responsibility
makes a
drunk
out of me

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

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

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

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 --

alcohol gives
short periods
of drunkenness
followed by long
periods of contrast,
but in that drunkenness
god whispers
insanity in
your ear
and you
smile

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

Mexican beer
on hot days
like today
puts Hemingway
above Byron,
but only by
the skin
of a lime.

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

Waited up all
Night for a
Bloodmoon
But the clouds
Cauterized the
Gaping sky

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.

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

I spoke in vain
To a rather coy daffodil
Commenting such,
"Excuse me for saying,"
    "But you look lovely today."
And I, as if expecting response,
     Allowed silence;
(Reciprocated by the daffodil)
"Yes," I said, "Save your words."

A drink to commitments
A drink to routine
A drink to supposed to
A drink to should
A drink to order
A drink to loops and loops and
A drink to losing
A drink to forgetting
Another to forgetting
Another to remember
A drink to sadness
A drink to the Little
A drink for sorry
A drink for appearances
A drink not to care
A drink to see god
Another to see better
A third to enter heaven!
A fourth to submit
A fifth to disappear
Another just for luck
And the rest are for us

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.”

it’s been a while
but now I remember how
the keys feel
like a trigger
and I’m Clint Eastwood

in the basement of a mansion  .

no, nevermind

Old dreamers
As extras
Lifting few
On high
As crows
Pick at
Sunflowers
In a field
Behind the set

the unnatural crane
lifts its long neck
to the glass sky
and cries out for death

I keep trying
to finish my
beer but
Miles is playing
Homs with Damascus
on deck like
Green in Blue in
Bashar
and the conservatives,
that is, the Muslim ones
or rather
the extremist ones
that is, ****
there’s good people
dying to a machine gun
bass line
‘dada doo da’
‘dada doo da’
and they all want
the guy gone
but we’re just playing
White Christmas on repeat
trying to drown out
the bass line
but it keeps bumpin’
‘dada doo da’
‘dada doo da’
so I finally take a sip
but it’s sour and
flat and the bass line
is bumpin’ my elbows
and pulling’ at my chest
‘dada doo da’
‘dada doo da’
with a C-4 concerto
that makes Bach
seem irrelevant
and Mozart a spoiled
brat, my god
it’s a sink-hole in
Dm, the last one
on the album that
makes you think,
“Why did they let
this happen?”
‘Dada doo da’
‘Dada doo da’
Oh boy!
It’s enough to really
hang your hat on,
but that’s for another
generation to wonder,
Me-
I’ve got this beer to
finish and the record
keeps skipping
‘dada doo da’
‘dada doo da’

Write while popping
Pimples and your
Work will acquire
The aggression and
Self loathing that
It needs

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 hungover,
and colors don't
smell right
and images don't
taste right
and my lungs
are coated in
exhaust and liquor
fumes

I'm hungover
like a dog searching
for a bone that
was buried long ago
in a deep hole
in the middle of
nowhere

god ****** I'm hungover!
and I can't escape
the cigarette smoke
that follows me like
a bad pun
and there's a headache
starting in my toes
that wretches my
brain in the back
left corner
where my poems
come from

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."

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

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
I'm glad you died
When you did
Before it all changed
And They took away
Want and replaced it
With electronic death

He's typing again
About god and the angels
And nonsense
He's always typing
Always murmuring nothing,
Once in a while
I wish he'd get some rest
So I can be alone
And ponder world peace
-Brain

there are cobwebs above
my bed,
and not in a metaphorical
sense
I’m staring up at them
and they mean something
really
or they should
I should care
and I do
but my head is
half buzzed
and four a.m. is
a couple of
blinks away and
well
the walls are the right shade
of clay
like the word Arizona
and the crickets are trilling
songs
on violin spurs
as the ceiling slips away
and my eyes are heavy with
desert
and the cobwebs
endure
another poem

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'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

Ah yes, a
poem about
love loss
and confused
intention
yes, it seems
that some of
us don't see
the orchids in
the garden shaking
what they got,
Oh! to be a flower
in spring

"Indulge in
that which
gives you
either
pleasure
or pain,
anything
in between
is a waste
of time,"
I heard these
words uttered,
by whom is
irrelevant

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

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

Jesus Christ! I've
never seen so
many ants in
all of Africa
let alone in an
office building,
and on a beautiful
spring Tuesday when
the flowers smell
like god

"Stop trying
to explain yourself,
have a little dignity."
this is what a
homeless man
said to me
while he was
*******
on a
sidewalk
in the middle
of town

Courage is what you get
when you imagine fear
while it's tucked away
snug in your garrett
surrounded by doubt
and tiny walls
that disappear
entirely when looking
down the barrel of a .45
which isn't long
and isn't expensive
and is the most common
gun in the country

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

Yes yes yes
I have seen
I have seen and
must tell someone
yes Yes yes
and oh how they
rose up out of the
very ground that I am
on now and you must
be on also
Plato too and Alexander
DaVinci Shakespeare
and the rest,
same quality of earth
same zig zag shape
of snaking rolling
prologues and epitaphs
and it goes and goes
yes yes Yes
life on this
life on that thing unknown
bouncing bubbling
hereandthere life
good life half life
people takin' it and
running life
and the down down
down life,
yes
and don't forget the downbrother
and sister
on a bad no good
trip or trippin'
over someone else's
trip, yeah
somebody's got it in their
back pocket yeah everybody's
got it but nobody wants to
play it
oh boy oh boy
what can ya do when
everything is up and down
and down and out
all at the same time
and you've been smacked by
heaven forgetting some poor
guy down the road
dyin' for a nickel,
well I got nothin' for it
but to spill-
spill it all out
here
"I'm sorry, I really am"
but you don't want sorry
sorry doesn't taste like
dignity apple pie
fresh out of
the ephemeral oven
no
no no
sorry tastes bitter
like a lemon
in the sun,
well what's a guy
to do with that
other than pluck
a fresh one from
the fridge and try
to slow the day

Thursday night beers
Spill onto the bed
For a bit of the old
Rough and tumble,
A quick word with
The angels
And home in time
To really tie one on
As the jazz
Plays somewhere
For someone in love
With a note and
Dying slowly for
The beat, playing their
Story and the story of
The cosmos,
And heaven is there
And you are there
In a red dress and
A smile that starts
Somewhere beyond
Polaris

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

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.

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

Ghoulish ghoulish ghoulish!
I don't recognize
These days
I don't want to,
My brain bleeds
That heavenly sounding
Touch of god
That taste of the divine
That "ohh yeah,"
Good good good!
Feel it man!
It's in there deep
Like some sort of
Code-written karma,
But it's bleedin' out
And fast

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 often ponder madness,
Like something deserved
I wait for Insane
And the gratification
Of sheer madness
When you see them,
Hear them
You know who you are
You know what they are
You know for certain it's happened
You know nothing for sure
Only that you want assurance
And the want keeps complacency at bay
Keeps you guessing
Keeps you hoping
I often ponder madness
When walking back-straight
Upright and taught to the counter
Of the unemployment office

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

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

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

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