking around
his new apprentice,
with the soft hands
and boyish face.

And turns to goosebumps
hearing John Lennon's voice
sing the long forgotten lines
of a song about the working man.

A drop forms in his eye
as he listens,
and he blinks like he’s trying
to **** it back in,
but it falls,
runs down his left cheek
like a tiny river
across the desert.

He angrily wipes it
with his sleeve,
(another old habit)
switches off the radio,
and shifts in his seat.

Then he looks around to see
if anyone saw him do it,
but the people in their cars
are all staring straight ahead
waiting for the green.

A tap on the shoulder,
I swivel in my chair,
leaning back,
fingers stroking chin stubble
as I take her all in.

A pale leg
protrudes through the slit
of her long black dress.

A glance,
and I raise my eyes
to meet her blue gaze.

She ***** her head,
looks quizzically at me,
as she leans back,
strokes her smooth chin
with slender fingers,
mocking my pose,
and whatever expression
I’m wearing on my face.

A dare in her crooked smile.

I shake my head,
like a dog shedding water,
break the spell,
ask how I can help.

With her hand
she beckons me
toward her desk,
her English still too broken,
my Russian even worse,
though I do try sometimes,
as she gives puzzled looks,
and occasionally giggles.

She sits,
points at the problem
on her computer screen,
as I lean over her shoulder
close as I dare,
breathing her in.

And seeing only
the reflection
of our faces together
in the glass.

Dad and son
play video games together,
spraying their enemies
with bullets,
and chucking grenades,
grinning as the blood
and body parts fly.

They watch movies together too:
westerns with gunfights
and men bleeding,
dying in dusty streets.
Car chase action flicks
with crashes and explosions.

The kid's seven now,
got his own BB gun
he shoots at neighborhood cats,
even killed a few,
and that's all right.
Another year, Dad's
gonna teach him
to shoot the.22

But he got the belt
when Dad caught the boy
in his **** stash.
He squirmed, sitting
at the dinner table that night,
welts stinging his little behind.

He got the buckle end of it
when Dad caught him
and the neighbor boy
trying out some of those
things he'd seen
in the magazine photos.

"No son of mine
is gonna grow up
to be a ******!"

I thanked him,
the man in charge,
for his astute insight
into my personality.

He scowled,
a head taller than I,
peering down under
eyebrows thick
like blonde pushbrooms.

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“I’ll take it as one, anyway.”
I said, staring up at him,
lips grinning
over grit teeth.

He looked at me,
blinked,
then turned
and walked off
shaking his head.

His dress shoes
clomped across
the warehouse floor
like a legion of bullies
marching in retreat.

And I think I glimpsed
my *******
reflected in his
shiny bald spot.

She wasn't shy
about telling her friends
she was banging him
for his bank account,
hundred grand and change.

A retirement plan,
of sorts.

She met him
while pouring drinks
at some biker bar dive,
a pseudo Vietnam vet,
beer belly, mostly toothless,
his battle stories
straight outta Hollywood.

And it wouldn't be long,
she said
with him looking
a bit yellow
but still hammering back shots
at the casino bar,
while she played
slot machines two at a time
a handle in each hand.

Occasionally, he'd yell,
"Let's go get a room
so you can **** my ****!"

I saw her after the inevitable,
said sorry to hear about Tommy.
(You never know...
there could have been
some human feelings)

And she smiled,
said "Yeah..."
her tone chipper.

She got the money,
and it was gone
in about a year.
She fed that flock
of fair weather friends
like a mama bird
and then they flew.

Now she’s looking
for another sucker,
and taking shots
at gold diggers
on social media.

"******* ******."

He used to sit
with legs crossed
and hands folded
in his lap
for hours,
staring at the ticking clock.

One day I asked why.
“It’s all there is,” he said.

Then I heard
he decorated
that smug round face
and its Roman numerals
with blood, brain
and skull fragments
as those relentless hands
spun their slow waltz
in silence.

His handwritten note
said only,
“I got bored.”

