Truth is what we tell the air when we
    are alone
Anyone that's ever been alive share
    these holy atoms
Love is their vibration
Let your molecules accept the
    movement
Vibrate and hum holy
Hum hum hum until the day breaks,
    and then try a little harder tomorrow

"I don't belong here,"
Wollstonecraft must have said
As the Laudanum
Chased her eyelids

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

Kept out of bars
On St. Paddy's Day
With a thirst from
Here to Ireland
But the bench
Is at a 120˚ angle
Which allows the moon
To remain in your view
While looking across the ocean

Forest, rivers and oceans
couldn't hold what one note
can
And that slow drum
like Alexander into Egypt,
Give a man an instrument
and he'll show you God

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 feel like a liar
when I type words
that don't have much
meaning beyond their meaning,
but,
when the fire
burns out
and I fall back,
asleep,
these words
are simply letters
strewn together
on a computer screen
on a wednesday night
on a couch
in a room
near an ocean

I threw her
clothing out of the
third story window
gripping a fifth
like a banister
laughing a deep
mad chuckle
as I felt, for
the first time,
like a child

Some
times I
fear
castration
is the
only way

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

The rain's
falling again
playing its
usual sonata
but this time I
listen and listen
good
each drop's got
a different pitch
based on the
distance from the
ear to the site
of the drop which
came half a mile
from the upper troposphere
down to the particular part
of earth close enough to
resonate past the
ear drums trying
to capture the
sounds that overwhelm
the soul on a drunk
Thursday evening
with the window
open and the blinds
drawn
just a little

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

One summer
I travelled up over
Around and through
This great mass of land
Neatly divided into 50 separate
        And a couple picked up along
        The way
And just when I had seen enough
Resting my eyes at a diner in West
        Hills, NY
              -the one with the Red
               cushioned seats that still
               smell like leaves of grass-
An angel, a fallen cherub a shining
       Shimmering cousin of Christ!
Poured my coffee
As I tried my best to focus my eyes
And grab a glimpse
       (My god I could feel her!)
Of what I knew was surely heaven
       In disguise
And I squinted and she smiled
And my heart exploded a billion plus
       Light fragments back into the
       Atmospheric beginning
And I, humbled,
       Apologized for the mess
But she just smiled New Jersey
      Past the pines
      On down to New Orleans
      And across 1845
      Up to '49 Frisco
      And back through
      Theicyflatwinds
      Down marked twains
      And Great Ohio
As I entered the 51st State

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

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

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'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."

On the walk home
Through the park
The one that
Used to have birds
I saw an ad
And another
And two more
The last one selling advice
About buying insurance
Which made Whitman cry rain
Into my beer,

   *When the unnecessary
    Becomes convenient,
    Less than nothing
    Has been accomplished

I know I
shouldn't write
anything down
but it's hard not
to
god is in it,
a bit
what I mean
is that creating
goes hand in hand
with satori
maybe it's good
to write down
what feels like
that word for the
unexplainable,
important
all-in-all
everything,
god that is
but that's not
what this poem
is about
it's about a cat
I saw on
the sidewalk in
the rain
last tuesday
waiting for mice

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."

(To be read while listening to Thelonious Monk's "I Didn't Know That About You")

I might wake up
tomorrow
I might get dressed
and attend classes
I might even finish the work
that is due, and
I might graduate
in a few months and then
I might get a good job, you know
and make enough to be comfortable, then
I might meet a nice girl
and take her out a few times, yeah
I might get up the courage to kiss
that girl and make love to her, well
I might stick around a while
and see where it goes, but
I might ***** it up some how
and send her crying and
I might get low down at a bar
up the street
I might have a few drinks and
try to forget her, and
I might have a hard time coping
without her but
I might get along anyway and
start writing again
I might let the years go by rather
quickly and
I might get old before I do anything
about it and, well
I might get sick and die in an apartment
alone with the heat on, yeah
I might do a lot of things and
I might just sit and let the record play
a little longer

After sixteen
hours on
your feet
Pabst Blue
Ribbon treats
you better than
a two hundred
dollar ******,
"keep your hands
off," she said
"get away from
my beer," I said
and the other used-
up souls in my
apartment building
began their own slip
into dreams of
suicide and release,
only to wake
the next day
groggy and hungover
but alive

We're too afraid of being caught
To truly go insane with love
Our eyes are transmitters of love
But somewhere along the way,
   the mirror stole the show

Bukowski lived in the third
dimension but
wrote in the fourth
when he died he
was released back
into the ever

on and on
and down and around
a winding whirling rabbit hole
to find a stronger whiskey,

if you ever witness
a suicide,
smile, and
wonder what the two
will talk about

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

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

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

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.

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 --

Drunken couch corners
feet up head back
late night slow jazz playing
****** ****** ******
give me more give me that
sound
I need that sound
like the sky needs blue

Humanity is rarely required of us,
      but is necessary for survival
We are our own death in retrospect
Talk to yourself through the voice of
      another
And dream your life in real time

Eating canned
Goods drunk
On a Wednesday
Evening or a
Dog rooting through
Yesterday's garbage,
We are weeds
In the grass,
And the fences
Are covered with 'em.

Three caged birds
On the back of a truck
Headed south to Smithfield

In this world
You can be a
Dreamer or
Be in another's
Dream,
Or, like the
Best of us,
Exist outside
The dream,
Dreamer and
Entire concept,
Creating out of
Pure unadulterated
Joy and excitement

Frenzied fingers
On a Thursday
morning around 8
Or a heron
Stepping through
The orange sun

"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."

the rain came
down in patches,
sidewards and
misshapen

Go away-
go away and
let me regroup,
every time I think
I have it, really have
it, someone speaks
or the phone rings
and it's all lost-
all lost and forgotten
and the spark dims
and somewhere a
small man smiles
and you want to
rip it all out of ya
and start over
as a crane
in a pond

don't make art
don't even take
that first sip of
ephemeral joy
because no one
wants it
NO ONE WANTS IT
and you know that but
never really know
until you try to sell
your soul and there
is no buyer
NO ONE WANTS IT
repeat that until you
can accept it and stream
consciousness for
no one but yourself

Drug down and
Tired and the
Pinch in the
Lower left corner
Of my back is
Enough to call
It quits

words are
poor conveyers
of what is locked
up in the very most
center of my brain
or I'm just full of it,
either way it
feels like something
is in there that wants
out

The poet's song
Was sung in print and
Heard by the carpenter
Who sang into wood
A song of perfection
And the wood sang
Of seventy-three rings
And winters lasted
Heard by the poet:

"I heard a treefall
Echoed in the valley that,
Caught by the buildings
Was heard by the children
Who hummed in their sleep
A song of innocence
That radiated Beauty
Seen by the angels
And envied by god."

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

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

The fire
Drank my beer
As I slept
In the embers

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

Most people can
Live to 75
80 if you really
Want to and
Have the means
I never thought
I would make it
As far;
I have played my
Knees Monk
My lungs Gillespie
My **** Morrison
And my heart Davis
Kind of Blue on repeat

I destroyed that
which I sought
to understand

well,
here it is
I'm drunk,
Shitgriningly
Drunk on 40 oz
Beers and reading
Byron

Time demands
A lot of man:
To be on top
Of the world
One day
And have to
Repeat success
Until death
(And even after,
If you're lucky)
Time is a
Runaway heart
Or Thomas digging
Fingers in Jesus'
Open wound