There isn't a girl in the world
without an incurable,
everything but unlovable,
psychotic or neurotic,
unique, personality trait.
I prithee, Lord, my soul to take.

Maybe I shouldn't mention it here:
But supposedly you have red hair.
I dunno though, a rumor maybe only.
I do know the thought makes me crazy,
and there's other colors there.
I know a strong urge to find you out slowly,
to see you undone in some solid morning.

I bet you see as little me as I hear you talking,
but I guess you can't know an intention,
any well-rounded notion goes flat.
in the absence of presence
Have to brave it with hardon and hardhat
'cause what brings things together's tension.

In the wain of the week,
we both get to drink.
Then dreamless sleep?
Or so I would like,
to pass heedlessly the night.
Or as I now imagine yours,
Scandinavian shores,
I don't know which I like more.

With the little rain
wash your sins away
before this weekend,
before you miss the chance.
But still, next week
it won't even stop:
what the cash bought,
'llget us flocking
past the parking lot
down the trail to our
Octopus' Garden 'neath the waves.

Maybe my nails won't grow back
and I'll be talkative instead.
Stop my choking on pocket lint,
bury the bone, unbusy my head.

Everything I do in this Modern World
supports some institution, thus condition.
Looking for passion or just something,
hafta look for what little I believe in—
not this but next weekend.

"There's a stranger in your life,"
a fortune reading tells, then
feeling my legs are useless,
can't kick my way to the surface,
can' kick one habit for a moment,
a car could carry me around then.

It's a five day weekend, no end, yes.
Best birthday bash, hands down, no contest.
Newly arrived old faces join, going to the show;
some more to come soon, some to soon go.
Tonight we revel in our brother's song,
we'll keep the day young and night long.
Tomorrow, we hope to sleep forever in a day,
catch our breaths and try to eat back our strength.
Then, Thursday.

Prompt: "Write about your best and worst meal."
Title: "Cathartic, Culinary"
Alt. Title: "Purgative, Palatable"

Worst
Once I was taken to a room of my own invention,
led by the faceless, fearless constructs of my mind.
Waiters served the table my thoughts and
words and past actions and then I was forced,
or rather, compelled by hunger up on my product--
talking seventeen years of chow!--I talk.

I was sick within minutes, the self, food dribblin'
my mouth, managing to empty my bust cheeks
by a slow slurp every few chews. That was horrible.
But by the end of a month, I was full, fed, and finished.
I attribute much of my success hence from this act.
Stomaching one's self, as it happens,
is the hardest part of the human condition.

Best
Once I ate the supplies of a marooned  island-castaway
just to speed the process, and once I licked the tears off
the face of a bereaved poet only to spit it in her face.
I think I will tell you another culinary anecdote though,
one which will expand upon my worst, the first.

Like picking at scabs, the nose, too, yields results.
I gave myself a nosebleed. And what did I do?
Ha ha, I raised my head to the ceiling, the roof,
the skies, to God and his cruel intentions.
Ha, I laughed, ha, I did. I thanked him for it;
and head up-turned I let course, I drank.

*******, buddy, *******...
Thinking long, entrailed thoughts
on outside, outside the party persona;
But give the witch just a moment to disembowelment.
Letting it wash over you. Letting it pass.
And the stereo of the laughing with the still of dark, of night--
whichever has me more at more mercy.

And I join the fire-fed party light,
and give myself to historicization.
Will the definitive verse make it clear,
the enunciation articulating the moment?
the many disembowelments,
too many to care

Reading a friend's poetry
and learning about myself--
learning new articulations.
Switching to menthols
for as long as this cold lasts.
Realizing my body wants nicotine
but my mouth wants smoke,
that very often one, not the other,
will be satisfied--that is what's in conflict.

I am trying to be a child,
and I could go philosophically about that
or regressively--
Sort of, it is not the bottle itself I sip
which makes me the rosy ribald randy carouser
but what I put back into the bottle then the trashbin
which displaces the liquid up to my lips.

But regardless of my intents and drinking habits,
I'll still be splashing in the water,
running along the edge of the pool
building a current, a whirlpool
compelling my friends into water,
tackling and dunking and pull them underneath,
and gasping together for breath,
swept along and swelling
hoping to summon a Maelstrom
to engulf me and all.

So, let me come here, buddy,
you know you're the best,
live n' die by you!
I need to tell you before
I anything else before
I ******* explode
(a moon-strewn comet-collision).

I love her. I've loved her cruelly or generously,
dispassionate or desperate,
I would ******* offer my soul still
in place of hers in some ******* hell.
I miss the focus she gave me,
the nights of swirling, slippery purpose.
I love how she couldn't stand me anymore,

that she was so consumed by herself
as to break my heart.
I wish I'd cried in her arms and said,
"Don't leave me, darling"
instead of just crying in her arms.
They say if you step on only cracks
you can break a curse.
Do they, Jay? do they, really, eh?

I've made my peace, I think,
with Pride, Pain, and Providence
and what I wouldn't do
for dark-haired smart who
skylight ignites chooses to--
the usual beauty she unearths.

All very scary but
I feel so strong
Maybe couldn't reason
but squirm my way
out of anything.
So strong I could give you a gift,
not old something-hand jackets or coupons
but the gift of my pride for you to prize.

Men do not live on bread and pride alone.
I want she & I to show each
other the world, share life,
and I love her, too.
Come join me on a mountain.

And, now, can you guess who called?

November 4th

The weather it seems, seems time to put on your coat,
but the way the wind blows,
a way nobody knows
will have you put your coats away,
but as the weathermen say:
”we’ll be delivered from the heat by snow this Thursday.”

Satchmo Bukowski
wants a bottle in front of me
not a frontal lobotomy.
What’s it to stop drinking?
smoking, though—it’s the best season
for it. Rather die than give up.

Yeah, my ****’s distorted, same with my story
that I tell you now, but it lives each day twice—
but like Christ down the mountain
I come forth emblazoned,
no more reckless nor hopeful than him.

Halloween here, we saw the dead dress up.
We pulled together costumes
while estimating the temperature.
As the day shortens
and night falls as you clock out,
so our phase of experience does;
so the creatures of dark troll;
so the climb though the black berry patch
becomes the only visible path.