**** is tight and rad.
it gives me smiles and laughter.
it takes knives away.

if she had kept me
would it be tango or samba?
happiness is an ill gain.
false security and contentedness;
beer is better.

write a poem.  what?
write a poem.  ******* mean?
congratulations.

I was stuck
there's nothing else to say.
I was stuck on the corner of Innes and Main
walking to Expressions, the only smoke shop
where high times wasn't ready to
come out of the closet,
where Hustler was always
6 months old,
where you had to call a **** a water pipe
because the cops came in too often.
I was thinking of the **** trailers
20 minutes out by the lake
and how when I was young they all seemed like
weather factories - heavy cloud but no rain
*sniff sniff
something's on the oven.
it's a world of difference
on Innes and Main.
bankers, business owners,
and old folks walk by with a
look in their eye that says "you're
exactly like you're t-shirt -- secondhand."
here I am secondhand.
here I don't have a name, just a presumption.
here I am nothing.
nothing good.
I kept walking.
I started thinking about my dad --
the first time we got high
together was on xmas day.  I was 20,
he was weary and his roommate ALWAYS
had bud.  here's the skinny:
we'd get ******, watch ****** movies,
he'd argue about how good they were
and I'd never quit laughing.
then the come down.
he'd start in about what a huge mistake
he's made of his life.
and he'd count his past regrets
on his fingers like he was learning
addition and it took the strength of all of my bones
not to grab him by the shoulders
and yell "DAD.
QUIT BEING SENTIMENTAL."
and I swore I'd never be sentimental
and I'm not sentimental.
I just know where I'm going.
but when memory's teeth breaks skin
like plaster,
when fresh marks color blood
over old wounds,
when you can't find home anywhere
but in a blunt or a bottle,
it doesn't matter where
you're going.

I want to smoke crack *******
I don't want to feel any pain

what we need is more banjo,
more djembe, more thunder finger
bass guitar --
what we need is less boredom --
less fear of failure,
less fear of *******,
less Jane Austen.
what we need is the electric charge
of neurons fire dancing like
the night sky of the fourth of
july,
what we need is to learn the lesson
of rivers and runners -- keep up
the momentum
what we need is more honey,
watermelon,
sweet potatoes,
peanut butter,
and coconut oil.
more weirdos, more hippies,
more punks, more rappers,
more poets, if you have something
to say we pretty much need you.
we need more gin and less gender roles
more sin and less slapstick
more trees and trampolines and ties
between you and I.
we don't even need to be human
we just need to be sustainable.

where are my ugly people?
shuffling with holed shoes,
defunct ****** organs,
crossed eyes.
those whose strides echo their
genetic abnormalities,
a leg an inch longer than the other (like me),
arms fat with blood,
skin resplendent with eczema
boils on eyelids,
dilated pupils,
escaping from the mirror with
horse tranquilizer
and enough ***** to sink
the state of California.
where are my ugly people,
too long under the delusion of
"finding inner beauty"
by the pretty ones;
straight teeth,
combed and styled hair,
brown and ivory skinned
drowning the streets with their
cackling and condescension.
we should scar their faces
with buckshot,
carve those empty smiles across
their high cheekbones
to be an omnipresent companion.
show them a bit of our own
benevolence;

where are my ugly people
like me?