From lighter flame
to cigarette
into ash flicked,
and stubbed out.

The bottle poured
into drunkenness
and a dark *******
hangover hiding
from another day,
leaking blue
through dusty blinds.

From one woman
to the next, and
from night to night,
weekend to weekend...

The future becomes now,
arriving like an empty box
abandoned at the door.

One must try hard,
not to see certain things:
the rust orange glow
of the setting sun,
a bloated scowling face
casting shadow stains
across ivory columns
and monuments
to former greatness.

Yet eyes are clouded
with enough fear
to believe it rises,
or that our belief
can make it rise again,
even as it visibly sinks
below the western horizon,
and shadows lengthen,
and darken.

A raw beauty exists
in these colors of fading light,
though I shudder to imagine
the long night that awaits,
and the things that
might fill the darkness
to terrify and ruin
a generation of children.

I hope not to witness that.
I hope the twilight lasts awhile,
but that I am asleep
before night
completely
falls.

I first met His children
when I moved to Missouri,
that gleaming buckle
of the Bible Belt.

In the workplace,
they ate lunch at a table
by themselves,
away from we sinners.

They left cartoon gospel tracts
in the bathroom, the break room,
in dark corners of the warehouse,
shiny beacons for the lost.

Their message removed
stumbling blocks of poetry,
dark mountains of metaphor,
and revealed the shining Sun
of literal biblical Truth.

They wore the message
like black and white armor
that kept the howling grey
of the world at bay.

And having been reborn,
washed clean in some muddy river,
they were free to cast
a thousand stones.

A newspaper story,
rockstar’s death by overdose.
One of His children smiled and asked,
“I wonder where he is now?”
A rhetorical question.
They knew. And laughed.

I shivered, a vision of them
beachfront, enjoying the view
as the ****** writhed and screamed
in a literal lake of fire.

The laughter of His children
reborn in my unbelieving ears
as the sick scraping of knives
sharpening marshmallow sticks.

We watched that couple
in the restaurant,
whispering venom
across the table,
shaking their heads,
then chewing their meal
in sullen silence,
looking away.

I reached across our table
and squeezed your hand,
as we agreed, “Not us.”

And we were right.
We didn't make it
halfway to that...

Sometimes I read
something I’ve written,
and not so long ago...
a couple of months,
last week,
or ten minutes,
and think:

“Man, you are really
full of ****!”

You want them to love you,
to fall into your depths,
dive into you,
you mud puddle,
you pothole full of last night’s
***** rain.

You don’t really feel that way:
you’re hollow...
a gourd,
a dried up well,
a stringless guitar
in a pawnshop window.

But it’s easy
to make something up,
almost as if deception
were a built in feature.

Doves feign broken wings,
Possums play dead,
Chameleons blend,
Anglerfish dangle their bait,
and men and women,
well...

This...."flaw"
carved by necessity
into our bones,
and written in our blood.

Yet we are shocked
when we are deceived,
like being surprised
every time we see
another person’s face
and discover it has a nose.

I prefer my head
spinning with confusion
to the lust for certainty
that inspires your gatherings.

A crowd of ideological clones
all in agreement
smiling and nodding
patting one another on the back
laughing at the ignorance
of the masses of straw men
outside your gates.

With enough eyes, ears,
mouths, lips and *******
“It could be” becomes “It is”
and “Maybe” becomes “Yes”
doubts are squashed
like Halloween pumpkins
with hammer blow shouts.

When I hear your footsteps
heavy like jackboots
I slip quietly out the back door
and down the shadowed alley
wanting no part of your circle ****
of self validation.

Just be sure to mop up
when you're finished.

He follows the trail
crossing grey pink granite
glacier polished long ago,
now crumbling under boots.

Pretzel twisted trees
entwine, half alive and dead,
growing straight out of
the high Sierra rooftop,
winter wind scoured.

Springtime runoff rivulets,
tiny waterfalls
over mossy boulders,
snowfields still melting
in late April.

He smiles, glad he's
made the trip today.
Too much of life
spent trapped inside
a worried mind.

