There is no color
Of death
Like eyes know,
Only death of mind
And sick plastic aura,
Death makes known
In soul depth of being
And days when
Sighting humanity
Hurts the eyes

My frustration told me
That madness would
Answer my prayer but
I tried going mad,
Screaming Holy! in
Acred forests
Grabbing at atmospheric
Redemption and sunlight forgiveness
I tried going mad
Waving lone **** heartache
In crowds of closed-box
Timid hurt,
"I'm sorry I'm sorry!"
I tried going mad
Dancing barstool homeless
Through heavenly hallways
Laughing insanity,
"Take my eyes!"
I tried going mad
Cursing schoolhouse process-plant
Ideology and worship
"Where is the FDA when
You need them?"
I tried going mad
        In streets of gold
With hungry hungry
Empty sick blindness
Taunting me, "Get a job!"
I tried going mad
With Poe and Shelley and
Thomas and Wilde
All howling humanity
All singing Patriam
I tried going mad
        In type,
Even seeing briefly
Line/break suicide
On liquid crystal display  
Oh! I tried going mad
But my soul dragged me
To earthcore wisdom and
Vibrated my atomic scaffolding
Immaculate

"Beuur ahhh craaa seee"
"Beuur ahhh craaa seee"
I said it over and over
until other words
shared its ambiguity

"Aaam biiih guuu iih tee."

I studied profound
Toilet stalls full of wisdom
And cried for human

I destroyed that
which I sought
to understand

Value is a
funny thing,
like a line
in the sand:
one step closer
and you're finished,
the gamble's
busted, the whole
thing's a bust,
so you reevaluate
the circumstance
until the line goes away
and all your left with
is sand, which isn't
worth **** without
a line to cross

Everyone, living
or dead,
is Genius
though not that
many realize it
and even less
do anything with it
but once in a while
the cards line up
and the hand is played
and all the world can
do is sit back in awe,
give up a few chips
and shuffle the deck

I'm glad you died
By the train tracks
In Mexico, alone
With the lizards and
Horned toads
When you did
When the mood
Was High and
The momentum
Rolled in your favor,
I'm glad you died
When you did
Before rock n' roll again
And again and disco
And no Jazz, no bop
And waves crashed
And undertoe tore
At Tired,
I'm glad you died
When you did
With movement, with power
And you should hear 'em
Talk about you and the boys
With ancient lips and Beautiful
And god smiles my face
And god still cries for
His Muse,
I'm glad you died
When you did
Before it all changed
And We lost the momentum
And replaced it
With sleep

When asked I said:
"I don't write for people
No, I've known too many
To waste words on
And I don't write for poets,
Poets are as bad as me
And all the good ones are dead
No, I write for god and the angels
That they may have mercy
On one of their own."
And god said to the Muse:
"The idea of Invincible
Is more important
Than life itself."

It's that good one
That really good one
That plucks heaven
From scripture
And barstools jesus,
By god it's a wonderful
Wonderful something!
That blessed something
From the east rolling hills of nowhere
And big breasted hopeful Bliss
God bless god bless
Holy! Holy! Holy!
The one, the beautiful one
That nirvana heard
That glorious Perception of Love
On weary beat down minds
Well gee, I think
God stopped for this One
To gasp in disbelief, sing
Holy! Holy! Holy!
And the angels
What else but angelic

When
Buildings in the
Cities collapse and
Crumble;
Gone,
Town Hall meetings
Gone,
Courthouse hearings
Gone,
School day lectures
Gone,
Ernie's on 5th and Market
Gone,
Sunday morning hangover
Gone,
Friday night bliss
Gone,
Wednesday happy hour
Gone,
Tuesday work rush tension
Gone,
Grocery store hellos
Gone,
Bus stop goodbyes
Gone,
Country
Gone,
Continent and planet
Gone,
Hierarchy of man

Gone,
The Idea

The whole big Idea,

When
It's all gone,
What you do
To pass the time
Is all that ever mattered

Draped in gloom light
awful dead humanity
I left for the world
to find that
iron spoke to
air in secret Breath
Flora drank down
sunlight frothy Buzz
      and up
liquid leapt from earth
for high-up night clubs
falling back in dreary
morning Joy for
underfoot cities of
hustled and bustled
terra forma
systematic, immaculate

