Departure from a dream shook my body
And as my brain forced re-entry, I raged
After months of senseless self debate
And with certain truths uncovered
After much undue confusion
Recently, I reasonably concluded
That love is one unfeasible delusion.

Biscuit, no! what did you eat?
i told you not to eat raw meat!
bad dog, i should send you to the pound!
think life's hard now? well, wait it out.
you're lucky i don't throw you in a ditch.
in this house you're a female dog
but in the pound, you're some mastiff's *****.

The clown would’ve been beaten up and down
a long time ago, if he didn't know
how to force scowls into smiles,
bafflement and battles into laughs
like startled bells and baby rattles.

Who would he be now, if he didn't know
how to play the jester, how to stitch
his words together
like the mouth of a snitch
or a quilt of dodo feathers?

He learned it from pain: how to be a joker,
how to act the fool.
Does it count, still, as stand-up comedy
if he's just crying on a stool?

i asked for your 2 cents
you said "sorry dude, i'm broke"

mom whispered to me more than she prayed to god
about her first job and her secondandthird,
about how they found water on mars,
about the miracle of him coming back,
about “the doctors said you were dead
but here you breathe,
and if you are possible,
then so is he.”

she carried around
a bible in her purse,
“you never know
when you might need it.”
it was buried by Winn-Dixie receipts
and i’ve still yet to see her read it.

she drank salvation from a mason jar,
“this is
the blood of christ, you see.”
but it looked
a lot like wine to me.

an art museum learns all its works are fake
and renames itself the museum of forgery

another few pounds of coke are found
in another school teacher's house

a local boy's laughter
sounds like a cocking gun
so he gets shot in the head

When my brother forces me to eat his vegan snacks
i look beyond this mortal plane and through its
hidden cracks; i close my eyes and am a king
in some far off land, sycophants sing a symphony
for me, for me, for ME! "-and it's gluten-free,"
says my brother, and i am snapped out of my reverie.

i made a hole inside my head, a ceaseless pit for enemies
a place for me to put them mentally, because i can't
afford to dig a whole hole in my backyard, 500 meters deep;
i am a ******* poet, man, and ****, big pits ain't cheap.

children fill their lonely nights with conjured monsters,
mothers fill their lonely nights with men;
me, i fill my lonely nights with winding words of whining,
finding solace in my fertile, pacing pen.

"If i was killed in prison, that would be a blessing right now."
-Jeffery Dahmer

november twenty eighth, he prayed
to god, to mom, to sun and shade,
gave thanks to all the boys he ate;
november twenty eighth, he laid
and thought till his last ***** breath:
"well, this has been my life, i guess,"
as scarver beat him blissfully
into his deliquescing death.

he thought of all the things he did
while down came scarver's metal bar
(and not because he'd killed those kids,
but '*** his pranks had gone too far).
the guards went home that night and slept
while someone, somewhere, soundly wept.

There she goes again, weeping
Can't she see I'm trying to play Minecraft?

There she goes again, screaming
Banging her head into the floor
She's probably banging other men too

I said:
Maybe if you spent more time on dinner
You would have a healthy outlet
To distract you from these troublesome emotions
And there she goes again,
Weeping

I am a man in the woods
I am a saint amongst squirrels
I am
sitting high in a tree,
giggling, pelting twigs at hikers
but only the girls

I mostly eat sticks
but there's been a stick shortage
sometimes i use mud and *** to make porridge
but for some weird reason
it makes my **** orange

fellas, my eyelids are folding inwards
and so are my innards
but i shat out some dirt earlier
so at least we have dinner
<3

The small-bodied, spotted sparrow
Perched perky on my red wheelbarrow.
All day she spent pecking recklessly at my red paint –
**** that peckish, speckled devil-*****!

My brand new wheelbarrow, chipped!
A certain someone had to pay.
But that scheming little ***** had dipped
As soon as I'd seen the decay.

I cried hard inside my domicile,
Wishing witch's curses on that bird.
I wish she'd die by homicide –
A gruesome death would be preferred.

Sure as the rising tide,
I'm sure to change my mind.
Much like an aurevoir,
I signify goodbyes.

Sinners fester better in the church,
those Sunday vermin
Pay rapt attention to the sermon,
Those ratdastardly *******
Listen in rapture to the pastor,
Go straight home and beat they meat after
Describe their niece into the searchbar
So they can watch some actors clap her.

What am I?
Insignificant.
Who am I?
Undetermined.

I guess I'm just a riddling troll under a crumbling bridge.
I'm angry as ****,
And I been for a bit.
******* and **** me too,
And **** all this ****.

empathy's a skill to ****
as quickly as
you can
watch folks' heads fall
off their necks in
the fissures of
the net.

if you want no tears, no fear,
you first must become numb
some folk will cry, 'insensitive!'
but some folk are ******* dumb.