He steps to a ledge, looks down,
crows circle below.
The knees shiver a bit
but he stands his ground,
steadies himself, walks on.

Trail narrows,
traverses a steep *****,
granite overhang above.
He stops for a minute,
admires the view.

A shudder, and crack.
He looks up, sees
the tombstone grey slab
hurtling down.

No scream of protest,
no life flashing,
only an instant of surprise
before darkness,
blessed.

It’s Art Fest downtown
and I’m wandering
along with many others,
among the white tents
set up in the street,
looking at metal sculptures
like mangled insects,
and paintings of fragmented people
with chopped up faces
and body parts strewn
like puzzle pieces.

A shrill voice
draws my gaze:
a woman with matted blonde hair
sitting by herself on the sidewalk,
having a conversation
with at least two
other people.

“What did you do to my son?
Where is he?”
she yells,
turning to face one,
then the other.

I’m watching this,
unsure what to do,
unable to look away.

People walk past,
headphones in,
looking at their screens.
Two cops show up,
begin talking to her
and for once,
I’m glad they’re around.

Walking on, I turn down
a quiet side street
away from the main drag,
back toward the lot
where my car is parked.

A man covered in
faded blue prison tats
is walking toward me
with long strides,
looking around,
arms swinging in big arcs
with fists balled at the ends,
his jaw working sideways
like a crackhead on a ******.

The back of my neck tingles
as I take my hands
out of my pockets,
remembering the video
I saw last night:
two scumbags in the Bronx
knocking some poor guy
out cold just for kicks,
high fiving as he lay
unconscious in the street.

A few steps away,
he nods, says
“What’s up bro?”
I raise my chin, “Sup.”
We pass.
I throw a glance
back over my shoulder
as he rounds a corner
and disappears.

Here’s my car.
I get in, turn the key,
and roll the **** out of here.

They sing the blues
in shouting matches
with co workers,
with strangers at bars,
with family rarely seen
over Thanksgiving tables.

They play a sad tune
with guns under pillows
and flaming hatred
fanned every day
by radio chatter
and at night
by tv news.

Lonely vibrato from
a street corner guitar echoes
in 2 a.m. tumblers of scotch
as they pace hallways
imagining a country
that never quite was.

Beneath red faced yelling
and epithets
spit like venom,
beneath the scowls
and finger pointing
lie reservoirs of tears
behind locked spillways,
and children trembling,
cornered by the biggest
bully of them all.

If you train your ears,
you can hear
their song of lament
drifting across the land
like a funeral dirge.

We show off our new gadgets
with smiles, a strut in our step.
I ask a question, it answers.
It tells me what street to take
when there's a traffic jam.
I hold up my phone,
It tells me the song, artist.
App for this, app for that.

Wow, that's so cool!

Ride in the new car
grin as horsepower
pushes us back in our seats.
(Hope I can afford the payments)

Shoot the new rifle,
smooth trigger, pull it
fast as you can.
Those hollow points
leave a big hole.
I hope someone tries breaking in.
Yeah...grinning, chests puffed.

All these extensions
of our humanity,
of eye, ear and brain
hands and feet
fists, elbows and teeth.

It's as though
we grew them ourselves
out of our own bodies
like seedlings,
watered and fed.

We do all this
like a two year old
***** training,
Look Mom!
But at least he made that
**** all by himself.

Your characters
are carefully crafted,
your plot lines
well thought out,
and each night before bed
you scribble a bit more
of the story down
and each night,
you turn pages
and think,
“I didn’t write this.”

And now the characters
are running amok,
and the plot twists and turns
its way into dead end alleys
you never dreamed of.

You sit and stare,
scratching your head,
then begin scrubbing
and erasing
and rewriting
long into the night,
until you finally
get your fictional little world
back the way it should be.

This goes on,
day after day,
until one night you discover
a new character
is banging the protagonist’s girlfriend,
a sweet midwestern angel,
and she’s howling
like a **** star,
her ankles behind her head.

“She would never!”
You scream.
“That is completely
out of character!”