Your ***
Which I have never seen
Remains
A thought a guess
A sacred cow
The Unattainable
Mandela wrapped in denim and lace
Your ***
Which I have never seen
The Grail the Moslim War
The True Keats True Plato
A sign of Heaven the Way
Your ***
Which I have never seen
Parker Davis Monk
And Choir,
Oh the Choir never
Sang so Sweet!
And angels in black
Triumphant Angst
And jesus with smirk
And god all giddy with
Satisfaction
Your ***
Which I have never seen

grab crazy
from twisted minds
and hurl handfuls
onto brick walls
and watch passersby
cringe and cry out
in agony, seize their
sanity like a gun
and shoot wild
into the night

I heard
Siren songs
of Established
In search of
Identity,
And the smile and
Smell of Successfulism
Began to clog my
Lungs and arteries
Until I was
Completely alone
And slowed and vibrated
Glimpses of Truth
Wrapped in smoke rings
And sunrises

Now,
I don't claim to
Know Truth
But have observed
Its twiddling thumbs
In morning hours
Lost in thought and
Utter purpose
And now,
If you look
To the East or the West
On a day when the sun
Reigns and the earth cries
You can almost
Stop it all,
Or slow the process
Enough to toss a few back
And smile

When deprived of
Rational thought
For long enough
The brain begins
To gather knowledge
From the smallest
Crevices of humanity
And in the cracks and
Crags of Know and Is
Runs tributaries of
Emotion and Touch
And the whole thing
Is a metaphor
And the whole Ship
Is a crazy illusion
In the mind of an infant
Vibrating nonsensical
Everything throughout the
Walls of human record and
Memory,
This is my doctorate and thesis
This is my final showdown and hoorah
This is staring down eternity
This is laughing with god
This is feeling it and running it down with bare hands
This is the how within the why
This is you me all the faces all the ads and fables
Every leaf and grain of sand in
Every toenail and cornea
This is poverty hunger sickness anger frustration confusion bliss
This is life love and the pursuit
This is the final frontier, the jumping off point
That comes every so often
Like an old friend
To remind you to
Get it all together
Into a single image
Of worship and Holy
And see it and eat it
And spit it back up
In bulimic flowering
Yeah, this is war
This is the last supper
This is Rexroth and Bukowski
In love with Hate
Saying, "Give me something better or get out of my way."

Way up
on the highest branch,
the can't reach don't
try too tall up there
******* with the best
leaves and a couple
flowers that bloom
slowly so you know
they mean it branch
well, on that thing
sits a girl
not a girl but a woman,
at times, others a kid
others an old lady
but always beautiful
and up there, really
up there in every way
sittin' there, just
sitting, no where else
to be but there in this
moment and I know it
and I see a flicker in her
eye and I know its on
and I should try with all
of my being to connect my
chest with hers in a way that
only crazy over the top lovers
will ever get and enjoy
and worship as Holy with a
careless laugh, yeah the good
times the ones that feel like
a warm blanket over your fears
and expectations and take your
soul for a ride down the block
a bit until the morning, and
its all real and rough to the
touch like creepin' grass
and she's up in that tree
on that limb with the good
leaves and flowers that let you
know they exist and she's there
and I'm here on the ground
with dirt and rocks and
creepin' grass where I know
I can flourish

Corso told me that
there are levels to
this [poetry] thing:
talent; genius;
Divine,
"Ok," I said
and put a gun
in my mouth,
"Wait, wait!" he said,
"What are you doing?"
"Joining the divine," I said.

I looked to the West
with strained neck
and weary eyes
where roads stretch
over hard ground
and boots cover
beat-up toes from
industry from nature
from time and the
morning starts before
the dawn in the starry
mourning ours of the
midwest skies that
keep going, further
than humanity, and
tomorrow is a lifetime
and lead paint is the
only god you need
aside from the warm
solitude of another
struggle that eats at
your brain but sings
your heart in the tune
of the wind that howls
through your being--
straight through to
the other bitter side--
and in that thin line
that separates god
from man and stretches
clean through to the coast
I saw a purity of thought
and of being in the very
struggle of the sun
over that ridge that
seemed to strangle
the earth like a necktie
and I saw the spirit
of the spirit, the old
one, the first one
******* and bound
with hopes and dreams
and furniture and gold
and television chords and
bits of blue cheese, bibles,
and bad skin and so forth
and the whole scene made
me sick until I puked up
all that I had swallowed
in my youth and my
stomach was anew and
fresh and filled with sunlight
from the horizon that went
on into the forever where
poets rest their brains
and god sits and reads
Bukowski to the angels

What incredible
Passion or
Disregard for
Humanity it
Must require
To *******
In public;
Either is
Truly admirable
Yet rarely
Appreciated

I have nothing
in particular
to write
yet,
feel the need
to let my fingers
run over the keys,
pretend I am C.B.
and press a few
until something
starts to form
out of the subconscious
that lies behind these
drunken eyes and
irrepressible grin