(in order for your life to start
cut the cord from your heart
to the net and fall apart.)

A lover is no answer
A lover is a person &
Not a means to quell
The darkness
A lover is just a lover
A lover is no shining sun
(The SUN is the shining sun)
A lover is a puddle in which
To splash dry feet
But a lover – a sun?
A lover is just a lover.

I don't drink much, he
Liked that, that's cool
I poured back a ten pack whiskey
The next week, clarifying
"I don't drink OFTEN".

When I do drink, I shatter very quietly
I go off like a gun, he,
My makeshift silencer.
I tell him I "struggle" –
With what?

A life is no brazen leopard
(A life does not charge)
A life is no sad song
(A life does not comfort)
A life is a life (and
That's it)

Later, he
Fell into my arms stumbling
I told him a lover is no answer
He didn't like that
I wondered, is this it? (It was).
He kept searching
(Like a bloodhound
But a man is no bloodhound)

I stopped, still and sturdy,
A table's leg, to ask:
"Is this it?"

After all these
Years, I
Think so,
Yes.

His parents, so wrinkled they crinkle as they walk
Die a little more before his eyes each dreary day.
The engine of his humble Honda, which propels him to his moderately paying career at Some Office,
Has been producing increasingly strange sounds.
If it breaks down now, he won't be able to afford the vet bills
For the one-legged burden he never actually wanted.

God have mercy on this awful creature
Whose wife does not **** him,
Whose daughter does not love him!

The abominable man, made from supple flesh, brimming with consciousness and autonomy, gifted with a tremendously tender human soul,
Marred only meticulously to allow for contrast and distinction –
This incredible creature, crafted by a most divine creator, was designed, unfortunately,
Mainly to toil in complete vain!

Most nights his subconscious
Gifts him the same dream:
Sirens sounding, feet pounding
Suburban pavement, he's just rounding
The corner and another group of police cars are
Staked out waiting for him,
So he drives straight into the nearest vehicle
And dies blissfully.

The man, upon waking,
Dutifully forgets his dreams,
Careful as he is
Not to be carried away by escapist whimsy –
7 am on a Tuesday, though,
Is an exquisite time
To eat a wheat bagel
Before cutting your lawn.

my head emptied
as though bathwater down a drain, and i became simpler:
than the children kicking and screaming and skinning their knees on mulch,
than the cars coming and going and crashing and catching dead bugs in their killer windshields.

suddenly, ripples were spreading gently through the sky
like it was a body of water, being stirred to life by the clouds
like they were the fluffy fingers of a kid poking at his fish bowl,
and i started wondering what a sky even was
and if it could be the ground
if i sought to somehow stand on it.

i sat in the grass, plucked out its longest blades
like i was a brush tearing hair from the scalp of the earth,
started weaving little green bracelets, like I'd done as a boy,
and i did it until the sun had started to go down,
unable to connect the sky’s slow setting
to a passing of time.

is to be a fleeting,
flea-ridden faithful servant,
content and ignorant of injustice.

it is to die like a blade of grass:
ignorantly
and without much regret.

burning baby
bodies; bathing
books. surfing
crackhouse couches;
catching *****,
getting guns
and gonorrhea.

you are not a fisherman
but if you can imagine it,
the sea will swim towards
you with open arms,
singing, shifting, spitting salt
into your opened eyes.

The floorboards of my psyche
creak, aching to be seen.
None perceive beneath skin deep,
which continuously treads on me.

Finding voluntary grasp
on reality repugnant,
I made a momentary lapse
of judgement, which collapsed
into sustained abundance.

You don’t like to be arranged -
strange; I don’t think many would.
Just because you can change, though,
doesn’t mean you should.
Doing so, there’s a good chance
that you’ll remain misunderstood.

Great, another Bukowski dickrider (me).
We get it, your substance abuse issues are your muse,
And you're very,
Very misunderstood.

you count our money
with shaking hands
we've got enough
to live comfortably
but not enough
to be better
"I've never had to live like this,"
haha
all right
come on, the realtor is not your therapist,
and by the looks of the off-color carpet this is not our house

"the pool was misshapen."
what about the other one
"kitchen too small."
what about
"can't afford it."
ha ha
well
ok, the tires cut into the road as we head on
the next one, you say, will be ‘lit’

hey, look
that ones for sale
"the crackhouse?"
uh no the normal
the normal house
"bad neighborhood,"
wow
must be hard
being
so good all the time
“i just want this to feel like a home!”
ha ha
well
i just want
a divorce at this point

Good men penniless,
Bad men rich
Where there is ignorance
There is bliss.

I counted meticulously each mark on your marred body
Realization: More freckles on your left hand than days we had left together.
Shedding tears: in the Japanese restaurant.
A couple of them fall into my Miso; you scold me.
I'm sorry.

you are the emotional equivalent
of an empty bladder.