You erase furiously
like a man possessed,
then say **** it
and tear out pages
until you are certain
you have rid yourself
of this nonsense.

You drink whiskey
from the bottle,
and with each sip,
the pages burn
and cast flickering
shadows on the wall.
You finally sleep.

In the morning,
with an aching head
and blurry vision,
you open your book,
and find those pages
have regrown,
like shiny white leaves
printed with the blackest ink.

You sigh,
pick up your pen,
and ponder
what happens next.

Last night,
before sleep,
your picture glowed
on my little screen.

You were out with friends
at a concert,
smiling, laughing
and dancing.

Later on,
the pangs I felt
when I saw your face
became a dream gateway
back into your world.

We stood there
listening to the music,
smiling and laughing together
as we did many years before.

Then I put my arm around you
and you pulled away.

You can’t do that,
you said.

It’s true.
I can’t.

It sits tall in the lobby
with curves like
a woman's hips
under a tight fitting
evening gown.

Blue as lapis lazuli,
streaked with white veins,
flecks of gold
and shot through with
jagged hairline cracks.

It's been broken,
perhaps more than once,
but someone
gathered the pieces,
and with patience
and trembling fingers,
glued every one
back into place.

Now it sits
reflecting the light again
in fragile wholeness.

A political meme is posted,
it enters my brain
through my eyes
as I skeptically squint
and grimace
and even groan
when the ******* bell
goes ding-ding-ding!

If the pile is big enough,
and stinks badly enough,
I break out my shovel...

After a bit of digging,
I post my nuanced reply
complete with links
debunking yet another
specious assertion
or one dimensional caricature.

I smile, imagining
how dazzled they will all be
by my obvious insight
and wisdom!

Then I sit, and wait,
as crickets chirp
across thousands of miles
of fiber optic cables

and my friend list
shrinks...

We all have that friend...
the endless stream
of cheerful affirmations
across our newsfeed.

Like sunshine
and rainbow farts
blown from
lavender scented
*******.

One read:
“Do what makes you happy.”

I asked,
“What if what makes you happy
is killing and dismembering people,
and storing their organs
in your freezer?”

She’s not my “friend” anymore.

I cringe, reading
some of the memes,
wondering about
the dangers of
that much optimism.

Wondering if I’ll ever
read about this person
in a front page
news story.

He walks the earth
placing the minutes
in his pockets
like shiny pebbles
plucked from a river,
and grows heavier,
dragging his feet,
but still bending
to pick them up.

He holds them aloft,
inspects their color,
runs calloused fingertips
over their polished surface,
then stuffs them in
with the others.

He shuffles along
like a man twice his age,
pockets overflowing.

An owl hoots in daylight
voice hungry and hoarse
from a failed nightly hunt.

Bachelors groan
hungover from empty
Saturday morning beds.

As the sun beats down
on black ants crossing miles
of parking lot pavement
through canyon cracks.

And morning dewdrops shrink
on shiny green leaves,
tiny universes vanishing
leaving behind white
stains like dried *****.

A slug crawls out
from cool garden canopy
to suicide slowly,
sun baked on a granite boulder.

A distant phone rings
across a quiet neighborhood.
I wonder who is calling...

Unable to not peek
where I shouldn’t,
fingers clicking,
stalking fibrous cables
at light speed
in the wee hours,
seeking clues
to your disappearing act
as I toss back
beer after beer.

Deciphering posts
like a savant reading code.

Aha! a photo:
you with a new boyfriend,
some *******
with a face tattoo.

I think I recognize
that neighborhood behind you...
that street sign there,
but it’s too blurry to see.

He won’t last, anyway
do I warn him about you?

Let’s check out
his page....

A gun nut? Really?
AND a big diesel pickup
with chrome stacks like a semi truck.

Compensating, no doubt.

I smile at the thought
of you, after,
unsatisfied
by the thing
he’s compensating for,
with your lying pillow talk.

He leaves, and
you reach in the drawer
of the nightstand
for your little blue toy.