A boy I once knew and I
were walking home from school
kicking rocks
when a beautiful woman drove by
in a then new Cadillac sedan
smoking a cigarette,
"I wish I was rich," he said
"Then I could land a broad like that."
"How?" I asked
"Huh?" he said, confused.
"How would you get her to like you?"
"Women are trophies," he said,
"You win 'em."
"Oh," "What happens when you win them?" I asked.
"***, I suppose."
"And then what?" I asked again.
"And then you have 'em, you win."
"Well, who's playing?" I asked.
"Everybody!" he asserted, "Everybody with a ****."
"Oh," I said, "But why is everybody playing?"
"I don't know!" he exclaimed, "You ask too many questions!"
I stared at the rocks on the ground as they passed.
We kept walking in silence until we split ways at a street sign,
and I didn't see him again.

the female is confined;
a fly in a moving car
and rain falls
and snow falls
and one by one
the female dies
as she is released
into earth and into
rivers and onto creek beds
and one by one
tadpoles become frogs and eat flies
before they become stuck
in moving cars

looking both ways
on my street with houses lining it
leading to more houses and dead ends
with front porches overlooking culdesacs,
culdesacs with front porches on dead ends
watching Letterman
no, Leno.
Leno gets a lot of ****
but he has his crowd,
and they all live on my street
leading to nowhere and culdesacs

the heart knows
to pump blood
to the extremities,
but sometimes
the heart
sees itself
in another ribcage
and forgets to beat

the truth
is not so much
a thing
but a
symphony-
that bounces
off walls
and changes
shape,
and the
honesty
is found
in the space
between

i used
to hate
god's face
until i
saw it
reflected
in a puddle

there have
always been
conservative extremists,
except now
they have
the means
to destroy
the entire world,
and ruin all
that they
have worked
so hard
to preserve --
yesterday
I saw a
child pick  
a flower
and eat it.

the poet
must label
the world
in a way
most people
would choose
not to

(fear
drives
the heart
of man
but love
crashes the car
for the
insurance
money)

how?
how do you ****?
how, when the blade
or gun or blunt object
is fresh in your hand
gripping and perspiring angst
through palms and fingertips,
how do you come down
on flesh and muscle and tendons
blood breath and pulse
hopes loves and dreams
hates dispositions and fear,
crippling fear,
minuscule frets and
fleeting concerns?
how?
how do you end a life?
how, in you darkest hour
of pain and anger and hopeless suffering
of debilitating sorrow and absolute hate
how do you destroy
what was
what is
what could have been
what you did not create
what is not yours to disassemble?
god is not a person or a presence
but a sense of knowing
that you will never know
how

I have cursed
my brain
so many times
now that it
ignores me
and I it,
though sometimes
we come out
of our rooms
and awkwardly
interact

I gave some
college students
a poem about dignity,
I said they wouldn't like it;
they put it on a wall
in the cafeteria
and gave me an award,
"ok," I said,
"I can take a joke."

As you sleep
I stare at the
curve in your
neck and the
line that runs
over your clavicle
and I imagine
how I will run
my fingers along it
until you wake

I flew to see her in Chicago, went out for dinner and hopped a train to South Bend the next evening. We brought ***** and whiskey to keep us company on the short ride along the lake. That night we made love, I mean really made love; both reaching ****** simultaneously. My prowess was there, in spades, but we slept instead. The morning greeted me with a ******* and she another ******. My prowess turned to hubris but I said nothing aside from, “Wow.”
The day, a Saturday, was spent touring the campus; a beautiful one at that, my favorite. I acted as tour guide while she abided courteously; I had the day, the girl, the nostalgia. There was a football game and we decided to go; the home team versus their oldest and most hated rivals, a must see. We yelled and screamed at the away team until they lost; beating themselves really. In the ecstasy of victory we promptly returned to the house and to bed. Again we made love, again simultaneous ******. I felt a deep, heavy connection, a longing. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep but the night was cold and long and my breathing too slow to match hers. For hours I sat and let my arm go numb until I could stand it no longer and went for a glass of water.
In the morning we made love again, she reaching ******, me with a feigned smile. The day was spent with my father’s family, an unexpected detour. She was affable, me benign, and the day went on until we boarded the train once more, this time sober. We discussed my next visit, or rather attempted to as the conversation turned to politics, welfare, humanity. As I left for the plane I told her that I loved her and she said, “Goodbye.”

