Drag me under the car she said
and I said where are your keys?
Pour me a molotov cocktail she said
and I said Another one?
Make the left eye black to match the right she said
and I said Let me get my glove
I'm cold, get me more gasoline she said
and I said Will regular unleaded do?
Move over you're hogging the bed she said
and I said Yeah, Tim give us some room
Do you have anything to bring me down? she said
and I said There's always the fire escape
I still love you she said
and I said How much money do you need?

In the waking, in the wrong,
I stumble -- spitting synonyms for love
daring the scattershot night to take control
to steer me into the early morning bedroom
of anyone other than my own,
and over the phone breaking, over with biting
the mimicking face of former promise ring holders
and front pew sitters I ask the sun to emerge gently,
to kiss my forehead, scramble up eggs--
wearing my oversized t-shirt, cotton underwear, and
an apron left behind by the sun's mother,
but as night turns and walks away,
no bright sun replaces--
instead it is that grey, it is that gaunt
overcast haze that never shows teeth,
only hisses, "How's the routine going?"

In the waking, in the wrong,
hands pull denim and throat itches for shouting rebuttal,
but a man never won against the eternity of the sky,
so I lower my eyes, spin madly into why why whys,
a beautiful woman between pavement and sky jogs past
and I see myself drinking coffee with her and grinning
at what our elderly parents don't know,
but before the words fall from lips,
her feet, legs, and hips wisp
into the early morning mist,
the overcast sky whispers to the meadowlark
above my head,
I open the door to my home as the meadowlark begins to laugh.

Sometimes I cry
when I think of him
unbuttoning those
orange shorts
that make your
*** look so good.

Sometimes I sext
you and your girlfriends,
but let's blame that
one on the drink.

Sometimes I smoke
to celebrate one of
your many deaths
in my ****** collection
of unpublished
short stories.

Sometimes I hope
you'll apologize
to me for ruining
my name.

Sometimes I want
you to hold me against
the wall and push--
until your bony body
passes through me,
and I turn you to waste.

Sometimes I call
to ask what's off limits,
so I know where to
set my goals.

Sometimes I buy
that cheap red wine
you loved so much,
and drink it all
in a night -- just
to watch it go empty.

Sometimes I curl up to
that lumpy, stained,
blue pillow, and
pretend it's you.

Sometimes I dream
of raising a family
in a small house
near Pacific Beach.

Sometimes I nearly
smother myself
with that blue pillow.

There is a state of existence,
                                                 where a person is neither A nor B
he's inbetween--
he's the addition, the subtraction, the shove and retraction,
                                                 I've spent my life "+"ing and "-"ing
building empires of handshakes,
floating from bar to bar with drinking pals,
crowbarring ice off queens of black venom,
                                                 I'm the distortion in the middle, but I can't see the end--
I never promised answers,
but the soft hands, the wet eye'd, and the widows
cry out for closure,
                                                 I get edgy and the "+"ing turns to "x"ing
Instead of answers--
I take the As and Bs,
I inhale their the white-knuckle moments,
I simmer in their fading passion,
I glide through their dying beds,
Instead of clear answers--
                                                A x B x A x B x A x B x A x B
=

(unfamiliarperfume, missingherwedding, socialnetworkwindowshopping, backroom, thestoplight, theschoolzone, dirtylaundry, rejectedphonecalls, hisgirlfriend, herboyfriend, hisboyfriend, hergirlfriend, otherwives, otherhusbands, blackout, clenchedfist, animmatureandirresponsibleflirtationwithaddiction, howlingatthemoon, gettingoffonthepast, leaveherinthenursinghome, makingthewake, mowingthegrass, droppingthebouquet, tooold, tooyoung, toolate, toosoon, toosweet, toocruel, toofat, toothin, toonosy, toodistant, toobad)
---------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­----------------------
                                          ­                            Best Laid Plans              

And in the grey of early morning,
they look at the equation,
they look at the proposed solution,
and inevitably the As and the Bs
say to me,
"Now, simplify it."


I get edgy
I get edgy
I get edgy.

Harvey sees the sun for the first time
without history--
the worn leather, unshined shoes in closet,
the ex-girls off the telephone--
the beams blow kisses, taunt, and beckon.

Harvey folds a paper with half a sentence
and puts it in his pocket--
"I'm too callused to love, too empty to be, a void..."
he knows the end but doesn't write it.

Harvey dreams of calm waters,
salt, sundresses, and eager toenails hammered into sand.
A waitress's reflection in the coffee shop glass shakes Harvey from trance.

"Another cup?" she asks with a crowbar forehead.
Harvey stares at her wrinkles, prying for exposition--
while her voice melts over innocent questions.

Harvey thinks about taking her home.
She'd talk of her ex-husband.
They didn't have kids, but she wanted them.
Harvey couldn't give her kids,
but he could give her him--
a favor.
She wouldn't die alone.

"Did you hear me? Coffee?"
He'd make her feel tall.
She'd find new, fast-talking, book-n-tabloid-munching friends.
Harvey would nod and "oooh" and "ahhh".
Harvey would itch for wrecking ball.

The waitress pours the cup despite his silence.
"If you need anything, let me know."
Harvey nods.
The coffee shop contains the hustle of a mad race track.
Elderlies at the bar, youngsters on the tile floor,
moms and dads hoping to choke with each bite of doughnut.

Harvey doesn't pay much attention to the other patrons.
They are reds, yellows, blues, and noise to him.
He unfolds the piece of a paper and writes,
"I'm too callused to love, too empty to be,
a void in search of a void to sink and share
the blackness."

He leaves a tip on the table.
He pays the cashier.
He leaves the colors and the noise.
He crumples the paper, and gives
it to the wind outside.

I remember when the photos treated Sam kind,
and yet on the late nights (coffee, gin, cigarettes, the like) --
instead of relaying stories of interstate thighs,
instead of talking in fistfuls and mouthloads --
he spoke of internet *******.

Me, Greg, and Greg's cousin who was named after
an Eastwood western would sink the sofa.

Sam would go through the bottles, and he spoke of
internet ******* with complete delicateness.

"Their eyes always get me. The way they stare into the camera,
and every once in awhile, the veil comes down. You see they
don't want to be there. You see an eager, teenage **** reflected
in their black pupils. You see her quivering lips.
You see the ritual. It's heart-breaking."

Sam would rub his forehead -- carved by time.
Greg would ask how the real ladies were treating him.
Sam never answered.

Time made deeper creases in Sam each day,
behind a closed door,
in the secret hours,
all to the glow of a laptop screen.

He had given his love to the distance
in the **** actresses' eyes.

In the fluorescent mourning,
teary and bedded in the violence
of wandering violin -- seeking praise
and receiving a hospital bed,
I told my brother to paint the city,
the way in was in 2002.

The road kaleidoscope'd and fractured
all of Kerouac's high coups,
broken saltines and cold tomato soup,
in gown in feathered down--
the world sang couplets and through windows
I watched rain, and told my brother
to paint the city,
the way it was before my success and subsequent pain.