Is this better than
driving by your house
at three a.m.,
counting the number
of cars in the driveway?

Or banging on the door,
drunk, or smashing a bottle
through the window
like I would have
when I was still young
and really *******
alive?

The way we spend our money
after the days and weeks,
the years served
in dead end jobs,
inside buildings
like grey prisons...

It’s like we want to get rid of it
as quickly as possible,
the same way
we wanted those hours,
those days
on the job
gone,
like bedbugs or the clap,
or some flea infested stray
scratching at the door.

House sitting at Mom’s
and couldn’t sleep, so
I was snooping a bit in the
closet of the spare bedroom.
There’s a box there,
pieces of my childhood in it.
A story I wrote when I was
8 or 9, about a haunted house
A ghost lived there, a ghost
with just a pair of eyes that
watched me wherever I went.
I was alone in this house,
and there were many doors,
thousands of them.
Some led to empty rooms, or rooms
full of skeletons of others
who died before they found their way out.
Some other doors led to long hallways
with thousands of other doors,
and some others led to prisons,
or dungeons with implements of torture.
And I wandered and searched, for years...
according to the child “me”,
until finally I found a secret door I hadn’t seen,
and was free.  
I went home, and my parents were worried,
And happy to see me.

....a ghost watching, many doors,
wrong turns down hallways, prisons...
How did the child know?  
Maybe only children
and those close to death
know anything.  
Or they don’t pretend to know something
that we capable adults pretend to know.

All worldly powers
are his, and yet
his decisions are made
with a mind like a rabid mouse.
He got what he wanted,
which was everything,
now everything is his
to lose.

His is not the misery
of privation, cured by
a roof for the night,
a plate of food,
a warm bed,
but the misery of too much,
yet not enough
for which no remedy exists.

Sometimes I wish you would
just....go....away,
and leave me
like a zombie,
an automaton,
or a herd animal
grazing in the field,
unconcerned about
brewing storms,
impending droughts,
or slaughter.

But no...

The voice
is not mine.
Can’t be.
It’s as though
my brain sprouted
a chattering mouth
of its own.

I’d like to glue your
******* lips shut
when you remind me,
again,
of how I really blew it
with that woman,
and that one...
and all the bridges
I’ve reduced to ash,
marooned now
on this rocky island.

And how future paths
will resemble past ones,
dead end disasters
littered with scraps
of twisted humanity.

By the way,
(you whisper)
that itchy mole
between your shoulder blades
that you can’t reach?
Melanoma.
Those dizzy spells.
A stroke.
It’s coming...

Please *******,
so I can enjoy
a half hour of solitude
sitting in the sun,
or even just taste
a single bite
of my sandwich.

But then,
come back to me,
when I need you...
like now,
and help me write this ****.

My eyes open to a room
filled with blurry shapes,
creeping shadows.

A distant car horn
sounds three feet away.
I jump, chest pounding.

Vibrations begin
from deep inside,
spread to hands, fingertips.

I lay still a moment, on my back,
hands folded over my chest,
breathing, staring at the ceiling.

My sodden brain itches
with black whispers
of inevitability.

I sigh and roll over, reach,
trembling fingers touch plastic.
Uncap the bottle and gulp.

Throat burns red
as lukewarm *****
fills raw emptiness.

I retch, hand to lips.
Another swallow, easier,
creeps through veins.

Liquid embrace
soothes every nerve
silences the whispers.

I sit up in bed,
look at the clock.
Work in a couple hours.

Drag myself into the shower,
brush teeth, scraping
white fuzz off my tongue.

Stop for a bottle on the way in.
Stare down as the clerk
slides change across the counter.

I think I’ll make it today,
but how many more like this,
and where does it end?

I’m leaning against
a white fence
looking at a bare spot
where the paint has
chipped away

I think:
someone should paint this

as my hand reaches out
and my thumbnail
peels another large slab
exposing the grain

and I smile

I grabbed and yanked at you
like pulling a ****
splitting my concrete path
with thick roots.