"I've given it up."
"Given what up?
"***, love, the works."
"What, like you're not going to try anymore?"
"Yeah, no more.  I'm done, I've had it!"
"Wow, done.  How long has it been?"
"Two weeks."
"And you feel better?"
"I feel like ****.  Every day I think about it, all the time." "It's all I can think about!"
"Then why don't you try again?"
"No, I can't, I'm done, it's just another thing that handicaps me."
"Yeah, but it's great."
"Yeah, well I'm done.  I'd rather be miserable than walk with a limp, no more."
"You'll be back one day.  You'll break down."
"Yeah maybe…but for now, I'm done."
"What does Kathrine think about all this?"
"She doesn't know yet."

If I want,
I cannot have
if I have,
I cannot want
in this way,
life is a series
of disappointments.
disappointment is
a product of the ego
to escape the ego,
focus on the ego
only then will the
world outside the
ego be revealed
god is the absence
of the ego, the oneness
of nothingness,
the primordial unconscious.

one last ****,
one last good ****
before you go and realize
your worth
while a rough and tumble
****** still suffices
before you die ten times or more
and live in the skin of another
and while I can still have you
and you, me
if only for a night

Head slumped:  heavy, ringing.  In the distance a **** whacker is constant.  If it's real, I can't tell anymore. This is me now, tomorrow I'll be straight.  Except that it is tomorrow, and everyone knows it but my ******* brain that plays on like a skipping record!  Ah! ****!  People pass by like flies, living at a different speed.  I coulda taken them all on last night but for now I need strength.  Food or *****, what's it gonna be?  The clerks know the game.  They see them stumble in at night ready to swallow the world whole, and in the morning, when cigarettes are their only friend.  Clerks stay straight to watch the show, to feel good about what they got.  They can keep it, though, gimme ***** for now.
"Is that all?", his voice echoed
"What?", "Yeah, that's all, what else would I get?"
"I don't know.  Food, maybe."
I looked the guy square in the eyes for a good six seconds.  His eyes were wide getting wider, he could feel the tension.  All I could feel was the hangover.
"No, just beer."
I looked down at the 12-pack, then at the manager walking towards us.
"Alright, I see the score."
As I left through the automatic doors the day broke my eyes in two with a sharp piercing ray, and it began ---
another one.

I like to imagine
Wordsworth or
Keats as a
twenty-five year
old disheveled
drunk with a
beach town
degree,
struggling against
struggling, hiding
away from life
in the confines of
a classroom

life, sometimes,
is like being on a
busy road with no car;
on one side is sobriety
the other insanity
and the median is
small enough
to **** you

when I last lied on
the floor and the
song changed to
Monk's 'Midnight' and the
drunk was in pitch
my soul stood up,
made love to
the air and
took liberties
with my alcohol --

I watched him
sneer at his
plan gone a-rye
he was uptight
and outspoken;
the worst kind

as the ribbons
tore and frayed
he gritted his teeth
until it was too
much and he lunged
at the young man,
grabbed him by the
throat while screaming
"IV'E HAD IT GOD ******!"
"I'VE HAD IT WITH YOU
MANGY *******!"

many years later
I saw the uptight
outspoken man
on a street corner,
laughing at clouds

when I last lied on
the floor and the
song changed to
Monk's 'Midnight' and the
drunk was in pitch
my soul stood up,
made love to
the air and
took liberties
with my alcohol --

god is at the top of a bottle
of single malt whiskey
in that first sip
(and the second)
and the liver
slowly absorbs
what it can
and the angels speak
and god speaks
sweet waves of
ecstasy that
vibrate
until the dark
consumes what's left
of the day

I'm in love with the couch
and the way that it smells
after a bottle of wine
and the feeling
that time passes by
lying drunk on that couch
and I could die in that place
where they don't let god in
and banjo music quietly
twangs diamonds from coal
'til the dawn spills inside
and reminds me that I'm alive

I was on the street
with the college down a bit
at a bar where no one had been to college
where I had once seen a girl,
a beautiful piece of ***
in a red dress
she moved around the bar like a waitress
going from table to table,
smiling
a beautiful piece of ***
in that red dress
each time she would lean over a table
I would catch a glimpse;
a tight young body
squeezed
into that red dress
and the men would laugh
and the women would frown
until the whole bar was focused
on that beautiful piece of ***
in that red dress
I never saw her again,
at the bar down the street from the college
where no one had been to college,
but I still remember that
beautiful piece of ***
covered by that red dress

I spent all my cash
on a stripper named Gypsy,
but we vibrated
and now
beams of light
shine from my chest

it's so quiet,
-still-,
softly I hear the
walls vibrate to the
movement of the earth,
and the earth knows
and the walls know
something we would give
every thought for

responsibility
makes a
drunk
out of me