my grandfather Edward
left home when he was a boy
and changed his last name
in his teens he was arrested for stealing a cow

then he joined the Air Force and became a photographer
smoked ***** with fishermen
photographed bombs being dropped

then he married my grandmother Evelyn
and they had 3 girls
one of them died as an infant
and one was my mom

i remember him as a quiet man
i was very little
he smoked a pipe and carried a pocket knife
he twiddled his thumbs which had no thumbnails

and in 1994 when i was 7
he shot my grandmother in her sleep
then himself

and i will never forget him.

post it online
while you hold your wine
hold your whine
why don't you
tell me?
tell me about it
about ****
and girls with *****
about how you read Vonnegut
how **** makes you feel weird
but you snort coke
and you're trying to grow a beard
and your broke
and wish you lived in Europe
or in the 1920s
tell me *******
animal mothers
about your great luck
how you don't give *****
and your jokes are like minorities
poor and unappreciated
defeated
i'm bleeding
delete this.

You and 12 friends like this.

The eye at the bottom of the glass
why don't you ******* blink
you stare at me like you've been there the whole time
but I know you haven't
good for nothing
Nothing for good
Beer wish you were here
You ******* *******
I taste the tongue
Wasted young
Dumb
As ****

Lucy is so electric
Her skin is paper perforated dripping with her liquid blood
Her love is like the world hard and true
Deep black eyes and lips are plumes of color that bleed through themselves and back again
She is restless in my skin and pulses through my flushing face
Smiling and connecting all things
When I kiss her
It all melts
I can't see and can't spell
I can't tell time
And I'm okay with dying

in the sticky summer months
the daylight smells like burning sand

hot air blows over the green creeks
where the flies are born
and the little squirrels leap
from limb to limb

dead dogs lie asleep
on the warm black highway roads
and when the fire of the sun settles down to dusk
the moths bounce against porch lights
so the crickets can sing all night long

the bath water was warm when i got in
i still couldn’t see anything but i felt the nurse holding my arm too tight

i couldn’t talk but i knew
that this is the best it can be

god didn’t put me on a short leash

i did

when a man puts a gun in his mouth
the last thing he’s thinking about is being an invalid

i can’t remember how long it has been
but the water is cold now

Whiskey, you're my night friend
but in the morning you turn your back on me.

I held you in the winter
even when my fingers were cold.

But in the summer when you hugged my neck
you almost broke it.

i will let large threatening wild animals loose on the cities of america
resurrect the dead and all the enemies of mankind cause havoc confusion and dismay to everyone who didn't see it coming -- grow a thousand miles tall kick over nuclear plants ****** planes out of the sky and throw warheads like lightning bolts life as we know it will be licked up by flames and smoke -- i will scoop handfuls of smoldering ruins and smear it over the earth like a smothering blanket -- wait -- for a beautiful calm when everything is quiet -- i will breathe it all in cough up a new world vomiting mountains tall trees rivers lakes and oceans hacking up dry deserts hot swamps and forests from the back of my lungs i will choke on my last breath as i lay down in a cold sweat -- i will be overgrown and swallowed up like a fallen statue and my crumbling ruins will be the mortar for a new existence -- cities will be built upon my ashes

watching the trains go by
pause with a cold shallow breath
smoke another cigarette
you remember last year

****** up
bottles clanking together
plastic shiny smiles
full of ****
******* liars
fists are so heavy

tear down the curtains
punch holes in the wall
break a window and
fall on your face
sleep on the ruins
burn holes
torn out pages
black spots of your memory

better keep straight
money in the bank
hot food
new shoes
and a bed with two pillows

i used to wake up with sore eyes and black bruises i've never seen before
i'd look for long cigarette butts half full beers and forgotten liquor drinks
i had two cow licks that stuck up like horns
i had thick cigarette smoke like peanut butter and puddles in the kitchen that leaked from the trash bags into the rug
i'd paste cardboard boxes and ripped up comic books together with my drawings
in permanent marker and scribbled edges of ballpoint pen and colored pencil coupled with
writings of philosophic schizophrenic machine gun word salad
that ran off the page and
onto the walls
i had slippers i'd worn out months ago and shirts i washed in the shower
with dish soap
i had flies that flew around in circles until they got smacked or fell dead
i'd climb up on the roof in the afternoon
throw bottles in the street and ******* the side
i welcomed the dirt the bloodstains and the deep cough
i loved it but mostly hated it
and i'll never forget it

it's like a housefly
landing on a good meal
or
a bomb
in a field of sunflowers

thought

stirs up a pure moment..
a beautiful stream of nothing

when your brain stops moving
when everything makes sense
and everything's in its place

it comes uninvited
and it steals the show