I plucked you out,
like they told me to,
but the root
broke in my hand
below the surface.

The crack you grew from
an open mouth,
laughing,
as I dig
until my fingers
bleed.

The piece that’s left of you
already sprouting:
tiny fingers grasping
at what’s left
of me.

Refusing the dream
a mortgage noose
second job slavery
or ******* half my wages away
on a studio apartment
I rent rooms in people’s homes
though I’d rather live alone

I’ve lived with
slobs and hoarders
and paranoid cowboys
packing six guns indoors
tyrants and doormats
weekend club hoppers
couch potato cable junkies
drunks workaholics
ghost hunters
and time vampires

Sometimes I stay
in my room all weekend
climb in and out of windows
like a cat burglar
oil my creaky door
sneak to the fridge after dark
avoid being cornered
by bodies
by faces wearing eager smiles
by voices dull as butter knives
sawing at my solitude

In my room
I breathe easier
when I hear them leave
engine noise fading
down the street
I roam the house
snoop at photos on walls
bills piled on tables

And sometimes
the women I meet
think I’m a loser
“Aren’t you a little old
to have roommates?”
one asked as we rolled
in the driveway after midnight
we went in
the dog barked
and out came the old man
sagging flesh jiggling
in tighty whiteys
pistol in hand

She still ****** this loser
(I’d rather be loser than slave)
riding me in that twilight room
mattress on the floor
half hard whiskey ****
fearing her prison tattoos
coiled black snakes fading blue
wrapping her torso
she didn’t come back
I’m probably lucky

Now I’m searching
a new house to call home
I shiver at the thought
explaining myself
to whatever strange tribe
adopts this orphan
grows to think of me
as one of their own
when I am not
even
mine

A siren screams
toward death or fire
breaking early morning silence
as creeping sunlight
mixes with long shadows
leftover from the night.

Across the street
a man struggles
to hold a snarling pit bull
which is dragging him
towards a smaller dog
cowering at his owner’s feet.

“No!” and “Knock it off!”
yells the man,
as the animal pulls
at his harness,
growling through bared canines.

The owner of the smaller dog
scoops him up,
carries him
to the opposite side
of the street,
cradling him in her arms
like a baby.

The pit bull stares
as they walk away,
covering its teeth
as they round a corner
out of sight.

Now it is man,
dragging beast toward home.
“Come on, you!” he says,
chest puffed, a strut in his step.

She worked hard,
had a couple of rentals now,
and it seemed reasonable.
Rents were rising,
why not cash in?
Her friends said,
“Good for you.”
“That’s smart.”
“You deserve it.”
They can afford it,
she thought.
Or if not, work more,
get a second job,
find another place.

He got the email,
late that night,
and wished he hadn’t seen it.
A numbness spread
through his chest,
there would be no sleep.
“That’s a 40% increase...
how can she do this?
We were friends for
like five years before
I became her tenant...”

It’s morning and he’s
red eyed, exhausted
and running late,
“Get the **** out of my way, you ****!”
Weaving in and out,
“Can’t be late,
can’t get fired, not now.”
And every other driver’s day,
is made just a little worse.

It continues,
the decision makers
changing direction
like a flock of sparrows,
one following the other
not because they must,
but because they can.
It is rational, after all
to seek one’s own self interest.

And the people are wondering
how they will afford to live.
“Why is this happening?”
Angry drivers on the road,
angry shoppers in the market.

He thinks, “Maybe I’ll
get a roommate.  Might not
be so bad, having somebody
around for a change.”
Many others will do the same.
Like that same flock of sparrows,
huddling together in the cold.

She’s at a party,
with some other
would be moguls.
They stand around,
congratulating themselves,
wondering why more people
are not like them.
“We did it, anyone can.
Look how we’ve built
this city, made it better
for everyone.”

They keep a certain distance
and eye each other
a bit suspiciously at times.
But that’s ok.
Just part of the price
of admission to the club.

As I’m sitting
on the living room sofa,
eating a bowl
of fish and rice,
my other roommate
passes through
on his way to the kitchen,
asks “What’s up?”