Little green men,
on the streets;
eating fake meats
and bumping sick beats.

My dad's old friends came round to our apartment sometimes,
would come round for some beer
and a guilty look at my mother’s ***.

Today, as usual, she let them track mud through our little house, cackling like hyenas
and pretending to admire the art on our walls.
She let 'em do it but then we all went out on the porch and they started to tell me, as mama looked on with pursed, painted lips,
bout the time my daddy’d -
well i never ever did find out what my daddy'd done
*** that's when she slammed down the case of beer
on the patio table.

All three of them paused to look at her.
It was like she’d turned them all off, with a button that she kept hidden in her *****.
for a second they realized how sad she must've been,
they realized he probably shot himself right upstairs
and then they looked at me
like I was a dead little boy
wearing my daddy's eyes.

I missed their merry smiles and table slaps punctuating each joke
wiping the sweat off their foreheads with their wrists and
leaning back in their chairs, flicking their lighters against their cigarettes and
savoring mouthfuls of chewing gum and dip,
'*** now they were still.

“Now don’t go tellin’ tales to John,” she said, and doled out a few drip-cold beers to shut them up.

They washed the stories down with her drink and just forgot about it,
or more likely,
they'd started thinking about that button
burrowed between my mother’s *******.

was a child when 9/11 happened
and i didn't care at all

was an idiot in school,
and a happy genius in the safety of solitude

was a ******* when i sold cigarettes to children,
so over-******-priced

was flipping off my teachers
and my father sometimes

i'm not like that anymore
i try to love people now

lets go to a club, pleaded dan. no thanks,
i resisted. not my thing. but please, it'll be a good time, he insisted
and anyway you're lonely, i know.
no im not, i told him, but i was, so,
while my pal talked up a pretty gal, i waited
for him to finish, sipping a bit at my drink
and soon enough, i'm loaded. my self esteem's eroded
within the first few minutes
and by the end, when their flirting's spent,
is entirely diminished. no luck? he came back
and asked, as though he ******* cared -
i felt the world folding in on itself
like an hunchback, or a lawnchair. i rose,
to punch him in the nose.
hey, what the ****? he said,
but he didn't even stumble.
then he bashed my head against
the wall and watched me crumble
to the floor, no more, no more, no more
"but what the **** man," he said, again
I'm lonely, i said, i'm lonely, dan
i'm lonely and in need.
he pulls me up by my shirt:
"no, you're just fat
and full of alcohol
and greed."

at first I was hurt
for a long time, for
many years, i disappeared
into myself because i knew
that he was right. and when i go
one day, swiftly into the light
i **** a ****** up in heaven
(as it turns out
there aren't 72
there are 77.)

“gas your trash paintings of jesus’ head
and exchange your cross for some cash.
It’s a known fact that god is dead; we fought,
he and i -  bashed, he passed,
simply automatic, undramatic as that.
I yelled to the sky, “the guy is gone, at last!”
I danced on his grave and bade his descent,
and the next holy role call, he was marked absent.”
-Hehehehe in Hell

“just shut it, satan,
you are the worst.
i’m writing a poem,
go eat some dirt.”
-Wisdom William

silk & saffron cylinders basking in the still light
as thoughtlessly as a blue jay bathes in his bird bath
as a brave baby bites his mother's breast
as i watch you from a house across, you stretch silently awake
your rib cage glimpses the light for a moment, looking like
marks of fingerprints
but then they dissolve, disappear back into your brackish depths.

i knew i was unseeable first when i was five
watching my mother undress for him and then him and then him
and then again when i was fourteen when my eyes
were wide and white as snow against the unlit room
but still my sister couldn't see me staring.

who you wonder
is leaving love letters in the mail, envelope licked like its glue was being
tasted?
who, you wonder, is throwing rocks into your house of glass and
why?
why? i'm a ghost, woman,
and I need to **** something in you
to make me live again.

silk & saffron cylinders basking in the still light
thoughtlessly as a blue jay bathes in his bird bath
as a brave baby bites for his mother's bare breast
as i watch you from a house across, you stretch awake
your rib cage glimpses the light for a moment and
dissolves, disappears.

i knew i was unseeable first when i was five
watching my mother undress for him and then him and then him
and then again when i was fourteen when my eyes
were white as snow against the unlit room
but still my sister didn't-couldn't see me staring.

i'm a ghost, woman,
and I need to **** something
to make me live again

you're yappy
as a drooling
sack of dogs
and as happy
as a vietnam
bombing.
you're ******
as downtown
new orleans
pretentious
as banksy
unlikeable
as amy schumer
worn and round
as a linkin
park CD
and yet
you're lovely as
a dumb *****
could be.