“Not much” I say
as I watch him wobble
through the room
on skinny legs
in his bathrobe
at noon on a Saturday.

The fridge door squeaks open,
he’s in there a minute or so,
then he wobbles back through
empty handed,
goes into his room,
and shuts the door.

After I finish eating,
I wash my bowl,
open the fridge and count:
six beers left in his twelve pack.

There were nine in there
just a few minutes ago.
How...? Did he have them
shoved up his ***?
Maybe that robe has pockets...

I’m going on ten months
as a teetotaler,
and that *******
cardboard box
is always sitting there,
shiny cans winking at me
as I grab an apple
or a piece of leftover chicken.

I hope this doesn’t turn into
another one of those days
where he crashes face first
into the coffee table,
and I pick him up off the floor
and guide him to bed
as his nose drips blood
on the carpet,
and on me.

I like to stroll in empty lots, full of weeds
thorns and broken glass.
More peaceful this way
than in some imagined future
when the land is sold off
to the highest bidder and filled
with fast food joints and markets selling
cheap goods made by foreign slaves
and cars frantically searching for the closest
parking space, and people scrambling
for the best deals for as much as they can get
not seeming very happy to get it.
Parents, dragging their kids along
like little sponges soaking up the
living waters of the great marketplace.

I consider all this, and rejoin the passing moment.
A man is walking his dog some distance away.
The dog sniffs, squats, and after,
they both walk away, leaving the **** behind.
I walk on through the tall weeds, swooshing,
catching seeds in the hairs on my legs, a sower.
And every shard of broken beer bottle reflects
Sun and sky, like jewels
in Indra’s net.

I walk and talk
as they do,
feeling the earth
beneath my feet,
wishing I meant
the words I speak.

I see them
on the other side
of the chasm,
bottomless
and unbridgeable,
laughing and smiling,
waving me over.

They don't see it at all.

All I can do is watch them,
grit my teeth,
and shake my head no,
as I mouth the words
I can't, I can't...
and they laugh,
and nod yes...
yes...of course you can.

They can't see it,
so they laugh.

The sound pelts me
like hailstones
and I wither inside
as I stifle a scream,
wanting not to see it either,
wanting to gouge my eyes out,
and believe
in the solid ground
between us.

I am not sure
which of us is hallucinating...

Even after throwing
clothes and boxes
from third floor balconies,
after fists through drywall,
broken bottles and windows,
and neighbors calling
the cops at 3 a.m.

After she slashes
his leather couch
with a knife and leaves
a note threatening suicide
signed in her own blood,
to get his attention.

After he gets drunk
and crashes his car,
nearly paralyzing himself,
because he thinks she’s out
******* another guy.

After public declarations,
internet squabbles,
restraining orders,
and wedding rings
thrown from bridges
into muddy rivers.

And sometimes even
after slaps, punches,
or kitchen knives,
nights in jail
or years in prison.

After all this,
they sleep
in beds together
legs touching,
his hand on her belly.

They sleep
wrapped in blankets
breathing softly
as though
nothing had happened.

Most days I believe
I have fooled them well enough,
even while I stumble
through my lines,
and the body language
feels forced and off cue.

Though there are moments
that their eyes
flash mirrors of doubt my way,
like white hot spotlights.

Then I return home,
catch a glimpse of myself
in my car window,
and see my dayworn disguise
running down my visage
in pale streaks.

I go inside,
lock the door,
close the blinds,
and wash my face
in the bathroom sink,
staring at myself
in the mirror.

And as I scrub away
the vanilla mask,
every nerve sighs.

Whether the role I play
in the movie du jour
running in my one seat theater
is savior of the downtrodden
or shining knight to a fair maiden
or victim of a cruel and unjust world
or a martyr whose death
inspires people to revolution
or even as a nefarious criminal
who ought to be locked up
for the good of humanity.

The one constant is this thing
this “I” with its overwhelming gravity
like a giant star that draws everything
into orbit around itself.

As my human body goes to work
sits at a little desk in a little office
at the edge of town
and does it’s boring little job.

The head will not long suffer
that state of affairs.

I look at that class photo, Kindergarten
and wonder what is left
of those faces and bodies and souls
as we, now nearing mid life
are awakened by harsh alarm bells
on the east or west coast
or somewhere in between
and we swarm out into the streets,
down into subway tunnels or onto buses
or hop in our cars and brave freeway madness,
faces now lined and wrinkled
like clocks and dollar bills.
I wonder if anything at all is left,
or if there's anything sacred
in this routine.  It's hard to see, but
I still look for it, as I weave
among cars on the freeway, 70 plus,
toward someplace I'd rather not be.

Older woman
25 to my 19
dark eyes like
grey gun barrels
Manson family eyes
believing and
unblinking eyes
seeking a cult of two.

Eyes that gaze at me
or any man
like that
should be plucked
from their sockets
sent back
to the factory.
(How did mine look at you?)

Should have run
but the lure
of playing god awhile...
(Or was I the one kneeling?)

You said
he was gone
he took his clothes
his yelling
his fists through walls
and other women’s lipstick
and hickeys on his neck
with him when he left.

So I basked
in your believing glow
until the phone calls
stopped
and I drove by your house
saw his car in the driveway.

The calls started again
when he left again
relentless ringing
calls at work
when I said *******
took the home phone
off the hook.

Not even god
could handle
your voice shrieking
from your rejected soul
telling me how
you’d punch me in the face
when you next saw me.

You were a bit taller
and much more insane
so I laid low for awhile
a god face down in the dirt.

Shall we kneel
at naked emperors feet
gorging at troughs
of savory slogans
dripping like spittle
from bloodless lips.

Shall we shelter
under waving flags
warming our hands
by fires of righteousness
and drinking from cups
brimming with ideals.

Or can we shoot bullets
into moldy flesh of dying words
drop bombs on empty symbols
and decapitate false ideals
their headless bodies
chasing us like zombies.

Until that day
we follow neon arrows
pointing at empty skies,
and any voice
that speaks the “Why.”

We forgive people
in movies for deeds
that in real life
we’d lock up in prison
and swallow the key.

We weep over deaths
we see on cable news
while loved ones die
and our eyes remain
dry as dust.

And we smile at children
causing mischief
in some television town
while shouting at our own
to stop blocking the screen.

I hope one day
I can look at life,
and at you,
like a newborn
that hasn’t yet learned
to smile, or frown,
or the unwritten law
of when he must turn
from the gaze
of the other.
Until then,
sometimes
I just have to stare
at my shoes.

To dam the river’s flow
he sat in empty rooms
without books, TV, or radio
staring at silent walls.

Drove two lane
country roads
searching for
slow moving trucks
to get stuck behind.

Went to the bank
and the grocery store
at the busiest times
to spend hours
waiting in line.

Passed the time
with people he itched
to get away from,
and married a woman
he despised.

One day he peeked
behind the dam
to find that his reservoir
had evaporated
and a parched landscape
of cracked earth remained.

He knelt and grasped
a clump of dried mud,
held it up,
staring openmouthed
as it crumbled
in his hand.

The hands have vanished.
The puppets strewn carelessly,
laying about, sleeping,
as puppets are lazy when
no one is pulling their strings.

One awakes, tugs, and finding
her ******* ropes slack,
began to sing and dance.
Her voice awakens the others.
Some join her, singing,
dancing, celebrating.

Some begin climbing
their ropes, wondering
where they end.
Others play jump rope,
or swing from the rafters
competing to see
who can go higher.

A few cut their ropes
and dive to their deaths
from the stage.
One gathers discarded ropes
of the dead and builds a fence,
stands inside and says,
“This space is mine.”
Some nod agreement,
while others hop the fence,
swinging their ropes menacingly.

Still others use their ropes
to tie others tight,
or even bind themselves
together, or separately.
A few make nooses
and hang themselves,
while others sit,
watching the show,
smiling, laughing,
eating popcorn.